Read Ebook: The collector's whatnot by Kahler Hugh MacNair Roberts Kenneth Lewis Tarkington Booth

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Ebook has 312 lines and 33035 words, and 7 pages

My father flung it from him. "You'd ought to know the difference between bristles and hair--and you a barber's son! That ain't a knife--'tain't nothin' only Dib McWhorter's old sow-scraper! Seen a hundred jes' like it! Folks used to keep 'em for hog-killin' time, when everybody kep' a pig and done his own butcherin'. Scrape the bristles with."

I was crestfallen at the sordid truth. For a moment I almost shared my father's fastidious disgust. But, when he had gone, my instinct reasserted its control of my emotions. I recovered the sow-scraper from the rag-carpet where it lay. I replaced it reverently in its hiding-place. Why? I told myself, then, that my father was wrong; that it was no sow-scraper, but in truth the instrument of some forgotten, gory deed. I clung to it. And, later, when it had lost its first vivid appeal, I fetched it down to exhibit it to that great patron of antiqueing, no less a person than Cornelius Obenchain Van Loot himself.

He had stumbled on our humble dwelling in one of his tireless searches for the antique--quests which, the world knows, have led him even farther afield than Yonkers and Poughkeepsie. He had bought from my mother an excellent set of bedroom enamelware and his appetite had been whetted by the success. He wanted more. I remembered my relic. This man, to my untutored eye, seemed artless and even a little contemptible--an opinion in which, I perceived, my mother concurred. I might persuade him, I reflected, that the bristles were human hair; it seemed unlikely that he could be expert in such distinctions, unless he had been, like me, a barber's son. I shall not soon forget his cry of joy as his eye fell on my scraper. It was the one time in my acquaintance with him that he permitted himself to betray satisfaction before a bargain had been closed. It cost him, on this occasion, twenty dollars.

I established, with my mother's ardent corroboration, my character and my title. The great Van Loot believed, at last.

"Priceless," I heard him murmur. "Perfect! Superb!" and then aloud, to me: "Little man, I'll give you twenty dollars for this old piece of iron. Twenty dollars--!"

"I guess you will," I said, even then actuated by the instinct of the antiquer. "Who wouldn't? See any green in my eye?" "You gimme fifty and we'll talk."

We compromised at forty. It was a triumph rather for my family than for me, for my mother expropriated the cash before I could escape, and subsequently invested it, happily for me, on a mustache-cup dutifully gilt-lettered "Father," a small bone carved in the crude semblance of a human hand and attached to a long slender rod , and a pottery sculpture of a pug-dog, which articles, ripened into antiques by the amiable, intervening years, yielded me some thousands per centum on the investment. But the episode was far more significant than it seemed, in its effect upon my life.

Forty dollars was the price current of a sow-scraper. I consulted my father, cannily. They had been made, it appeared, by the local smith, at a uniform price of twenty-five cents. His memory is accurate. Informed of the transaction he used emphatic speech in regretting his failure to lay in a stock, in the days of plenty. It would have paid better, he averred, than barbering for Jay Gould himself, or curling Ferd Ward's own whiskers!

From that day I was a blooded antiquer ahead. I have no passion for the merely old; it would be as unexciting, for me, to delve and seek for treasure in dusty corners, after the habit of the commonplace antiquer, as to angle for goldfish in a glass bowl. I play the nobler game. I antique, not in yesterday, but in to-morrow.

Ah, the fascination of it! The intoxication of tearing the veil from the inscrutable hereafter, the blood-quickening element of risk, as one selects and stores away the antiques of to-morrow-years, against the day of rarity and famine! Ah, the triumph of a well-stocked bin, sealed till the day of reckoning! I have enjoyed these delights alone; I share them, now, with those who have the soul to follow in my steps.

Since the closing days of the first Cleveland Period, I have systematically antiqued ahead, privately, unadvertised, secretly exulting. Even now, those earlier bins and cupboards have begun to justify my penetrating choice. Who, of all the unthinking thousands who beheld the wired bustle in its heyday, thought to preserve a full dozen against to-day? Who, but Eben S. Twitchett, ridiculed as a crank and a fanatic by his neighbors, unhonored and unsung by myopic antiquers, the prey of dealers in alley trash?

