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The Chandlery on Lantern Row · Bedtime Sleep Stories For Grownups

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. Come in, make yourself comfortable and let
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the day wait a little. Pull up your blanket, sink
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: into your pillow and breathe out all the way to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: your toes. I am your narrator and I am glad
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: you are here. No matter what the morning brought or
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: what the afternoon may hold, this moment is only for resting.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: You have done enough for now. You can simply be.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Be.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who gathers here for these stories,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the regulars and the newcomers alike. Thank you to those
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: who listen every single night and know Sleepy Town better
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: than some of its own residents. If you are new tonight, welcome.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: There is no wrong way to listen. Drifting off is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: not rude here. It is the highest compliment a story
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: can receive. Treat this tale as a soft blanket of sound.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Let it lie lightly over you while your thoughts settle.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: If you sleep before the ending, the ending will keep.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Stories are good at waiting. Breathy stories are helping your
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: nights feel easier. You might subscribe so each new one
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: arrives without any fuss. And if someone you love tosses
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and turns, consider passing a story their way. The way
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: you would lend a favorite book. Thank you for that.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Now let us rest. Take a slow breath in, filling
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: your chest like a sail filling with a kind breeze.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Let it out slowly, feeling your shoulders drop away from
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: your ears. One more time. Breathe in. Smooth and easy.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Breathe out. Soft and long. Good. The story for tonight
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: is called The Chandler on Lantern Row If these bedtime
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: stories ease your nights, you can support them through the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Supporter Club and your podcast app or on Patreon, where
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: every episode arrives early alongside exclusive tales from all our shows.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: You will find the links in the show notes. Now
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: settle deeper and let the tallow warm and the wicks
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: wait patiently for their wax. On Lantern Row, which is
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the oldest street in Sleepy Town, with cobbles worn smooth
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: by four hundred years of feet, there stands a chandlery
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: with eleven windows. Eleven windows is a great many for
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: one shop. The Chandler will tell you, if you ask,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: and if he is in the mood, which is most afternoons,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that each window was added by a different generation, and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: that the shop has been making candles on this spot
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: since before the church had a roof. The Chandler is
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a man named Silas Wick. Yes, that is really his name.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Wick the Chandler. He was born to it the way
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: ducks are born to water. He is 60 years old,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: with hands stained faintly yellow by a lifetime of wax,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and eyebrows like snowy caterpillars, and a habit of humming
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: while he works. Always the same tune, which no one
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: recognizes and everyone finds comforting. The shop smells wonderful. It
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: smells of beeswax and bayberry. and clean linen wicks, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the particular dusty sweetness of a place where fire is
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: made gently, a wick at a time. The front room
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: holds the finished candles, rocked on shelves from floor to ceiling,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: tapers as thin as pencils. Pillars as thick as your wrist,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: coiled beeswax rolls like golden rope, fig-shaped novelties for the children,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and in the window, eleven of them, each with its
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: own display, changed with the seasons. For behind the front
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: room lies the workroom and behind the workroom lies the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: dipping room and behind the dipping room lies a small
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: walled yard where the tallow renders in great copper pots
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and the whole neighborhood knows by the smell on the wind,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: whether Silas is working with beeswax or bayberry or the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: plain honest tallow that has lit sleepy town's cottages for centuries.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Silas lives above the shop, as janlers have always done.
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  Speaker 1: In rooms that smell faintly of wax no matter how
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: often they are aired. He takes his breakfast at the workbench.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: He reads his newspaper with a candle burning beside him
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  Speaker 1: even at noon.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Because a chalor who doth not burn his own candles
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  Speaker 2: is like a baker who doth not eat his own bread.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Which is to say, unthinkable. He employs one.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: One apprentice, just one. He has employed exactly one apprentice
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: at a time for forty years, training them up and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: sending them out into the world to make candles elsewhere,
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  Speaker 1: the way a candle lights other candles without being diminished itself.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Silas likes this comparison. He uses it at every apprentice's
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: farewell supper. It never gets old. Neither, somehow, does Silas.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: The current apprentice is a young woman named Nell Parry,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: 19 years old, quick-fingered and quiet-voiced, with a memory for
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  Speaker 1: recipes that astonishes Silas daily. She can recite the dipping
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  Speaker 1: counts for 40 kinds of candle without pausing. She knows
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  Speaker 1: by smell alone whether the wax is two degrees too hot.
