Fair Weather Read Online Free PDF Page A

extra money for? said Lottie’s expression.
    Mine replied: For Chicago. I told you we were going. But Lottie shook her head, sure that Mama had just now sent the tickets back.
    Mr. Oldweiler mopped his forehead with a blue bandanna. In doing business Mama was very ladylike, and that made her harder to deal with.
    “Blackberries, Mrs. Beckett?” he said. We hadn’t sold him blackberries before. He reached for one and ate it, which was a point in our favor.
    “The Almanac calls this a bad year for berries.” Mama gazed sadly down at ours like they were the last.
    Lottie popped her eyes at me. Mama didn’t believe a word in the Farmer’s Almanac. She said it was folklore.
    When it was time to settle up, I’d never seen so much money change hands. “You can take out for a stick of candy,” Mama said. Then Mr. Oldweiler gave us three for a penny. One for Buster and two for Lottie and me, just to see us blush.
    Outside, Lottie found her voice first. “Well, Mama, you drive a hard bargain.”
    “It’s not in my nature, though,” Mama said quietly. “I’d sooner be home.”
    I thought we were headed there now. Mama would want to get this much money straight into her mattress. We began to stroll instead, our heels ringing on the wooden walk. Buster lagged behind.
    We went by the hardware and turned our bonnets to the street past the barber shop. Mama surprised us by swerving into the dry goods. It was the biggest store in town and a different world from Oldweilers’, though as dim and mysterious. Thin, high-collared women you never saw anywhere else worked in there. One sat in a cage at the back to take your money.
    A dress dummy stopped us dead just inside. It wore astiff straw hat like one of Granddad’s, with a grosgrain band. Its white shirtwaist was starchy and laid in flat pleats. Its belt buckle was two hands clasping. The gabardine skirt, a pale cream, just cleared the floor. The toes of the shoes came to perfect points, and they were snow white.
    Lottie’s shoes were black. Mine that had been hers were brown. We stood there in awe. I was still in short skirts, showing a length of leg between my high-top shoe and my skirt tails.
    One of the women who worked there came forward. She wore a pencil in her bun, a tape measure around her neck, a pincushion on her wrist. She observed our sunbonnets.
    “Is that what they’re wearing now?” Mama said in a low voice, as if to spare the dress dummy’s feelings.
    The salesclerk nodded, looking away, though we were the only people in the place.
    “That hat.” Mama nodded at the dummy’s head. “It’s very mannish, isn’t it?”
    Mama didn’t wear hats, but the one she was wearing in her mind right now had flowers on it. Lilacs, I expect, her favorite.
    “Simplicity is the keynote this season,” the saleswoman said.
    “Then I take it that’s why there’s no machine lace on the collar of that shirtwaist.”
    The woman nodded. “Did you want to look through the pattern book?”
    You bought very little ready-made in those days. You bought the yardage and you cut it out from a pattern at home. In your button box you already had plenty of buttons. I liked looking through the pattern book, though the outfits were always for occasions that never arose.
    “The pattern book?” Mama said. “Indeed not. We haven’t time to make anything up. Would an outfit like that do for the fair?” She was bolder about the dress dummy now, pointing right at it.
    “The state fair?” the saleslady said, because our sunbonnets would do for that. “In Springfield?”
    “Certainly not,” said Mama, grander than I’d ever heard her be. “The Columbian Exposition at Chicago.”
    The wind went out of me. But now we knew, or thought we did. I’d been right: We were going to the fair. The letter Mama had handed to Granddad told Aunt Euterpe we were coming. The saleslady turned for a larger size in everything for Lottie, a smaller size for me.
    My first thought was a big one.