The Crow's Nest 2-3

3

            “WE’RE GOING IN ALICE STEP ASIDE THIS MAN MUST SEE MOTHER’S THINGS AND ADVISE ME YOU KNOW IT MUST CHANGE NOW YOUR TOO OLD TO LIVE HERE ANYMORE YOU’RE THE LAST ONES AND THERE ISN’T EVEN A TOILET HERE”

            “TOILET!” hissed Alice.  “THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TOILET HERE.  EVER.   AND EVERY BLOOD EVER HAS DIED HERE.  RIGHT IN OUR HOUSE.  EVER.  EVERY SINGLE BLOOD DIED HERE AND I WILL TOO!”

            By this point I had stepped back and was reflecting on this-is-not-a-good-idea self directives.  Margaret ignored Alice, stepped forward past her.  Alice looked at me, ignored me and stepped behind Margaret following her up into the house.  I cautiously followed both of them.  Margaret walk straight to the right into a front room, through that, into the front hall and ascended the front stairs.  Alice stopped at the bottom of the stairs.  I, having followed, hesitated a moment and then catching Margaret’s over shoulder look directly at me followed by “COME UP”, stepped around Alice and followed up the stairs.  At the top landing… that I vaguely took in as a… full Maine Federal staircase to upper landing with a long neglected plaster cast decorated ceiling far above… Margaret opened one of two doors and stepped into darkness.  I followed.  It wasn’t actually dark for a whole battery of windows, on three walls, lighted the room showing numerous mounds of objects and, at the center, a very large and fully exposed brick chimney rising through the floor to display two modest fireplaces and then condense to a perfect square as it shot straight up to a roof sixteen feet above.  What we actually stepped into was a natural lighted, all natural wood , very dry and very old attic dusty large space that was the reported unfinished second floor that also included an intended garret space above that, too, was never completed.

            I blinked my eyes and stood still as Margaret spoke “SHE WON’T BOTHER ANY MORE.  THESE ARE MOTHER’S THINGS OVER HERE”.  She had walked to a modest mound in the back right corner by the windows.  I walked over to her and the pile.  I looked around at the whole space..  “THAT’S ALL ALICE’S RUBBISH” she said.  “TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MOTHER’S RUBBISH.  DO YOU WANT THIS?” she said slicing the air with her right hand.  “THIS!  THIS OVER HERE.  THIS HERE. ALL THAT THERE.  ALONG THE WALL THERE.  THAT.  THE BOOKS THERE.  THAT RUBBISH THERE AND SO ON AND SO FORTH OVER TO THE CORNER THERE”.

            I did… “want this”.  I wanted ALL of it for my antiquarian impulse grasped ATTIC GOLD before me everywhere.  I stood in the center of a very large very old very abundantly piled full attic that had “never been touched” … or even seen by ANY antiquarian.  Dark, dirty, dusty GOLD … EVERYWHERE.  “Yes I want it” I said stepping boldly to the final “so forth over to the corner there” and plunging a hand into a mound touching the “corner there” and extracting an 18^th century wooden noggin type tankard that set upon a small and fine… tea table.

            “NOT THAT” corrected Margaret.  “THAT’S THE OLD CAPTAIN’S THERE.  ALL THAT DOWN OFF THERE.  MOTHER’S IS RIGHT UP TO HERE.  THE CAPTAIN CLAIMS SHE INCROACHES THERE.  SHE DOES IF YOU ASK ME.  DOES SO ON PURPOSE.  I KNOW MOTHER.  CAPTURES TERRITORY AND THE THINGS IN THAT TERRITORY.  MORE RUBBISH.  SELLS IT OFF.  CARRIES IT OFF AND SELLS IT.  VERY CRAFTY MOTHER WAS.  THE CAPTAIN KNOWS IT.  WE CANNOT GO PAST MOTHER’S RUBBISH TODAY.  WE WILL CLEAR OUT THE BLOOD RUBBISH SOON ENOUGH”.  I stood with my back to Margaret looking into the dark mound beyond the borderline.  I slowly put the tankard back down on the table making sure that it was EXACTLY where I found it.  I surveyed the borderline.  The mother’s rubbish clearly was newer than the… rubbish… in the mound beyond the border.

            I turned back toward Margaret, walked past her to the other far end of the gestured “mother’s rubbish”.  At that end I denoted a similar yet to be declared borderline bumping into a dense corner mound of very old “rubbish”.  This older rubbish mound continued into the dark and around to the …windowless wooden wall that held the COMPLETELY BLOCKED second door… leading to the door we came in.  Approaching the first “we entered” door this old dark rubbish mound changed style and became rather current (late 20^th Century) in make up.  A white plastic bucket rested on the top.

The Crow's Nest 2-2

2-2

            Thirty minutes later, after loading the purchased lot, standing beside my parked truck, watching Margaret back the mother’s old car out of the barn, turn it around, pull along side of me and gesture for me to get in… WE… had turned off the state road on to a dirt road, turned on to another dirt road, gone up over a rise and were descending to the river when Margaret turned on to a… third dirt road… that rolled down across a creek and up into the farm yard of a very dilapidated large square hip-roofed Maine Federal homestead overlooking the river.  During all of the drive Margaret orated while I privately noted where we were and …went.

