“And let me tell you something about what made our forefathers great. Until you’ve pioneered on a piece of land of your own, you don’t know what life is. You don’t know the rush of sap in the veins that comes of having roots. You don’t know the sense of power that comes from making your own mark. And when I say land, I don’t mean a naked quarter acre in suburbia. I mean wild land—land without a human mark, land where you still hear the fox’s mating call, land where you lose yourself without a compass, land that’s dark at noon. That’s land where anything can still happen—anything at all. Until you’ve taken up an ax and bent your back to marking the wilderness with your own name and labor, you don’t know what it feels like to be a man. And you don’t begin to understand what made America great. We have out here in the country a quality of life, something that money can’t buy, something more important than a new automobile or a new TV or something you’re trying to get for your house. Something we call freedom. We call it opportunity. And it’s a spirit we’ve had from the beginning.” Perly finished with his head thrown back and a high half smile on his face. He ran his hand through his dark hair and bowed his head a moment, collecting himself. The crowd barely stirred.
“And then there’s financing,” he said quietly. “Forget the bank. If you’ve tried to buy land, you know you can’t get a penny from the bank, not for land, and only a pittance for a second home. There’s one thing past for good, traded in for all our speed and luxury, and that’s the right to a homestead just for the working of it. But here’s what we’re offering you right here today—the chance to buy land, and even a ready-made house if you want, for just thirty percent down.”
Perly raised his right hand and brought his palm down on the railing of the bandstand with a thump that made the whole fragile edifice shudder. “And now for Parcel Number One,” he cried. “Are you ready? Who is it going to be? Number One. Numero Uno, the very first, the Christopher Columbus of Perly Acres. The beginning of a whole new way of life.”
He looked down into his briefcase. “Now this house—and I know some of you have already been up to look at it—is the quaint gabled authentic nineteenth-century house up on what we call Gable Ridge Road. The very road is named after the house that can be yours.”
“It’s Ward’s all right,” John said.
Perly looked up. “Now this comes complete with twenty-five acres, most of it in open fields and woods, alive all summer long with wild flowers and butterflies, so pretty it’ll take your breath away. This is a house that’ll do it. This is a house that’ll set your head to spinning like it hasn’t since your eighteenth birthday. If you want to spend all your time outdoors, this is for you. Unlike most of what we’ll be offering, this house is completely furnished. The living room and kitchen done over just this year. The owner had a hunch he was going to sell and wanted to get the best possible price. So now, folks, who’s it going to be?”
Bidding began. It moved slowly. Couples consulted with each other between bids, and several men had out pencils and paper. The contest narrowed, rather quickly, down to a swarthy young man in a checkered overcoat and muddy patent leather shoes, and a lean and nervous gray-haired couple.
The auctioneer paused to examine the two bidders, then he swung his eyes out over the crowd, looking for others. “The ones who buy the antique houses on the big old estates,” he said, “will be the aristocrats of Perly Acres. The lords of the manor. The squires. The true gentlemen. Once these houses are a part of our development, they’ll become a symbol—a symbol of the oldtime values we’re all working for.”
Finally, the young man gave up and the couple got the place for $53,500. The man whooped and hugged his wife, and the wind caught his soft felt hat and blew it across the green. Ezra Stone caught it and brought it back to him, along with a sheaf of documents.
Perly held an arm out to the man as he pulled a pair of plain rimmed glasses from his pocket to examine the papers. “Before you sign, maybe you want to bid on this too. I have a ten-acre parcel adjacent to what you just bought. It starts at the first stone wall below your pasture and runs down past the brook. Fine trout in that brook too. If you don’t want it, there’s others will. A level place up near the road is just made for a home site, or a person could run a road in and build with complete seclusion and a view of the brook.
“Now, for those who are worried about how to go about building a house, we have six different models you can contract with us to build for you. They run from ten to fifty thousand dollars. Or you can design and build yourself. Or you can cut down your own trees and do it the way our ancestors did.”
The young man in the checkered overcoat started bidding again and the man who had just bought Ward’s house looked distinctly uncomfortable. More people took part in the bidding now. The crowd had swelled to fifty or sixty people. The land sold finally for $5,800 to a young couple in blue jeans who looked very sober when their bid turned out to be the winning one. The new owner of Ward’s house instantly left Ezra Stone and made his way around the chairs to speak to them, while his wife stayed where she was, eying her husband’s conversation nervously.
“Five thousand dollars for ten acres,” murmured Mim.
“Five thousand, eight hundred,” corrected John.
The auctioneer sold one other ten-acre piece and then a number of smaller ones. Even the one-acre plots went for over a thousand dollars each. When he came to the other house,” he said, “Now this has some features you won’t find again in a hurry. It has the real old central chimney with four—I repeat, four—fireplaces. The one in the parlor has a priceless hand-carved mantel and hand-painted tiles. Somebody lavished a lot of love on that fireplace. Somebody knew that the hearth is the keystone that makes a strong family. And then there are some stone animal pens —a real curiosity. Wasn’t every farmer, even in those good old days, who bothered to keep his pigs and sheep in stone pens. But, here’s the best thing of all, for today’s recreation-minded families. There’s a watering hole for the cattle there—small to be sure—but plenty big enough to make a dandy swimming hole.”
“Prescott’s,” John said. “First I heard he was gone. He always cursed that chimney. Said it took up half the house.”
The auction went on. There were twenty-eight parcels sold from what were once two farms.
“Some of them must be swamp,” John said when they got to the lower parts of Prescott’s property.
“How will they know, this time of year?” Mim said.
Presently, Perly checked his papers and wound up the proceedings. “Well, now we’re all in this together, folks,” he said and looked slowly around at the intent crowd. Then, suddenly, he laughed, spreading out his arms to include the people before him. “You’re in the most exclusive company,” he cried. “I love you all and I congratulate you. Believe me, this town is going to be the biggest double-barreled front-page gilded rooster of a place you ever set foot in.”
John and Mim moved slowly in the babbling crowd back toward their truck. The wind had picked up and grown colder, so damp now that patches of water darkened the blacktop on the road. A dozen or so people surrounded the auctioneer in a chattering group as he moved toward his house. Dixie trotted at his left heel, shouldering people’s knees to keep her place, her tail waving just slightly in a suggestion of friendliness. Gore moved behind the group, squinting and nervous, his right hand poised near his hip pocket.
“They got a wicked surprise comin’,” John said, watching from the truck.
“Maybe it’s them and maybe it’s us’ll get a surprise,” Mim said. “For my money, Prescott and Jimmy Ward did a smart thing. We ought to clear out too.”