Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/122

106 "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 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