Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1877-04-25
The Auction Season.

usual, though with even more than,
usual violence, and is. devastating
happy households all over the CITY, \
woman on Center avenue went out one
day last week, at $3.50 Il. M, with an
umbrella, look of determination, and
a lot of auction-sale advertisements: /
she got home at 6:l5 D. M, tired, snap.
pish, hungry, and splashed with mud
up To the ears. She had two china
vases, one with chip out of the lip
that you wouldn't notice much if you
turned the reverse side of the vase TO
the front, aud the other cracked, but
not enough to show; also, eight Null |
berry dinner plates and soup-ladle of
the same sort. She had paid ninety 4
cents for the vases--she wouldn't have
given more than sixty, only Fright
OF thing with new hat wanted
them, and she (the housewite) was re-
solved that she (the Fright shouldn't
have them-and they were worth So
when they were new. If they were
worth cent, while she had sectred
the plates and ladle at dead bargain
for elghtytllree cents "A ladle like
that she said, "costs 81 %, and most
of the plates are sound. and as there
are always things of this pattern being
sold at auction sales we shall be able
to put together a colored dinner-set
for next to nothing-whte dishes are
50 common, and look 50 like 4 hotel"
On the whole, she estimated her saw
ing at S1.95, which, she said, was the
equivalent of nearly $500 year,
sum not to be despised III these hard
times. BY judicious cross-examina-
ton her husband educed from her the
facts that she had spent seventy-hve
| cents for car-fare and thirty cents for
lunch she had received bad half-dol-
lar from some one, she couldn't say
where. when, or how her pocket-book
had been stolen luckily it was an old
one, and she carried her money in the
bosom of her dress, all but her small
change, say sixty or seventy cents),
and her dress was ruined so that it
would take $3.50 to clean it. Oh, and
she had forgotten her umbrella at
some of the houses where she went
that was 1925. Without making any
allowance for her time. therefore, she
had saved $l.95 at a direct eXpendi-
ture of $1l. Here, of course, she
burst into tears, and said that this was
all the thanks she ever got, and if it
wasn't for the children, etc, till her
husband repented and apoogized alb
jectly, and they rang for the girl to re-
move the bargains, and the girl fell
down the basement stairs with them
and smashed every blessed one Of them
with a noise like a uell-Gate explo-
sion.
She was more unfortunate than a
prudent housewife on the North side
who returned one evening last week
tired but triumphant, with the intelli-
gence that she had jast bought what
she had been looking for for months, Il
sideboard to tit into certain niche in
the dining-room. When she saw it
she knew at "A glance that it was the |
very thing she Lad wanted 50 long. IT
was a little scratched and bruised, she
said, but you always had to expect
that in goods you bought at an auc-
ton, and the looking-glass over the |
top was smashed, but it wouldn't cost
very much to have n new one put IN,
and with "a little varnish anu new
hinges for the door that was falling
off. it would look as good as new, ii
not better What shaped thing Is
it?" asked her husband, carelessly.
90, something like that hideous old
abominarion we used to have here, but
larger and not 80 heavy-looking.
There is no comparison between the
two. | could hardly believe that |
got it as cheap as | did-eighteen dol
lars" A cold sweat of horrible sus-
plcion broke out all over that hus-
bands back, but, clasping his hands
over his forehead, as If to shut cut
some terrible idea, he restrained him
self and muttered: No, no, it cannot
be- AT that moment the sideb0ard
arrived, and after doing a good deal Of
miscellaneous damage t. itself, the
gate, the front steps, the ditto door,
and the knuckles of her husband and
the eXpressman, was landed III the
dining-room. So soon AS the husband
had bound up his knuckles, replaced
his bursted shirt-co'lar with another
one, and tapered down his profanity
to a paratively snail and mild !
form, he took sql Ire look at the
bargain, and then, with = Shrek Of
despair, yelled cit is. II Isl knew
that that dark presage must be true.
Maria" he added, with a frenzied
laugh, as if his reason was totterng on
its throne; Maria, it's your old side
board! Here's our address on the back
that we painted on it when we moved
here from Kalamazoo" 1t was the
same sideboard which, by reason Of It's
beng an eyesore and general incon-
venience, the prudent housewife had
had sold at an apction-roOm the year
before for twelve dollars and sixty
cents, and it was just IN as good order