As I hurried to the Woodshire town center, one meager street of little shops, I contemplated ways to get supplies. There was more than one abandoned machine along the overgrown road into Woodshire: I passed a rusted-out water heater, a chisel plow, and a small, bent carriage frame. I eyed all of them eagerly, but the metal was too degraded to be reworked or even salvaged. The only parts worth saving were the thin rubber tires on the carriage wheels, but even they were dubiously weathered; besides, Mother’s workshop was fairly well stocked already. And I needed plenty of things for the Exposition that I’d never find at the side of a road: fine cloth for a new dress of my own, for instance, if I wanted anyone to take my wares—and me—seriously. Stepmother had credit at the milliner’s, but she’d receive an itemized list of her charges at the end of the month. I couldn’t add anything extra for myself without her knowing. I realized as I thought these things that I had already decided to attend the Exposition, that I wasn’t just daydreaming about it.
