The House

By Dawn Natelle

I managed to write this chapter without killing anyone. Look for the next chapter on Monday or Tuesday: Dawn.

Chapter 16 – Auctions and actions

When everyone was finished breakfast, most headed into the big kitchen. There was no direct door between the kitchens: you had to enter the looping hallway, turn right, and you were at the kitchen door that had, until this morning, been nailed shut. Grey had pulled out the nails this morning, leaving minimal marks in the wood.

Last night Willow had expressed interest in using the big kitchen for some baking, and as a result, everyone went there to clean the place up. Except Willow. Daisy had said there were some baking pans in the basement, so she headed down there. She returned a few minutes later with four bread pan sets: the commercial type that held four loaves of bread in pans welded together.

“Oh my, I remember those,” Daisy said. “When the house was full, we used to bake bread twice a week, eight loaves at a time. I don’t know why we had four sets.”

“I have to run to the store,” Willow lamented. “Darryl, will you head down to the basement and bring up the four bun pans down there?” She then darted off to jog to the store.

Darryl looked a little afraid of going into the basement alone, so Grey told him he would come along. They found the pans easily: Willow must have set them aside. But Grey also searched through the pile and found pie plates, cake tins, and cookie sheets, so both of them went upstairs with loaded arms.

When they got there it was a beehive of activity. Dan was on hands and knees scrubbing the linoleum floor, while Cindy was scrubbing the walls. She was happy to have something physical to do to take her mind off the prior day. Sun was in heaven. There were two six burner ranges in the place, each with double ovens. She had one taken apart. At the very least they needed new electrical, and a good cleaning. And the way Sun cleaned was to take everything apart, and clean from the bottom up.

Daisy and Lois had steel wool, and were working at scouring the bread pans. Dary got into a chair beside them, and joined in. Grey decided to take on the windows, which were so dirty almost no light was coming in. He was experienced at this: he had done the same in all the bedrooms he had opened up earlier in the year. He did the insides first, and then went outside to finish. As he worked, the room got brighter and brighter, and the crew could see more and more dirt to clean.

Rabbit helped too, running from one team member to another, barking or yipping, and then accepting a pat on the head before running elsewhere.

“He is the foreman,” Dan joked. “Don’t slow down or he’ll be all over you.”

Grey was first to finish a task, and came in to start on the triple porcelain sink. It was yellow over all, except for the nearly black bottoms. He started to scrub, and slowly saw bits of white reappear.

They worked all day, with Dary making sandwiches for lunch. He lost his partners after the meal, as an exhausted Lois and Daisy went for naps. But Dary continued to scrub pans. They had the bread pans gleaming like new, and the boy was working on cake tins. He loved cake, and hoped a few clean plans would lead to a special dessert later. Dan had to dart away, kissing Cindy as he left. He needed to visit his seniors in town, and see if they needed anything. He knew that he would be at least one hour with each: at the very least they need the visiting time they got when he came over.

By suppertime, arranged by Lois and Daisy, the big kitchen was a whole new place.

The windows gleamed, one range was finished and worked perfectly. Sun had been a bit concerned when one oven didn’t work, until Daisy informed her that it was only a proofing oven, and not designed to get hot. She was now working on the second range, and hoped that Willow wouldn’t need two tomorrow. The sinks were now shiny white, with chrome catch-basins instead of black crud. The counter was clean along the long wall, and even the maple butcher block was ready for action. The floor was spotless and the walls turned out to be a pale yellow under all the grime. Grey had even gotten up on a ladder and cleaned the ceiling fixtures, putting in new energy-efficient bulbs, and removing layers of dust from the shades.

Dan had returned, and shouted at him as the dust settled onto his scrubbed floor, but Grey just swept up the mess: easy to do when the floor was so clean to start.

They finished up as Willow returned home. She was nearly in tears as she looked at the transformed workplace. “It is beautiful,” she said, as she looked here and there. “I will have to make something special for all of you.”

“I helped, Mama,” Dary said. “Look, clean cake tins.”

“So I have to put cakes on the list of things to make, do I?” she said with a smile. “What kind? Chocolate, I presume.”

“Yes please,” the boy said, hugging his mother.

“Well tomorrow I am on short hours, with Wendy back. And Frank paid me cash for my hours so far, so I need a ride into Tweed to buy supplies, or the loan of a vehicle. Next week I have three full days again. Wendy gets Monday off for the May 2-4 weekend that week”

“You can use the LTD or my truck, depending on how many go with you,” Sun offered.

