The Auctioneer

“I promise you. One year from today you’ll be toasting yourselves with champagne for being the first to get here. For being at the head of the line. For being the ones to cash in on the good old American way: first come, first served. In a year you’ll be laughing when the fat cats offer you twice what you pay today. Everyone knows there’s no investment like land. Any land. But this here is special land, Perly land. I promise you. The world will be your oyster. They’re going to put Perly Acres on the map and embroider it in gold.

“Now a lot of you are already chomping at the bit to buy—the ones who’ve been around with my agents to see the parcels. But, let me warn you. Don’t you buy unless you’re head over heels in love. Because, if you don’t fall in love this week, we promise you, you will next week, or the week after that. Because that’s the first thing we’re offering—though it’s only the beginning—a piece of land so sweet, so seductive, it’ll do things for you your first sweetheart wouldn’t.”

Again Perly stopped and centered himself on his toes, then began again in a deeper, more sober register. “If you want to see the site of the recreational facilities before you lay out cash, come back in a month. By that time, the present owners should be gone and the land freed up for us. But, believe me, my word is gold. And that is the prettiest piece of land of all. That’s why we’re saving it—so the entire community can partake of it together. It’s better than bread and wine. It’s right on a pond with a barn that’s going to make a dandy recreation center, a steep pasture behind will make you swoon if you’re a skier, and acres and acres of woods for snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. It’s even got an enchanted forest—pines big enough to keep you hidden if you want to see the fairies dance. In a few weeks too, we’ll have the roads bulldozed through all the parcels, and you’ll be able to drive right up to every single lot.

“But just keep this one hard fact in mind. The whole world is already waking up. Millions of people are realizing that they lost something priceless when they left the countryside. And they’re coming back in droves. Land around here has quadrupled in value in the last ten years. When people see what we’re up to here, when they smell that air, feel those rolling fields swelling beneath them, they’re going to quadruple the value again in as many weeks. If you wait, you may find yourself in a duel to the death with someone who’s fallen as hard as you have for that little homestead of your dreams. If you buy now, you’re just paying for the land. All the frills—the recreational facilities, the true old country community—they’ll all come along to you as a free bonus, a bonus because you were the ones who had the vision to be pioneers.

“And let me tell you something about what made our forefathers great. Until you’ve pioneered on a piece of land of your own, you don’t know what life is. You don’t know the rush of sap in the veins that comes of having roots. You don’t know the sense of power that comes from making your own mark. And when I say land, I don’t mean a naked quarter acre in suburbia. I mean wild land—land without a human mark, land where you still hear the fox’s mating call, land where you lose yourself without a compass, land that’s dark at noon. That’s land where anything can still happen—anything at all. Until you’ve taken up an ax and bent your back to marking the wilderness with your own name and labor, you don’t know what it feels like to be a man. And you don’t begin to understand what made America great. We have out here in the country a quality of life, something that money can’t buy, something more important than a new automobile or a new TV or something you’re trying to get for your house. Something we call freedom. We call it opportunity. And it’s a spirit we’ve had from the beginning.” Perly finished with his head thrown back and a high half smile on his face. He ran his hand through his dark hair and bowed his head a moment, collecting himself. The crowd barely stirred.

“And then there’s financing,” he said quietly. “Forget the bank. If you’ve tried to buy land, you know you can’t get a penny from the bank, not for land, and only a pittance for a second home. There’s one thing past for good, traded in for all our speed and luxury, and that’s the right to a homestead just for the working of it. But here’s what we’re offering you right here today—the chance to buy land, and even a ready-made house if you want, for just thirty percent down.”

Perly raised his right hand and brought his palm down on the railing of the bandstand with a thump that made the whole fragile edifice shudder. “And now for Parcel Number One,” he cried. “Are you ready? Who is it going to be? Number One. Numero Uno, the very first, the Christopher Columbus of Perly Acres. The beginning of a whole new way of life.”