Late in the afternoon the auctioneer held up a brown overcoat.

"Here is a fine piece of goods, only slightly damaged," he said.

He showed the back of the coat where a hole was burned in it.

"How much am I offered ?" I knew that I would get fifty cents for my day's work, so I bid ten cents--all that I could spare.
"Sold," said the auctioneer, "for ten cents to the kid who rang the bell all day." I took the garment home and told my mother how I had bought it for cash in open competition with all the world.

My mother and my aunt set to work with shears and needles and built me a suit of clothes out of the brown overcoat.