Ship In A Bottle (Encore)

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Speaker 1 Welcome to bedtime stories for everyone

Speaker 1 in which

Speaker 1 nothing much happens.

Speaker 1 You feel good

Speaker 1 and then

Speaker 1 You fall asleep.

Speaker 1 I'm Catherine Nicolai.

Speaker 1 I write and read

Speaker 1 all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens.

Speaker 1 Audio Engineering is by Bob Wittersheim.

Speaker 1 We are bringing you an encore episode tonight, meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past. It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different location.

Speaker 1 And since I'm a person and not a computer, computer, I sometimes sound just slightly different.

Speaker 1 But the stories are always soothing and family-friendly. And our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 let's get ready to sleep.

Speaker 1 I'll read you a story.

Speaker 1 It's a place to rest your mind,

Speaker 1 like an upturned leaf resting on the surface of a river.

Speaker 1 Your mind will follow along with the moving current of my voice and our story.

Speaker 1 And before you know it,

Speaker 1 you'll be eased into deep sleep.

Speaker 1 I'll read the story twice, and I'll go a little slower. the second time through.

Speaker 1 If you wake in the night, take yourself back into the story, either by listening again or thinking back through any bit you can remember.

Speaker 1 This interrupts your brain's tendency to cycle through thought and will put you right back into sleep mode.

Speaker 1 It is brain training and it might take a bit of practice, so be patient if you're new to this.

Speaker 1 Our story tonight is called Ship in a Bottle.

Speaker 1 And it's a story about a crate of bequests ready to be unwrapped.

Speaker 1 It's also about the dark bark of oak trees after a storm,

Speaker 1 garden benches waiting to be sat on,

Speaker 1 and the ordinary magic of handmade things.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 it's time to switch off the light

Speaker 1 and set aside anything you've been looking at or working on.

Speaker 1 Adjust your pillows, your comforter,

Speaker 1 until you feel completely at ease.

Speaker 1 If you sometimes clench your jaw as you sleep, try resting the tip of your tongue at the place where your upper teeth meet the gums on the inside. That will help keep your jaw relaxed.

Speaker 1 But first, take a deep breath in through your nose

Speaker 1 and sigh through your mouth.

Speaker 1 Again, breathe in

Speaker 1 and out.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 Ship in a battle

Speaker 1 Autumn had stretched itself about as far as it could go

Speaker 1 And I was grateful for every extra moment.

Speaker 1 On my walk in this morning, along the gravel path

Speaker 1 from the parking lot up to the great house,

Speaker 1 I stopped to admire a few of the towering oaks and maples that were still in full color.

Speaker 1 It had stormed the night before,

Speaker 1 and their bark showed nearly black from the rain.

Speaker 1 The long, straight line of their trunks

Speaker 1 pulled my eyes up to the bounty of bright yellow leaves above.

Speaker 1 Had they always been this tall?

Speaker 1 I felt like I had never really seen them before.

Speaker 1 They were like arrows that had been shot down into the soil,

Speaker 1 with foliage as fletching rather than feathers.

Speaker 1 And I imagined one of the old gods of mythology

Speaker 1 drawing back a bow to send them to earth

Speaker 1 something about this place

Speaker 1 lent itself to fanciful thoughts

Speaker 1 from the labyrinth out in the east meadow where i walked at lunchtime

Speaker 1 to the solarium

Speaker 1 Where I'd watched the amorphophallus titanum bloom for the first time in three years

Speaker 1 to the map room up on the third floor

Speaker 1 filled with books that were written when my great-great-grandparents were children

Speaker 1 and glass display cases of the artifacts and rare objects we collected.

Speaker 1 It was a special place, this estate.

Speaker 1 and I hoped our visitors felt the magic of it the way I did.

Speaker 1 It had been a family home when it was first built,

Speaker 1 with acres of gardens and forests around it.

Speaker 1 A stately home with turrets and wings.

Speaker 1 and a dumb waiter that had once brought tea trays up from the kitchen to the drawing room.

Speaker 1 When it had passed to a new generation,

Speaker 1 it was converted into a museum of sorts.

