by Edna Ferber
Selina wished she could think of something to say. She looked down at Pervus DeJong. The back of his neck was pink, as though with effort. She thought, instinctively, “My goodness, he’s trying to think of something to say, too.” That, somehow, put her at her ease. She would wait until he spoke. His neck was now a deep red. The crowd surged back at some disturbance around Adam Ooms’s elevation. Selina teetered perilously on her box, put out a hand blindly, felt his great hard hand on her arm, steadying her.
“Quite a crowd, ain’t it?” The effort had reached its apex. The red of his neck began to recede.
“Oh, quite!”
“They ain’t all High Prairie. Some of ’em’s from Low Prairie way. New Haarlem, even.”
“Really!”
A pause. Another effort.
“How goes it school teaching?”
“Oh—it goes pretty well.”
“You are little to be school teacher, anyway, ain’t you?”
“Little!” She drew herself up from her vantage point of the soapbox. “I’m bigger than you are.”
They laughed at that as at an exquisite piece of repartee.
Adam Oom’s gavel (a wooden potato masher) crashed for silence. “Ladies!” [Crash!] “And gents!” [Crash!] “Gents! Look what basket we’ve got here!” Look indeed. A great hamper, grown so plethoric that it could no longer wear its cover. Its contents bellied into a mound smoothly covered with a fine white cloth whose glistening surface proclaimed it damask. A Himalaya among hampers. You knew that under that snowy crust lay gold that was fowl done crisply, succulently; emeralds in the form of gherkins; rubies that melted into strawberry preserves; cakes frosted like diamonds; to say nothing of such semi-precious jewels as potato salad; cheeses; sour cream to be spread on rye bread and butter; coffee cakes; crullers.
Crash! “The Widow Paarlenberg’s basket, ladies—and gents! The Widow Paarlenberg! I don’t know what’s in it. You don’t know what’s in it. We don’t have to know what’s in it. Who has eaten Widow Paarlenberg’s chicken once don’t have to know. Who has eaten Widow Paarlenberg’s cake once don’t have to know. What am I bid on Widow Paarlenberg’s basket! What am I bid! WhatmIbidwhatmIbidwhatmIbid!” [Crash!]
The widow herself, very handsome in black silk, her gold neck chain rising and falling richly with the little flurry that now agitated her broad bosom, was seated in a chair against the wall not five feet from the auctioneer’s stand. She bridled now, blushed, cast down her eyes, cast up her eyes, succeeded in looking as unconscious as a complaisant Turkish slave girl on the block.
Adam Ooms’s glance swept the hall. He leaned forward, his fox-like face fixed in a smile. From the widow herself, seated so prominently at his right, his gaze marked the young blades of the village; the old bucks; youths and widowers and bachelors. Here was the prize of the evening. Around, in a semi-circle, went his keen glance until it reached the tall figure towering in the doorway—reached it, and rested there. His gimlet eyes seemed to bore their way into Pervus DeJong’s steady stare. He raised his right arm aloft, brandishing the potato masher. The whole room fixed its gaze on the blond head in the doorway. “Speak up! Young men of High Prairie! Heh, you, Pervus DeJong! WhatmIbidwhatmIbidwhatmIbid!”
“Fifty cents!” The bid came from Gerrit Pon at the other end of the hall. A dashing offer, as a start, in this district where one dollar often represented the profits on a whole load of market truck brought to the city.
Crash! went the potato masher. “Fifty cents I’m bid. Who’ll make it seventy-five? Who’ll make it seventy-five?”
“Sixty!” Johannes Ambuul, a widower, his age more than the sum of his bid.
“Seventy!” Gerrit Pon.
Adam Ooms whispered it—hissed it. “S-s-s-seventy. Ladies and gents, I wouldn’t repeat out loud sucha figger. I would be ashamed. Look at this basket, gents, and then you can say . . . s-s-seventy!”
“Seventy-five!” the cautious Ambuul.
Scarlet, flooding her face, belied the widow’s outward air of composure. Pervus DeJong, standing beside Selina, viewed the proceedings with an air of detachment. High Prairie was looking at him expectantly, openly. The widow bit her red lip, tossed her head. Pervus DeJong returned the auctioneer’s meaning smirk with the mild gaze of a disinterested outsider. High Prairie, Low Prairie, and New Haarlem sat tense, like an audience at a play. Here, indeed, was drama being enacted in a community whose thrills were all too rare.
