Stairway to heaven | A Down East solution to a matter of life and death
Nate Tuttle awoke one morning to find that his wife, Effy, had died right there in bed beside him sometime during the night. To be sure, he administered the “foggy mirror” test. You hold a small mirror up to someone’s nostrils for a minute or two, and if they’re able to fog the mirror, they’re still breathing.
I’m told it’s a test sometimes given to government employees to help determine their precise status.
In any event, Effy Tuttle failed the foggy mirror test miserably. She was therefore judged to be deader than a doornail.
Nate was a man of few words, never one for morning chatter. So rather than bother anyone else in the family with needless details on Effy’s death, Nate merely told those seated at the breakfast table: “You won’t have to make breakfast for Mother this morning.” Then he headed to the barn to build a coffin.
All morning he worked, and by noon he had fashioned a beautiful pine box for his late wife. Some say his wife’s coffin was one of the finest pieces he’d ever made. While making the coffin, Nate thought of all the other things that needed doing, like getting the big envelope of important papers out of the safe deposit box at the bank in town. He thought he should also withdraw some money from the savings account.
The two older boys, Lewis and Thurston, helped Nate move the coffin upstairs. Lewis and Thurston were good boys, truth be known. Yes, they were in their 30s and, yes, they still lived at home, and, yes, they were a little slow. But they were awful hard workers, and, if properly supervised, they could be very helpful. Nate explained to the boys that he planned to place their deceased mother in the coffin, take the coffin downstairs, put it into the pickup and drive it into town to Minzy’s Funeral Home.
Like many old Maine farmhouses, the old Tuttle place had a neck-breaking staircase that was steep, narrow and winding. It took Nate and the boys a while, but they managed to get the coffin up the stairs and into the bedroom. With great care, they placed Effy into the coffin and carried her downstairs.
Once downstairs, the two boys took over. They solemnly carried Effy, uncharacteristically laying there all quiet and peaceful-like, through the kitchen, out the back door, across the small dooryard and toward the truck. Not looking as closely as they should have at where they were going, they managed to slam the coffin into the fencepost at the edge of the dooryard.
With the jolt, Effy bolted up in the coffin and gave Nate and the boys quite a surprise, as you might imagine.
Effy, for her part, was none too pleased to wake up and find herself in a coffin. Nate was never good with wordy explanations, and his sons were even worse, but Nate stepped forward and began apologizing, trying his best to assure Effy that it was an “honest mistake.” Despite his efforts, Nate knew he was in for a long siege.
Sure enough, for another 20 years Effy reminded Nate almost daily of the “unfortunate coffin incident.” But then one day, she really did die. Nate even arranged for Doc Mooney to stop by the house and declare her dead, and then he had the doctor put it in writing.
Being a thrifty Down Easter, Nate had kept the beautiful pine coffin in a special place in the barn. So, once again, he and his two boys — still living at home, but still good boys — carried the coffin into the house and up the stairs. Once again, they carefully placed Effy in the coffin and began carrying her down the steep stairs.
As before, the two boys took over at the bottom of the stairs and carried the coffin through the kitchen and out the back door toward the pickup in the yard. While the boys carried their mother out of the house in a coffin for the second time in 20 years, Nate decided to take a short break and figure out how much money he should withdraw from the savings account, and whether he should do his bank business before or after he left Effy’s body at Minzy’s.
He went to the cupboard for a cup, with the idea that he would sit down in the now quiet kitchen for a few minutes and go over some things.
But just as he was pouring a cup of coffee, his eyes bolted wide open and he stood arrow-straight as he suddenly remembered the unfortunate coffin incident of 20 years earlier. He dropped his cup, ran to the door and hollered out to his sons, “Whatever you do, boys, steer clear of that fencepost!”
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.
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