At three o'clock in the afternoon the sale took place. Everything worked as the Squire had expected. It being the general popular supposition that there were to be no more sheriffs' sales, there were no persons present at the auction save the officers of the law and the gentlemen who were to bid. Only here and there an astonished face peered out of a window at the proceedings, and a knot of loafers, who had been boozing away the afternoon, stood staring in the door of the tavern. That was all. There was no crowd, and no attempt at interruption. But the news that a man had been sold out for debt spread fast, and by sunset, when the men and boys came home from their farm-work or mechanical occupations, numerous groups of excited talkers had gathered in the streets. There was a very full meeting that night at the tavern.
“I declar for't,” said Israel Goodrich, with an air of mingled disappointment and wrath, “I be reel put aout, an disappinted like. I dunno what tew make on't. I callated the trouble wuz all over, an times wuz gonter be good and folks live kinder neighbourly 'thout no more suein an jailin, an sellin aout, same ez long from '74 tew '80. I reckoned sure nuff them times wuz come 'round agin, an here they've gone an kicked the pot over, an the fat's in the fire agin, bad's ever.”
“Darn em. Gosh darn em, I say,” exclaimed Abner. “Didn't they git our idee what we wuz arter wen we stopped the courts? Did they think we wuz a foolin baout it? That's what I want some feller tew tell me. Did they think we wuz a foolin?”
Abner's usually good humoured face was darkly flushed, and there was an ugly gleam in his eye as he spoke.
“We wuz so quiet like las' week, they callated we'd jess hed our fling an got over it. I guess that wuz haow it wuz,” said Peleg Bidwell.
“Did they think we'd been five year a gittin our dander up an would git over it in a week?” demanded Abner, glaring round. “If t'wuz caze we wuz tew quiet, we'll make racket nuff to suit em arter this, hey, boys? If racket's the ony thing they kin understan, they shall hev a plenty on't.”
“Israel thought it wuz kingdom come already,” said Paul Hubbard, who had hurried down from the iron-works with a gang of his myrmidons, on receipt of the news. “He thought the silk stockings was goin to give right in as sweet as sugar. Not by a darned sight. No sir. They ain't going to let go so easy. They ain't none o' that sort. They mean to have the old times back again, and they'll have em back, too, unless you wake up and show em you're in earnest.”