So Big · Chapter 5 (2/3)

She had the kitchen to herself. Jakob was in the fields or outhouses. The house was deliciously quiet. Selina rummaged for the shoe box, lined it with a sheet of tissue paper, rolled up her sleeves, got out mixing bowl, flour, pans. Cup cakes were her ambition. She baked six of them. They came out a beautiful brown but somewhat leaden. Still, anything was better than a wedge of soggy pie, she told herself. She boiled eggs very hard, halved them, devilled their yolks, filled the whites neatly with this mixture and clapped the halves together again, skewering them with a toothpick. Then she rolled each egg separately in tissue paper twisted at the ends. Daintiness, she had decided, should be the keynote of her supper box. She cut bread paper-thin and made jelly sandwiches, scorning the ubiquitous pork. Bananas, she knew, belonged in a lunch box, but these were unobtainable. She substituted two juicy pippins, polished until their cheeks glittered. The food neatly packed she wrapped the box in paper and tied it with a gay red ribbon yielded by her trunk. At the last moment she whipped into the yard, twisted a brush of evergreen from the tree at the side of the house, and tucked this into the knot of ribbon atop the box. She stepped back and thought the effect enchanting.

She was waiting in her red cashmere and her cloak and hood when Hoogendunk called for her. They were late arrivals, for outside Ooms’s hall were hitched all manner of vehicles. There had been a heavy snowfall two days before. This had brought out bobsleds, cutters, sleighs. The horse sheds were not large enough to shelter all. Late comers had to hitch where they could. There was a great jangling of bells as the horses stamped in the snow.

Selina, balancing her box carefully, opened the door that led to the wooden stairway. The hall was on the second floor. The clamour that struck her ears had the effect of a physical blow. She hesitated a moment, and if there had been any means of returning to the Pool farm, short of walking five miles in the snow, she would have taken it. Up the stairs and into the din. Evidently the auctioning of supper baskets was even now in progress. The roar of voices had broken out after the sale of a basket and now was subsiding under the earsplitting cracks of the auctioneer’s hammer. Through the crowded doorway Selina could catch a glimpse of him as he stood on a chair, the baskets piled before him. He used a barrel elevated on a box as his pulpit. The auctioneer was Adam Ooms who himself had once been the High Prairie school teacher. A fox-faced little man, bald, falsetto, the village clown with a solid foundation of shrewdness under his clowning and a tart layer of malice over it.

High and shrill came his voice. “What am I bid! What am I bid! Thirty cents! Thirty-five! Shame on you, gentlemen. What am I bid! Who’ll make it forty!”

Selina felt a little thrill of excitement. She looked about for a place on which to lay her wraps. Every table, chair, hook, and rack in the hallway was piled with clothing. She espied a box that appeared empty, rolled her cloak, muffler, and hood into a neat bundle and, about to cast it into the box, saw, upturned to her from its depths, the round pink faces of the sleeping Kuyper twins, aged six months. From the big hall now came a great shouting, clapping of hands, stamping, catcalls. Another basket had been disposed of. Oh, dear! In desperation Selina placed her bundle on the floor in a corner, smoothed down the red cashmere, snatched up her lunch box and made for the doorway with the childish eagerness of one out of the crowd to be in it. She wondered where Maartje and Klaas Pool were in this close-packed roomful; and Roelf. In the doorway she found that broad black-coated backs shut off sight and ingress. She had written her name neatly on her lunch box. Now she was at a loss to find a way to reach Adam Ooms. She eyed the great-shouldered expanse just ahead of her. In desperation she decided to dig into it with a corner of her box. She dug, viciously. The back winced. Its owner turned. “Here! What⁠—!”

Selina looked up into the wrathful face of Pervus DeJong. Pervus DeJong looked down into the startled eyes of Selina Peake. Large enough eyes at any time; enormous now in her fright at what she had done.

“I’m sorry! I’m⁠—sorry. I thought if I could⁠—there’s no way of getting my lunch box up there⁠—such a crowd⁠—”

A slim, appealing, lovely little figure in the wine-red cashmere, amidst all those buxom bosoms, and overheated bodies, and flushed faces. His gaze left her reluctantly, settled on the lunch box, became, if possible, more bewildered. “That? Lunch box?”

“Yes. For the raffle. I’m the school teacher. Selina Peake.”

He nodded. “I saw you in church Sunday.”

“You did! I didn’t think you.⁠ ⁠… Did you?”

“Wait here. I’ll come back. Wait here.”

He took the shoe box. She waited. He ploughed his way through the crowd like a Juggernaut, reached Adam Ooms’s platform and placed the box inconspicuously next a colossal hamper that was one of a dozen grouped awaiting Adam’s attention. When he had made his way back to Selina he again said, “Wait,” and plunged down the wooden stairway. Selina waited. She had ceased to feel distressed at her inability to find the Pools in the crowd, a-tiptoe though she was. When presently he came back he had in his hand an empty wooden soapbox. This he upended in the doorway just behind the crowd stationed there. Selina mounted it; found her head a little above the level of his. She could survey the room from end to end. There were the Pools. She waved to Maartje; smiled at Roelf. He made as though to come toward her; did come part way, and was restrained by Maartje catching at his coat tail.

