Maggie's Store - Part Six

Maggie's Store

Part Six

            Now what happened was that in the house that Maggie lived in They “found” this framed box that had all of these medals in it framed all up so it could be hung on the wall where they “found it”.  I could never understand this “found it” because it was in PLAIN SIGHT on the wall of little room at the back of the house where “The Brother” had lived and I’D seen it so when they “FOUND IT” I was all over my grandmother for that and SHE GAVE IT TO ME.  And I kept that.  For a while.  I had that right up in my bedroom which was up above the kitchen and all of those medals were red, white and blue ribbons all holding up brass guns and cannons and “G.A.R.” everywhere except for few things in the center that my grandmother pointed out to me... especially these little blue cloth rectangles with this gold lace wire in the shape of what she called an “oak leaf”.  I remember how some fat cat from “PHILADELPHIA” bought that off of me thirty-five plus years ago and even he liked the “oak leaf”.

            I’d only get called into Maggie’s house when THEY had been in there a while.  Or the small barn.  That one was what we call “bailed right full” and I guess most of it “on top” was from the big second house because I guess they’d kept changing the insides of that and take out what was old and put in new so the little barn was actually a big attic.  There was an attic in the second house because I was in that too but all that had was about hundred pitcher and bowls and piss pots and an old clock that Maggie wouldn’t sell for along time and then finally did because, it turned out, some other guy hadn’t even offered “half” of what my grandmother had.  My grandmother had the clock man fix it so it worked and then the Judge wanted to buy it but he said it was too much money “for that” so another man from down by Boston bought it and I guess that Judge was pissy then because he knew THAT man and had SEEN the clock at his house in Boston.  Or something like that.