Burt's Turkey Coop and the Coolidge Mansion

Tine and Rubob took a short walk yesterday, up No Outlet Lane so Tine could see where old John Coolidge once lived.

"In the wintertime, you can just make out the house in the trees," Tine told Rubob. "It's right over there. How about that?"

Rubob looked over to where Tine was pointing, across Diamond Glen to where a Georgian brick mansion was just visible in the woods on the hilltop.



"That's where he lived, Rubob -- John Coolidge himself, son of Calvin," Tine said. "He started a business in the next town over, making business forms. What an enterprising soul he was, to be sure -- just like his dad. Then he moved back to his father's place in Vermont and ran the cheese factory there."

Rubob gazed upon the distant site with wonder, as Tine had hoped he would.

"I wouldn't mind making business forms myself, if I had a head for such things," Tine said. "We could build a grand mansion, and we'd be the folks who live on the hill."

As they made their way down No Outlet Lane, Tine sang to herself:

"Someday we'll build a home on a hilltop high
You and I, a shiny and new
Cottage that two can fill,
And we'll be pleased to be called
The folks who live on the hill.

"Someday we may be adding a wing or two
A thing or two;
We will make changes, as any family will,
But we will always be called
The folks who live on the hill."

"I think I'd prefer a cottage to a mansion, Rubob," Tine said as they passed a tiny house on Mad Hatter's Lane. "It'd be just the thing for us."



"Burt of Burt's Bees was content with just a turkey coop," Rubob said. "Maybe we could live in a turkey coop. "

Tine looked behind a house at what might make a nice turkey coop.



"Who's Burt when he's at home, Rubob?" Tine asked.

"Burt of Burt's Bees -- I told you that," Rubob said. "There was a story in Sunday's paper about him. In the early 80s, a woman was hitchhiking in Maine, and Burt was driving by and picked her up. She was down on her luck, and she moved in with him. He lived in a turkey coop and tended beehives. From those humble beginnings, he and she started a business that grew into Burt's Bees."

"Never heard of them, Rubob," Tine said.

"You know -- all-natural lip balm and stuff. It's twice as expensive as ChapStick because it's all natural," Rubob replied.

"Anyway," Rubob continued, "she bought out the business in the late 90s for some nominal amount, and the two parted ways. Then she sold it to Clorox for $300 million. She gave Burt $4 million, but he still lives in his turkey coop. He likes it there, Tine."


Burt

"He would -- it'd be ideal for us, too, I'll be bound," Tine said, borrowing an expression of Rubob's.

"Burt said, somewhat foolishly, 'The magic of living life for me is, and always has been, the magic of living on the land, not in the magic of money,'" Rubob said.

"That doesn't sound foolish to me," Tine replied. "That sounds like a good philosophy to live by."

She was backtracking now, heading up Diamond Glen toward the driveway leading to old man Coolidge's estate. Rubob wasn't pleased by this because he was eager to return home, where he had a pumpkin pie in the oven. Tine, however, knew exactly how many minutes were left until the pie was ready.

"We've never been up here, Rubob," she said.



"There it is," Tine said. "Just think of the sights on our walks. And yet John Coolidge's father, thirtieth president of the United States, said -- well you can guess what he said about walking, Rubob."

"I have no idea, Tine."

"Well he said, 'Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.'"

"We have to get going, Tine," Rubob said. "We have to get back home."

"That's exactly what Calvin Coolidge would have said," Tine replied. "'Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.' He said, that, too. You and Calvin Coolidge would have been fast friends."

"It's an apartment building," Rubob said, looking at the old Coolidge home.

"What makes you say that?" Tine asked. "It's a mansion."

"It has two front doors," Rubob said.



"The second door is for a mother-in-law flat, Rubob. Maybe Grace Coolidge, wife of Calvin, lives there. It's certainly not an apartment house."

"I think you're wrong about that," Rubob said.

"Then how come it has only one address out front? There's the house number: No. 31. What kind of apartment house has one address and one newspaper box, Rubob? It's a mansion with an extra flat above the garage, perhaps for the servants. Calvin and John Coolidge wouldn't approve of their home being turned into an apartment house. They were staunch Republicans who fought against the overreaching New Deal, you know."



