Thursday, Feb. 22, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Anticipating my very own flea market, I've been getting things ready. In older days, when a down-east family hung up its mittens there would usually be a big auction, and folks would come from miles around. Sometimes lunch would be served by a ladies' aid, and farm wagons would be used instead of buggies, should purchases need room going home. The auction bills would list many of the items to be sold, but would always end with the line: "And many other articles too numerous to be mentioned; the accumulation of a lifetime!" The exclamation point used at the end was known in the print shop as a "screamer."
Well said. Nobody will know just what "the accumulation of a lifetime" means until he has gazed in fatigue at a pail of salvaged eight-penny nails - tediously straightened on an anvil - and realized that under the bench he has 17 more pails. A gentleman more versed in flea markets than I tells me I can get rid of anything that way. He says if nobody buys it, somebody will steal it.
Thinking of an auction of old, I'm reminded of my father's three-way cribbage board and the interminable tournaments he had with Nevers Prosser over the cribbage championship of the world, which they settled by three crucial games every afternoon, rain or shine. Mr. Prosser had been a Maine lumber-camp boss, agile at cribbage and all else, and in retirement lived neighbor to us.
Their daily three-game playoff was admitted by both of them to be the finest demonstration of cribbage science, but unlike most other games played in Maine for the championship, my father and Mr. Prosser never gambled at it. A cent a hole was customary everywhere else, and that was enough to cause decent people to look upon cribbage as a vice, an imputation my father and Mr. Prosser were careful not to arouse. It happened that my father and Mr. Prosser were both members of the Knights of Pythias and the Free and Accepted Masons, although in the beginning this had nothing to do with their confirmed animosity at cribbage.
Then, after many years, a big auction was advertised at the Bigelow family mansion on Beech Hill. There was to be an oyster stew at noon by the Mizpah Class, and posters on every tree and pole along the town ways advertised, "The accumulation of a lifetime!" My mother was a Mizpah faithful, so we all went for the stew rather than the sale.
Articles to be sold were displayed, and my father looked about and discovered a three-way cribbage board. If you play this ancient Highland card game you know what I mean; if not, be informed that the usual cribbage board is a two-man game, one against the other, or a four-man game, partners two-by-two. But cribbage can be played by three, each to his own, and mostly a three-man game calls for two two-man scoring boards, leaving half of one board idle.
A three-way board, such as my father found at the Bigelow auction, is a triangle for three separate boards, angled and fastened together, and this one was cunningly carved with esoteric symbols that would be admired only by somebody who had membership in both the Masonic and Pythian fraternities. The instant my father saw it, he decided to buy it, no matter what the price, and give it to Mr. Prosser to be used at their daily encounters. So my father would have gone along home after the stew and come back later to get Mother and brood, but now he stuck around to buy the triangle cribbage board for Mr. Prosser.
It was well into the afternoon that the auctioneer, who was Judge Bert Peacock every day but Auction Saturday, came to the beautiful three-way cribbage board, and he offered it with becoming respect. "This beautiful piece," he editorialized, "was plainly fashioned by a master craftsman, and I ask you to approach it thoughtfully, brethren of the respective orders in particular. I'm going to ask for a starting bid of $5; nothing less would emphasize the dignity of this moment! Who will offer me $5?"
My father said, "I have $5, Judge!"
"Thank you, Frank, and now who will give me $10?"
Immediately, from the far verandah of the house, a voice beyond sight on the fringe of the crowd called, "Five dollars and five cents!" The game was afoot.
My father, from time to time, would increase his bid by a dollar, or 50 cents, and every time he did the voice from outside the house, on the porch, would shout, "'.... and five cents!" It took a very long time for Judge Peacock to sell the triangular cribbage board. The bidding went to $30, and then the voice from outside added, "And five cents." The judge said, "Thirty and five I have, thank you, and now who will make it $31?"
The voice from the porch said, "I bid $30.55!"
My father shrugged his shoulders and indicated finality. He spoke to Judge Peacock rather than to Auctioneer Peacock, and said, "This is too rich for my blood. Last offer! Thirty-five!"
The Judge said, "Thank you, Frank!" and the voice out on the porch called, "Thirty-five - and five cents!" Auctioneer Peacock said, "Sold!"
Just before suppertime, Nevers Prosser came to play cribbage, and he handed my father the triangular board with the depictions of Masonic and Pythian mysteries and he said, "I bought this for you, Frank, but some blamed fool in the crowd kept bidding me up, and I had to pay through my nose. Give it a good home."
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