Selina wished she could think of something to say. She looked down at Pervus DeJong. The back of his neck was pink, as though with effort. She thought, instinctively, “My goodness, he’s trying to think of something to say, too.” That, somehow, put her at her ease. She would wait until he spoke. His neck was now a deep red. The crowd surged back at some disturbance around Adam Ooms’s elevation. Selina teetered perilously on her box, put out a hand blindly, felt his great hard hand on her arm, steadying her.

“Quite a crowd, ain’t it?” The effort had reached its apex. The red of his neck began to recede.

“Oh, quite!”

“They ain’t all High Prairie. Some of ’em’s from Low Prairie way. New Haarlem, even.”

“Really!”

A pause. Another effort.

“How goes it school teaching?”

“Oh⁠—it goes pretty well.”

“You are little to be school teacher, anyway, ain’t you?”

“Little!” She drew herself up from her vantage point of the soapbox. “I’m bigger than you are.”

They laughed at that as at an exquisite piece of repartee.

Adam Oom’s gavel (a wooden potato masher) crashed for silence. “Ladies!” [Crash!] “And gents!” [Crash!] “Gents! Look what basket we’ve got here!”

Look indeed. A great hamper, grown so plethoric that it could no longer wear its cover. Its contents bellied into a mound smoothly covered with a fine white cloth whose glistening surface proclaimed it damask. A Himalaya among hampers. You knew that under that snowy crust lay gold that was fowl done crisply, succulently; emeralds in the form of gherkins; rubies that melted into strawberry preserves; cakes frosted like diamonds; to say nothing of such semiprecious jewels as potato salad; cheeses; sour cream to be spread on rye bread and butter; coffee cakes; crullers.

Crash! “The Widow Paarlenberg’s basket, ladies⁠—and gents! The Widow Paarlenberg! I don’t know what’s in it. You don’t know what’s in it. We don’t have to know what’s in it. Who has eaten Widow Paarlenberg’s chicken once don’t have to know. Who has eaten Widow Paarlenberg’s cake once don’t have to know. What am I bid on Widow Paarlenberg’s basket! What am I bid! WhatmIbidwhatmIbidwhatmIbid!” [Crash!]

The widow herself, very handsome in black silk, her gold neck chain rising and falling richly with the little flurry that now agitated her broad bosom, was seated in a chair against the wall not five feet from the auctioneer’s stand. She bridled now, blushed, cast down her eyes, cast up her eyes, succeeded in looking as unconscious as a complaisant Turkish slave girl on the block.

Adam Ooms’s glance swept the hall. He leaned forward, his fox-like face fixed in a smile. From the widow herself, seated so prominently at his right, his gaze marked the young blades of the village; the old bucks; youths and widowers and bachelors. Here was the prize of the evening. Around, in a semicircle, went his keen glance until it reached the tall figure towering in the doorway⁠—reached it, and rested there. His gimlet eyes seemed to bore their way into Pervus DeJong’s steady stare. He raised his right arm aloft, brandishing the potato masher. The whole room fixed its gaze on the blond head in the doorway. “Speak up! Young men of High Prairie! Heh, you, Pervus DeJong! WhatmIbidwhatmIbidwhatmIbid!”

“Fifty cents!” The bid came from Gerrit Pon at the other end of the hall. A dashing offer, as a start, in this district where one dollar often represented the profits on a whole load of market truck brought to the city.

Crash! went the potato masher. “Fifty cents I’m bid. Who’ll make it seventy-five? Who’ll make it seventy-five?”

“Sixty!” Johannes Ambuul, a widower, his age more than the sum of his bid.

“Seventy!” Gerrit Pon.

Adam Ooms whispered it⁠—hissed it. “S-s-s-seventy. Ladies and gents, I wouldn’t repeat out loud sucha figger. I would be ashamed. Look at this basket, gents, and then you can say⁠ ⁠… s-s-seventy!”

“Seventy-five!” the cautious Ambuul.

Scarlet, flooding her face, belied the widow’s outward air of composure. Pervus DeJong, standing beside Selina, viewed the proceedings with an air of detachment. High Prairie was looking at him expectantly, openly. The widow bit her red lip, tossed her head. Pervus DeJong returned the auctioneer’s meaning smirk with the mild gaze of a disinterested outsider. High Prairie, Low Prairie, and New Haarlem sat tense, like an audience at a play. Here, indeed, was drama being enacted in a community whose thrills were all too rare.

“Gents!” Adam Ooms’s voice took on a tearful note⁠—the tone of one who is more hurt than angry. “Gents!” Slowly, with infinite reverence, he lifted one corner of the damask cloth that concealed the hamper’s contents⁠—lifted it and peered within as at a treasure. At what he saw there he started back dramatically, at once rapturous, despairing, amazed. He rolled his eyes. He smacked his lips. He rubbed his stomach. The sort of dumb show that, since the days of the Greek drama, has been used to denote gastronomic delight.

