“Nonetheless, Aunt Julia’s father did not believe the business would succeed beyond a season. He built the parlor on the grounds of the Bosworth estate in the family’s Summer Cottage. By the early 1920s, it wasn’t just an affectation, but a Warren staple. People visited Maxfield’s from as close as Arkham and as far away as Washington, D.C. But, Julia’s recipes were unique and diverse. She hired those cousins and other relatives to help run the store, make the ice cream, and after both her parents went to sea, Aunt Julia became the head of the family in truth by the time she was 20. By 1927, Maxfield’s boasted 32 flavors, nearly triple her original dozen. My grandfather would later help Aunt Julia expand that to more than fifty. Though, as one slightly disgruntled Providence author found out, most days Maxfield’s only offered about 20 odd varieties. Some were strictly seasonal, like Pumpkin Dumpling, others were ceremonial and never made it to the official menu, like Mother’s Milk and Dagon’s Dreamsicle.
“In 1927, the summer before my grandfather arrived in Warren, Howard Phillips, the writer of the horrifying supernatural tales that my grandfather so fondly read to me as a child, made his first pilgrimage to Maxfield’s. He was Aunt Julia’s cousin several times removed, although he called her ‘my Aunt Julia’ in an attempt to differentiate between his familial claim and everyone else’s collective claim to familiarity with Warren’s Dame of Ice Cream. Everyone called her Aunt Julia. Phillips was a family name, but Aunt Julia had no surviving siblings. Howard also never went to sea, much to Grandfather’s deep sorrow. Grandfather was happy to meet Howard in later years, though he regretted not being able to serve Howard all of Maxfield’s more exotic flavors—nor could he properly explain why without revealing all of Maxfield’s family secrets. Someone as intelligent and as insightful as Howard Phillips would undoubtedly reveal all in one of those incredible, hair-raising tales he sold to budding, pulp science fiction and horror magazines as just that—fiction, when indeed his tales of shoggoths and Old Ones were more reality than fantasy.
“When Howard first visited Maxfield’s, he had complained to the waiter that only 28 out of the then 32 varieties were available. He and his friends eagerly sampled a massive scoop of each, despite their decrying the missing 4 flavors as a sign that commercial institutions were the downfall of humanity. Aunt Julia’s other 4 flavors were experiments and only fit for family consumption. Howard still enjoyed double-helpings of burnt almond and huckleberry, and schooled several of the younger Maxfield cousins working for Aunt Julia more for simple business experience than for summer wages, on the complex differences between meringues, true ice creams, and simple ices. His friend Morton offered a full history of Italian gelato and anecdotes about iced confections dating back to Ancient Rome. Evidently there was some contest between Howard and his two companions, and before they left, they wrote a letter of thanks that Aunt Julia had framed and hung on the wall above where the trio had been seated.
“I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.
“Backing up, my grandfather, Fern Russell Billop, was second cousin to Aunt Julia but he was her closest living relative in 1928 and would become a brother to her. Like her father, he was a native of Innsmouth, but unlike her father he had, until that time, lived under the thrall of old Obed Marsh. Fern was in his early twenties. Escape hadn’t been a term my grandfather Fern would have used because he enjoyed life in Innsmouth... if enjoy is the right word. Perhaps tolerated would have been nearer the mark since he much preferred life at the Bosworth mansion than in the old stained, smelly rooms in Gilman’s and the laborious work at the refinery.
“Late one day in early February 1928, Aunt Julia’s housemaid found a strange man with a frozen beard and frost blackened face darkening the front door. He had only the clothes on his back and a small parcel clutched between his hands, also splotched with grey frostbite. Aunt Julia had been out walking, bundled in wool and furs, for a quick turn in the garden, admiring the ice-laden trees, taking in the crisp air as she was wont to do just before sunset on especially clear evenings—when she heard the deep croak from above. A chorus of small creatures like small, oblong chameleons mimicking the ice covered boughs, rasped warnings, bidding her return to the house with all swiftness. Without hesitation, as she told my grandfather later, she dropped her white muff as she grabbed her skirts to run down the garden path, toward the house, just as servants were about to send him away as a beggar. Aunt Julia came running up to the porch, holding her skirts high despite the cold and the unladylike impression.
