Summer Place
Part Twelve - A
When…
my grandmother spied …the old china bowl… in the cupboard… in the old kitchen…
of the oldest and original… house… now but a ‘part’ of… the big, grand and
later… ‘Captain Merritt Kimball house’… she… knew what it was… and… what it
was. The old china bowl had TWO
‘what it was’
The
first ‘what it was’ is antiquarian and clinical. My grandmother knew that she had discovered a classic
English creamware punch bowl with the classic hand painted floral ‘King’s rose’
decoration. The title of ‘King’s
rose’ for the name of the decoration has, in recent years, slipped from usage
for it is an ‘old school’ New England antiques (dealer’s) title term that today
is considered a sort of …slang term.
In 1962 this title was still ‘the name’. Today, in the romantic underground vocabulary of the
antiquarian interest, it is still in popular usage but… in most cases of usage…
it is used to describe a very similar BUT NOT TRUE AND EXACT painted pattern,
usually offered on plates, that are ‘later’ meaning… 1800 – 1825. ‘Later’ also means that antiquarians
such as myself ‘don’t want that’.
This current name usage is protected for it is actually very hard to
…actually find… an actual… EARLY true creamware ‘King’s rose’ …anything. That is not the point here but it does
enhance my usage of the word ‘clinical’.
True
‘King’s rose’ is ‘colonial’, ‘old attic’, ‘old settler’, ‘old sea captain’ and…
never found in a ‘summer place’.
It’s ‘too rare’ and when found… it’s ‘too expensive’ ‘for them’; ‘they
don’t know what it is’.
This
last my grandmother knew right then, right there and right there ever
after. That is why Rufus sold “it”
for fifty cents, why my grandmother never let go of “it” for the rest of the
visit and …why she simply slipped “it” into the back and bottom of her …junky
old china cabinet. Aside from a
slightest of hand of an in the know ‘knows what they’re doing’ antiquarian
visitor such as “the judge”… whose eye would make the true bee’s line to that
‘old china bowl’ but “never bought it”… “nobody cares” about “it”. It was, for my grandmother,
“safe”. It stayed there until she
died; “Nobody wants it”.
Well…
they WANTED IT but… “wouldn’t pay”… “my price”. AND… WHEN they asked, they got to hear the saga, in one form
or another, over and over again.
AND …they ENJOYED hearing the saga for THAT was what made the ‘old china
bowl’ “good”.
When
my grandmother “kitchened” that ‘old china bowl’…: Right then: SHE
KNEW WHAT IT WAS… as meaning number two.
“IT” was “Compass Parker’s Bowl”.
My grandmother had been looking for Compass Parker ANYTHING in the
‘Captain Merritt Kimball house’.
She had not mentioned or discussed this with anyone and never ever
did. “Nobody would care about
that.” she’d say. It was and IS
STILL the opposite; not only do ‘they’ “care about that” but THAT “IS” “it”
about all of this. Compass
Parker’s Bowl IS… “the very subtle trademark traditions of this whole… Maine…
romance” (Part One).
Sophia
Kimball, wife of Captain Merritt Kimball… had a mother… whose name was Sophia
too. THAT Sophia had a mother and
HER name was Sophia. Too. THAT Sophia was married to, sort of [1],
a George Parker. There were lots
of George Parkers along the coast from about 1640 to 1800. THERE WERE LOTS OF PARKERS along the
Maine coast. This one George
Parker; Sophia’s husband, sort of, was distinguished from the others by the
nick-name-that-stuck of “Compass”.
He was “Compass Parker”.
The Parkers… along the Maine Coast…
in the colonial era, may be considered a sort of coastal seafaring clan… in a
very loose and casual way. Parkers
were born, sailed along the coast ‘trading’ or occasionally ‘built a cabin’ on
shore for ‘trading’… and died, in some way, only to be replaced by another
Parker. Or two. What kept the Parkers going was their
ability to keep going. Indians
burned them flat. Settlers fled
the Maine coast. They came back
and rebuilt only to do it all over again.
A Parker would appear ‘along the coast’ promptly to ‘engage in trade’…
whatever that was… and the Parkers did not bother to define that.
This
Sophia had a mother? Yes but who,
where, when, why and IF SHE was a Sophia too… ‘is lost’. It is, though, very well understood… by
the oral tradition of this saga, that THIS Sophia; Compass Parker’s ‘wife’… was
Sophia… number one… for the saga… of the Captain Merritt Kimball house.
Compass
Parker lived on a small boat with Sophia.
They traveled up and down the Maine coast ‘trading’. Compass was engaged in trading…
‘molasses, slaves and rum’ ‘in the Salem – Boston area’. He had nothing to do with molasses and
slaves. No one wanted those along
the Maine coast. They did want
rum. Compass quickly discerned
this. In his small boat, the most
valuable and negotiable commodity he could offer for trade was… rum. Silver and gold were useless on the
coast of Maine. No one wanted
that; what could one do with gold or silver in the Maine woods? Guns, powder and lead? Yes a good trader but not as good as
rum. Rum… ‘you can drink’ in
addition to ‘pay all debts’ with in addition to ‘buy anything with’. A little boat filled with little kegs
of… scrupulously watered down “rum” was the perfect trading cargo. “EVERYONE” “wants it”. By knowing where he is, was and planned
to go (hence “Compass”), Captain Parker “KNEW” the Maine Coast “IN THE DARK”
and he knew ALL of the trading options from ‘Indians’ to ‘pirates’ to
‘fishermen’ to ‘settlers’ to… ‘ministers’. With greatest slight of hand skills, Compass Parker, in his
boat with his wife… ‘came and went’.
When his kegs of rum were gone and his traded cargo “aboard”, he…
slipped away, slipped into port, traded a new rum cargo and slipped away again,
over and over… saying nothing, and writing nothing down… ever. While doing this, Compass and Sophia
had a daughter ...named Sophia… who …grew up on the boat.
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