"GOING, GOING, GONE!"
Bart made a first-class auctioneer--everybody said so after the sale was
over, and the pleased grins and the good-natured attention of his
audience assured the young novice of this as he concluded the
introductory speech.
He had prepared a simple, witty preface to actual business, telling many
truths of people who had spent a few cents for what had turned out to be
worth many dollars, and inviting a good many guesses by hinting what
might be in the heap upon which all eyes were fixed intently.
"Number 1129," said Bart, after taking a brief breathing spell.
Bob Haven lifted a box about two feet square to the table.
"Shipped to William Brothers, Ross Junction," announced Bart, reading
the tag, "not found. Come, gentlemen! what am I bid for lot 1129?"
"What's in it?" inquired a big farmer sitting near the front.
"You will have to guess that," answered Bart pleasantly. "Ah! some kind
of liquid, I should imagine," and he shook the box, its contents echoing
out a mellow, gurgling sound.
"Mebbe it's paint, Samantha?" suggested the farmer to his wife. "There'd
be two gallons of it--enough to cover the smokehouse. Ten cents."
"The charges are eighty-five," explained Bart--"can't start it any
lower."
A blear-eyed, unsteady individual, whom Bart recognized as a member of
the Sharp Corner contingent, advanced to the table.
He was thirsty-looking and eager as he poked at the box and tried to
peer into it.
"A demijohn!" he muttered, his mouth watering. "Two gallons--probably
prime old stuff. Eighty-five cents."
"Eighty-five--eighty-five!" repeated Bart.
"Ninety," said the farmer.
"Dollar!" mumbled the thirsty-looking man.
"Do I hear any more?" challenged Bart, gavel suspended, "once, twice,
and sold to--cash."
The inebriate paid his money, chuckled and took the box to one side,
hugging it like a pet child, reached over and picked up the hatchet
from inside the railing, and pried open the corner of the box.
A gleesome roar of merriment interrupted Bart as he called out the
second lot.
The inebriate stood disgustedly looking down at the label on the
demijohn he had brought to light: "Bubbly Spring Mineral Water."
Lot 943 was a cardboard box. The suggestion of millinery made the
farmer's wife a reckless bidder, and the lot brought two dollars.
Another roar went up from the crowd as she eagerly inspected her
purchase. It turned out to be a man's silk hat.
She looked spiteful enough to throw it out of the window, but her
husband, laughing at her, doffed his worn straw, coolly put on the
elaborate headgear, and became thenceforward a target for the quips of
the merry idlers about the door.
An oblong crate brought four dollars. Bob Haven got this. He did not
inspect his purchase at once, but with glowing eyes whispered to his
brother as he pushed it to one side that he knew it was a new bicycle.
Bart hustled the various packages up for sale and disposition with
briskness and dispatch, and Darry was more than busy keeping tab on his
record book and piling the cash into the tin box.
One fuming, perspiring man, looking too fat to ever get cool, found the
prize he had drawn was a moth-eaten fur overcoat.
Peter Grimm, notoriously the stingiest man in Pleasantville, who raised
the sourest apples in the town and spent most of his time watching the
boys and picking up what fruit rolled outside of the fence, bided his
time with watchful ferret eyes until a promising-looking package came
along.
It was bid up pretty high, and the crowd urged him to disclose his
treasure, but Grimm was not responsive to any mutual human sentiment and
sat down with the package in his lap.
He began a secret inspection, however, gradually working off the paper
covering at one end, and with snapping eyes worming his fingers inside
the parcel.
Suddenly a sharp click echoed out, followed by a frightful yell.
Grimm sprang to his feet, jumping quickly about and swinging one arm
wildly through the air, the parcel dangling from it like a bulldog
hanging on to a coat tail.
"Murder!" he screamed. "Take it off! take it off!"
Bart had to step down to the rescue. Peter Grimm had drawn a patent
mink trap, and was its first victim. He sneaked from the express office
nursing his crushed fingers and kicking his unlucky purchase out into
the road.
The pile of unclaimed stuff diminished rapidly. The various purchases
were productive of all kinds of fun. Tom Partridge, the colored porter
at the hotel, got a case of face powder, and an exquisite traveling man
for a lace house drew a pair of rubber boots that would fit a giant.