            “THE BLOODS I’M SURE YOU KNOW WERE ONCE A FINE FAMILY.  SEA CAPTAINS.  COASTAL TRADERS.  THEN GENTLEMEN FARMERS BUYING PROPERTIES ALONG THE RIVER.  MOVED INLAND.  THEY BUILT THE FARM STARTING IN 1790.  NEVER FINISHED IT.  THEY ALL LIVED IN IT.  THE UPPER FLOOR IS UNFINISHED.  EXCEPT IN THE FRONT.  THE HALLWAY.  JUST BEAUTIFUL ONCE.  RUINED NOW.  THEY ALL LIVED IN THERE.  ALL OF THEM FOR GENERATIONS.  THEY ALL WERE DRUNKS.  ALWAYS DRUNK AND COULDN’T GET ANYTHING DONE.  THAT WAS AFTER THE CAPTAINS.  THOSE WERE THE MEN.  AFTER THAT THEY WERE ALL DRUNKS.  WOULD START OUT WITH PROMISE.  ALL VERY BRIGHT.  DID WELL WITH EDUCATION.  THEN BECAME DRUNKS.  EVERYONE  OF THEM.  DRUNKS.

            “MOTHER BOUGHT THE FARM FROM THE LAST DRUNK; OLD EBENIZER BLOOD:  OLD eb-bEE.  THE TOWN WAS GOING TO TAKE IT OVER.  SHE BOUGHT IT FOR TAXES AND A WAGON OF WHISKEY.  IT WASN’T ACTUAL WHISKEY YOU KNOW.  SHE SET UP HIS CREDIT YOU KNOW.  AT THE STORE.  HE DRANK IT ALL.  MOTHER HAS THE ACCOUNTS.  DIDN’T MATTER.  HE WAS A DRUNK.

            “THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENED TO THESE FAMILIES.  MOTHER ALWAYS SAYS WE MUST PERSERVE OUR FAMILY DIGNITY.  THERE’S NOTHING LEFT SHE SAYS.  THE SEA RAN OUT.  THE LAND RAN OUT.  THE FARMS RUN OUT.  THE BOYS WERE KILLED.  THE CIVIL WAR.  OR LEFT.  WENT WEST THEY SAY BUT THEY ALWAYS CAME BACK.  BROKE.  DRUNK.  LIVED IN THE CITIES.  BOSTON.  PORTLAND.  WHEN THEY GOT TOO OLD THEY CAME HOME AND DIED DRUNK.  MOTHER SAYS WE MUST REALIZE THIS.  OUR FAMILY WAS NEVER DRUNKS.  FARMERS.  TEACHERS.  IT HAS SIMPLY PLAYED OUT.  ABANDONED IS WHAT IT IS NOW.  ABANDONED.  A FEW OLD FAMILIES WITH A FEW OLD HOMES ON A FEW OLD FARMS.  WAITING IT OUT.  WAITING FOR THE END.  THEY CANNOT SELL THE FARMS.  NOBODY WANTS THEM.  I WILL TRY TO SELL BLOOD’S FARM BUT I ALREADY PLAN TO GIVE TO THE TOWN TO BURN.  BURN IT.  THEY DO THAT ON FIREMEN MUSTER DAY AND SUCH.  VERY ACTIVE FOR THIS THEY ARE.  I TALKED TO THE FIRE CHIEF.  VERY EXCITED.  TOLD ME ALL ABOUT THE PERMITS, LAND RIGHTS AND SO ON AND SO FORTH.  VERY FINE FIRE CAPTAIN.  MOTHER KNOWS HIS PARENTS.  WAS NEVER TOO BRIGHT IN SCHOOL BUT FINE FOR THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.  VERY DEPENDABLE FOR THAT.  HIS MOTHER’S SIDE WERE ALWAYS THAT WAY.  DOWN ON THE INTERVALE. THEY’RE FROM.  DOWN BELOW THE PEABODY PLACE.  CAPTAIN PEABODY’S.  THERE’S A ROW OF MILL HOUSES.  DOWN IN THERE SOMEWHERE.  MOTHER KNOWS WHERE.”

            At this moment we came to a stop in the farm yard.  The barn was up hill to the left.  The house overlooked the river to the right.  A large pasture opened in front.  Everything was overgrown and in neglect.  One shed roof had collapsed.  Weeds wound around the home.  The granite stone steps to the front door were over grown.  The Federal fan above the front door was unpainted and weathered.  Margaret got out.  I got out.  She walked toward the side door; a worn entryway that had a short treaded footpath through the weeds leading to it.  As she stepped forward I followed and as we did this the door opened and out …hissed a witch.

            A frail windswept female figure dressed in several layers of stringy old pajama like clothes under an ancient and worn full length men’s coat… particularly filthy at its bottom front and having a twisted and matted fur collar… stepped forward through the open door. On she came leaning on a tall and old wooden cane… that was more of a homemade staff.  As she stepped forward with her long stringy gray hair… that matched and became lost in the dirty gray of her clothing… wisping in the breeze. she emerged from the doorway and moved decisively toward Margaret hissing “YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE ANYMORE YOUR MOTHER IS DEAD GET OUT GO AWAY NO ONE IS ALLOWED HERE ANYMORE.”

            Margaret ignored this, turned to me and  said “THIS IS ALICE SHE IS THE LAST LIVING BLOOD SHE LIVES IN THE HOUSE MOTHER LET HER”.

