Also were can I buy it.Its not wicker it is a new material that looks like wicker but can stay outside in all weather.I would like to know were to buy it.

What is the material called to weave all weather wicker chairs?

When it comes to home design, nothing sets the mood better than outdoor wicker patio furniture. Using furniture made out of wood would not only make your home feel cozy but also perfect. Rather than spending a lot of money on foams or sofas, you can just rely on wicker furniture. If you have no ideas about wicker then try to look at the basics. Wicker is a hard woven fiber that is formed through the use of very rigid materials. The process of weaving wicker is often seen in baskets and other types of products. Wicker is actually made from plants yet due to the increase in demand, most products already have some plastic fiber. However, there is still some outdoor wicker patio furniture which is created entirely out of plants.

Usually, the cores of the plant such as the rattan, willow or cane branches are used. In some countries, the use of bamboo or reed is applied. In order for the furniture to last a lifetime, manufacturers have applied frames made of stiff materials and other strong casts. Through the use of outdoor wicker patio furniture, you do not have to worry about carrying because wicker is a very sturdy and light. You can virtually move the furniture anywhere if you are planning to renovate your home or if you are planning to clean your carpet. Wicker is also quite strong in terms of lifespan because the plant or wood used in the process would expand or contract in terms of weather conditions. If the weather would be hot, then the wicker furniture would gradually change in order to fit the weather.

Remember though that there are various types of wicker furniture. Some of them are made from plastic materials while others are entirely made out of wood. There are also hybrid types which are made from both materials. In order to know about the type of outdoor wicker patio furniture that you would be buying, always ask the retailer first. You should also look for the type and design of wicker furniture that would look great for your home.

Tony McGuigano is the owner of the Outdoor Wicker Patio Furniture

Outdoor Wicker Patio Furniture Information » articledirect.cz.cc

Strathwood Camano All-Weather Wicker Arm Chair

• Large, cushioned chair crafted from weather-defying wicker fiber to withstand fading, weathering, and aging
• Quality-constructed on durable, weatherproof aluminum frames
• High-density hardwood feet with excellent weather-resistant properties
• Easy to clean; seat cushion measures 30 by 24 by 4 inches
• Chair measures 30 inches deep by 31 inches wide by 32 inches tall; weighs 38.37 pounds including cushion

Strathwood furniture has quality, ease of use, and casual elegance at its core. Each piece is rigorously tested for durability, and assembly instructions have been standardized for simplicity from start to finish. Strathwood furniture is sleekly designed, handsomely finished, and built to last. This classic style and reliable craftsmanship will weather ever-changing trends and regular use for years to come. Strathwood produces a handsome collection of wicker furniture for outdoor use. Generous

List Price: $ 380.00

Price: $ 279.99

Strathwood Camano All-Weather Wicker Arm Chair | Wicker Chair

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Outdoor Wicker Sofa Sectional Patio Living Set Furniture 6 Pces …

Amazon.co.uk Widgets
Rattan Wicker Garden Chairs Chicago Dining Chairs PairSummary
A pair of stylish dining chairs made from PVC rattan with cushions included.

Rattan Garden Furniture is designed to be hardwearing and durable. The Rattan wicker material is low maintenance and designed to withstand the Great British elements.

Further Information
Made from fully weatherproof PVC rattan, the Pair of Chicago Dining Chairs is the ideal chair for your garden. Whether you’re looking to add to existing furniture or to simply increase seating in your garden