“Thanks.”

“Better take the car,” Dan said. “There is an auction sale in Tweed and we might be able to pick up some beds and other furniture cheap.”

In rural Ontario, when the last occupant of a house passes, the contents of the house are usually sold by auctions, occasionally with two houses together for a single sale. People come from all over: locals to get bargains, and dealers from across the province looking for antiques. As a result, the better-looking goods sell for a top dollar, but mundane items, like beds, dressers, and vanities go for a low price, sometimes only a dollar. Local people looking for antiques are especially interested, since they know the dealers will only bid up to a wholesale price.

Cindy drove Sun’s truck to the sale, with Grey as a passenger. They followed Dan and Dary in his truck. The sale was at the house, which would be sold through an agent later, and all the streets in the area were packed with cars and pickups. Dan paid a lady guarding her driveway $10 to let them park there. She smiled, and decided to go to the sale with them now that she no longer had to protect her property. Grey said they would help her carry any goods she bought home.

At the sale they looked over the goods, with Dan suggesting prices for various items. He didn’t go over $10 on any beds, with most at $5. Dary fell in love with a nice set of bunk-beds, and Dan said they would go up to $25 on those, although he was sure they would sell for near $100.

There were two sets of living-room furniture: one good set that was out of their price range, and one older set they would try for. Dary wandered off, as kids can do in rural Ontario, and found boxes of treasures. One was tins of baking supplies, another was full of kitchen gadgets, and a third had plateware that clearly was not valuable, unlike a beautiful set of silverware that eventually sold for $200. A box of mugs and glasses was considered: with so many in the house these and plateware were in short supply. Finally a box that caught his eye was full of books: some for smaller kids, some for older ones, and some that he thought his grandma would like.

In the end, they bought seven beds. The bunk beds went for $135, to Dary’s dismay, but Grey went up to the buyer and asked if the man wanted to sell the mattresses. Many people want new mattresses on their beds, and this man was one. He told Grey he could take the mattresses for free to save him from having to dispose of them.

“See Dary,” Grey said. “We have mattresses now, and we have trees at home. We can make our own bunk beds that will sell for hundreds when you are done with them.” For that he got a big hug for the boy.

They had also spent $100 on a tattered old sofa set, matching chair, and three other easy chairs. They bought all the boxes that Dary had spied out. The books went for the $2 opening bid Dan had made. The other four cost under $30 in total.

After the sale ended, the trucks were loaded up with mattresses and beds, and the boxes had to go into the cabs, on laps and around feet. The lady who had given them parking had spent $200, and they took a beautiful sideboard to her house in Sun’s truck before filling it with their goods.

As they were about done, a man who had paid $50 for a fairly nice recliner saw it pop open as he was loading it into the next truck to Dan. He discovered that the inner mechanism was broken and seemed beyond repair (to him). Grey offered him $10 cash ‘for parts’ and the man jumped at the offer. Grey knew that the chair would provide Sun with hours of enjoyment, and probably would be working again in a week or so.

The ride back to the house was much slower with the loads in back, but they eventually arrived, and slowly started unloading. Grey knew which rooms needed beds, and they soon had one truck unloaded. It was Dan’s, and he and Sun headed back to the sale to pick up the living-room furniture that they had left at the sale. None of it was good enough quality that anyone would try to steal it. While they were gone, the others unloaded the 49 Chev, and got the other beds into the house. The box of books went into the Great Hall, and that was the point where they lost Dary, as he started poring through some picture books.

Cindy and Grey got the rest of the goods in. Daisy and Willow were glad to see the glassware, plateware, and kitchen gadgets, which quickly (after a wash) found places in the new kitchen.

Beds were set up, including one in Grey’s room, where Cindy was surprised to find that he had been sleeping on the floor under deerskins.

“It’s not bad, I’ve slept on the ground in all weather. Here in an air-conditioned room it is like heaven.”

Dan and Sun returned, and the living-room furniture was set up in the Great Hall. This room was much larger than Daisy’s little living room, and with the growing crowd living in the house, it made visiting more comfortable. The only TV set was in there, and Daisy liked that. It meant that Dary would come in and snuggle on the bed next to her in the evenings, to her great delight.

The whole crew stayed for supper, although Cindy, Dan and Lois said they would have to get back to their cottage tomorrow. It would be the Saturday of the long weekend, and they didn’t know their new neighbors yet.

