Sincerely, Irma Hasselrich, MCSCF Chief Canary He read this note twice. In the middle of a day that was less than satisfactory, Ms. Hasselrich’s flattery made him feel good. The acronym he could decipher: Moose County Senior Care Facility. But what was a Chief Canary?
When Qwilleran returned to the cabin, the roof was half-shingled, but Iggy was not on the site and not in his truck. Iggy, he soon discovered, was on the screened porch, asleep on the redwood chaise. He had removed his shoes and covered his face with a piece of shingle-wrapping. He had holes in his socks. He was snoring gently.
Qwilleran kicked the man’s feet. “Up! Up! What do you think this is? A summer resort? I’m not paying you to sleep! Let’s get that roof shingled before it rains!”
Iggy sat up, grinned, and felt for his cigarettes.
Now Qwilleran was as grouchy as he had been before going to lunch. He returned to his writing table and started a fretful letter to Polly. A “quiet summer,” she had said. He’d give her an enlightening rundown on his “quiet summer.” Then his eye fell on Irma Hasselrich’s note. He read it once more and telephoned the Senior Care Facility in Pickax. Ms. Hasselrich answered from the reception desk.
“This is Jim Qwilleran,” he said. “I’ve just received your thoughtful note, and it brightened an otherwise frustrating day. But I’d like to ask a question: What is the function of a Chief Canary?”
She trilled a tuneful laugh and said, “Our volunteers wear yellow smocks when they’re on duty, and they’re called canaries-a cheerful image, don’t you think?
I’m president of the volunteers this year, and so I’m entitled to wear a yellow blazer-as chief canary.” She had the kind of voice he liked in a woman-cultivated, well-modulated, melodic. He remembered the yellow blazer she had worn at the reunion, and how well it had looked with her shining dark hair and shining dark eyes and artful makeup. She was a goodlooking woman, and she had her father’s upbeat personality. Qwilleran had lunched with Hasselrich several times; he thought he would like to have dinner with his daughter. She was the right age-not too young but still youthful.
He said, “Tell Mrs. Wimsey that her story about Punkin will be in the paper this weekend.”
“How wonderful! Thank you so much for alerting us.”
Qwilleran went back to work in a more productive mood and maintained his equanimity until four o’clock, when Iggy wanted to quit for the day.
“Get back on that roof!” Qwilleran barked. “You don’t get a nickel until those shingles are on. I don’t care if you have to pawn your truck to buy your dinner!
Finish that roof! It’s going to rain tonight.’”
It was eight o’clock when Iggy drove the last nail and collected his earnings.
“Before you go,” Qwilleran said, “let me show you the sketches of the addition.”
He explained where the doorway would be cut in the existing cabin wall-to connect the old and the new. He explained that the cut-through would be left until the very last-for several reasons. He explained the choice of exterior siding and the style of window. “The lumberyard has the dimensions and will have the siding ready for you tomorrow morning. Don’t come here first. Go to the lumberyard. Pick up the siding and the nails and bring them here.”
The unflappable Iggy drove off, waving a friendly farewell, and Qwilleran strolled about the premises in peace, trying to imagine the finished wing, climbing between the studs to experience the orientation of rooms, gazing through the openings that would be windows, picturing the view. There was only one annoyance; the backyard was littered with cigarette butts, and rain would turn them into a soggy pudding. He found a sack and filled it with the unsavory litter. He had smoked pipe tobacco himself until recently, and he voiced no objection if his friends smoked, but Iggy’s non-stop habit represented sloth and delay, for which he was paying by the hour. As a journalist he had always done ninety minutes” work for an hour’s pay, and he deplored Iggy’s laxity, even though the Klingenschoen estate was paying for it.
On Thursday morning he handed the carpenter a coffee can and said, “For every butt that lands on the ground instead of in this can, I deduct a dime from your pay.” He realized he , risked alienating the man and losing his services, but Iggy was always tractable. He would merely grin with those extraordinary teeth and light another cigarette.
Despite weather predictions, the rain held off, and the exterior siding went up slowly, at the rate of three boards per cigarette, with plenty of conversation at the same time: “Where’s that sucker? … Get in there! … Gimme the hammer. Where’s the hammer? … There we go! Right size … Need another nail … That’ll fix the sucker.”
Before installing a board, Iggy would stand back, look up at the studding, then saw the proper length and nail it in place. Smaller lengths he measured with his foot or the spread of his hand.
Qwilleran said, “Don’t you ever measure?”
“Don’t need to measure,” the carpenter said with his ivory grin. “I just EYEBALL THE SUCKER!”
With mixed amazement and disapproval Qwilleran went indoors to make a cup of coffee, but when he plugged his computerized coffeemaker into the wall outlet, sparks flew! The radio went dead. The refrigerator stopped humming. Without a moment’s hesitation he reached for the phone and called Glinko for an electrician.
“Allrighty,” said Mrs. Glinko. “I’ll dispatch Mad Mac. He’s out on the east shore, puttin” in circuit breakers for somebody-another one of you rich people.
Ha ha ha!”
“This rich person would also like a chimney sweep,” Qwilleran said. “There’s something wrong with the fireplace.”
“Allrighty. I’ll dispatch Little Harry if he ain’t busy.”
Mooseville natives were fond of honorifics, which were bestowed on certain persons by consensus: Old Sam, Big Joe, Crazy Marvin, Mighty Lou, Fat William, and so on.
Little Harry was a young man of slight build who wore a tall silk topper, the traditional badge of his profession, somewhat incongruous with his smudged T-shirt and jeans. He quickly discovered why the damper was jammed; a raccoon had built a nest in the chimney.
“The chimney top should be screened,” he said. “It looks like you had a screen up there, but something knocked it off. And I don’t see a fire extinguisher anywhere. You should have a fire extinguisher. You wouldn’t want to burn down a nice old cabin like this, would you?” he asked patronizingly. “What kind of wood do you burn?”
“I haven’t burned any wood,” Qwilleran said. “I couldn’t get the damper open.
That’s why you’re here.”
“My job is to educate, not just to clean chimneys,” said the young man haughtily. “If you burn green wood, it builds up creosote and you can have a chimney fire. Hot ashes are another common cause of fire. What do you use to take out ashes, and where do you dump them?”
“I haven’t taken out any ashes, because I haven’t burned any wood, because I couldn’t get the damper open!” said Qwilleran, raising his voice. “If you’ll come back next week, when I’m not so busy, I’ll be glad to sign up for Basic Fireplace Technique 101. But now, if you’ll excuse me …”
He was in a vile mood by the time the electrician arrived. Mad Mac-a hulking individual with bulging biceps and no neck-found a loose connection in the wall outlet and pronounced the entire wiring system obsolete.
“Y’oughta have the whole house checked. A mouse or chipmunk gets in, chews on the wires, and you have a fire. These old logs-they’re dry as tinder, burn like matchsticks. Whole place can go up quicker’n you can spit.”