Entry #551245, added on 11-24-07 @ 5:01 am EST
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| The Bay Road Legacy Chapter 4 Guns in The Closet | Entry #551245 |
The BAY ROAD LEGACY
Chapter Four
Guns in the Closet
Saturday morning, and like the previous mornings, it was a beautiful day. As soon as I could get dressed and tie my shoes, I was out of bed and down the stairs into the kitchen. Only my sister had not already gotten up. The family was gathered around the table, and had all been discussing the sounds of the prior evening. I was not alone, they all heard it. It was not a dream. Uncle Jimmy said to my father, “Ben, are you sure that this is the right house for you and the family.” Father feigned surprise at the thought. “What”, he said, “a few odd noises and now we’re in the wrong house, nonsense. This is a great old house, and there is nothing in it that could harm or hurt anyone. I love this house and I think the boys do too, don’t you boys?”
Uncle Jimmy said that he had never heard or encountered such a strange happening as he had the night before. He volunteered that he had gotten out of bed to investigate the voices, and just as he entered the hallway, he saw, or at least he thought he saw something that he never thought he would see in his lifetime. “Dot,” he went on to say, “I don’t want to alarm you or the boys, but I swear to you that what I saw in that hallway last night was not real, not alive at least. And you all know that I am not afraid of anything on this earth, but last night I saw a ghost. It was as real to me as you are, but I was not about to touch it or tangle with it. What I saw was the figure of a man stumbling down the hallway toward the stairs, and then half falling all the way to the bottom. I watched it as it went to, and through the front door. That damned thing was as real as I am, and had no business being in this house. I hope you don’t mind but I slept the rest of the night with my gun under my pillow, and I did not get very much sleep.”
Father became defensive of the thought of a ghost living here. “All old houses have sounds and happenings and unexplainable things in them. It is part of their charm. I don’t think for a minute that anything, ghost or otherwise is going to drive us out of our home. Who ever heard of a ghost of all things that would hurt people, even if they could? No, we are here to stay. Besides, didn’t you say you saw it go out through the front door? So what’s to worry about?”
My sister came in and asked what all the commotion was about last night. Did anyone else hear it? She said she was sure that whatever was going on in the little room across from hers was going to wake up Greg. For an hour we all related our opinions and told of what we felt. The final outcome of all the talk of “ghosts” or whatever it may have been was that this was our home, and if they wanted to stay here and not hurt anyone they could. Mother said, much to our surprise that she had lived in a haunted house in Philadelphia as a girl, but the rent was so cheap that Nana, had decided that the ghosts, would have to put up with them living there.
Mother also said that in her memory, the ghosts did not bother anyone, and were only heard or felt on certain nights or at certain times. This all came as a startling bit of news. What was just as surprising and I am sure that my uncle, and my father were both aware of it, was that here we were, sharing an ungodly experience, in only the first days of our life as a family, and we were bonding together as a family to take a stand in our new home, no matter what that would bring in the days ahead. Jimmy was surprised by the turn of events, and suggested it was all okay by him, but he was still going to have his gun by his bed at night.
After breakfast, the real work of this Saturday would begin. Jimmy wanted to go into Glens Falls to Sears to purchase a large sharp chisel and some other tools that might be needed to attack the stuck windows and whatever other chores might come up. With Father, he wanted my brother and me to go along, and see with him if we might be able to help out with another problem. It was all a little mysterious, but he and Father had apparently worked out a deal. We arrived at the Sears store just after it opened, and went along to the tool dept where the purchase of a selection of tools was made. Then we walked over to the sporting goods section, and with an unbelievable awe surrounding both my brother and I, two single shot 22 caliber rifles were purchased. The rifles were a gift from my uncle, but we could not use them or even touch them until he gave us instructions in guns.
These guns were the main focal point of Jimmy’s rat control program. If we could learn to shoot straight, we could wipe out the rats in no time at all. With the guns a purchase of ammunition was made and put into Fathers control. The ride back from the town seemed endless. On arrival back at the house, and before we could begin learning from a master teacher, there was work to be done. Jimmy’s first lesson to us was that some things are more important than others and certainly guns would have to be least important. The guns would not free stuck windows or mend crooked doors or do any of the other chores that mother had so carefully planned for Father and Jimmy.
