"No, I haven't yet," said the Professor.

"Well, then, my advice to you," continued Huldy, "is don't delay; if you do perhaps some other fellow may ask her first, and she may consent, not knowing that you think so much of her."

"Well, I've thought of that," said the Professor. "I guess you're right.

What would you say," continued he, "if I told you that I had asked her?"

"Well, I should say," answered Huldy, "that you told me only a minute or two ago that you hadn't."

"Well, I hadn't then," said the Professor.

"I don't really see how you have had any chance to ask her, as you say you have," remarked Huldy, "in the short time that has pa.s.sed since you said you hadn't. I am not very quick at seeing a joke, Professor, but p'raps I can understand what you mean, if you will tell me when you asked her, and where you asked her to marry you."

"Just now! Right here!" cried the Professor; and before Huldy could interpose he had arisen from his chair and had fallen on his knees before her.

Huldy looked at him with a startled expression, then as the whole matter dawned upon her she burst into a loud laugh. The Professor looked up with a grieved expression on his face. Huldy became grave instantly.

"I wasn't laughing at you, Professor. I'm sure I'm grateful for your esteem and friendship, but it never entered my head till this moment that you had any idea of asking me to be your wife. What made you think such a thing possible?"

The Professor was quite portly, and it was with some little difficulty that he regained his feet, and his face was rather red with the exertion when he had succeeded.

"Well, you see," said he, "I never thought much about it till that city feller came down here to board; then the whole town knew that you and 'Zeke Pettengill had had a fallin' out, and then by and by that city feller who was boardin' with your folks went away, and I kinder thought that as you didn't have any steady feller--"

Huldy broke in,--"You thought I was in the market again and that your chances were as good as those of any one else?"

"Yes, that's jest it," said the Professor. "You put it jest as I would have said it, if you hadn't said it fust."

"Well, really, Professor, I can't understand what gave you and the whole town the idea that there was any falling out between Mr. Pettengill and myself. We have grown up together, we have always loved each other very much, and we have been engaged to be married--"

"Since when?" broke in the Professor, excitedly.

"Since the day before I last engaged you to give me music lessons,"

replied Huldy.

What the Professor would have said in reply to this will never be known; for at that moment Mrs. Mason opened the door, and looking in, said, "The Deacon's come."

Strout grasped his hat, and with a hurried bow and "Good morning" to Huldy, left the room, closing the door behind him. It must be said for the Professor that he bore defeat with great equanimity, and when he reached the great kitchen and shook hands with Deacon Mason, who had just come in from the barn, the casual observer would have noticed nothing peculiar in his expression.

"Waal, Deacon," said he in a low tone, "did you git the money?"

"Oh, I've 'ranged 'bout the money," said the Deacon; "but I had a talk with my lawyer, and he said it wasn't good bizness for me to pay over the five hundred dollars till the store was actually knocked down to you. Here's that note of yourn that the town clerk endorsed las' night.

Neow, when the auctioneer says the store is yourn I'll give yer the five hundred dollars and take the note. I'll be up to the auction by half-past two, so you needn't worry, it'll be jest the same as though yer had the money in yer hand."

Strout looked a little disturbed; but thinking the matter over quickly, he decided that he had nothing to gain by arguing the question with the Deacon; so saying, "Be sure and be on hand, Deacon, for it's a sure thing my gettin' that store, if I have the cash to pay down," he left the house.

He went up the hill and turned the corner on the way back to his boarding house. When he got out of sight of the Deacon's house he stopped, clenched his hands, shut his teeth firmly together and stamped his foot on the ground; then he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a savage whisper, "Women are wussern catamounts; you know which way a catamount's goin' to jump.

I wonder whether she was honest about that, or whether she's been foolin' me all this time; she'll be a sorry girl when I git that store and 'lected tax collector, and git app'inted postmaster. I've got three tricks left, ef I have lost two. I wonder who it was put that idea into the Deacon's head not ter let me have thet money till the sale was over.

I bet a dollar it wuz thet city feller. Abner says thet he met Appleby on his way back to Montrose, and he told him thet he saw thet city feller and the Deacon drive off tergether from front o' the bank. Oh!

nonsense, what would the son of a millionaire want of a grocery store in a little country town like this?" and he went into his boarding house to dinner.

A few moments after two o'clock Strout could restrain his impatience no longer, and leaving his boarding house he walked over to the grocery store. Quite a number of the Mason's Corner people were gathered in the Square, for to them an auction sale was as good as a show. Quincy had not arrived, and the Professor tried to quiet his nerves by walking up and down the platform and smoking a cigar. The crowd gradually increased, quite a number coming in teams from Montrose and from Eastborough Centre. One of the teams from Montrose brought the auctioneer, Mr. Beers, with whom Strout was acquainted. He gave the auctioneer a cigar, and they walked up and down the platform smoking and talking about everything else but the auction sale. It was a matter of professional dignity with Mr. Barnabas Beers, auctioneer, not to be on too friendly terms with bidders before an auction. He had found that it had detracted from his importance and had lowered bids, if he allowed would be purchasers to converse with him concerning the articles to be sold. It was their business, he maintained in a heated argument one evening in the hotel at Montrose, to find out by personal inspection the condition and value of what was to be sold, and it was his business, he said, to know as little about it as possible, for the less he knew the less it would interfere with his descriptive powers when, hammer in hand, he took his position on the bench. Having established a professional standing, Barnabas Beers was not a man to step down, and though the Professor, after a while, endeavored to extract some information from the auctioneer as to whether there was likely to be many bidders, he finally gave it up in despair, for he found Mr. Beers as uncommunicative as a hitching post, as he afterwards told Abner Stiles.

