Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1759 - 1762

 1759. The soldier, the first object in his collection, represented the very idea of creating a collection in the first place. His second object, he decided was going to be one of the Russian Icons belonging to the Yardman. He planned to purchase it with the proceeds from the sale of his car that the man had made possible.

1760. Proctor sold his car that week for twelve hundred dollars and with the money in hundred dollar bills in an envelope, he took the bus and paid another visit to the salvage yard.

1761. There were three icons in the tarpaper shack and of the three one stood out to him as more symbolic of his situation. It was a painting of some figures on a ladder ascending into heaven probably, but Proctor wanted to imagine them as students, such as he was, in search of a degree. The other two paintings were conventional stiff, formal, but touching portraits of some saints holding the various implements with they were done to death.

1762. Proctor looked carefully and at length at each of the three and after serious consideration took the picture of the figures on the ladder down from it place on the wall and put it on the edge of the desk. He took out his envelope with his money and began counting out some nice new hundred dollar bills and at the same time asking, “Seven hundred, you said seven hundred?”