On arriving home, mother was expecting us. She knew that the purchase of guns was on the list for today. We showed her our new weapons and she at once set down a new rule. “Guns” she said “are not very pretty, and I don’t ever want to see them lying around in this house. When you are not using them, all guns will be kept in the closet in your room.” Her second rule was just as clear. “Never ever do anything with the guns that your uncle hasn’t taught you. There will be no “accidents,” so just be smart and learn how to use them right.”
The guns were set aside, and we went up to the small bedroom, with the stuck windows. It was to be an all out attack on the windows to get them to open. The plan was simple. Jimmy would use the wide sharp chisel, to go around the frame, eliminating any bond to the paint. Then, the windows should open right up. After completing the cut, he reached up to the window sash and tried to push it up. It would not move. Again and again he pushed, and he and Father, one on each side tried and it was not going to open. Maybe, just maybe they agreed, the window was stuck on the outside. Well this meant going into the barns and finding a sturdy ladder and climbing up on the outside of the house.
Only one ladder would fill the bill, be long enough to reach the second floor windows. It looked safe enough, but the top end, was black with soot. Apparently this old relic had been near a fire was the thought on origin of the soot. The ladder ends were wrapped in old rags to prevent marring the sides of the house, and in a short time Jimmy had finished scraping away the old paint around the windows. He climbed back down, confident that the windows would work now, and so we all went back to the room to see. Again, with hands firmly on the window sash, he tried and tried to push it open. These windows, he declared must be glued or nailed in some way that we just can’t see. “I give up” he said, discouraged and worn with the efforts that had been spent on such a simple task. Dutifully the men reported back to the kitchen and let mother know it was no use. The insurance company would have to send a carpenter to do the job.
It was way past lunch time, when we received the call back to the house, for the much awaited education in marksmanship that we were so eager to learn. Jimmy had scouted out a location for the target shooting that he thought would be ideal. It was an old sand pit about 1000 yards from the house. At one end, he had already set up a saw horse, and placed on it several tin cans, filled with sand. The first lesson was about location. Never shoot a gun unless you know where the bullet will stop. In this area if we missed the target, the bullet would bury itself in the sand. If it went to high, it would enter the thick wood lot another 500 yards away. Never use a glass bottle as a target; glass shatters and you could easily get cut when trying to set up a next target. Put sand in the cans to keep them from blowing over and to slow the bullet. Now it was time. Jimmy loaded the gun, showing us how to do it, and then lifted it and pointed at the targets. Bang, the first can fell off the saw horse with the first shot. “Boys,” he said, “these are single shot rifles. If you can’t hit your target with the first shot every time, you should not even think of firing the gun. There may come a time when one shot is all you get”.
It was our turn. First my brother and then me. David’s first shot rang out, and on the ground near the saw horse we saw a piece of dirt fly up. Expecting the worst, he looked toward Father and Jimmy. “Not bad” said Jimmy, “too bad you missed but not bad.” Now it was my turn. Slowly with great care and determination I aimed at the can on the far left end of the saw horse. Bang, and then to everyone’s amazement mostly mine the third can to the right of my intended target flew into the air. Nice shot, not bad at all, yeah Ken and I was the only one who knew that I had missed by 4 feet from what I had aimed at. Now how do you admit that, at a time like this! I could easily have taken a bow at that point, but with all due respect to the values of honesty that my mother had taught us, I simply said that it was a lucky shot, and then admitted it was not what I was aiming at. I was aiming to the left.
The lesson continued until after the first and soon the second box of ammunition had been spent. We could hit a target. Larger cans had been set up and we each could, with the second or third shot hit the designated can. It was time to stop for the day. Uncle Jimmy’s patience was endless. Before the end of the week, with several more carefully planned and delivered lessons, both my brother and I could do well enough at shooting to hit small cans at 50 feet with one shot and with great frequency. We would have no problem at shooting rats, as long as they were standing still, on a saw horse in the designated shooting area. I think that in the course of the summer, our total rat kill may have reached the astronomical number of ten. The reason behind Jimmy’s’ wanting us to own guns, quite obviously, had little to do with actual rat control, and more to do with unseen dangers living in the house on Bay Road.