            “LET HER!” hissed Alice.  “THIS IS MY HOUSE.   THIS IS THE BLOOD PLACE.  I AM A BLOOD.  IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY PLACE.  IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE BLOOD’S PLACE!”  Her scanty mouthful of small, twisted, dark brown teeth caught my eye as she hissed.  She stared down Margaret from the head of the footpath to the door step.  Her poise showed no fear and a directed glare.  Margaret stopped.

The Crow's Nest Part 2 #1

Part 2

1

            After a decade more, more or less, one morning I arrived by appointment, rang the doorbell, was admitted, seated and viewed briefly without comment… by Margaret.  She left the room and then returned.  In the left alone interval I surveyed the offerings of the day.  A small frontal pile of …not much… was backed up by a larger, dirty MOUND of …looks-like-just-come-out-of-the-attic… crud.  I did not have time to inspect or contemplate these objects for Margaret returned

            She walked directly to the Mother’s chair and stood before it …looking down on me.  I looked up at her.

            “MOTHER IS DEAD.” She began.  “SHE DIED TUESDAY MORNING.”  It was now Thursday morning.  I was shocked.  The mother had called me last Friday morning to make our appointment.  Margaret watched me.  “I DECIDED TO KEEP OUR APPOINTMENT BECAUSE MOTHER WOULD HAVE WANTED ME TO.  WE HAD HER FUNERAL YESTERDAY.  SHE IS BURIED.  YESTERDAY.”

            I slowly stammered a sort of I am sorry I am very shocked I am very surprised I am… and are you sure you want me here… something utterance.

            “OF COURSE WE WANT YOU HERE.  WE MUST GO ON JUST AS WE HAVE FOR THAT IS WHAT MOTHER WANTS.  SHE IS EXPECTING YOU TODAY.  SHE IS EXPECTING YOU TO BEHAVE JUST AS YOU ALWAYS DO”

            I took that in and then queried “How did she die?”

            “SHE THREW HERSELF DOWN THE CELLAR STAIRS.  SHE DIED FROM THE FALL.  SHE BROKE HER WRIST AND I COULDN’T GET HER UP.  THE AMBUALNCE CAME AND TOOK HER TO THE HOSPITAL.  SHE WOULDN’T SAY ANYTHING.  SHE LOOKED AROUND AT ALL OF US.  NOT A WORD.  THEN WENT TO SLEEP.  SHE DIED THE NEXT MORNING.  IT WAS ALL VERY SUDDEN.  THAT IS JUST THE WAY SHE WANTED IT.  I KNOW SHE WANTED IT.  THAT’S WHY SHE DID IT:  THROWING HERSELF DOWN THE CELLAR STAIRS.  OF COURSE THEY ALL SAY SHE FELL BUT I KNOW MOTHER.”

            “Now what do I do? I thought and that thought amounted to nothing for Margaret continued:

            “WE MUST GO ON JUST AS MOTHER WANTED TO.  I HAVE HER THINGS HERE FOR YOU AS USUAL BUT I AM ADDING SOME FROM MYSELF FOR THAT WILL BE THE WAY FROM NOW ON.  THESE ARE FROM BLOOD FARM.  WE ARE SELLING BLOOD FARM.  I WANT YOU TO COME THERE.  MOTHER WANTED YOU TO COME THERE.  THERE ARE MANY THINGS THERE.  SO MUCH RUBBISH.  MOTHER HATED ALL THE RUBBISH.  WE ARE SELLING THE FARM AND THE HOUSE MUST BE CLEANED OUT.  YOU MUST FIND ANYTHING WE MAY SELL FOR US.  MOTHER ALWAYS WANTED YOU TO GO WITH HER BUT NOW IT IS TOO LATE.  YOU WILL HAVE TO SHOW ME WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THE RUBBISH.”

            All of Margaret’s oration was just that; oration.  Although delivered directly and in a booming voice of command, it was hardly overbearing and simply …direct statement… that one could not reply to.  The oration set the lay of the land and …that was that.

            “DO YOU WANT THIS RUBBISH.  IF SO HOW MUCH WILL YOU PAY!” she command while calming slicing the air toward the piles to her right with her hand. 

            I looked at the piles, looked at her and said “One hundred twenty-five.”

            “VERY GOOD NOW GET IT ALL OUT OF HERE AND WE WILL GO TO BLOOD’S FARM.  PAYING CASH AS USUAL I PRESUME.  PAY ME NOW PLEASE.”  I did.

The Crow's Nest 10

10

            I relate what happened to the portraits.  Becoming part of my stock by purchase, I … ”put them away” meaning I leaned them up in a warehouse, high, dry, dark, cool and safe.  Of course I read the penciled names but did nothing more.  “I will wait” I said “until she is dead”.  I did this.  By then I TOO understood that … “Do you know their names?”  I certainly do.  “Will you tell me the names?”  I certainly will not. …was THE appropriate historic AND commercial directive.

