Herbert Heal carefully fitted a straight pine log between the pins of his lathe. The wood looked pale where he’d scraped off the bark. “Sit way over there, Bessie,” he instructed his daughter. “I’m going to start it up now.” He went over to the gasoline engine and turned the handle on the big iron flywheel until, amid coughing and sputtering, it started up. Bessie jumped like she always did, putting her hands over her ears, but she didn’t budge from her spot.

         The flywheel turned an overhead driveshaft, a long pole that went the length of the shop. Attached to this driveshaft were a number of belts and pulleys that went to various pieces of machinery. Her father pushed a lever, and the belt to the lathe, which had been hanging slack, was engaged by the whirling driveshaft and went taut. Now the pine log on the lathe bed began to spin so fast it was a blur.

         Herbert pressed a tool to the whirling wood adding a screeching sound to the rumble of the engine. Wood chips flew out behind the tool in an arcing spray, landing all over the floor behind him. Bessie was tempted to sneak out and grab a handful of the fresh-smelling shavings, but didn’t dare. She’d been thoroughly warned along with her brothers to stay away from the belts and machines in her father’s woodworking shop when they were running.

         Actually, ten-year-old Bessie was starting to learn how to oil the pulleys that were part of the system of belts and wheels that powered all the tools. Her father showed her where to squirt the oil from the can, and which belts went to which tool. He’d made the saw table that he used, and besides the lathe, there was a planer and a molding machine. This last was quite interesting for just by changing the blades in the machine her father could make a wide variety of moldings. He made windows using that machine; his cousin Maynard Heal, who worked with him, glazed them. Whenever the wood shavings built up, Bessie and her brothers collected them in burlap grain sacks for Raymond Libby, who raised poultry. He used the shavings for his chickens, and paid the children a penny a bag for them.

         Herbert got his boards from one of two mills in the Centre [original spelling]. One belonged to his Uncle Dave Heal and was located just down the road from their house, across from the old cemetery [Center Lincolnville Burying Ground]. The other mill was his brother, Russell Heal’s, and it was in the Centre right across from the schoolhouse [today’s Lincolnville Library, moved across the road in 2012], and overlooked Norton’s Pond. Herbert, along with Maynard, built houses and garages and did remodeling jobs. Her father had even built the house [the house is still standing at 120 Heal Road] that Bessie and her brothers Vernon, Roland, Kendon and her sister Selma lived in [the sixth Heal child, Muriel, wasn’t born until 1929]. He’d built it for their mother, Fannie Eugley, just before they married.

         Just now, though, Herbert was building a very different kind of house. It was just big enough to fit over the pump on the town well in the middle of Lincolnville Centre. Bessie had watched it take shape in his shop over the past weeks, as he worked on it when he had time from his other jobs. The little well house was a hexagon, and Herbert had to figure all the angles for the roof and the walls. The piece of pine he was turning on the lathe would be the finial, or top piece on the shingled roof. The crowning touch would be the flower boxes, which were waiting for their final coat of paint before being attached to the sides.

         The idea for the well house came from a wealthy summer lady, Mrs. Belle Keeneth. Originally from Lincolnville, she’d married a man from the city and came home every summer in her chauffeur-driven Pierce Arrow car to the house she owned in the Centre. She loved her hometown, but felt it could use a little “sprucing up.”

         So one day last year she’d come to talk with Herbert about some ideas she had to tidy up the Centre. Bessie and her brothers had been pests while she was talking with their father, sliding down the banister and landing with bumps, loud enough to call attention to themselves. Now, from the vantage point of ten years old, Bessie was a little embarrassed remembering that day, but then they didn’t often have visitors like Mrs. Keeneth.

         The first project they decided on was to cover the roof beams in the old church with a new tin ceiling. Herbert installed long boards on the balcony rails so his ladder could reach the ceiling. And now this summer, Mrs. Keeneth’s project was the well house.

         Her father went over and shut off the engine now, and the workshop was blessedly silent. Drifts of newly-shaved wood lay about his feet as he unscrewed the finished finial from the lathe. He held it up for them both to admire. Mrs. Keeneth had said she intended to plant petunias in the flower boxes, and then she would call it Petunia Pump. Bessie looked from the finial in her father’s hands, then over at the almost-finished structure and thought that would be a pretty good name.

 You can still see examples of Herbert Heal’s carpentry around the Center. Bessie pointed them out to me when I was writing about Petunia Pump. In addition to his family home at 120 Heal Road, where today his grandson and family live, he built at least two other gambrel-roofed structures. The house at 221 Main (which I think was added on to a much older structure to the side), as well as his brother, Russell Heal’s house on the corner of the Wentworth Road and Main. I wonder about 1036 Beach Road, another gambrel roof; as it abuts Herbert’s parents’ land, I suspect he built that too. If anyone knows, let me know.

Petunia Pump became the Center’s iconic image. Postcards were printed, drawings appeared, and over the years, long after the pump and well were abandoned, petunias have continued to appear in the wooden boxes just in time for Memorial Day. Various neighbors – Sally Laite and Joan Richardson in recent years – put in the plants and keep them pruned and watered throughout the summer. They looked particularly lush this year. The plants themselves are generally donated; some years the Lincolnville Women’s Club has bought them.

         Sometime in the 1980s, Herbert Heal’s structure was replaced by the Boy Scouts of Troop 244, under Scoutmaster Andy Hazen’s direction. I had a son in that troop, and if I’m remembering correctly, Andy built it, and the boys might have done a bit of the shingling. Now, some 25 years later, the roof needs replacing. Town Administrator Dave Kinney has no idea who owns it; as far as he knows, it’s not the town; a bit of a mystery, he says.

The first of this season’s Presentations and Concerts at the Library will be this Wednesday, September 16, at 7 p.m. Lincolnville novelist Richard Grant will be the speaker. Probably most in town know Richard as the leader of the annual carol singing at the Beach Tree Lighting, but may not know he’s written ten novels, is a contributing editor of Down East magazine, and a winner of the New England Press Award.

The musical half of the program will be provided by Meteora, including Kat Logan and Jim Loney from Friendship, and Lincolnville’s Will Brown. “Meteora leaves no musical stone unturned, performing an eclectic array of original songs and folk ballads, as well as traditional songs and original arrangements. Tight three part harmony is their signature.”

Around the dinner table at a friend’s house the other night the subject was birds. We talked about owls, being kept awake by owls (this followed with imitations all around of the various calls), about the owl that attacked my parrot last winter through the window, about the pair of owls, drinking in Frohock Brook, that hissed at Wally one time. We talked about ravens, leaving meat scraps for them on a plate in the garden, and how they’ll call to you whenever you step out the door. Partridges, woodcocks, they all got their turn. Then Wally told about his daily catch of Japanese beetles, and how our rooster, Chico Garcia, calls in his girls, then steps back while they bend over to gobble them up. “What a gentleman! How sensitive!” said the three women. “He’s just checking them out,” suggested the two men. One woman told an hilarious story about a parrot and her young son – you had to be there. We didn’t talk about Donald Trump or about Hillary or Bernie (well, maybe a little about Bernie) or even about the terrible refugee crisis. We stuck to birds, and that was enough.