Toys in the Attic

Toys in the Attic by Pamela Sibley Thompson

While puttering in the house this summer - cleaning, sorting, organizing - I came across some of the memorable objects associated with our childhood summers here at Deep Cove. I won’t say toys, because most of the things were authentic artifacts from Mexico and India left by previous generations – Deep Cove being the sole repository of the Hall and Sibley families’ possessions. Nothing ever got sold, hence the house became a treasure trove of exotic playthings for us kids.

On rainy days we would entertain ourselves for hours. The old Mexican saddles in the shed were put on sawhorses and rigged up with the dried, leather tack which had hung on wooden pegs. If mom and dad were otherwise occupied we would brandish rusty machetes or a ceremonial sword purloined from the gun closet in the den. Wearing moth-eaten sombreros and stained pith helmets we would gallop across the plains and mesas of our shed.

Tiring of the game of cowboys and Indians (or being discovered playing with lethal weapons) we would adjourn to the maid’s room at the back of the attic to rummage through ancient trunks filled with a windfall of period clothing and costumes. There were petticoats, beaded flapper dresses, headdresses, capes, lace mantillas, silk top hats, bowlers and our favorite – a truly fabulous red and blue velvet king’s costume.

We would rig ourselves up in the most outlandish getups and entertain the grown ups on the porch with original skits. We girls were fancy ladies in the tight-bodiced satin dresses with billowing skirts, evening gloves buttoned to the elbow, tiny beaded evening bags dangling from our wrists and fanning ourselves coquettishly with tattered, delicate silk fans. Jonathan dressed as a cross between a big game hunter and a bandito in a pith helmet, baggy jodhpurs, an ammunition belt and powder horn draped across his chest. Under supervision he was allowed his weapon of choice.

We had an odd and fanciful array of props at our disposal; a brass gong, a black antique telephone, brass telescope, silver tea service and dainty porcelain teacups, binoculars, dried snake skins, mounted elk horns, beautiful, intricate ink wells and quill pens and our favorite, a large, stuffed, mangy loon which played the part of pet or prey depending on the storyline.

On better days we would get out the old metal go-cart that had been Uncle Langdon’s as a boy and ride around the yard. Another favorite of us girls’ was the tall, ornate English pram with cracked leather interior that Dad had been wheeled in by his nursemaids in India. We would take turns pushing each other around in it or treat our dolls to a proper afternoon outing.

In the evenings we would gather around the table lit by kerosene lamps and play any number of old wooden game boards, the colors faded with age. We had Parcheesi, checkers, cribbage and a fabulous redwood box, beautiful to behold with tiny drawers trimmed in delicate brass filagree which held ivory tiles for Mah Jongg. No one knew how to play Mah Jongg, but we loved looking at the Chinese characters and using the tiles to build castle and forts that we surrounded with tin soldiers and carved elephants of various sizes.

Our nascent musical development was shaped by the square piano in the music room, perpetually out of tune and the cabinet filled with thick one-sided 78 records that we would play on the old crank victrola. We would sing along to the scratchy sounds of “Happy Days are Here Again” or “St. James’ Infirmary” by the Harlem Hot Chocolates and accompany ourselves strumming the old banjo and mandolin.

During the rest of the year back in Winchester we may have coveted our playmates, shiny Schwin bicycles, Lego sets or pink plastic doll carriages, but it was the summers in Deep Cove when our imaginations ran wild with strange and wonderful discoveries – the gifts and legacy handed down to us by our ancestors.