All of Greenfield seemed to be jammed into the Bugbees’ old stable for the House and Hands auction. The Alden children strolled through the excited crowd. Unlike the grown-ups, they passed right by the displays of old furniture, mirrors, paintings, tools, dishes, and lamps.
“There are the toys!” Soo Lee cried, running ahead.
Off in a corner, the children spied a bookcase and a table with old toys displayed.
Benny and Soo Lee were excited. The older children looked at one another, puzzled.
“Somehow I thought there would be lots more toys,” Henry whispered to Jessie and Violet. “I heard a lot of people saying the Bugbees had a huge toy collection.”
“I see what you mean,” Jessie agreed. “Still, Benny and Soo Lee seem happy with what’s here.”
Jessie joined Soo Lee. She was crooning over some old dolls, several of them with china heads. But the one Soo Lee fell in love with was a small stuffed doll made of faded cloth.
Over on the table was a collection of train cars and metal trucks, including a horse-drawn fire truck, a milk wagon, and even a toy ice wagon.
“Look,” Benny said when he spotted a small train set. “This locomotive looks just like a real one.”
Violet wandered over to a bookcase, where several toy music boxes were lined up on the shelves. “I like these,” Violet said. One of them had a dancing bear that spun around when the box was wound up. “Listen. It plays ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ Do you think I could bid on this?”
At that moment, Brian came over. “No one is supposed to touch these toys,” he informed the Aldens. “George will show the audience how they work—that train set, this music box. Just leave it there.”
“Brian!” a volunteer yelled from the doorway. “We need you to sign for some materials that just arrived.”
Brian looked at the Aldens and sighed. “See you later. I never get a free minute around here.”
“We’d better get to our seats,” Henry told the other children when the Gardiners seemed about to begin the auction. “Grandfather saved us places in the third row.”
George Gardiner stood in front of the crowd. He explained how the auction worked. Then he had one of the volunteers bring up an old painting to get the bidding started.
The Aldens followed the bidding carefully though it moved very quickly. George put up one item after another for people to bid on—everything from vases to eggbeaters. As soon as an item was purchased, it was whisked away to a storage room in front of the stable.
The Alden children waited and waited, until finally it was time to auction the toys. One by one, the Gardiners held up each toy for the bidders.
“Here we have a small antique train set,” George Gardiner announced finally. “Who will start the bidding?”
Benny jumped from his seat and waved his hand. “Fifty cents!” he shouted.
The whole crowd laughed. The set was definitely worth more than fifty cents.
“Never mind, Benny,” Grandfather whispered. “I’ll add a bit to your birthday money. You can go up to twenty-six dollars.”
In no time, the Aldens were on the edge of their seats. George Gardiner raised his auction hammer for the final bid. “Twenty-five dollars. Going once, going twice…”
Benny stood up and shouted out, “Twenty-six!”
“Twenty-six dollars,” George said to the crowd. “Going once, going twice…” He banged down the auction hammer. “Sold to the boy in the third row.”
“That’s me!” Benny said happily. “I won the train.” He couldn’t wait to see what the next item for sale would be. “There’s the music box Violet wanted,” he said.
George Gardiner wound up the dancing bear music box. The crowd quieted down to hear the pretty tinkling sound of “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”
“Who will start the bidding on this fine old music box?” George asked the crowd.
Violet could hardly sit still.
Grandfather leaned down to tell her something. “It’s a good idea to wait for someone else to get the bidding started,” he advised. “That way you’re not running up the price too fast. Plus you get to see who else is bidding.”
“Thank you, Grandfather,” Violet whispered. She clasped her hands on her lap. “I’m so nervous.”
A child in the front row called out a bid: “Three dollars.”
Violet held her hands even tighter. “Should I bid now, Grandfather?”
“Not just yet.”
“Three-fifty,” a grown-up’s voice said down the Aldens’ row.
Pretty soon three more bidders called out bids for the music box. The bids went all the way up to seven dollars and fifty cents.
Violet still sat there patiently.
When no other bidders spoke up, George Gardiner called out, “I have seven dollars and fifty cents. Do I hear eight?” He waited, but no one said a thing.
“Going once,” George began, “going twice…”
Grandfather gently poked Violet’s elbow. “Now.”
“Eight dollars!” Violet called out, loud and clear.
