Then they talked together for a long time. He could not hear what they said. The tall, thin judge shook his head and tugged his whiskers. He cut a thin slice from the yellowest pumpkin and a thin slice from Almanzo’s pumpkin, and tasted them. He gave them to the big judge, and he tasted them. The fat judge said something, and they all smiled.
Mr. Paddock leaned over the table and said:
“Good afternoon, Wilder. You and the boy are taking in the sight, I see. Having a good time, Almanzo?”
Almanzo could hardly speak. He managed to say: “Yes, sir.”
The tall judge had taken the red ribbon and the blue ribbon out of his pocket. The fat judge took hold of his sleeve, and all the judges put their heads together again.
The tall judge turned around slowly. Slowly he took a pin from his lapel and stuck it through the blue ribbon. He was not very near Almanzo’s big pumpkin. He was not near enough to reach it. He held out the blue ribbon, above another pumpkin. He leaned, and stretched out his arm slowly, and he thrust the pin into Almanzo’s pumpkin.
Father’s hand clapped on Almanzo’s shoulder. All at once Almanzo could breathe, and he was tingling all over. Mr. Paddock was shaking his hand. All the judges were smiling. Ever so many people said, “Well, well, Mr. Wilder, so your boy’s got first prize!”
Mr. Webb said, “That’s a fine pumpkin, Almanzo. don’t know as I ever saw a finer.”
Mr. Paddock said:
“I never saw a pumpkin that beat it for size. How’d you raise such a big pumpkin, Almanzo?”
Suddenly everything seemed big and very still. Almanzo felt cold and small and scared. He hadn’t thought before, that maybe it wasn’t fair to get a prize for a milk-bred pumpkin. Maybe the prize was for raising pumpkins in the ordinary way. Maybe, if he told, they’d take the prize away from him. They might think he had tried to cheat.
He looked at Father, but Father’s face didn’t tell him what to do.
“I—I just—I kept hoeing it, and—” he said. Then he knew that he was telling a lie. Father was hearing him telling a lie. He looked up at Mr. Paddock and said: “I raised it on milk. It’s a milk-fed pumpkin. Is—is that all right?”
“Yes, that’s all right,” Mr. Paddock answered.
Father laughed. “There’s tricks in all trades but ours, Paddock. And maybe a few tricks in farming and wagon-making too, eh?”
Then Almanzo knew how foolish he had been. Father knew all about the pumpkin, and Father wouldn’t cheat.
Afterward he went walking with Father among the crowds. They saw the horses again, and the colt that won the prize was not so good as Starlight. Almanzo did hope that Father would bring Starlight to the Fair next year. Then they watched the foot-races, and the jumping contests, and the throwing contests. Malone boys were in them, but the farmer boys won, almost every time. Almanzo kept remembering his prize pumpkin and feeling good.
Driving home that night, they all felt good. Alice’s woolwork had won first prize, and Eliza Jane had a red ribbon and Alice had a blue ribbon for jellies. Father said the Wilder family had done itself proud, that day.
There was another day of the Fair, but it wasn’t so much fun. Almanzo was tired of having a good time. Three days of it were too much. It didn’t seem right to be dressed up again and leaving the farm. He felt unsettled, as he did at house-cleaning time. He was glad when the Fair was over and everything could go on as usual.
Chapter 22
Fall of the Year
“Wind’s in the north,” Father said at breakfast. “And clouds coming up. We better get the beechnuts in before it snows.”
The beech trees grew in the timber lot, two miles away by the road, but only half a mile across the fields. Mr. Webb was a good neighbor, and let Father drive across his land.
Almanzo and Royal put on their caps and warm coats, Alice put on her cloak and hood, and they rode away with Father in the wagon, to gather the beechnuts.
When they came to a stone fence Almanzo helped to take it down and let the wagon through. The pastures were empty now; all the stock was in the warm barns, so they could leave the fences down until the last trip home.
In the beech grove all the yellow leaves had fallen. They lay thick on the ground beneath the slim trunks and delicate bare limbs of the beeches. The beechnuts had fallen after the leaves and lay on top of them. Father and Royal lifted the matted leaves carefully on their pitchforks and put them, nuts and all, into the wagon. And Alice and Almanzo ran up and down in the wagon, trampling down the rustling leaves to make room for more.
When the wagon was full, Royal drove away with Father to the barns, but Almanzo and Alice stayed to play till the wagon came back.
A chill wind was blowing and the sunlight was hazy. Squirrels frisked about, storing away nuts for the winter. High in the sky the wild ducks were honking, hurrying south. It was a wonderful day for playing wild Indian, all among the trees.
When Almanzo was tired of playing Indian, he and Alice sat on a log and cracked beechnuts with their teeth. Beechnuts are three-cornered and shiny-brown and small, but every shell is solidly full of meat. They are so good that nobody could ever eat enough of them. At least, Almanzo never got tired of eating them before the wagon came back.
Then he and Alice trampled down leaves again, while the busy pitchforks made the patch of bare ground larger and larger.