Chapter Eleven, "Thome 25"...sections 12 & 13 of that chapter, pages 308-310 in my USA hardback for anyone trying to locate the scene. When I read the opener the first thing I thought about was something from earlier this year for me...working on "the 2nd oldest house in Dollar Bay"...old as in I dunno maybe late 1800s, 1880 1890 thereabouts...the construction a curious thing, not logs, but close. We were tearing off some clapboard since it had layers of chipped paint and trying to salvage it would have been too costly. Anyway, once the clapboard was removed we find this chunk of leather on the wall, a long strip maybe two feet or better, maybe 4" wide...had to have been there for decades, dry, yes, behind the wall, a kind of Tyvek from pioneer days. Still somewhat intact and I imagined one of those Indian quivers I had as a kid....remember those? Little bow & arrow set so you could play cowboys and Indians?
The glove was lovingly oiled. Remember doing that? I do. So I imagine the oil helped preserve the glove although if the piece of leather we found in the wall of that house in Dollar Bay is any indication, two years isn't much. There's also this vision of old boots that keep bobbing to the surface of my memory old leather clodhoppers but I can't place them in time.