"The house is another historic desecration, I'm afraid," Rubob said. "The Coolidge homestead has been divided into comfortable apartments.

"Like Dr. Zhivago's house after the Revolution -- divided up for 13 families. Poor old John Coolidge -- he'd rue the day," Tine said.

"The evidence was right before your eyes: two front doors," Rubob said. "Facts and evidence, Tine: That's what you must go by."

"No. 31," Rubob. "That's the plain fact of the matter. A pleasant family, the folks who live on the hill, live here, and they're quite happy. I have a hunch they run a small business, perhaps making business forms. 'The chief business of the American people is business.' Calvin Coolidge said that, and he knew what he was talking about."

"You can't rely on hunches, Tine, especially in business," said Rubob, a gentleman farmer.

"I'm relying on my powers of observation and deduction," Tine replied. "Take this sign, for instance," she said, pointing to a new bright yellow "15 MPH" road sign on Diamond Glen. "It wasn't here yesterday. They put it up after the accident last night."



"What accident last night?" Rubob asked.

"There was an accident last night, when you were out. There were fire engines, police-cops, the works -- even a helicopter overhead." (Tine always refers respectfully to the police as "police-cops.")

"A helicopter," Rubob asked, looking doubtfully at Tine. "A helicopter couldn't land here."

"It was circling overhead," Tine said. "It didn't land."

"There is glass here by the side of the road," Rubob observed -- "and it is windshield glass. And it's not covered up by the snow."

"You see -- exactly what I said!" Tine replied. "You can see that the road's been swept here. There was an accident here, and last night!"

"But that doesn't mean that the sign is new -- and it isn't new," Rubob stated.

"It wasn't here yesterday, and now it's here this afternoon," Tine said. "One must believe the evidence of one's senses. We can only deduce that they put it in after the accident, probably this morning. It'll slow down the scofflaws. Very sensible."

"Then why aren't there any footprints around it in the snow?" Rubob asked. "How was the sign put in?"

"A post hole digger," Tine offered. "Post hole diggers don't leave footprints."

"No, Tine, there'd be footprints -- lots of footprints. And look, there are none. The snow hasn't been touched. The power of deduction, you see. Science, based on observable fact, has triumphed over intuition once again."

"Well, I declare," Tine thought to herself. "Still, I don't think the Coolidges would have converted their home into an apartment house," she said with finality.

As they turned the corner at the bottom of Diamond Glen, Tine was regarded menacingly by a vicious dog much larger than herself.



"It's a dangerous neighborhood, this post-Coolidge neighborhood," Tine thought. "These apartment dwellers have brought in all manner of beasts."

But as she continued up her street, thinking of Rubob's pumpkin pie in the oven, she thought, "All in all, a very pleasant walk."

A Generous Helping of Currant Pudding

Tine and Rubob took only a short walk this afternoon.

"It's Boxing Day," Rubob, "and I'm quite worn out after packing up all the boxes and giving them to the household servants."

"I don't recall receiving any boxes," Rubob said with some disappointment.

"Let's go on a different walk today," Tine said. "I'd like to get away from things. Did I tell you that Mr. Brians and Aunt Beryl went for a walk around the lake in Macclesfield on Christmas Day? That sounds perfect. Why don't we go for a walk around a lake today?"

The closest thing Tine and Rubob have to the lake in Macclesfield, Derbyshire, is the reservoir at the top of Diamond Glen, so that's where they went.



"A beautiful scene," Rubob said. "Dave used to love ice fishing, you know. Dad would take us. I just hated it. I'd sit there on a wooden bench and freeze. Dave would have his teeter-totter and wait for it to spring up."

"A teeter-totter?" Tine asked.

"A tip-up, Tine. It tells you when a fish is on the line. Then you'd have to pull the lines out of the icy water."

"Do you think we could fish for smelt here?" Tine asked, looking out over the frozen surface of the lake.



"You need a river for a smelt run, Tine, and there's no river here. The smelt swim upriver to breed."

