Chapter 03

Making a Home

Wednesday morning Mort wakes up to find Jenny staring at him, he smiles, kisses her, and slides out of bed. Before he can stand up she’s beside him to help him limp to the toilet. They shower, get dressed, and go down for breakfast. While going down the stairs Jenny says, “I’m out of the work roster as of this morning. I’ll accept being paid to help you, but only until we’re married. After that I shouldn’t be paid.” Mort is too smart to argue about something so minor when Jenny has such strong feelings about it, so he just nods his acceptance of her statement.

After breakfast they go to have a word with the Pastor to set a date for the wedding in three weeks time with it to be after church on Sunday. Then Jenny drives Mort to see Ben while Mort sends his sister the date.

They shake hands and Mort asks, “How much is one of the tractors you used up at the house the other day? And where would I get one?”

They talk about what he’ll need for Mallard House: the size of the unit and the attachments he’ll need. Ben finishes with, “If you can wait a couple of weeks I know where I can get a decent used unit with all the attachments you’ll need, and for next to nothing. The main cost will be to have Eric rebuild the motor for you after you pay for it. I’ll need a couple of grand to buy it and for the parts to start work on it, but the finished product will be like a new one for only a quarter of the price.”

“OK, Ben. Write up the deal and I’ll get you the money.”

A few minutes later Ben hands over a work order which Mort takes a photo of and sends it to Sissy. She pays it and sends a receipt number back, which Ben confirms and writes the receipt for the initial payment on the work order. Ben says, “You’ve been good for me, Mort. Lots of work with quick payment and you cut down on my work sorting out local issues.” Mort frowns. “Without Darby’s crew causing trouble I don’t have to spend half my day smoothing over ruffled feathers. I can get on with my work. I’ve spoken to the rest of the family and no one wants to get you angry so there won’t be any trouble from us. But you may have an issue when Colin finds out who your grandma was.”

“How come you know so fast?”

“My missus said you look a lot like your grandma, Amanda used to babysit her a lot. She also recognised the ring you gave Jenny, and so did many of the other older women around town.” They say their goodbyes and the couple drive to the county seat.

At the courthouse they apply for a wedding license and Mort says, “For legal reasons my solicitor is changing my name. Do I fill this in with my current name or the one I’ll have when we get married?”

The clerk checks some books and says, “Pay the one fee and fill in the paperwork with your new name. When you send it in include your current ID, new ID, and certified copies of the name change papers. I’ll sort out the rest when we get it all in.” Mort thanks her then they fill in the documents, pay the fee, and lodge the papers. Because Sissy is doing the name change paperwork at this courthouse it helps with the paperwork since they know he’s telling them the truth, but they still need to process the paperwork properly when it’s ready to be done.

Back to town in time for lunch and then up to the house after eating.

There’s not much they can do until Mort’s ankle and wrist heal a lot more, but they can examine things and plan things. While Jenny cleans the kitchen up a bit more Mort sits at the kitchen table with the plan of the house. He’s trying to work out where they’ve hidden the entrance to the basement. Jenny wants the kitchen clean as she plans to bring in some food and things for them to make and eat lunch here most days.

Jenny opens the door to the storeroom under the stairs where all of the cleaning gear is being kept. Mort is watching her. Suddenly he slaps his palm against his forehead and moans while saying, “How bloody stupid can I get. It has to be there.” She frowns at him. “I’ve been racking my brain for where they hid the entrance to the basement of the original house. But the floors don’t look like they’ve been worked on. However, the stairs covers part of the original floor and that’s the only cupboard I’ve seen, or heard of, where it opens inwards to the cupboard. Want to bet it’s the stairs to the basement and that’s a false floor in there?”

A smiling Jenny is soon passing everything out of the cupboard to Mort who’s placing them on the table. He stands to look at the inside of the cupboard. Mort gets his keys out and prepares a second set with all of the house keys plus the keys to the pickup by moving them between the keyrings. He hands the second set to Jenny as he says, “The key with the ’S’ on it is for the stables. In the back of the old pickup in the stables is a Jimmy bar. Please get it for me.” She frowns so he tries another name, “You may call it a pinch bar or pry bar. It’s a bit over a foot long with an angled chisel head on one end and is like a claw hammer on the other end.” She smiles as she nods understanding as she turns to leave.

