“Dollar ’n’ a quatter,” snaps Mrs. Sanders.
“Dollar thutty.”
“Dollar fifty,” says Mrs. Sanders, “and if you’re fool enough to bid more you kin have it.”
Mark pretended to try to get more bids, but there weren’t any, so he stuttered, “G-goin’, goin’, g-gone to Mis’ Sanders for a dollar ’n’ a half.”
I wrapped up the sale and handed it to her and she gave me the money. I was trying hard to keep my face straight—for that pitcher and wash-bowl had been standing in our window for two months with ninety-eight cents marked on it as plain as the nose on Jehoshaphat P. Skip’s face.
The next thing was a new-fangled carpet-sweeper that father had bought a year ago and never got anybody interested in. Mark he explained it careful, and threw a handful of papers and things on the floor and swept them up to show how well it worked. Then he looked the crowd over slow and calculating. Over at one side stood old man Meggs, who was an old batch and kept house by himself.
“L-labor-savin’,” says Mark. “Just the thing for a single man. No broom. Gits all the dirt. Almost works by itself. Make me an offer, Mr. Meggs.”
Mr. Meggs scratched his nose and hunched his shoulders and pulled down his hat and cleared his throat. “Calc’late she’s wuth a quatter,” says he.
“It’s worth more to Miss Mullins than that,” says Mark, looking over at her where she stood. Miss Mullins wasn’t married, either, and she wore clothes like a man and talked about running for town clerk. She and Meggs didn’t like each other, for some reason, and wouldn’t even speak on the street. “You ain’t g-goin’ to let him have this splendid carpet-sweeper for a quarter, are you?”
She tossed her head. “Fifty cents,” says she, just to show Meggs there was some real bidding going on.