We hit pay dirt in box nineteen. Not that we didn’t find a great many strange and interesting things in the first eighteen boxes. Hundreds of old photos, the kind where everyone begins to look alike because they’re all frowning from the effort of sitting still long enough. Hundreds of old letters that we didn’t read—half of them were cross-written, to save paper, and most were in fading ink on fragile paper. Newspapers we didn’t dare open for fear they’d crumble. We weren’t looking for contents yet, just dates. Anything from during or shortly after the Civil War we studied carefully and put aside in a special stack—a small stack. Most of the stuff was from the late 1800s through the 1920s. “Hey, that’s still pretty old,” Michael said when I complained about this. “Probably a great research project here. I recognize most of the last names—old Caerphilly families. And all the newspapers and documents are local.” “Fodder for a real history of Caerphilly,” I said.
What do You think about No Nest For The Wicket (2011)?
