The Earth Turns South/The Antique

by Clement Richardson Wood

THE ANTIQUE

"Martha," she called across the hedge,
"Come over and see the antique I got yesterday—
A dressing table—simply a gem!"

So we went over, Martha and I,
And there, against the living-room wall,
Tangled in a maze of cluttering furniture,
China closets bulging with miscellanies,
Desks, book-cases, sofas, chairs, tables,
With endless repetitions of lamps on them,
Stood the antique.

It was a beauty, she explained,
With spiraling curly-maple legs,
A body of solid mahogany,
And drawer and top of exquisitely feathered maple.

She gloated over every detail of it and its purchase;
It had been owned by a cousin of ex-Governor So-and-so,
Which added incalculably to its value;
She had recognized it through the over-paint of dirty brown,
And so on and on.

Then she fluttered to the china closets,
On fire to show the stranger each treasure:
The inkstand Daniel Webster had owned,
John Adams' queerly curving lamp,
The Lafayette pitcher, the blueglass lamp and box,
The red and black English ware found in a German hamlet,
The Dutch molasses jugs, the Bavarian peasant crockery,
Spanish pitcher, Chinese bowl, Bennington tiles,
The self-righteous samplers on the wall,
The upright clock, the fourposters, climbing to the low ceiling,
That had been her grandmother's,
Aunt Sophie's chest of drawers, the colonial sideboard,
All the while keeping up her excited chatter,
Giving reiterated details of every piece,
And so back to the antique
Where we had started.
Oh, yes, it took all her time;
She was going tomorrow to look at a cedar chest
In a farmhouse miles away . . .

I could have turned to her
And shown her an antique she overlooked,
With bloodless, gnarled old legs,
With a flattened O-Gee swell toward the head,
And a soul twisted with lust for acquiring;
Reverencing as priceless relics
The discarded shells of man's habitations,
Like a fussy and energetic tumble-bug
Gathering the leavings of the past;
Happily nesting herself in musty fragments
Of a life that was young and lusty and forward-marching.
What a queer, stagnant back-water
Of the stream of life!

Her flowing chatter aroused me.
"I saw such a queer sign in that shop," she said;
"'The Trash of the Past is the Treasure of the Future.'
Such a queer sign."
For a moment she mused, staring off through the walls
To I know not what flash of self-revelation.
Then, turning quickly,
"Oh, did I show you this pewter jug?
Or these bronze candlesticks from———"