Price: £254.99Brought to you by Online Furniture Discounts

Rattan Wicker Garden Chairs Chicago Dining Chairs Pair

very long, sorry. take in mind before you read this, we live in italy are much more hot blooded than in america!i have a friend “joe” who is sometimes more…and has a very sick father who is very fond of me. he’s returning to his home country so i wanted to make a special dinner for him. last night joe told me to go to his apt and he and 3 of his guy friends would get the food and bring it home, although we had agreed to do it and cook together.after 1/2 hr he walked in…with a girl from hong kong. he had no food and no 3 friends.i got SO MAD. he acted like i wasnt even there. i said bye to his dad who was upset i was leaving but i was so mad at joe. on the way out i got really immature, i’ll admit and told joe to fuck off, but i wasnt gonna let it go so i went back in and told him to come outside.we went in the hall and argued for 1/2 hr.he said im not his gf and he doesnt have to tell me when he s bringing someone home. i told him the problem was only that IM the one who wanted to do something special for his dad and make him dinner and he LIED about going to get food and instead brought some stranger from the market home.he kept trying to get me to come back in and i told him to shut the door in my face and leave me there. i wanted to see him do it, afterall he’s been breaking my heart on and off for 9 months.he said he wouldn’t do that but i was his FRIEND ; nothing less nothing more (of course his tone was different two nights before when we were cuddling on his couch) and he’s done with girls, he doesn’t want a gf.i todl him i didnt even want him, i had plenty of men after me and this had nothing to do with that anyway.he said i was really disrespectful to him in his house and if i was any other girl he would have physically pushed me out the door…he also said if i left that night, i d better be prepared to never talk to him again. it went on and he convinced me to come back in which i cant believe i did! After dinner he told her to sit on his lap and said he’d walk her home cos it was late… it was 1130 and he’s let me walk home at 2am before. he told me he’d be back in 5 mins but the roomies were going to bed, the dad was passed out and the brother was in the shower. i was sitting in the living room alone and went home after 5 mins.i had been the one to come hang out with him and his father over the last few mnths instead of take up other invitations, cos i knew he was locked in the house caring for him and now here he was leaving with a girl who didn’t even say HELLO to his dad when she walked in.we all ate cold pasta at 11pm….6 adults huddled around a tiny wicker table. i wanted to bring out the big table, make a 3 course meal with dessert and so on.do i owe him an apology or does any one else see my point…the father left today. he’s going back to his country and i think honestly, he’ll die before i ever see him again so going to see him still isn’t an option. i didn’t even get a pic of the two of them together last nite like i wanted !

did i overreact or is he a jerk?

Author’s Introduction

Last summer, a visiting niece discovered in the back of a closet some sketches written 35 years ago about the beginnings of Celladore. She took them back with her to California, read them, found them hilariously funny, brought them back in this tidy format.

Today the world off the hill is a vastly different place, dominated by speed and technology. One can toss dirty laundry into an automatic machine, hop into the shower, hop out, clothes to a dryer, pop a TV dinner into the microwave, flip a dial to find entertainment. listen to tapes while driving to work, hope to escape road rage, there, escape sidewalk rage, deposit and withdraw money from a bank machine, communicate via fax and the Internet with live humans often concerned with violence, hate, obesity, loneliness.

Life on the hill is essentially the same. To be sure, loving care has improved the fields and the forest, there are gardens. Even power came a few years ago but it is used mostly to pump water, for lights, for tools, for a stereo for music, no gadgets. Satisfaction, happiness in living comes from books, natrure, other humans, not machines. Over the years many people from many places have been up and down the hill. Some find sanity, serenity, others find unbelievable primitivism. All leave more aware that there is freedom of choice.

When B.B. [Bruce] and I came to live at Celladore years ago, we were bombarded with questions. Incredulously, people asked, “How did you ever happen to give up a job with a good salary to come and live back here in the woods in a house with no electricity?”

We seemed to hear such different music that we were considered freaks. Our disregard for financial gain made us suspect wither as idiots or incompetents.

We were asked: how do you keep warm, what do you do all winter, how do you live on a small income, are you really happy?

Today we are asked the same questions, but now we are somewhat fashionable. The “how?” is no longer of amazement but a sincere request for information.

There are a few easy answers. During our first year here, a friend said to B.B., “I thought only rich people lived in a place like this.” He answered, “Only rich people ought to live in a place like this.” wHis response was colored by a trying previous-day coping with plumbing problems, one of his many skills that he does not enjoy using. To live with little money, one must have skills or be willing to acquire them.

Chapter One: How Did You Come to Live Here

Visitors on serene summer days often say, “I’d love to live as you do.” I answer, “Think twice before you try it. I have a drop of Irish blood and love the land. It matters not to me that I use black andirons heated on the top of the stove instead of an electric steam iron as long as I can see the sky.”

One can ask himself anywhere and everywhere at the end of a day, was it useful, was it satisfying, was it happy? The same emotions are felt in Palm Beach, in Buckingham Palace, in the high Himalayas as here in the woods. It is the urgent but relatively unimportant details of day-to-day living that take up most of one’s time. How one feels about these and how they fit into the really important overall scheme of life is what makes the difference in the quality of living. This is not a “how to” book. Rather it is an account of some of our new experiences in country living and it begins with the first question: how did we happen to come here?

A superficial answer could be: we were tired of moving, it was a spur-of-the-moment purchase, we thought it would be interesting to try something different. The real reason goes back to our roots in the past. It is an unfortunate fad of the moment to consider history unimportant, to think that it teaches us nothing. In actuality, the past is all that we have that we know about for sure, it is inescapable. Only as we shuck off the bits of it that were burdens and hold fast to the experiences of growth and joy do we find ourselves and learn to relate to the present that we live in.

