The Auctioneer

John chuckled. “Worth about three and a half cents,” he said. “Some Sunday farmer paid twelve bucks for it. Must be plannin’ to go west in a covered wagon.”

“That’s the kind of thing,” Gore said, spitting a speck of tobacco to one side.

“How about the old wheels?” Mim asked.

John nodded. “Must be five or six of them.”

“Someone can make chandeliers out of them,” Mim informed Gore, her face merry. “Or paint them blue and plant them at the bottom of their driveway for the snowplow to knock over.”

Gore leaned back on his heels, his jowly face reverting to its usual slackness. “Swell,” he said.

The wheels were in the woodshed. John and Gore took two apiece and carried them to the truck. Mim ran past them laughing, chasing the last wheel which was rolling down the front lawn like a hoop. Gore opened up the tailgate of his truck and lifted the wheels in, one after another. “Thanks,” he said, giving the top wheel an affectionate pat. “I’ll lay odds these’ll bring ten bucks once this new auctioneer gets goin’.”

Mim and Hildie stared past Gore at a carton full of chipped dishes, a badly cracked pine worktable, and an oversized easy chair leaking stuffing from one arm.

“Why’s he takin’ away our wheels?” Hildie asked as he drove away.

“Auctioneer’s goin’ to sell them,” John said.

“Why?” Hildie asked.

John knit his brows and shrugged.

“For money, love,” Mim said. “But it’s nothin’ to do with the likes of us. Nothin’ at all.”

It was mud season. In the woods there was still a fair snow cover, though it was receding in dark circles from the trees as the trunks warmed in the lengthening days. But Moore’s pasture, which turned a steep face to the southeast, was already bare except for sparkling heaps here and there where drifts had been, and the meadow at the bottom where snow lingered near the stream. The soggy ground, matted with the roots of last year’s hay, gave like a sponge underfoot. The sun drew the moisture from woods and field and stream and pond, and set it loose in the air. But the sky remained deep and dry and blue. It was the time of year when mittens and caps and indoor heat seem stale. A thousand outdoor chores crop up and country people feel groundswells of new strength.

On Thursday afternoon, when Gore came again, John and Mim were halfway up the pasture where it leveled out a bit, deciding where to put the patch of Hubbard squash they planned on for a cash crop that year, where to set the corn, where to plant the shell beans and potatoes. Hildie squatted at the edge of last year’s potato patch, pushing her hands into the icy mud and watching the impressions fill with water. Only Ma, too stiff with arthritis for the out-of-doors, could bear to remain in the dry front room by the wood stove watching television. She hardly quickened to the weather any more, except to comment on what she saw through the front window. Besides, she would no more miss her programs than let pass the rare scraps of gossip that came her way.

When Gore got out of his truck, the Moores waved and started down the hill, Hildie and Lassie trotting ahead.

“What’s he after now?” John muttered.

“Got to tell you how his blessed auction went.” Mim laughed. “He should of been the town crier instead of the town cop.”

Ma had heard the truck too and was rapping on the window, beckoning furiously, her image faded to gray by the weathered plastic tacked over the glass for insulation.

Inside, the house was faintly pungent with woodsmoke. Over the years the stoves had deposited a crust of dull black on the ceilings and sifted soot into the crevices between the scrubbed floorboards. It was a house that had been lived in for generations by the same family, and treasures from various eras cluttered every surface. Even on top of the television set, a kerosene lamp with a fluted base and a tall etched chimney jostled wax flowers under a dusty dome, three Hummel figurines, and a plastic replica of the Statue of Liberty. There was a light rhythm of clocks ticking against each other—the cuckoo clock, the eight-day clock with columbine painted on the glass, and the grandfather clock in the hall. The various chimes and the chirp of the cuckoo were no longer synchronized, and the house was filled with random sounds the Moores barely heard, a counterpoint to the birdsong that filtered in from outside.

In the front room, Ma sat bolt upright in the precise center of a bright slipcovered couch. She seemed to have shrunk since her clothes were put on. The collar of her flannel bathrobe stood out like a monk’s cowl around her drawn neck, and her fuzzy pink bedroom slippers seemed four sizes larger than the feet that held them so carefully side by side on the bleached floor. She seemed more like a child than a grandmother.

Gore stood, enormous and grinning, in the center of the room, dwarfing his surroundings. Ma held out her hands to him with the force of a command until he took his own hands out of his pockets and leaned over to grasp hers. “How are you, Mrs. Moore? he asked.