“‘The Pappinjyn don’t lie! Unhand this man; he is my blood and no beggar,’ she shouted as two maids tried pushing my grandfather back down the front steps when he refused to leave. The cry of the Pappinjyn comes as warning for my people. The strange croaking echoed in the trees about the house, mingling with a rising wind. Years later, as my grandfather told me the tale, he would invariably point out how the few hairs left on his arms would raise at the telling. ‘It gives me prickles to think about how they saved me that night,’ he would say and laugh his dry, throaty chuckle.
“As Aunt Julia hastened, the servants dropped their hands and their eyes, backing away from my grandfather and their mistress. Fern Russell Billop had never laid eyes on his cousin Julia before, three years his senior, but never before had any woman been so welcome a site. She was a strong, stocky woman in her late twenties, with deep auburn hair—almost the same shade as his own, and strangely bulging eyes like chips of ice. Her mouth was wide, not voluptuous but almost reptilian. She was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but wasn’t repulsive either. My grandfather had no pictures of Aunt Julia that survived, but he said she was always a ‘striking woman’ and that sprint to the house in the frosty air had set her icy eyes ablaze, caused her massive bosom to heave, and turned her cheeks crimson. She was, as he confessed later, rather terrifying; he had, however, been told to seek her out.
“His family had been scattered by the raids that winter, and the few that remained on dry land were told to seek out shelter in different coves across New England. Before hearing about his siblings’ escape from some government camps some years later, Fern knew of only one other cousin his age who fled before the raids and had been told to seek kin in New York. He knew of a handful of older cousins and an uncle or two who fled far north, to Maine, Prince Edward Island, and even Greenland. Fern was grateful the distance between Innsmouth and Warren was not so great. He had journeyed himself, mostly by night, clear off the roads. His coat had been stolen three days after setting out. He had covered himself with it like a blanket and had been sleeping under a tree in what he had thought was a forgotten corner of an old cemetery, but when he woke, his coat had been taken, along with it his only food—the remnants of a dry sausage, a wedge of hard cheese, and two wrinkled apples. He was very thankful the thieves didn’t take his bundle from where he had it pillowed beneath his head.
“When Aunt Julia laid her hands over his there on the threshold of Bosworth, he gave her the bundle wrapped in grey-green silk, a piece of his mother’s favorite scarf. The small bronze idol wrapped inside was an exact twin of that which Aunt Julia’s father had placed over the mantel in the family’s front parlor, and the armlet of cool, glittering metal was the exact shade of Aunt Julia’s eyes. She claimed her mother had had a necklet of the same style, but that Isadora Maxfield wore it into the sea. Aunt Julia took Grandfather Fern inside, poured him a cup of hot spiced wine, and commanded the servants to make up her father’s room for her cousin since he would be staying with them from now on.
“When Grandfather’s hands had healed, he found himself learning the finicky nature of the massive wood and steel contraption that Aunt Julia relied on to create her wonderful frozen confections. She smiled as she revealed one family secret. Instead of common rock salt, the machine used a special coarse sea salt to keep the ice cream cold. Truth be told, my grandfather never understood how the machine worked, but he told me his arms grew twice as strong by that summer, and the following fall,
Fern Russell Billop became Fern Russell Billop Maxfield when he was officially adopted as Julia’s brother. She had a handful of cousins twice or thrice removed flittering about taking care of the usual day-to-day business of the ice cream parlor, but Fern was the son of her mother’s brother, so he was the closest family she had left on dry land. Years later, after she herself left for the sea, he inherited the business—and the mansion—but by that time he had left for New York, opening his first franchise in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
“Because of the scars on Grandfather’s face and hands from that harsh winter journey from Innsmouth to Warren, Fern frightened the children and made the other customers uncomfortable. After learning the basics of hand-cranking ice cream and with his experience working in another family venture back in Innsmouth—the Marsh Refining Company, owned by Great Grand Uncle Obed, Grandfather Fern was named head of manufacturing. He helped the kitchen run smoothly and helped Aunt Julia stock those specialty ingredients. Soon enough, he was creating some of his own blends. By far, his best concoction—the one Aunt Julia loved the best—he called Salt Water Taffy. At first, that was what it was: a combination of salt air, the essence of summers spent along the seashore, with sweet, chewy, mouth melting bits of actual taffy, hints of berry, hints of marshmallow. Grandfather Fern and Aunt Julia together realized that with the family in disarray after Innsmouth, it was up to them to continue the traditions, to rebuild the family, and to bring them all back to the sea—this innocuous ice cream became the key, so to speak, to our glorious resurrection.”