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  Speaker 1: She has been apprenticed for eleven months, and Silas has
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: already begun, privately, to dread the day her apprenticeship ends,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: although he would rather dip his own hand in the
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  Speaker 1: vat than say so aloud. This is the chandlery on
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Lantern Row. Eleven windows. One chandler. One apprentice. Four hundred
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  Speaker 1: years of steady flame. Settle in among the shelves now.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: The story is just beginning, and like all good Shednery stories,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: it proceeds at the pace of dripping wax, which is
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to say, exactly as fast as it needs to. Our
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: story begins on a Tuesday morning in late October, when
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the tallow would not melt. Nell arrived at half past six,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: as always, let herself in with her own key, a
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: privilege granted after six months, and lit the fires under
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the rendering pot as always. By seven, the pots should
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: have been bubbling gently. By half past seven, they were
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: barely warm. Nell checked the fires. The fires were fine,
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  Speaker 1: crackling merrily, throwing good heat. She checked the pots. the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: pots were clean. She checked the tallow itself fresh delivered
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the day before from the farm up on Barley Hill
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and it sat in the pots in pale solid blocks
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  Speaker 1: unmoved unimpressed entirely unmelted like a cat that has decided
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  Speaker 1: not to get off a chair. She tried stirring. She
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: tried breaking the block smaller. She tried adding a ladle
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of yesterday's melted tallow to encourage it. The way you
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: might introduce a shy guest to a friendly one. Nothing worked.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: The tallow sat. The fires burned. The clock ticked toward eight,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: when Silas would come downstairs expecting the day's work to
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: be underway, and Nell stood before the pots with her
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  Speaker 1: hands on her hips, for all the world like ate
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  Speaker 1: a lark before a stubborn vat of blue wax across town.
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  Speaker 1: At eight, precisely. Silas descended, took one look at the pots,
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  Speaker 1: one look at Nell, and one long, considered sniff of
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the air. Then he did something that surprised Nell so
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  Speaker 1: much she forgot to be anxious.
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  Speaker 3: He laughed.
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  Speaker 1: He laughed.
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  Speaker 3: Great, warm, rolling laugh shook his snowy eyebrows and startled
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  Speaker 3: the pigeons on the yard wall.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: October tallow, he explained. wiping his eyes, is always stubborn.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: The autumn fat sets harder. Every Chandler knows this. The
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: remedy is patience and a spoonful of last year's rendered
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  Speaker 1: dripping to start the melt, a trick his own master
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  Speaker 1: taught him forty years ago. a trick he had been
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  Speaker 1: saving to teach Nell on exactly such a morning. He
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: keeps a crock of starter dripping at the back of
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the coal pantry for this purpose. It is labeled in
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  Speaker 1: faded ink, patience, which Nell thinks is the best label
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  Speaker 1: she has ever seen on anything. The spoonful went in.
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  Speaker 1: The callow began to melt within the hour. By noon,
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  Speaker 1: the pots were bubbling gently. The workroom smelled of honest work,
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  Speaker 1: and Nell had learned something no recipe book contains, that
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  Speaker 1: materials have moods, that October fat is stubborn. and that
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  Speaker 1: every difficulty in a chandery has been met before, solved before,
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  Speaker 1: and labeled in faded ink by someone kind who came
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  Speaker 1: before you. That evening, Nell wrote the lesson in her
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  Speaker 1: own book, the apprentice journal every Chandlerne keeps. She wrote
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  Speaker 1: it carefully, in her best hand. October tallow sets hard.
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  Speaker 1: Start with a spoonful of patience. She underlined patience twice.
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  Speaker 1: Then she closed the book. banked the fires, and walked
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  Speaker 1: home through the lamplit streets, feeling, as apprentices do on
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  Speaker 1: good days, that she is exactly where she belongs in
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  Speaker 1: the world, doing exactly what she was made to do,
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  Speaker 1: rest with Nell now in that belonging, warm potts, good smells,
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  Speaker 1: the quiet pride of a difficulty met and mastered. There
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  Speaker 1: will be harder days. There will be trickier waxes. But today,
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  Speaker 1: the tallow melted. And that is enough. That is more
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  Speaker 1: than enough. That is everything. Every evening at dusk, Silas
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  Speaker 1: lights a candle in each of the eleven windows. This
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  Speaker 1: is not for customers. The shop is closed by then.
