Livestock Auction

I was born in West Virginia and when I was five years old, we moved to Maryland.  From then on, each summer, my younger brother and I would spend a month back in West Virginia staying with Papaw and Granny Epperly, my mother’s parents.  One summer evening when I was ten years old, Papaw took me to a livestock auction.  They had a small ring with grandstand seating on three sides.  The animals would be herded in from a gate on the left and leave through a gate on the right. The auctioneer and staff were opposite the crowd on a raised platform.  As we went in, we registered and got a numbered card.  Cows and bulls were sold individually and cows with calves went together.  Sheep, hogs, and goats were sold in groups of five or ten.  I asked papaw if I could bid on a horse.  He said, “Of course!  You can bid up to ten dollars.  I’ll loan you the money until you can work and pay for it.”  Then he chuckled to himself.  I wasn’t sure why.  Horses went for three or four hundred, some as much as a thousand, depending on their conformation.  When the auctioneer would start the bidding, I would raise our card and say loudly, “Ten dollars.”  Everyone would smile at my bid … just before the next person would say a hundred.  As the night went on, papaw’s joke got serious for him.  He was afraid that the crowd of men would feel sorry for me, and I would get an old nag of a horse for ten dollars.  Then he would have to feed and stable it.  That night, I didn’t get a horse, but I did get a reputation.  Solomon said in Proverbs 20:11, “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.”  Hey, you have made a reputation for yourself too.  Why not work on it today and try to improve it?