One man disclosed his purchase to be a setting of eggs. They were packed
in cotton and intact, though probably a year old.
"Take them out--take them out," yelled the crowd.
Somebody dropped a piece of wood in the box, and there was a pop. The
farmer with the plug hat he-hawed at the top of his voice, the miserable
owner of the eggs got mad at him, some words ensued, the farmer started
after him, the egg owner ran, once outside fired an egg which struck the
smooth, shiny tile with a splatter, and the farmer came back into the
express office holding his nose, bareheaded, and looking for his
rejected straw head-covering.
Some, however, were more fortunate. Bart encouraged and hurried the
bidding on a large crate, the contents of which he easily guessed, as
did also Tim Hager, the crippled son of a poor widow. Tim got it for two
dollars and twenty-five cents, and it turned out to hold a first-class
sewing machine.
"Your attention for a few moments, gentlemen," called out Bart as there
was a hustle on the part of the audience getting together the mass of
stuff they had bought. "All the unclaimed heavy express matter at
Pleasantville was burned up in the fire of July third, but some twenty
small parcels were in the safe, and those we will now dispose of."
"Money, jewelry, and such, I suppose?" propounded Lawyer Stebbings, who
loaned money at a high rate of interest.
"We make no such representations," responded Bart. "I will say this,
that no money packages are among the lot. There may be valuable papers,
there may be jewelry--in fact, some of the parcels have a given value up
to two hundred dollars--but the express company guarantees nothing and
you bid at your own risk."
"Good! let's have a sample," demanded Stebbings. "Can I examine? Ah,
thanks."
The crowd passed from hand to hand a small well-wrapped package.
"Watch!" hoarsely whispered someone.
"Feels like it!" said a second.
Stebbings bid the lot up to four dollars and got it. There was more fun
as he unrolled the numerous wrappings of the package to disclose a small
metal disc used in a threshing machine.
One purchaser got a gold pen, another a very pretty stick pin.
Lem Wacker had not engaged in the general commotion. He had retained his
place on a bench, looking bored, but for some reason sitting out the
session, and Bart wondered why.
Baker took a mild interest in what was going on, smiling appreciatively
once in a while when Bart made a witty hit or an unusually good sale.
Finally, however, Wacker put up his forefinger as Bart was bidding off a
thin wooden box about four inches square.
"Sender: Novelty Jewelry Company, no address," read Bart, "shipped to
James Barclay, Millville--not found. This is a promising-looking
package. Gentlemen, what am I bid?"
Lem Wacker seemed to have some spare cash, for he paid two dollars for
the box, swaggered off with it, and opening it disclosed a very small
and neat pocket alarm clock.
He wound it up, sent out its silvery call once or twice for the
edification of the crowd about him, hoping to sell it off to someone,
and then, there being no purchaser, with a disappointed grunt slipped it
into his pocket.
"Number 529," announced Bart a few minutes later--"the last package,
gentlemen!"
The crowd was dispersing, Darry was counting up the heap of bank notes
and coin in the cash box, Bob was gloating and wild with delight as
uncovering his purchase he brought to light a new bicycle.
The package Bart tendered was thin and flat. Two tough pieces of
cardboard held it stiff and straight. It seemed to contain papers of
some kind, and so many bidders had bought old deeds, contracts, plans,
manuscripts and the like, utterly valueless to them, that the lot hung
at twenty-five cents for several minutes.
"Come, come, gentlemen!" urged Bart--"the last may be the best. The
charges are sixty-five cents. Sender's name not given. Directed to 'A.A.
Adams, Pleasantville'--not found."
"Hoo! S--s--say!"
Bart experienced something of a shock.
The familiar cry of the ex-roustabout, Mr. Baker, rang out sharp and
sudden.
Glancing at him, Bart saw that he had arisen to his feet.
His face was bloodless and twitching, his whole frame a-quake. His eyes
were snapping wildly. He was like a man who could hardly speak or stand,
and fairly on the verge of a fit.
A wavering finger he pointed at the young auctioneer, and gasped out.
"One dollar--two--three!"