Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1893 — THE FUNNY AUCTIONEER. [ARTICLE]

THE FUNNY AUCTIONEER.

Dn One Occasion He Wail Brought to See the Serious Side of a Case. “I was called on once to sell by auctioh a lot of household furniture belonging to a man and his wife who had been married four or five years, ” said an auctioneer in a reminiscent mood. “All I knew about it was that a death somewhere necessitated their removal from my town, and, as they had no money, they were compelled to sell their effects to get enough to move on. Well, I was having a picnic in my young and foolish way, guying and bantering and making brilliant and witty side remarks on the articles as they came undet the hammer. After I had disposed of a lot of stuff a cradle was put up. There were several young men of my acquaintance in 'he crowd, and I smil d at them as I turned the cradle ’round and beg in to rock it, humming a lullaby as 1 did so. ‘Empty is the cradle, baby’s gone,’ I said, and was going on to say something else to get a laugh, when I happened to look down into the face oi a woman close to the platform I was standing on. She was dressed in faded black, evidently given her by some woman larger than she was, and there vas a look in her eyes' that in rde me stop. “She didn’t speak, but as I stoppe ! she looked up at me with thj tears starting, and lifting her hands in a n utc appea of remonstrance no word could describe, she gave a great sob of ag ny and turned away. “ ‘I—I didn't know,’ was all I could stammer in apology. And I didn’t know that it was her baby’s era lie I was selling, and because the (ladle was empty her heart was broken and she could no longer live in the house tha; the baby had left. “No, I didn’t know, nordid the crowd, but they all did pretty soon, and I told them a story that had no fun in it for any heart there, but it took just the same and I got $l5O for that cradle before I was done with it and then gave it back to the poor young mother. ”