The Auctioneer

It was the Thursdays that were hard to come to grips with. People came to visit—familiar people, people whose mothers and children she remembered—and they smiled, and they never did so very much. The auctioneer came and looked at her and filled her with guilt.

Mim shook herself, and suddenly, like the hidden picture in a puzzle, what she should have seen immediately jumped out at her. In the space between Mudgett’s place and James’s, the line between orchard and sky was drawn in angry charcoal. Where the pines had been were brittle black stalks, some broken over and some pointing to the sky, like the rubble in a cornfield stripped and darkened by frost. The black extended out across the cut hay in the orchard to include half a dozen apple trees. In several places the dark river lapped at the edges of Mudgett’s yard then ran away again into the woods.

Hildie pushed the door open and danced to the case which held the candy and plastic toys. She pressed her nose against it until her breath frosted up the glass and she couldn’t see. Then she pulled back and started to draw a face with her finger in the mist.

“Get away from that case, Hildie,” Fanny said, sitting on her high stool behind the counter, so still she seemed only a voice in the dark store.

Mim pulled the child away from the case. She had a comment planned, like the first line of a play. “Some weather for December,” she managed. “Can’t complain about this.” She moved shakily to the milk cabinet and took out a gallon in a glass bottle. Pulvers Dairy. Maybe milk from her own cows. She put the bottle on the worn pine counter.

“That be all?” Fanny asked.

“No. I’ll be needin’ some flour,” Mim said.

“Takin’ a trip?” Fanny asked, nodding at the roof over the truck.

“Just considerin’,” Mim said.

“Hard to say about the weather,” Fanny said, writing down $1.41 for the milk on the back of a paper bag. “A good snow’d put an end to them fires.”

Mim picked up a bag and found it was sugar instead of flour. She stooped to put it back.

“If you want to put an end to them,” Fanny said.

Mim turned, frowning. “Fires?” she repeated, feeling the heaviness of her motions, sensing she had answered too slowly, wondering if she had already given John away.

“Ayyup,” Fanny said. “Some year for accidents, this one. Most beyond belief.”

“You say you had a fire?” Mim asked, standing at the counter holding out three crumpled dollar bills. Hildie was whining and pulling on her hand, trying to drag her toward the candy case.

“You mean you ain’t heard?” Fanny said.

Mim shook her head.

“Well, don’t know how you would, all alone up there. Guess you ain’t got no phone these days?”

Mim shook her head again.

“You stop that now, Hildie,” Fanny said, handing the child a Mars bar with a greasy wrapper. “These here are gettin’ kinda old. Now no more fussin’, hear?” She turned to Mim and took the money. “Comes of bein’ the only child. You always spare the rod when you got only the one. You put too high a value on them.”

“What about the fire?” Mim asked softlv.

✓

“Up to Gore’s.”

“Gore’s!”

“Yep. Funny thing. House burned to the ground. But that old barn ain’t touched. Got a charmed life, that barn of Toby’s.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Hard to say at first.”

Mim took the change without counting it to see whether Fanny had charged her for the candy bar. She stared at Fanny.

Fanny chuckled. “They thought Bob was cooked, ’cause he weren’t nowhere to be found. Then they took note that that spiffy new truck with the sirene was gone too. And they found the old man in the barn. He just took a blanket and moved right in. His everlastin’ cows. All he ever cared about, his cows. That barn’s goin’ to collapse on him, first big snow. You wait.”

Mim tried to think of something to say. “He’s gettin’ on the old side to be livin’ all alone,” she said.

Fanny shrugged. “You don’t figure Bobby’ll be that eager to come back? Guess the old man’s goin’ to fall on the town after all. Nineteen kids and not a one worth a plugged nickel.”

Mim smiled uneasily.

“Or maybe that auctioneer there’ll do for him. Ought to, you ask me.

Trying to sort out the pieces, to think how John’s fire could have burned down Gore’s place, Mim stood at the counter holding her bag of flour, and let the silence stretch too far. “I guess so,” she murmured. “Tough luck.”

Fanny shoved the brown paper bag with the milk and flour across the counter toward Mim with a sharp look. “Breaks your heart, don’t it, dearie,” she said.

Mim’s heart somersaulted. She took the bag in one arm and crowded Hildie toward the door with the other.

“There’s a firebug loose, all right,” Fanny added. “Tried to set the whole Parade alight the night before.”

Mim looked back. “What?” she said.

“You heard me. Take a look up yonder past Mudgett’s. You mean that’s not what you was lookin’ at, sittin’ in the truck afore you come in?”