            The paintings themselves were “what they are”.  At the best possible they …could… be attributed to a regional Boston – coastal Maine portrait painter hoping for a high point of, for example, Chester Harding who painted just such ilk without hesitation or signing them:  A professional Maine couple in Boston for the week, pre-painted body forms on prepared canvases waiting in the artist’s studio, a sitting for two, the faces painted in, the finished and still wet portraits crated in their frames for the ride back home in Maine.  Harding has received more attention in recent decades just because he DID paint portraits of people like this.  His portraits are a one on a scale of one to ten.  A ten, should one need example, is John Singer Sargent’s “DAUGHTERS OF EDWARD DARLEY BOIT”.  THAT portrait is an example of an artist who could paint… when painting a portrait,  THESE portraits were an example of a job painter getting money from aspiring middle class climbers who …knew nothing about art;  They received exactly what they paid for… and were very pleased and proud.  For the mother, it is a credit to HER art sense that SHE knew they were “no good” and evidently determined this HERSELF; through her self-education of art in her lifetime.  In the end she succeeded in bettering herself to her great grandparents through the very medium of THEIR self betterment.  WOULD they be proud of her?  And further… and I include the selling of the portraits to me…, are these actions by the mother (her efforts at erasing the family trail) THE CULTURAL APEX of this family?

            The commercial finalization of these portraits was based on the above denotations.  I understood that …I… should not mention the names in pencil.  Further I understood that the portraits were not to be sold by ME, a known professional, for I would then “be asked” … a whole bunch of stupid art & history questions about them.  No… I need not purvey them at a high bar to … get the most money.  Why?  Because within the antiques and fine arts trades are… a very large group of… aspiring middle class climbers who… are “dealers” …by their self appointment and… business card.  For I to get the absolute most easily accessible money for these …oil on canvas in original frames untouched, as found… was very simple.  I had a fellow-yet-much less-known dealer friend simply show up with them at a country auctioneer’s office …with a few more “similar such” items and …cool & calmly… consign them to auction without comment.  From there after, antiquarian sleuth took it’s course.  Of course the auctioneer found the penciled names.  Of course he considered them fine-getting-finer fine art once the “names were found” and “Probably a Boston ARTIST like HARDING”.  Of course he couldn’t keep the lid on this COMMERCIAL sunrise so…:  In come the competing sea of above described business card foisting dealers who… never speak to or acknowledge each other except in candy sweet kisses and … that NEVER mention their commercial interest in a pair of …just-not-quite-yet-discovered “IMPORTANT” “MAINE” prominent merchant family portraits… that …throughout the whole commercial procedure… have nobody ever mention anything about …anything.

            The bidding rises.  The hammer drops.  The portraits are “discovered”, even getting a tiny photograph-with-note in an antiques dealer trade journal.  They are professionally “cleaned”, “restored”, “researched”, “attributed”, including the frames.  They appear with splendor “for sale”; offered with pride and prize by “that kind of dealer” who sell them to “that kind of collector” who …with pride and prize… hang them in their home and “lend them” to a local historical society.

            My associate receives the check and a slap on the back from the auctioneer,  “BRING ME SOME MORE LIKE THOSE!”.  Don’t worry, WE WILL.

The Crow's Nest 9

9

            “They were not particularly pleasant people you understand.  He was a hard man; very gruff.  There it does not show” said the mother gesturing toward the portrait of the man.  Turning toward the woman the mother stated “She came from the coast; North Yarmouth I believe.  Her people were sea captains; merchant class traders.  Nothing more”.  Returning to the male portrait she continued “He was trained as a bookkeeper in Boston.  They met there.  Married.  Land and lumber it was in the end.  After the Civil War these coastal traders could no longer compete with the steam traders.  They moved inland to speculate on land”.  The mother’s eyes turned from the portraits.  I couldn’t tell if these were her direct ancestors.  I didn’t dare ask.  Margaret had left.  She didn’t care. 

            “ Do you know their names?” I asked

            “I certainly do.” said the mother.

            “Would you tell me the names?”

            “I certainly will not.” she said.  “That’s why they are being sold to you so inexpensively.”  There was an awkward pause. 

            “I will pay you now.” I said decisively and stood up.

            “Take your portraits outside first.  I will have your total when you come back in.  Leave the front door open when your out please.”

            I did as I was told.  In the daylight the portraits looked better.  I didn’t stop to contemplate them.  I believed I was being watched.  I opened the truck cab and put the man in first, facing the back of the seat.  As I did that I saw a clear penciled name at the top of the frame.  I kept moving and leaned the woman face forward against the man.  I covered them with a packing blanket.  The man’s name I had read.  His last name was the mother’s maiden name.  I went back inside.

            Standing, I prepared to pay.  The mother looked up at me.  “That old minister; the broken down one.” she said.  “He’s been after those portraits for years.  Comes here.  Comes right up to the front door.  He’s broken down you know.  Walks like a fence gate loose in the wind.  Seems to watch me and seems to sense something.  I don’t like that or him.  VERY tight with his wallet.  Wouldn’t even talk money on those.  Claimed he’d got a right to ‘em through a sister’s husband’s grandfather.  Claimed he knows just who they are.  Well I know who they are AND know his broken down figure…:  HE’S HID behind the Bible his whole life.  He says to me that GOD wants him to have the portraits.  I say to him THERE IS NO GOD.  He knows that, he does.  He never says anything more.  I’d sell HIM to you if I could.  A miserable man he is.  Always comes right to the door.”  She stopped speaking but was still looking up at me.

            “Well now… PAY ME UP.  We are done.” She said turning the paper slip toward me.  I bent to see the total and then began stacking the payment in piles of twenty dollar bills; one hundred in each pile, excepting the last.  The mother picked up the money by pile.  “Good riddance to both of them” she said.  “The next time he stops I will make Margaret take him up to the room and see the empty wall.”