Who, but Eben S., had the forethought to store, in ample camphor, a perfect set of Harrison red flannels, and no less than six petticoats of the same material and date? Who, of all the gray-haired collectors who seek and cherish them to-day, but might have laid by as full a stock as mine of lapel-buttons bearing the obsolete argot of the period--quip and jest which have all but lost their significance now? Or the buttons advertising bicycles--The Rambler and the Tribune--built with a truss--the Victor and Columbia and Pierce? Who had the wit and courage to store away the stereoscopes and the twin photographs that in them found perspective--priceless and unattainable to-day? The Chinese Tea Pickers? The Yellowstone? Brooklyn Bridge? Who boasts of these but Eben S. Twitchett, with his mid-ninety bin crammed to overflow with perfect specimens? Who stored the spun-glass trinkets of the Chicago Fair? Who, if he chose, might break the market in cylindrical phonograph records of "Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" and "The Stars and Stripes Forever"? Who, I ask, possesses one gross of American flags of the McKinley Period, each exquisitely inscribed with its "Remember the Maine--to hell with Spain"? Who can supply collectors with uncut, first edition pamphlet copies of the Great Cross of Gold oration, each with its rare Bryan print--that almost unobtainable portrait including hair?

The reader bears with my little paean of triumph. These things are history, among antiquers of high degree and low and middle. But who, of all those who beat on Eben S. Twitchett's doors to-day, who plead and supplicate for even a peep into the sealed bins of the Roosevelt Epoch, who, of all these, has the courage to antique, in this year 1923, for the antiquers of to-morrow?

Eben S. Twitchett has. Time, the great revealer, shall one day let in full light on the storerooms where his treasures are laid down, to-day as yesterday. What will Time see there? Ah, that is for each forward-looking antiquer to determine for himself. I cannot bring myself to share too many of my secrets, even now. And the true antiquer would regret a guidance too exact; the allure of the avocation lies, for the select few who find the true spirit of the art, in the very element of doubt. One may lay down the wrong thing; it may never achieve the quality of an antique. Who can tell?

Only yesterday, I sold the last of my cigarette pictures. Della Fox! I had a hundred of her, once. It seemed impossible for us Yonkers boys, trading acutely in that fresh, delighted loveliness, that it could ever be antique! I must have felt, intuitively, even then, that it must be. Wanting that intuition, too, I would not have stored away the thumbed installments of my nickel weeklies--those precious specimens that one may view, now, under glass, on free days, at the Metropolitan Museum of Antiques.

Time has done it. And time will do it again. Antiquer, antique, but antique ahead!

HINTS FOR BUYING FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES

CECILIA LEFINGWELL PRYNNE

If, in passing a New-England farmhouse, you see a fine piece of old furniture through the open front doorway , or if perchance you spy upon the veranda, or in the fairway beside the barn, some rare old bit of glass, a bow-backed pine Windsor chair, a tambo-door sideboard, or a hooked rug, or any other article you may wish to purchase, it will be well for you not to approach the subject directly, but in a somewhat roundabout manner, as the peasants of this section are extremely suspicious of strangers; and if they perceive that you wish to buy anything of them, they are likely to become instantly so fond of the object of your desire that they will decline to part with it; or they may get the notion that you are connected with the prohibition enforcement laws and are merely disguising your real interest in how hard their cider has turned. Therefore the editors have asked me to prepare a few model dialogues which may be found useful in this connection. The form of approach suggested can profitably be studied by the motorist collector.

DIALOGUE ONE

DIALOGUE II

DIALOGUE IV

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS

MURGATROYD ELPHINSTONE, A.B., A.M., F.R.F.H.A.

It is persistence that brings to light the unexpected treasure. It is persistence that effects unexpected results. It is persistence that enables the antique-collector to secure for fifty cents or one dollar a genuine antique that is worth from one hundred to five hundred dollars until it is put up for sale at an auction, when it isn't worth so much.

A guiding star for all antique-collectors, whether amateur or professional, may be found in the adventures of the old Elon D. Whipplefish house just outside the little town of Sunkset, one of those delightful little settlements surrounded by cranberry bushes, sand, and Down East accents on quaint and picturesque Cape Cod. The Elon D. Whipplefish house was built in 1742 by Isaiah Thrasher, a direct descendant of the Marjoribank family of Lower Tooting-on-Wye, England, one or more of whose members came to America on the Mayflower. Considerable haziness exists concerning the descendants of the Marjoribanks family owing to the fact that the name was pronounced Marshunk by those familiar with English pronunciation, and that some American records refer to the Marjoribanks as Marsh or as Shawbank or as Bunk, owing to the difficulty of properly separating the pronunciation and the spelling.

