"But you are not going to punish me for his sins, surely?" said Gilbert, recovering. "If you knew with how much pleasure I grasped the opportunity you would come. Won't you?"
"Oh, yes," she answered frankly. "It would be too bad to spoil poor Malc's happy day; and besides," she added, with a return of her grave dignity, "I am sure I shall enjoy the drive, thank you."
Gilbert felt strangely grateful. The girl always made him feel as though she were immeasurably above him. "Because she really is, I suppose," he concluded, as he watched her, and thought of all she was sacrificing, silently, for the careless, happy boy walking so gaily ahead. Yes, she was very noble, he confessed. And then he sighed, he did not know why.
They squeezed their way into the building and passed slowly around. The long tables were piled with every sort of work that a woman's needle might encompass, and while the two girls examined each exhibit minutely, going into raptures over this or that, the two young men gazed vacantly about in weary bewilderment. There were doilies and tidies and pillow-covers of all patterns, crocheted lace and knitted lace and lace made every other way. There was painting on china and satin and velvet and silk and every other known fabric, and the walls were hung with homespun blankets, quilts and floor rugs.
Notwithstanding the growing display and keen competition that each successive fair brought, there were those who had been winners of first prizes ever since the Elmbrook show was instituted, and would probably always be. The Elmbrook prize-list was a stable institution, and if any one but Ella Anne Long should have taken first for managing a horse, or Bella Winters for painting apple blossoms on white velvet, or old Miss McQuarry for bread and butter, all Oro would have felt uneasy, and folks would have begun to doubt the stability of the British Empire.
For example, there was Mrs. Spectacle John Cross's quilt. It had taken first prize for the last ten years, and was likely to do so for as many more. It hung resplendent now, like a triumphal banner, the conqueror of yet one more campaign. It was a remarkable quilt, to be sure, and no wonder all competitors faded before it. It was composed entirely of small pieces of silk and velvet, sewed together in that style known as crazy patchwork. Nevertheless, there was nothing haphazard about their arrangement. The colors were put together so as to represent a landscape. A large round sun, of pumpkin-colored silk, with rays of red satin flying from it, arose from behind a mountain of green velvet. The sky was of blue silk, with white plush clouds, and in the foreground bloomed a flower garden of such various colors that the eye grew dazzled in contemplation.
"Here's your Minjekahwun, doctor," whispered Malcolm, grasping Gilbert's arm. "Ain't they lurid? Oh, crickey! they've got first prize! You're in for it! You'll look like the prize quilt when you get inside 'em."
The future owner of the mittens surveyed them in some dismay. They were long and roomy, even for his brawny hands, and of many and vivid colors. He looked around appealingly. Elsie Cameron's face was grave, but her eyes were laughing, while little Miss Scott was in a fit of merriment.
"Cheer up," cried Malcolm encouragingly. "They're the very thing to catch the public. You've got the purple and the orange, and that'll suit Spectacle John's crowd; and the green'll appeal to the Catholics over on the flats; and the whole thing looks like Highland tartan. Why, there isn't a nationality in Oro that'll be able to resist you when you wear them."
They emerged from the crowded building into the brilliant light of outdoors, and Gilbert had just helped his companion down the steep, rickety steps, when a new sound arose above the babel of the fair, and quenched for a moment even the scream of the bagpipes. It came from the highway, a hoarse "honk, honk," strange, and yet, to Gilbert, familiar. An astonished stillness fell over the group around the gate. The whole show, in fact, stood wide-eyed and agape with wonder, for what should be coming up the road, moving entirely of its own accord, without horse or other visible means of locomotion, but a huge red double buggy, with wheels like a stone-crusher, and the appearance of a threshing-machine! It paused at the gate, and a clear, gay voice called, "Good-afternoon, Dr. Allen!"