"Well, I don't know," Tine said. "We might try it one day. I have a hunch there are some smelt down there. Where'd you go smelt fishing?"

"On Lake Superior. It was cold, Tine -- there's nothing to do all day but stare at your teeter-totter and freeze."

Tine looked at a mailbox, which had a tip-up of its own. She imagined the flag springing up with a smelt on the line.



"I'm getting cold just thinking about it, Rubob. Let's turn back."

"Already?" Rubob said.

"It's freezing today, and I'm tired after all the Christmas festivities. I can hardly move my feet. Tine looked up a dirt road leading away from the lake, up to the Metacomet Trail over the mountain.



"Christmas is like ascending a great mountain," she said, thinking of a flag she'd just seen hanging from a tree.



"There's just so much to do," Tine said -- "so many gifts to buy, so many trips to the shopping mall, all those little hearts to please with just the right present: a Robopet puppy, a pink cell phone with unlimited text messaging, gift certificates to Abercrombie -- all the Christmas wishes and letters to Santa, the expectations, and for us, the memories of past Christmases all wrapped up and ready to open again. And when it's finally over, there's a pile of boxes and crumpled up wrapping paper to put out on the curb."



"Detritus, Tine -- the detritus of the holidays," Rubob said.

"I don't know that I can be doing with the whole thing, Rubob," Tine said. She plodded wearily on toward home in the gray afternoon.

"There's a bowl of currant pudding and hot custard waiting for you for your dessert this evening -- or even when you get home," Rubob said, and the thought of it boosted Tine's spirits.

"You certainly do make a delicious currant pudding," she said, wondering how he happened to think of currant pudding at just the right time. "It was just like the currant pudding at the Royal Oak in Betws-y-Coed."



Years ago, Tine and Rubob had attempted to climb Mount Snowdon in North Wales, but it was such a rainy, windy morning that they didn't manage to hike more than a few hundred yards beyond the parking lot at the base of the mountain. The rain had soaked them through in minutes, and the wind had pushed them back. The weather was so foul, in fact, that a stray sheep had sought to push its way into the driver's seat of their car when Rubob opened the door to drive back into town. The sheep might have been looking to dry off, Tine told Rubob, or maybe for a ride into town.


Snowdonia, on a dry day

Tine and Rubob drove hastily back to their bed and breakfast -- without the sheep -- but they found, to Tine's dismay, that their room had no heat and no hot water in the daytime. So Tine -- pale, wet and shivering -- suggested that they enjoy a warm lunch at the Royal Oak in the center of town.


http://www.information-britain.co.uk/extrapics.php?placeid=2433

"What a memorable lunch that was," Tine said to Rubob. Like old Alfred Wainwright after one of his walks in the Lakeland fells, she drank at least a half-dozen cups of tea to warm up. She then moved on to the fish and chips, and she finished up with a plentiful helping of steamed currant pudding.


The Royal Oak. Photo: http://hotel-snowdonia.co.uk/

This Christmas Eve, with memories of that Royal Oak lunch in mind, Rubob had made currant pudding for dessert, and he'd served Tine two generous portions with custard up to the brim.

"It's Christmas Eve," Tine had said to Rubob, who'd looked over at her dripping custard. "It's how Alfred Wainwright always had it. He'd insist that his bowl be filled with custard right up to the brim. And that's exactly how I like it."

"Memories of your currant pudding and custard, Rubob," Tine said on her chilly walk this afternoon -- "that's what keeps me going. They keep me warm. How'd you get it so much like the currant pudding at the Royal Oak?"

"It's steamed, Tine -- steamed in a mold over simmering water for one and a half to two hours."

"Just like with those smelt that Dave loves so much -- it takes some waiting, I guess, Rubob," Tine said.

As they walked back down Diamond Glen, Tine thought (and maybe Rubob, too), "All in all a very pleasant walk."

Tine Spots a Grånisse or Two in the Mist

Tine is a single-minded little soul, and she set out on her walk today determined to find a nisse -- a Norwegian elf. On yesterday's walk during the "blue hour" -- the hour between dusk and nightfall -- she'd hoped to see the blånissen, the blue elves that are said to paint the sky and landscape blue.



