Perly dropped his gaze to Mim’s hands, pressed flat and angry against the wall behind her. Mim raised her eyes to Perly’s, blue and defiant. ‘Comfort,’ he said almost fiercely.’You’ve never known much comfort, have you Mim?’ Mim could not move without flailing out at the man and making him back off, and she trembled from the effort of suppressing her need to do so. But there are other things-better schools for Hildie, year-round church, more ready cash, more comforts… I know what I want.’ ”’Does it mean so much to you? I know the pleasures of a dressing table to a good-looking woman. The weekly contribution is becoming something more than voluntary.

Every week the Sheriff, sometimes accompanied by the honey worded Perly, stops by to see if there is more to be contributed. They clean out the barn of all the stuff they aren’t using anyway for the auctions and then the attic. Several generations of Moore’s are buried up on the hill, resting under poison oak and the dust of many seasons. John and Mim Moore have a four year old daughter named Hildie. Perly doesn’t seem to be as crazy as everyone thinks. Perly puts advertisements in papers as far away as Boston for people to come to the auction. Then there is an auction to help the volunteer firemen. Everybody pitches in because no one wants to be seen as not helping the community, and everyone ends up with a check after the auction. The sheriff comes around looking for donations, stuff that people aren’t using anyway. Well, there was that person hacked up not too long ago, but then that crime must have been committed by a stranger passing through town, right? Because no one around here would kill someone. Perly decides that the first auctions should be held as a benefit to add a deputy to the police force. When Perly decides to start having a regular auction every week, there are snorts of laughter and several shaking heads over this fool from out of town thinking he could make money in Harlowe. They are salt of the earth people, suspicious of strangers, and content with what they have. They raise a lot of their own food and trade for what they don’t have. Most of the people in Harlowe have been on the land for many generations, and for most of the year, they exist at a sustainable level. When Perly Dunsmore moves to Harlowe, New Hampshire, with his auctioneering company and starts espousing the natural beauty of the community, he is mostly regarded as a man a few slices short of a full loaf.

”Just remember this,” he said in a deep voice that cut neatly through the confusion.

Auctioneer by Joan Samson