1891 Speaks!

Howdy, y'all!

Not to pretend that my posts are ever the result of laser-like focus, I'd still like to warn you in advance that this particular post is especially random and off-topic.

As most of you have tried very hard to forget, I work at a bookstore in a very small town. My days are spent in awkward extremes: I answer emails and handle customer service for our thriving online business selling new books, as well as working with "vintage" (used!) and "antique" (very used!) books that are traded and donated to the store. I won't lie... it's an incredibly glamorous life. One minute, I'm trying to explain to an elderly lady in HorseShoe Bend, Idaho that her recently purchased e-Book will not be coming in the mail anytime soon. Then a little later, I'm rummaging through a rat-chewed box of dilapidated estate-sale books donated by a grunting family of non-reading locals who insist that "ain't nobody gonna read that stuff 'cause it's boring."

And, to be fair, a lot of it is boring. But! Sometimes, there are lovely, dusty old books with the scent of sweetly aging paper. And sometimes, those wonderful old books settle into your open palm like a broody bird on a nest, and fall open with something akin to a sigh. And sometimes (more often than you'd think), something secret and sacred, committed in elegant spirals of ink upon crisp paper will flutter to the floor. I love the things people tuck inside of books. It's a such a human habit! We can't help ourselves. I've found money, love notes, wedding photos, divorce decrees, car titles, ultra-sound pictures, movie tickets, playing cards, post cards, speeding tickets, hair bows, canned food labels, handkerchiefs, swizzle sticks, canceled stamps and more. My favorites, though, are old letters.

For those of you who are still with me, what follows is a transcription of a letter I found this week inside of an 1880's children's book. It features hot n' heavy talk of family flannel-drawer making (including a pair for "Budgie" the dog?). I hope you enjoy it! (And for the quitters who can't face another wall of text, see you next time!)

Home 10-12-1891

Dear Daughter-

     I am commencing thy letter with Budgie in my lap. He got hurt and feels as though he is a baby. Pa had just come home from [the] mill and he got in the hack and was on top of the sacks and slipped some way and almost fell out but hit on the wheel and cut a gash about an inch long just over the outer part of his right eye. It has bled a good deal and yet almost 2 hours since it happened is bleeding some yet. And now he has got ink all over my paper. So thee can play that is a kiss from him to thee. 
     Anna brought her books home this evening and isn't going to Brushwood any more. But will start to No. 1 I suppose and Emma wanted to stop to[o] and the other girls wanted to know if they might stop of Brushwood if Emma did. I told them they could but Emma would not stop. And so that nipped it all in the bud.
     The Academy is having a boom this fall. I believe they have seventy pupils now. The largest number they ever had during one term. I guess I will have enough cider left to make all the pickles thee can eat for one while. I have made 1 1/2 gallons of mixed pickles and nearly 3 of Margo's and am going to make pickle lilly yet.
     I got a letter from Uncle Ed the other day. He says he is very poorly and Lind has been out lately and Bruce is going to Lind's and study Telegraphy and Iona is going to school at Deming, and there was a picture of Mark in his wagon and his goats hitched to it. It looks very much like him.
     And Uncle Ed said that he would watch out for thee a place. He is Principal of a ward school and has seven teachers under him. Their baby's name is Georgie. We have pumpkins like every thing. Sallie brought up three wagon loads this afternoon and there had been about 2 loads brought up before.
     How are thy canton flannel drawers? I never thought to ask about them when thee was at home. We are in the business this week. We have made Pa two pairs today also Emma the same number. We wanted to make for Mary, Grace, Jessie and myself yet and make some for Budgie.
     If thee has money enough I guess thee had better get thee a gossamer. I intended to have got thee one during the summer, but thee knows when we went to town what a time we would have spending money. I wish thee would come home every morning and comb my hair. Then I would give thee thy breakfast in exchange. Well I have about run out of anything to say and will close for this time. We will bring Mary home sixth day. We have about a bushel of walnuts and peck of hickory nuts. Don't know whether we will get any more or not.