Sadly, while there may have been blånissen at work in the village last night, Tine didn't spot them.

"They're elusive creatures," she said to Rubob as they passed the misty Bull Lot on their walk this afternoon.



"But I'm going to find a nisse -- even if it isn't a blånisse," Tine continued. "This is perfect weather to see a grånisse. They're sure to be out. Do you know what a grånisse is?"

"Yes, Tine," Rubob said somewhat disinterestedly -- "the blue elves. I thought they only came out in the blue hour."

"The grånissen," Tine asseverated -- though very small, Tine can asseverate quite forcefully -- "not to be confused with blånissen. The grånissen are gray, not blue."

"Yes, Tine," Rubob replied, sounding a little like Richard speaking to Hyacinth Bucket on "Keeping Up Appearances."


Richard Bucket (Clive Swift)

Tine stopped and regarded the Blue Lot. "You see, they'll definitely be out there in the mist. This is just the sort of thing they like."

"The mist transforms everything," Rubob said. "It seems to smooth out the rough edges of the present. It's timeless, Tine."

"You said that about the snow a couple of weeks ago, Rubob. Did you mean to say the mist or the snow?"

"The mist, Tine," Rubob said. "And then it's like a rejoinder seeing the black pavement. One's instantly carried back into the present."

"There might be grånissen living in that house over there," Tine said, stepping into the road, planting her feet back in the present. "They like everything gray."



"I'm not sure that I like that shade of gray," Rubob said. "Do you?"

"Yes, very much, Rubob," Tine replied, looking at the door as though a grånisse might emerge at any moment.



Tine was quickly distracted by some red berries she saw farther down the street.



"Those are the nicest sort of Christmas decorations of all," she thought.

Watching her from over the fence was someone with an equal fondness for red. Tine stuck her nose through the fence to have a good luck.



Rubob, who doesn't make friends as easily as Tine does, seemed more interested in the mist in the distant field.

"Maybe he's looking for grånissen," Tine thought. But as Rubob stood there gazing into the distance, she thought he was probably just reviewing the day's news in that head of his. He'd been poring over the morning newspapers until well past noon, and his head might have been filled with gray newsprint.

Tine stopped to look at the beads of water in some high grass.



The two passed another gray house, surrounded by trees with more red berries. Tine moved quickly away when Rubob said, "There was someone in the window there, just behind the parted curtains. She's gone now, Tine. It was an almost spectral presence."



"Maybe it was a grånisse," Tine said. "We're being watched by the grånissen."

"It was more like a ghost," Rubob said.

It seemed a perfect day for spectral presences, Tine thought, with the mist covering the ground. They passed through the schoolyard on their way to Mountain Road, and Tine stopped at a signpost that intrigued her.



"Möge Friede auf Erden sein" -- now what language do you suppose that is?" Tine asked.

"It appears to be Norwegian," Rubob said, and he said it so seriously that Tine wondered if he had blånissen and grånissen on the brain.

"Do you really think so?" Tine asked. "Well, isn't that something. The schoolchildren put it there for the grånissen. You don't think it might be German?"

Rubob didn't reply. He was busying himself with the other languages on the post. He seemed especially intrigued with the Chinese and Japanese characters.



Just then, a creature peeped out at Tine from behind a tree. For a moment she thought it might actually be a grånisse -- a genuine gray Norwegian elf.



"A grånisse!" Tine called out to Rubob. "He's come to read the message of peace left to him by the children."

As Tine approached him, the grånisse scurried up the tree trunk to a branch, where he sat watching Tine with suspicion.



"Möge Friede auf Erden sein," Tine said to him, but he seemed not to understand. "It probably isn't Norwegian at all," Tine thought.

The two walked down the pathway behind the school and approached the old Studio building at Miss Porter's School, where Robert Brandegee had taught his drawing, painting and sculpting classes more than a hundred years ago. The stone building seemed softer in the mist, almost insubstantial.



Tine imagined a group of girls trooping out the door with their easels, walking down to the Meadows with old Mr. Brandegee to paint scenes by the river. The girls would be wearing white dresses and saddleshoes, or white skirts and sailorshirts -- "yes, that's it, sailorshirts," Tine thought.

