There was a soulful pause. "Lie in small things, lie in big!" she snapped. "I reckon I've found ye out for a missabul thing!" Hiram, standing back in the shadows, nudged Cap'n Sproul beside him, and wagged his head toward the open door. They went out on tiptoe. "If he wants to lie some more, our bein' round might embarrass him," whispered Hiram. "I never like to embarrass a man when he's down--and--and her eyes was so much on Reeves and the rooster I don't believe she noticed us. And what she don't know won't hurt her none. But"--he yawned--"I shouldn't be a mite surprised if another one of Bat Reeves's engagements was busted in this town. He don't seem to have no luck at all in marryin' farms with the wimmen throwed in." The Cap'n didn't appear interested in Reeves's troubles. His eyes were searching the dim heavens. "What do you call that thing you brought in the bag?" he demanded. "Blamed if I know!" confessed Hiram, climbing upon his chariot. "And I'm pretty well up on freaks, too, as a circus man ought to be. I jest went out huntin' for suthin' to fit in with the sportin' blood as I found it in this place--and I reckon I got it! Mebbe 'twas a cassowary, mebbe 'twas a dodo--the man himself didn't know--said even the hen that hatched it didn't seem to know. 'Pologized to me for asking me two dollars for it, and I gave him five. I hope it will go back where it come from. It hurt my eyes to look at it. But it was a good bargain!" He patted his breast pocket. "Come over to-morrow," he called to the Cap'n as he drove away. "I sha'n't have so much on my mind, and I'll be a little more sociable! Listen to that bagpipe selection!" Behind them they heard the whining drone of a man's pleading voice and a woman's shrill, insistent tones, a monotony of sound flowing on--and on--and on! XI The president of the "Smyrna Agricultural Fair and Gents' Driving Association" had been carrying something on his mind throughout the meeting of the trustees of the society--the last meeting before the date advertised for the fair. And now, not without a bit of apprehensiveness, he let it out. "I've invited the Honer'ble J. Percival Bickford to act as the starter and one of the judges of the races," he announced. Trustee Silas Wallace, superintendent of horses, had put on his hat. Now he took it off again. "What!" he almost squalled. "You see," explained the president, with eager conciliatoriness, "we've only got to scratch his back just a little to have him--" "Why, 'Kittle-belly' Bickford don't know no more about hoss-trottin' than a goose knows about the hard-shell Baptist doctrine," raved Wallace, his little eyes popping like marbles. "I don't like to hear a man that's done so much for his native town called by any such names," retorted the president, ready to show temper himself, to hide his embarrassment. "He's come back here and--"