Ruby Ann was busy,—­her face very red and her eyes very tired, as she tried to sell the most unsalable articles to old women who wanted something for nothing, and quarrelled with the quality and quarrelled with the price.  His only recourse was Eloise, and he planned a long time how to approach the subject without mentioning her apron.  At last a happy inspiration came to him, and when Howard’s attention was diverted another way he bent over her and began.

CHAPTER XVI

THE AUCTION

“Astonishing, isn’t it, where all the stuff comes from?  Somebody must have given very freely.  I never gave a thing except money.  Bell sent a lot to be sure, and it’s all sold.  They had a pile from the Crompton House.  They were good at begging.  They didn’t expect anything of you, a stranger, of course?”

“Oh, yes,” Eloise replied.  “I had an apron which Miss Patrick seemed to think might sell for something.  It was rather pretty, and I made it myself.  I haven’t seen it, and think it may have been sold, or perhaps Mrs. Biggs, who had it in charge, forgot it.  She has had a great deal on her mind.”

Jack did not hear more than half Eloise was saying.  One fact alone was clear.  She had expected the apron to be there and he would look it up.

“Excuse me,” he said, and going into the room where Mrs. Biggs was trying to make half a loaf of bread do duty as a whole loaf to a party just arrived, he said to her, “Pardon me, Mrs. Biggs, but did you send or bring Miss Smith’s contribution to the sale?  I believe it was an apron.  She has not seen it.”

The bread fell from Mrs. Biggs’s hand to the table, and the knife followed it to the floor as she exclaimed, “Lord of heavens!  I forgot it till this minute.  Where’s Tim?”

She darted from the room and found Tim bringing two pails of water, “the last gol darned thing he was going to do that night,” he said, as he put them down.  Seizing him by the collar his mother almost shrieked, “Run home for your life, Tim!”

“Why-er,—­what-er!  Is our house afire?” Tim asked, and his mother replied, “No, but Miss Smith’s apron is there.  I clean forgot it.  You’ll find it in a paper box on my bed, or in my bureau, or on the closet shelf, pushed away back, or somewhere.  Now clip it.”

Tim started without his hat, and the last thing he heard was his mother’s voice shrill as a clarion, “If you don’t find the key under the mat, climb inter the but’ry winder, but don’t upset the mornin’s milk!”

Business was beginning to slacken and sales were few.  Some of the people had gone home and others were going, and still there were quantities of goods unsold.  An auction was the only alternative and Mr. Bills, who, to his office of school commissioner, added that of auctioneer, was sent for.  There was no one like him in Crompton for disposing of whatever was to be disposed of, from a tin can to a stove-pipe hat.