The entire Yutzy family—over 200 of them—were huddled inside the barn, out of the cold, stationed on benches, waiting for the auction to begin. Parents sat with their children beside them, their backs straight, their black shawls and coats clean and pressed. The children were silent. Not one of them squirmed, fussed or cried. They stared straight ahead, not a word spoken.
“Good morning,” Isaac said, standing on a makeshift platform, a small rubber mallet in his hand. In Deitsch, he explained the rules for the day. I could catch enough of it to understand that they would eventually be selling Grandpa’s watch. It was a real good watch, the same brand used by railroad conductors. It ran very well. There was nothing wrong with it. (It just needed a new spring.)
A few smiles rippled through the crowd. But the family remained controlled. The reason for the sale was a sad one. The family had lost both parents over the course of a year, two octogenarians who had sired ten children, nearly a hundred grandchildren, and over two hundred great-grandchildren. In the last months, their daughters had cleaned out their dawdy house, packed it up, and moved everything to the barn for this sale. Self-run and administered, the auction was just for the family, with the sons and grandsons rotating through to take their place at the platform, leading the patter.
I’m bid a dollar. I’ve got one, now one, would-you-give-me-two, now two, now two, would-you-give three. . .
“Yup!” A grandson in the role of a spotter, pointed to a bidder.
“Sold!” The “auctioneer” banged the little rubber mallet.
“Do I need to get a number?” I asked Sarah, one of the women sitting beside me.
“No, no numbers,” she said.
I thought that was odd. There were hundreds of bidders in the room, then I realized that the clerk was marking down the bidders by name before giving the slips of paper to the bookkeeper. Everyone, of course, knew each other.
Here, siblings might bid against each other for prized items like Grandpa’s watch. That way, offspring usually got what they wanted from the family keepsakes, and nobody fought over them. At the end of the sale, they divided up the money among the family members, so a portion of a bidder’s money always came back.
The Amish, a sect based on non-violent resistance, try to find the most peaceful way to do things. Their dress and lifestyle are fashioned after the Benedictine monks, with their days disciplined and divided into prayer, work, and shared meals. They were originally from Switzerland, so when I first moved into my old Amish schoolhouse, I never expected a lot of craic, or fun, from my neighbors.
The anachronistic trappings of the Amish give them a severe reputation. This may be why so many English think that they abuse their children. Over and over, outsiders have said to me, “Yes, but I’ve heard that the Amish abuse their kids.”
I have never seen an Amish person abuse a child. Just the opposite. Once, when a toddler was beginning to fuss at the Christmas sing, his mother simply wrapped her arm around him and hugged him to her.
But I’d heard this accusation so often, that I finally decided to research it. Maybe I just wasn’t noticing. Maybe things were going on behind closed doors. It turns out that the Amish do abuse their children—at a slightly lower rate than the English abuse theirs. A perfect case of “othering.” The statistics just show our inability to get out of our own paradigms. How could those well-behaved children sit still for so long on those hard benches if they hadn’t been beaten and forced into it?
But, as the hours passed at the auction, even I was happy to see the children loosen up a little. By eleven o’clock, most of the children were up and off the benches and on their feet, joining each other in little groups. They wandered among the twenty-five tables that held: dinner dishes, salad plates, cups and saucers; carving sets, knives, forks and spoons; hammers, nails and hand saws; Bibles and hymnals, puzzles and picnic baskets filled with Tupperware and tipsy cups.
I wasn’t interested in much on the tables. I was waiting to bid on the rugs, the hand-woven beauties that hung down from the catwalk encircling the outer inside barn walls.
“We’ll alternate the things on the tables with the rugs,” the auctioneer said in Deitsch.
Several of the nephews were on the catwalk, showcasing individual rag rugs, rugs made from old Amish clothes, shirts and dresses in blacks and blues, whites, greens, and purples. An Amish person wears their handmade clothes until they are either too small or too ragged. Then the material is salvaged and torn apart for cleaning rags or materials for rugs.
The children wanted in on the action. They began climbing the stairs, running across the catwalk.
“Get those children down!” Isaac yelled over the crowd. “It’s not safe.”
Obediently, the children filed down the steps.
I bid on a “choice” of three extra-long rugs and eventually scooped up all three.
We broke for lunch at noon, adults and children lining up for a buffet of chicken and coleslaw, chili and cornbread. Bursts of laughter broke out across the room. Jokes were shared and a lot of good old-fashioned ribbing was exchanged. Pitchers of water were passed around the tables.
After lunch, a commercial popcorn popper appeared and the whole barn took on the spirit of a street fair. The adults freely circulated through the room now, eating popcorn out of white paper bags, visiting with their relatives, their voices taking up more and more of the airwaves. The auctioneers had a hard time being heard over the din. In a steady stream, the pre-school children crawled up on their fathers’ laps at the platform, playing with the rubber mallet and pulling on their father’s beards. The fathers embraced their children, bouncing them on their knees, all the while they tried to keep the bidding going.
Outside, teenagers were stringing up a volleyball net and divvying up teams. Soon, the ball flew over the net and returned to the opposite side with a thump.
The spotters carried a table toward the platform filled with stuffed animals and fuzzy puppets. The children gathered around, their eyes wide, never having seen so many toys in one place. The bidding began, the Amish bishop picking up rabbit puppets—one on one hand, one on another—opening and closing their mouths, nodding and bowing them to each other, their ears flopping, their bodies dipping and diving in circles, doing back flips. Then the spotters picked up the other stuffed animals and they joined the dance, watching the bishop at the lead—more rabbits, a bear, a horse, a dog–suddenly off the table and in the air, rocking with the imaginary beat, lunging and lurching, the bidding going higher and higher until it finally stopped.
Sarah had bought the whole table full of toys. One by one, she put them directly into the hands of the children where they remained for barely a second. Then the rabbits, bears, dogs and horses were launched across the room, sailing through the air, flying up toward the catwalk, all the rugs sold and carried away, then falling down again on the empty benches and on the floor covered with popcorn.
I love this story, Mary! Among the English I have never seen a bishop dancing with rabbits. I am sure you are enjoying the rugs!
Thank you Mary for creating a vivid picture in my head this morning. The scene has helped me understand your neighbors in a new way.