“Eighty!” was wrenched suddenly from Goris Von Vuuren, the nineteen-year-old fat and gluttonous son of a prosperous New Haarlem farmer.

Adam Ooms rubbed brisk palms together. “Now then! A dollar! A dollar! It’s an insult to this basket to make it less than a dollar.” He lifted the cover again, sniffed, appeared overcome. “Gents, if it wasn’t for Mrs. Ooms sitting there I’d make it a dollar myself and a bargain. A dollar! Am I bid a dollar!” He leaned far forward over his improvised pulpit. “Did I hear you say a dollar, Pervus DeJong?” DeJong stared, immovable, unabashed. His very indifference was contagious. The widow’s bountiful basket seemed to shrink before one’s eyes. “Eighty-eighty-eighty-eighty⁠—gents! I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to whisper a secret.” His lean face was veined with craftiness. “Gents. Listen. It isn’t chicken in this beautiful basket. It isn’t chicken. It’s”⁠—a dramatic pause⁠—“it’s roast duck!” He swayed back, mopped his brow with his red handkerchief, held one hand high in the air. His last card.

“Eighty-five!” groaned the fat Goris Von Vuuren.

“Eighty-five! Eighty-five! Eightyfiveeightyfiveeightyfive eighty-five! Gents! Gen-tle-men! Eighty-five once! Eighty-five⁠—twice!” [Crash!] “Gone to Goris Von Vuuren for eighty-five.”

A sigh went up from the assemblage; a sigh that was the wind before the storm. There followed a tornado of talk. It crackled and thundered. The rich Widow Paarlenberg would have to eat her supper with Von Vuuren’s boy, the great thick Goris. And there in the doorway, talking to teacher as if they had known each other for years, was Pervus DeJong with his money in his pocket. It was as good as a play.

Adam Ooms was angry. His lean, fox-like face became pinched with spite. He prided himself on his antics as auctioneer; and his chef d’œuvre had brought a meagre eighty-five cents, besides doubtless winning him the enmity of that profitable store customer, the Widow Paarlenberg. Goris Von Vuuren came forward to claim his prize amidst shouting, clapping, laughter. The great hamper was handed down to him; an ample, rich-looking burden, its handle folded comfortably over its round stomach, its white cover so glistening with starch and ironing that it gave back the light from the big lamp above the auctioneer’s stand. As Goris Von Vuuren lifted it his great shoulders actually sagged. Its contents promised satiety even to such a feeder as he. A grin, half sheepish, half triumphant, creased his plump pink face.

Adam Ooms scuffled about among the many baskets at his feet. His nostrils looked pinched and his skinny hands shook a little as he searched for one small object.

When he stood upright once more he was smiling. His little eyes gleamed. His wooden sceptre pounded for silence. High in one hand, balanced daintily on his finger tips, he held Selina’s little white shoe box, with its red ribbon binding it, and the plume of evergreen stuck in the ribbon. Affecting great solicitude he brought it down then to read the name written on it; held it aloft again, smirking.

He said nothing. Grinning, he held it high. He turned his body at the waist from side to side, so that all might see. The eyes of those before him still held a mental picture of the huge hamper, food-packed, that had just been handed down. The contrast was too absurd, too cruel. A ripple of laughter swept the room; rose; swelled to a roar. Adam Ooms drew his mouth down solemnly. His little finger elegantly crooked, he pendulumed the box to right and left. He swerved his beady eyes from side to side. He waited with a nice sense of the dramatic until the laughter had reached its height, then held up a hand for silence. A great scraping “Ahem!” as he cleared his throat threatened to send the crowd off again.

“Ladies⁠—and gents! Here’s a dainty little tidbit. Here’s something not only for the inner man, but a feast for the eye. Well, boys, if the last lot was too much for you this lot ought to be just about right. If the food ain’t quite enough for you, you can tie the ribbon in the lady’s hair and put the posy in your buttonhole and there you are. There you are! What’s more, the lady herself goes with it. You don’t get a country girl with this here box, gents. A city girl, you can tell by looking at it, just. And who is she? Who did up this dainty little box just big enough for two?” He inspected it again, solemnly, and added, as an afterthought, “If you ain’t feeling specially hungry. Who?⁠—” He looked about, apishly.

Selina’s cheeks matched her gown. Her eyes were wide and dark with the effort she was making to force back the hot haze threatening them. Why had she mounted this wretched soapbox! Why had she come to this hideous party! Why had she come to High Prairie! Why!⁠ ⁠…

“Miss Selina Peake, that’s who. Miss Se-li-na Peake!”

A hundred balloon faces pulled by a single cord turned toward her as she stood there on the box for all to see. They swam toward her. She put up a hand to push them back.

“What’m I bid! What’m I bid! What’m I bid for this here lovely little toothful, gents! Start her up!”