            The front door closed behind me, the key turned in the lock and a fresh breeze blew across my face.  I liked the feel of that breeze.  It brought me back into the real world and erased the feeling that I was in some sort of underground tunnel when inside with the mother.  I was a little concerned that the portraits harbored some sort of old evil.  “They can’t” I said to myself.  “They’re just her old people.  She’s erasing her trail.  That’s the whole point of this.  She knows it’s the end and she is cleaning it all out neat and tidy.”

The Crow's Nest 8

8

            At the next visit, after I was admitted and seated AND the mother was seated, there was a pause, a silence and then direct eye contact from the mother.  “I expect that when I am no longer here that you will conduct business in the same manner… with the same courtesy and patience… with the representative of our family.  I expect I have your word on this without asking for it.  I expect you already understand this and understand that in the future you may have by far greater advantage in our business than you do now”.  She paused, then continued, “I believe you understand me.”

            “I do… OF COURSE.” I said.

            We then launched into the usual business ritual without any further discussion.  In fact we launched into the usual business ritual for at least two whole years without any further discussion.  At the end of about two years, at the end of our business one morning, the mother seemed a little furtive and cast glances toward the corner of the parlor where one would enter from the living section of the house.  She seemed to mark time in our business; to delay it’s wrap-up instead of her usual very brisk “TOTAL CASH PAYMENT DUE NOW” process.  At the next moment the door from the living section opened and Margaret appeared.  “Please show him the items we discussed” the mother said.  “Go with her and buy them if you want it.  The price is six hundred and fifty and you will never get a better pair for that.”

            I rose  and followed Margaret to the front stairs, then up the front stairs and then to the FIRST closed door upon the landing.  Margaret turned the key that was in the door lock and opened the door.  We entered, I following her.  The room was dark, cool and smelled like old moth balls.  I blinked to clear my eyes.  The dim light showed the thick velvet curtains nearly closed over the four windows, a pair of Civil War era twin cannonball beds of birch hardwood in their original old shellac finish, a later washstand style bedside table between them, old Empire style dressers to the side of each bed, a drop center Victorian walnut and marble topped dresser with a large mirror centered on the opposite wall and… a pair of formal style 1850’s portraits of a middle aged man and woman in their original frames hanging on the wall to each side of this dresser.  The portraits were dark.  Not only painted with a dark pallet, the old surface had darkened.  To my eye it was obvious that these portraits had been there since they were hung there …before the Civil War.  “She wishes to sell these” said Margaret vaguely gesturing toward the portrait of the man.

            I looked about the room.  There was NOTHING else in sight.  I looked at the rug on the floor.  It was a 1920’s era large Chinese style oriental rug that was lightly worn from the entrance to the room and up through the space between the beds.  It was “no good”.  I looked at the portraits.  First the man.  Then the woman.  The frames were gold gilt and perfect.  They had never ever seen sunlight or been moved since hanging.  The man was a cold, sober and well dressed gentleman with eyes that pierced and followed you.  The woman was softer but her eyes also cut with no quarter and… followed you.  I stepped up to each portrait, scrutinized them and did not touch them.  I noted that the upper inner edge of the bottom of the gold frames had their gold gilt worn off exposing the white gesso base appropriately from… one hundred fifty years of dusting.  The paintings had only been occasionally dusted for the past FIFTY years I guessed.  I noted too what appeared to be a very… very recent but very… very LIGHT dusting … probably within the last twenty-four hours.  The portraits had clearly “been there forever” and were, most probably …”ancestors” of the current owners.  Commercially they were just and ONLY that; “ancestors” or …”instant ancestors”.  I knew that at a glance and, evidently, so did the mother.  Hence the price and hence also the accurate admonition that I would “never get better for that”.

            “I will buy them.” I said

            “Good.” Said Margaret.

            There was a pause.  She looked at me.  I understood the queue and stepped to the gentleman, placed both hands at the lower sides of the frame, lightly pushed up and lifted the old fellow off the wall.  A deeper toned rectangle appeared on the faded Victorian wallpaper where the painting had hung.  I sat the portrait straight down on the floor leaning against the wall.  I stepped to the woman and repeated the process.  Then I picked up both portraits by the top of the frames, with the portraits facing inward, one in each hand and turned to Margaret.  The portraits were light and dusty.  NO ONE had EVER lifted them off the wall before.  Margaret turned, stepped out of the room, turned again and looked toward me.  I followed, turning and pausing outside the door while Margaret closed and locked it.  We then went down the stairs, I in front of her, and returned to the front parlor where the mother waited.  Upon entering the room I casually leaned both portraits together upon one velvet curtain.  They faced the mother.  I sat down.  The mother looked at the portraits, said “Good” and marked them down on her paper.

The Crow's Nest 7

7

            The daughter, Margaret, came into the room during our business all the time.  She always came in after we’d “been at it” for awhile.  Hers were the words “been at it”.  She always came to “check on mother”.  It was also to inspect our commercial progress.  Margaret cared nothing for antiques, her mother’s antiques, the home’s antiques or about what was currently being negotiated.  I never saw her ever pay any attention or even acknowledge any object in any way.  That was fine by me for it was bad enough wrestling the mother.  To have the second in command default …was actually a help.  Periodically the mother, once Margaret was in the room would seek her input.  “What do you think?” ALWAYS brought only “Whatever you do is fine Mother”.  The mother would then return full bore upon me and …Margaret would leave.  Toward the end… and beginning the day of the Indian blood, Margaret slowly became the principal distributor of the household.  I became her principal agent.  This relationship was not by my choice and took me a while to detect.

