Coon Hill - Part Seven - "A Quick Study"

Coon Hill

Part Seven

"A Quick Study"

            After I get rid of the ...people... who are my hired ‘help’... who leave after ‘we’ ‘get’ ‘all the stuff’’ ‘out’ of the ...old New England (Maine) farm... house... and its ‘out buildings’.  After that:  They leave willingly for they are satisfied that ‘we’ ‘got’ ‘the stuff’ ‘out of that place’; that they ‘saw (all of) it’ and ‘the good stuff too’.  After that:  That these peoples tell me too what ‘the good stuff’ is too.  Often they bring an ‘it’ to me while they are working and I am working to show me a ‘what they found’.

            And I don’t really feel anymore like I need to say much or explain or identify or context or art world or any of that like I used to... for people like that; who think the their found ‘that’ is a ‘that’s good’.  “Right?  Good stuff.”

            “Yes” it is “nice” “that” “where you found it... put it back there... please.”  But it is good stuff... to them so it is hard for them to accept that it is only a little puzzle piece to me.  It is; their found stuff, that:  A puzzle piece of a puzzle that this puzzle is piece to a larger puzzle that is even that too; a puzzle piece too of a larger piece of a puzzle. That is why I am always saying do not touch that and put it back where it was and that... I am the one who says to move that, take that, load that.  And it is only me that says this.  And you know that if you are hired by me.

            Up in the attic along the end of the ...old house... that is the wall of the north, northeast side... of the house there was once a little square hole some would call a ‘window’ but this one never had a ‘glass’ and only had a very old ‘board’ that fit the little square hole that one could take out and put back in.  Once a long time ago.  And then the ‘doing that’ stopped and the board was ‘left in there’. 

            I saw it... when my head lamp beam... was working with me ‘down over there’ ‘in the attic.  I didn’t touch it or say anything so that finally

            ‘After I get rid of the people’ I was up there (in the attic) and ‘down over there’ too so I ‘opened the window’ by carefully taking out the old board and I

            Looked out that hole.

            “Did I?” you say?

            I did I.

            NOW this old place; old New England (Maine) property, is on the top of a hill called by the homesteader’s title of long ago “Coon Hill” and this ‘pioneer family’ created by their hand labor a ‘place’ here on top of “Coon Hill”.  That place looks across the river valley to the “back side” of a mountain.  This is actually the front side of the mountain but... the original back side of the mountain has been developed with an enclave of expensive “camps’ of “out of state” “people” so to cause that back side to be considered to be now a ‘front side’ ‘of the mountain’.  But the mountain was originally viewed by the pioneer family from their place on the top of “Coon Hill” and was too, by them, named by them with their family name including a ‘s at the end of that name ...to be ‘their mountain named that’ that they ‘could see’ from their place... on Coon Hill.

            After looking out the window hole in the attic at the various outbuildings and the farm yard below... I raised my eyes to look off at the top of the ‘their mountain’.  I could only see the top for the ...forest... on the property of this estate... had ‘grown up’ so much ‘over the years’ that... it ‘blocked’ the ‘old view of the mountain.

            No one else was at the property but me so after looking below the mountain top at the forest ‘grown up’ I put the board back in the window hole and went back to ‘cleaning out’ ‘the attic’.

            If I went across the attic floor to the other end of the attic I came to ‘the room up there’.  Inside the room was an old window hole too; at the same position in the wall as the ‘other end’.  This second window hole was not a hole.  It had a small four pane window in it that ‘opened in’ on very old hinges.  When I worked at ‘cleaning out’ the room I always ‘opened the window’ first.  I even stuck my head out that window and looked all around.  Several times... I did that.  I was always alone when I did that.  If I am not alone when doing something like that the ‘people’ “think that you (I) found something but how could you because it’s just an open window right?”

            But... I did find something.  So I don’t say anything any more like I would have a long time ago.

            Now we have two paths we may follow.  The first path is the room with the window.  That room; ‘in the chamber’, has a fireplace in it.  Too.  “SOMEONE LIVED UP HERE?” one of my hired people asked me.  We were looking at the fireplace.  There was still an abundance of old ashes and burnt log butts and ‘firewood’ ‘ends’ in the... fireplace.  I was wondering how long those particular fireplace ...accessories... had been in that fireplace ‘there’.  They could have been... last burned... to heat the room... at the start of the Civil War.  The family; this family, ‘never did recover from the War’ meaning the deaths of the older male children of that generation who... ‘never came back’.  The room looked like some boys (fine young men) had ‘lived in it’... ‘about 1850’.  And then no one else ever ‘LIVED UP HERE?’.  I didn’t touch anything ‘up there’ for ‘days’.  “Stuff”; ‘good stuff’, had been put in the room but it had been ‘put on top’ of the old contents... my trained eye... told me.  “Don’t move any thing until I say so” I said to answer the question.  The guy just looked at me like I was insultingly stupid.  But I was paying him and... he was not paying me... anything.  Saying nothing about his glower out loud I ‘I don’t know about him’ to myself.  He saw the painting (Part Six).  He didn’t touch it.  Or mention it.  Would he steal it if he could?  That’s what the ‘don’t know about him ...had to factor in... too...; someone stealing the good stuff that they ‘find’ ‘in there’.  “YOU GUYS ARE GONNA BE WORKING IN THE BARNS TODAY”

            I said.