“Gents!” Adam Ooms’s voice took on a tearful note—the tone of one who is more hurt than angry. “Gents!” Slowly, with infinite reverence, he lifted one corner of the damask cloth that concealed the hamper’s contents—lifted it and peered within as at a treasure. At what he saw there he started back dramatically, at once rapturous, despairing, amazed. He rolled his eyes. He smacked his lips. He rubbed his stomach. The sort of dumb show that, since the days of the Greek drama, has been used to denote gastronomic delight.
“Eighty!” was wrenched suddenly from Goris Von Vuuren, the nineteen-year-old fat and gluttonous son of a prosperous New Haarlem farmer.
Adam Ooms rubbed brisk palms together. “Now then! A dollar! A dollar! It’s an insult to this basket to make it less than a dollar.” He lifted the cover again, sniffed, appeared overcome. “Gents, if it wasn’t for Mrs. Ooms sitting there I’d make it a dollar myself and a bargain. A dollar! Am I bid a dollar!” He leaned far forward over his improvised pulput. “Did I hear you say a dollar, Pervus DeJong?” DeJong stared, immovable, unabashed. His very indifference was contagious. The widow’s bountiful basket seemed to shrink before one’s eyes. “Eighty-eighty-eighty-eighty-gents! I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to whisper a secret.” His lean face was veined with craftiness. “Gents. Listen. It isn’t chicken in this beautiful basket. It isn’t chicken. It’s”—a dramatic pause—“it’s roast duck!” He swayed back, mopped his brow with his red handkerchief, held one hand high in the air. His last card.
“Eighty-five!” groaned the fat Goris Von Vuuren.
“Eighty-five! Eighty-five! Eightyfiveeightyfiveeightyfive eighty-five! Gents! Gen-tle-men! Eight-five once! Eighty-five—twice!” [Crash!] “Gone to Goris Von Vuuren for eighty-five.”
A sigh went up from the assemblage; a sigh that was the wind before the storm. There followed a tornado of talk. It crackled and thundered. The rich Widow Paarlenberg would have to eat her supper with Von Vuuren’s boy, the great thick Goris. And there in the doorway, talking to teacher as if they had known each other for years, was Pervus DeJong with his money in his pocket. It was as good as a play.
Adam Ooms was angry. His lean, fox-like face became pinched with spite. He prided himself on his antics as auctioneer; and his chef d’oeuvre had brought a meagre eight-five cents, besides doubtless winning him the enmity of that profitable store customer, the Widow Paarlenberg. Goris Von Vuuren came forward to claim his prize amidst shouting, clapping, laughter. The great hamper was handed down to him; an ample, rich-looking burden, its handle folded comfortably over its round stomach, its white cover so glistening with starch and ironing that it gave back the light from the big lamp above the auctioneer’s stand. As Goris Von Vuuren lifted it his great shoulders actually sagged. Its contents promised satiety even to such a feeder as he. A grin, half sheepish, half triumphant, creased his plump pink face.
Adam Ooms scuffled about among the many baskets at his feet. His nostrils looked pinched and his skinny hands shook a little as he searched for one small object.
When he stood upright once more he was smiling. His little eyes gleamed. His wooden sceptre pounded for silence. High in one hand, balanced daintily on his finger tips, he held Selina’s little white shoe box, with its red ribbon binding it, and the plume of evergreen stuck in the ribbon. Affecting great solicitude he brought it down then to read the name written on it; held it aloft again, smirking.
He said nothing. Grinning, he held it high. He turned his body at the waist from side to side, so that all might see. The eyes of t
hose before him still held a mental picture of the huge hamper, food-packed, that had just been handed down. The contrast was too absurd, too cruel. A ripple of laughter swept the room; rose; swelled to a roar. Adam Ooms drew his mouth down solemnly. His little finger elegantly crooked, he pendulumed the box to right and left. He swerved his beady eyes from side to side. He waited with a nice sense of the dramatic until the laughter had reached its height, then held up a hand for silence. A great scraping “Ahem!” as he cleared his throat threatened to send the crowd off again. “Ladies—and gents! Here’s a dainty little tidbit. Here’s something not only for the inner man, but a feast for the eye. Well, boys, if the last lot was too much for you this lot ought to be just about right. If the food ain’t quite enough for you, you can tie the ribbon in the lady’s hair and put the posy in your buttonhole and there you are. There you are! What’s more, the lady herself goes with it. You don’t get a country girl with this here box, gents. A city girl, you can tell by looking at it, just. And who is she? Who did up this dainty little box just big enough for two?” He inspected it again, solemnly, and added, as an afterthought, “If you ain’t feeling specially hungry. Who?——” He looked about, apishly.
