When Pa arrived at the Carmody store, he saw that the little yard of the Garland place below the hill was already full of people. The auction had evidently begun; so, not to miss any more of it, Pa hurried down. The sorrel mare could wait for her shoes until afterwards.
Ma had been within bounds when she called the Garland auction a “one-horse affair.” It certainly was very paltry, especially when compared to the big Donaldson auction of a month ago, which Pa still lived over in happy dreams.
Horace Garland and his wife had been poor. When they died within six weeks of each other, one of consumption and one of pneumonia, they left nothing but debts and a little furniture. The house had been a rented one.
The bidding on the various poor articles of household gear put up for sale was not brisk, but had an element of resigned determination. Carmody people knew that these things had to be sold to pay the debts, and they could not be sold unless they were bought. Still, it was a very tame affair.
A woman came out of the house carrying a baby of about eighteen months in her arms, and sat down on the bench beneath the window.
“There’s Marthy Blair with the Garland Baby,” said Robert Lawson to Pa. “I’d like to know what’s to become of that poor young one!”
“Ain’t there any of the father’s or mother’s folks to take him?” asked Pa.
“No. Horace had no relatives that anybody ever heard of. Mrs. Horace had a brother; but he went to Manitoba years ago, and nobody knows where he is now. Somebody’ll have to take the baby and nobody seems anxious to. I’ve got eight myself, or I’d think about it. He’s a fine little chap.”
Pa, with Ma’s parting admonition ringing in his ears, did not bid on anything, although it will never be known how great was the heroic self-restraint he put on himself, until just at the last, when he did bid on a collection of flower-pots, thinking he might indulge himself to that small extent. But Josiah Sloane had been commissioned by his wife to bring those flower-pots home to her; so Pa lost them.
“There, that’s all,” said the auctioneer, wiping his face, for the day was very warm for October.