At any rate, Isaiah Thrasher was a descendant of the one or more members of the Marjoribanks family who came to America on the Mayflower; and he inherited from his ancestor a number of rare old pieces of English furniture, including a very fine old chest. The top of this chest was missing, the feet were worn away, and several of the boards had been removed, stolen or lost from the front and sides. Nevertheless it was a very fine old chest, and very rare. Probably not more than twenty-eight or thirty of these chests, all told, were brought over in the Mayflower. He also owned an extremely fine cradle of the same general type as that which is said to have sheltered Peregrine White, who attained fame by being born among the furniture of the Mayflower, though there are some who say that some of the furniture had to be moved out before Peregrine could get in. This cradle was of wicker and had probably been made in the Orient, whence it was brought to Holland, and there picked up, just before the Mayflower sailed, by one of the Marjoribanks family who had a fine eye for odd pieces of furniture. Another of his possessions was a beautiful turned chair with an unusual number of spindles. It had so many spindles that any one who sat in it could easily spend two or three hours counting the spindles. This came over in the Mayflower, and was unusually rare, owing to the fact that most of the Mayflower tourists eschewed chairs and stuck to larger and more space-filling pieces of furniture, like desks, whatnots, highboys, lowboys, clocks, bedsteads, and chests. Most of them were evidently content to sit on the floor or lean against a highboy, when not asleep or in motion.

The mere fact that Isaiah Thrasher inherited these rare and beautiful pieces of furniture from his ancestors filled him with a love for the good and the beautiful. When, therefore, he moved from Plymouth to Sunkset in 1742 in search of more religious freedom than obtained in Plymouth, the farmhouse that he built conformed in every way to the best standards of Colonial architecture. The doorway was perfect; all of the beams were hand-hewn of the finest oak; the balustrades on the staircases were as gracefully curved as the lines of a woman's throat; the fine corner cupboards throughout the house were gems of the joiner's art; the fireplaces were generous and hospitable, flanked by settles, brick ovens, and cupboards of pumpkin pine, and duly decorated with spits, cranes, pot-hooks, trammels, trivets, and sturdy andirons.

Isaiah Thrasher found all the religious freedom for which he sought in Sunkset; for there was practically nothing in Sunkset but religious freedom and cranberries. He died at the age of eighty-two, and his house passed into the hands of his nephew, Jared Titcomb, who was noted on Cape Cod for being the champion cranberry-sauce-eater of the district, and also for having accounted for three British soldiers just after the battle of Concord by pushing a stone wall over on them. Jared Titcomb in turn bequeathed the house to his son-in-law, Rufus Whipplefish, who was noted for nothing, so far as can be learned; and when Rufus died, the house descended to his son, Elon D. Whipplefish, who had the reputation of making the hardest cider in Duke's County. It was from this owner that the house took its name--the Elon D. Whipplefish house--and it was through this owner that I became familiar with the house, its history, and its contents.

The house stood well out on the outskirts of Sunkset, surrounded by a heavy growth of apple trees, pine trees, lilacs, willows, rosa rugosa, actinidia arguta, stinkbush, poplars, and cranberries. For this reason it had been overlooked by antique-hunters, who buzz around Cape Cod in the spring, summer, and autumn with the same eagerness with which flies buzz around a cow in September.

It was a brisk autumn day, and the odor of stinkbush was particularly apparent as I made my way through the grove of trees which surrounded the Elon D. Whipplefish house. I shall never smell stinkbush again without thinking of that red letter day; though I must confess that at the time it depressed me slightly.

Mr. Whipplefish was seated in his beautiful old kitchen with his feet resting comfortably in a beautiful old brick oven; and as I knocked at his back door, he cried out in his kindly New England manner that he didn't want any, and to go away. Pretending to misunderstand his words, I opened the door and walked in. Then, lest there be any unpleasantness, I dropped my hat as though by accident, and in stooping to pick it up permitted the pint flask of gin to slip from my breast pocket and fall into my hat. This is a gesture which has saved the day for me on many and many an occasion where all seemed to be lost save honor. A few days of practice will enable any one to drop a pint flask from his breast pocket and catch it unharmed in his hat with the utmost nonchalance.

