"Happy the maid who circling years improve
Her God the object of her warmest love
Whose cheerful hours in pleasant moments
The book the needle and the pen divide."

— Stitched, with three alphabets, in 1794 by Lucy Davis, age thirteen, in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

"This is an adventure?" I grumbled, still half asleep, as I maneuvered my sweatered-parkaed-and-booted self into the passenger seat of the faded red van Sarah Byrne used for her antiques business. "The sun isn't even up. I couldn't read the thermometer outside my kitchen window clearly because it was covered with snow, but the temperature is somewhere near zero."

Sarah laughed. "Good morning, Angie! Aren't you the born Mainer who likes to take early morning walks?"

"Not in the dark. Not in a deep freeze. So ... not in February." I managed to fasten my seatbelt after lengthening it to fit over all my cold weather attire. "And definitely not without coffee." I'd managed to get myself out from under my quilts and feed Trixi, my six-month-old black kitten, but I hadn't had time to make coffee. "When I lived in Arizona I missed Maine winters and hated the heat. I'd forgotten about frozen noses and toes." I looked out at the dark world. "Although once the sun comes up all that snow and sparkling ice will be beautiful."

"'It sifts from Leaden Sieves — / It powders all the Wood. / It fills with Alabaster Wool / The Wrinkles of the Road —'" said Sarah.

"Emily Dickinson quotation, right?" I wasn't even wide-awake yet, and Sarah was already spouting lines from her favorite poet.

"Emily always has something relevant to say," she said, smiling at me. "Don't worry. Coffee is doable. We'll stop at the Dunkin' Donuts up on Route 1. You'll have plenty of time to wake up before we get to Augusta."

"The auction doesn't start until nine o'clock," I complained. "Why did we have to leave at five-thirty?"

"The preview opens at seven, and it takes more than ninety minutes to get to Augusta," she reminded me. "You and Patrick went to Portland yesterday to check out art galleries, so we couldn't go to the preview then. We have to get to the auction house in time to register and claim seats and check out the lots being auctioned. Sales are always `as is, where is.' Auctioneers sometimes miss details, and no auctioneer knows about all antiques. You can't totally depend on his or her word for anything during the sale."

"No returns?"

"Definitely not," said Sarah. "That's why we have to decide ahead of time what we want to bid on, and how much we're willing to spend on each item. It's easy to get carried away and spend too much if you haven't planned ahead."

"And you do this once or twice a week." I shook my head incredulously, hoping the motion would help keep my eyes open.

"This time of year I pick up inventory for next summer. Summer's when antique collectors and people furnishing their homes in `authentic' period styles invade Maine with full wallets and open credit cards. I only open my shop `by appointment or chance' in January and February."

I hadn't known anything about antiques (other than those I'd grown up with in my early nineteenth-century home) until I'd met Sarah. Some of her antiques were fascinating, and some strange. But she made a living from her shop, From Here and There, so she knew what she was doing. Months ago I'd said it might be fun to attend an auction; auctions were a Maine experience I'd missed.

This was the first one she'd thought I might be interested in. Several pieces of antique needlework were being sold, and, after all, the business I managed, Mainely Needlepoint, was all about needlework. Most of the time we did new custom work, but we also identified and restored older pieces.

"Did you and Patrick have fun in Portland yesterday?"

The heater in the van was beginning to make a difference. My nose was no longer frozen, and I pulled off my gloves. "We had a good day. Patrick's been on a painting binge for the past month. He still has trouble holding a brush because of his burn scars, but his occupational therapist says painting will improve his flexibility. Between his painting and opening his gallery on weekends, I haven't seen him much recently. I've been organizing the accounts for Mainely Needlepoint and contacting decorators we haven't worked with to try to add some commissioned projects. So when Patrick suggested I go with him to Portland to check out other galleries, I agreed. He's looking for galleries that might feature his art, and, at the same time, collecting names of artists to add to his gallery here in Haven Harbor." I was getting a crash course in art. Dating an artist and gallerist could do that.

"I'll bet you had a good lunch, too. Portland has great restaurants."

I nodded. "But not a long lunch. A lot of galleries are in Portland." My feet had hurt after walking all day in my L.L. Bean boots. They kept out snow and slush, but, despite my heaviest wool socks, they weren't comfortable for long city walks.

"Did Patrick find any artists whose work he liked?"

"A couple he's going to contact. And Clem — you remember Clem Walker?"

"That television reporter you went to high school with?" Sarah crinkled her nose. "Couldn't forget her. She was here at Christmas, along with her crew, filming people like Skye, who wanted a quiet holiday without publicity."

Patrick's mother, Skye West, was a well-known actress, and Clem and her camera crew had been pesky around the holidays. "She was, I'll admit. But she's an old friend, and she's helped me out a couple of times in the past year. Sometimes a reporter has to be a pest to get a story. Anyway, she called me a few times in January. She's dating Steve Jeffries, a sculptor from Biddeford, and she wanted Patrick to see his latest exhibit. She's hoping Patrick will take a couple of Steve's constructions for his gallery. Yesterday we saw some of his work."

"How was it?"

"Large. Interesting. Movable metal sculptures someone with a lot of money might install in his or her garden or in front of their business. Abstract, of course. Some were wind-sensitive, like giant pinwheels."

"Sounds big for Patrick's gallery."

"True. But he was intrigued by a couple of Steve's smaller pieces. In any case, art was yesterday. Today is antiques. I'll be excited as soon as I wake up."

Sarah pulled between mounds of plowed snow into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot and joined the cars in the takeout line. "One large hot chocolate with whipped cream," she ordered, and then looked at me.

"My usual."

Sarah knew me well. "And one large coffee, black. Plus a small box of assorted donut holes." She winked at me. "Sugar for energy, right?"

A few minutes later we were back on our way, sipping and munching.

"We'll make good time," said Sarah. "I was afraid the roads would be icy, but so far they've been sanded."

Route 1 was clear of snow, although in the early morning darkness it was like driving through a white-walled tunnel.

The coast of Maine gets little snow most years, considerably less than western or northern Maine, or the White Mountains in New Hampshire. But this year had been different. We hadn't seen grass since Thanksgiving.

"Road crews are out twenty-four hours a day when they're needed."

"You're right," said Sarah. "I haven't missed one auction this winter, or had one canceled. Everyone with a truck seems to have a plow...