Selina’s cheeks matched her gown. Her eyes were wide and dark with the effort she was making to force back the hot haze threatening them. Why had she mounted this wretched soap-box! Why had she come to this hideous party! Why had she come to High Prairie! Why! . . .
“Miss Selina Peake, that’s who. Miss Se-li-na Peake!”
A hundred balloon faces pulled by a single cord turned toward her as she stood there on the box for all to see. They swam toward her. She put up a hand to push them back.
“What’m I bid! What’m I bid! What’m I bid for this here lovely little toothful, gents! Start her up!”
“Five cents!” piped up old Johannes Ambuul, with a snicker. The tittering crowd broke into a guffaw. Selina was conscious of a little sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. Through the haze she saw the widow’s face, no longer sulky, but smiling now. She saw Roelf’s dear dark head. His face was set, like a man’s. He was coming toward her, or trying to, but the crowd wedged him in, small as he was among those great bodies. She lost sight of him. How hot it was! how hot . . . An arm at her waist. Some one had mounted the little box and stood teetering there beside her, pressed against her slightly, reassuringly. Pervus DeJong. Her head was on a level with his great shoulder now. They stood together in the doorway, on the soap-box, for all High Prairie to see.
“Five cents I’m bid for this lovely little mouthful put up by the school teacher’s own fair hands. Five cents! Five——”
“One dollar!” Pervus DeJong.
The balloon faces were suddenly punctured with holes. High Prairie’s jaw dropped with astonishment. Its mouth stood open.
There was nothing plain about Selina now. Her dark head was held high, and his fair one beside it made a vivid foil. The purchase of the wine-coloured cashmere was at last justified.
“And ten!” cackled old Johannes Ambuul, his rheumy eyes on Selina.
Art and human spitefulness struggled visibly for mastery in Adam Ooms’s face—and art won. The auctioneer triumphed over the man. The term “crowd psychology” was unknown to him, but he was artist enough to sense that some curious magic process, working through this roomful of people, had transformed the little white box, from a thing despised and ridiculed, into an object of beauty, of value, of infinite desirability. He now eyed it in a catalepsy of admiration.
“One-ten I’m bid for this box all tied with a ribbon to match the gown of the girl who brought it. Gents, you get the ribbon, the lunch, and the girl. And only one-ten bid for that. Gents! Gents! Remember, it ain’t only a lunch—it’s a picture. It pleases the eye. Do I hear one——”
“Five bits!” Barend DeRoo, of Low Prairie, in the lists. A strapping young Dutchman, the Brom Bones of the district. Aaltje Huff, in a fit of pique at his indifference, had married to spite him. Cornelia Vinke, belle of New Haarlem, was said to be languishing for love of him. He drove to the Haymarket with his load of produce and played cards all night on the wagon under the gas torches while the street girls of the neighbourhood assailed him in vain. Six feet three, his red face shone now like a harvest moon above the crowd. A merry, mischievous eye that laughed at Pervus DeJong and his dollar bid.
“Dollar and a half!” A high clear voice—a boy’s voice. Roelf.
“Oh, no!” said Selina aloud. But she was unheard in the gabble. Roelf had once confided to her that he had saved three dollars and fifty cents in the last three years. Five dollars would purchase a set of tools that his mind had been fixed on for months past. Selina saw Klaas Pool’s look of astonishment changing to anger. Saw Maartje Pool’s quick hand on his arm, restraining him.
“Two dollars!” Pervus DeJong.
“Twotwotwotwotwotwo!” Adam Ooms in a frenzy of salesmanship.
“And ten.” Johannes Ambuul’s cautious bid.
“Two and a quarter.” Barend DeRoo.
“Two-fifty!” Pervus DeJong.
“Three dollars!” The high voice of the boy. It cracked a little on the last syllable, and the crowd laughed.
“Three-three-three-three-threethreethree. Three once——”
“And a half.” Pervus DeJong.
“Three sixty.”
“Four!” DeRoo.
