The court-house and auction-block were in a village two miles from the plantations of the two Putnam brothers. Uncle Rastus and his family were sent over in the wagon of Herbert Putnam’s overseer, and Lawyer Sill came by in his buggy and drove Herbert to the sale. “I thought I would stay away and let you attend to it for me,” said Herbert Putnam; “but my daughter thinks I ought to go. Brother George will be there to bid them in. He wouldn’t miss the opportunity to humiliate me again for anything.” “You ought to be on hand,” replied Sill, as the other got into the buggy. “Your negroes worship you, and would feel hurt if you were not present. Your brother has acted very badly, and has made himself unpopular by it.” “It was my father’s wish that I hold the home place, but George never could forgive me for it. If he had advanced money to me, as he has to total strangers, I should have paid out all right. He has a better head for business than I have.” A hundred wagons, buggies, and carriages were scattered over the court-house common, the hitching-racks were hidden by mules and horses, and a considerable crowd of people, white and black, were clustered around the auction-block to the right of the court-house door, near the massive log jail. In the edge of the crowd an old darky was selling “ground-peas,” and his white-headed wife was threading her way through the crowd, retailing hot gingerbread from a basket and fresh cider from a capacious jug with a corncob stopper. In some of the carriages elegantly dressed ladies sat; young men, the gallants among the gentry of the county, with broad hats, and trousers in their bootlegs, conversed with them from the backs of restive mettlesome horses. Colonel George Putnam sat in his carriage with his wife and son, but when his brother drove up with Lawyer Sill, he alighted and approached his own lawyer, who was talking with a group of planters. “Burton,” said he, in a low tone, “remember, you are to bid for me; I don’t want to be conspicuous, but I will have those negroes. I don’t want any of my father’s estate to go into the hands of strangers.” “All right,” replied Burton; “we won’t have much trouble. Old man Staley has thrown out some intimation that he intends to do some bidding, but he’s afraid of his shadow, and when he sees you are in the fight he ‘ll draw in his horns.” “I don’t think so. Staley is no friend of mine, and will try to run the price up on me out of spite. I looked over them a while ago as they came up,” the colonel went on, glancing at the wagon in which Uncle Rastus and his wife and sons were seated. “They all seem in pretty fair condition except Rastus. He says he has had a little spell of fever, but that he is all right now.”