"You know Julia Templeton----"

Know her? Of course we knew her! Knew her as only the country knows its
own.

"When Julia ran away with that sewing-machine agent--it was her only
chance!--old John Templeton drove his best cow into town and sold her,
he mortgaged his team of horses, and went after the girl and brought her
home with him. They were firm and strong and as righteous as God with
her; and they paid off, without whining, the mortgages on the horses,
and never spoke of the loss of the cow--but never forgot it. They held
up their heads to the end. Gentlemen, what am I offered for this
interesting antique, this rare work of art?"

* * * * *

The auction was considered, upon the whole, a great success. Mr.
Harpworth himself said so. Ike, the Jewish dealer, bought the family
clock and the spring-tooth harrow, and even bid on the family crayon
portraits (the frames could be sold for something or other); a Swede
bought the pigs and the old buggy; an Irish teamster bid in John
Templeton's horses, and a Pole, a good man, I know him well, bought the
land, and will no doubt keep his geese in the summer kitchen, and get
rich from the cultivation of the ancient fields. While old John
Templeton bowed himself humbly before a wrathful God he would never go
down on his knees, as the Poles do, to the fertile earth. And--I
forgot--an Italian from Nortontown bought for a song the apple and
chestnut crops, and busy third generation Americans loaded in the
antiques and drove off with them to the city.