"Perhaps there is some one here who will cry out the wares for a moment, while Jöns is resting?" said the senator, looking out over the crowd without much hope of finding a helper.
Then Lars Gunnarson pushed his way forward and said he was willing to try. Carl Carslon only laughed at Lars, who at that time looked like a mere stripling, and told him he did not want a small boy who had not even been confirmed. Whereupon Lars promptly informed Carl Carlson that he had not only been confirmed but had also performed military service. He begged so eagerly to be allowed to wield the hammer that the senator finally gave way to him.
"We may as well let you try your hand at it for a while," he said.
"I dare say it can't go any worse than it has gone so far."
Lars promptly stepped into Jöns's place. He took up an old butter tub to offer it—hesitated and just stood there looking at it, turning the tub up and down, tapping on its bottom and sides. Apparently surprised not to find any flaws in it, he presently offered the lot in a reluctant tone of voice, as if distressed at having to sell so valuable an article. For his part, he would rather that no bids be made, he said. It would be lucky for the owner if no one discovered what a precious butter tub this was, for then he could keep it.
And now, when bid followed bid, everybody noticed how disappointed Lars looked. It was all very well so long as the bids were so low as to be beneath his notice; but when they began to mount higher and higher, his face became distorted from chagrin. He seemed to be making a great sacrifice when he finally decided to knock down the sour old butter tub.
After that he turned his attention to the water buckets, the cowls, and washtubs. Lars Gunnarson seemed somewhat less reluctant when it came to disposing of the older ones, which he sold without indulging in overmuch sighing; but the newer lots he did not want to offer at all. "They are far too good to give away," he remarked to the owner. "They've been used so little that you could easily sell them for new at the fair."
The auction hunters had no notion as to why they kept shouting more and more eagerly. Lars Gunnarson showed much distress for every fresh bid; it could never have been to please him they were bidding. Somehow they had come to regard the things he offered as of real worth. It suddenly occurred to them that one thing or another was needed at home and here were veritable bargains, which they were not buying now just for the fun of it, as had been the case when Jöns of Kisterud did the auctioning.
After this master stroke Lars Gunnarson was in great demand at all auctions. There was never any merriment at the sales after he had begun to wield the hammer; but he had the faculty of making folks long to get possession of a lot of old junk and inducing a couple of bigwigs to bid against each other on things they had no earthly use for, simply to show that money was no object to them. And he managed to dispose of everything at all auctions at which he served.
Once only did it seem to go badly for Lars, and that was at Sven Österby's, at Bergvik. There was a fine big house, with all its furnishings up for sale. Many people had assembled, and though late in the autumn the weather was so mild that the auction could be held out of doors; yet the sales were almost negligible. Lars could not make the people take any interest in the wares, or get them to bid. It looked as though it would go no better for him than it had gone for Jöns of Kisterud the day Lars had to take up the hammer to help him out.
Lars Gunnarson, however, had no desire to turn his work over to another. He tried instead to find out what it was that seemed to be distracting the attention of the people and keeping them from making purchases. Nor was he long getting at the cause of it.