“Don’t you suppose,” Mrs. Wendell asked Betsy, “that you and Molly could go home with the Vaughans?  They’re here in their big wagon.  You could sit on the floor with the Vaughan children.”

Betsy and Molly thought this would be great fun, and agreed enthusiastically.

“All right then,” said Mrs. Wendell.  She called to a young man who stood inside the building, near an open window:  “Oh, Frank, Will Vaughan is going to be in your booth this afternoon, isn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the young man.  “His turn is from two to four.”

“Well, you tell him, will you, that the two little girls who live at Putney Farm are going to go home with them.  They can sit on the bottom of the wagon with the Vaughan young ones.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the young man, with a noticeable lack of interest in how Betsy and Molly got home.

“Now, Betsy,” said Mrs. Wendell, “you go round to that booth at two and ask Will Vaughan what time they’re going to start and where their wagon is, and then you be sure not to keep them waiting a minute.”

“No, I won’t,” said Betsy.  “I’ll be sure to be there on time.”

She and Molly still had twenty cents to spend out of the forty they had brought with them, twenty-five earned by berry-picking and fifteen a present from Uncle Henry.  They now put their heads together to see how they could make the best possible use of their four nickels.  Cousin Ann had put no restrictions whatever on them, saying they could buy any sort of truck or rubbish they could find, except the pink lemonade.  She said she had been told the venders washed their glasses in that, and their hands, and for all she knew their faces.  Betsy was for merry-go-rounds, but Molly yearned for a big red balloon; and while they were buying that a man came by with toy dogs, little brown dogs with curled-wire tails.  He called out that they would bark when you pulled their tails, and seeing the little girls looking at him he pulled the tail of the one he held.  It gave forth a fine loud yelp, just like Shep when his tail got stepped on.  Betsy bought one, all done up neatly in a box tied with blue string.  She thought it a great bargain to get a dog who would bark for five cents. (Later on, when they undid the string and opened the box, they found the dog had one leg broken off and wouldn’t make the faintest squeak when his tail was pulled; but that is the sort of thing you must expect to have happen to you at a county fair.)

Now they had ten cents left and they decided to have a ride apiece on the merry-go-round.  But, glancing up at the clock-face in the tower over Agricultural Hall, Betsy noticed it was half-past two and she decided to go first to the booth where Will Vaughan was to be and find out what time they would start for home.  She found the booth with no difficulty, but William Vaughan was not in it.  Nor was the young man she had seen before.  There was a new one, a strange