So Big · Chapter 5 (3/3)

“Five cents!” piped up old Johannes Ambuul, with a snicker. The tittering crowd broke into a guffaw. Selina was conscious of a little sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. Through the haze she saw the widow’s face, no longer sulky, but smiling now. She saw Roelf’s dear dark head. His face was set, like a man’s. He was coming toward her, or trying to, but the crowd wedged him in, small as he was among those great bodies. She lost sight of him. How hot it was! how hot⁠ ⁠… An arm at her waist. Some one had mounted the little box and stood teetering there beside her, pressed against her slightly, reassuringly. Pervus DeJong. Her head was on a level with his great shoulder now. They stood together in the doorway, on the soapbox, for all High Prairie to see.

“Five cents I’m bid for this lovely little mouthful put up by the school teacher’s own fair hands. Five cents! Five⁠—”

“One dollar!” Pervus DeJong.

The balloon faces were suddenly punctured with holes. High Prairie’s jaw dropped with astonishment. Its mouth stood open.

There was nothing plain about Selina now. Her dark head was held high, and his fair one beside it made a vivid foil. The purchase of the wine-coloured cashmere was at last justified.

“And ten!” cackled old Johannes Ambuul, his rheumy eyes on Selina.

Art and human spitefulness struggled visibly for mastery in Adam Ooms’s face⁠—and art won. The auctioneer triumphed over the man. The term “crowd psychology” was unknown to him, but he was artist enough to sense that some curious magic process, working through this roomful of people, had transformed the little white box, from a thing despised and ridiculed, into an object of beauty, of value, of infinite desirability. He now eyed it in a catalepsy of admiration.

“One-ten I’m bid for this box all tied with a ribbon to match the gown of the girl who brought it. Gents, you get the ribbon, the lunch, and the girl. And only one-ten bid for all that. Gents! Gents! Remember, it ain’t only a lunch⁠—it’s a picture. It pleases the eye. Do I hear one⁠—”

“Five bits!” Barend DeRoo, of Low Prairie, in the lists. A strapping young Dutchman, the Brom Bones of the district. Aaltje Huff, in a fit of pique at his indifference, had married to spite him. Cornelia Vinke, belle of New Haarlem, was said to be languishing for love of him. He drove to the Haymarket with his load of produce and played cards all night on the wagon under the gas torches while the street girls of the neighbourhood assailed him in vain. Six feet three, his red face shone now like a harvest moon above the crowd. A merry, mischievous eye that laughed at Pervus DeJong and his dollar bid.

“Dollar and a half!” A high clear voice⁠—a boy’s voice. Roelf.

“Oh, no!” said Selina aloud. But she was unheard in the gabble. Roelf had once confided to her that he had saved three dollars and fifty cents in the last three years. Five dollars would purchase a set of tools that his mind had been fixed on for months past. Selina saw Klaas Pool’s look of astonishment changing to anger. Saw Maartje Pool’s quick hand on his arm, restraining him.

“Two dollars!” Pervus DeJong.

“Twotwotwotwotwotwo!” Adam Ooms in a frenzy of salesmanship.

“And ten.” Johannes Ambuul’s cautious bid.

“Two and a quarter.” Barend DeRoo.

“Two-fifty!” Pervus DeJong.

“Three dollars!” The high voice of the boy. It cracked a little on the last syllable, and the crowd laughed.

“Three-three-three-three-threethreethree. Three once⁠—”

“And a half.” Pervus DeJong.

“Three sixty.”

“Four!” DeRoo.

“And ten.”

The boy’s voice was heard no more.

“I wish they’d stop,” whispered Selina.

“Five!” Pervus DeJong.

“Six!” DeRoo, his face very red.

“And ten.”

“Seven!”

“It’s only jelly sandwiches,” said Selina to DeJong, in a panic.

“Eight!” Johannes Ambuul, gone mad.

“Nine!” DeRoo.

“Nine! Nine I’m bid! Nine-nine-nine! Who’ll make it⁠—”

“Let him have it. The cup cakes fell a little. Don’t⁠—”

“Ten!” said Pervus DeJong.

