Suddenly, the drum “speaks” to Faye, resonating with a single, deep note which only she hears. Neither Faye nor Sarah Tatro notices the drum, at first-three feet in diameter, hollowed out from a single piece of cedar wood and covered by a moose hide. Sarah Tatro, the niece, is not much interested in “old beadwork and stuff,” and she has almost forgotten the old storage room in the attic, but when she opens it, Faye finds a room packed with suitcases containing beadwork, baskets, moccasins and other handwork, a cradleboard, and a beaded footstool-a collection of enormous value. Faye, of Indian heritage herself, is hoping to find some Indian artifacts that can be sold or donated to a museum on behalf of the estate. When Faye T ravers, an estate agent in New Hampshire, inventories the home of John Jewett Tatro at the behest of his niece and heirs, she is aware that Tatro’s grandfather was once an Indian agent on an Ojibwe reservation and that his grandmother was Indian. I hear it, I know I hear it, and yet Sarah Tatro does not.” And yet, when I step near the drum, I swear it sounds. “Some people believe objects absorb something of their owner’s essence.
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