hope. He said: "I hear ye patronize auctions putty reg'lar; sometimes
there is a good deal to be made that way, and then ag'in there isn't. I
never had no luck that way, but it's like getting married, it's a
lottery! Folks git queer and put money in some spot, where they're apt
to forgit all about it. Now I knew a man who bought an old hat and a
sight of other stuff; jest threw in the hat. And when he got home and
come to examine it ef thar warn't three hundred dollars in good bills,
chucked in under the sweater!"

"You ought to git over to Mason's auction to Milldon, sure. It's day
after to-morrow at nine sharp. You see he'd a fortune left him, but he
run straight through it buying the goldarndest things you ever heerd
tell on--calves with six legs, dogs with three eyes or two tails, steers
that could be druv most as well as hosses (Barnum he got hold o' 'em and
tuk 'em round with his show); all sorts o' curious fowl and every
outlandish critter he could lay his hands on. 'T stands to reason he
couldn't run that rig many years. Your goin's on here made me think o'
Mason. He cut a wide swath for a time.

"Wall, I hope you'll come off better'n he did. He sunk such a pile that
he got discouraged and took to drink; then his wife, a mighty likely
woman she is (one o' the Batchelders of Dull Corner), couldn't stand it
and went back to her old home, and he died ragged and friendless about a
month ago. Ef I's you, I'd go over, just to take warning and hold up in
time."




CHAPTER III.