His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious
sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest
of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it
buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until
only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with
silver.
"Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have
a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime
look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step
right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen
for the microscope."
Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two
faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature
and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was
impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him
was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer
corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene.
"Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this
Kentucky?"
"Yep; we crossed the line to-day."
"I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm
sick."
It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making
him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born.
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