Apparently, The Pony Has an Affinity for Middle Age-d Peasant Women

Hick is not the only auction aficionado around this homestead. The Pony didn't fall far from the gnarled log that is his father. Oh, he doesn't clamor to attend every week. But when Hick commands him to go along, in order to drop him off somewhere he needs to be later, The Pony jumps.

Here is The Pony's latest purchase:

He calls them peasant ladies from the Middle Ages. He thinks they're bronze. They are heavy, but hollow. You can link them together by those scepter kind of thingies they're holding. Here's another view:

Yeah. Just a little bit creepy. I didn't see his treasure until this morning as we were getting ready to leave for school. He took them out of a mini spittoon (that's another story) and set them up on the kitchen table.

"What has Dad bought now?"

"Um. These are mine. That's his spittoon, but he's had it for a while."

"How did he know you'd want them?"

"I was with him. He asked if I wanted to bid on them, and I said, 'Um. Why not?' " That's as close to a yes as you're going to get from The Pony.

"How much did you spend?"

"Five dollars."

Okay. I don't know anything about peasant ladies from the Middle Ages made out of bronze, but I do know that surely they are worth five dollars as scrap metal. They're kind of creepy, though.

"What are they supposed to be, candle holders for tiny candles?"

"I don't know."

"It's kind of like they're playing Ring Around the Rosie. For the Bubonic Plague. The Black Death."

"No...I see them more as summoning a demon." The Pony likes to get me going.

"Shut up with that! That's not funny. Don't even talk about that. You're like my kids the other day, telling me they played with an Ouija Board. That they made themselves!"

"That's how the dibbuk box got started."

"STOP! I''m not talking about it. You know I can't stand stuff like that. Or that creepy Annabelle doll from that movie where I can't even watch the commercial and you laugh at me."

"Okay. I told you that story before anyway. It's not like I arranged them in a pentagram. You can hook them up any way you want, but a circle is the easiest. I just put them like this for now. They'll be in another arrangement in my room." As he moved them to the living room, he put them in two small sets of three.

I'd worry. But by the time he gets around to cleaning his room so there's a surface to set them on, he'll have forgotten all about this conversation.