8 



FANCY AND DOMESTIC ARTICLES. 



Again ? Aye : and the pen returns with its old-time pleas- 

 ure to its wonted task. In the cold November morn, amid the 

 gray of early wintry days, the pen retrogrades to September, 

 when the heavens held an unobscured golden sun, and warm 

 breaths drifted up the valleys and brought undefinable fra- 

 grances born of meadows just mown, orchards mellowing in 

 in fruitage, hedges of golden rod and the autumn gardens of 

 the village homes. 



In those soft hazy days the hall, for a year deserted, opened 

 wide its great doors and welcomed us to a homestead hearth, 

 and woodlands rang to the merry voices of Fair-way wending 

 people, — glad to put by for a brief space the manifold labors of 

 a farmer's household. The farmer's Mecca seems that great 

 hall, and Fair-days annual pilgrimages. 



One would suppose each year would be but similarities of 

 the last. Nay : one year differeth from another as one star 

 from another differeth in glory. 



In the Fancy Department there were one hundred and thir- 

 teen articles brought in by eighty contributors. In the Domes- 

 tic one hundred and eleven entries by eighty-five contributors. 



There is a tend^cy to exhibits from farther outlying towns 

 than formerly. Old Plymouth sent up dainty lacework. The 

 whole could have been crushed within the hand, but it was 

 concentrated loveliness. Through the flim of its meshes vistas 

 stretched out to me. I saw the women of the Colony days 

 weaving, weaving, at loom or swaying to the motion of the 



