I’m getting married in October.”
“I was sorry to hear about the fire. That must have been a devastating experience.”
Clem stopped hammering and looked up at Qwilleran. “I hope I never have to live through anything like that again,” he said grimly. “I woke up in the middle of the night and thought my room was on fire. The walls were red! The sky was red!
The volunteers came out from Mooseville and some other towns, but it was too late.”
“What will your father do now?”
Clem shrugged. “Start all over again.”
“Would you care for a cup of coffee or a soft drink?”
“No, thanks. Too early for a break yet.” Bang bang bang.
Qwilleran prepared coffee for himself and astounded the Siamese by serving their breakfast two hours ahead of schedule-a, can of boned chicken topped with a spoonful of jellied consomme. Unable to believe their rare good fortune, they pranced in exultant circles, yikking and yowling.
“You deserve this,” he told them. “You’ve had a disturbing vacation so far …
leaks, plumbers, crazy lights in the night, and now that noisy carpenter!” He watched them devour their food. They seemed to enjoy an audience; there were times when Yum Yum refused to eat unless he stood by, and it gave him pleasure to observe them crouching over the plate with businesslike tails flat on the floor, ears and whiskers swept back, heads jerking and snapping as they maneuvered the food in their mouths. When he offered them a few nuggets of Mildred’s cereal for dessert, Koko rose on his hind legs in anticipation.
Qwilleran was so intent on studying his companions that the telephone startled him. It was Mildred’s excited voice on the phone. “Qwill, have you heard the news?”
“I haven’t turned on the radio,” he said. “What happened? Did a flying saucer splash down in front of the Northern Lights Hotel? Probably needed a few repairs at Glinko’s garage.”
“You’re being funny this morning, Qwill! Well, listen to this: Roger called me a couple of minutes ago. Captain Phlogg was found dead in his shop!”
“Poor fool finally drank himself to death. The chamber of commerce will be distraught. Who found the body?”
“A Mooseville officer making the rounds at midnight. He saw a light inside the shop and the door open. The captain was slumped in his chair. But here’s the chief reason I’m calling,” she said. “His dog has been howling all night. Do you think I should go over and feed it?”
“Do you want to lose an arm? I suggest you call the sheriff. I wonder if the old guy has any relatives around here.”
“Not according to Roger. I wonder what will happen.”
“The state will bury him and search for heirs and assets. Do you think he had money stashed away? You never know about miserly eccentrics … Well, anyway, Mildred, you’d better call the sheriff about the dog. It’s good of you to be concerned.’”
Qwilleran hung up the receiver gently, thinking warm thoughts about his kind, considerate neighbor … and wondering why he had received no long letter from Polly Duncan.
On the dune, where construction was nearing completion, he said to Clem, “Would you be interested in building an addition to this cabin?”
Clem appraised the weathered logs. “You’d never match that old logwork.”
“I’m aware of that, but I’d settle for board-and-batten with the proper stain.”
“And the old foundation is fieldstone. The last stone mason died two years ago.
You’d have to have concrete block under the new part.”
“No objection.”
“How would you connect the old and the new?”
Qwilleran showed him the sketches, with the new wing right-angled to the cabin, and a door cut through into the back hall. Clem took them to his truck, figured costs, and presented an estimate in writing.
He said, “You’re outside the village limits, so you won’t need a permit. I mean, you’re supposed to have one, but nobody ever does. So I could start digging for the footings tomorrow and pour them the next day. They’ll set over the weekend.”
“I’ll give you a deposit.”
“Forget it! I’ve got credit at the lumberyard. The Cottles have been here since 1872.”
“One question,” Qwilleran said. “Do you know anything about carpenter ants?
They’re getting into the porch posts.”
“Just get a bug bomb and spray “em good,” Clem advised.
After the blue truck with the frantic chicken on the door had pulled away, Qwilleran recalled the transaction with satisfaction. The bill for the steps had been reasonable, and Clem had accepted a check with no hemming and hawing about cash. The young man was not only honest and skilled but remarkably industrious.
He worked on his father’s farm, moonlighted at the Shipwreck Tavern, and was building himself a house. Now Qwilleran was inclined to discount the alarmist gossip about building problems. Lyle Compton had called the dune-dwellers a giddy bunch, and their chitchat about UFOs and horoscopes confirmed that opinion. It had been a mistake to believe their cocktail conversation about underground builders.
On the whole he was feeling so elated about the latest turn of events that he agreed to act as a judge for the Fourth of July parade when someone called him from the county building in Pickax. It was a civic chore he ordinarily would have sidestepped, but the caller was a woman with a voice like Polly Duncan’s.
She said that the county wide parade would be held in Mooseville and Mildred Hanstable had agreed to be a judge, with a third yet to be announced. She said that Qwilleran’s name on the panel of judges would add greatly to the prestige of the event. She added that she always read “Straight from the Qwill Pen” and it was the best thing in the paper. Grooming his moustache modestly, Qwilleran agreed to help judge the floats on the Fourth of July.
For lunch he went into town to the Northern Lights Hotel, and as he walked through the lobby he recognized something out of the corner of his eye. It was the picture of a young man. The hotel had a quaint custom of announcing social news on a glorified bulletin board in the lobby. A gilt frame and some ribbons and artificial flowers were intended to glamorize the display. Qwilleran usually walked past quickly with averted eyes, but this time he stopped for a closer look. A photo of a young couple was displayed with a neatly printed card reading, “Mr. and Mrs. Warren Wimsey announce the engagement of their daughter, Maryellen, to Clem Cottle, son of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Cottle, all of Black Creek. An October wedding is planned.” Clem was stiffly posed in a collar and tie. The girl looked wholesome and intelligent and country-pretty.
Wimsey! The name was familiar to Qwilleran. There were dozens of Wimseys, Goodwinters, Trevelyans, and Cuttle-brinks in the slim directory of Moose County telephone subscribers. Families had a tendency to stay in the area for generations, and the annual family reunions were attended by a hundred members of the clan, or even more. In the cities where Qwilleran had lived and worked, such family get-togethers were unheard of, and he thought, Ah! Another idea for the “Qwill Pen.”
After lunch he walked to Huggins Hardware to buy insect spray as Clem had suggested. It was a brilliant summer day, and Main Street was teeming with tourists, always distinguishable from the locals by their clothing, speech, and attitude. The young vacationers were as boisterous and as naked as the law would allow. The middle-aged tourists from the city stared at the natives with amused superiority. Busloads of white-haired day-trippers followed tour guides in and out of the shipwreck museum and gazed obediently at a certain spot in the lake where, they were told, a shipful of gold bullion had sunk a” hundred years ago and was still there! Qwilleran made another mental note for his column.