Our lives had been very simple. We were married the year after Pearl Harbor. On our first wedding anniversary, I was in the Navy drilling in the red mud of Georgia. B.B. was finishing demolition school in the Army Engineers. A month later he was in England practicing for the Normandy invasion. Three years later we met again in Penn Station in Manhattan. We spent a month in the city. It was a time of vacation and rest; of reunion with ourselves and friends; of long look at life in the U.S., at our own past and our future. Getting out of college in the depression years had seemed at the time of somewhat woeful experience. Living in the thirties with little money and little choice of occupation had been a kind of reality testing of the values of our heritage. It is not where you live, but how; life is to give, not get; make each place where you live a bit more beautiful or better for your having been there. These were not admonitions that became trite by repetition, rather they were wordlessly, unconsciously absorbed from three-generation households. Three years of military life had sharpened our vision and given us more clarity of thought to separate fundamentals from trivia. We resolved that the stresses of competition, the time necessary to build a professional reputation or to acquire material success by society’s standards was not for us. We would opt for a good life every day, and adventure. Any kind of work that would provide funds enough for solvency would do. Neither of us had ever been west of the Mississippi River. West we would go. We went for two years, then came back and lived about on the eastern seaboard.

Between our hithering and yonning, our G.H.Q. were at Brick End, an old family homestead that no one could afford to live in. Here we left an accumulation of boxes and trunks filled with things not needed for our next jaunt. One summer, after three fascinating years working for the Davis’s on Cape Cod, we came home to find Brick End had been rented. We were invited to stay for a while with my oldest brother, Edward A. He was born in the dark of the moon and had a mercurial temperament. He could be as suave, gracious, and hospitable as an accomplished European diplomat; he could also behave as though he were made of snips and snails and puppy dog’s tails. He had been recently divorced and with him were his two children: Ted, sixteen and Anne McClure, ten. Their house, a half mile down the road from Brick End and my next brother, T.R. and family, was tiny. B.B. was always ready to try anything that was new and different. I felt a bit of trepidation about living with children and more about keeping house for a “poison neat” relative. But I decided that anyone who had studied the French Revolution, read “Machiavelli” and “Alice in Wonderland” should be able to cope with anything. So we accepted the invitation and moved in.

Miss Fan, my mother in town, and numerous relatives all waited to see how this situation would work out. We had a gay time. B.B. built a wooden shower in the shed and in a community of bathtubs only, this was an attraction. We were a bit crowded but it was summer and we all took turns sleeping on the porch. Ted and a visiting cousin would stay awake half the night out there, playing on harmonicas and whistling. On an eighty-degree day, Anne wanted to make a baked Alaska. It was a hot job on a wood stove in a low-ceilinged kitchen, but it came out perfect and we all sat outside under the trees “lapping it up.” The cat went up a tree, no cajolery could lure it down. After two days of hearing it howl, we cut the tree and rescued it

One evening T.R. phoned. He had just read about a place for sale that might interest us. In those days, real estate advertisements were less direct than now; the agent lived in another town. It was a popular sport to try and ferret out exactly what property was being offered. We decided that it might be the Sears place on the south end of the mountain, though this had been a summer place for fifty years and was never expected to come on the market. We talked about it a bit that night. In the morning we phoned the agent.

He was devious but did say that it was the Sears place. A long and tragic illness had drastically changed their future plans. He already had several interested buyers but he finally consented to meet us and show us about. Neither of us had ever seen the place.

We left the main road a quarter of a mile from the village, drove one mile uphill through the woods, and came out into an open field which had started to grow up to bushes. The house sat on the top of the hill, protected on the north by the rise of the mountain. (Later we cleared this section of all but the biggest trees, exposing rocky ledges that looked much like Cezanne’s painting of the forest of Fountainbleau.) The house was an architectural monstrosity. To an original brown shingled Cape Cod structure had been added on three sides of a flat-roofed porch. Six dormer windows poked out here and there. There were two original chimneys and another at the east end, a huge outside three-flued affair fastened by guy wires to a new roof. A small barn was attached to the woodshed. There was a deep well and a hand pump, but no electricity. We were taken in through the north shed door. Opening the opposite south door, we looked out. To the east, south, and west over the field, across the treetops were mountain ranges and a dome of blue sky. No houses in site, no noises to be heard. We went through the inside quickly. B.B. took a look at the barn. We silently returned to our starting point and sat a few minutes in the agent’s car.

“Well, what do you think of it?” he said.

Tomorrow we would begin, we said, on our first evening. Next morning we began. Before we had finished Miss Fan’s thermos of coffee and doughnuts, Nephew Timothy appeared on a horse bearing a message. His father, my brother T.R., was not too busy this day. He would help us move if we would come down to Brick End and sort out our belongings. Before I had had time to utter one word, B.B. said, “That would be wonderful; we’ll come right down. Just wait a minute and let me adjust your bridle. The bit seems to be too tight.” This done, Tim did not tarry but galloped off like Paul Revere to spread the word.