The next morning Willow was up early, eager to get her baking started. She had confessed that while at the grocery store, her baking experience had mainly consisted of taking frozen lumps of dough from a box, putting it on a pan, and then when it had thawed and risen, putting it into the oven. Now she wanted to learn how to bake from scratch. Daisy had given her a collection of recipe sheets that had been in her kitchen for years. But the real goldmine came when Dary found a copy of the “Fannie Farmer Baking Book” in the box of books from the auction sale. Willow spent several hours reading the book, which include descriptions of techniques used in baking, as well as ingredient lists, like Daisy’s recipes.

When Cindy and Dan, both aglow after consummating their relationship, took Lois back to the cottage, Willow and her son followed them as far as Tweed to buy baking supplies. They bought a 10-kg bag of flour, and large packages of salt, sugar (brown, white, and icing), baking powder, baking soda, and a small jar of yeast. They also bought food-coloring, spices that Daisy didn’t have in her kitchen, milk, cream and butter, and at Dary’s insistence, some decorative sprinkles. They then headed back to the house to start baking.

Meanwhile, Dan drove to the cottage, and found that the access road was completely blocked by vehicles on either side. In fact, there were nearly a dozen cars parked on the north side of the road to the access road.

“How do we get in Danny?” Lois asked timidly. “I can’t walk all that way.”

After a moment Dan made up his mind. “It hasn’t rained for over a week: we will go this way”, and he drove into and out of a shallow ditch, and then across the grass towards their cottage. “This is our land anyway, although half of the road is as well.”

“Those cars are parked illegally,” Cindy said. “You can’t block an access road like that.”

“Well, call the cops,” Dan joked.

“No need,” Cindy said. “I happen to have my citation book in my purse. I never leave home without it. It looks like six cars are going to get tickets: no seven, counting the one blocking your driveway.”

“And look,” Lois said. “There are pup tents on my front lawn.”

“I should just drive across them,” Dan said, and turned towards the tents. But then he turned back to avoid them.

“I’m glad you did that,” Cindy said. “There could have been someone napping in one of those. And I would have had to give you a citation for careless driving. I don’t want to be testifying against my new boyfriend in court.”

They pulled the car up on the lawn near the front door to the cottage, and Cindy helped Lois into the place. She had never seen the place before, so Lois showed her around. Dan stayed outside, and started pulling up the three tents. He had unpegged the first and dragged it out to the road, and was starting to take down the second when a group of boys, teenage or college aged, approached.

“Hey man, what are you doing?” one boy said. “Those are our tents.”

“And this is my land, and I don’t recall giving you permission to put them there.”

“He’s just an old man,” said a boy wearing only swim shorts. He was clearly fit with a six pack that only came from working out. “We can take him.” The boy was holding a beer, which he handed to a smaller friend.

Dan went into a defensive stance as the slightly drunk boy approached. He’s probably never been in a real fight, Dan thought as the boy neared and took a swing. Dan grabbed his muscular arm and pulled, throwing the big lad over his shoulder and onto the gravel drive.

That caused another four lads to come at him, and Dan was able to keep them off him. Soon three of the four were dazed and on the ground as result of headshots the ex-army officer had gotten in. The fourth was closing in, more cautious and more sober than his friends.

It was at this point when Cindy had come to the front of the cottage, drawn by the noise of fighting. She saw a boy who had picked up a five-foot long two-by-four and was coming at Dan from behind.

Dan grappled with the boy in front of him, and then he heard a scream from inside the cottage, followed by a second scream. That was when everything went black.

When his head cleared he heard one of the two boys still standing shout: “He’s a fuckin’ ninja.” He could see that the boy he had been wrestling with unconscious on the drive, while another boy was standing to the side with a stunned expression. He was holding a two-by-four.

Cindy was now standing next to him, and using her police command voice she shouted at the boy with the lumber: “Drop your weapon. This is all over.” The boy dropped the wood, and Dan saw Cindy take a pair of handcuffs from her purse. He also noted that there were now nearly 100 people ringing the fight scene.

That was when Dan dropped to his knee and found that the unconscious boy was no longer breathing. Dan rolled him over, elevated his head and started CPR, rotating between chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth.

As he was providing CPR, Flint started talking to Dan: «Sorry to interfere. You were doing well with the first few. But the boy with the big stick was coming at you from behind, so I had to take over. I twisted, and the boy you were wrestling with took the blow from his friend. I took out three more with kicks to the throat or head before your squaw came out and I decided to leave your body.»

«Thanks, I think,» Dan said internally. He finally stopped the CPR for a second and called to his mom. “Mom. Call for an ambulance: two if they can spare them. And then call the cops to tell them officer Cindy needs a backup.”