Barend DeRoo shrugged his great shoulders.

“Ten-ten-ten. Do I hear eleven? Do I hear ten-fifty! Ten-ten-ten tententententententen! Gents! Ten once. Ten twice! Gone!⁠—for ten dollars to Pervus DeJong. And a bargain.” Adam Ooms mopped his bald head and his cheeks and the damp spot under his chin.

Ten dollars. Adam Ooms knew, as did all the countryside, this was not the sum of ten dollars merely. No basket of food, though it contained nightingales’ tongues, the golden apple of Atalanta, wines of rare vintage, could have been adequate recompense for these ten dollars. They represented sweat and blood; toil and hardship; hours under the burning prairie sun at midday; work doggedly carried on through the drenching showers of spring; nights of restless sleep snatched an hour at a time under the sky in the Chicago market place; miles of weary travel down the rude corduroy road between High Prairie and Chicago, now up to the hubs in mud, now blinded by dust and blowing sand.

A sale at Christie’s, with a miniature going for a million, could not have met with a deeper hush, a more dramatic babble following the hush.

They ate their lunch together in one corner of Adam Ooms’s hall. Selina opened the box and took out the devilled eggs, and the cup cakes that had fallen a little, and the apples, and the sandwiches sliced very, very thin. The coldly appraising eye of all High Prairie, Low Prairie, and New Haarlem watched this sparse provender emerge from the ribbon-tied shoe box. She offered him a sandwich. It looked infinitesimal in his great paw. Suddenly all Selina’s agony of embarrassment was swept away, and she was laughing, not wildly or hysterically, but joyously and girlishly. She sank her little white teeth into one of the absurd sandwiches and looked at him, expecting to find him laughing, too. But he wasn’t laughing. He looked very earnest, and his blue eyes were fixed hard on the bit of bread in his hand, and his face was very red and clean-shaven. He bit into the sandwich and chewed it solemnly. And Selina thought: “Why, the dear thing! The great big dear thing! And he might have been eating breast of duck⁠ ⁠… Ten dollars!” Aloud she said, “What made you do it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Then, “You looked so little. And they were making fun. Laughing.” He looked very earnest, and his blue eyes were fixed hard on the sandwich, and his face was very red.

“That’s a very foolish reason for throwing away ten dollars,” Selina said, severely.

He seemed not to hear her; bit ruminantly into one of the cup cakes. Suddenly: “I can’t hardly write at all, only to sign my name and like that.”

“Read?”

“Only to spell out the words. Anyways I don’t get time for reading. But figuring I wish I knew. ’Rithmetic. I can figger some, but those fellows in Haymarket they are too sharp for me. They do numbers in their head⁠—like that, so quick.”

Selina leaned toward him. “I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you.”

“How do you mean, teach me?”

“Evenings.”

He looked down at his great calloused palms, then up at her. “What would you take for pay?”

“Pay! I don’t want any pay.” She was genuinely shocked.

His face lighted up with a sudden thought. “Tell you what. My place is just this side the school, next to Bouts’s place. I could start for you the fire, mornings, in the school. And thaw the pump and bring in a pail of water. This month, and January and February and part of March, even, now I don’t go to market on account it’s winter, I could start you the fire. Till spring. And I could come maybe three times a week, evenings, to Pool’s place, for lessons.” He looked so helpless, so humble, so huge; and the more pathetic for his hugeness.

She felt a little rush of warmth toward him that was at once impersonal and maternal. She thought again, “Why, the dear thing! The great helpless big thing! How serious he is! And funny.” He was indeed both serious and funny, with the ridiculous cup cake in his great hand, his eyes wide and ruminant, his face ruddier than ever, his forehead knotted with earnestness. She laughed, suddenly, a gay little laugh, and he, after a puzzled pause, joined her companionably.

“Three evenings a week,” repeated Selina, then, from the depths of her ignorance. “Why, I’d love to. I’d⁠—love to.”