“And what ever made you give such an answer?” I stormed at B.B., “You know this house is crammed with things right now. I haven’t the faintest idea of what to discard or where I want to put our own things.”

“You accept help when it is offered,” said B.B., “especially for the disagreeable drudgery of moving.”

He was aggravatingly right, of course. The Sears family had a town house in the city, a summer place at the shore. They had had no time to clear out this house and the contents were left as part of the business arrangement. I thought this wonderful, was delighted to have the things, had noticed garden tools, a wicker clothes basket, and remembered from previous moves how many little things are needed for running a household and also how expensive it is when they all have to be bought at once. I had given the contents of the house only a cursory glance, but there was a lot of furniture. I had expected to sort this over before adding the hodgepodge from Brick End. However, this was not to be. To Middle Intervale we went.

T.R. had marshaled quite a crew, all with pickup trucks. Already the Methodist sofa and the Capen Hill bed were being loaded. “That’s a bit fragile,” I suggested as the Bingham bureau came out. This was an acquisition from our long log-trucking winter. We had moved three times and ended, to Miss Fan’s great delight, in a house belonging to Happy Flossie Hoar. On a return trip from taking yellow birch logs to be used for veneer in the mill in Bingham on the Kenneback, a “For Sale” sign had attracted my attention. My thoughts came back to the present from the days of the hardships of the Arnold expedition to Canada. We stopped, a mahogany empire chest of drawers had seemed a great bargain, but as we loaded it into the truck it fell apart. It did not suffer the fate of Humpty Dumpty. B.B. had carefully reglued it and no doubt it would last another hundred years, but I still thought of eggshells when I saw it being moved.

Edward A. was waiting in the house. “Your stuff in the attic is all labeled,” he said. “You won’t need to go up there. I’m not sure of all your dishes. If you’ll just take them from the cupboards, I’ll pack them.”

I no sooner set anything down than it was whisked out of sight. I had often heard the theory that a drowning man, in the few minutes before he goes under for the last time, relives his entire life again. I can almost believe this now. I took out a square glass cookie plate and could feel the icy cold of the wind over the Laramie plains; a silver covered butter dish and I was walking through lemon groves on the Pacific coast. “Can I use this braided rug to wrap around the headboard of the pineapple posted bed?” asked someone. I had made this when living in our first apartment at Deering Oaks. “This big Herring hunting print is yours, isn’t it?” Yes, we had bought it together just before B.B. left for the Army as a talisman that he would get safely home again. A milk glass hen, why hadn’t I sold this with the rest of my collection after we came back from the West and I realized how cluttered New England houses were? There was no time to swaddle; no sooner was a dish out of the cupboard than more followed. How did it happen that I had so many things left? I saw boxes going by me.

The dishes were finished, on to the books which were scattered all over the house. “This bookcase,” I pointed out, “is completely filled with our books.” I hoped to snatch a moment to go out and sit on the steps in the sunshine. “The kids can pack these then by themselves; I’ll go with you over the rest of the house with baskets.” The books were finished. “Didn’t you leave some things in the furnace cellar when you went to the Navy?” To be sure I had. Just now I remembered only a gallon copper-bottomed teakettle and a big crock for wine-making, both treasures. We went down and checked the cellar, found other things. “We didn’t check these shelves in the closet in the dungeon; are those your books?” They were and for a moment I was back on the Cape in the Marquand House hidden among linden trees and high-bush blueberries with some vista to the sea. “Aren’t some of these lamps on the pantry shelf yours? You’ll need them now.”

Lyndell, T.R.’s blonde wife who had made all the pumpkin pies for my wedding refreshments, called us over for a big dinner. The brethren laughed and told stories of many family moves… from Brick End to the Caswell house and back… to the mansard-roofed house where T.R. now lives… to the village for the winter during academy days, home in the spring… Miss Fan, at seventy, had finally had enough and bought herself a small house in the village and stayed there. Moving the piano was always the biggest bugaboo but she never lacked for a crew of willing men who would have helped her anyway even if she had not always provided a stimulating drink kept hidden in the flour bin. I felt B.B. looking at me. He had been silent. All of his family, except Howard his father, had gone to California and they fortunately had never been tarred with the yern for possessions that all the branches of my family had never been able to break through. What was he thinking? Of course, of my piano, an old-fashioned square rosewood one in the Brick End north parlor. I wondered if we could even get it into the Skyfields house and even so it would look ridiculous there. Just then T.R. spoke up, “What did you plan to do about the piano?”