Speaker 1 We had collections of paintings and portraits,

Speaker 1 local histories and maps.

Speaker 1 The grounds had likewise been made public,

Speaker 1 and many people came every day to trek through the woods

Speaker 1 or quietly pace the labyrinth

Speaker 1 there were fountains and statues to admire

Speaker 1 benches to sit at with a book or sack lunch

Speaker 1 and a broad pond filled with bright orange fish

Speaker 1 that swam in a mesmerizing school

Speaker 1 like an underwater murmuration.

Speaker 1 I'd done a bit of everything in the years I'd been here.

Speaker 1 I'd led tours and planted flowers

Speaker 1 and dusted cases.

Speaker 1 I'd raked the white stones of the labyrinth into place at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 Now I worked just inside the front door, behind a a small desk,

Speaker 1 to direct visitors and hand out leaflets.

Speaker 1 I knew the story of just about every painting in the ballroom,

Speaker 1 every plant and the solarium and map up on the third floor.

Speaker 1 And when asked, was happy to share,

Speaker 1 though mostly I was called upon simply to welcome people in as they stepped through the heavy oak door.

Speaker 1 I kept a basket at the desk with my crochet hook and skein of yarn

Speaker 1 and had made quite a few scarfs while sitting in the calm quiet of the entryway.

Speaker 1 Today, though,

Speaker 1 would be

Speaker 1 a bit more eventful.

Speaker 1 We'd gotten a bequest,

Speaker 1 a legacy, from the estate of a distant cousin related to the original owners.

Speaker 1 He'd come to visit us, in fact,

Speaker 1 many years ago.

Speaker 1 While he was researching his family tree,

Speaker 1 he'd spent a good amount of time up in the map room,

Speaker 1 gazing at the portraits of his distant relatives.

Speaker 1 Like so many of our visitors, he'd fallen in love with the house and gardens.

Speaker 1 But obviously, this place had meant something a bit more to him,

Speaker 1 and he'd remembered us in his will.

Speaker 1 We didn't know exactly what was in the crate,

Speaker 1 but today

Speaker 1 we would find out.

Speaker 1 We'd set aside a room off the main hall

Speaker 1 that had once been a small sitting room,

Speaker 1 but now

Speaker 1 was a place things were stored and restored when when out of the collections.

Speaker 1 We had a sturdy work table

Speaker 1 spread with a heavy drop cloth

Speaker 1 and the crate waiting for us on top of it.

Speaker 1 It had arrived late in the afternoon the day before.

Speaker 1 And though I'd been impatient to dig right in,

Speaker 1 we'd agreed to wait till today

Speaker 1 when more staff could participate

Speaker 1 and we would have the whole day to catalog what we unpacked.

Speaker 1 I'd been so curious about what we might find inside

Speaker 1 that I'd fallen asleep thinking of it

Speaker 1 and dreamt about the crate.

Speaker 1 In the dream when we pried open the top

Speaker 1 and looked down into it,

Speaker 1 instead of seeing objects,

Speaker 1 there were stairs,

Speaker 1 like the ones in the large entryway,

Speaker 1 carpeted in dark red velvet,

Speaker 1 and with a handrail of polished wood.

Speaker 1 I had been able to follow them down

Speaker 1 into a room full of new treasures.

Speaker 1 And it had felt like a better version of going through the looking glass,

Speaker 1 a place where I could just discover to my heart's content.

Speaker 1 And as I'd parked my car

Speaker 1 and walked up the path this morning,

Speaker 1 I'd thought to myself that

Speaker 1 I needed to adjust my expectations,

Speaker 1 that our bequests would be much more mundane, not nearly so otherworldly.

Speaker 1 But then I'd stopped to stare at those trees in the grounds,

Speaker 1 with their nearly black trunks and bright yellow leaves,

Speaker 1 and remembered that the quotidian world

Speaker 1 would never be short of astounding wonders.

Speaker 1 So now we were ready.

Speaker 1 I noticed that none of my colleagues were late this morning as we gathered around the work table.

Speaker 1 I took a few good whacks with a mallet against the crowbar.

