Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/211

 work-table, she pressed its point against them till, with a tiny clatter, they fell back into the head.

She threw herself on her bed and lay half-dreaming until tea-time.

The middle of October brought the Fair. It was held in the park by the lagoon. Pens were cleaned out, booths set up, and the main building prepared for exhibitions of fruit, vegetables, pastry, cakes, pickles, fancy-work, and even oil-paintings. During the three days of the Fair, football matches, running races, and horse races were in almost constant progress before the grand stand, and at night crowds from the various factories and shops filled the side-shows, and thronged the swings and the merry-go-round. They were great days for Brancepeth, and all the countryside looked forward to it throughout the year.

Delight had not intended to go to the Fair. She had kept her vow to remain indoors while she worked at Beemer's. Now she felt that she would suffocate for lack of air and outdoor movement. She was tired to death with serving the crowds that thronged the dining-room, so, when she met Kirke in the hallway and he urged her to go with him on the last night of the Fair, suddenly she could not resist. . . . To be out of doors, under the big bright moon, in a crowd of people, with soft grass beneath her feet instead of boards, the temptation was too great. She would go for an hour.

When she and Kirke entered the Fair grounds, the air was vibrant with the crash of the town band, the jigging melody of the merry-go-round, and the cries of hawkers. Inside the flaming circle of lights, laughing or stupid faces flashed out and disappeared in an ever-changing