“I’m leaving it, giving it to Brick End,” I answered and was rewarded with a dazzling smile from B.B. Back across the dooryards we traipsed and at the packing and moving again. We came to an end. I took a quick turn over the house to be sure that no bulky items had been left. Edward A. was sweeping the downstairs floors. All was serene; the old house was so crowded with furniture that a stranger wouldn’t have known that anything had been removed.

Quite a different atmosphere greeted us as we arrived wearily back at Skyfields. B.B. paused at the open door and took my hand saying, “I always planned to carry you over the threshold when we had our first home of our own. Last night I was too curious to get in and see just what we had bought. Tonight there wouldn’t be a place to set you down.” Laughing, we picked our way through the shed, and on through the downstairs rooms. I had been too busy to give a thought as to where the trucks had been unloaded. Now I saw. There was no serenity here, only utter chaos. Every room was a jumble of this and that and any once empty floor space was now covered with boxes of books. “I didn’t think free labor should be asked to carry anything upstairs,” said B.B., “and besides, I didn’t know where to put things myself.” Just then we had a buzzing sound. Puzzled, we looked about. It sounded like a telephone ringing.

It was; we found one in the north back room and answered. It was Miss Fan calling. Already she had begun to go blind, her activities were curtailed, phoning was something that she could do easily. She had called the telephone office, discovered that there was a phone here, and had asked to have it connected. She was in high spirits over this coup and invited us down for supper. “Oh, Mother,” I answered, “we’ve been packing and moving all day. I wouldn’t go if someone offered to fly me on a magic carpet to Paradise.” Besides, Lyndell had packed us a picnic.

“A man,” said Miss Fan, “when he’s been working all day likes a HOT supper, and what will you have for breakfast tomorrow?” I cast an appealing eye at B.B. to be rescued. He came to the phone and, to my surprise, told her that he would be very pleased to accept.

I went out to the porch. Last night there had been two chairs there. Now it seemed like another miracle of the loaves and fishes had happened. All the floor space out there was covered … a picnic table large enough to seat ten people … chairs of all descriptions … a wooden grain box … timbers for a large loom, a spinning wheel. I had forgotten about my arts and crafts days, getting a job as a waitress at the Carolina Hotel, its cavernous dining rooms and kitchens, its professional staff, all a far cry from college girls in a lakeside family inn. I survived, saved my money, went up to Penland and learned to weave. Here was the evidence out of the attic and my past to haunt me. I noticed some gray canvas shapes with chains attached leaning against the wall. They were hammocks. Looking up, I saw strong hooks in many different sports on the underside of the porch roof. I dragged things away to get at one of the hammocks, bumped it over the chairs, finally managed to get it hung on the north-southeast corner, and dropped into it, a haven of rest. A refreshing breeze swished by. Soon I was hungry, remembered Lyndell’s lunch.

Lyndell, T.R.’s blonde wife who had made all the pumpkin pies for my wedding refreshments, called us over for a big dinner. The brethren laughed and told stories of many family moves… from Brick End to the Caswell house and back… to the mansard-roofed house where T.R. now lives… to the village for the winter during academy days, home in the spring… Miss Fan, at seventy, had finally had enough and bought herself a small house in the village and stayed there. Moving the piano was always the biggest bugaboo but she never lacked for a crew of willing men who would have helped her anyway even if she had not always provided a stimulating drink kept hidden in the flour bin. I felt B.B. looking at me. He had been silent. All of his family, except Howard his father, had gone to California and they fortunately had never been tarred with the yern for possessions that all the branches of my family had never been able to break through. What was he thinking? Of course, of my piano, an old-fashioned square rosewood one in the Brick End north parlor. I wondered if we could even get it into the Skyfields house and even so it would look ridiculous there. Just then T.R. spoke up, “What did you plan to do about the piano?”

“I’m leaving it, giving it to Brick End,” I answered and was rewarded with a dazzling smile from B.B. Back across the dooryards we traipsed and at the packing and moving again. We came to an end. I took a quick turn over the house to be sure that no bulky items had been left. Edward A. was sweeping the downstairs floors. All was serene; the old house was so crowded with furniture that a stranger wouldn’t have known that anything had been removed.

Quite a different atmosphere greeted us as we arrived wearily back at Skyfields. B.B. paused at the open door and took my hand saying, “I always planned to carry you over the threshold when we had our first home of our own. Last night I was too curious to get in and see just what we had bought. Tonight there wouldn’t be a place to set you down.” Laughing, we picked our way through the shed, and on through the downstairs rooms. I had been too busy to give a thought as to where the trucks had been unloaded. Now I saw. There was no serenity here, only utter chaos. Every room was a jumble of this and that and any once empty floor space was now covered with boxes of books. “I didn’t think free labor should be asked to carry anything upstairs,” said B.B., “and besides, I didn’t know where to put things myself.” Just then we had a buzzing sound. Puzzled, we looked about. It sounded like a telephone ringing.