Speaker 1 But then the crate was open,

Speaker 1 and we all leaned forward

Speaker 1 and looked down into the trove.

Speaker 1 Everything had been carefully wrapped, but right away

Speaker 1 I could make out the shape of a couple of paintings.

Speaker 1 There were several small boxes

Speaker 1 and something very big,

Speaker 1 like a large cylinder,

Speaker 1 whose wrapping was marked with the word fragile.

Speaker 1 We,

Speaker 1 each of us, reached in at the same time and bumped into each other and laughed.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 someone said,

Speaker 1 let's do one thing at a time, shall we?

Speaker 1 We sheepishly agreed.

Speaker 1 One of the boxes held a collection of antique miniature books

Speaker 1 tiny things, but properly printed and illustrated,

Speaker 1 and our map room docent took them aside straight away.

Speaker 1 Another box held fountain pens

Speaker 1 and a hat pin with a pale green stone in it,

Speaker 1 as well as some tarnished silver serving spoons.

Speaker 1 All of these things had clearly been handed down

Speaker 1 through the bequeather's family,

Speaker 1 just as so many objects in this house had.

Speaker 1 I could see why they had been left to us.

Speaker 1 The paintings, when unwrapped, were portraits.

Speaker 1 And judging by the style and the clothing,

Speaker 1 had been painted around the time our great house was built.

Speaker 1 In fact, one face was very familiar,

Speaker 1 and we carried it out into the hall

Speaker 1 to set it on the rail beside the portrait of the family's patriarch.

Speaker 1 We looked back and forth from one face to another.

Speaker 1 Brothers? We asked each other.

Speaker 1 Maybe even twins, I said.

Speaker 1 The last bit of treasure to be unwrapped.

Speaker 1 The piece marked fragile

Speaker 1 proved to be a ship in a bottle.

Speaker 1 According to the yellowed label on its base,

Speaker 1 It was more than a hundred and forty years old.

Speaker 1 Through a layer of dust,

Speaker 1 I marveled at the tiny, intricate pieces

Speaker 1 that came together so perfectly.

Speaker 1 It had a foremast, a mid-mast and a mizzen,

Speaker 1 a quarter deck, a crow's nest, and even a tiny figurehead.

Speaker 1 I could look at it for ages

Speaker 1 and still not see every detail.

Speaker 1 Right beside my desk in the entryway

Speaker 1 was a large round table

Speaker 1 we usually topped with fresh flowers.

Speaker 1 But I would do my best to convince my colleagues.

Speaker 1 That this amazing artifact should sit at its center.

Speaker 1 Guess,

Speaker 1 and also I

Speaker 1 would be able to enjoy it in the light of the front windows

Speaker 1 and imagine ourselves

Speaker 1 sailing away

Speaker 1 into the horizon.

Speaker 1 Ship

Speaker 1 in a bottle.

Speaker 1 Autumn had stretched itself about as far as it could go

Speaker 1 and I was grateful for every extra moment.

Speaker 1 On my walk in this morning

Speaker 1 along the gravel path

Speaker 1 from the parking lot up to the great house,

Speaker 1 I'd stopped stopped to admire a few of the towering oaks and maples

Speaker 1 that were still in full color

Speaker 1 that had stormed the night before

Speaker 1 and their bark showed nearly black from the rain

Speaker 1 The long straight line of their trunks pulled my eyes up

Speaker 1 to the bounty of bright yellow leaves above.

Speaker 1 Had they always been this tall?

Speaker 1 I felt like I had never really seen them before.

Speaker 1 They were like arrows that had been shot down into the soil

Speaker 1 with foliage as fletching rather than feathers.

Speaker 1 And I imagined one of the old gods of mythology

Speaker 1 drawing back a bow

Speaker 1 to send them to earth.

Speaker 1 Something about this place

Speaker 1 lent itself to fanciful thoughts

Speaker 1 from the labyrinth out in the East Meadow,

Speaker 1 where I walked at lunchtime,

Speaker 1 to the solarium,

Speaker 1 where I'd watched the amorphophallus titanum bloom for the first time in three years,

Speaker 1 to the map room on the third floor,

Speaker 1 filled with books that were written when my great-great-grandparents were children,

Speaker 1 and glass display cases

Speaker 1 of the artifacts and rare objects we collected.