Saturday evening had been planned for the celebration of the arrival of my uncle and aunt. They had arrived days early. The plan was to go out for supper, at any place they wanted to go. When asked, Uncle Jimmy turned to us and wanted to know what the best restaurant in town was. This was a no brain call. We loved the Italian restaurant that we had been to previously. That was it then no more discussion; we were off to supper at that wonderful place. We went off to supper taking cars, my fathers and Jimmy’s. We ate, we laughed, we talked about ghosts, about windows that were not opening, about the farm stand, and about family. Jimmy of course presided over the table, and in his discussion of family, he made it a point to tell us that so much would change in the world, in our own lives and in the lives of those around us, that only one thing in the whole world would never change, and that was your family.
The family that you come into the world with is the only family that will ever know you and care about you. It should not matter if you are a good person or a bad one, if you are a part of a family, there you would find love, support, hope and direction and purpose. Your family would always be the only people that knew you from day one and they would always be there for you. He believed this and he lived it through his whole life. It was a well meaning and deliberate message, delivered for all of us, including Father I am sure. I have always suspected that my uncle’s words reached a part of my father, and that he gave serious thought to their meaning many times over. This had been a great evening, and now, we were going back to the farm for what we all hoped would be a quiet night in our new home.
When we arrived back at the house at about nine pm, we were all still too excited to even think about going to bed. We sat up on the old front porch for several hours, and listened to more stories of the life of a spy. We also talked of mother’s plans for restoring some beauty to our new home, and of her plan to plant a flower garden just outside of the back door. “It would be so nice to smell flowers growing under the kitchen window,” she said. She was just beginning to think of a long term commitment to the house. As midnight approached, we were off to bed. Mother cautioned us to not go wandering around in the hallway, or to even go out of our room. “If there is anything in this house, I want to know about it, and I don’t want to hear or see anything that I don’t like” was her comment as we headed upstairs for bed. My brother and I washed up together, and went straight off to our room, making sure that our newly acquired weapons were safely stored as mother had said, in the closet. Sleep came easy, and I do not think that one sound entered the house, not one creak of the stairs, not one ring from the bell, no; nothing at all would disturb the peace of that nights rest.
In the morning, we gathered in the kitchen, and we all dutifully reported that the night had been very quiet and we each had a full complement of deep rest. This was Sunday morning, and we were all going out later in the day to explore our new town and the surrounding areas. Mother started cooking a pot roast on her new stove, and was about to go for a walk with my aunt, when my sister arrived for her breakfast. She wanted to know if anyone had seen her watch, perhaps lying around on a table or on a sink. She was sure that she had taken it off the night before, and left it on the back of her bed, but now, it was missing. Had she dropped it on the floor? Did she look under the bed? Did she check in the bedding? Her answer to all was yes, several times. “Not to be concerned, it will show up,” was mother’s advice. My brother and I were quick to point out that maybe; just maybe a ghost had taken it from her. “Not funny, was her reply. I think that in the light of day, with a full nights rest, and with guns now in the closet, we were willing to accept, and even make fun of the unexplained occurrences that we had all experienced up to this point. We were after all, just a nice family living in a nice old house, and we were going to be there for a long time. “Any ghosts around this old place better get used to us real soon,” was father’s final word on the subject.
With most of the morning still ahead of us, my uncle thought that it might be a good idea to take a good look around the house and all of its’ many rooms and to open some doors not previously opened. He wanted to start at the very top, actually go up to the attic, and work his way down room by room, inch by inch all the way to the cellar. I am sure that Jimmy was in search of a solid, concrete explanation for the vision of Friday night. He would only be satisfied with the truth, and he was determined to find it. My father agreed to the idea, and my brother and I were eager to get started. Carefully, flashlights were checked, new batteries installed, and almost as though we were part of a secret spy mission, we were off to check out the old house. Jimmy led the way with Father right behind, and my brother and I bringing up the rear.
Watching this man work was as fascinating as the search itself. Jimmy had picked up two tools to help us out if we encountered any stuck doors. He had picked up a large screwdriver, and a good sized crowbar. We started, at the front door of the house. “Good to have a starting point” he said. He swung the door easily at first, and then with all his strength back and forth on its’ hinges. There was no way, he announced, “that this door will ever swing open or closed by itself. No. it is a good old door. They don’t make them like that any more.” was his conclusion.
