The Auctioneer

Part of old Ike Linden’s genius as a storekeeper, and as a selectman too, was his ability to hear volumes and say practically nothing. This, combined with his mastery over such an abundance of material goods, gave him a reputation for knowing a great deal. People had always brought him their questions about income tax, etiquette, unruly wives, and new strains of apples. And Ike did his laconic best to satisfy them without giving any distinct answers. These days, the old man sat in the back room smoking and pondering over the store’s accounts, and young Ike and his wife Fanny tended to the store.

“Father-in-law around?” John asked Fanny when he stepped into the store that afternoon, ostensibly to buy some razor blades.

She jerked her head in the direction of the back room.

“I go in?” John asked.

“Best you wait,” Fanny said. “He’s got company.”

So John went and stood awkwardly in front of the shelves where the fertilizers were stored, reading the labels, and glancing over his shoulder when the door opened to see who might come in. Presently, after a number of summer people had been in and out chattering loudly as if he and Fanny weren’t there at all, Walter French shuffled in.

He stood in front of Fanny. “I want some sponges,” he said.

“That aisle,” she said, pointing.

“Can’t find them,” he said, without looking. So Fanny got down off her stool and went and fetched him a forty-nine-cent package of sponges.

French turned then and caught John’s eye. John hadn’t heard whether any new deputies had been appointed in the last few weeks. French had a hang-dog look built in and didn’t seem the kind anyone would want for a deputy. For an awkward moment, John stood with his mouth open to speak. Then he reflected that a man like French, with his hungry brood of children, might serve Perly’s purposes very well without being a deputy at all. He clamped his mouth shut, nodded distantly, and turned back to the fertilizers.

The bells jingled as the door swung shut behind French, and John turned to consider him again as he retreated. Through the jumble of items hanging in the window, he caught a single glimpse of a uniformed state trooper fitting his Stetson to his head as he strode away from Ike Linden’s door. The deep smooth rumble of a car motor starting mixed with the cough of French’s truck. It was a blue Oldsmobile with New Hampshire plates. John had noticed it when he came in.

Inadvertently, he turned to Fanny, the question in his face.

She stared back blankly. They were the only people left in the store.

“Go on in and see the old man if you like,” she said.

Ike was a dark outline where he sat in front of the window. As John’s eyes adjusted, he felt confused. The man he had planned to talk to was a strong man, but Ike was very old. He clutched a light blue sweater around his shoulders like a woman. His glasses hung on a chain around his neck, but he didn’t bother to put them on to look at John.

“Trouble?” John asked, standing in the middle of the floor over the old man and nodding in the direction the trooper had taken.

“Friendly visit,” Ike said, and rearranged the papers on the card table in front of him.

John continued to stand. He heard the bells jingle in the outer store. “I came to see how come I been shut out of runnin the grader this year,” he blurted out.

“Jimmy Ward runs the roads,” Ike said.

“But Jimmy’s a deputy,” John said.

Now Ike put his glasses on to peer up at John. “Still runs the roads,” he said.

“Thought maybe that was why I been let out,” John said. “And you’re a selectman too.”

“I’m a tired old man,” Ike said. “And I never was one for med-dlin’.”

John flushed and leaned his hands on the back of an easy chair that stood in front of him. “Just thought maybe you could help,” he murmured.

“What’s that?” shouted Ike, distinctly irritated.

“Thought maybe you could get me work,” John said loudly.

“That’s what I thought you said,” Ike said, turning back to his papers. “Can’t say’s I ever heard a Moore beggin’ before.

John clutched the chair, watching as the old man picked up a paper and brought it close to his eyes.

“I been gradin’ roads for fifteen years,” John said.

The old man made no motion to indicate that he had heard.

John turned and pushed through the curtain into the store and headed for the door.

“Your razor blades,” Fanny said from the dimness.

John backed up, swept the package of blades off the counter, and continued toward the door.

“That’ll be a dollar twenty-one,” Fanny called after him.

John gulped on air and stopped. He reached into his pocket, pulled out two crumpled dollar bills, and presented them at the counter.

“Never mind,” Fanny said as she picked his change out of the register. He has all he can do to help hisself and us these days.”