451 / always on the lookout for odd articles

putterings 450 < 451 > 451a index

always on the lookout for odd articles

ex Esther Vandeveer. “His One Useful Act; Puttering Turned Out to Be of Value” in Magazine Section, The International Confectioner (June 1914) : 75-76
NYPL copy/scan (via google books) : link
same (via hathitrust) : link

entirety of her “puttering” story below, followed by a brief comment; paragraphs numbered for ease of reference (and proofing).

some other writings by Vandeveer listed at 451a; includes links to available scans and some transcriptions.

One day Edward Carr, who was always on the lookout for odd articles, attended an auction of furniture in the house of a man who had recently died. An antique desk, said to be 150 years old, was put up, and Carr resolved to buy it if he could secure it at a reasonable price. Among the bidders was a young lady of attractive appearance who seemed to be very desirous of buying the desk, but when the price was run up over $50 she dropped out and with evident disappointment. The desk was finally knocked down to Carr for $100.
One of the pigeonholes he used for pencils, erasers, penholders and other small articles. At times when he brought some little instrument from his workshop that he didn’t care to carry back at once he would toss it into this pigeonhole. One day he put a pocket compass in there. In taking it out he noticed that the needle was deflected. There was not a bit of metal near enough to affect it sensibly, and Carr was at a loss to un derstand the deflection.
The young man moved the compass to the right and to the left, the needle holding the same position — toward the pigeonhole. Putting his hand into the latter, he discovered that it did not extend the full depth of the desk. But on examining the other pigeonholes in line with it he found that none of them extended farther back. He tried the magnet on them all, but without any noticeable effect except on the one in question.
Now, what Edward Carr did not know about old desks was not worth knowing. He was aware that many of them contained secret drawers. He was also aware that some of these drawers instead of being made of wood were made of metal. He believed that the needle of his compass was attracted by a metal drawer. At any rate, there was some metal substance there that influenced it. Taking up a pen holder, he began to poke about on the back of the pigeonhole. After doing this for some time he struck the upper right hand corner, and the whole surface comprising the end of the compartment pressed forward against his penholder. When it had come as far as it could he took it out and found it to be a drawer made of steel. It was filled with papers yellow with age.
Carr fell to examining the contents. The first paper he opened contained a flower that had evidently been there for many years. Carr wondered what the story was connected with it and passed on to the next. It was a letter from a son to his father promising, if forgiven for past sins, to mend his ways.

