Adopting An Abandoned Farm, Kate Sanborn [best mobile ebook reader .txt] 📗

a big knife by it, and on the stove a giant kettle in which cotton bags full of coffee are being distilled in boiling water. You are expected to dip a heavy white mug into the kettle for your share of the fragrant reviving beverage, cut off a hunk of cheese, and eat as many crackers as you can. It tasted well, that informal "free lunch."

Finding after one or two trials that the interested parties raised rapidly on anything I desired. I used to send Gusta and John, nicknamed very properly "Omniscience and Omnipotence," which names did equally well when reversed (like a paper cuff), and they, less verdant than their mistress, would return with an amazing array of stuff. We now have everything but a second-hand pulpit, a wooden leg, and a coffin plate. We utilized a cradle and antique churn as a composite flower stand; an immense spinning-wheel looks pretty covered with running vines, an old carriage lantern gleams brightly on my piazza every evening. I nearly bought a horse for fifteen dollars, and did secure a wagon for one dollar and a half, which, after a few needed repairs, costing only twenty-six dollars, was my pride, delight and comfort, and the envy of the neighborhood. Men came from near and far to examine that wagon, felt critically of every wheel, admired the shining coat of dark-green paint, and would always wind up with: "I vum, if that 'ere wagon ain't fine! Why, it's wuth fifty dollars, now, ef it's wuth a cent!" After a hard day's work, it seemed a gratification to them to come with lanterns to renew their critical survey, making a fine Rembrandtish study as they stood around it and wondered. A sleigh was bought for three dollars which, when painted by our home artist, is both comfortable and effective.

At one auction, where I was the only woman present, I bid on three shovels (needed to dig worms for my prize hens!) and, as the excitement increased with a rise in bids from two cents to ten, I cried, "Eleven!" And the gallant old fellow in command roared out as a man opened his mouth for "Twelve!": "I wouldn't bid ag'in a woman ef I'se you. Let 'er have 'em! Madam, Mum, or Miss - I can't pernounce your name and don't rightly know how to spell it - but the shovels are yourn!"

Attending auctions may be an acquired taste, but it grows on one like any other habit, and whenever a new and tempting announcement calls, I rise to the occasion and hasten to the scene of action, be the weather what it may. And many a treasure has been picked up in this way. Quaint old mirrors with the queerest pictures above, brass knockers, candlesticks of queer patterns, cups and saucers and plates, mugs of all sizes, from one generous enough to satisfy the capacities of a lager-soaked Dutchman to a dear little child's mug, evidently once belonging to a series. Mine was for March. A mother sitting on a bench, with a bowl of possibly Lenten soup by her side, is reproving a fat little fellow for his gross appetite at this solemn season. He is weeping, and on her other side a pet dog is pleading to be fed. The rhyme explains the reason:

The jovial days of feasting past,
'Tis pious prudence come at last;
And eager gluttony is taught
To be content with what it ought.

A warming pan and a foot stove, just as it was brought home from a merry sleigh-ride, or a solemn hour at the "meetin'-house," recalling that line of Thomas Gray's:

E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

Sometimes I would offer a little more to gain some coveted treasure already bid off. How a city friend enjoyed the confidences of a man who had agreed to sell for a profit! How he chuckled as he told of "one of them women who he guessed was a leetle crazy." "Why, jest think on't! I only paid ten cents for that hull lot on the table yonder, and <i>she" (pointing to me) "<i>she gin me a quarter for that old pair o' tongs!"

One day I heard some comments on myself after I had bid on a rag carpet and offered more than the other women knew it was worth.

"She's got a million, I hear."

"Wanter know - merried?"

"No; just an old maid."

"Judas Priest! Howd she git it?"

"Writin', I 'spoze. She writes love stories and sich for city papers. Some on 'em makes a lot."

It is not always cheering to overhear too much. When some of my friends, whom I had taken to a favorite junk shop, felt after two hours of purchase and exploration that they must not keep me waiting any longer, the man, in his eagerness to make a few more sales, exclaimed: "Let her wait; <i>her time ain't wuth nothin'!"

At an auction last summer, one man told me of a very venerable lantern, an heirloom in his first wife's family, <i>so long, measuring nearly a yard with his hands. I said I should like to go with him to see it, as I was making a collection of lanterns. He looked rather dazed, and as I turned away he inquired of my friend "if I wusn't <i>rather - " She never allowed him to finish, and his lantern is now mine.

People seem to have but little sentiment about their associations with furniture long in the family.

The family and a few intimate friends usually sit at the upper windows gazing curiously on the crowd, with no evidence of feeling or pathetic recollections.

