Let's Go To the Fair

For many of you readers, August meant going to Fair in Lawrence County. It was the same for residents 145 years ago. If you have ancestors who were farmers, then this is for you.

“It has come at last, the day for which the whole family have been looking, working, and preparing-- the day of the fair and now on this bright morning when the air is filled with the odors of ripeness and the whole country smiles with a bounteous harvest, this good farmer’s family are about to start for the Fair.

It is the end of many days of careful thought and anxious preparations.  Charlie is afraid that the colt may be just a little too frisky, and forget the care given to the last grooming, and may rumple a hair or two.  George is in doubt as to whether his young steers may forget the many hours of careful training and in the confusion of the sights and sounds at the fair, fail to do as well as they have already done in the yard this morning. Each of these has all he can do to care for his pets, and the loading part falls to the father and others.

 The potatoes, the turnips, the apples, the squashes, the pumpkins and the chickens, must all be carefully stowed away in the wagon. The bread which the mother was up long before daylight to bake, must have a safe place, and the bouquet to which the oldest daughter has given all the best flowers of her garden must be carried by hand.  And there is the quilt --grandmother feels too old to enjoy the Fair, besides some one must be left at home to look after things, but she has made a quilt-- one of those marvels in patch work without which no well -regulated Fair can be complete.  So, make a place for the quilt in the wagon, for precious loving thoughts have been worked in with the stitches, and then place the quilt at the Fair where everyone can see it, for grandmother will not make quilts for many more fairs.

The family has not started yet but what a world of good has its preparations brought! Did not the father’s fears that in raising rutabagas and turnips fit to show he must give each root plenty of room? Had not the older son in order to beat his neighbor in apples thinned the Baldwin tree three times during the season? The son with the colt and the other with the young steers what a lot of self-control they have learned in trying to control their animals, and the mother, the daughters, and all have in their work of preparation already had much interesting occupation and the enjoyment of the Fair still to come.

We hope that this picture may serve as a representation of what will take place in many a farmer’s family this month and next, throughout our broad country. The isolation of the family is the great misfortune of our farm life. The house is placed near as may be the center of our large farms and neighborly intercourse is difficult.  Hence it is all the more necessary for the farmer and his family to make the best of the opportunity for social enjoyment afforded by the local fair. If the fair did only this it would be worthy of encouragement; but it does much besides. These good people will go to the Fair, see much, meet many old friends, learn much and let us hope bring away pleasant recollections and some premiums. 

But what they will take is far better than any premiums they will bring away, for they take the best, they show that they have pride in the farmer’s life and they show the best products of that life, not in the crops, the steers, the colt and chickens, the bread or quilt, but in the very best of all produce of the farm, the men and women and the boys and girls who will soon be men and women.  These are the best products of American farms and they are such products as the farms of no other country can produce.”