The auctioneer laughed.
“Everybody knew it.”
“No.”
The dealer looked toward him.
“I knew what they kept in the back room.”
That stopped the laughter.
The thirteen-year-old boy tightened his grip around the plate.
The auctioneer’s smile weakened.
“What are you talking about?”
The retired dealer pointed toward the crate.
“These aren't nine hundred random pieces of scrap.”
He lifted the plate higher.
“These are seed plates.”
An elderly farmer nearby chuckled.
“We can see that.”
The retired dealer turned.
“Not these.”
He tapped the casting number.
“Old Prairie Standard precision plates.”
Several older men stopped smiling.
One farmer leaned closer.
“Those haven't been made in years.”
“Exactly.”
The dealer looked back into the crate.
“They stopped casting most of these after the merger.”
Another farmer stepped forward.
“How long ago?”
“Seventeen years for some sizes.”
“Longer for others.”
The auctioneer crossed his arms.
“So they're old.”
The dealer gave him a look.
“That is the point.”
The office telephone inside the auction barn rang again.
A worker shouted through the open door.
“Somebody asking about lot eighty-seven!”
The auctioneer turned.
“What?”
“Guy from Iowa!”
The retired dealer looked immediately at the boy.
“What number was this lot?”
The boy glanced at the paper tag wired to the crate.
“Eighty-seven.”
The men around them became quieter.
The worker shouted again.
“He says don't let whoever bought it leave!”
The auctioneer looked toward the crates.
Then toward the thirteen-year-old.
Then back toward the barn.
The boy’s cheeks were still red from being laughed at.
But something different had entered his expression.
Not triumph.
Attention.
He looked down at the plate in his hands.
The retired dealer said softly:
“Don't sell anything yet.”
The auctioneer heard him.
“Now hold on.”
The old dealer turned.
“What?”
“You don't know what's in there.”
“No.”
The dealer smiled faintly.
“But I know enough to tell the kid not to sell while everybody around him is suddenly learning what he bought.”
That sentence changed the crowd.
Men who had been standing loosely around the crates began moving closer.
Some bent over.
Some reached toward the iron plates.
The thirteen-year-old immediately put one hand across the nearest crate.
“Please don't take anything out.”
A farmer stopped.
The boy looked nervous saying it to men three and four times his age.
But he repeated:
“I paid for them.”
The retired dealer nodded.
“He's right.”
The farmer withdrew his hand.
The auctioneer rubbed his jaw.