e scamp!"

Kirk, to whom the Maestro's word was law, delivered his message very
solemnly to Ken, who laughed.

"Not much fear of my cultivating too strong an affection for Mud Ocean,
as navigated by the _Dutchman_. If I had a chance to see real water and
real ships, it might be different."

"But how horrid of his son never to let him know--poor old gentleman!"
said Felicia, who was putting on her hat at the window.

"Probably the old gentleman was so angry with him in the beginning that
he didn't dare to, and now he thinks he's dead," Ken said.

"Who thinks who's dead?" Phil asked. "You'd never make a rhetorician."

"I should hope not!" said her brother. "Why, the sailor thinks his
father's dead. Get your hat, Kirk."

"We're going to an auction," Felicia explained.

"A 'vandew'," Ken corrected. "You and Phil are, that is, to buy shoes
and ships and sealing-wax, and a chair for my room that won't fall down
when I sit in it, and crockery ware--and I guarantee you'll come home
with a parlor organ and a wax fruit-piece under a glass case."

Phil scoffed and reproved him, and he departed, whistling "Rocked in the
Cradle of the Deep," lugubriously. His brother and sister caught up with
him, and they all walked together toward Asquam, Ken bound for his boat,
and the others for the "vendu," which was held at an old farm-house
where Winterbottom Road joined Pickery Lane.

Many ramshackle old wagons were already drawn up in the barn-yard and
hitched to trees along the cart track. Their owners were grouped in the
dooryard around the stoves and tables and boxes of "articles too
numerous to mention," chattering over the merits and flaws of mattresses
and lamps, and sitting in the chairs to find out whether or not they
were comfortable. A bent old farmer with a chin-beard, stood chuckling
over an ancient cradle that leaned against a wash-tub.

"There's one most 's old 's I be!" he said, addressing the world at
large; "fust thing I 'member, I crawled outen one like thet!"

The auctioneer was selling farm tools and stock at the other side of the
house, and most of the men-folks were congregated there--tall, solemn
people, still wearing winter mufflers--soberly chewing tobacco and
comparing notes on the tools. Felicia and Kirk, though they would have
liked well enough to own the old white horse and the Jersey heifers,
felt themselves unable to afford live stock, and stayed in the dooryard.
Among the furniture so mercilessly