Next we traveled up and down the front stairs, noting with accuracy, which of the stairs creaked and which did not. With some nails in the right place, he could stop the squeaking. At the top of the stairs, we walked back and forth in the hallway several times. We opened windows in each room, and Jimmy dropped a piece of paper repeatedly to see which way the draft from the windows, would blow the paper. We searched every room, tested every floorboard, opened and closed every window, until we reached the back bedroom. To the right of the bedroom was a previously unopened door that led to the attic. A slide bolt held it shut, and it appeared to have been closed for a long time. Paint stuck to the bolt, and was quickly scraped off with the screwdriver. The door swung opened, revealing a long steep stairway going up into the darkness above. “Boys asked Jimmy, do you know what is missing from this stairway?” “Well“, I ventured, it does not have a railing to hold onto.” Good answer, but not the right one. There were no cobwebs, no dust, and no dirt on the steps, in short, nothing that he expected to find on a stairway that had not been used in years. “Looks like someone might have just swept the place clean,” was his comment.
We climbed the stairs, in single file and as we reached the top, we allowed our eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. In the light of the flashlights, the whole area appeared empty, except for a few bits of old paper, and a curious cardboard box left leaning against a rafter. The box was opened, to reveal its’ contents, and to our surprise, it held a dozen men’s shirt collars, of the type worn before the turn of the century. On further examination of the attic, we could plainly see evidence of a fire, which had scorched some of the rafters at the rear of the house. Several of the rafters had been replaced or new ones installed against the old. The attic of the old farm house revealed no great secrets. It was big, smelled bad, and was not what we had imagined it would be. It would be a long time before the secrets of the attic would be apparent to us. After spending the needed time in the attic, we returned to the lower levels of the house. Jimmy locked the door and made sure that it was well secured before we ventured on.
We were again standing in the hallway just outside the small bedroom, and rather than enter it, Jimmy decided to leave it for last. He opened the door into the added on section of the house, and methodically, we followed as each room was examined, each floor board tested, and each window opened to allow in fresh air. The small, cell like, rooms, held no secrets. We looked in closets, into the small cabinets in the tiny bathroom, and opened every door. We walked up and down the hallway and made note of every squeak. The unused portion of the house had been closed off for many years, and the paint in some rooms was peeling, and there was considerable dust on the floors, which seemed to make Jimmy a bit justified in noting its’ absence from the attic stairway.
Having satisfied our curiosity about this section of the house, we returned to the hallway outside the small bedroom. The rear of the house was once again closed. Now we entered the small room designated to be used for my nephew. Once inside, Jimmy noted to Father once again on how cold this room was. “Even being on the dark side of the house, should not make it this cold,” he said. With a determination that was unmatched in many men, he returned to the windows, and placing his huge hands on the sash of the first window, he once again pushed on it. Without a bit of hesitation the window flew up, slamming against the upper portion of the frame. “God Damn,” what on earth is with this window” Jimmy said. “All the work I put into getting it opened, and now it decides to open almost by itself.” Quickly Father pushed on the other window and it too opened, as though there had never been a problem with the windows at all. This was a mystery that defied all odds. Why now on a bright and warm Sunday morning did these windows behave in such a way? Why indeed.
Well, our surprised sounds had reached the kitchen and mother and my aunt, and my sister, and my nephew had all made their way up stairs to see what was going on. The room had warmed with the fresh air rushing in and my nephew walked in on his own and promptly removed a small toy that had been left on the bed. He began to play on the floor, when my sister reached down to pick him up. As she did so, her watch, previously reported as missing, suddenly appeared before her right on the edge of the bed. She swore that she had never worn the watch in this room. We all stood there for several minutes and then left the room with the windows still open, to air it out.
As we moved down the hall, we all heard an unexpected crash, followed by a second, come from the room. We turned to see, that without any help, both windows were now shut. Again, it was Jimmy who reached out to reopen the window, intending to place a stick under it to prevent it from closing again. The window would not be moved. The second window responded in the same way. This was a true mystery, which would defy all logical explanation. The windows would remain shut. Mother, made it clear that this was a very big house and that if something was present in that room that did not want the windows open, well, that was okay. “We just won’t use that old room. We can certainly use it for storage just like the people that used to live here did,” was her response. Again like several other mysteries surrounding the house, this one would take months to unravel.
