Eleanor sat beside Andrews in the other car, and entertained him with a highly colored story of Polly and her home in Pebbly Pit. Before they reached the Fabian home in New York, young Andrews pictured the enormous wealth of "Choko's Find" gold mine, and the marvellous beauty of the lava jewels found in Rainbow Cliffs on the ranch. To think that one girl should be lucky enough to own both such money-producers!

Shortly after dinner that evening, Mr. Dalken telephoned the girls and told them to come over to his apartment for a party. He explained that he had two nice little boys visiting him, and he was at a loss to know how to entertain them so that they would care to come again, another day.

Remembering how well Polly and her friends managed other boys, he felt sure that they could help him now.

Polly laughed in reply, and said: "Oh yes! If one of those boys now visiting you, is anything like Jack Baxter who drove me home, this afternoon, we won't have any trouble in amusing them."

But Polly never told Mr. Dalken that Jack declared himself so deeply in love with her, before she had been in his car ten minutes, that she had all she could do to keep him at the wheel instead of placing an arm about her, and thus stalling the engine in the ditch alongside the main road to the city.

That evening, after the girls returned from Mr. Dalken's party, Eleanor remarked: "My goodness! Polly has another scalp to hang to her belt of trophies. If she keeps on piercing hearts, as she has done this past year, she'll have to discard some of her old scalps and loan them to us, to make room for her new ones."

But Polly sniffed loftily at such foolishness, and made no reply.

CHAPTER VIII

ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT COLLECTING

Although the trip planned for the Dobb's Ferry territory had ended so disastrously, the girls were not discouraged. Dodo secured a license without any difficulty, and was equipped to drive Mr. Dalken's car without being fined a second time. But the wise owner of the car considered it wiser to send Carl out on these excursions, instead of trusting to Fate to bring the girls back home again without broken bones or a damage suit.

Mr. Fabian had had a brilliant idea, too, after he heard his wife's story of the country auction where the old antiques had been secured by Mrs.

Tomlinson. He suggested that they subscribe to several country papers, both daily and weekly, and in that way they would learn of any vendue advertised in its columns.

Eagerly following his advice, the four girls--Nancy was not interested in antiques but was willing to go around with her friends when they hunted for them--subscribed for the Yonkers papers, the White Plains papers, several weeklies in New Jersey, and others, in order to learn of any country auctions advertised for the following week.

Through this medium, they read of a country sale advertised for the following Thursday, to take place at an old farm home-stead way back in the hills of Westchester. The items mentioned included a mahogany four-poster bed, and other old bits.

Polly and Eleanor had not attended an auction since the days in Paris, and neither of them had ever heard of, or witnessed a back-farm country auction, so they were not prepared for what they really experienced.

Carl was detailed to drive them, that day, and Mrs. Fabian escorted them, in the seven-pa.s.senger car. They took the turnpike road as far as White Plains and then turned to the left to follow a country road that would lead past the farm.

The sale was advertised for eleven o'clock, but the girls did not arrive on the premises until twelve. Still no auctioneer was to be seen or heard. Groups of farmers stood around, gossiping about their crops that season, and their wives sat indoors exchanging notes on canning, new neighbors, or babies.

Polly gazed curiously at the types a.s.sembled for that sale, and whispered to Eleanor: "Wouldn't you say these farmers had been picked up from Oak Creek ranches and dropped down here in this front door-yard?"

Eleanor smiled and nodded. Then she said in a low voice: "They don't look as if they were here to buy. We seem to be the only folks here with a pocket-book."

A young farmer who had been leaning against the old well now came forward to welcome the strangers who stood looking about.

"I be the clerk fer the auctionair, but he hain't come, yit. His baby swallered a shet safety-pin an' they had an orful time wid ippycak tryin'

to git it that way. Now the doctor's thar sayin' that stuff is all wrong.