About half-past two Deacon Mason drove into the Square, and the Professor went to meet him, and shook hands with him. In a short time his other backers, who had agreed to endorse his notes to the amount of two thousand dollars, arrived upon the scene, and he took occasion to welcome them in a manner that could not escape the attention of the crowd. It was now ten minutes of three, and the auctioneer stepped upon the temporary platform that had been erected for him, and bringing his hammer down upon the head of a barrel that had been placed in front of him, he read, in a loud voice, which reached every portion of the Square, the printed notice that for several weeks had hung upon the fences, sheds, and trees of Mason's Corner, Eastborough Centre, West Eastborough, and Montrose.

It was now three o'clock, for that hour was rung out by the bell on the Rev. Caleb Howe's church. The auctioneer prefaced his inquiry for bids by the usual grandiloquence in use by members of that fraternity, closing his oration with that often-heard remark, "How much am I offered?"

The Professor, who was standing by the side of Deacon Mason's team, called out in a loud voice, "Fifteen hundred!"

"Well, I'll take that just for a starter," said the auctioneer, "but of course no sane man not fitted to be the inmate of an idiotic asylum thinks that this fine piece of ground, this long-built and long-established grocery store, filled to overflowing with all the necessities and delicacies of the season, a store which has been in successful operation for nearly forty years, and of which the good will is worth a good deal more than the sum just bid, will be sold for any such preposterous figure! Gentlemen, I am listening."

Suddenly a voice from the rear of the crowd called out, "T-o-o-t-o to to-oo-two thousand!"

As if by magic, every head was turned, for the majority of those in the crowd recognized the voice at once. There was but one man in Mason's Corner who stammered, and that man was Hiram Maxwell.

They turned, and all saw seated in the Pettengill team Hiram Maxwell, and beside him sat Mr. Sawyer from Boston.

"Oh, that's more like it," said the auctioneer. "Compet.i.tion is the life of trade, and is particularly pleasing to an auctioneer. The first gentleman who bid now sees that there is another gentleman who has a better knowledge of the value of this fine property than he has evinced up to the present moment. There is still an opportunity for him to see the error of his ways, and put himself on record as being an observing and intelligent person."

All eyes were turned upon Strout at these words from the auctioneer; his face reddened, and he called out, "Twenty-five hundred!"

"Still better," cried the auctioneer; "the gentleman, as I supposed, has shown that he is a person of discernment; he did not imagine that I was engaged simply to make a present of this fine establishment to any one who would offer any sum that suited his convenience for it. He knew as well as I did that there would be a sharp contest to secure this fine property. Now, gentlemen, I am offered twenty-five hundred, twenty-five hundred I am offered, twenty-five hundred--"

Again a voice was heard from the team on the outer limits of the crowd, "Twenty-five fifty!"

The crowd again turned their gaze upon Strout; the Professor was not an extravagant man, and he had saved a little money. He had in his pocket at the time a little over a hundred dollars; he would not put it in the bank, for, he argued, if he did everybody in town would know how much money he had; so he called out, "Twenty-six hundred!"

"Ah, gentlemen," continued the auctioneer, "let me thank you for the keen appreciation that you show of a good thing. When I looked this property over I said to myself, the bidders will tumble over themselves to secure this fine property'; and I have not been disappointed."

Again the faces of the crowd were turned towards the team in which sat Quincy and Hiram. Hiram stood up in the team, and masking a horn with his hands, shouted at the top of his voice, for the time overcoming his propensity to stammer, "Twenty-seven hundred!"

"Better! still better!" cried the auctioneer; "we are now approaching the figure that I had placed on this property, and my judgment is usually correct. I am offered twenty-seven hundred, twenty-seven hundred; who will go one hundred better?"

At this moment Abner Stiles, who had been watching the proceedings with eyes distended and mouth wide open, went up to Strout and whispered something in his ear. Strout's face brightened, he grasped Abner's hand and shook it warmly, then turning towards the auctioneer cried out, "Twenty-eight hundred!"

By this time the crowd was getting excited. To them it was a battle royal; nothing of the kind had ever been seen at Mason's Corner before.

A great many in the crowd were friends of Strout's, and admired his pluck in standing out so well. They had seen at a glance that Abner Stiles had offered to help Strout.

Again the auctioneer called out in his parrot-like tone, "Twenty-eight hundred! I am offered twenty-eight hundred!"

And again Hiram put his hands to his mouth, and his voice was heard over the Square as he said, "Three thousand!"

"Now, gentlemen," continued the auctioneer, "I am proud to be with you.

When it is my misfortune to stand up before a company, the members of which have no appreciation of the value of the property to be sold, I often wish myself at home; but, as I said before, on this occasion I am proud to be with you, for a sum approximating to the true value of the property offered for sale has been bidden. I am offered three thousand--three thousand--three thousand--going at three thousand! Did I hear a bid? No, it must have been the wind whistling through the trees."

At this sally a laugh came up from the crowd. "Going at three thousand--going--going--going--gone at three thousand to--"

"Mr. Hiram Maxwell!" came from the score of voices.

"Gone at three thousand to Mr. Hiram Maxwell!" said the auctioneer, as he brought down his hammer heavily upon the barrel head with such force that it fell in, and, losing his hold upon the hammer, that dropped in also. This slight accident caused a great laugh among the crowd.

The auctioneer continued, "According to the terms of the sale, five hundred dollars in cash must be paid down to bind the bargain, and the balance must be paid within three days in endorsed notes satisfactory to the present owner."