*********
Silas Billop Maxfield stopped speaking into the recorder long enough to take a sip from the glass at his elbow, swirl the salt water about his mouth, wetting his lips and tongue, and spitting unceremoniously into the brass spittoon between his bulging, misshapen feet. Setting the recorder aside for a moment, at the far end of the little table, he leaned forward to open the casement window immediately in front of the table where he sat. The morning was lingering, but the storm was starting fresh and Silas wanted to feel the air on his face. The overhang of roof above the window would prevent the rain from coming in, but the breeze, bolstered with scents of thunder and sea was the fortification he needed.
Sitting back down, before continuing, he reached into the copper water filled basin in the center of the table, grasped one of the white cloths floating like strange, luminous seaweed, wrung it slightly and wiped his face liberally with the cool, salt water. Taking another cloth, he doused his neck and the back of his arms with the brine. He stuck both hands past his wrists into the basin, flexing his fingers. The flesh between each finger was less distinct, more conjoined, and significantly grayer. His thumb, pinky, and ring fingers were as long as the other two, giving his hands a strange, long, almost claw-like appearance. Not long now. Silas took another mouthful from the glass, this time swallowing deeply. He belched through the red slits on the sides of his neck.
Silas had dispensed with his scarf when he woke up that morning. He wasn’t going back to work now; it was too near. The moon would be full tomorrow anyhow, so even though it was early, it was a good time.
Portentous.
The scarf he had worn every day this summer season was that same grey-green and he fancied it was the same scarf Grandfather Fern’s own mother wore to hide her own gill slits, the very scarf Grandfather used to smuggle the idol and armlet from Innsmouth to Warren all those years ago. Silas also thought it made him look like an obese version of Edgar Allen Poe, minus the mustachios. Silas coughed another wet wracking cough, picked up the recorder after drying off his hands, pressed record, and continued.
*********
“Aunt Julia, as she was known by the scores of children, carried on the Maxfield family tradition of entertaining guests at the lavish ice cream parties she threw both in the shop itself and in her home. Grandfather Fern’s new recipes were the stars of these parties, all with names replete with summer and the shore—Salt Water Taffy, Crab Cakes (with little chocolate covered cherry ‘crabs’), Stormy Seas (swirls of blueberry, cherry and chocolate in vanilla ice cream darkly colored with squid ink), and Sandy Beach (crumbled gingersnaps and butter toffee in a creamy ginger ice cream)—which served as a forum for experimentation with new creations… and the after effects. One such party, about 2 years after Fern began heading up manufacturing for Maxfield’s, was a complete disaster. Aunt Julia was grateful it was easily forgotten since the children invited were from a small work farm just outside Providence. The children were wards of the state, had been sickly, and the work program at the farm was afterwards bolstered with donations from our family. The Great Depression was in full swing and with all the turmoil of the times, no one missed six poorly children. In truth, the six children hadn’t taken well to Golden Kraken, one of Aunt Julia’s creations, seasoned with Grandfather Fern’s furtive ingredients, and the change was so terrible, so quick, it was painful to observe—and to listen to.
“Needless to say that Golden Kraken never made it to Maxfield’s taste selections when Howard Phillips returned again the following summer. It was one of the last times Grandfather would see the author. Despite Howard himself seeming a bit under the weather—he ate only 15 different varieties of the 22 flavors they had available the day he made his pilgrimage—he still had stories about gelato and French versus Italian ice creams to share with the young Maxfield cousins working the counter and soda fountain.
“With business so prosperous, despite the times in the country, Grandfather decided the people of Rhode Island could use a little happiness in the form of ice cream. Early in 1931, Grandfather Fern asked Aunt Julia if he could expand the business, taking to the streets in push carts, and even a new-fangled vending tricycle. Aunt Julia, ever the business woman, was not opposed. For several summers Grandfather conducted a profitable ice cream vending operation around Warren, which spread south to Tiverton and north to Providence. By 1934, they had some of the first motorized ice cream trucks in the state, which served from Narragansett to Arkham. Before long, the business was considered the New England version of New York’s Good Humor—soon to be a direct rival when Grandfather decided to expand into New York City once Maxfield’s conquered Connecticut.