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  Speaker 1: It is for the street. Lantern Row at dusk in
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  Speaker 1: late October is a sight that painters have tried to
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  Speaker 1: capture for centuries. Eleven windows glowing gold along the old coppoles.
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  Speaker 1: and Silas maintains it the way other men maintain gardens,
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  Speaker 1: with daily attention and deep proprietary pride. Each window has
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  Speaker 1: its own candle chosen for the season. In October they
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  Speaker 1: are bayberry, greenish gold, smelling faintly of pine woods when
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  Speaker 1: they burn. Silas lights them in order front to back
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  Speaker 1: oldest window first because the generations must be honored in
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  Speaker 1: sequence it takes him 11 minutes he has never timed
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: it now Timed it once, secretly, and did not tell
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  Speaker 1: him because some measurements diminish their subject. Tonight, as Silas
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  Speaker 1: moves from window to window with his taper, Nell follows
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  Speaker 1: with the brass snuffer and the trimming scissors, learning the
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  Speaker 1: ritual the way she learns everything, by watching first and
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  Speaker 1: doing later. At the fourth window, Silas pauses. The glass
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  Speaker 1: is old here, rippled and bubbled, original to the building.
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  Speaker 1: and through it the street outside bends and wavers like
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: something seen underwater. Look, says Silas quietly, and Nell looks.
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  Speaker 1: Through the rippled pane, the lamplighter is making his rounds
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  Speaker 1: on the far side of the street, ladder over his shoulder.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And the flame of each lamp he lights doubles and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: trebles in the old glass, so that for a moment
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  Speaker 1: the whole street seems hung with stars. They stand together
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  Speaker 1: in silence until the lamplighter turns the corner. Then Silas
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  Speaker 1: lights the fourth candle, and they move on. at the
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  Speaker 1: seventh window, there is a spider's web in the upper corner.
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  Speaker 1: Jeweled with condensation, perfect and complete, Silas will not disturb it.
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  Speaker 1: He lights the seventh candle with extra care, holding the
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  Speaker 1: taper well clear. The spider, a small brown creature with long,
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  Speaker 1: patient legs, does not move. She has lived in the
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  Speaker 1: seventh window for three years. Silas considers her a member
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  Speaker 1: of staff. She is not paid. But then, again, neither
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: is the shop cat, a one-eared veteran named Major, who
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: sleeps through the entire ritual on the counter without opening
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  Speaker 1: an eye. At the eleventh window, the newest, added by
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  Speaker 1: Silas's own father, the candle is a special one. It
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is the first candle Nell ever dipped unaided eleven months ago,
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  Speaker 1: lumpy and uneven, with a wick that leans to the left.
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  Speaker 1: Silas burns it every evening, one hour at a time,
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  Speaker 1: and it will last the winter. Nell pretends this does
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  Speaker 1: not move her. It moves her enormously. She trims its
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: leaning wick with particular tenderness. When all eleven are lit,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Silas and Nell step outside onto the cobbles and look
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: back at the shop as they do every evening. Eleven
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  Speaker 1: windows glowing gold. The sign creaking gently overhead. The smell
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: of bayberry drifting down the street. Passers-by, slow as they pass.
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  Speaker 1: Some nod, some smile. A child tugs its mother's sleeve
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  Speaker 1: and points. This is the chandlery's gift to Lantern Row.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: given freely every night, asking nothing in return except to
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: be seen. They stand there until the church clock strikes six.
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  Speaker 1: Then Silas locks the door, pockets the great iron key,
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  Speaker 1: and they walk their separate ways home through the kind dark.
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  Speaker 1: He to his rooms above the shop. She to her
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  Speaker 1: mother's cottage by the mill. Both of them held all
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the way in the afterglow of eleven small flames. Stand
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: with them a moment on the cobbles, gold windows, cool air.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: The day's work done well. Then follow them home, slowly,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: into the evening, into the quiet, into rest. On Wednesday morning,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: an order arrives that stops the channeler in its tracks.
