Adopting an Abandoned Farm | Page 4

of all sizes, from one generous enough to satisfy the capacities of a lager-soaked Dutchman to a dear little child's mug, evidently once belonging to a series. Mine was for March. A mother sitting on a bench, with a bowl of possibly Lenten soup by her side, is reproving a fat little fellow for his gross appetite at this solemn season. He is weeping, and on her other side a pet dog is pleading to be fed. The rhyme explains the reason:
The jovial days of feasting past, 'Tis pious prudence come at last; And eager gluttony is taught To be content with what it ought.
A warming pan and a foot stove, just as it was brought home from a merry sleigh-ride, or a solemn hour at the "meetin'-house," recalling that line of Thomas Gray's:
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
Sometimes I would offer a little more to gain some coveted treasure already bid off. How a city friend enjoyed the confidences of a man who had agreed to sell for a profit! How he chuckled as he told of "one of them women who he guessed was a leetle crazy." "Why, jest think on't! I only paid ten cents for that hull lot on the table yonder, and she" (pointing to me) "she gin me a quarter for that old pair o' tongs!"
One day I heard some comments on myself after I had bid on a rag carpet and offered more than the other women knew it was worth.
"She's got a million, I hear."
"Wanter know--merried?"
"No; just an old maid."
"Judas Priest! Howd she git it?"
"Writin', I 'spoze. She writes love stories and sich for city papers. Some on 'em makes a lot."
It is not always cheering to overhear too much. When some of my friends, whom I had taken to a favorite junk shop, felt after two hours of purchase and exploration that they must not keep me waiting any longer, the man, in his eagerness to make a few more sales, exclaimed: "Let her wait; her time ain't wuth nothin'!"
At an auction last summer, one man told me of a very venerable lantern, an heirloom in his first wife's family, so long, measuring nearly a yard with his hands. I said I should like to go with him to see it, as I was making a collection of lanterns. He looked rather dazed, and as I turned away he inquired of my friend "if I wusn't rather--" She never allowed him to finish, and his lantern is now mine.
People seem to have but little sentiment about their associations with furniture long in the family.
The family and a few intimate friends usually sit at the upper windows gazing curiously on the crowd, with no evidence of feeling or pathetic recollections.
I lately heard a daughter say less than a month after her father's death, pointing to a small cretonne-covered lounge: "Father made me that lounge with his own hands when I's a little girl. He tho't a sight on't it, and allers kep' it 'round. But my house is full now. I ain't got no room for't." It sold for twelve cents!
Arthur Helps says that human nature craves, nay enjoys, tragedy; and when away from dramatic representation of crime and horrors and sudden death, as in this quiet country life, the people gratify their needs in the sorrows, sins, and calamities that befall their neighbors.
I strongly incline to Hawthorne's idea that furniture becomes magnetized, permeated, semi-vitalized, so that the chairs, sofas, and tables that have outlived their dear owners in my own family have almost a sacred value to me.
Still, why moralize. Estates must be settled, and auctions are a blessing in disguise.
Of course, buying so much by substitutes, I amassed a lot of curious things, of which I did not know the use or value, and therefore greatly enjoyed the experience of the Spectator as given in the Christian Union.
He attended an auction with the following result: "A long table was covered with china, earthenware, and glass; and the mantel beyond, a narrow shelf quite near the ceiling, glittered with a tangled maze of clean brass candlesticks, steel snuffers, and plated trays. At one end dangled a huge warming pan, and on the wall near it hung a bit of canvas in a gilded frame, from which the portrait had as utterly faded as he whom it represented had vanished into thin air. It was a strange place, a room from which many a colonial citizen had passed to take a stroll upon the village street; and here, in sad confusion to be sure, the dishes that graced his breakfast table. The Spectator could have lingered there if alone for half a day, but not willingly for half an hour in such a crowd. The crowd, however, closed every exit