            Margaret’s reasons for coming in usually included the notice that “Mother and I are going to be going to (variable blank filled in with a destination including “garden, cemetery, Parson Hill, East Parson, the church” or “Blood’s Farm”.  This last was the only possible favorable-to-me for I had determined that this was a house size place where the mother stored and hid …more of her accumulations.  In my mind it soon became the actual top of her old fence post.  Margaret rarely mentioned it and I sensed, correctly, she …hated “Bloods Farm”.

            I, of course, delighted in words “Blood’s Farm”.  Early in our business I had purchased a brace of old Belgian flintlock pistols, rusted and neglected, that after a little query push, I had been told she “found at Blood’s Farm”.  Decades later I knew that this meant she had actually purloined them from some old minister’s reserves, had stored them at the farm (hidden them there until enough time passed to assure safe sale) and finally… after determining that they were not as valuable as she thought them to be, “I pass them on to you” for a “too much” (from my perspective) cash payment.  EVEN after decades of enlightenment, I still was utterly desirous of “Blood Farm”.

            After Margaret made her statement of Mother’s future for the day, we were expected to tidy up our dealings and I leave, after payment, PROMPTLY, which I did.  Beginning shortly after the Indian blood, Margaret began to take on a more purposeful role.  She came to the room earlier, apparently by direction.  Therein, the mother would instruct her to take me to somewhere in the home to look at something specifically… that was for sale and did have a purchase price.  This was an unprecedented change in our dealings and from the first I was awe struck.  We began with a simple “Show him the table in the four poster and see if he’ll buy it.”  Off we went out of the parlor up the front hall and then …UP the front stairs to the second floor, a landing beside the giant staircase that had an equal twelve foot ceiling …and little else.  There we walked by the Mother’s sewing machine at the stair head,  by one large closed door, then by another matching closed door to come to a third matching closed door before a… FOURTH matching closed door.  This forth one was at a right angle to the others and at the end of the landing.  Before this last door was a refinished trunk and a smaller old trunk.  Otherwise and again noting the old sewing machine, the whole expanse of the landing was empty.

            At the third door Margaret turned a key in the door lock, opened the large door inward and …I followed her in.  The curtains were drawn but enough light snuck past them from the three giant windows that I “Yes I can see”.  The “table” was quickly pointed out.  It was a late, circa 1840’s, candle stand.  These are common old Maine homestead tables.  Carrying the traditions of their earlier 18^th century mentors, they are made the same but have the awkward and heavy lines of the Empire and Transitional Victorian styles.  They are usually a dark, dark brown old finish.  Together these mean “they suck” in antique picker jargon and this means they are “hard sell” because the professional antiquarian seeks the much earlier and finer candle stand.  These “clunkers” in their “brown slime” finish fuss along in the trade.  They stand guard, always for sale, in the antiques show booths of lesser dealers who “think” such a stand “is good”.  The are purchased for a modest sum by homeowners filling a space with “antique furniture” that THEY think “is good”.  Usually they pay just slightly too much for them and keep them in their home “forever”.

            I needed only a second to appraise this stand but did actually step to it, pick it up and look at it’s underside.  Then I said “One twenty-five OK I’ll buy it” sort of automatically while AUTOMATICALLY starting to turn to take in the whole contents of the room by picker practice AND… attempt the hope that there would be “something” (good) that I could “get” to ….MAKE UP FOR THIS PIECE OF CRAP I JUST PAID TOO MUCH FOR.  There was no such luck.

            Margaret simply turned around, said “Very good” and walked out the door.  I barely finished my turn before SHE had turned, outside the door, with a glower that stated I was lingering behind and to …come out now.  I did.  She closed the door.  She locked the door.  She left the key in the lock.  I stood there holding the stand by it’s neck and… then followed her all the way back down the stairs and into the front parlor.  I set the stand down between the business chairs.  Margaret nodded.  The mother said “Good” and recorded this purchase on her paper slip.  She then added that slip up, turned it toward me.  I stood up, looked at the total and brought forth my cash payment.  Within minutes I was outside the front door listening to the mother turn the key to lock it.  I stood at the door facing the street and holding the stand by it’s neck.  I paused to survey the street then stepped over to my truck with my freshly purchased …items of plunder.  The whole process, from the bedroom to the street was executed by the two women with the same dexterity and adroit procedure that one associates with a matron sweeping crumbs off the crisp linen tablecloth during a tea.

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6

            This went on for decades.  MY roving eye endured.  Ever reaching further into the piles accessible to me, ever repeating that scrutiny.  Ever, ever, slowly, slowly hearing ever very slightly more from the mother of her own legacy.  From that came the tale of Simon, the fence post and… the mention of “The Crow’s Nest” “in the attic”.  I did not understand then that The Crow’s Nest was about thirty feet straight up above where I sat.  I don’t recall realizing much of anything about Simon or The Crow’s Nest. 