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  Speaker 1: It comes by post, in a cream envelope with a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: London postmark, written in a hand so elegant it looks printed.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: A hotel, a grand one. They require 2,000 dinner candles, ivory,
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  Speaker 1: 11 inches. with a monogrammed band, Delivery Before Christmas. 2000,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the largest single order in the shop's 400-year history. Nell
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  Speaker 1: reads the letter three times. Silas reads it once, slowly,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: holding it at arm's length. his snowy eyebrows climbing steadily
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: toward his hairline. Then... he folds it with great care,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: places it on the workbench, weights it with a brass candlestick,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and sits down on his stool without speaking. Two thousand
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: candles the chandri makes in a good week, perhaps three hundred.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: The hotel wants 2,000 in eight weeks. The arithmetic is
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: simple and impossible, even working every daylight hour. Even with
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Nell dipping alongside him from dawn to dusk, even with
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the great vat going from Monday to Saturday, they cannot
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: make 2,000 monogrammed dinner candles by Christmas. Not the two
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: of them. Not alone. Silas sits for a long time.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Nell waits.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Because she has learned that Silas's silences are where the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: answers grow. Major the cat wakes, stretches, relocates to Silas's lap,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and goes back to sleep. The shop clock ticks. Somewhere outside,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the lamplighter's ladder clatters against a post. And then Silas smiles.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: We shall need help, he says, simply. And now, who
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: has been bracing herself for despair, feels something lift in
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: her chest. Because of course, of course they need help.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: The question was never whether the order was possible. The
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: question was always who to ask. And Silas, who has
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: lived on Lantern Row for sixty years, and knows every
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: soul in Sleepy Town already knows exactly who. He writes
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: letters that afternoon, seven of them, to his former apprentices,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: now Master Chandlers, in seven towns across the county. Each
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: letter says the same thing in different words. Come home
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: for a while. Bring your dipping clothes. There is work
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: worthy of you here. And supper every night. And a
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: story you will tell for years. He posts them himself.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: walking to the post box with particular ceremony, although it
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is raining because some letters must be posted in person.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I'm agreeing.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: By Monday, They begin to arrive. First, Martha, from the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: market town over the hill, with her own set of
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: thermometers and a laugh like a dinner bell. Then the twins,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: John and Jem, who dip in perfect synchronization and finish
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: each other's sentences. Then old Pritchard, seventy if he is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a day, who claims to have retired three times and
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: means it less each time. Then three more, each with
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: their own tools, their own habits, their own festival of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: reunion hugs in the Chandori yard. The workroom, built for two,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: now holds nine. It should be chaos. It is anything but.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: These are Chandlers, trained by Silas Wick, and they fall
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: into the rhythm of the shop, the way musicians fall
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: into a familiar tune. Dipping. Cooling. Trimming. Banding. Stacking. The
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: great vat never cools. The drying racks fill and empty
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and fill again. And through it all runs a current
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of laughter and catching up and shop talk so technical
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it might as well be another language. her nail watches
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: them work and learns more in that first week than
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: in all her eleven months before she learns martha's trick
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: for perfectly even bands she learns the twins synchronized dipping
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: rhythm she learns pritchard's method for testing wax temperature with
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the back of his wrist Accurate, he claims, to a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: single degree. She fills eleven pages of her apprentice journal.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Silas reads them each evening and nods and says nothing,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: which from Silas is the highest praise available. By Friday,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: four hundred candles stand complete on the racks, ivory and elegant,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Monogram bands gleaming. Four hundred and five days. At this pace,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the order will be finished with a weak despair. Silas
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: walks along the racks that evening, touching nothing, just looking,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: his hands clasped behind his back. Nine chandlers, one shop,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: four hundred candles. He stops at the end of the row.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: He blows out a long breath. Then he goes upstairs
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and sleeps for eleven hours straight. Rest now among the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: racks of ivory candles, smooth wax, quiet workroom, the particular
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: satisfaction of an impossible order becoming, day by day, merely
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: difficult then manageable. When nearly done, help was asked. Help came.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: This is how the hardest things get made. Never alone,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: always together. Sleep in that knowledge. Keeping these stories coming
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: is simple. Then Supporter Club brings you the premium edition.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: right where you listen and patreon brings early episodes plus
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Exclusive from each of our shows. Links to both rest
