A Drawer from the Past

The Drawer from the Past

What is this drawer doing here?  Where did it come from? asked Marash Girl.  Don't you remember? Marash Boy teased.  This was one of the top drawers in the antique bureau we bought at the Brimfield Antiques Fair.  That  mahogany grain-painted empire bureau, American, early 19th century, was in the middle bedroom in our summer cabin in Wilbraham, the bedroom Grandpa Peter slept in.  You took this drawer out of that antique dresser and brought it home, telling me that if the bureau was missing a drawer, no one would steal the bureau (or the drawer)!  And you were right!  No one stole the bureau; no one, that is, until the tornado arrived and shredded the antique dresser to bits, the dresser, and everything else in the cabin, along with the cabin itself.  The tornado didn't care that the bureau was missing a drawer. . .

NB:  The summer cabin on Wilbraham Mountain was never locked, always open for the occasional hunter who might pass by, needing shelter from the rain or snow.