Cosimo Pinelli’s Toolbox

Cosimo Pinelli’s Toolbox

As those of you who’ve been reading the China Bohannon series know, Cosimo Pinelli’s cabinet shop is next door to the Doyle & Howe (and Bohannon) Detective Agency. 

An Italian immigrant, Pinelli is married to a half-Indian woman named Agnes and they recently had a bambino, which has Cosimo bursting at the seams with pride.

In Five Days, Five Dead (pending publication) Cosimo is sorely wounded while helping China. He’s a loyal fellow, and in Six Dancing Damsels, he’s back.

As it happens, Monk and China are having the office refurbished under the direction of Philippa Kim, China’s friend introduced in Five Days, Five Dead.

Business is a bit slow for Cosimo right now, due in part to his recovery from the wound, and in order to take care of their friend’s family, Monk and China hire Cosimo to work on the refurbishing.

I found this lovely photo of an old time tool chest such as Cosimo might possess. I’m sure it would be one of his proudest possessions.

I’m not certain what date you could put on this, but I remember a few of these same sort of tools that my dad kept around for old time’s sake. Can you imagine using these instead of the lithium battery powered tools on everyone’s workbench nowadays? What they have in common is that they’re cordless, both now and then.

Time to Get Up, China

When I was a kid, I always wondered how people knew when to get up. Oh, I knew they had clocks, all right. The big old Grandfather clocks with the bellowing chimes, the smaller Grandmother clocks, the mantel clocks. But what about alarm clocks? Over the years I’ve learned a lot more about clocks of all kinds, including the fact that if you’re still using an electric clock plugged into an outlet, it had better have a battery back-up.

On the other hand, does anybody use those anymore? I know mine must be forty years old. Still works like a champ, too, ye old clock-radio.

I know, I know. EVERYBODY uses the alarm on their smart phone. Except me. I don’t even know how to set it. Oh, well. I haven’t needed it since I seem to have a clock in my head.

Some of the best clocks, in my experience, are well-trained cats or dogs. Surprisingly, the cat was better. I had the duty to rise at 4:30 every morning in order to be on the job at 6:00 a.m. And since it takes a while to make myself presentable, I needed every bit of that hour and a half. Because I’m a bit of a worry-wart, I always tried to be at work fifteen minutes early. After twenty years of this, to this day I wake up at 4:30, although nobody had better plan on me rising and shining. Ain’t gonna happen. But for over sixteen years, my wake-up call came via a small furry foot patting my chin, and points little toes tromping across my chest. Thanks to Lily, I was never late.
(Yes, in case anybody ever wondered. The heroine in Hereafter is named Lily, a tribute to my sweet blue Persian.)

But on to China Bohannon. What got her up on time in the morning, when the dark dawn and the icy temperatures in her bedroom screamed  ‘stay in bed?’

This is what I discovered.

The earliest mechanical clock recorded is a Chinese Water Clock, invented around 725.
Smaller, individual clocks were probably of German manufacture in the 15th Century, although it’s doubtful they had a total monopoly on them. The first known mechanical American clock was put in use by Levi Hutchins in 1787, although some people contest this story. The first patent was recorded in 1847.

Few people owned reliable mechanical clocks in those early years. They relied on servants, church bells, their own innate time sense, or the sun to get them up. Later, factory whistles worked for urbanites. I’ve got a question though. Who got the servants, the bells-ringers or the factory workers up?

Seth Thomas mass produced alarm clocks beginning in 1876. To me, looking like a pure mess of gears, rotating cams, levers, notches and bells, clock innards are a mysterious business. Clockmakers, however, say there’s nothing truly difficult about these old clocks. You could’ve fooled me.  I probably would’ve relied on Knocker-uppers, a profession that remained until the 1920s, where someone was hired to knock on one’s door, window or whatever and rouse him or her. Seriously.

