369: Herb kept a . . .
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 16 continues
Herb kept a metal box on the shelf under his workbench in the cellar. It was painted green, with a white skull and crossbones painted on the top. Once, he opened this box for me, and explained, with firm seriousness, that I must never open it myself because the jars and tins and bottles in it held acids and other chemicals that could burn me, even kill me. In a tray on top, like the tray in a toolbox, there were containers of muriatic acid, soldering paste, lye, and so on. He didn’t lift the tray to show me what was in the space under the tray, but I supposed, as I now understand he intended me to suppose, that it held more of the same. It was here, I’m sure, that Herb kept his coarse goods, sketches for new ideas that came to him from time to time, and a few experimental prototypes.
Lorna kept some of hers, I believe, in her kitchen canisters, under the flour, the sugar, the corn meal, the rice, and the oatmeal. I remember a moment that puzzled me when it occurred but now, in the light of what I’ve learned, makes sense at last. Once, not long before my parents and I moved into our own little house, I startled Lorna while she was fussing with those kitchen canisters. She was emptying them into paper bags.
I called out to her, “What are you doing, Gumma?” She nearly dropped the canister she was holding.
“Oh!” she said. “You startled me, Peter. Close your eyes. Quickly! You mustn’t see what I’m doing.”
“How come?”
“Just close your eyes,” she said. “It’s a surprise. I’m — going to bake something — something special. I don’t want you to see it before I’m done.”
“But why are you dumping everything out?”
“I had to empty these canisters so that I could give them a good cleaning. When they’re nice and clean I’ll fill them back up again, and then I’ll make something special.”
She sent me out of the room. I think, now, that she was retrieving pieces of erotic jewelry from the bottoms of the canisters, that these were her caches and that I had very nearly discovered her secret. That night, for dessert, we had pineapple upside-down cake, which was a favorite of mine at the time.
[to be continued on Thursday, October 27, 2022]
In Topical Guide 369, Mark Dorset considers Secrecy and Secrets, Stashes and Caches from this episode.
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