Bye Bye-
Mamma

Taketh one Unicorne...

The thing that boggles my mind about the British Library is that people, seemingly constantly, "find" things there. It's like the Library is some sort of gigantic purse in which various learned and esteemed persons are forever seeking out a misplaced tube of lipstick. Theoretical lipstick, even. I have never seen the British Library, but I suspect that it bears little resemblance to the converted auditorium-turned-school repository that I enjoyed in my younger days. Apparently, in the British Library, it is possible to never really be certain what you'll find, or where.

Case in point:

 Cooking a unicorn will mess you up. Homeskillet was all peachy-keen til he cooked Hornsby up there. Now he's blue. True story.

An excerpt from the article:
Professor Brian Trump of the British Medieval Cookbook Project described the find as near-miraculous. "We've been hunting for this book for years. The moment I first set my eyes on it was spine-tingling."
So, we have a miracle then! Professor Trump (a great name if you plan to enjoy professional success) has been looking for the Unicorn cookbook for bloody ever, and then, he found it! And now, the British Library knows where it is!

Bet it was behind a copy of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and an empty Fanta bottle. Stupid kids and their Fanta.

 Gotteth Milke?

The real, non-Thread-Headed version of this article is actually supremely cool. You should go read if for yourself, but it's a fascinating slice of Medieval life. The cookbook itself was likely compiled by an adventurous chef named Geoffrey Fule under the reign of Edward III and his Queen, Philippa of Hainault. It is a historical treasure which is now rightfully restored to a place of interest an honor in a venerable, historic library.

Which is more than I can say for the Unicorn...

Well, I'm poorer but...

THIS is now mine:

From Amazon, with love.

I've wanted this book since before the only people who cared about the "Kardashians" were folks who just couldn't let the O.J. Simpson trial go.

It's been on my Amazon wish list for a while in the original hardcover printing. Back when I added it, the book was selling used for about $160.00 on a GOOD day. I work at a book store and appreciate the value of the printed word well enough, but $160 for a single book is a major life event for me. (For me and my neighbors. As it turns out, I live in one of the top 10 most impoverished states in America. The statistic also reflects obesity rates and education ranking. So we're winning at being poor, fat AND stupid. But it's nice to be in a top-10 list of any kind when you're from South Carolina.) I started saving money to buy one, then noticed the price dropping on the hard backs last year and fortuitously found out that a paperback reprint was due out this year! The official release date is February 28th, 2012, but apparently the publisher didn't get the memo because I'm holding my copy right now. 

Final price? Under $30. This is good for a lot of reasons, but namely because it's a fantastic source and now it will be readily available for a new generation of collectors, seamstresses, reenactors and historians. And people who have a fetish for large books with waistcoats on the cover.

Second Boo-Yah of the day concerns the purchase of fabric. Tax season is a good time to buy fabric, if you've got the capital laying around. Great sales abound in-store and online. I love Fabric.c*m for the variety and general value, but it's like a giant flea market over there sometimes. You never really know what you're going to find.  It's been admittedly dry lately, and I had half a heart to disregard the pleas of the petulant nymph pimping a pile of cotton novelty prints in their recent email advertisement. I'm glad I didn't. They currently have a remarkably good selection of wools (some blends in there, but a lot of 100% too) including some great olive green wool melton for under $4 a yard, and several lovely twills and merinos for under $7 a yard. 

So yes, there shall be wool via FedEx as well as some necessary osnaburg. I am in the last leg of the Dreaded Jehossee project and I ran out of osnaburg a few weeks ago as the direct result of making "rustic goat pillows" for unsuspecting friends and family for Christmas. I got yer Christmas present right here...

Upcoming: I will attempt to post some pictures and notes regarding the construction and patterning of my 18th century leather stays in the upcoming week. A fellow blogger is making a pair of her own and lamented that nobody has documented leather stays as of yet. Surely more people have made them? Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print for now.