The clock China Bohannon no doubt uses⏤at least when her dog Nimble doesn’t awaken her⏤is probably a Seth Thomas, sitting serene and ticking away on her bedside table, along with her .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.

The wood shed

In my last post, I talked about the wood stove. I’ve also previously mentioned China out chopping her own wood. Well, upon occasion, anyway. I suspect that wouldn’t be one of her normal chores, not as long as there’s an able-bodied male on the premises. But I’m here to tell you China can swing an axe with the best of them! And why not. A lady, yes.  China is a capable young woman--and a wood stove is voracious in its need for fuel. I think I mentioned in one of the books about an Indian man who delivers wood to their back yard. When you think about it, it’s just like is done today, only now the wood is cut with chainsaws, precisely measured as to cords, and packed into, at the least, a big 4-by-4 pickup. Often you see a one-ton loaded to the gills, its shocks sadly overburdened. Pity the poor team of horses set to the same chore back in the day.

My dad was the woodcutter when I was a kid, but many is the time I helped both load the truck and unload when he got it home. We had a woodshed to store the wood in, and by winter the room was packed tight with dry wood. Sometimes it was a little cramped finding room to swing the axe as we chopped the chunks into stove-sized pieces, and shaved the most resinous into kindling. Nowadays parents would have apoplexy at the thought of an eight-year-old (or thereabouts) using an axe and chopping wood. Then it was just what one did. Cutting off my foot never--well, seldom--crossed my mind, but people, the bogey man did.

Our woodshed was part of a larger shed. One of the other parts was used a a kind of workshop, and I guess the rest was just storage. I remember my dad’s old wooden skis were in one of the rooms. But the worst part of the deal was that we had to pass by these sheds on our way to the outdoor privy. Daytime wasn’t too bad. It was at night, with the open doorways looming blackly that scared the bejesus out of a little girl. A little girl with no known enemies.

Pity poor China, with all the attempts on her life. That girl has guts!

China's Daily Life pt 2

Did you know that a city dweller’s housewifely duties just might reflect that of her countrywoman counterpart? It did, more than you might think. Households within the city limits often kept their own cow, and it was very common to have a flock--a small flock, I presume--of chickens to patrol the garden. Not every housewife, of course. I expect that in the higher toned neighborhoods the keeping of livestock would be frowned upon. Livestock other than riding or carriage horses, at least.  Because these places had their stables and their carriages in the days before the automobile. Really, it’s not much more trouble to keep a cow, as long as there’s someone to milk her. And I’m sure the cooks in the “big” houses appreciated fresh eggs and fried chicken on Sunday just as much as the lowly wife with just enough room in her backyard for a pen and a shelter of some sort. Probably chores were delegated to family members, however, instead of staff. You might be surprised, though, how many people had a hired girl, who often worked for her room and board while she went to school. There were just too many jobs for a housewife to keep up with, especially if she had a raft of children.

Think of it. Laundry on Mondays, with the heating of water, the scrub boards, the hanging out and bringing in, then ironing with a flat iron most likely heated on the cookstove top. Don’t even get me started on the problems of drying the clothes during the winter. If a housewife was lucky, she had a basement or cellar to use as a drying room. Hopefully there was a furnace, after the event of steam boilers and radiators, to help. Otherwise, the laundry probably had to freeze dry. Chapped hands, here we come. I was in the cellar of a turn of the century (20th Century, I mean) house that hadn’t changed much since it was built and it was much like the cellar depicted in One Foot on the Edge, the first China Bohannon story. The ground floor powder room still had the toilet setup with the wooden tank high up on the wall. More on plumbing later. My point here is the smell. There’s nothing to compare with the odor of a dank cellar. Even the strong homemade lye soap the housewife most probably made herself couldn’t contend with that.

Does China Bohannon do these chores along with working at the detective business? Well, we all know Mavis Atwood, who is also Uncle Monk’s lady friend, comes in the clean house once a week. China picks up the place and cooks on a daily basis. I’ve got a hunch the household laundry is sent out to a Chinese laundry. Well, wouldn’t you, if you could afford it?