"They're like nissen in a way," she thought, "like white nissen busily painting the landscape."

The church next door was unlocked, and Tine and Rubob nipped in to take a look at the mural Brandegee had painted over the altar.



The figures seemed hazy and insubstantial to Tine -- "wraithlike," she thought. It was all a bit dark and eerie. Rubob must have been thinking the same thing because he didn't comment. Perhaps he was turning over the word "spectral" again in his mind. "Sepulchral" would be just the word, too, Tine thought.

Out again in the fresh air of the world at large, the town remained lost in the mists of history. As the two passed the eighteenth-century Stanley Whitman House, Rubob stopped and regarded it curiously.



"The middle upstairs window is off-center," he said. "Or maybe the door is. In fact, it might even be the chimney."

Tine didn't give these architectural anomalies a second glance. She was rushing ahead to look into a misty ravine where she thought she might finally have a glimpse of -- well, you know what she was looking for.



"The mist loves the ravines -- the low places in the landscape," Rubob said, catching up with Tine.

Not seeing any grånissen in the ravine, Tine rushed across the street to look at a gray house.



"Just the sort of house they might like," she said.

"Who, Tine?"

"The grånissen," Tine replied. "For heaven's sake, the gray elves. But I suppose you're right -- they probably don't even live in houses. They most likely prefer your misty ravines."

"How gauche to say 'about,'" Rubob said, referring to the '1760' sign by the door. "Don't they know about 'circa.'"



It seemed odd to hear Rubob use the word "gauche," but he often commented on these signs on houses. He'd said he might put a sign on their own house saying "Tine and Rubob, ca. 2001." Or perhaps "Capt. Ichabod Rubob, ca. 1620" (28 years before the town was established). Rubob, a gentleman farmer, had tilled the village soil for decades, but he was still regarded as a recent transplant in town.

"'Ebeneezer Rubob' might be appropriate, too, if you don't get going with your Christmas shopping soon, you miserly old thing," Tine thought.


Ebeneezer Rubob, ca. 1843

From the "About 1760" house, the two crosssed the road and walked through the snow up to old Mrs. Riddle's house on the hill -- the place Tine wanted to purchase and convert into a bed and breakfast.



"If we ran it as a B & B, we could put morsels out for the blånissen and the grånissen, Rubob -- any kind of nissen, really. Have you heard of the hvitnissen? I'm sure they'd love this snowy landscape."



"What are the hvitnissen?" Rubob made the mistake of asking.

"Well, those are the white elves," Tine said. "That's why they like the snow. And that's why we can't see them. It's the hvitnissen who paint the landscape white in the winter."



"Isn't it beautiful?" Tine thought. "I'm sure Mrs. Riddle would be eager to sell. After all, the place is probably crawling with those beastly elves."

"Look, Rubob, they've even set a little table on the porch for the elves," Tine said, poking her nose up against the window. "Nissen -- nissen of any color and variety really -- like to have food left out for them -- and maybe even a book of poetry with a cocktail."



Rubob was gazing off in the other direction, toward the hillside in front of the house.

"Of all the views here, that's probably my favorite, with the bush growing over the stone wall and the field in the distance," he said.



"Because of the sheep?" Tine asked.

"I didn't even notice the sheep," Rubob replied. "Isn't the bush growing over the wall beautiful?"
"It's the sheep I like, safely grazing in the mist -- amidst the mist, in fact."



"The mist is thickening," Rubob said. "It's funny, but when you're in the midst of it, you hardly notice it, but when it's off in the distance it's so apparent."



Tine looked down into a ravine, a pocket of mist at the side of the road, in hopes of seeing a nisse of any color, but they were too quick for her.



Outside the entrance to Mrs. Riddle's Bed and Breakfast, they passed a little cottage as they walked down the hill.



"It looks so different depending on which nissen have been busily painting it, doesn't it?" Tine said. "Do you remember it last January when the blånissen had been working on it in the blue hour?"

"The nissen certainly do transform the landscape -- and the houses," she said. "And there's the wreath you liked on Ann Howard's old house. My goodness, will you look at that -- it's not at all like it was last night in the gloaming."