It was; we found one in the north back room and answered. It was Miss Fan calling. Already she had begun to go blind, her activities were curtailed, phoning was something that she could do easily. She had called the telephone office, discovered that there was a phone here, and had asked to have it connected. She was in high spirits over this coup and invited us down for supper. “Oh, Mother,” I answered, “we’ve been packing and moving all day. I wouldn’t go if someone offered to fly me on a magic carpet to Paradise.” Besides, Lyndell had packed us a picnic.

“A man,” said Miss Fan, “when he’s been working all day likes a HOT supper, and what will you have for breakfast tomorrow?” I cast an appealing eye at B.B. to be rescued. He came to the phone and, to my surprise, told her that he would be very pleased to accept.

I went out to the porch. Last night there had been two chairs there. Now it seemed like another miracle of the loaves and fishes had happened. All the floor space out there was covered … a picnic table large enough to seat ten people … chairs of all descriptions … a wooden grain box … timbers for a large loom, a spinning wheel. I had forgotten about my arts and crafts days, getting a job as a waitress at the Carolina Hotel, its cavernous dining rooms and kitchens, its professional staff, all a far cry from college girls in a lakeside family inn. I survived, saved my money, went up to Penland and learned to weave. Here was the evidence out of the attic and my past to haunt me. I noticed some gray canvas shapes with chains attached leaning against the wall. They were hammocks. Looking up, I saw strong hooks in many different sports on the underside of the porch roof. I dragged things away to get at one of the hammocks, bumped it over the chairs, finally managed to get it hung on the north-southeast corner, and dropped into it, a haven of rest. A refreshing breeze swished by. Soon I was hungry, remembered Lyndell’s lunch.

I picked my way back through the house, upstairs, washed in cold water, got into pajamas and a robe, gathered a blanket and two pillows, went downstairs, found the lunch and took it back with me to the hammock. I would ignore the chaos all around me; I would not do another thing this day but lie here, swing and look at the sky. I did not hear B.B. come back nor did I awake until he called me next morning. “Time to get up. Miss Fan is coming to help you unpack and get settled. She directed me to be sure to make a good fire in the cool of the morning and heat up a lot of water as surely she would need it for washing windows or scrubbing out cupboards.”

Before we had finished breakfast, Miss Fan arrived with a basket filled with soap, brushes, cleaning cloths; another basket with a big pot of spaghetti, chopped cabbage salad, tea bags, lump sugar, a bunch of bananas and a suitcase. Was she planning to stay the night? No, but had a clean dress, white shoes, and some jewelry to get fixed up in the after noon in case callers dropped in. She could hardly wait to go over the house and see what it was like. We started in the kitchen.

robe, gathered a blanket and two pillows, went downstairs, found the lunch and took it back with me to the hammock. I would ignore the chaos all around me; I would not do another thing this day but lie here, swing and look at the sky. I did not hear B.B. come back nor did I awake until he called me next morning. “Time to get up. Miss Fan is coming to help you unpack and get settled. She directed me to be sure to make a good fire in the cool of the morning and heat up a lot of water as surely she would need it for washing windows or scrubbing out cupboards.”

Before we had finished breakfast, Miss Fan arrived with a basket filled with soap, brushes, cleaning cloths; another basket with a big pot of spaghetti, chopped cabbage salad, tea bags, lump sugar, a bunch of bananas and a suitcase. Was she planning to stay the night? No, but had a clean dress, white shoes, and some jewelry to get fixed up in the after noon in case callers dropped in. She could hardly wait to go over the house and see what it was like. We started in the kitchen.

It was a 15-foot-square room and had contained before “the move” a black iron stove, a table and chairs under the north window, a white enamel icebox. There were two tanks of bottled gas outside. Miss Fan started to store her food, then stopped. “Good heavens,” she said. “What have you been doing? Why haven’t you washed this out and connected it outside so that you would have a place to put your food?”

“I’ll do that right now,” said B.B.

Miss Fan and I moved on. Off the kitchen was a pantry with open shelves filled with dishes, glasses, tins. The floor was of old soft pine and in front of the iron sink was a deep hollow, well worn by dishwashers over the years. From here we went into a little room with two north windows and two more doors. One led into a narrow hall with stairs going up, the other one into the living room. Before we walked on, I noticed another worn floor, cracked plaster walls and ceiling.

