Betsy mounted on a soap box and began joyfully to wash the dishes.  She had never thought that ever in her life would she simply love to wash dishes beyond anything else!  But it was so.  Her relief was so great that she could have kissed the coarse, thick plates and glasses as she washed them.

“It’s all right, Molly; it’s all right!” she quavered exultantly to Molly over her shoulder.  But as Molly had not (from the moment Betsy took command) suspected that it was not all right, she only nodded and asked if she might sit up on a barrel where she could watch the crowd go by.

“I guess you could.  I don’t know why not,” said Betsy doubtfully.  She lifted her up and went back to her dishes.  Never were dishes washed better!

“Two doughnuts, please,” said a man’s voice behind her.

Oh, mercy, there was somebody come to buy!  Whatever should she do?  She came forward intending to say that the owner of the booth was away and she didn’t know anything about ... but the man laid down a nickel, took two doughnuts, and turned away.  Betsy gasped and looked at the home-made sign stuck into the big pan of doughnuts.  Sure enough, it read “2 for 5.”  She put the nickel up on a shelf and went back to her dishwashing.  Selling things wasn’t so hard, she reflected.

As her hunted feeling of desperation relaxed she began to find some fun in her new situation, and when a woman with two little boys approached she came forward to wait on her, elated, important.  “Two for five,” she said in a businesslike tone.  The woman put down a dime, took up four doughnuts, divided them between her sons, and departed.

[Illustration:  Never were dishes washed better!]

“My!” said Molly, looking admiringly at Betsy’s coolness over this transaction.  Betsy went back to her dishes, stepping high.

“Oh, Betsy, see!  The pig!  The big ox!” cried Molly now, looking from her coign of vantage down the wide, grass-grown lane between the booths.

Betsy craned her head around over her shoulder, continuing conscientiously to wash and wipe the dishes.  The prize stock was being paraded around the Fair; the great prize ox, his shining horns tipped with blue rosettes; the prize cows, with wreaths around their necks; the prize horses, four or five of them as glossy as satin, curving their bright, strong necks and stepping as though on eggs, their manes and tails braided with bright ribbon; and then, “Oh, Betsy, look at the pig!” screamed Molly again—­the smaller animals, the sheep, the calves, the colts, and the pig, which waddled along with portly dignity.

Betsy looked as well as she could over her shoulder ... and in years to come she can shut her eyes and see again in every detail that rustic procession under the golden, September light.

But she looked anxiously at the clock.  It was nearing five.  Oh, suppose the girl forgot and danced too long!