The Auctioneer

Mim touched Ma’s hand, then roused herself and set to work again. Soon she was unloading the truck, unpacking each carton entirely and throwing it into the cellar before she went to the barn for the next. She had just come out of the barn carrying the fourth carton when she heard the car coming. She ran back into the barn with the carton still in her arms and found herself standing in the horse stall wondering what to do. The truck was only half unpacked and John was sound asleep and vulnerable upstairs. Mim held her breath and listened. She could hear the low hum of the car motor, but there was no sound of car doors opening or of footsteps in the gravel. She placed the carton noiselessly beneath the window and stepped up onto it to look out.

An orange Datsun station wagon sat in the middle of their yard. Inside a bearded man, a youngish woman, and two small boys sat looking peacefully around at the barn, the pasture, the pond. They moved their lips and talked. Finally the man nodded and got out, and, with an easy smile of curiosity, strolled leisurely around the barn. Almost directly below Mim’s window, he stopped to kick at a sill. Then he went back to the car and revolved slowly, examining everything he could see. His eyes stopped at the kitchen window. He grinned and waved. Hildie, Mim thought. She must be right out in plain sight. Finally, the man climbed back into the car and said something. His wife and children started laughing and waving toward the house. Finally they went away, the two children staring from the back window until the car disappeared over the hill.

Mim waited until the sound of the motor was altogether gone, then ran for the house. She dropped the carton just inside the door and stood over Ma. “How could you let Hildie stand up there in plain sight?” she demanded. “How could you?”

“Just tourists,” Ma said. “Got to be. I never seen a bunch more like.”

“In December?” Mim asked. “On a Tuesday? The next time that happens, you see she’s hid and hid good, you hear?”

Ma held Hildie tight and didn’t answer.

Mim went back to work, more frantically now. Before the sun was quite high, she took a breath and realized that, except for the wood superstructure on the truck—which indicated only that they were thinking of leaving sometime soon—things were back to normal. It no longer looked as if the Moores were poised to run. Clothes and food and cooking implements were all in place. Hildie sat with Ma under the blanket in the chair drawing pictures. Dirty cereal bowls and cups created a comforting litter on the table. Even John’s clothes were nearly dry enough to hang on the hooks in the bedroom where they belonged.

Almost without transition, Mim found herself settled into the familiarity of everyday chores. She filled the woodbox, got in two pails of fresh water, swept the floor, and tidied up the breakfast dishes. She made herself a cup of chicory and heated up what was left of the oatmeal. Finally she closed the door so that the room began to warm up. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

Mim sniffed. “I wonder, would a fresh nose still catch the gasoline?”

“We got any onions left?” Ma asked.

Mim stooped to the onion bin beneath the sink and came up with six small onions. “Enough for one more soup,” she said. Then she sighed. “I hope we get to eat it.”

John woke up hungry. The bedroom looked dingy in the bleak last light that he momentarily mistook for dawn. Then he remembered and took up listening where he’d left off. Perhaps it was the sound of the auctioneer’s truck that had awakened him. He stumbled to the window dragging the quilts and looked down on the empty dooryard. There was no sound, even from the kitchen, and, like Hildie, he wondered if he’d been left behind. He dropped the blankets and ran downstairs.

Mim was sweeping the kitchen for the third time. Ma and Hildie were playing cards. Hildie spilled her cards and ran to him. “You slept all day,” she said.

“Shh,” Ma said. “That’s a secret. Now don’t forget.”

John sat down at the table, unable to speak. For a moment he couldn’t remember why or how he could have risked it all.

“We had some company,” Mim said, “though they seemed...”

John clutched the edge of the table, quizzing Mim about the visitors. Finally he got up and went out into the dooryard in his stocking feet. He shivered with the cold and looked at the sky toward the town. It was cloudy and silent, and the air in his nostrils was as fresh as wet snow. He came back in. “Nothin’,” he said.

Who knows? Mim said. “Harlowe’s a long way off.”

She gave John a bowl of soup, Hildie climbed into his lap and he ate, swallowing too quickly as if he might be interrupted at any moment.