Show High Time m j By FLORENCE BITTNER Last week I went to visit my Aunt and came home gloomy as Her house looks all at one time so lived with and so picture book pretty I come home curled at the edges with THAT SPECIAL look comes only from a houseful of hand cared for hand-me-downs which are known in some circles as antiques- In that house each item is a treasure and each has a history of its She and Uncle Jim would as soon part with one of their cats as any single You don't get that kind of you have THERE'S THE ladder back rocker with the quilted back and seat pads suspended from the top rung of the Uncle Jim is usually camped in that slumped down so his elbows rest comfortable on the his long legs strung out halfway to the old cobbler's bench which he hauls over to park his feet on when Aunt Martha is The minute she walks the feet come down and the bench goes back under the chair came across the plains tied on the back of Aunt Matilda's My Uncle Peter would have used it for kindling many a time on i the trip except he said Matilda threatened to scalp him and leave him for the She probably would have UNCLE JIM strokes the hand turned pieces of the chair Matilda's father was a cabinet He made this chair and that little footstool over Broke Aunt Matilda's heart not to be able to bring all six of the straight chairs matching but she had to leave Aunt Martha carefully dusts the cherrywood table which came from England as part of the dowry her mother brought to the young man who had emigrated to New SHE HASN'T recovered from the remark made by an unknowing neighbor whose comments regarding this heirloom came back to Aunt it a shame Martha and Jim can't get a nicer dining room That one is so and it's even But all their furniture seems so THE FRIEND who told Aunt Martha about the remark thought it was knowing the value of a two hundred year old cherry wood drop leaf Aunt sees no humor where her cherished furniture is Even the knick knacks in their house are There's the little bisque shepherd boy on the THAT WAS a wedding present from Martha's mother who bought it when she went to San Francisco on the only vacation she ever The shepherd's crook is broken a memento of Aunt Martha's little dead in his The fragile China egg with the cherubs peeking out of the crack came from Uncle Jim's grandmother's China used to look at that when I was a little tyke and wonder how got into that egg All I had ever seen come out of egg shells were scrawny ONE TIME I grabbed all the eggs our old setting hen would let me took them out behind the barn and broke every one open to see if there were any little kids but all I found were half formed Grandpa caught me and I got a I've heard that story so many times I can predict each pause and and I still look at the thin craggy face and wonder if Uncle Jim was ever really a little tyke who would steal ON THE floor of Aunt Martha's rooms are hand braided are crocheted cherry wood tabT crocheted table is all apple have keep all this so In these elbow or a kite or 1 would within a week for jut UNCLE JIM loci and cleared his know darned well ba We never had you also know dan we'd have traded and scrap for just a youngster like youri a subject never always broke in to and bustle around ta two loot Come to AND I came hunt and smug all at tl 1 |