r
miles round made holiday to attend it. For days beforehand men were
busy putting up pens and erecting a tent where eggs and butter and
dressed fowls could be exhibited, while a few travelling caravans
arrived with shooting galleries or cheap bazaars and set up a kind of
fair in an opposite field.

There were many classes for poultry, so Winnie decided to send some of
her best cockerels, a selection of Buff Orpington chickens, and a pair
of big white Aylesbury ducks. She and Gwen got up very early on the
Saturday morning to take a final review of their exhibits. They were
determined to give the ducks a washing in order that they might show
them with their plumage in an absolutely spotless condition. Armed
with a tin bath, a can of warm water, some soap and a sponge, they
shut themselves in a disused pig sty and commenced operations. It is
no easy task to wash a large, struggling, flapping, protesting duck,
and though Gwen held their wings down while Winnie did the scrubbing,
both girls were splashed all over and drenched with water before they
had finished.

"But the Aylesburys look gorgeous," said Gwen, flinging her
dishevelled hair from her hot face. "They're clean to the very tips of
their beaks. The drake looks as if you'd curled his tail feather with
the curling tongs. They're fearfully upset and angry, poor dears; they
think they've been half killed. Winnie, how are we going to get them
to the Show?"

"That's what's puzzling me. We don't possess a basket big enough for
them. I believe we shall have to carry them."

"In our arms? Yes, that'll be by far the best way. They'd knock their
feathers about in a hamper and get dirty again. They've had one
breakfast already, but I think they deserve a little scrap of Indian
corn as a reward for what they've gone through."

All exhibits had to be delivered at the Show field by nine o'clock,
and precisely at half-past eight a procession set off from the
Parsonage: Lesbia carefully carrying a dozen beautiful brown eggs in a
basket, the three boys with small hampers of chickens, Dick holding a
little wooden crate containing Black Minorca cockerels, and finally
Winnie and Gwen, each clasping a huge white Aylesbury in her arms.
Dick had offered gallantly to be duck bearer, but the girls preferred
to transport their own pets.

"They know us so well, you see," said Gwen, "so they won't struggle
like they would with a stranger. Besides, we know just the dodge of
holding do