Brother for Bid

When I was 10-years-old, Grandpa Bill took me to my first cattle auction in Ferndale at the Humboldt County Fair Grounds. Shortly afterwards, I gathered a passel of kids from around my grandparent’s neighborhood and held an auction of my own.

“So, who’ll give me fifty cents – fifty-pennies, ten-dimes or two-quarters for Adam?” I cried out.

Nothing but blank stares and crickets. Finally, I pointed at one of the taller boys, “You – do your parents give you an allowance?”

“Yeah,” he answered, “A dollar a week.”

“Great, we have an opening bid of one dollar. Do I hear a buck-twenty-five?” I stuttered, in a poor attempt at imitating the fast-talking auctioneer I’d heard.

By the time I finished, I’d sold my brother for five-dollars and seventy-five cents to the kid’s who lived right across Rohnerville Road from my grandparents. Adam, then went home to collect his few clothes and toys before heading off to his ‘new family,’ and that’s how Grandma found out what I’d done.

“If you’re willing to sell your brother, then you’ll eventually want to sell the rest of us,” Grandpa warned me as he tanned my backside with the tree branch he had me fetch.

He would’ve probably whipped even more, but as he explained to Grandma, “Damn kid said he had no idea he’d get that much money for Adam.”

That evening, they ate at the dining table while I sat in the hallway closet with a TV tray, eating alone. That wasn’t half as hard as having to return the money, the next day, even though I’d warned the crowd several times that ‘all sales were final.’