Mort takes care to examine the cupboard walls. It’s lined and it doesn’t need to be. The door moulding is wider and thicker than any of the others. Also, all of the top and bottom moulding boards along the walls are of a slightly different style to the rest of the house. The longer he looks at it the surer he is this is where the entrance is hidden.

Jenny hands him the bar. He turns to the inside door jamb, slips the chisel head under the wall moulding from the side of the top of the jamb to the wall, and gently levers it out. It comes out with ease. He hands the moulding to Jenny then he does the same on the other side. When it comes out the jamb moves a little so he now thinks it’s a cover. The bottom two pieces come out and he’s almost hit by the jamb frame falling away from the wall frame, but it catches on the door. He moves the jamb about and gets it to the side of the door so he can open the door and angle the bottom of the jamb out of the door. With Jenny’s help it’s soon against the kitchen wall. Next is the two moulding boards at the top and the bottom of the knee board at the back of the cupboard. When they come out the board falls toward him and he can see a deep area below because there’s no more floor. Removing the moulds from along the top and bottom of the side walls make the walls loose and they easily slip out of place. However, they need to be angled to get them out through the doorway. The inside walls now look more like how he expects them to look. Starting at the end away from the doorway Mort levers each end of the floor boards up and lifts them out. He passes them out and Jenny puts them to the side. Soon, all that’s left is a wood frame the boards were nailed to that sits on the stairs down into the basement.

With Jenny’s help Mort stands and sits at the kitchen table. He says, “We need a couple of hammers to remove all of these nails before we fall on one by accident.” While Jenny gets the hammers from the stables Mort starts work on disassembling the cupboard’s false side walls. He doesn’t want them to be sitting around where people can see what they may have been used for. Half an hour later they’ve a nice pile of boards and beams stacked against the rear wall, out of the way and out of sight from the windows. Then he gets busy knocking apart the frame on the stairs. In a few minutes it’s easy for them to walk down the stairs.

Mort holds his bright lantern high and they can both see the fifteen by twenty-four foot room is almost full of things: furniture, trunks, and boxes. Two odd things are the lack of cobwebs and the lack of dust in the large room. Like all of the other rooms in the house the ceiling is close to ten feet from the floor. They make their way to the nearest wall, and they can see the bulk of the basement is chiselled out of the rock with some stone blocks set on top of the rock to set the floor beams on.

Jenny says, “I wonder how long this has been down here like this.”

Mort walks over to where an old newspaper is sitting on a table and reads out the date of October 1862, adding, “This is about the fighting in Frederick and how the soldiers may soon come this way. I’d say they hid a lot of stuff down here so it wouldn’t get looted.” He looks around and adds, “I thought I was finished with the cleaning, but we now have some more to do. We better not talk about this to anyone.” Jenny nods her agreement. They turn around, go back upstairs, lock up, and go to town for dinner. Followed by a shower, some talk, and sleep.

Thursday

After the usual morning routine Mort and Jenny buy some groceries they can leave in the house and take them to the house. Mort gets busy with the battery vacuum cleaner while Jenny sets the kitchen to rights by giving it a thorough cleaning before putting the food away and cleaning the cookware, crockery, and cutlery.

It’s lunchtime when Mort comes upstairs and says, “The room is now clean. I’ve cleaned up what little dust there is and everything is wiped down with a damp cloth.” After they eat Jenny helps Mort set the balustrade for the stairs back into place to make it easier and safer. It’s a work of art and precision made so he simply hammers the uprights into their positions in the main steps then sets the rail over the uprights and pushes the rail into the door frame slot before he pushes the rail down onto the uprights. Both rails are the same and are soon put back right.