            One day, during negotiations over a trivial offering; an old set of croquet clubs in their old box with their end stakes, wickets and painted balls...:  These lay next to a framed shadow box of old G.A.R. (Civil War; Grand Army of the Republic) encampment medals that I HAD purchased but … those lay before a gnarled globe shaped form of old rope wrapped about a barn pulley set… that I didn’t want… we reached a momentary SILENT impasse.  The mother felt the croquet set was “good” and “valuable”.  I did not and had rejected it outright.  This brisk action created the silent impasse.  The mother scrutinized me.  I remained silent.  She further surveyed me and then said “You are very patient”.

            I quickly responded, without thinking, “It’s the Indian in me”.  The Mother actually drew back at that but said nothing.  Then, after collecting herself in her business arm chair she said “I never would have suspected”.  Then she paused and as I said nothing she continued.  “I know that you would have never said something like that unless you knew what it means.  I know also you wouldn’t have said that to me unless you knew that I would know what it means”.

            Actually my utterance was very not thought out and these from the mother were not reaching any point with me either.  That was fine for the damage was done and I needed to explain nothing.

            Her next statements clarified all this.  “I have Indian blood too,  You must have already determined that.  How long?  I have always wondered why you kept at it here so long.  Why you proceed the way you do.  Why you try to maneuver me the way you do.  Why I must always flank you… and why… I have come to actually enjoy all that.  Now I know.  I never considered that.  Well:  It is that we are equal after all.” 

            All this I took as a bad directive for our dealings.  I do, in fact, have the old New England icon “Indian blood”.  I do consciously know that this makes me different from my fellow old New Englanders.  I have known that a long time but only as I became older have I been able to refine this difference into actual iota.  The two iota being brought forward here are the inexhaustible ability to “wait” and the complete non-compliance with the moral standards of the Christian Western world.  This last, a complex and broad social and inner-self construction, I refer to as “moral hygiene”.  I don’t have that; moral hygiene.  The Mother now knew it.  She didn’t have moral hygiene either.  She also knew I would “wait” and what that actually means.  It means I knew I could wait until she was dead. 

            At this exact moment; a moment of great and permanent change in our dealings, we were interrupted by the Mother’s daughter coming into the front of the house and into the parlor.  Our conversation ended right there and was never continued although from there on it lurked silently through the rest of our dealings and produced lasting results.

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5

            The status of the visits remained this way for at least a decade.  The only enhancements were being briefly left in the front parlor alone for some transaction related development usually involving being shown “something” that required the mother to scurry off into the home.  This left me ample opportunity to scan the piles in the front parlor and to walk the length of the front hall peering at the collection in a vague hope of seeing something that was “good”.  Nothing ever came of these efforts.  The front parlor’s gatherings never changed except to have annual Christmas holiday gifts and gift wrap doings floated on their top.  These disappeared after the holidays.  The front hall collection never had any alteration or addition.  The whole accumulation gathered more dust, lived in its half light darkness and grew drearier to my eye with each visit.  I did denote that to the right and left of the inside front door there were minor changes.  These represented recent acquisitions being processed.

            The outstanding example of this was in the corner, to the left of the door, where one stepped in.  There appeared an ebony wood cane with a gold top.  Stout, the gold cap was larger than usual.  It had initials and an 1884 date engraved on the very top.  I know this because I handled it without asking on the first visit that it appeared.  The mother said that it was “Dr. So & So’s” without denoting it was “not for sale”.  I had heard the mother mention this visiting doctor periodically and her reference to him as “that old PILL”.  Evidently this doctor, a small man by the mother’s standards, visited the area from the Boston area briefly each year when going (fly) “fishing in Weld”.  The cane remained there for half a decade and I never touched it again.  On a visit after that amount of time had passed, the mother rose from her business chair during one visit, went into the front hall and down to the front door returning with the cane.  “I want to sell this today too.” she said.  I paused for I knew the story.  “My grandfather was given this by an old doctor from Boston.  God knows who he was but his old initials are on the top here” she continued by pointing to the gold top.  “It’s gold you know.  HOW MUCH?”  Again I paused.  Her eyes flashed across mine showing a Yankee trader’s earnest support of her command.  “Twenty” I said defensively and without consideration.  “SOLD” she said and turned to mark it on her paper slip.  This tiny paper slip, in her own hand, always determined all transactions of any visit.  An inclusion on that day’s slip was a mark in stone meaning “SOLD”.

            The cane was not much beyond the obvious that some old Bostonian doctor had be screwed out of it by the Mother.  She had noted the accidental leaving… that was probably brought on by a glass too much of sherry.  The mother was perpetually given bottles of sherry by visitors which she used to great affect on ministers, professors and… old doctors from Boston).  She did nothing about this cane leaving… and… waited until enough time had passed to assure her that she had clear title and then… sold it.  This dexterity, I slowly determined, was a working method and process of acquisition for the mother.  I decided that even my own wallet was not safe from her roving eye.  I had already… and from the very start of the visits… made sure to “GET” my purchases “OUT” very… very promptly and to be sure they ALL got out.  The mother was skillful at NOT pointing out that a purchase of mine “was still there”.  Once that front door closed behind my back… that visits dealings, I determined… were done.  The front door closed tight.