The living room extended the width of the house, with French doors on the north, windows on the east and south. There was a definite jog making one section of the room narrower; on the ceiling above were two large beams. Evidently a partition had been taken down between what was once two bedrooms. The rest of the ceiling was a striped affair of plaster and half round poles with the bark still left on them. It looked vaguely like a pseudo-hunting lodge. In the middle of the east wall was an eight-foot-long dark red brick fireplace, the bricks extending up to the ceiling. It was much too big and clumsy for a little house but had been high style early in the century. The room was dark and gloomy because of the porch around three sides of it. A door into the hall, another door into the dining room.

Another well-worn floor, another cracked ceiling but the room was pleasant with its southwest exposure and walls papered in a soft green. A door to the kitchen and we had completed the circle. B.B. announced that the icebox had been connected; it worked. “We’ll wash this out first,” said Miss Fan.

“What’s my next order, Miss Fan?” said B.B. “I can’t help you for very long because I have to clean out a place in the barn. T.R. is loaning me his team and his equipment to cut the hay. The grass is brown and not worth much, but it is a fire hazard and also bad for the fields to leave it.”

Before Miss Fan could answer, I grabbed the floor. “Why can’t we take off some of these doors so that we can get around more easily and it will make the house seem more spacious?”

“And where would I put them?” said B.B. “The house attic and the shed are full now.”

I had scouted around and seen one empty space. The south side of the barn was an open haymow but over it a floor had been laid to make a kind of studio playroom. There was a Ping-Pong table there but not too much else. “That’s a bit of a distance,” said B.B., “and around a lot of corners and through much furniture and boxes.”

“We can take them out the front door,” said I, “and around and in the big barn door.” The speed with which B.B. produced his tools, removed the doors and carried them away astounded me. I remembered that he had the westerner’s love for open space and said, “I bet you had already planned to do this before I even mentioned it.” No answer

Over some of the doors was a wooden pole from which hung portieres, looped back with brass chains. They were once used in wintertime to keep out cold. “I haven’t seen these for years,” said Miss Fan with a gleam in her eyes.

“Do you want them?” said I. She did, we took them down and piled them on her suitcase. She refilled the pots that we had been using to heat water, and put some wood in the stove. The kitchen with its north-south breeze through was still not uncomfortably hot. She didn’t seem tired yet, so we went upstairs.

At the top was a tiny hall, really a landing. Off this were three bedrooms, all with cross ventilation and a walk-in closet, an unexpected bonus in an old house. There was a large bathroom, evidently made from a bedroom; from this a door into another bedroom over the kitchen, beyond that the shed attic. The attic was filled too, but we did not stop to poke about there, but came back into the hall. “Well,” said Miss Fan, “the upstairs isn’t too cluttered, but I counted eight beds.” And I had brought with me four beds, a folding bed, a chaise lounge and two antique sofas, the kind that go at the foot of a canopy bed to turn the bedding back over. Beds we would not be lacking. “What’s behind this door in the hall; we haven’t looked there,” said Miss Fan.

“Open it and see.” She did. Half of the area made by the sloping roof had been used for the bedroom closet. The rest of it was here, a space filled with boxes, pillows, linens. I knew that Miss Fan was pining to take everything out and see if there were any treasures, but I didn’t feel that I could bear to have anything more strewn about. I heard a rattle, looked out the window. B.B. was unloading a mowing machine.

“Heavens,” said Miss Fan, “we must get back downstairs. B.B. will be wanting his lunch.”

On the way I saw my teakettle perched on a box of books, snatched it up. This, at least, could go on the stove where it belonged, one thing would be in order. We stood in the kitchen. Even Miss Fan was temporarily stumped as to just how one unpacked in a kitchen without one single cupboard. She offered to wash the windows. My mind was racing; I went back over the house, looking for something that would serve for a cupboard. There was nothing, only a tall, narrow walnut Victorian something. There was a shelf for a few books over a tiny desk section, some glass-enclosed shelves. There wouldn’t be room enough for kitchen stapes; it wasn’t worth the time of emptying it and moving it downstairs. (Later on when I got into the swing of the barter system, I traded it with Walter Clark for a painting. (He could use it for his mineral collection.) Stumbling over a curly maple side rail of the Capen Hill bed, I had a flash of memory of the big cellar in that house. Down there everyone had preserve cupboards, tall, wide, deep, sturdy enough to hold dozens of jars of fruits and pickles for winter use. There used to be three cupboards down there.

“Is Elizabeth still home?” I asked Miss Fan. Elizabeth was a young cousin, home from California with her now ex-navy husband and small child. They were getting ready to move to an unfurnished apartment in the city.

“Yes,” said Miss Fan, “and she’s dying to get up here and see your house, but she doesn’t want to bother you.”

“I’m going to invite her to come this afternoon,” I said. Miss Fan looked very startled, but pleased.

