Win Moore reared back, hands in his overalls pockets, and rocketed a watermelon seed through the flute that was his curled tongue and parted lips.

Andrea de Tarnowsky, T.C. Steele "Sunday at Home" veteran organizer and Moore's aunt, hurriedly, happily chalked a line on the pavement where it came to a rest. Next to the line she scratched the initials of the eventual 12-and-under winner. Dressed for the part, she wore a simple long blue skirt, white blouse and smooth straw hat adorned with flowers at the annual affair, which celebrates the famous late painter and his family's knack for 1900s hospitality.

Visitors to T.C. Historic Site in Belmont — between Bloomington and Nashville, just south of Ind. 46 — ate homemade ice cream dripping from foam cups on a breezy, clear Sunday afternoon. They enjoyed resurrected sports — including hoop races, wherein competitors use a small cylindrical stick to keep a hula hoop rolling. And they toured the preserved Steele home and the artist's studio.

More than 50 people were on hand this year, considerably fewer than last year's estimated 150, de Tarnowsky said. She attributed the smaller showing mainly to less advance media coverage.

On the air hung notes from three-person musical ensemble Mitten, with Monroe County Council candidate Sophia Travis on the accordion. The group played mainly European and American dance numbers from the 1880s to the World War II era.

A couple, Bill and Ivey Gosser, sat closely on white chairs — near a restored garden area and behind the preserved Steele home — listening to the band.

Before and after, they took time to tour the house, look at Steele oil portrait and landscape paintings in the late artist's main studio, and walk the grounds.

Over ice cream, Bill, 80, said he liked to see how older houses were constructed — the Steele home reminding him of some he remembered from his boyhood. Ivey, 69, imagined how it would be to tend to the wood stove and the garden and to bring in drinking water from outside, she said.

"You look at how they put it together and I look at how they lived there," she said to her husband, smiling.

Despite their differing interests, one thing was for sure. It was just the right way to spend a "beautiful, warm day," they agreed.

Reporter Michael Schroeder can be reached at 331-4371 or by e-mail at mschroeder@heraldt.com.