“The idea about expanding to the Big Apple came from Howard Philips himself during his last visit to Maxfield’s in the summer of 1936. Howard detested the city—it was dirty, noisy, and full of half-breeds that reminded him of a strange cross between fish and frogs. Yet Howard was a firm believer that ice cream could, and had, changed the world. It made people happier, more civilized, and something as complex as Maxfield’s could even tame the savages that roamed New York’s outer boroughs. The existing competition, Good Humor and Mr. Softee, were pale—to use Howard’s words—‘eldritch excuses for iced confections.’ He believed it was up to New England ingenuity to brighten New York’s taste buds.
“Aunt Julia agreed. New York was one of the country’s, and the world’s leading harbors. If they managed to engage, expand, and encompass the Big Apple—then the world was literally their oyster, and it would soon sprout fins. At that point, Grandfather had reunited with several of his siblings whom had fled government internment in the camps that followed the disaster at Innsmouth. New England was the last place they wished to be, so Aunt Julia sent them all to research what areas Maxfield’s could call home in order to service all five boroughs of New York City. At first, Redhook, Brooklyn seemed like a good location, but as Grandfather would soon learn, Staten Island was the better, less contaminated area. They stayed in Redhook a scant handful of weeks while setting up a small operation on the corner of Clinton Street, which would supply what would become a fleet of pushcarts that stretched from Henry Street down to 25th Street and clear across the cemetery to 4th Avenue. Thanks to that cousin who fled Innsmouth, Grandfather Fern was able to leave the Brooklyn operation in capable hands while Grandfather sought out distant relations already living in Staten Island, and sought to tap an unexplored wilder land in the bustling city
.
“It’s evident today, with the sheer, salivating, lingering, almost lascivious expectation that Staten Islanders have for our trucks—painted in the style from the walls of Maxfield’s first shop back in Warren, Rhode Island: white swirling with greys, greens, and frothy blues, a style that Howard Phillips once remarked was uncannily like a Tudor monstrosity in his native Providence that gave him ‘vivid, octopoid nightmares.’ The effect was purposeful. No doubt an homage to the author, along with the bits of fish net, floaters and sinkers hanging from the counter, and the distinct bell.
“Unlike the tinkling chimes, or modern ditties played over electronic speakers, from Mr. Softee or the Good Humor truck, Maxfield’s harkened to the sea. At first, in the days of Grandfather Fern, before electronic speakers, it was a simple brass ship’s bell that the ice cream vendors rang as the drivers slowly rode the neighborhoods. But, after Grandfather spent some time listening to the particular almost melodious tumult of the bells from buoys in the bay during one particular storm in 1938, the ship bells were replaced. Today, Prince’s Bay, Tottenville, and many other Staten Island neighborhoods readily expect our grey-green and white trucks every year with their idiosyncratic bells. Maxfield’s bells sound as though you are standing on the beach while hearing the buoys clang as they roll along each oncoming wave.
“The winter before the U.S. entered the second war to end all wars, Grandfather Fern purchased one of Staten Island’s last grand houses, the Seguine mansion, sold to him by a local realtor, Cornelius Kolff. Jolly was the first word Grandfather used when describing the avid local historian, Mr. Kolff and the hours they would spend on the back porch of the mansion, looking down to Prince’s Bay at the end of the broad avenue—named for the Seguine family—planted with what Mr. Kolff promised would grow into stately London Plane and Sycamore trees, but really looked to Grandfather like stunted, sickly shrubs. The two men would exchange stories, Mr. Kolff being particularly fond of gathering and sharing local histories amidst gathering and selling local properties. Mr. Kolff, while sipping sherbet drinks during the hot August nights or mulled wine during the cool November afternoons, would try prying Maxfield stories from Grandfather, who always demurred. Grandfather Fern certainly could not tell the kindly Mr. Kolff with his forked white beard and his soft Dutch voice about our connections to Staten Island’s famous Captain Billop or suffer any connection between the name Maxfield and Innsmouth.
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