“Say! where’s your other rig?” demanded the professor. “I’ll hire it.”
“Dad’s plowin’ with the big team,” said Lucas, flicking the backs of the ponies with his whip, as they started, “and our old mare is lame. Gid-up!
“That Jud Spink is gittin’ jest as pop’lar ’round here as a pedlar sellin’ mustard plasters in the lower regions!” observed young Pritchett, as they whirled out of the yard.
“Why, Lucas Pritchett! how you talk!” gasped his mother.
The widow’s auction sale–or “vendue”–brought together, as such affairs usually do in the country, more people, and aroused a deal more interest, than does a funeral.
There was a goodly crowd before the little house, or moving idly through the half-dismantled lower rooms when Lucas halted the ponies to let Harris and the ladies out.
To Lyddy’s surprise, the women present–or most of them–welcomed her with more warmth than she had experienced in a greeting since she and her sister had first come to Hillcrest.
But the auctioneer began to put up the household articles for sale very soon and that relieved Lyddy of some embarrassment in meeting these folk who so suddenly had veered toward her.
There were only a few things the girl could afford to buy. The Dutch oven was the most important; and fortunately most of the farmers’ wives had stoves in their kitchens, so there was not much bidding. Lyddy had it nocked down to her for sixty cents.
Mrs. Harrison seemed very sad to see some of her things go, and Lyddy believed that every article that the widow seemed particularly anxious about, young Harris Colesworth bid in.