“Allrighty. I’ll dispatch Young Jake,” she said. “He’ll know what to do. He goes to college. Ha ha ha!”
Young Jake arrived promptly-another of the big blonds indigenous to Moose County, driving another of the ubiquitous blue pickups. “We’re having a little trouble here?” he asked with the kindly manner of an old country doctor.
Qwilleran explained the episode of the previous evening. “That’s the first mouse I’ve seen, but it might be only the reconnaissance detail.”
“Has your cat been showing interest in any particular part of the cabin?”
“She’s spent a lot of time watching the stove and refrigerator in the last couple of days. I thought she was dropping broad hints about the meal service.”
“We’ll have a look,” said Jake. “How do I get into the crawl space?” When shown the trapdoor he handed Qwilleran a flashlight. “I’ll scout around down below, and you shine the light in the corners of the rooms and behind the appliances where pipes or cables come into the house. If I see a pinpoint of light, I’ll close the crack with a sealant. Those little rascals can squeeze through even a hairline crack”.
Jake dropped through the trapdoor with practiced ease and proceeded to shout orders. “Move east. That’s right… Hold it! … All tight here. Move on …
Hold it! … False alarm. Move on. Cables coming up. Not too fast! Hold it! …
Ah! This is it! Hold steady!”
When the job was done, the expert emerged from the hole, draped with cobwebs.
“The mice had/an open invitation where the power lines come into the house,” he said. “Excuse me. I’ll step outside to brush myself off.”
“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Qwilleran said when he returned and presented his bill.
“The job’s guaranteed. If you have a problem, I’ll come back. No extra charge.”
“Fair enough. Is this your specialty?”
“No, I’m a general practitioner, but I’ve had plenty of cases like this at the beach cottages. I work during summer vacation.”
“If you’re Young Jake, I presume there’s an Old Jake,” Qwilleran said.
“My father. Maybe you know him. Dr. Armbruster, surgeon at the Pickax hospital.
I’m in pre-med myself. I’m going into surgery.’”
Another idea for the “Qwill Pen,” Qwilleran thought as the GP drove away. He released the Siamese from the guestroom where they had been confined while the trapdoor was open. “Thank you for your quiet and courteous cooperation,” he said. “You’ve earned a treat. Cereal!” Yum Yum bounded to the kitchen, and Koko pranced on his hind legs.
When the rain stopped around noon, Qwilleran half expected to see the Frantic Chicken pulling into the clearing; Clem never wasted an hour, never missed an opportunity to earn a dollar for his forthcoming marriage to Maryellen. She was a fine young woman, and she was getting a good man.
There was no action on Saturday afternoon, however, and no phone call. Now everything would have to wait until Monday.
On Sunday the sun was shining, the temperature was pleasant, and Qwilleran dressed with the anticipation of a cub reporter assigned to a good story; in more than twenty-five years of newspapering he had never lost that element of challenge and expectation, though it were only a family reunion. There are no dull stories, he told himself-only dull reporters.
He sang in the shower, he soaped lavishly, and then the water suddenly ran cold.
It was more than a shock to his wet body; it was a vexation to his equanimity.
Wrapped in a bathtowel, he padded to the mudroom, where the water heater shared a closet with the washer-dryer combination. The heater gave no clue to its failure; it was neither dripping nor clanking nor blowing off steam. The cylindrical tank was silent and baffling.
Cursing the ill-advised timing of the mishap, Qwilleran called Glinko once more.
“You again!” Mrs. Glinko said in great glee. “What’s buggin” you this time?”
“The water heater.”
“Allrighty. I’ll try to find Little Joe. Maybe she’s at church. Ha ha ha!”
“I’m going out on assignment for the newspaper,” Qwilleran said, “but you have the key, and she knows where everything is.”
Unhappy about this latest emergency but resigned to the eccentricities of old plumbing, he said goodbye to the Siamese, cautioning them to behave well, and drove to the Wimsey centennial farm on Sandpit Road. He had seen it before-a vast complex of barns, sheds, coops, fences and acreage, with a plaque stating that it had been in the same family for a hundred years. It included a large oldfashioned stone farmhouse with flowerbeds and kitchen garden, a spacious front lawn with ancient lilac bushes, and a farmyard with parking space for the thirty or more cars that were piling in for the reunion. Long rows of picnic tables were set up, and families arrived with hampers, coolers, and folding lawn chairs.
Cecil Huggins was watching for Qwilleran and he introduced him to the elected officers of the family. “What do you want us to do?” they asked.
“Whatever you normally do,” Qwilleran said. “Forget I’m here.”
“Well, dive in and get some grub when the dinner bell rings,” they said, “and if you like to pitch horseshoes, there’s always a coupla games going, down by the corn crib.”
There were all ages in attendance: infants in arms, tots in strollers, oldsters in wheelchairs, pregnant women, children playing with Frisbees, beer-drinking husbands, and older men pitching horseshoes. Qwilleran noticed that men were inclined to talk to men, women talked to women, and mothers of small children talked to mothers of small children, while the elderly sat on lawn chairs under a large spreading tree and talked to each other. Yet, when the dinner bell rang, the entire clan came together in one lively, noisy mix of ages and sexes.
Qwilleran counted a hundred and eleven persons, and he imagined that the genealogical tree of this family would resemble the circuitry of a computer.
There were a few celebrities in the crowd. A young serviceman, home on furlough after completing basic training, was welcomed like a brigadier general. Homage was paid to a new baby as if he were the firstborn of a crown prince. A couple who had recently announced their engagement were showered with effusive sentiments. Qwilleran expected to see Clem and his fiancee accorded the same star treatment, but they were not in evidence.
Wandering from group to group, listening and observing, he began to speculate that life might have cheated him. He saw cousins and second cousins and third cousins jabbering about family affairs and so happy to see each other. His only “family” consisted of an alienated ex-wife in Connecticut, some hostile in-laws in New Jersey, and two Siamese cats.
Cecil Huggins asked Qwilleran how he was enjoying his new bike and suggested some back roads to explore. “Try MacGregor Road,” said the merchant. “There’s a mighty pretty stretch after the pavement ends.”
Qwilleran was well aware of that pretty stretch; Polly Duncan’s hideaway was on MacGregor Road.
“And then, if you’re feeling ambitious,” Cecil said, “someday you might try the Old Brrr Road. It was abandoned after they built the lakeshore highway in the twenties, and it’s all gone back to nature. Totally! My grandfather used to have a general store on Brrr Road at what they called Huggins Corners. Not a stick of it left! But it was a thriving emporium in its day. I guess that’s how I got into the hardware business. Storekeeping is in my blood.”