"Beautiful, Tine," Rubob said.

They then passed what Tine insisted was a green "Julenisse," or Yule elf.



Tine walked up to him for a closer look, but Ebeneezer Rubob didn't seem to be all that taken with the lifesize holiday decoration.

"It's a nissen sort of Christmas he likes, with the mist over a snowy field, or a bush over a stone wall -- that sort o' wintry painted scene," Tine thought, "and perhaps I'm inclined to agree."

The two made their way down past the village school to the library.

"Look, Rubob, another grånisse," Tine said, pointing to the espaliered tree on the library wall.



Rubob took a dim view of a tree forced to spend its life growing up against a wall.



"What's it called, Tine -- escalier? It reminds me of a crucifixion somehow, without the redeeming features."

"Espalier, Rubob -- it's espalier," Tine said. "Escalier is a stairway. That'd be even worse. 'Esprit d'escalier' -- you know about that. That's the 'wit of the staircase,' or 'staircase wisdom.' It means something you think of saying too late, just as you're on the stairway leaving someone's house -- a rejoinder or bon mot, the perfect comeback really. I think your old friend Marcel Proust might have mentioned it in The Guermantes Way, though I can't be sure."

Rubob perked up with the mention of Proust. It was a topic he enjoyed discussing on their daily walks.

But Tine launched into a less pleasing topic: "Do you remember when you followed me into that ghastly gift shop years ago around Christmas time?" she asked. (Ebeneezer Rubob hated gift shops, and you could see his expression turning sour with the mention of one.) "The saleswoman at the cash register asked if she could help you find anything. 'Yes, the way out,' you blurted out. That would have been esprit d'escalier if you'd thought of it too late, on your way out. But you thought of it right there on the spot -- when your back was up against the wall, come to think, in that shop filled with what you called 'overpriced junk.' I guess that was 'esprit d'espalier' -- maybe you're right after all, Rubob. Escalier, espalier -- who's to say?"

Tine bustled along, filled with memories of seasons past. "A regular little font of knowledge and memories I am, to be sure," she thought.

As they turned onto the street leading home, Tine was blessed with yet another sighting of an elusive -- but not elusive enough -- grånisse. (It was a Scioattolo grånisse, to be precise, though Tine, for all her knowledge about the varieties of nissen, didn't know the scientifc name.)



"They certainly are out in force today," she said to Rubob. "Will you look at that? They're busy painting the landscape gray."

They soon passed the Timothy Pitkin house, "1788" -- no "circa," no "about," just a straightforward, sensible "1788" on the sign. "Plain and simple, the way Rubob likes things," Tine thought.



"Look, Rubob," Tine said as they continued down the street -- "a blue door. The blånissen, the blue elves, must be out and about, too. They'll be at work on the sky before long."



"It's a pity we didn't take a longer walk," she added. "We could have arrived home just in time for the blue hour."



The two passed the old Bull Lot again, and Tine recalled how Rubob had said a paved road was like a swift rejoinder to the misty fields, carrying one right back into the present.



As Tine reached the walkway to her front door, she saw the most extraordinary thing by the side of the path: a large frying pan.



"Good heavens, Rubob, what is that doing there? You haven't been putting food out for the grånissen and all the other nissen, have you?" She wondered, in fact, whether fried food was good for the nissen.

"No," Rubob said, disappointingly, "it was all bent out of shape and I was trying to hammer it out in the barn."

"Well, I don't believe you. You've been leaving blueberry pancakes out for the grånissen, haven't you? It's a charitable thing for you to do during the holidays. Now the nissen will reward us with many blessings this season -- many views of painted landscapes, just the sort of thing you like."

Tine stood there transfixed by the fixed frying pan. "Well, I'll be, Rubob. I didn't know you had it in you. I didn't even think you believed in the wretched things -- the sweet things, I mean. But you might have saved a pancake for me. I'm told the nissen are quite content with leftovers."

As she approached the door, envisioning a sign by it saying "Caleb Rubob, 1648," she thought to herself, "All in all, a very pleasant walk indeed."