He'll git the pin, all right, 'cause I swallered a quarter, onct, and he got it, but it costed me a hull dollar extra to pay him fer his docterin'. Ye's kin go in and peer aroun' to see ef you wants anything."

Mrs. Fabian expressed her sympathy for the parents of the baby and said she knew just how frightened the mother must be.

"Not much!" was the clerk's astonishing reply. "She's young Kit Morehouse what ain't got a grain of sense in her bean. This baby's mother died when it was a week old, and Lem had to have someone look affer it. Thar warn't no sensible woman about what would hev him, 'cause he don't make salt fer a red herrin', seein' his professhun is auctionin' an' folks ain't sellin' out like-as-much as they ust to be, years ago. But this crazy Kit was onny nineteen, with no fam'ly, er no payin' job, so she hired out to take keer of the kid. Don't it allus end like this? The gal marries the father an' gets mad cause another woman's kid is cryin' around!"

The girls were intensely interested in this bit of local gossip, but Mrs.

Fabian thought they had heard enough about "Kit," so she bid the clerk good-by and started for the low one-story-and-a-half house.

The interior presented a different appearance from the home of Mrs.

Tomlinson's. Every conceivable object ever used in the house was brought out and placed in the front rooms. Women and children sat about on various sorts of seats, waiting for the sale to begin. As most of the a.s.sembly were neighbors and acquainted with each other, the entrance of Mrs. Fabian and her girls caused quite a surprise.

Audible whispers of "Who air they?" and "Where did they come from?" or "What d'ye s'pose they come to bid on?" were heard on all sides as the strangers pa.s.sed through the "settin' room."

The moment Mrs. Fabian's party left the clerk, outside, he hurried over to the automobile where Carl sat enjoying a quiet smoke.

"Howde," began Abner Clark, the clerk.

Carl removed his pipe and nodded nonchalantly.

"Do you-all hail from about these parts?" asked Abner.

"I should say _not_!" declared Carl, emphatically.

"From whar abouts are you?" continued the clerk.

"New York City--and that's some town, let me tell you."

"Yeh--so I've heran say. How did yeh get to come here to this vendue?"

persisted Abner.

"_I_ don't know--I'm only the chauffeur. Why don't you ask the ladies if you are so anxious to know?" Carl was growing angry.

"All right--no harm meant," replied Abner, soothingly, as he turned away.

Carl resumed his pipe, and Abner strolled over to the group of men sitting on wheel-barrows, ploughs, chicken-coops, etc. With a furtive look over his shoulder, to make sure the city driver was not listening, Abner began to explain to his interested friends who the strangers were.

But he had not quite ended his tale before an old buggy drove up and the auctioneer got out. He glanced over the a.s.sembled farmers with an appraising eye, and then carefully hitched the old nag to a tree. This done, he broke off a great chunk of tobacco from a cake kept in a blue paper, and popped it into his mouth.

Abner walked over to the white-washed fence to greet his superior. "How's the kid?" were his first words.

"All right, now. He diden' swaller the pin, after all. The doctor found it down inside his shirt, an' it cost me a dollar besides all that good mustard and eppicac, fer nuthin'!"

"Well, well!" sympathized Abner, not knowing what would be best to say in such a delicate case.

"Did yuh keep all the folks about when I sent word over?" continued the auctioneer.

"Shure! An' we've got some swell city buyers, this time."

"City! You don't mean anyone from the city'd want to buy old Morrisey's trash?" exclaimed Lemuel, in disbelief.

"I dunno what they want, but thar's their man what steers the autermobile," and Abner directed a thumb over his left shoulder.

"Wall, wall! Come along; we'll hurry up to get some of their coin afore they git tired awaitin'!" declared the wise man, as he made haste to reach the house.

Mrs. Fabian and the girls had made a cursory visit to the rooms on the ground floor, and while they stood in the small kitchen examining various old dishes and gla.s.sware in the cupboard, Polly spied a very narrow staircase leading to the attic.