The Apple House

Mary wondered what the heck she had been thinking. Maybe it wasn't thinking, but rather feeling that convinced her to buy this particular house. The minute she saw it she fell in love with it. The outside was your typical ranch style house in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Nothing about it seemed special, but it called her name as loudly as if it could speak. She went with her gut and purchased it without even going inside. The price was right, a mere 89, 000.00 in a neighborhood where most of the houses sold for well over 200,000.00.

She should have known there was a reason for that and she found it the minute she turned the key and opened the door. The place was a disaster! The linoleum and carpeting were torn and lifting away, the wall paper was peeling and there were holes at regular intervals in the walls. It looked like the place had been left to rot away for years. The sight of it left her breathless and horrified, what had she done? Yet, as she carefully walked through the rooms a feeling of peace settled upon her and she thought “this is my home.” With some work and elbow grease it would become her forever home.

After taking stock of the rest of the house she enter the room she had chosen for her bedroom. It was in no better shape than any of the others. Although, she had no tools or materials she decided to get started. After rolling up her sleeves she bent down and started tearing up the old carpeting. It wasn't difficult since it was lifting away anyway. Once she got it loose she proceeded to roll it up to be left at the end of the room, but about three quarters of the way a loose board came up with the carpet.

Feeling annoyed she pulled the board away and started to replace it in the floor, but something stopped her. As Mary looked into the hole she realized it contained some items. Taking her cell phone out of her back pocket, she turned on the flashlight feature. Inside the hole was a shoe box, a very old shoe box that looked like it would disintegrate if it was moved. The sight of that box caused her to forget her annoyance at the floorboard,as well as everything else, instead curiosity took it's place. She wondered what might be in it, the thought that it might be the body of a deceased pet crossed her mind. That was not a very pleasant thought, but then she thought it might have been hidden by a child. If it was it probably just had marbles, baseball cards, maybe a toy car or that type of thing in it. There was only one way to find out, take the darned thing out of the hole and open it.

Amazingly the box remained intact as she lifted it out of it's hiding place. When she opened it she found it contained a random number of crumpled one dollar bills and a small black notebook. Opening the notebook she saw written in childish scrawl “ Apple House Money”. She turned the page and read “ I put the tin box on the rafter beam of the shed to keep dad from taking the money. Once I have enough I will give it to mom so that we can buy the Apple house and get away from dad. On the next page it said “ Mowed 3 lawns today and made 3.00”. As she turned the pages she realized that each page was an entry of how much money the child had made that day. There were at least 75 pages with various amounts written down. In between the money entries were a glimpse into the life of this child. One entry read “ Wow! I made almost 100.00 today, but dad almost caught me hiding it”.

It occurred to her that something must have happened that had caused the child to leave money in the shoe box rather than putting it in the tin, so she turned to the last page with an entry on it. It read “I can't believe this! Mom says we are leaving and we are leaving right now. I hope we are coming back so that I can get the money I have been saving up for the last 3 years. She won't give me a minute to get the tin. She's hollering that we have to leave now before dad gets home.” Mary sat a little stunned at what she had read. Her curiosity was really high now. She shut off the flashlight on her phone while getting up and brushing the dirt from her pants. She decided to go outside to see if the property included a shed.

Once outside Mary saw a shed that was as equally run down as the house. As she opened the door a cascade of dust rained down on her head which told her no one had been inside for a long time. Mary once again turned on the flashlight of her phone and began scanning the support beams above her head. There at the back of the shed her light causes a glimmer high above. It appeared to be the tin box she had read about. Looking around the shed she realized there was no ladder to be found. The only thing left in the shed was an old garden hoe. Although it was dirty and covered in cobwebs, Mary lifted it above her head and was able to knock the tin box off the beam. As it landed, the lid came off, and money fell out. There were several neat stacks of bills held together with rubber bands.

Being uncomfortable with being in the shed, a concern about spiders looming large in her mind, Mary decided to take the money and the tin into the house. She added them to the money, shoe box, and black notebook already on the floor of the back bedroom. As she sat on the partially rolled up carpet she started counting the money. It took about forty five minutes to count it all and when she was done she was astonished at the amount. There was 20,000.00 between what was in the tin and what was in the shoe box. The bills were all printed over 50 years ago, so the owner was long gone, perhaps no longer living. That meant since she owned the house now, the money was hers. It was a gift from an unknown and probably unwilling benefactor. Mary would now be able to restore this house in a way that would make it her home forever.

One of the first things Mary did was have a sign made for the front of the house. It read “The Apple House” and her home would forever be referred to in the neighborhood as Apple House.