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 as Justice of the Peace, Notary Public, insurance agent, tax assessor, real estate broker, auctioneer, and in a number of other allied activities. He was a little man with a jolly round face, keen bright blue eyes and a mouth shrunken from missing teeth, which he was always wetting with his tongue. Every few minutes this small red tongue would dart forth adder-like, make a quick circle around his lips and then retreat again behind the snags and withered gums of his mouth. He wore a pepper and salt suit whose creases were of the body rather than of the pressing iron; and his hair, which had not been cut for some time, was beginning to follow the curve of his ears. He was something of a wag, was fond of a joke and a drop of whiskey, and knew everybody within ten miles of Clayton.

"Naow, gimme a bid on this here pair o' brass candlesticks like granmammy used to light the haouse with. Nobody don't hardly use a grease lamp like this no more; but they're mighty handy to pick up to go to bed with. You don't have to bother with no lamp chimney. Who'll gimme ten cents for 'em?"

He waited for a few seconds with the candlesticks in his hand.

"What, hain't this pair o' candlesticks wo'th ten cents to nobody. All right, hand me some o' them plates to go with 'em."

One of the eight children, a middle aged woman with pinched features, handed up a couple of coarse white plates.

"My, it looks like everything's a-goin' to go awful cheap!" she sighed dolorously.

Obe rattled on until he had sold all the household goods. They sold for almost nothing, as such things always did. The heirs looked on in dismay. Glad to be rid of this "wimmin's plunder," Obe led the way to the barn where the stock, tools and implements were waiting for him. Most of the women did not follow to the barn but remained sitting or standing stolidly about the house, waiting for their menfolks to come back.

The men who swarmed after Obe to the barn looked like a throng of animated scarecrows. Unlike the women, they had