Jenny looks about the house and asks, “Can we get some camping gear and live here, please?” Mort is surprised, but he nods his agreement.

It’s still early afternoon so he gives her his wallet and returns to seeing what’s in the furniture downstairs while she drives to the next town to buy what they need to camp in the house. Because he’s down in the basement Mort locks up the house. In one corner he finds some mid 1800s rifles with a few shotguns. He takes them upstairs, puts them on the kitchen table, opens the back door, and sits there cleaning them.

He’s almost finished cleaning all of the guns when he hears a car drive up the road. Picking up a double barrel shotgun he walks to the front door. He opens it and he sees two young men walking toward the stables. With a grin Mort says, “Anything I can help you with?”

The two spin around, and immediately focus their attention on the shotgun in his hands. One says, “We hope so. My Pa, Ben Hawk, said you might be up to hiring a couple of men to move things for you.”

“Be here at eight o’clock in the morning. I’ve got dirty furniture in need of cleaning, a lot of it.” The two smile so Mort quotes the same hourly rate he’s paying Jenny, which makes them smile a lot more.

They leave and he goes back to cleaning the guns. Most are in very good condition. He puts them away in a cupboard and he uses his laptop to check what they should be worth. He also checks the exchange rate. Since it’s the best it’s been for a long time he organises to have almost all of his money in Australia exchanged to US dollars and he transfers it to his US bank account. He rings the fellow Sissy found about the wood treatment and tells him to organise the work when he can fit it in.

Jenny arrives back with some nice pads and sleeping bags as well as all of his gear and a lot of her own gear. He helps her to move it into the parlour. They don’t have any wood so she bought a load of cut wood and Ben is sending his two sons along with the truck load of wood as soon as they finish loading it.

A little later the same two young men are back with a dump truck load of split firewood. They back up between the house and the stables to dump it at the spot where there are wood chips showing where the wood pile usually is. Once the truck load is dumped the two of them get out to stack it on the back porch so it’s up against the wall to be out of the direct weather should it rain. Jenny has them fill the wood boxes in the parlour and the kitchen. Mort hands them a twenty dollar tip each, so they’re very happy when they get into the truck and drive off.

Mort shows Jenny the guns he found and cleaned up, then how he’s identified them on the Internet. A Sharps Rifle, two Henry Repeating Rifles, a Spencer Repeating Rifle, two coach guns which are shotguns with an eighteen inch barrel, an 1855 Colt Revolving Rifle, two Colt Walker Revolvers, and a Colt Army Model 1860 Revolver. He says, “The odd thing is some of these would have been brand new if they stored them down there in eighteen sixty-two. They do look brand new too.”

She asks, “What will you do with them?”

“Probably sell them all. I’m not really into guns.” She smiles as she agrees. After checking the chimneys look clear Mort gets busy starting a fire in both the kitchen stove and the parlour fireplace. Jenny cooks a simple meal while Mort uses the hand pump in the kitchen to pump water into the water tank attached to the stove as a water heater.

Once there’s enough water in the tank he lets some of the water out to flush out the tap and for water to clean the sink with. That’s another thing he’ll have to check: where does the sink drain to? Once he has a clean water flow he pumps water into the tank until the tank is full. While he pumps the water he wonders where all of the water is coming from because he knows the house sits on a huge block of rock.

After starting the fires and seeing to the fresh water Mort gets on the Internet to order an inspection camera. This endoscope has a ten foot cable and a hand control unit with a small screen, it also plugs into a computer via a USB port so you can see a larger image. The small LED lights clustered around the camera on the end of the cable will allow him to see what’s in the dark areas under the house by drilling a couple of small holes to stick the camera through to explore the areas.

Mort sits back to watch Jenny cooking their meal on the wood stove. She really seems to be enjoying herself while cooking for them both on this stove. He doesn’t know what it is about her that drew him to her, or her to him, so fast, but he’s not complaining. They’re both very happy to be together. Despite what he thinks others think is going on they’ve still to explore the physical side of their relationship, but neither seems to mind delaying that aspect of their relationship for the moment.