“And ten.”
The boy’s voice was heard no more.
“I wish they’d stop,” whispered Selina.
“Five!” Pervus DeJong.
“Six!” DeRoo, his face very red.
“And ten.”
“Seven!”
“It’s only jelly sandwiches,” said Selina to DeJong, in a panic.
“Eight!” Johannes Ambuul, gone mad.
“Nine!” DeRoo.
“Nine! Nine I’m bid! Nine-nine-nine! Who’ll make it——”
“Let him have it. The cup cakes fell a little. Don’t——”
“Ten!” said Pervus DeJong.
Barend DeRoo shrugged his great shoulders.
“Ten-ten-ten. Do I hear eleven? Do I hear ten-fifty! Ten-ten-ten-ten-tententtentententen! Gents! Ten once. Ten twice! Gone!—for ten dollars to Pervus DeJong. And a bargain.” Adam Ooms mopped his bald head and his cheeks and the damp spot under his chin.
Ten dollars. Adam Ooms knew, as did all the countryside, this was not the sum of ten dollars merely. No basket of food, though it contained nightingales’ tongues, the golden apple of Atalanta, wines of rare vintage, could have been adequate recompense for these ten dollars. They represented sweat and blood; toil and hardship; hours under the burning prairie sun at mid-day; work doggedly carried on through the drenching showers of spring; nights of restless sleep snatched an hour at a time under the sky in the Chicago market place; miles of weary travel down the rude corduroy road between High Prairie and Chicago, now up to the hubs in mud, now blinded by dust and blowing sand.
A sale at Christie’s, with a miniature going for a million, could not have met with a deeper hush, a more dramatic babble following the hush.
They ate their lunch together in one corner of Adam Ooms’s hall. Selina opened the box and took out the devilled eggs, and the cup cakes that had fallen a little, and the apples, and the sandwiches sliced very, very thin. The coldly appraising eye of all High Prairie, Low Prairie, and New Haarlem watched this sparse provender emerge from the ribbon-tied shoe box. She offered him a sandwich. It looked infinitesimal in his great paw. Suddenly all Selina’s agony of embarrassment was swept away, and she was laughing, not wildly or hysterically, but joyously and girlishly. She sank her little white teeth into one of the absurd sandwiches and looked at him, expecting to find him laughing, too. But he wasn’t laughing. He looked very earnest, and his blue eyes were fixed hard on the bit of bread in his hand, and his face was very red and clean-shaven. He bit into the sandwich and chewed it solemnly. And Selina thought: “Why, the dear thing! The great big dear thing! A
nd he might have been eating breast of duck . . . Ten dollars!” Aloud she said, “What made you do it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Then, “You looked so little. And they were making fun. Laughing.” He looked very earnest, and his blue eyes were fixed hard on the sandwich, and his face was very red.
“That’s a very foolish reason for throwing away ten dollars,” Selina said, severely.
He seemed not to hear her; bit ruminantly into one of the cup cakes. Suddenly: “I can’t hardly write at all, only to sign my name and like that.”
“Read?”
“Only to spell out the words. Anyways I don’t get time for reading. But figuring I wish I knew. ‘Rithmetic. I can figger some, but those fellows in Haymarket they are too sharp for me. They do numbers in their head—like that, so quick.”
Selina leaned toward him. “I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you.”
“How do you mean, teach me?”
“Evenings.”
He looked down at his great calloused palms, then up at her. “What would you take for pay?”
“Pay! I don’t want any pay.” She was genuinely shocked.
His face lighted up with a sudden thought. “Tell you what. My place is just this side the school, next to Bouts’s place. I could start for you the fire, mornings, in the school. And thaw the pump and bring in a pail of water. This month, and January and February and part of March, even, now I don’t go to market on account it’s winter, I could start you the fire. Till spring. And I could come maybe three times a week, evenings, to Pool’s place, for lessons.” He looked so helpless, so humble, so huge; and the more pathetic for his hugeness.
She felt a little rush of warmth toward him that was at once impersonal and maternal. She thought again, “Why, the dear thing! The great helpless big thing! How serious he is! And funny.” He was indeed both serious and funny, with the ridiculous cup cake in his great hand, his eyes wide and ruminant, his face ruddier than ever, his forehead knotted with earnestness. She laughed, suddenly, a gay little laugh and he, after a puzzled pause, joined her companionably.