one alike, all painted green and
every one with fine hand-painted flowers on the back. Where can you beat
such chairs? Don't make them any more these days, real antiques they
are! Bid up now, friends; how much a piece? The six go together, it
would be a shame to part them. Fifteen cents did I hear?--Say, I'm
ashamed to take a bid like that! Twenty, that's a little better--thirty,
thirty, forty over here? Forty cents I have, fifty, sixty, seventy,
seventy-five, eighty, eighty, eighty cents I'm bid; I'm bid eighty
cents--make it ninety--ninety I'm bid, make it a dollar--ninety,
ninety--all done at ninety? Guess we'll let Jonas Erb have them at
ninety cents a piece, and real bargains they are!"

"Here's where I bid," said Phoebe, her cheeks rosy from excitement.

"Shall I release you from your promise?" offered the preacher.

"No, I'll bid."

"Attention," called the auctioneer. "Attention, everybody! Here we have
a real antique, something worth bidding on!"

Phoebe held her breath.

"Here now, Sam, give it a lift so everybody can see--ah, there you are!"

He shouted the last words as two men held above the crowd--the old
wooden cradle!

Phoebe groaned and looked at Phares--he was smiling. The old aversion to
ridicule swelled in her; he should not have reason to laugh at her; she
would show him that she was equal to the occasion--she would bid on the
cradle!

"Start it, hurry up, somebody. How much is bid for the cradle? Sam here
says it's been in the Brubaker family for years and years. Think of all
the babies that were rocked to sleep in it--it's a real relic."

Phoebe, unacquainted with the value of cradles, was silently endeavoring
to determine the proper amount for a first bid. She was relieved to hear
a woman's voice call, "Twenty-five cents."

"Twenty-five I have, twenty-five," called the auctioneer. "Make it
thirty."

"Thirty," said Phoebe.

"Forty," came from the other woman.

"Make it fifty, Miss." He pointed a fat finger at Phoebe.

"Fifty," she responded.

"Fifty, fifty, anybody make it sixty? Fifty cents--all done at fifty?
Then it goes at fifty cents to"--Phoebe repeated her name--"to Phoebe
Metz."

He proceeded with the sale. Phoebe turned triumphantly to the
preacher--"I kept my promise."

"You did," he said. "The cradle is yours--what are you going to do with
it?"

"Gracious! Why, I never thought of that! I don't want it. I just wanted
the fun of bidding. Can't I pay it and leave