Once they were in their own place, Ida made the decision to stay home with the new baby. She and Tom worked at stripping wallpaper. They painted ceilings, patched holes, levelled floors—always some project on the go. Tom resigned from the bookstore and opened his own shop, buying and selling used furniture, pressed glass, Depression glass, uniquely designed tables, bridge lamps and, once in a while, rare books. Ida had an eye for antique jewellery. She suggested the name Rigmarole for the shop because it reminded her of a rag-and-bone man who used to come door to door during her childhood to collect used clothing, cast iron, bits and pieces, odds and ends.

Tom was able to earn enough from the business to support the family. Ida missed her full-time job, and she and the baby began to accompany him to estate auctions. Some days, Ida looked after the shop while Will slept in his carriage in a quiet corner. On those days, Tom drove up and down country roads, exploring barns and attics. He’d been advised by a lifelong collector, one of the town’s old-timers, that when he was out scouring the countryside, he should keep a lookout for potted geraniums on windowsills. When you see a geranium, knock on the door. Sure enough, whenever Tom approached farmhouses with geraniums on sills, he came away with bevelled mirrors, pressback chairs, vintage rockers and occasionally a piano stool with ornately carved legs or an organ that had been stowed in a back shed for generations.

Prior to their marriage, Ida, always frugal, became determined to sew her own wedding dress. She was discreet about asking Tom what he planned to wear, and he told her not to worry, everything was in hand. The truth was, he had no plan. Two weeks before the ceremony, he walked into Wilna Creek’s only thrift store—run by the Salvation Army—a place where he’d earlier come upon a pair of brass lamps. He searched through rows of clothing racks and discovered a smart pair of tuxedo trousers, stripe down the side. He draped these over one arm and made his way to the opposite side of the men’s section, where he found a tuxedo shirt and, after that, braces hanging from a hook against the back wall. He found a jacket to match the trousers—differences not detectable. His entire wedding suit cost twenty-two dollars and seventy-five cents. The volunteers discovered a suitable tie in a sagging cardboard box filled to the top with castoffs, and they threw it in for free. They rounded off the total to twenty dollars because they’d entered the mood—and the search—when Tom explained that the clothes were for his wedding day. Everyone in the store was jovial that day, especially Tom, who was always exhilarated by a bargain and a find.

He did not breathe a word of any of this to Ida. The day of the ceremony, she was so impressed with his appearance, she believed that for her sake he’d been saving secretly for months. He didn’t reveal the origins of his pieced-together outfit, but whenever he thought of it, he had to grin. He knew how snazzy he had looked. Absolutely snazzy. Photographs confirmed this. Ida never did find out.