We returned to the lower level of the house, and the women went to the kitchen. The smell of pot roast was beginning to fill the house, and we were all looking forward to Sunday dinner. We had explored every square inch of the upper levels, and now we were about to examine the lower level, and the cellar. Before we began this task, we went outside to the location of an old boarded up bulkhead entry way to the cellar. With crowbar in hand, Father and Jimmy removed the boards, opening before us what seemed like a very uninviting passage to the cellar below. The stairs down to the cellar were broken and deemed to be unusable. We re-entered the house, leaving the cellar way open to air it out. Again with a great deal of methodical examination, we scoured the rear portion of the house on the first floor, and the milk room and several smaller storage rooms. Each area was inspected and each secured as we moved on. As before all of the windows were opened to let in the fresh air, growing warmer now as morning progressed. The discovery of several small hand tools, still in good condition was our only reward for such a diligent search. Having all but completed our mission, the time was at hand to enter the cellar. We now moved into the hallway and to the cellar door. The door was just below the stairs that led up in the house, and it too had been locked. Once opened, there was a certain amount of surprise to see that a light bulb was still burning brightly in the cellar below. That light bulb had probably been turned on and left in the on position for years. It was good to have light, as once again our “search team” began its’ way down the old stairway. Having reached the bottom, we stood and looked around at a maze of small rooms and pantries and food storage bins and discarded items from years and years gone by.
This search was going to take a while. In the first closet were shelves of carefully preserved fruits and vegetables. The content of the jars was unrecognizable, but we could still sense the amount of work that had gone into the process of storing food for the winter. In another storage room were tins of canned food, also put away with expectation of feasting, at a meal planned long years ago. The cellar did not seem quite as ominous or foreboding as it might have been. Except for the damp smell of rotting burlap and canvas bags that might have at one time held produce, and the darkness that still pervaded some corners, it was pretty much as one might expect a cellar to be. The floor of the cellar was of course dirt, and it seemed to be quite firm underfoot. There was in one corner of the cellar, a structure that we theorized might have been a water cistern at one time to hold rain water, perhaps from the era before electric pumps. Inside the structure, lying on the floor were several rotted portions of cloth, still hemmed and held together by heavy cord. Using the big old crowbar, Jimmy pushed the old cloth aside, to see if anything lay beneath it. What lay beneath the old cloth sent shivers and shock through each of us? Sticking half way out of the earth, beneath the cloth were two yellowed and decaying bones. To dispel fear, Jimmy quickly announced that what we were seeing was probably the remains of an old deer carcass, stored for the winter in an old canvas sack. He quickly covered the remains and put the cloth back atop of them. We spent just a few more minutes looking about in the cellar, and retreated to the warmth of mother’s kitchen. Dinner was about to be served.
Following Sunday dinner, we did indeed go for a long afternoon ride. We drove out the length of Bay Road to reach the shores of Lake George, and visited several of the tourist points surrounding the lake. We drove up an old gravel road to the top of French Mountain, and walked a way to it’s’ summit. From the top, we could look down the valley and could see the farm and all of its’ abutting property. From this vantage point, we were indeed seeing a picture straight from the cover of an old travel brochure. A view worthy of Currier and Ives. This day, would certainly remain in my memory for many years.
After several hours of touring the countryside, it was time to return to the house. At Fathers’ insistence we had one more stop to make. It was time for an ice cream, and we had already found a great spot for that. We returned to the shop that we had last visited several nights before. As we entered, we were greeted by the very same waitress that had welcomed us previously, and she greeted us as old friends. “So, how’s it going, all settled in yet, how’s the house, are you still out there on Bay Rd?” she asked. Her questions seldom waited for an answer.
My father was the one to answer, telling her that we were indeed all settled in and how the old house was really beginning to shine. Not letting her ask any more questions, in a half kidding manner, quickly told the young lady that we even had company staying with us, and that his brother, now reviewing the menu of ice cream delights, had come all the way from Rumania just to be with us. Why he picked Rumania, was beyond me, after all Jimmy had said he was last in Hungary. Well the comment was quickly filed away by the young girl, and I swear that before summer ended, several persons who stopped by the farm stand asked us if we had all come from Rumania, or was it just my father’s brother. There is no stopping small town talk.
We ended Sunday the way we had become used to, by sitting on the old porch and talking of dreams and listening to stories, and looking forward to a new week. Monday marked the beginning of Fathers new job and he would be going to work in the morning. Jimmy and his wife would be staying on for the whole week, and all manner of good things were about to happen in my life. Joy, pure Joy!
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