Speaker 1 It was a special place,

Speaker 1 this estate,

Speaker 1 and I hoped our visitors felt the magic of it the way I did.

Speaker 1 It had been a family home when it was first built

Speaker 1 with acres of gardens and forests around it.

Speaker 1 A stately home with turrets and wings

Speaker 1 and a dumb waiter

Speaker 1 that had once brought tea trays up from the kitchen to the drawing room.

Speaker 1 When it had passed to a new generation,

Speaker 1 it was converted

Speaker 1 into

Speaker 1 a museum of sorts.

Speaker 1 We had collections of paintings and portraits,

Speaker 1 local histories, and many maps.

Speaker 1 The grounds had likewise been made public,

Speaker 1 and many people came every day

Speaker 1 to trek through the woods

Speaker 1 or quietly pace the labyrinth.

Speaker 1 There were fountains

Speaker 1 and statues to admire,

Speaker 1 benches to sit at

Speaker 1 with a book or sack lunch,

Speaker 1 and a broad pond

Speaker 1 filled with bright orange fish

Speaker 1 that swam in a mesmerizing school

Speaker 1 like an underwater murmuration.

Speaker 1 I'd done a bit of

Speaker 1 in the years I'd been here.

Speaker 1 I'd led tours and planted flowers

Speaker 1 and dusted cases.

Speaker 1 I'd raked the white stones of a labyrinth into place

Speaker 1 at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 Now I worked just inside the front door

Speaker 1 behind a small desk

Speaker 1 to direct visitors

Speaker 1 and hand out leaflets.

Speaker 1 I knew the story of

Speaker 1 just about every painting in the ballroom.

Speaker 1 Every plant in the solarium

Speaker 1 and map up on the third floor,

Speaker 1 and when asked,

Speaker 1 was happy to share,

Speaker 1 though

Speaker 1 mostly I was called upon simply to welcome people in

Speaker 1 as they stepped through the heavy oak door.

Speaker 1 I kept a basket at the desk

Speaker 1 with my crochet hook and skein of yarn

Speaker 1 and had made quite a few scarfs while sitting in the quiet calm of the entryway

Speaker 1 today though

Speaker 1 would be

Speaker 1 a bit more eventful

Speaker 1 We'd gotten a bequest,

Speaker 1 a legacy from the estate of a distant cousin,

Speaker 1 related to the original owners.

Speaker 1 He'd come to visit us once,

Speaker 1 many years ago,

Speaker 1 while he was researching his family tree.

Speaker 1 He'd spent a good amount of time

Speaker 1 up in the map room

Speaker 1 and gazing at the portraits of his distant relatives.

Speaker 1 Like so many of our visitors,

Speaker 1 he'd fallen in love with the house and gardens.

Speaker 1 But obviously,

Speaker 1 this place had meant something a bit more to him,

Speaker 1 and he remembered us in his will.

Speaker 1 We didn't know exactly

Speaker 1 what was in the crate that had arrived,

Speaker 1 but today

Speaker 1 we would find out.

Speaker 1 We'd set aside a room off the main hall

Speaker 1 that had once been a small sitting room,

Speaker 1 but was now a place where things were stored and restored when out of the collections.

Speaker 1 We had a sturdy work table spread with a heavy drop cloth

Speaker 1 and the crate waiting for us on top of it.

Speaker 1 It had arrived late in the afternoon the day before.

Speaker 1 And though I had been impatient to dig right in

Speaker 1 we'd agreed to wait till today

Speaker 1 when more staff could participate

Speaker 1 and we would have the whole day

Speaker 1 to catalog what we unpacked

Speaker 1 I'd been so curious

Speaker 1 about what we might find inside

Speaker 1 that I'd fallen asleep thinking about it

Speaker 1 and dreamt of the crate

Speaker 1 In the dream

Speaker 1 when we pried open the top

Speaker 1 and looked down into it

Speaker 1 Instead of seeing objects

Speaker 1 there were stairs

Speaker 1 like the ones in the large entryway

Speaker 1 carpeted in dark red velvet,

Speaker 1 and with a handrail of polished wood.

