Free The Beet Fields by Gary Paulsen Page A

belonged to the old farm and the old machines that would never be used.
    But he didn't mind. He was a fugitive now, had broken out of jail and was safe here and felt close to Hazel and while there wasn't any money to earn there was food and a place to sleep without worry and it all could have lasted forever and maybe would have lasted forever, he thought, except that the county fair came to nearby Clinton.
    And so did Ruby.

SIX

    T HERE CAME A MORNING WHEN THEY ATE breakfast and instead of heading out to work on the machines Hazel brought a clean shirt out of the back bedroom and handed it to the boy.
    “Here. We're going to town. You need to be cleaner/'
    He hesitated. It had been a week, no, ten days that he had been here with the old woman and Robert and he felt it was not long enough to be safe if they were looking for him. “I'll stay here and work on the machines.”
    “It's the county fair,” she said. Then, turningto the picture, she added, “Every year the fair comes. We go to it.”
    He washed at the kitchen sink and when he came back outside buttoning his shirt she was at the car. She was still wearing bib overalls—had worn them every day since he'd first met her—but they were clean and she had a clean work shirt on beneath the overalls.
    “Here,” she said, handing him a folded piece of paper. He looked down and was surprised to see that it was a twenty-dollar bill. “Man's got to have some money. For spending at the fair.”
    “You don't need to give me money….”
    “Of course I do—you want it getting out that I don't give my hand money for the fair?”
    They drove in complete silence, setting off at thirty miles an hour on the highway for the two miles into Clinton.
    The town itself was small—not over a thousand people—and the fair was equally small. It was at the fairgrounds on the edge of town. There was a sideshow banner, a Ferris wheel, a Tilt-A-Whirl, some small car rides for children and a row of game booths. The boy was surprised to see that there were hundreds and hundreds of peoplethere, all scrubbed cleaii and milling on the short midway. At one end of the fairgrounds there were two large sheds and he could see livestock in the buildings, cages with chickens and rabbits and turkeys, pens with sheep and hogs.
    “So many people,” he said to Hazel as they walked from the grassy meadow where the cars were parked. “Where do they come from?”
    “Farms,” she said. “There's farms all over the place. Town wouldn't even be here except for farmers. 'Sides, it's the last day of the fair and that brings them in a little extra—"
    At that precise foment the boy saw the sheriffs deputy who had arrested him and taken all his money and made him a fugitive. He thought of it that way. He saw not just the deputy—who was walking away from them at an angle across the midway—but the deputy who had arrested him and taken all his money and made him a runner from the law.
    He had to hide. If the lawman saw him it would be over. He'd probably go to prison, being a fugitive.
    “I have to go,” he said to Hazel, interrupting. “You know … to the bathroom.”
    He left her walking toward the fair and angled off in the opposite direction taken by the deputy. It led him past the draglines and the Ferris wheel and near the Tilt-A-Whirl.
    “Hey, kid, you want a job?”
    The boy turned and found himself looking at a figure who summed up everything he ever wanted to be in a man. The man wore Levi's so low the crack of his butt showed in the rear and the top edge of pubic hair in the front and a T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, one of which he lit now with a Zippo lighter that he snapped open and flicked in an easy motion with one hand. His hair was combed in a perfect greased-back jet-black ducktail and as a final touch of glory he wore heavy-duty black engineer's boots with straps and buckles that looked freshly oiled and polished.
    “Doing what?” the boy