"Naow, gimme a bid on this here pair o' brass candlesticks like granmammy used to light the haouse with. Nobody don't hardly use a grease lamp like this no more; but they're mighty handy to pick up to go to bed with. You don't have to bother with no lamp chimney. Who'll gimme ten cents for 'em?"
He waited for a few seconds with the candlesticks in his hand.
"What, hain't this pair o' candlesticks wo'th ten cents to nobody. All right, hand me some o' them plates to go with 'em."
One of the eight children, a middle aged woman with pinched features, handed up a couple of coarse white plates.
"My, it looks like everything's a-goin' to go awful cheap!" she sighed dolorously.
Obe rattled on until he had sold all the household goods. They sold for almost nothing, as such things always did. The heirs looked on in dismay. Glad to be rid of this "wimmin's plunder," Obe led the way to the barn where the stock, tools and implements were waiting for him. Most of the women did not follow to the barn but remained sitting or standing stolidly about the house, waiting for their menfolks to come back.
The men who swarmed after Obe to the barn looked like a throng of animated scarecrows. Unlike the women, they had not dressed for the occasion; but had come in the clothes in which they had been following the plow or hauling out manure onto the tobacco ground. Their ancient garments, mostly bleached to a common drabness by exposure to rain and sun, were torn and patched in the most unexpected places. Long, straggly hair hung about the filthy necks and ears and over the frayed collars. There were gaunt, gawky bodies, small, shriveled, distorted bodies, bent shoulders, slouching legs, and shambling feet. The faces, most of them with weirdly assorted features, were skinny, pinched, and bleary-eyed. Only a few of the young men were straight and ruddy and shone out healthy and wholesome from their dingy clothes.
At the barn were several sets of harness in different stages of decay, hoes, rakes, pitchforks, tobacco knives, a few tools, and a great pile of scrap iron, which latter Obe bought himself because in addition to his other activities he handled junk. There was also an old buggy, a sled, two wagons, and a plow.