I lately heard a daughter say less than a month after her father's death, pointing to a small cretonne-covered lounge: "Father made me that lounge with his own hands when I's a little girl. He tho't a sight on't it, and allers kep' it 'round. But my house is full now. I ain't got no room for't." It sold for twelve cents!

Arthur Helps says that human nature craves, nay <i>enjoys, tragedy; and when away from dramatic representation of crime and horrors and sudden death, as in this quiet country life, the people gratify their needs in the sorrows, sins, and calamities that befall their neighbors.

I strongly incline to Hawthorne's idea that furniture becomes magnetized, permeated, semi-vitalized, so that the chairs, sofas, and tables that have outlived their dear owners in my own family have almost a sacred value to me.

Still, why moralize. Estates must be settled, and auctions are a blessing in disguise.

Of course, buying so much by substitutes, I amassed a lot of curious things, of which I did not know the use or value, and therefore greatly enjoyed the experience of the Spectator as given in the Christian Union.

He attended an auction with the following result: "A long table was covered with china, earthenware, and glass; and the mantel beyond, a narrow shelf quite near the ceiling, glittered with a tangled maze of clean brass candlesticks, steel snuffers, and plated trays. At one end dangled a huge warming pan, and on the wall near it hung a bit of canvas in a gilded frame, from which the portrait had as utterly faded as he whom it represented had vanished into thin air. It was a strange place, a room from which many a colonial citizen had passed to take a stroll upon the village street; and here, in sad confusion to be sure, the dishes that graced his breakfast table. The Spectator could have lingered there if alone for half a day, but not willingly for half an hour in such a crowd. The crowd, however, closed every exit and he had to submit. A possible chance to secure some odd bit was his only consolation. Why the good old soul who last occupied the house, and who was born in it fourscore years ago, should necessarily have had only her grandmother's tableware, why every generation of this family should have suffered no losses by breakage, was not asked. Every bit, even to baking-powder prizes of green and greasy glass, antedated the Revolution, and the wise and mighty of Smalltown knew no better. A bit of egg shell sticking to a cracked teacup was stolen as a relic of Washington's last breakfast in Smalltown.

* * * * *

"While willow-pattern china was passing into other hands the Spectator made a discovery. A curious piece of polished, crooked mahogany was seen lying between soup tureens and gravy boats. He picked it up cautiously, fearing to attract attention, and, with one eye everywhere else, scanned it closely. What a curious paper-knife! he thought, and slyly tucked it back of a pile of plates. This must be kept track of; it may prove a veritable prize. But all his care went for naught. A curious old lady at his elbow had seen every action. 'What is it?' she asked, and the wooden wonder was brought to light. 'It's an old-fashioned wooden butter knife. I've seen 'em 'afore this. Don't you know in old times it wasn't everybody as had silver, and mahogany knives for butter was put on the table for big folks. We folks each used our own knife.' All this was dribbled into the Spectator's willing ears, and have the relic he would at any cost. Time and again he nervously turned it over to be sure that it was on the table, and so excited another's curiosity. 'What is it?' a second and still older lady asked. 'A colonial butter knife,' the Spectator replied with an air of much antiquarian lore. 'A butter knife! No such thing. My grandfather had one just like this, and it's a pruning knife. He wouldn't use a steel knife because it poisoned the sap.' What next? Paper knife, butter knife, and pruning knife! At all events every new name added a dollar to its value, and the Spectator wondered what the crowd would say, for now it was in the auctioneer's hands. He looked at it with a puzzled expression and merely cried: 'What is bid for <i>this?' His ignorance was encouraging. It started at a dime and the Spectator secured it for a quarter. For a moment he little wondered at the fascination of public sales. The past was forgiven, for now luck had turned and he gloried in the possession of a prize.

"To seek the outer world was a perilous undertaking for fear that the triply-named knife might come to grief; but a snug harbor was reached at last, and hugging the precious bit, the Spectator mysteriously disappeared on reaching his home. No one must know of his success until the mystery was cleaned, brightened, and restored to pristine beauty. The Spectator rubbed the gummy surface with kerosene, and then polished it with flannel. Then warm water and a tooth brush were brought into play, and the oil all removed. Then a long dry polishing, and the restoration was complete. Certainly no other Smalltowner had such a wooden knife; and it was indeed beautiful. Black in a cross light, red in direct light, and kaleidoscopic by gaslight. Ah, such a prize! The family knew that something strange was transpiring, but what no one had an inkling. They must wait patiently, and they did. The Spectator proudly appeared, his prize in hand. 'See there!' he cried in triumph, and they all looked eagerly; and when the Spectator's pride was soaring at its highest, a