Read Poorhouse Fair for Free Online Page B

him down had been proprietorial and aristocratic; one of the ancient men he included had spoken a word and he had followed and been abandoned on the steps, in the sunshine. He was in command only figuratively. In the long era of Mendelssohn's indifference the old people had worked out the business of the fair so they needed little interference. On the third Wednesday of August, such and such was done, regardless of who reigned in the cupola.
    Conner stood by two men screwing, with painful slowness, colored bulbs into sockets strung on long cords. They were maneuvering this chore in the dead center of the main walk. Surely they needed at least advice or one of the nun-bier men--Gregg, for instance, who had been, come to think of it, an electrician in Newark--to mount the shaky ladder lying on the lawn, stained by dew, when the time came to string the lights on the posts. He asked aloud how they proposed to get them up. The two went on fumbling without replying.
    Conner proceeded down the walk, to where the tables began across the grass. He observed that the tables were poorly aligned, and suggested that a few be shifted slightly. Neither fastidious nor silly, he himself helped, physically, move the tables. He wondered what land of impression this made and did not see how it could be other than good. His intentions were wholly good. Refreshed, he stood a moment by the stand of Tommy Franklin, who filed peachstones into small baskets and simple animals. Tommy himself was away; his handiwork littered the table casually, strewn on the silver boards like brown pebbles taken from a creek-bottom by the handful.
    He was conscious of Hook and Gregg at the end of the alley, conferring by the wall. Under their gaze he turned to Mrs. Mortis; she was sitting in a chair and looked unsteady with her absurd towering bonnet. He asked her how she was feeling.
    "No better than an old woman should."
    "An old woman should feel fine," he offered, smiling: she seemed more accessible than many of the others. "Especially one who can display these lovely quilts."
    "They aren't the best I've done; it's hard to get figured rags; so much of this new cloth is plain. It's all made for the young, you know; they want the simple dresses to show off their figures."
    Some of the patches she had used seemed so fragile and dry he feared the sun beating from above might shred them. She herself seemed that way; the wire hoop giving her bonnet shape was wearing through; the exterior had faded while on the inner side the pattern was preserved clearly. "Wouldn't you prefer a table underneath the trees? You're in a rather exposed position here."
    "Well, if I weren't exposed who'd see me?"
    "I meant simply up by the walk, in the shade."
    "I'm usually situated here."
    "If you prefer it ... though of course there's no difference. 1 only thought you looked a little pale."
    "What do you expect at my age? You expect too much from us old people, Mr. Conner."
    His cheek smarted, but he had never found the reply to blunt injustice. "I do?"
    "You expect us to give up the old ways, and make this place a little copy of the world outside, the way it's going. I don't say you don't mean well, but it won't do. We're too old and too mean; we're too tired. Now if you say to me, you must move your belongings over beneath the tree, I'll do it, because I have no delusions as to whose mercy we're dependent on." The goiter, from which he had kept his eyes averted, swayed disturbingly: inanimate but still living flesh.
    "That's just the way I want no one to feel. I'm an agent of the National Internal Welfare Department and own nothing here. If it is anyone's property it is yours. Yours and the American people's."
    "The American people, who are they? You talk like Bryan; Hookie's always talking him up to me."
    "There is no reason," Conner said, with a sensation of repetition that made him stammer, "unless you want to, why you should stand under the sun for ten hours."
    "This isn't-an all-day