Daire Grassick paced back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the pawnshop. He possessed only one valuable object, and the dealer didn’t want to buy it.
“I’ve got to get home, Lord. Please.” The murmured prayer sounded strange to his ears. Weeks, perhaps months, had passed since he last spoke to the Lord. He relied on his own wit and strength—and failed.
Head bowed in shame, he plodded on one more circuit of the pavement, hoping, trying to pray further, that the pawnbroker would change his mind and step outside to hail Daire back into the shop. Doors along the street opened at regular intervals, disgorging or admitting men, women, and children. They talked and laughed and skirted Daire, as though they didn’t want to touch him. He supposed he did look a bit odd, a young man in fine, if somewhat rumpled clothes, striding to and fro in front of a door that remained closed, its toys and trinkets obscured behind dusty glass. His own bauble shimmered in his hands, golden glass as delicate as mist, as detailed as a snowflake, too fragile for him to carry about unprotected.
With one last hope that the secondhand shop dealer would see the ornament and step out of his store, Daire leaned against the front window and pulled the cotton wool wrapping from a bag flung over his shoulder. The scent of lilacs rose from the batting, a hint of the perfume his mother kept in the blown glass bottle shaped like a goldfinch, until she gave it to him, as his father’s mother had given it to him.
“For your future wife.”
The wife he’d been so certain he could win if only he left the farm in Salem County and headed for the city.
Another shudder of shame washed through him, and he shoved a strip of fabric around the bird.
“Don’t break it.” Two small hands in gray kid gloves curved around the sides of the goldfinch bottle. “It’s beautiful.”
Daire glanced up to the soft-voiced speaker and caught his breath. The bottle wasn’t the only beautiful creation on the sidewalk. Eyes the purply blue of the flowers growing on Grandmother’s summerhouse, gazed back at him from an oval face with skin so fine it resembled rare porcelain.
The Heiress Key Verse:
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Luke 15:4, KJV
Do you own any blown glass? Or glass objects that are of value to you?
I don't but have seen some that is very beautiful. In my neck of the Southwest, pottery and Indian artifacts are more popular.
ReplyDeleteI do not, but my grandmother has some beautiful glass objects that I love to look at.
ReplyDeleteI have several pieces of blown glass. They are all flowers and/or hummingbirds. Some have a little color, most are clear. They are all beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI love cobalt blue glass items, a few are blown glass, some are antique and some are new.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any blown glass, but I do have several goblets that have been handed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. I also own a spinning wheel that was my great-grandmothers. It is so valuable to me to think of the hands that have spun wool on it. I also have my grandmother's wedding ring. So precious and I wear it often.
ReplyDeleteI have a little cranberry glass cream pitcher that my husband's grandmother got at the county fair in 1906 as a young girl. It is inscribed with her name and date. It's in mint condition. Heirlooms are often hard to come by and we treasure anything we have.
ReplyDeleteI have several pieces of Fenton Art Glass. I especially love my deer and duck figurines.
ReplyDelete