The stove pictured below looks a bit like the one I learned to cook on, so when I picture China's kitchen, this is what I see her slaving lover.

To be continued . . .

China's Daily Life

I wonder if a hundred years from now women of the day will look back and wonder about their grandma’s life. How did she live? What did she do with her days? What were her financial circumstances, and did it make a huge difference or only a small one to her activities? What about her leisure time--or did she have any?

That’s exactly the same thing I go through when I sit down to write a China Bohannon story.

I only remember bits and pieces about my grandmother when she still lived on the farm, but that’s the kind of routine I think of for China in her daily life. Although China is a city girl in 1896, and my grandmother was a farm wife in the 1950s. My grandparents' farm was probably more primitive than 1896. In fact, I know it was, since they didn’t have inside water  and had to carry it in from the pump house. The bathroom was a one-holer privy set at some distance from the house. One bathed in a tin bathtub, which then needed emptied. Their telephone hung on the wall, was made of oak, and had a crank--and a party line. They did have electric lights, but no refrigerator. Of course the kitchen range burned wood. That’s how they heated the house.

Why so primitive, you may ask? Well, for one thing, my grandfather may have been the cheapest old SOB you ever heard of, especially if it concerned convenience for the womenfolk. Ah, well, we won’t go into that.

In the China Bohannon novels, I  don’t go into much of China’s daily life beyond her work in the Doyle & Howe office, and the cooking of a bare bones meal. I have mentioned a skirt she made for  herself, and maybe a few other articles of clothing. I also mention her shopping for readymades. No real details, though. It’s not because I don’t know how clothing is made⏤I used to make a lot of my own. It’s just that China has more important things to do, like sleuth.

But I can imagine her out chopping wood when Monk or Grat are gone or too busy.  I haven’t put her into a grocery store, either, except a look-in when she’s on the trail of someone. There weren’t grocery stores as we know them, anyway. There were meat markets and bakeries and greengrocers. Milk and dairy was delivered to one’s door. A lot of things we buy at the supermarkets were probably purchased at the general mercantile. Just think how much more difficult and time consuming it was then! And don’t get me started on refrigeration. All China has is an ice box, with ice delivered on a weekly basis. Just think what a chore emptying the drain pans must’ve been. Forget it even for a few hours and you’d have water all over the place to clean up.


To be continued------

Black Crossing is baaaack.

Wolfpack Publishing has made my 2008 EPIC Award winning western is available again. Only 99 cents for a great read! Check it out here: http://amzn.to/2bY5efG

By the way, the female character's name is Ione, which is pronounced I own. It's also a town in eastern Washington, not far from where I've set the fictional Black Crossing.

Going Dancing Part 2

Informal dances were held in many different venues, including country barns. Furniture might be cleared from a home’s parlor to make space; hotels often held afternoon tea dances. Not far from where I live is a well-preserved, stately four-story home built in the late 1890s where the entire top floor is given over to a private ballroom. There are several such homes in Spokane--we’re fortunate in seeing these homes preserved. Sometimes the music was of professional grade, sometimes self-taught fiddlers and guitarists performed. I believe the amazing part is that they were so good.

High in popularity with the young set, the dance pavilions at various lakes drew large crowds. Can’t you just imagine the music floating out over the gently lapping water, stars shining overhead, soft night air brushing the lady’s bare arms lifted to embrace her partner? Gentlemen’s cigar smoke would waft in from the darkness to mingle with the women’s perfume. Bliss. Unless the gentlemen slipped off to imbibe a sip or two from a flask. Fights were known to break out.

In Three Seconds to Thunder, China and Gratton trip the light fantastic at the dance pavilion at Mirror Lake on Spokane's South Hill. China is in heaven--until one of  Grat's cases intrudes.