St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-08-30
The Pool-Box Has Come With the
Railroad and other Modern
Inventions,
Going to the Fair.

life, and donning the freshly-starched shirt
of striped blue and white, with a kerchief
OF black silk, fashioned from remnant of
his grandmother's wedding dress, knotted
carelessly at his throat. brought the lazy
hulk OF horse from the parching pasture,
and throwing over him the harness well
worn and strengthened in places by knotted
strings, hitched him to the rickety wagon
with unsteady wheels and lifting the happy
children, radiant in new dresses of bright
colored calico and brand-new trousers
| OF kentucky Jean, in behind the
seat upon safe bed of still fragrant hay,
and seating beside him On the stiff-backed
seat the sharer of his troubles and joys,
with bonnet flowing with artificial flowers
OF unnatural hue bound to her proudly
poised head with broad ribbons fastened
with careful precision under her chin, he
cheertully snapped the leather string tied
to the end of the ceanly shaven whip stock.
and giving the reins that stretched over the
back of the sleepy horse spasmOdic pull,
started for the great panorama of golden
pumpkins, horse tooth corn and round
bellied cattle, the happiest man i'll the
whole aggregation of free states. 1t was
his gala day; it was his great
day of recreation. His birth
day passed unnoticed. and he
mirror hanging on the wall of his simply
furnished chamber held up to his aston
| iShed eyes a face almost a stranger,
scanned AND FURRowED
| with the lapse of years and a head sprinkled
with the frost-marks traced there by the
chilly finger of waning life. The day when
| the priceless treasure of independence was
| dropped into the casket of his loved coun-
| try fits by unheeded by him as he tolls
| along in the monotonous grooves of his too
| quiet life. The anniversary of his we'd
| ding, the day when he found in the plain
| faced woman with a loving heart and am
| bilious hands q half of his life that he had
| never missed until he had discovered it,
passes and is many days buried i'll the grave
of the past before he remembers it. He
| has no time to think of these things and
these events but the date of the county fair
is never lost sight of from the day that it is
| fixed until, with his family. he has passed
before the wonderful array of farm products
and barns full of blOoded horses and dreamy
eyed cows and broad-horned oxen, taking
in their fine points and remarkable features
with an eagernesS only equaled in the
watching OF game of marbles by village
| boy.
The New England fair depopulates, for
the time being, the rural districts lying
round it. Country youths, who hardly give
any other time to thoughts of love, come
| to the show bringing with them the
round-faced maidens, whose cheeks have
been kissed by tine audacious sun until their
bushes seem to be brown with earnestness,
and these maidens and these youths walk
| hand in hand and arm in arm through the
shifting crowd in friendly battle. satisfied
to silently love and talk of other things. A
simple life; so unaffected and pure; so free
from the beats and blurs of fashion and
the stain of conventionality; life evenly
balanced. with love on one side and content
ment on the other. In those days the races
were not the exciting features, rendered
are to-day. The free-for-all was the
leading event and the horse
that could cover mile Of
the circuit in less than three minutes was
considered phenomenon. There were no
gigantic grand stands, topped with gothic
turretS and towers from which Haunted
vari-colored flags and in which the inter
ested thousands arose as one and wildly
waving their hats and handkerchiefS, bet
on the gray, or black, or bay. The crowd
in those days leaned over the fence that
hemmed in the track or sat, or stood in the
wagons, each of which was a grand stand
| III Itself ana watched the
UNFRAMED STEEDS
as they ambled over the track at gait that
the people to-day would call snaiPs pace.
They did not bet in those days as they
bet now. They were satisfied to see
| the race and talk over the speedy qualities
of the various racers among themselves in
quiet way. So long as one horse came in
under the flag first their desire was salts
| 6aH mil Of ptryyI fbo
hibitor of fancy stock in those DAYS drove
his cattle to the fair grounds. There were
no comfortably fitted cattle cars for his
! convenience. Sometimes days before the
| fair was opened, the farm boys would be
called out of the field and babe to make
ready for the driving to the fair. Some
| times half hundred miles of mountain
Gus roads lay between the farm and the
fair ground and progress over
these routes was, of course, necessarily
slow. Very seldom the drove
numbered more than twenty head, and these
were driven by the boys whose monthly sal
aries were hardly sufficient for the corner
stones of princely fortunes. and the owner
followed along behind in wagon, seated
proudly on huge box from the inside of
which, with the iolts of the shakY vehicle,
came the unmeaning grunts of the fattened
! hog, or the inharmonious squeals of the
| prize litter of pigs. Happy the boy and
| happy the man, as along the dusty road,
| lying white and dry in the summer sun,
| they trudged. The boys, with feet bare
and brown, and ankles showing below the
trousers. rolled half way to the knee:
ruddy faces, more remarkable for
| honesty of expression than clean
illness. smiling beneath the over
| hanging brimS of friendly hats of coarse
straw. Through the cloud of dust rolling up
from the lazy feet OF the tagging kline they
walked. lighting the hours with happy
| laughter, song. and that evidence of a
| peaceful conscience and light heart, whist
| ling. Through the heavy woodlands, with
! their dark shadows and calm retreats, past
wide-reaching fields of grain, smiling with
| the fullnesS Of harvest time and by the
lOw-lying meadows, with sinuous brook
winding stealthily through the verdant bog.
| like serpent with skin of glittering
steel, these happy boys took the herd, the
envy OF every man and boy that
thew passed. And at night, by the
side OF the road under the protecting shadow
| of some broad forest, or on the edge of
wide field near the bright waters of jul
bilant spring, they would lie down for the
night, and the cattle, left to themselves,
naturally lay their dusty side on some plat
of fresh grass. and with an air of brutal
bllssfulneSs chewed their euds, while their
guardians. forgetting that they were guar
dams, with the earth for couch and the
heavens for canopy, lived no longer in
this world. but found an existence in that
realm OF perfect happiness to which their
honest hearts, unknown to guile or guilt,
gave them ready entrance.
THE MODERN FAIR.
In this manner were the fairs Of twenty
i've years ago made, and to the modest eyes
OF the humble farmer among the ancient