“Mention assault causing bodily harm,” Cindy added. “And tell them to take the lawn the way Dan did to get in.”

The first EMT ambulance was on the scene in minutes, having been making a drop at the hospital in Tweed. The EMTs took over from Dan on the CPR and announced that the boy had a slight pulse and was alive: barely. He and the most damaged of the others, who had taken a kick to the throat by Flint, were bundled into the ambulance. One EMT did a quick triage on the others, selecting two other boys to go to the hospital in the second ambulance, and then ordering four others to go to the ambulance in cars. Three boys were hurt, but did not seem to require hospital treatment.

The next car in was an OPP cruiser. The handcuffed boy was put in the back while Cindy updated her partner on the events. The boy would be booked and charged with assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon. The boy Dan identified as starting the fight would be charged with simple assault, since he didn’t actually hit Dan. The others were let off with warnings.

Two of the cars blocking the lane had taken boys to the hospital, but the two officers then ticketed the others, to the dismay of the drivers, who found that the tickets were for $125 each. The road was cleared, although the second ambulance had also gone over the grass.

Just when the road was cleared a big septic tank service truck arrived, and was able to get up to Dan’s drive, but no further due to the cars parked haphazardly in the other cottage lot.

An older couple came out of the crowd: the man speaking quickly to the truck driver, and then approaching Dan.

“Henry Coswald,” the man said. “I guess I am your new neighbor. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. This whole weekend has been a disaster. Could we use your lane to park a few cars? Just temporarily. I need to get that truck through. Our septic system is clogged up badly.”

“That can happen with 100 people using one toilet,” Dan said with a smile. City people: they don’t understand the limitations to services in cottage country. “Yes, you can move cars in, and a few can fit on the grass here.” He noticed that the other tents were now gone.

The man went back and started shouting orders to the kids, and directing traffic to allow the truck to near the back of the house. Meanwhile the woman who had come with Henry came up to Lois and Dan. “Susan Coswald,” she said. “I am so sorry about this. What a terrible way to have to introduce yourself to neighbors.” She paused, then turned red before continuing. “I don’t suppose I could use your washroom. I haven’t gone all morning and it is starting to hurt. The boys, and the young girls, have been going out into the woods, but a woman my age …”

Lois led her to the washroom. “I wish I could help you all, but then my system would plug up.”

“Would six more be a bother?” Susan shouted from inside the room. “I have four sisters-in-law, and two sisters who would be so grateful.”

When she came out, with a look of relief on her face, she went to the door and waved in her sisters, calling out that younger girls who started moving towards Lois’s cottage would have to wait for the septic truck to finish. The other adult ladies came in and made a line outside of the door, doing little dances as they waited.

Lois made tea, because that is what Lois did when people visited. She and Susan sat in the front room, and Lois made a cup for each of the other women as they came out.

“Our new place is a disaster,” Susan explained. “Henry and I bought it a couple weeks ago and decided to open it up this weekend. The Hitchings had left it fully furnished, so we thought it was ready for us. I think there are 15 cousins, and they each were to bring one friend, but a few brought two. It was our kids that were the real culprits: I have two in university and two in high school, and they each brought 10 to 20 with them for a May 2-4 bash.”

“But last night at about 11 the toilet stopped flushing, and this morning the water ran out. The back yard is a mess. It is squishy with septic water. And several tents were out in it. You saw the problem with parking, and then those clowns deciding to fight your son … I assume he is your son.”

“Yes, and the young girl is an OPP officer, his girlfriend. Dan was in the army for 25 years: a peacekeeper in Somalia for some of that time. He can look after himself, although when I saw that boy swing a 2x4 at him from behind I was sure he was going to be hurt. But then the other boy got hit, and Cindy stopped everything right away. Without even pulling a gun.”

“And they say your boy saved young John’s life with CPR. I can only thank you for that. This would not be a very relaxing place to go if there had been a death here the first day.”

“Nor for me,” Lois said. “Especially if it had been my son who died. I don’t know if any of those boys know CPR, or if they would have used it after the fight.”

Just then Henry came to the door. Lois answered it, and directed him to the washroom, to his relief. Dan came in a minute later. “Cindy is going to the station with Ben, her partner, and will probably work a full shift today. They will go to the house and pick up her cruiser. She has her uniform there.”