“I’d better hurry and get lunch and get my dress changed and be ready,” she said. I had learned it was good to try new behavior. I would try it. We had twelve proper bedsteads, five sofas, a folding bed and an uncounted stack of iron cots in the north room besides the unknown in the attic. If only Elizabeth needed a bed, maybe I could trade with her for one of those cupboards in the cellar. They had a deep-freeze now. I knew that B.B. would not approve but he was not within hearing distance. I marched to the phone with the resolution of battle in my heart and boldly stated what I wanted, then faltering a bit, I hesitatingly asked if Elizabeth could use a bed. She could, she needed one desperately as Sandy was getting too big for her crib. I invited her to come and look about this afternoon, and added for her to come in her father’s pickup in case she found anything she wanted.

At lunch, Miss Fan waited on B.B. assiduously. He complimented her for such a fine meal under adverse conditions. “It would be a help,” said Miss Fan, “if we could get some of these boxes out from under foot. Besides, it’s too bad to leave your nice books here in the kitchen. I saw an empty bookcase out in the shed; if you would bring it in, I would take care of your books.” B.B. knew Miss Fan of old. A book-lover she was not. His eyes began to twinkle.

“I would admire to do that for you,” he answered, “but where were you planning to put it?”

“In the north room,” said Miss Fan. “There’s an old oak table that isn’t much. If you moved that, I could put the bookcase in there.”

“And where shall I put the oak table?” said B.B.

“Well,” said Miss Fan, “you seem to have a lot of tables. If you don’t want it, I could use it on my porch to put plants on.”

“It’s yours,” said B.B. “And I’ll move it out with your portieres now before I forget it.”

She rushed me through the dishes, scorned taking a rest on the porch, and started moving books. Elizabeth and her husband, Roy, came. We women went topside to look at beds, and heard music. Roy, a musician, had discovered the piano, and was playing and singing. Elizabeth chose a single bed for Sandy. “You’re lucky,” she said, “that you found curtains at all the windows.” They were white ruffled affairs; I had no intention of ironing such without an electric iron.

“Do you need any?” I asked.

“I haven’t any at all yet,” she answered.

“Wonderful!” said I. “Look over all the windows and take all the best ones, as many as you can use.”

“Don’t you need them?” said she.

“Positively not,” said I. “I have lots of curtains in some of these boxes. Now, what else do you need?” I asked, the curtains having been gathered.

“We have to buy a table and some chairs,” she answered. I showed her the table in the kitchen. It was a hardwood extension table, in very good condition, and there might be extra leaves somewhere.

“If you like it, I’d be glad to give this one to you,” I offered, “and the chairs too; though they are nondescript, they would do until you get better ones.” The furnishings in this house were typical of what people pass on down to a summer camp, but among them were some treasures. I had discovered in the dining room a beautiful oval walnut table. We could use the table that I had brought with me in the kitchen and Elizabeth could have the spare one. Elizabeth demurred, but I assured her that I wanted her to have it. B.B. would not like my bartering for a cupboard, but he would highly approve of giving something away. We called Roy to come and load the things and they were off.

Miss Fan needed to rest so I sat her down in the dining room to look at whatever was in the drawers of the buffet. By now I knew that it would be a slow process redoing this house. She might as well add a bit more to the disarray; it wouldn’t matter. I slipped out and sat down on the south steps in the sun. The phone rang; it was Elizabeth’s mother. Was I sure I wanted that old red cupboard, wasn’t Elizabeth mistaken? I told her there was nothing that I wanted any more than that, so she said she would get it up from the cellar and scrub it. Miss Fan called me to look at the piles of stuff she had laid out on the table. “You have a lot of nice linen,” she said. “What are you planning to do with all these kitchen tablecloths and napkins?” I hadn’t planned, not even knowing they were here.

“What do you suggest?” asked I, knowing very well that Miss Fan did not need them. She went on, “Unless you’re planning to set up a bar, you don’t need all these odd glasses in the pantry. I could make up a little box of things to give Elizabeth; they’re just starting out.” I agreed and helped her. Stanley came to take her home, grumbling over loading the oak table and asking her what on earth she planned to do with the portieres. In his heart, he knew, as did I. She had automatic oil heat in a small house. She would put them up and use them, not to save heat but to recapture a bit of her girlhood in the days before central heating.

B.B. came in for supper. Then we went for a walk over the fields and into the edge of the woods. Back, I found a kerosene lamp that had oil in it. I knew that neither angels nor demons nor a chaotic house would keep him from reading the paper. “You’ll have to poke about and find a chair by yourself. I’m off to sleep in the porch swing again.” Thus ended the second day.

<a href="http://www.bethelcitizen.com/node/7683/tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.bethelcitizen.com/node/7683/Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:44:06 GMT 00:00″>Celladore: Beckie Bailey's Journals, 1954-1964 — Earlier installments