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: in the show notes. Before the candles are finished, let
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: me share something practical among all this softness. This episode
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: is brought to you by Upbeat, the music library for creators,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: and by Willow, the writing partner that helps you get
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the words right. You will find both links in the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: show notes. And now, back to the chandlery. The vat
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: is warm. The wax is waiting. With the hotel order
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: underway and nine chandeliers in the workroom, Nell finds herself
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: with an unexpected gift, time to learn. The production line
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: runs itself under Martha's cheerful direction, which frees Silas to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: do what he loves best and does least often, Teach. Properly. Slowly.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: One apprentice, one master, one dipping room, all afternoon. The
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: lessons begin with wicks. Everything begins with wicks, Silas says.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: because a candle is only as good as its wick,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and most candle failures are wick failures wearing wax disguises.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: He shows Nell forty kinds of wick from the sample drawer. Cotton. Hemp. Wooden.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Cored and uncored. Braided and knitted. each with its purpose,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: each with its temperament. Nell handles them all, learning their
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: textures the way a musician learns strings. The wick must
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: stand straight, Silas explains, holding one up to the light.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: It must draw wax steadily. It must curl just enough
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: at the tip to burn clean. Too thick and the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: candle drowns and smokes. Too thin and and it starves
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: and gutters. The right wick for the right wax in
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: the right weather, that is the whole art. And it
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: takes eleven years to learn and a lifetime to master.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Nell writes this down verbatim. She underlines lifetime twice. Next
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: comes wax. Silas keeps eleven kinds in the dipping room,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and he has Nell smell each one blindfolded, a game
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: that makes her laugh and teaches her nose faster than
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: any lecture. Beeswax, honeyed and warm. Bayberry, green and sharp. tallow,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: honest and plain, paraffin, clean and neutral, and seven blends,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: each with its own purpose, its own season, its own
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: devoted following among the town's candle-buyers. Nell identifies nine out
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: of eleven. Silas raises his snowy eyebrows so high they
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: nearly vanish. Nine out of eleven on the first attempt,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: he tells her, gruffly concealing enormous pride. that he himself
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: managed on Lake Seven on his first attempt 40 years ago,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: and that his master called him promising, which in Chandler
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: language means extraordinary. Nell glows for the rest of the afternoon.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: She dips her practice candles straighter than ever, even major
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: weeks up to watch, which is unprecedented. The lessons continue
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: all week, dipping rhythm, cooling times. The exact wrist motion
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: for trimming, The art of reading a flame, which Silas
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: teaches at dusk with eleven different candles burning in a row,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: each flame telling its story. Tall and steady means good wick,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: good wax. Leaning left, means a draft from the door.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Flickering means the wax was too hot. Smoking means too
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: much wick. Nell learns to read flames the way sailors
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: read clouds. On Friday afternoon, Silas sets now a test.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Dip eleven candles, start to finish, unsupervised, while he takes
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: his tea upstairs. Eleven candles, her choice of wax, her
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: choice of wick. He will judge them on his return.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Nell's hands tremble slightly as she ties her apron. Then
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: she takes a breath, the way Silas taught her, slow
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and easy, and she begins. She works for three hours.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: She dips and cools and trims with total concentration. the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: workroom silent except for the tick of the clock and
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: majors purring. When Silas returns, eleven candles stand on the bench,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: straight and smooth and even. He examines each one in silence,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: holding them to the light, testing the wick. smelling the wax.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Then he sets down the last one. He looks at Nell,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and he says, in the gruffest voice she has ever
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: heard him use, that these are perfectly acceptable candles, which
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: in Chandler language means masterwork. Nail does not cry. Apprentice.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: do not cry. She bites her lip and nods and
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: thanks him. And then She goes to the yard for
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: a bucket of water she does not need, and stands
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: there for eleven minutes, looking at nothing, feeling everything. When
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: she returns, Silas has placed her eleven candles in the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: window display, front and center, with a small handwritten card
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: dipped by M. Parry. Apprentice's first unsupervised batch. She sees
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: it and has to go back to the yard again.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Breathe with Nell now in that yard, cool air, full heart,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: eleven candles in the window with her name on them.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: This intense sway are the night watchmen of sleepy town,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: front and center. With a small handwritten card. Dipped by M. Perry. Apprentice.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: First unsupervised batch. She sees it and has to go
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: back to the yard again. Breathe with Nell now in
