The Auctioneer

“Not so good,” sighed Ma. “I ain’t got the go I used to.” Her weary voice contrasted with her small hazel eyes—sharp as a bobcat’s—watching Bob Gore from under her tangle of gray hair.

Hildie sprang onto the couch and curled up against Ma. Without taking her eyes off Gore, Ma reached out a knobby hand and, with a few pats, straightened Hildie around until she quieted down and folded her hands in her lap.

Mim perched on the edge of a straight chair near the door and John took the piano bench.

“And you, Bobby,” Ma was saying. “What’s new? Anything you can hope to tell us in less than a day or two?

“Perly Dunsmore’s what’s new, Mrs. Moore,” Gore said, settling his broad self comfortably in the rocking chair. “He’s the newest thing Harlowe’s seen in years.” He beamed, as if the auctioneer were a glistening new possession, a special find, a bargain worthy of the envy of any neighbor who knew value when he saw it.

“Who?” Ma said, raising her brows. “You mean that crazy fool moved into the Fawkes place all by hisself?”

Gore lit a cigarette, located a flowerpot by his left elbow to flick the ashes into, and seemed to expand just slightly. He took a breath.

“Don’t wear us plumb out now, Bobby,’ Ma said, but her voice was no longer weary.

“Good turnout?” John asked.

“Wonderful,” Gore said, taking a deep breath. “It was one absolutely wonderful auction.” He chuckled. You wouldn’t believe how that Perly Dunsmore gets the most for everything. What an auctioneer! I never saw nothin’ to beat it. He gets up there on that bandstand and I don’t know him, hardly. He’s like one of them fish can puff itself up to four times its ordinary size. Sharp as a whip, he is. And what a talker! Makes me seem like the silent type.”

“They talk different,” John said, “these city dudes. They drink crankcase oil for breakfast.”

“Oh, but Perly’s a New Hampshire boy,” Gore said. “From Elvira, up to the Canadian border. Ain’t much we can tell him about the country.”

“Thought he was some big-deal consultant,” John said. “That’s what Arthur Stinson says. And he ought to know after all the time he spent paintin’ and scrapin’ that place.”

“Well, Perly ain’t ordinary,” Gore said. “Fact, there’s a man could do any damn thing he set his mind to. But he growed up on a New Hampshire farm like all the rest of us. It’s just that he lit out when he weren’t much more than a chicken. Made his way everywhere you can think of. Mexico, Alaska, Vegas, Venezuela. All over. And all over America too. Once in a while he’d run an auction, I guess, but most of the time he was some kind of consultant that tells people how to manage their land. He just kept wanderin’. Must of thought he’d find somethin’ better.”

Ma snorted.

“Seems like he didn’t, ma’am,” Gore said. “Because here he is, ready to settle right back where he started from. Fact, that’s how he knew about the Fawkes place. He stayed there once about a year back, when Amelia was rentin’ out rooms. And he was smart enough to see Harlowe’s as good a place as any.”

“They say the Fawkes place was quite a bargain,” John said. “Still, he’s a bit on the odd side, you ask me,” Mim said. “Movin’ into that big house all alone with just that dog. Specially after all this time no one’d even cut the grass.”

“Guess murders in the night don’t mean nothin’ to him,” Ma said.

Gore shrugged. “He knows it don’t mean nothin’ one way or the other about what Harlowe’s really like.”

“So why Harlowe?” John asked. “Instead of Powlton, say, or over Peterborough way where it’s so much fancier?”

“Oh, Perly’s got ideas,” Gore said. “You should hear him talk.”

“You ought to bring him out,” Ma said.

“You’d like him,” Gore said. “He’s got that way about him women like. And he’d see the value of a well-kept farm like this.”

“That’s ’cause he don’t have to do the keepin’,” John said. “Is it him you’re plannin’ on for deputy?”

“I asked, but he ain’t interested,” Gore said.

“He’s just after tellin’ you what to do. He ain’t interested in the actual labor,” John said.

Gore frowned. “Red Mudgett’s back,” he said. “He’s lookin’ for somethin’, and you remember he was always so smart?”

“Bobby,” cried Ma. “You ain’t gone and hired Red Mudgett? Why you ain’t got no more sense than the rest of the Gores.”

“Perly thought he’d be good,” Gore said, fishing in his pocket for a cigarette.

Hildie had wiggled to the floor in front of Gore and sat with her arm around Lassie. She watched entranced as he lit a second cigarette from the end of the first.

“Why he’s the rottenest egg this town’s turned out since I was big enough to hear tell,” Ma said. “And if anyone knows, it’s me. I had him in my Sunday School class a good three years.”

“I figure Mudgett’s a reformed character,” Gore said.

“You figure, or this Dunsmore fellow figures?” John said.