Speaker 1 I'd been able to follow them down

Speaker 1 into a room full of new treasures.

Speaker 1 And it had felt like

Speaker 1 a better version of going through the looking glass.

Speaker 1 a place where I could just discover

Speaker 1 to my heart's content

Speaker 1 and as I'd parked my car

Speaker 1 and walked up the path this morning

Speaker 1 I thought to myself that I probably needed to adjust my expectations

Speaker 1 that our bequests would be much more mundane,

Speaker 1 not nearly so otherworldly.

Speaker 1 But then I'd stopped to stare at those trees in the grounds

Speaker 1 with their nearly black trunks and bright yellow leaves.

Speaker 1 and remembered that the quotidian world would never be short of astounding wonders.

Speaker 1 So now we were ready, and I noticed that none of my colleagues were late this morning

Speaker 1 as we gathered around the work table.

Speaker 1 It took a few good whacks with a mallet against the crowbar.

Speaker 1 But then the crate was open,

Speaker 1 and we we all leaned forward

Speaker 1 and looked down into the trove.

Speaker 1 Everything had been carefully wrapped,

Speaker 1 but right away

Speaker 1 I could make out the shape of a couple of paintings.

Speaker 1 There were several small boxes,

Speaker 1 and something very big,

Speaker 1 like a large cylinder,

Speaker 1 whose wrapping was marked with the word fragile.

Speaker 1 We,

Speaker 1 each of us,

Speaker 1 reached in at the same time

Speaker 1 and bumped into each other and laughed.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 someone said.

Speaker 1 Let's do one thing at a time, shall we?

Speaker 1 We sheepishly agreed.

Speaker 1 One of the boxes

Speaker 1 held a collection of antique miniature books

Speaker 1 tiny things, but properly printed and illustrated,

Speaker 1 and our map room docent

Speaker 1 took them aside straight away.

Speaker 1 Another box held fountain pens

Speaker 1 and a hat pin

Speaker 1 with a pale green stone in it,

Speaker 1 as well as some tarnished silver serving spoons.

Speaker 1 All of these things had clearly been handed down through the bequeather's family,

Speaker 1 just as so many objects in this house had.

Speaker 1 I could see why they had been left to us.

Speaker 1 The paintings, when unwrapped, were portraits.

Speaker 1 And judging by the style and clothing

Speaker 1 had been painted around the time our great house was built.

Speaker 1 In fact, one face

Speaker 1 was very familiar,

Speaker 1 and we carried it out into the hall

Speaker 1 to set it on the rail

Speaker 1 beside the portrait of the family's patriarch.

Speaker 1 We all looked back and forth

Speaker 1 from one face to another.

Speaker 1 Brothers? We asked each other.

Speaker 1 Maybe even twins, I said.

Speaker 1 The last bit of treasure to be unwrapped,

Speaker 1 the piece marked fragile

Speaker 1 proved to be a ship in a bottle.

Speaker 1 According to the yellowed label on its base,

Speaker 1 it was more than a hundred and forty years old.

Speaker 1 Through a layer of dust,

Speaker 1 I marveled at the tiny, intricate pieces

Speaker 1 that came together so perfectly.

Speaker 1 It had a foremast,

Speaker 1 a mid-mast, and a mizzen,

Speaker 1 a quarter deck, a crow's nest,

Speaker 1 and even a tiny figurehead.

Speaker 1 I could look at it for ages

Speaker 1 and still not see

Speaker 1 every detail.

Speaker 1 Right beside my desk in the entryway

Speaker 1 was a large round table

Speaker 1 we usually topped with fresh flowers.

Speaker 1 But I would do my best

Speaker 1 to convince my colleagues

Speaker 1 that this amazing artifact

Speaker 1 should sit at its center.

Speaker 1 Guests and also I

Speaker 1 would be able to enjoy it in the light of the front windows

Speaker 1 and imagine ourselves

Speaker 1 sailing away

Speaker 1 into the horizon.

Speaker 1 Sweet dreams.