George nodded at Violet. “We have a new bidder in the third row at eight dollars. Do I hear eight-fifty?”
“Eight-fifty!” said the girl who had started the bidding. Soon she and Violet bid against each other all the way up to ten dollars and fifty cents. They were the only two bidders left.
“I have eleven dollars from the dark-haired girl in the third row,” George called out after Violet’s last bid. “Going once, going twice…” He raised his auction hammer in the air then banged it down on the table.
“Twelve dollars!” a man’s voice in back yelled out.
The Aldens turned around. The man’s voice belonged to Brian Carpenter.
“Too late, Brian. I already brought the hammer down. That’s the rule,” George yelled back. “Violet Alden is the high bidder for the music box. Sold for eleven dollars!”
After Brian heard that, he turned and left the stable.
Violet bit her lip. “Oh, dear. I hope Brian isn’t too upset, Grandfather. I’m glad I won the box. I just wish he didn’t want it, too.”
“Not to worry,” Grandfather told Violet. “That’s how auctions are. It’s a contest. I wonder why a big fellow like that wants a child’s music box.”
The Aldens went back to enjoying the auction. At the end of it, they each had won something they wanted.
“I’d been looking for another sturdy rake for a long time,” Grandfather said as he and the children went to pay for their items. “Now I have one.”
Soo Lee tugged on Jessie’s arm. “Did I win my dolly?”
Jessie smiled down. “You sure did, Soo Lee. And I won a beautiful antique photo album that I can put pictures in. Let’s go out to the storage area where we have to pay. Then you can pick up your doll.”
Henry was pleased with his purchase, too. “Now I have a penknife to carve things with.”
“I’m glad I won the dancing bear music box,” Violet said. “That was close. I just hope Brian doesn’t mind too much that I won it instead of him.”
The Aldens strolled out to the storage area at the front of the stable. All the auction items people had bid on had stickers showing the final bid prices. The Gardiners seated themselves behind a table where the successful bidders lined up to pay.
“But it can’t be the end of the auction,” the Aldens heard a man say to Louella Gardiner. “I drove all the way from Maplewood to bid on Mr. Bugbee’s collection of rare books. Why weren’t they in the sale?”
“All you had for sale was fake jewelry,” someone else complained. “My great-aunt told me Mrs. Bugbee had inherited some valuable jewels from her family. But this was just junk.”
Several other people in the crowd murmured that the auction wasn’t what they had expected.
The Gardiners waited for everyone to calm down.
Finally George spoke up loudly. “We put up everything that was left in the Bugbee House. You’ll recall that the house was sold to another owner. Anything could have happened to the Bugbees’ collection. We only had a few days to get everything organized. We did our best. We’ve raised a great deal of money for the House and Hands group today.”
After the crowd scattered, the Aldens paid for their items. Some of the fun of the auction was gone.
“At least I got my train set,” Benny said.
“Louella,” Violet asked. “Did you see the music box I bid on? I came to pay for it.”
“Which music box?” Louella asked sharply. “There were several in the sale. I can’t be expected to keep track of everything. Look where the toys are.”
Violet checked the shelves. There wasn’t a single music box on it. She swallowed hard. The dancing bear box was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe somebody stole it,” Benny said. Now that the auction was over, he was ready for more excitement.
“Nonsense!” George Gardiner told Benny. “That box was barely worth what your sister bid on it. Thousands of those boxes were made years ago.”
“It was worth more than money to me,” Violet whispered, but the Gardiners didn’t hear her. “I love the tune it played.”
Soo Lee held out her new toy. “You can play with my doll, Violet.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for that box,” Henry told Violet after he and the other children left the stable.
Violet looked back. Maybe someone would come running out with her music box after all. But the auction was over. Mr. Gardiner was pulling the doors closed. He and Louella were inside. There was no chance now that they would come out with Violet’s music box.
“I think there’s something strange about those two,” Jessie said. “You’d think they would be interested in finding out more about the Bugbee collections from people who grew up here. They didn’t even ask any questions.”
“Maybe we should look around and see if there’s anything in the house that should have been in the auction,” Henry said.
“And maybe we’ll find Violet’s music box, too, in case somebody stole it,” Benny said, still hoping for an adventure.
“Well, let’s look around when we’re working in the big house,” Jessie suggested. “We always find things when we’re doing jobs.” |