Free China Jewel by Thomas Hollyday Page B

this house.”
    “We found this article on the later man,” Katy said and began reading:
     
    “Staten Island, sister to Manhattan, has its share of mysterious stories of the sea. There is near it on the western side a shoal called the West Bank, the terrible executioner to many a fine ship caught in a storm entering or leaving the New York harbor.
    “One of the strangest tales to come from this area concerns an old timer named Tolchester, nicknamed Captain, who spent his later days in a small house near the shoreline, close to the quarantine buildings. He claimed descent from clipper ship captains. He was known to row his boat out almost daily to the West Bank shoal and sit with a small net working the shallow water for shellfish. He’d often be seen plunging his net over and over even though he brought up nothing but mud and sand. It was thought by his neighbors he was perhaps a little mad and best left alone. He’d be at his spot in such a timely way the steamer captains coming into the upper bay would check their clocks at seeing him and give him a steam toot.
    “Then one very freezing day in the winter of 1910 the old man was discovered dead at home dressed in his fishing clothes with his boots still on. He sat stiffly upright in a rocking chair in front of his cold fireplace. He had died a few hundred yards from his boat and the shoreline. Whether he was coming home from a trip or getting ready to go out no one was able to discover. His neighbors and many of the townspeople came forth at his funeral. Some of the steamer captains pitched in and set up his boat on his front lawn. That jolly boat, fresh with a new coat of white paint, still rested proud when last visited by this author. It was a fitting monument to this old gentleman.”
     
    Mary had closed her eyes concentrating as Katy read. She said, “I was told as a child his rowboat was given to the family back before the Civil War. They brought the boat up here from New Jersey. Some said it was a part of the tea clipper that his ancestor Captain Tolchester wrecked offshore.”
    “So the old man who went out in the boat was a relative of the Captain Tolchester we are asking about?”
    “He claimed to be. However, he would have been very young when the clipper captain was drowned.”
    Mary went on, “They are such good people here. Most of the staff of the historical society I knew. I think they are all dead now. I haven’t been in the library, must be five or more years. Certainly not since my legs gave out. Used to have tea and discuss books.”
    She shrugged. “One time this room was full of visitors. We even had the Captain’s boat pulled up on the lawn with plants around it. Mother put them in. Friends would come and repair and paint the craft.”
    She looked at Katy. “I been sick. I had to sell this house to pay medical bills. These days I just rent an apartment like everyone else. The landlord’s daughter, you met her at the door, she comes and gets rent once a week. She helps me with Social Security, bless her.”
    “We didn’t see any boat outside,” said Cutter.
    “I think last year the final piece of the old keel was destroyed by the landlord’s lawn mower.” She smiled. “Bless him, he wanted to pay me but of course I wouldn’t let him.”
    Mary started back working on the cups. “I don’t entertain much anymore. I fixed us some hot tea though. I thought you might be thirsty in all this hot weather.”
    She placed a silver tray in front of them and carefully put out some placemats and napkins with the china. When she wheeled into her small kitchen, Katy whispered to Cutter that the mats were easily worth a thousand dollars apiece as pre Civil War laces. “The china is rare Canton,” she added.
    Mary came back. “I guess you two are all right to show you something.” Mary wheeled over to a large cardboard poster of the Statue of Liberty held against the dirty plaster wall by a string hooked over a nail. She reached up with a