Tale #53 -- THE JOY OF AUCTION SALES

Life in Saskatchewan

The Saturday after Vivian left with Bandit and Oreo, Ben went to David MacDougall’s house at 906 Alexandra Street. He rang the doorbell. Dancing Bear answered the door.

"Hello, Ben," she said. "David MacDougall has gone for a bike ride. I’m sure he will be happy to see you when he comes back."

"Are you living here again?" Ben asked.

"Yes," Dancing Bear said. "It seemed like the right thing to do."

"How is Mr. MacDougall doing?" Ben asked.

"He manages to keep busy," Dancing Bear said.

"I just wanted to show him my new book," Ben said. He pulled it out of his backpack. The book was called A Prairie Year. On the cover, there was a picture of a man and his two children looking after a mother pig and her babies. The baby pigs were about the same size as a large cat.

"Those baby pigs are really quite cute," Dancing Bear said. "But they would look better if they had some fur."

Ben laughed. "Pigs don’t have fur!" he said.

"I think they need some," Dancing Bear said. "Especially in the winter."

"My aunt Peggy from Saskatchewan sent me this book," Ben said. "It’s all about life on a ranch. There is a story for each month of the year. The pictures are really good – almost like being there."

"Have you ever been in Saskatchewan?" Dancing Bear asked.

"Once, when I was very little," Ben said. "I don’t remember anything about that. My parents are thinking of driving to Drumheller this summer."

"Drumheller is in Alberta, isn’t it?" Dancing Bear said.

"Yes," Ben said. "That’s the badlands area. There are a lot of dinosaur fossils there. We would have to go through Saskatchewan to get to Alberta. I’m sure Mom and Dad would stop at Aunt Peggy’s ranch. She raises horses, you know."

"Does she have any bears on her ranch?" Dancing Bear said.

"No," Ben said. "Bears don’t live on ranches. They live in the bush."

"Some bears live in town," Dancing Bear said.


The Farm Auction

Dancing Bear and Ben were looking at the pictures in his new book together. Ben was telling her all the things he knew about ranch life.

The picture for September showed a group of people gathered around some farm equipment and some household items. Two men were standing on the back of a pick-up truck, wearing cowboy hats. One of them was speaking into a microphone. The other one was waving a thin cane.

Dancing Bear smiled, "Oh! An auction sale! I haven’t been to one in years. I wish there were an auctioneer in Hearst."

"What’s an auction sale?" Ben asked. "I’ve never been to one."

"At an auction sale, there are no set prices," Dancing Bear said. "Whoever bids the highest price for something gets to buy it."

"How does that work?" Ben said.

"The auctioneer keeps saying prices until someone makes a bid. Then he tries to get a higher price. The man with the cane is a spotter. He’s watching the people to see who is bidding. Some people raise a hand. Some people yell. Some people just nod their head, or use some other special signal. When the spotter sees that someone is bidding, he yells 'Yeah!' and the auctioneer goes on to a higher price."

Dancing Bear pretended to be holding a microphone. She started talking very fast in a sing-song voice. "Who will give me two hundred dollars for this beautiful couch? Nobody? How about a hundred? How about fifty to get it started!"

"Yeah!" Ben yelled, pointing at an imaginary bidder.

"Fifty," Dancing Bear chanted, "now sixty, sixty, sixty–"

"Yeah!" Ben yelled.

"Seventy, seventy, seventy–"

"Yeah!"

"Eighty, eighty, eighty – are you all done at eighty?" Dancing Bear asked. Ben pretended to look around for a new bidder.

"Eighty, eighty – come on, this is practically brand new! A nice soft place to watch TV!" Dancing Bear chanted. "Going once, going twice, going three times – SOLD to the lady in the red ball cap for eighty dollars! You got a real bargain, ma’am."

"That was fun," Ben said. "I’d like to have an auction sale. Would you be the auctioneer?"

"What would you sell?" Dancing Bear asked.

"I have some stuff to get rid of," Ben said. "I’ll tell all my friends, and they can bring their stuff too."

"You’ll need a bookkeeper to keep track of all the sales," Dancing Bear said. "And somebody to collect the money."

"I think Carol would be perfect for the job of bookkeeper," Ben said. "And maybe Mom will help with the money. She has a cash box she uses for garage sales."

"What will you do?" Dancing Bear said with a smile.

"I'll be the spotter, or course," Ben said.

"What about the commission?" Dancing Bear asked.

"What’s that?" Ben asked.

"That’s how the auctioneer and the helpers get paid," Dancing Bear said. "The seller gets eighty per cent of the money, and the workers get twenty per cent."

"I think Carol and my Mom will work without being paid," Ben said. "How much will I have to pay you?"

"I don’t need money," Dancing Bear said. "But maybe you could give the commission to charity."

"What a great idea!" Ben said. "They are collecting money at school to buy fruit trees for a village in Africa. I’d love to make a donation for that."

"That sounds excellent," Dancing Bear said. "Now all you have to do is get organized and advertise. When will you have your auction?"

"I’ll ask Mom if I can do it in our yard in two weeks," Ben said. "We have to hurry. Soon, people will be going to their cottages for the summer."



Ben’s Charity Auction

"Do you think anyone will come?" Ben asked. He was feeling very nervous. Everything was ready for the auction, but nobody had arrived yet.

"Of course they will!" Dancing Bear said. "You put up posters all over town. People love to go to an auction sale."

"We sure have a lot of stuff," Carol said. She had a notebook and three pens ready to go. "I wonder if we’ll ever get rid of it all."

"Don’t worry," Dancing Bear said. "Once the bidding starts, people will buy things they never thought they needed."

She was right. By the end of the afternoon, everything was sold. Ben had a nearly new beanbag chair for watching TV, two books, a video game, and thirteen dollars.

"I got rid of all my garage sale stuff that never sells," Ben’s Mom said. "Having an auction sale was an excellent idea, Ben. Maybe we should do it every year."

"We have almost eighty dollars in commission," Carol said. "How many fruit trees will that buy?"

"Four or five," Ben said, "if we donate all our money."

"Did you have another idea?" Dancing Bear asked.

"Well," Ben said. "Everybody worked so hard – I thought maybe we could go to Macdonald’s for supper. But the people in Africa really need those fruit trees."

"That’s okay, Ben," his Mom said. "I was thinking the same thing. Don’t worry about using the commission money – I’m buying."