The fair grounds lay in a hickory flat a mile out of town, and the tall scaly barks grew so close to the fence that they poked their limbs over its top and shed down nuts upon the track. The fence had been whitewashed once, back in the days of its youth when Hector was a pup; but Hec was an old dog now and the rains of years had washed the fence to a misty gray, so that in the dusk the long, warped panels stood up in rows, palely luminous--like the highshouldered ghosts of a fence. And the rust had run down from the eaten-out nail-holes until each plank had two staring marks in its face--like rheumy, bleared eyes. The ancient grandstand was of wood too, and had lain outdoors in all weathers until its rheumatic rafters groaned and creaked when the wind blew. Back of the grandstand stood Floral Hall and Agricultural Hall. Except for their names and their flagstaffs you might have taken them for two rather hastily built and long-neglected bams. Up the track to the north were the rows of stables that were empty, odorous little cubicles for fifty-one weeks of the year, but now--for this one week--alive with darky stable hands and horses; and all the good savors of woodfires, clean hay, and turned-up turf were commingled there. The fair had ideal weather for its windup. No frost had fallen yet, but in the air there were signs and portents of its coming. The long yellow leaves of the hickories had begun to curl up as if to hold the dying warmth of the sap to the last; and once in a while an ash flamed red like a signal fire to give warning for Indian summer, when all the woods would blaze in warpaints before huddling down for the winter under their tufted, ragged tawnies and browns--like buffalo robes on the shoulders of chilled warriors. The first flights of the wild geese were going over, their V's pointed to the Gulf; and that huckstering little bird of the dead treetops, which the negroes call the sweet-potato bird--maybe it's a pewee, with an acquired Southern accent--was calling his mythical wares at the front door of every woodpecker's hole. The woods were perfumy with ripening wild grapes and pawpaws, and from the orchards came rich winy smells where the windfalls lay in heaps and cider mills gushed under the trees; and on the roof of the smokehouse the pared, sliced fruit was drying out yellow and leathery in the sun and looking--a little way off--like countless ears all turned to listen for the same thing.