Didn’t look but thought I’d better warn you
Ugh. The butler’s pantry is going to run out of room for those soon, and I still haven’t had any brilliant ideas about what to do with them. So far, my best plan is to make it an interview question for the curator candidates as a “hypothetical” situation to test their problem-solving skills.You are in possession of eight donated tea sets and the number grows weekly. What do you do about this?
When I get to work, I set my things in the library andhead out front to see what I’m dealing with. I find a stack of five medium-sized boxes, all repurposed, all sporting different brand markings from apple juice to motor oil, all scuffed and a touch ragged. The top one has a piece of lined paper from a yellow legal pad taped to it, labeled only “Museum.”
I open it to find a block-printed note, short and to the point. I read it, do a double take, and read it again before I call Jay.
He picks up after the first ring. “Need help moving tea sets?”
“No, but you do need to come look at these boxes.”
“Be right over.” A few minutes later, he jogs around the side of the house.
“What’s up?” he asks when he reaches me.
I wave the paper at him and clear my throat before reading it aloud. “Since it was Abigail Martin who put Cyrus Willard out of business, might as well be the Martins who deal with the leftovers.” I look up from the letter. “That’s it. It’s signed Willard. I met a Willard at the apothecary, but I thought it was his first name.”
“Can I see it?” Jay asks, holding his hand out for the note. “If he was old, you met Abel Willard. If he was really old, you met his father, Boaz Willard.”
“It was Abel,” I say, remembering the man referring to his father.
“It was a distant Willard cousin who talked a Martin into the ‘curative water’ business way back then.”
“They’re still holding a grudge?” I’ve never run into a real-life generational family feud.
“Not really,” Jay says. “The Willards have been legitimate for a long time but on a much smaller scale. You’d have to go back past living memory in their family line to find someone still bitter about the Martins pulling out of the business.” Helooks down at the note and gives a short laugh. “Or maybe not.”
I pull two pairs of gloves from my pocket. “Got these while I was waiting for you. Shall we?”
He accepts a pair and pulls them on. “Let’s.”
We pick a box and open the flaps to reveal wires, wood, glass, gauges, and coils that seem to belong to several different devices, packed as neatly as possible, still bewildering. I pull one from the top, some kind of machine set on a wooden base about four inches by four inches.
“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” I say as Jay leans closer. It has a curved metal gauge next to a small black metal piece about the size of a domino on its side, both secured with brass screws. Two fibrous wires extend from holes beside them, ending in brass-colored cylinders that look like metal jump rope handles.
“Image search?” Jay asks.
I angle the device so he can take a picture with his phone.
Within a few seconds, he shows me his screen. “Something very similar on an auction site. It’s an ‘induction coil vintage medical device,’ but it doesn’t say what it treated.”
“Let’s try another one.” I set it down and pull out a wooden chest the size of a medium jewelry box. Inside we find more coils and wires but in a different configuration. “Pay dirt. Original directions.” I turn it so Jay can see the heavily yellowed and stained paper glued to the inside lid.
“Directions for using home medical apparatus number five,” he reads aloud. “J.H. Bunnell Company.”
“These are all antique quack medical devices,” I say. “Let’s check the other boxes.”
An inspection of the other four reveals one full of posters and handbills for old medicines, one containing empty bottles and tins with labels boasting cures for everything from gout to “all men’s problems,” and two more boxes holding devices.
“This first box looks like devices that required electricity, and these other two are full of devices that didn’t.” I look at Jay, grinning. “This is so much cooler than tea sets. I know what I’ll have the new curator work on first.” Possibilities for an exhibit chase through my brain, like one examining where traditional herbal healing and quack medicine diverge and exploring the history of both in Serendipity Springs.
“Butler’s pantry?” he asks.
“No, let’s—oh, look. I was going to say I’ll have Zee bring them over to the shed when she gets here, and there she is.”
Zee parks in the drive and hops out. I introduce her to Jay and explain where the boxes need to go. “I’ll probably have you bring several tea sets from the butler’s pantry that way too.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take care of that, then get to work on the things Terry pointed out last week unless you have other jobs you need done?”
