Porcelain

Sometimes her father was so deeply engaged in his reading that he stared at her with a far-away look in his eyes, as if he scarcely knew who she was.

after a minute he said absently bedtime eh good-night good-night my dear sometimes when he was a little less absorbed he put a sixpence or a shilling into her hand as he kissed her and added there's something to spend at the toy-shop ruth received these presents without much surprise or joy she was used to buying things and did not find it very interesting for she could not hope for any sign of pleasure from her dolls when she brought them new clothes or furniture it is a little dull when all one's efforts for people are received with a perfectly unmoved face she had once bought nurse smith a small china image hoping that it would be an agreeable surprise but that had not been successful either lor my dear don't you go spending your money on me she said Chiny ornaments ain't much good for anything, to my thinking, except to catch the dust." Thus it came to pass that Ruth never talked much about what interested her either to her father or to Nurse Smith, and as she had no brothers and sisters she was obliged to amuse herself with fancy conversations.

Sometimes these were carried on with her dolls.

but her chief friend was a picture which she passed every night on the staircase it was of a man in a flat cap and a fur robe and he had a pointed smooth chin and narrow eyes which seemed to follow her slyly on her way She did not like him, and she did not actually fear him, but she had a feeling that he listened to what she said, and that she must tell him any news she had.

They were nearly starved.

Drinking water was brought in two cracked Worcester cups and three coconut shells on a silver salver.

Presently, one of the heiresses persuaded her tyrants to lend her an old print dress and came and pottered about in the mess half-heartedly, tried to wipe the old blood and feathers of slaughtered chickens from a gilt and marble table, tried to talk sensibly, tried to wind an ormolu clock, and then gave it up and moved away back to bed.

Not long after this, I believe, they were both starved altogether to death, or if that were hardly possible in so prolific a country, perhaps given ground glass.

The docent was telling us this.

The dining room is set with Blue Willow China.

Apparently back then that was like lower middle class or sort of white trash.

It was the cheapest, most mass produced China you could get.

It was not what fancy people ate.

And the Wilders were actually well-to-do.

Good heavens.

Also, this, it makes me think of, you must have seen those fancy China plates, right? Like old, like estate sales or whatever.

You got

fancy

China.

And then some fucker goes in with obscenities or like with pussy.

They just paint pussy on this fucking Regency China or whatever.

That's the sort of thing you get away with.

So if you

have priceless China in there or like, you know, the gun that killed JFK, like you would have come by and picked it up and sold it on eBay already.

Like I'm only going to get some dusty blankets, you know, and like maybe some photographs of people.

I don't know.

And he called me out the other day, and she was a collector.

And when I say collector, she had all kinds of amazing things from China to, you know, crystal.

vases and things like that to all kinds of things maybe if she had salt and pepper shakers she might have had you know 25 of those and he said with all of this stuff what do i do so we were looking at options is it best for an estate sale is it best for a company that comes in we'll buy that stuff and give them one lump payment or is it best for him to donate it and have friends and family come and take what they want so we really do come alongside you we talk you through the process and help you make that decision we're going to go to a short break but when we come back we're going to continue talking about our local arizona real estate market and i can't wait josh to hear what the numbers are doing and that under a million numbers so stay tuned you are listening to carol reese real estate show we'll be right back Welcome back to the Carol Royce Real Estate Show.

I'm Vicki Royce Middlebrook, and I'm in studio today with Joshua Collum.