G. Busche [?]
Out came the drawer with the papers
On striking the next document Carr assumed that he had come upon some thing of importance. It was the will of one Peter Carson, executed fifty years before, making a few small bequests and leaving the rest of his estate to Emily Marston.
Here was a will that had been locked up for half a century. Doubtless the testator had died long ago and the estate had gone to the heirs at law, the real heir getting nothing. Possibly there was a later will. If so this one was of no value. Quite likely the property involved had passed into certain hands, and would it not be better that the will should be destroyed? Might it not be better that the possessors should not be disturbed?
Then suddenly the remembrance of the young woman who had bid on the desk and seemed greatly disappointed at not getting it popped up before Carr’s mind’s eye. Might she not be Emily Marston? He smiled as it occurred to him that Emily Marston could not be less than fifty years old. But the girl and the desk and the will all got tangled up in Carr’s brain and he could not separate them.
Carr was not long in deciding on the right way to treat this case. He went to a lawyer and asked him to look up the estate of Peter Carson. It was found that Peter Carson had died forty years before without a will. The heir at law was a son, Nicholas Carson, who had gone to the bad. An effort had been made to find him at the time of his father’s death, but it had been unavailing .
There being no proof of Nicholas Carson’s death, the estate had remained in chancery for ten years, when the next and only heir at law, Mary Cowdry, spinster daughter of Peter Carson’s sister, succeeded in obtaining from the courts a document declaring Nicholas Carson legally dead, and the property was turned over to her. The report made no mention of Emily Marston, but upon inquiry Carr learned that she was a young woman who had taken care of Carson, who was old and feeble. At the time of his death surprise was manifested that he had made no provision for her.
Of all these persons the last named was the one in which Edward Carr was most interested, though it appeared that at Peter Carson’s death she was given no special importance. He learned that ten years after his decease she had married. She, too, had died, leaving one child, a daughter, who would now be about twenty years of age.
On learning this Carr was at once struck with the idea that the girl who had tried to buy the desk might be this daughter of Emily Marston and the real heir to Peter Carson’s estate, which had been considerable at his death and in the forty-six years that had elapsed since had doubled. It was now in possession of Mary Cowdry, an old woman and still unmarried.
To look for the girl who had bid on the desk would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but it was not difficult to get the name of Emily Marston’s daughter, and it was found to be Emily Peck. Her address was obtained from a directory.
One afternoon Miss Peck, who was schoolteacher, had just returned from school when a maid brought her the card of Edward G. Carr. Never having heard of Mr. Carr, she thought there must be some mistake, but went down into the parlor.
Carr saw before him the girl who had tried to buy the desk . She did [76] not recognize him, though he recognized her at once .
“I think I have seen you before,” he said.
“Indeed! Where?”
“At an auction where I bought a desk.”
“Oh, you bought that desk, did you?”
“Yes. May I ask you why you wished it?”
“The desk belonged to an old gentleman, Peter Carson. My mother, as a young girl, took care of him. He told her that he had provided for her in his will, but no will was found. She expected to find it in his desk, but it was not there. The desk was bought by the person whose effects were sold at the auction I attended. I recognized it from my mother’s description of it and thought I would like to buy it, since my mother told me she believed there was a secret drawer in it and that secret drawer might contain a will.”
“I should be happy to assist you in examining the desk,” said Carr, who had a scheme of his own for imparting the information he had for her. “I am living with my mother, and if you will come to our home we will make an investigation.”
The young lady brightened up and assented joyfully. Carr kept her talking about the situation till her dinner was announced, when he left her. The next day she called at the Carrs’, was received by Mrs. Carr and taken to Edward’s room, where stood the desk. Carr began to tap here and there for a secret spring, but, gaining no result, took up his pocket compass. Then he showed his visitor that the needle was deflected and told her that there was metal near it. Following this up with the poking as he had done when he made the discovery, out came the drawer with the papers in it just as he had found them. Handing the drawer to the excited girl, she ran over the papers till she found the will and opened it and saw that she was the possessor of a splendid estate.
Then she fell back in a state of collapse.
Mary Cowdry was not especially sorry that an heir had been found. The estate was of no especial use to her, and she had no one to whom to leave it. She agreed, in consideration of Miss Peck’s settling an annuity upon her sufficient for her support, to turn the property over without any process of law. This arrangement was carried out, and Emily Marston’s daughter stepped from the position of school teacher to millionairess.
When the beneficiary came to ask Edward Carr what she could do for him to show her appreciation of what he had done for her he said that she had done a great deal — all she could, do — already. He had been told and had believed that he would be nothing but a putterer and would never be of use to himself or any one else. He had the satisfaction of having brought a rightful heir to her estate, and that was quite enough for a man of whom nothing whatever had been expected.
Whether or not the heiress was caught by this frank modesty, whether she considered that there was but one way to pay the debt she owed, she finally discharged it by giving herself to the man who had made her rich. She takes great pleasure in humoring her husband’s taste for old things, and, as for the desk in which the will was found, she has had it inlaid with gold.

comment

There’s a fairytale quality to this story, with a fairytale reward at its end. It appears in the “magazine” section of this trade paper, possibly for the eyes of the confectioner’s extended family, and even for young (male) employees. Other of the stories I have read have a moralizing tendency (they bring Maupassant to this mind). The prose style is pedestrian.

The International Confectioner was oriented in part to a German-American readership; a section entitled “German Notes,” of four or more pages, appeared in each of the numbers January-July 1914 . The section did not appear in August or thereafter.

25 July 2024