Henry came out and told the sisters that the cottage was being closed, and that they would have to pull out. “The man on the truck has drained the tank, but he said that the lines will still be half full, and if everybody stays it will fill again overnight. The well is also going to be out for at least six hours. He told the lineup waiting to use the toilet that they would have to get a bucket of water from the lake to flush it. There is a little bucket brigade going on.”

“The bad news is that the septic system is pretty shot. It was legal when it was put in 35 years ago, but now it is far short of the health department regulations. A whole new weeping bed is needed, and it will require at least 5 acres more land. We will have to figure out who owns the lot behind us and see if they will sever off some of their land.”

“That is our land,” Dan said. “It is ten acres, and it is unlikely that the county would allow a severance. There wouldn’t be enough land left for another house and its septic bed.”

“So we are screwed,” Henry said. “Unless you could be convinced to sell the entire lot?”

“Well, that much land out here, close to the lake but not on it, would go for $100,000 if we are lucky.”

“I’ll pay $150,000,” Henry said. “In fact, would your mother be interested in selling this cottage too? Having both places will make it easier to have family out here. This is a lovely place. I wouldn’t mind staying here while the visitors stay in the Hitchings house.”

“Is the septic good here?” Susan asked.

“We have had the place for 25 years,” Lois said. “It was just a summer place until Danny fixed it up for me a few years back and we moved in. There have never been any problems in all that time. I think the tank was drained about 15 years back, so it might need it again.”

“And a little tip many cottages use is to never flush after a pee, or at the end of the night,” Dan said. “It really conserves the water in your well. Speaking of which, I wouldn’t use your taps. The overflow from the septic tank has probably polluted it. You can bring some buckets over here to get water for cooking and washing up. We have an outside tap on the lake side.”

Just then one of the uncles came to the door. Apparently some of the college kids were arguing about leaving. They had made plans to do May 2-4 here, and weren’t happy about the change in plans.

Henry stormed out of the cottage, and Susan followed: “I think you two need to talk about selling, if you are interested at all.”

Alone, Dan went through the pros and cons of selling, but Lois interrupted. “I don’t want to live here any more. This used to be nice and quiet, but now it seems that this is going to be a weekend place for the Coswalds, with visitors all the time. Do you think Daisy would let us move into the house full time?”

“Do I think Daisy would let her best friend move in? I suspect so. Even if she doesn’t want us, I know she will let us stay until we can rent of buy another place. “I’m going to ask $200,000 for the cottage, which is double what we could get in a panic sale. We’ll go down to $300,000 in total if they want both properties. Let’s just see if they have the cash.”

“Susan said they were both professors,” Lois said. “He is at the University in Kingston, and she is at the community college. So they both have high paying jobs.”

“And four kids, two in college and two soon to go,” Dan warned. “All we can do is ask.”

Susan and Henry came back later and the four sat around the table.

“My mother has loved this place for years,” Dan started off. “But she has a good friend up on the highway that has a lot of space and will probably take us in. So we might be interested in an offer.”

“We paid the Hutchings $150,000 and this place is nicer,” Henry said. “Would you take 175?”

“The number we had in mind was 200,” Dan said.

Henry put on a pained look. Dan was unsure if it was a negotiating tactic, or real. “I don’t know. We have kids to put through College. My mother died last summer in Toronto, and we recently sold her house for $900,000. Buying the first cottage was a no brainer, but another $350,000 … that’s a half million in total of what we hoped was a retirement fund.”

“It still is a retirement fund,” Dan pressed. “You will own the entire peninsula here. You could sell it, or you could retire out here. It really is lovely in the fall and spring. And in winter you occasionally see deer in the backyard. Tell you what. If you are buying both properties, we will go down to 300. For the two.”

“Sold,” Henry said. “And with no real estate commissions. There will be lawyer fees involved though, I guess.”

“One of the teachers at my college is a lawyer,” Susan said. “We have lunch all the time. I think she would do it as fast as possible.”

“Well we will be out of the place by Friday, which I assume is the next day you will be up after the long weekend. We will want all the furnishings, so you might want to buy some things in Kingston. If you give me a looney, that can be the rent until the real estate closing.”

“Done,” Henry said, sliding over a $1 coin.

“Come on mother, let’s head over to the house,” Dan said.

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In Canada the May holiday is held on the second last Monday of the month, a week before America celebrates Memorial Day. The official title is Victoria Day, but everyone calls it the May 2-4 (Two four) weekend. Many a joke has been made over the fact that beer in Ontario is usually sold in cases of 24 cans or bottles, and this is referred to as a 2-4 case.