The Auctioneer

“All opposed, say ‘Nay.’ ”

There was silence in the room.

“Sam?” Perly said at last, raising an eyebrow in challenge to the old man.

“Well, I’m opposed,” Sam said abruptly and sat down.

After a pause, Ma lifted her cane high and pointed it unsteadily at Perly. “I’d just like to know why it’s you, Mr. Perly Dunsmore, that wants so bad to catch that firebug,” she cried, her voice harsh with effort. “Ain’t nobody set fire to your house.”

Fanny Linden, sitting in front of the Moores, ducked to avoid the cane, and Mim grabbed at it and lowered it to the floor against Ma’s struggles.

“Mrs. Moore,” Perly cried, his hard face twisted, “how can you ask? Harlowe is my town. You were here and never had a choice, but I chose Harlowe. After twenty years in forty different countries, I chose Harlowe to be my home. And to a bachelor like me, a community is mother, father, son, and daughter. Its my family.”

Dixie turned nervously at Perly’s side, but Perly stood easily. “Now I know what’s going on in the world. And if you turn on your television set at night, almost any night, you can see too. You see a picture of young America—usually violence, rebellion, shouting obscenities. This is the new wave. These things are happening everywhere. But Harlowe—Harlowe is hanging on to the old ways. And now this quality of life—this treasuring of human values—is in danger. Nothing can be the same with everyone living in terror of his neighbors. And, if a place isn’t good for my neighbors, it’s not going to be good for me either. That’s why I care, Mrs. Moore. I can’t think of a better use for my money than to save our community.”

“He gave the town the ambulance, didn’t he?” called Tom Pulver, a short barrel-chested man who had lost his barn and part of his house in the fires.

“And glad enough I was too, when my father took pneumonia,” said Vera Janus.

Perly watched, his eyes unblinking as onyx.

Sam Parry was standing again. “Course, if you ain’t got a phone, you can’t phone up for the ambulance. Not that I’m complainin’. My old jeep was plenty good enough to get me to the hospital. And, of course, ain’t nobody offered a reward yet for the damn fool as shot me. And it ain’t strictly necessary neither to be wanderin about in the dark to get shot at these days. I managed it just by goin’ out to my own pump house in broad daylight, now, didn’t I?” Sam put his good hand to his forehead and shook his white mane vigorously. “But I’m gettin’ off the track. Just like me to be gettin’ off the track.”

Sam paused and the crowd murmured.

Anyhow, he went on, “what it was I wanted to say is how come its Perly up there? He ain’t town moderator, as I recall. He ain’t a selectman. Why he ain’t even a cop, though we got so many nowadays. What the dickens is he doin’ runnin’ this here town meetin’?” Sam finished and scowled around at his neighbors.

The answer came, finally, from Ian James, a burly deputy who had been elected to serve as selectman for eight terms running. “Jimmy Carroll’s supposed to be moderator,” he said, standing in his place behind the Moores. “And he’s moved away. As for selectmen, Wards out of town, and old Ike Linden’s been sick. So looks like that leaves me. And I hereby appoint Perly moderator. And anyway, it’s only regular town meetin’s got to be run that way. And it’s Red, not Perly, who’s runnin’ the meetin’.”

Perly smiled gently at Sam. “Who’d you have in mind, Sam?” he asked. “Yourself, perhaps?”

Slowly, the old man sat down. There was no laughter. The rows of faces tilting toward the auctioneer were stolid and noncommittal.

Mudgett stepped up to Perly and darted a sideways glance at him. “I guess we all ought to give Perly a hand,” he announced.

Again, nobody moved.

Perly pulled himself up and his black eyes seemed to penetrate and tally the refusal of every person there to start the applause. “Of course you feel angry,” he acknowledged. “Some of you even suspect that I’m personally to blame. You need to blame someone for the evils of the twentieth century—and you include these fires among them.

“But, believe me, someday you’ll understand what I’ve been doing. Movers and shakers have always had their enemies at first.

“Five years from now, in the new Harlowe, every person in town will leap at the chance to give me a standing ovation.”

Dixie got to her feet and shook herself, and Perly moved smoothly toward the New Hampshire flag and the steps down into the audience.

“Wait just a minute,” said someone near the back and everyone turned, recognizing the voice instantly—the flat matter-of-fact voice of one complacent in his power. It was Dr. Hastings. “Har-lowe’s got more cops per capita these days than New York City,” he said. “It’s got three sophisticated patrol cars, a radio-alert system, and a network of what we used to call ‘informers, which seems to include about half of Harlowe. I’d like to know why, with a force like that, the cops are having so much trouble catching one lousy firebug.”