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: that yard. Cool air. Full heart. Eleven candles in the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: window with her name on them. This is what learning
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: feels like when it is done right. Slow, patient, witnessed.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Sleep in that feeling. It will keep until morning. It
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: will keep always. A weeks after the cream envelope arrived, 2,000
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: ivory candles Stand packed in straw-filled crates in the chandery yard,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: ready for the road to London. Two thousand, counted twice.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Banded and boxed and labeled in Nell's best hand, the
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: hotel's monogram gleams on every band. The order that was
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: impossible is finished with six days to spare. The carrier's
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: wagon arrives at dawn on a frosty December morning, horses
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: steaming in the cold air, driver stamping his feet and
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: accepting the mug of tea that Silas brings out personally,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: because carriers who handle candles deserve tea and respect in
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: equal measure. The crates are loaded one by one, straw
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: side up, fractal side handled like eggs. Nell supervises the
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: loading with a checklist, ticking each crate as it goes aboard.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Forty crates, fifty candles each. She counts them the way
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Edwin counts stars, twice. Silas has decided to ride with
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the delivery. This surprises everyone, including, privately, Silas. He has
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: not been to London in 20 years. He claims the
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: city air disagrees with him. But two thousand candles, the
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: largest order in four hundred years, deserve to be seen
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: safely to their destination by the master himself. He packs
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: a small bag. He puts on his good coat. He
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: instructs Nil at length. on the care of the shop
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: in his absence, although they both know she could run
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: it in her sleep by now. The journey takes all day.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Rosalus sits beside the driver under a shared blanket, watching
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: the frozen countryside roll past, pointing out landmarks he remembers
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: from his own apprentice journey forty years ago. The oak
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: where he ate his first traveling lunch. The bridge where
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the wagon lost a wheel and the whole village turned
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: out to help. The inn where the landlady still, impossibly,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: remembers his name and his preference for extra butter on
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: his toast. They arrive at the hotel at dusk. It
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: is grander than Silas imagined. All marble and brass and
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: husked carpeted corridors. The housekeeper, a formidable woman named Mrs. Stone,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: receives the delivery personally. Opening three crates at random and
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: examining the candles. with a professional eye that misses nothing.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: She holds one to the light. She smells the wax.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: She checks the band alignment with a small ruler she
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: produces from her apron pocket. Then she does something no
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: one expected. She smiles. A real smile. warm and unguarded.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: These are the finest candles we have ever stocked, she says.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: The hotel will want 2,000 more for the spring season.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Would the chandelier be willing? Silas Standing in his good
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: coat in the marble hallway. Snowy eyebrows raised to maximum altitude.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Says that the chandery would be honored. Mrs. Stone shakes
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: his hand. The deal is sealed. No paperwork. Just a
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: handshake and a smile. and two thousand candles glowing faintly
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: in their straw. That night, the hotel lights its dining
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: room entirely with Silas's candles. 200 flames on 40 tables.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Ivory and elegant monogrammed bands catching the light. Silas is
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: invited to see it. He stands in the doorway of
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: the dining room in his good coat, unnoticed among the waiters,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and looks at what his shop made. 200 flames. His wax.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: His wick. his apprentice's hands in every one. He stands
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: there for eleven minutes, then he walks back to his
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: inn through the London streets. humming his tuneless tune, entirely content.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Back in sleepy town, Nell keeps the shop alone for
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: three days. She dips and trims and serves customers and
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: lights the eleven windows at dusk, all eleven in order,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: front to back, oldest first. On the second evening, she
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: stands on the cobbles, looking back at the glowing windows,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the way she and Silas always do, and she feels,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: for the first time, the full weight and warmth of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: what it means to be a Chandler, not an apprentice,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: a Chandler. The shop is hers to keep, and she
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: keeps it well Osiris returns on Friday with stories and
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: a tin of London biscuits and the spring order already
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: half-planned in his head. Nil meets him at the door
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: with tea and news of three quiet days. He examines
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: the shop the way a captain examines a ship after
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: a relief watch. Everything in order. Everything clean. The eleven
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: windows lit. He nods. He says nothing. But that evening,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: he takes down the apprentice card from the window display.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: The one reading, dipped by Anne Parry, apprentice. and replaces
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: it with a new card in his own hand, dipped