           

The Crow's Nest 4

4

            The mother’s purpose of my call to the home was to purchase the “antiques” for “money” and leave.  My quick scan of the offerings would, with luck, show as many as three items out the usually ten to twelve selections as possible purchases.  The rest had to be rejected, one by one.  That ritual never ceased.  Disappointment and resistance was usual from the mother but I, as an antiques dealer, stuck from the very first visit to a “no mercy purchases” policy that… saved me from acquiring ANY of the mother’s unacceptable crud.  She, with her scanty antiquarian knowledge, self denotations of “old”, quest for cash and Yankee trader skills, was formidable.  “NO” and “NO MONEY” were the brutal praises I adopted and kept up from the very first.  Even the few “possible” items were usually marginal.  About every third visit a “something” did appear but that was not an informed discovery by the mother.  A “visit” came increasingly often as the mother determined I WOULD actually buy something.  Through three seasons they approached once a month.  During the summer season a visit was rare.

            The mother was all business, a business woman true and a Yankee true too.  I quickly determined that her offerings where both residue chosen from the bowels of the home and… her recent acquisitions.  She purloined anything, some how got it to her barn, sorted it, hid her selected plunder in her… fence post… and contacted me.  Only the need of money brought forth anything.  Her fence post was the region in the older back section of the home that ascended off of her dining room and was called “up the back stairs”.  This true back stairs, distinguished from the front stairs that ascended off of the front parlor where I sat, led to a series of four small rooms “upstairs”.  Generally referred to as “back bedrooms”, these rooms had… excepting the one room furthest from the top of the stairs and toward the front of the home that the mother used as her bedroom…  become packed with the mother’s plunder that is better described as her rubbish.  I was never allowed into this region of the home until the mother was dead.  This fence post and it’s trail allowed the mother to gather, store and review her plunder obsessively and privately from when she arose at dawn to when she retired.  Choice morsels from this fence post would be selected for me to …purchase.

            I was able, in most cases, to denote what she offered as a “she found” or as an “old family” thing.  I could sense it, smell it and usually SEE it.  She either never detected this skill or simply Yankee tradered forward by never acknowledging it.  Probably the latter for she was skillful.  It was only the pitfall of her lack of professional antiquarian knowledge that occasionally left her…pasture gate open.  Sometimes I simply hopped over the gate with glee.

            What caused that was the few times when she actually found something good and …didn’t know it.  We must return to the location where we were seated to understand this well.  From the front door to my seat in the parlor, we passed up and turned right off of the “front hall”, this very concisely named.  Along each side of this hall was packed more of her antique clutter.  It would pass as a collection but as it was a mish-mosh and mounded assemblage with, in the end, no truly fine object gathered, her antique clutter best describes it.  All was “not for sale”.  All had a hideous tale of acquisition, tale of heritage, tale of value and tale of why it was “there” and “not for sale”.  For example, a mangy trunk full of “old papers” and tied with an old silk ribbon would be exacerbated orally as so & so’s Civil War trunk “he brought home” with the papers being “his papers” even though a briefest scan would show that they were nothing but 1890’s grocery receipts from the local country store and that WHOSE papers these papers were was doubtful while the trunk itself had been “cleaned” by the mother, was ugly and never saw any Civil War anywhere but was… NOT FOR SALE.  This directive found in object after object continued up both sides of the hall, included the wall hung iota, the “under the stair” in a darkened space and climaxed at the upper hall end by a wide and cheaply made wicker bookcase, circa WWI, that the mother had actually purchased “at the train station” to hold her extreme prizes.  These included a “Civil War” sword, numerous natural history items like a single mountain sheep horn and… old (“RARE”) books all… NOT FOR SALE.

            The back edge of this sharp saber of a collection was that, to a passing professional antiquarian, it showed concisely that “this lady has no idea what she’s doing”.  Therefore… and one day, I entered the front parlor and there in the middle of the room on the ratty Victorian carpet sat, among ten other objects, the most outstanding 1750’s crown & heart cut crest banister back arm chair with a beautiful and perfectly worn original black painted surface AND …beautiful and perfectly worn original woven splint seat AND… beautiful and perfect …original height.  I said, moved, touched, breathed, peeked and fumbled NOTHING.

            Within ten minutes I owned the chair for a modest $125.00, a coolly calculated purchase price based on a “she probably paid twenty” rock skip across the water of RISK ALL guessing merged with that “no idea what she’s doing” noted above.  WE moved right on to the next …little hand painted late Victorian HAIR RECIEVER that I HATE but actually BOUGHT during that aura of giddy that overcame me; a …mercy purchase.

            I got that chair out of there and it remains to this day the “best” notch on my antiquarian stick for the “BEST BANNISTER BACK ARMCHAIR” I “found” “ever”.  HOW she got it… to the center of the parlor upon that rug… from the first seemed a… must be an eternal darkness.  I did suspect right away that somehow, somewhere in her travels… locally… she “FOUND” that chair, an obvious “escape” from a southern coastal New England colonial SOMEWHERE …that had been carried by ox cart up into middle-of-no-where-Maine during that colonial era, become outdated and put away and… stayed that way for a century or TWO until THIS WOMAN somehow got it before her and… bought it.  This last is crucial.  As she had, I guessed with my rock skip, actually paid money for it, the chair became indiscriminately “FOR SALE” due to this capital outlay.  It MUST BE SOLD to get back that outlay so even though understood to be a “good” “old” “chair”.  The dollars spent stopped there until my rock skipped one hundred dollar clear “PROFIT” relieved this… crisis situation.