Carl resumed his pipe, and Abner strolled over to the group of men sitting on wheel-barrows, ploughs, chicken-coops, etc. With a furtive look over his shoulder, to make sure the city driver was not listening, Abner began to explain to his interested friends who the strangers were. But he had not quite ended his tale before an old buggy drove up and the auctioneer got out. He glanced over the assembled farmers with an appraising eye, and then carefully hitched the old nag to a tree. This done, he broke off a great chunk of tobacco from a cake kept in a blue paper, and popped it into his mouth. Abner walked over to the white-washed fence to greet his superior. "How's the kid?" were his first words. "All right, now. He diden' swaller the pin, after all. The doctor found it down inside his shirt, an' it cost me a dollar besides all that good mustard and eppicac, fer nuthin'!" "Well, well!" sympathized Abner, not knowing what would be best to say in such a delicate case. "Did yuh keep all the folks about when I sent word over?" continued the auctioneer. "Shure! An' we've got some swell city buyers, this time." "City! You don't mean anyone from the city'd want to buy old Morrisey's trash?" exclaimed Lemuel, in disbelief. "I dunno what they want, but thar's their man what steers the autermobile," and Abner directed a thumb over his left shoulder. "Wall, wall! Come along; we'll hurry up to get some of their coin afore they git tired awaitin'!" declared the wise man, as he made haste to reach the house. Mrs. Fabian and the girls had made a cursory visit to the rooms on the ground floor, and while they stood in the small kitchen examining various old dishes and glassware in the cupboard, Polly spied a very narrow staircase leading to the attic. "I'm going up to see if there's anything up there," said she. So without another word, she ran up the creaky steps. The girls heard her walking overhead, and then heard her pull a heavy object across the floor. In another minute she came racing down the steps at a break-neck speed, her face all streaked with dirt and her dress covered with cob-webs and the dust of ages. "Oh, folks! Do come up and see what I found in an old box under the eaves!" They needed no second invitation, and soon all were up beside the box. There were many other empty boxes standing about and in some way this particular box had escaped the attention of Abner, who had taken the inventory of the contents of the house and barns. Polly had removed the first object on top of the box which was an old woven coverlet in rare colorings of blue and white. In one corner was the name of the weaver and the date it was completed. Polly was not aware that old woven coverlets were considered very desirable by collectors, but she had read the date which showed the spread was more than a hundred years old, so she judged it was worth bidding on at the coming sale.