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: by Nell Parry Chandler. Nell sees it the next morning
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: and has to go to the yard for 11 minutes.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Rest now in that homecoming. London biscuits. Spring orders. New
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: cards in old windows. The hardest order in 400 years. Delivered. Admired. Reordered.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Sleep in that completion. It was earned by many hands.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: It belongs to all of them. Winter deepens. The hotel's
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: spring order sits safely in the ledger. The nine visiting
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Chandlers have gone home to their own shops, with hugs
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and promises and invitations to visit that everyone means. The
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: workroom holds two again, master and apprentice. and the rhythm
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: of the shop settles back into its familiar, comfortable pace,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: like a river returning to its banks after a flood.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: It is in this quiet season that Nell begins her
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: farewell gift, for her apprenticeship is ending. Eleven months have
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: become a year. The formal term is complete. by tradition
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: the finishing apprentice makes one piece for the master unsupervised
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: from start to finish as a demonstration of everything learned
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: it is called the masterpiece although Nell finds the word
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: embarrassing and calls it in her journal Simply the gift.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: She works on it in the early mornings before Silas
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: comes downstairs and in the evenings after he goes up.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: It is a dipped taper. but like no taper the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: shop has ever made. Eleven dips in beeswax for warmth.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Eleven dips in bayberry for color. Eleven dips in tallow
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: for honesty. Thirty-three dips in all, each counted, each cool,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: each perfect. The wick is her own braiding, cotton and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: hemp twisted together the way Pritchard taught her. The result
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: is a candle striped in microscopic layers, gold and green
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and cream, that burns with a flame of unusual steadiness
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: and beauty. She works for eleven mornings. On the twelfth morning,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: it is done. She holds it to the light. It
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: glows from within like something alive. She wraps it in
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: tissue paper. She places it on Silas's workbench stool, where
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: he will find it when he comes down. Lame, she
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: goes to light the fires. Silas finds it at eight, precisely. He... I...
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: unwraps it slowly. He holds it for a long time
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: without speaking, turning it in the morning light from the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: high windows. Then he calls Nellen from the yard. She comes...
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: wiping her hands on her apron, trying to look calm.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: He holds up the candle. He asks, who dipped it?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: She says she did. He asks how many dips. She
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: says thirty-three. He asks the waxes. She recites them. And
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: then he does something he has never done in 40
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: years of mastership. He bows. A small, formal bow. Master
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: to master. Nell Perry. He says, You are no longer
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: my apprentice. You are mine. Fellow Chandler, the shop is
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: as much yours as mine whenever you want it. Until then,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: make candles anywhere you like. You carry the craft with you.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: It will not leave you. It cannot. It is in
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: your hands now. It is in your hands forever.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: Forever.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Nell does cry this time. Apprentices do not cry, but
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: fellow Chandlers may, and she does. standing in the workroom
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: among the vats and racks with wax on her apron
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and tears on her cheeks. Silas pretends to examine the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: gift candle very closely until she recovers. Major wakes up
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: relocates to Nell's lap and goes back to sleep, which
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: is Major's way of marking historic occasions. That evening, they
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: burn the gift candle together in the front room, watching
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: its steady, beautiful flame. It burns for eleven hours. They
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: do not stay awake for all of it But Silas
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: checks it each time he wakes in the night, the
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: way you check a sleeping child. And each time, it
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: burns on, gold and green and cream, unwavering. In the morning,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: there is a stub left, one inch. Silas keeps it
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: in a small box on the highest shelf. The first
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: masterpiece of Nell Parry Chandler. It will stay there always.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: Nell does not leave Sleepy Town. She takes rooms above
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: the bakery and opens her own small dipping room in
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: the yard behind it with Silas's blessing and Silas's spare
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: vat and a loan of major on weekends. Because every
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: chandlery needs a cat. She and Silas share the hotel orders.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: They consult on difficult waxes. They light their windows at
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: dusk with insight of each other across the rooftops. Eleven
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: windows and four. Gold on gold. A nod to each
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: other in the lamplight like ships passing. Rest with Nell
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: now in her own dipping room. Her own that. Her
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: own apprentice. Arriving next spring, a shy boy from the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: mill with quick fingers. The craft goes on. It always
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: goes on. Passed from hand to hand like a candle
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: lighting other candles. Undiminished. forever. Sleep in that continuity. It
