Yes, T-Bone, I'm sure a great many readers will not understand what is happening here, so I'll try to explain.
That little thing on the table top on our left is an open bottle of ink. The pen C.B. is holding is a dip pen, the metal equivalent of Thomas Jefferson's quill pen. You would dip the pen in the bottle and the split point of the pen would take up enough ink for you to write a few words before you had to dip it again. But the point was rather sharp and there was always some risk that the point might catch in the paper, then spring back to lay a splatter of ink across the page.
When I was in elementary school all the desks had a hole in the top to hold the ink bottle. Ballpoint pens were a new invention, rather expensive, and very leaky, smudgy, and erratic. You young whippersnappers don't know how lucky you have it. (If you don't know what a whippersnapper is, you probably are one.)