            The second path is the ‘forest’ on the ‘property’.  It has ‘grown up’ but one needed only to step through the forest’s edge to urinate to discern... should one ever discern when urinating... that ‘there is mature growth’ and ‘a lot of White Pine too’.  “Forest products”; it is that:  This property has a very large acreage of ‘old growth’ forest products that... may be cut down and sold.  It... these forest products... also... ‘blocks the view’... of the river valley and the mountains.  If one ‘harvests’ (cuts down) all the ‘old growth’ forest products one will ‘get a lot of money’ and ‘open up the view’.  I figured... standing just in the wood’s edge urinating... that ‘this land’ had been ‘cut over’ as many as ‘four times’ but that... it ‘has been nearly one hundred years since it was ‘last cut’ ‘over’.  Peeing at the base of a mature White Pine caused me to consider the ‘discern’ of... “Is the view of this White Pine butt before me (twenty-eight inches ‘plus’ diameter ‘at the butt’) a better view than the ‘back side’ ‘of the mountain’.  I’m not going to be the one who answers that ‘consider the discern’.  But someone will... I promise.

            I discovered on the first day of the clean out of this estate property that... one could walk ‘down in’ the ‘old pasture’ to ‘the woods’ and then through a little of that forest wood to come back out of the pasture and there join ‘the road’ where, just below, was the (mature White Pine) tree that the Coon Hill sign was ‘on’... and where the old chain-across-the-road ‘had been’.  The chain was still there but was ‘no longer up’ and had ‘been pitched aside’.  Why this route matters and was found ‘right off’ by me is that if I ‘went that way’ I didn’t have to walk ‘much’ on the road and... that prevented ‘people’ who were coming along the road from ‘seeing me’ and, obsessively, stopping to ask me “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” and “HOW ARE YOU DOING?”

            “THAT’S A VERY OLD PLACE UP THERE YOU KNOW:  VERY OLD.  THAT ONE WAS THE FIRST ONE ON THE HILL.”

            “YOU BOUGHT ALL OF IT?”

            “CLEANING IT OUT?”

            “ONCE I WAS UP IN THERE WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BOY.  THE PLACE WAS FILLED WITH OLD THINGS WAY BACK THEN.  I REMEMBER; IT’S ALL OLD THINGS IN THAT PLACE.”

            So by going through the pasture and the ‘woods’ I... went around ‘that’.  I liked walking ‘down that way’ too and... well...

            I had my camera with me... because ah... WELL:  They always say (to me) “WHY DON’T YOU TAKE SOME PICTURES OF WHAT YOU FIND!”.  So, you know; “ok”.  SO when I walked down ‘that way’ I, it being that season of the year AND ‘wet’ from ‘the rain’... see all these ‘mushrooms’ ‘growing’.  You know; pretty ones.  And they’re there for a couple of days and then their ‘season’s over’.  So I, ah... was finding them and, well... took their pictures (‘pictures of what you find’).  “That’s pretty stupid isn’t?”

            So I had ‘em cleaning out the barn and outbuildings while I ‘layered’ through the undisturbed ‘old house’ and ...could get away from that by walking off from the road and I was doing a fine job of preserving the areas that I wanted to devote my attention to ‘alone’ and ...nobody was catching on to that for... I’d make ‘em take the old dead woman’s WASH TUB ...under the ROOF CORNER.  Yes... that is where she did her laundry (Part Six).  She’d ah... had a WASH TUB (galvanize metal) shoved up into the corner of the barn where the ‘milk room’ building butted on and the ‘roofs’ ‘joined’ so ...spouted the rain water off into her ...very carefully corner poised ‘tub’ that she... put little clutches of her clothes in it ‘when it was going to RAIN’ and ‘let’em soak’ and then had this little “nothing” wooden wash tub rack... with no wash tub on it... that she’d fish the ‘laundry’ out of the tub... with an old stick... and hang it on.  Then she’d dump the wash tub out and set it back up for the next “RAIN”.  So... to be clear... she ‘did her laundry’ in a wash tub of rain water.  She did not need a ‘washer and dryer’.  “YOU EVER WEAR CLOTHES WASHED IN RAIN WATER.  Awful SOFT and SMELLS SWEET TOO’.  But I stopped telling people about stuff like that years ago.  I never mentioned ‘it’ (her washer and dryer) to anyone.

            How did I ‘figure that out’?  WELL... the wash tub still had her ‘last load’ in it ‘when she died’ (in ‘the death chair’ Part Three).  I come on it when I walked around the barn.  AND... I had a ‘with me’ there too so... he looked at me strange when I took the clothes out and hung ‘em off on the rack and... stirred the water with an ‘an old stick’ that was ‘leaning there’ and then bent over and dumped the tub out and said:

            “TAKE THAT UP TO YOUR TRUCK.  WE’LL GET THE RACK AFTER THOSE DRAIN OFF.”  He took it up to his truck.

            Two hours later I went down through the pastured into the woods and ...stopped and took a picture of a ‘mushroom’ ...with this same... ‘fellow’.  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT FOR?” he queried after ‘watching’.

            “IT’S PRETTY.” I said.

            TWO DAYS LATER this same fellow was going down through the woods with me again and he suddenly says:

            “HERE’S A PRETTY ONE OVER HERE.  YOU WANT TO GET A PICTURE OF THAT ONE?”.

            “Ain’t you a quick study.” I said to him.