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: will hold you. It holds everyone. The Supporter Club carries
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: our premium night inside your podcast app and Patreon carries
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: early access and exclusive stories across every show we lovingly make.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Find both links in the show notes Whenever Mormon comes.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: There is one more story about the chandlery. And Silas
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: tells it rarely, only when the evening is quiet and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: the company is right. It is the story of the
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: longest burning candle the shop ever made. Not the largest,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: not the grandest, a plain tallow pillar unremarkable in every way.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: dipped on an ordinary Tuesday by an apprentice whose name
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: is lost at the ledgers, for an order so routine
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: no one recorded it. The candle was sold like thousands
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: before it to a cottage on the edge of town,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: and there it might have burned for an ordinary week
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: and been forgotten. That cottage belonged to an elderly widow
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: who burned it for one hour each evening, no more,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: beside her chair while she read. One hour a night,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: every night, and a plain tallow pillar, burned one hour
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: at a time, with the wick trimmed faithfully, lasts a
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: very long time indeed. For it lasted eleven months. Through
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: autumn and winter and spring and most of summer, the
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: widow read eleven books by its light, one a month,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: marking her place each night with a ribbon. She told
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: no one about the candle, It was simply her evening companion,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: steady and undemanding, asking nothing except an hour of her
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: company and a careful trim. When at last it burned
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: to its final inch, on a warm evening in late August,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: the widow carried the stub to the chandlery and showed
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: it to Silas. She did not complain. She thanked him.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: She said it was the best candle she had ever owned.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: She asked for another just like it. Silas deeply moved
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: dipped it himself from the same tallow to the same measure,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: and refused payment, and she refused his refusal, and they
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: settled it over tea, the way all important negotiations in
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: Sleepy Town are settled. the story has no moral Silas
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: says or rather it has eleven morals and you may
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: choose your favorite that plain things last longest that faithful
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: habits beat grand gestures that an hour of reading light
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: is wealth beyond measure That candles, like people, do their
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: best work when they are not hurried. Take whichever one
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: you need tonight. They are all true. They have all
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: been tested. The stub proved them. One hour at a time.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: For eleven months. Nell keeps a plain tallow pillar on
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: her own bench now. in her own death beam room.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the bakery. She burns it one hour each evening while
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: she writes in her journal. It has lasted four months
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: so far. She expects it to last eleven, and when
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: it is done, she will dip another and another, for
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: as long as she keeps candles, which is to say, forever.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: You have your own evening candle tonight, in a way.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: The story. Burning steadily beside your chair. Asking nothing except
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: an hour of your company. Let it burn a little longer.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: Let it light these last few pages. There is no
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: hurry to blow it out. It will last as long
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: as you need it to. That is what candles are for.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: That is what stories are for. Steady light. Patient company.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: Rest.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: And so our story ends where it began. On Lantern Row.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Among eleven glowing windows. With the vat cooling and the
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: racks full. And the shop cat asleep on the counter.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: Silas upstairs. Nell across the rooftops. The tallow rendered. The
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: order delivered. The gift burned and kept. Sleep now, dear listener.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: You have dipped with the apprentices. You have counted the crates.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: You have stood on the cobbles at dusk. And smelled
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: the bayberry on the air. There is nothing left to do.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: The candles are made. The night is yours. Let your
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: breathing slow now. The way cooling waxes. slows and sets
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: breathe in cool and easy hold it gently and breathe
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: out long and warm again breathe in the smell of
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: beeswax and clean linen breathe out Let everything go one
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: more time, the slowest breath yet. Breathe in, hold, and out, good.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: You are doing beautifully. if you are still awake just
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: barely here is a gentle word before you go tomorrow
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: night brings a new premium tale for our supporters the
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: night the bakery never closed where ovens and midnight and
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: one very determined baker wait to meet you And the
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: next standard story arrives the night after. Thank you for
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: spending tonight with us. Follow the show if you have not.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: Share it with someone who needs rest. And sleep now. Deeply.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: Softly.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: The eleven windows glow on Lantern Row. The street is quiet.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: Good night.