Having done this, I affected great embarrassment and looked at the flask ruefully, as though it had betrayed me in an embarrassing manner. Mr. Whipplefish's manner at once became more affable, and he asked me with gruff Cape Cod hospitality what I wanted.

One thing led to another, and by the time we had consumed the pint of gin, he was permitting me to examine the furnishings of his home without protest.

The best test of the Dutch worm of the first quarter of the seventeenth century is to place the forefinger over any worm-hole in a given space, place the lips over the worm-hole next to the left of the obstructed orifice, and blow firmly into it. If the hole is a true Dutch hole of the early seventeenth century, a small cloud of dust will emerge from the hole next to the one in which the blower is blowing and will usually enter his eye.

If it is not a seventeenth-century Dutch hole, the blower can blow all day without obtaining any noteworthy results except a flushed face.

My first venture in applying this test to the Whipplefish chest resulted in a cloud of dust which entered my eyes, nose and ears and nearly choked me. Succeeding tests on other holes resulted in similar clouds of dust of such proportions that I was at length forced to desist in order to remove the accretions from my eyes.

This was incontrovertible proof that the chest had been in existence in Holland during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and that it had undoubtedly been acquired by the Pilgrims during their enforced vacation in Leyden before sailing for America in the Mayflower.

Cursory glances around the interior of the Whipplefish house, after my eyes had been cleared with the assistance of Mr. Whipplefish and a little gin and water, revealed, in addition to the cradle and the spindled chair which I have mentioned, some very fine old wrought-iron latches and H and L hinges on the doors, which were in themselves beautiful specimens of the art. The lintels and sills of the doors were simply but exquisitely carved; while the oak rafters which held up the ceilings were so mellowed and patinated by age that their rugged strength was most attractive. All of the downstairs rooms were sheathed in boards of pumpkin pine nearly three feet in width and without a knot in them.

How symbolical of the changes that have taken place in our country is the pine, that simplest of trees! In the earnest, upright, early days of America, the pine grew without knots. To-day every pine tree has so many knots in it that a person must rise at midnight in order to get them counted before breakfast. And similarly, to-day, the ancient ideals of honor and honesty seem to have departed from us. This is particularly apparent to one who moves much in antique circles. Behind each corner lurks a human harpy who would gladly take candy from a child or use a sand-bag if all else fails.

Concealing my passionate desire to relieve Mr. Whipplefish of all his belongings, I dismissed the subject of antiques as being of no consequence, and spoke at some length with him concerning gin. When he voiced his appreciation of the flavor of my particular brand, I informed him that it was genuine pre-war gin, and that it was practically priceless.

While this was not strictly true, I had none the less manufactured it according to a tried receipt given to me by an employee of the Cuban Legation in Washington who dispenses great quantities--which he makes himself--as genuine pre-war gin. His statements are believed in Washington; and the gin is used at many important social functions in the capital and always spoken of reverently as pre-war gin. Consequently I believe that I am within my rights in speaking of it in the same way.

When I had made plain to him the extremely valuable nature of the gin, I told him frankly that since he seemed to have a discriminating taste in such things, I was willing to let him have an entire quart of it, and that in exchange I was willing to take his old chest as a pleasant reminder of my visit to Cape Cod.

After some grumbling Mr. Whipplefish agreed to this exchange, whereupon I repaired to my room in the Sunkset House, mixed the gin, and hastened back to the Whipplefish home with it. I carried the chest away the same day, and have since refused an offer of two hundred dollars for it.

During the next two days I did not go near the Whipplefish house; but at the expiration of the two days--which, in Mr. Whipplefish's case, I judged to be about the life of one quart of gin--I returned and found him in a state of nerves.

The antique-collector must learn to be patient. Nothing is gained by rushing matters. If I had gone to Mr. Whipplefish before he had finished the gin, I could have done very little business with him probably. The antique-collector must also learn restraint. If I had offered Mr. Whipplefish a case of gin for his chest instead of one quart, he would probably have smelled a rat. He might have held the chest for a higher price, or he might have had the gin analyzed. Either course would have caused me considerable embarrassment.

The doors of the inside rooms cost me one quart apiece, with the hardware thrown in. The big front door and carved sills with a graceful fanlight came higher. That cost me half a case, but it was worth it, as I have since refused an offer of twelve hundred dollars for it.

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