Farm Auction

Thousands and thousands of items. Nine by fourteen foot fiberglass pre-formed greenhouse, cider press, brush hog to pull behind the Ford 8N tractor are all things we could use. The auctioneer at the back was selling tap extractors, trouble lights, a meat scale, machine gauges, mostly to men in baseball caps and flannel shirts. Piles of C-clamps, rooms full of well oiled machines that weigh tons, little wooden boxes of drill bits and taps, box of army gloves, cigar boxes full of screws. The auctioneer said, “Tube bender and tube cutter, who will give me five?” He said, “The knives and the traps together. Who will give me three?” He holds up some rusty old leg traps. Yow. Two compasses, who will give him two? He asked. He held up some sort of metal bits in metal boxes, and says, “Call ‘em what you want when you get ‘em home, when they belong to you.” I asked a guy in a Nascar cap, what was that tool you just bought for three dollars that looks like the capital letter F with a few extra horizontals? He said it was a “tool for breaking flat chains on elevators.” Another man wore a cap that said “Global warming is Bull Crap,” and he bought some odd lengths of tow chain. Over in the tent, the other auctioneer asked for bids for “anything in the box under the table.” An Amish man bought all the pickle crocks and twenty-seven five-gallon glass bottles. The auctioneer was pushing a thousand fishing lures. “Shakespeare Mouse, and another one that wants to be a Shakespeare mouse,” he said. The “tiger” variety of the Shakespeare Mouse went for eight dollars; everything else went for less. All the while, one black-haired woman was standing there knitting a Christmas baby blanket in red and green and white, watching the auctioneer intently, maybe waiting for the cider press to come up. I waited a long time to go use the Porta-potty, and then when I finally went in, it wasn't so bad, except that the door didn't shut and the toilet lid kept closing on my back. Forty eight fishing poles, piles of timing gears, ball peen hammers, metal files, a book "The Machinist’s Practical Book." Box of snap rings. “Ain’t no friends at an auction,” the auctioneer said. Chris bid to sixty dollars on the cider press; the Amish man wanted us to sell him the brass sausage stuffing attachment inside, but we figured we’d better keep our options open; maybe one day we will want to stuff sausage skins with our cider press. The greenhouse went for $290, too rich for our blood, seeing how hard it was going to be to get the thing home. A woman set up a tent and sold brats and chips and soda pop. The man in charge was a grandson of the owner of the stuff; the grandmother was still alive, he said, but she didn't want to come. The atmosphere was not festive, exactly, but it was not so dreary either. The grandson was about forty years old and chatty. He told us stories. He said, "Lord, we just want to get rid of this stuff."