Books!
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Saturday had been a good deal of fun to make up for the terrible week. However, it was the anniversary of Edred’s death. It had been four years, and while Carrie-Bri was out with Elizabeth that day, she hoped to place fresh flowers on his tomb. It was still a hard event to remember.
At noon, OLeif and Collette headed over to the house where they left with Mom and Linnea to pick up Rose from the work-day at church. While they waited, Mom and another lady from church, Mrs. Emerald Buckle, were discussing events for the summer. They talked of the Shakespeare on the Green with dancers, minstrels, fire-breathers, jugglers, fish and chips, the guests who brought candles and wine for the production…
Finally, Rose arrived, and brought with her a crystal, gold, and marble candelabra, which she had taken from the auction remains for Collette. It was quite exotic looking for her collection.
And it was off to the Antique Mall as they discussed how A&W now had a jukebox in their restaurant.
“Ooooh! I know what juke stands for,” Rose exclaimed from the back seat. “Jam… Underwear! Kat… spelled with a “K”, and… everyone. Jam underwear kat everyone!”
They rolled their eyes as Rose giggled.
But what a find they made at the antique mall. Collette had originally begun with a search for old Halloween collectibles. However, both she and Rose quickly came across several collections of wonderful old books – most titles of which they had never heard.
The first copy was a tattered Robinson Crusoe which Rose found sitting on a table. Then Collette saw several copies of the 282 Riverside Literature Series; she selected four: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Tempest”, “Rip Van Winkle”, and “The Great Stone Face”. Then Rose found wonderful copies of old stories and a music book from the teens, 1920’s, and 30’s. Collette stumbled across a lovely embossed red cloth book entitled, Little People of Japan. Then she found the book-mine where Rose was situated. There was a book on a thousand things – obscure questions. There was a book on shorthand wrapped in old brown paper with a picture of the U.S. capitol off to the side. And the final grand piece was entitled, Flemish Life in Four Stories from 1876 and bound well, gilted. It was a good find. They decided to begin a book collection.
The last piece was a German barometer from the Lufft company. Collette was not sure how old it was, but she liked it. And Linnea had found an old baseball and an old paper fan. She paid with her handful of dimes, which she had been saving for their trip around the world.
As Collette sat searching on the computer before dinner that evening, Linnea came up to her with a mournful face.
“Collette, I only have one dollar and eighty-two cents left now.”
Collette laughed, and assured her that they would still be able to save for their trip.
At the house, over Napoli’s pizza, OLeif had just returned from another excursion from the tobacco shop in Old St. Charles where a sweet little eighty-year old man had sold him his latest favorite – a long-stemmed black pipe with a red wooden bowl. It was nice, Collette had to admit, and he soon smelled of a sweet burning. But she preferred he left off the pipe-smoking habit.