Qwilleran leaped out of bed. “You demons!” he scolded. They ran down the ramp, and he took the short cut to the kitchen via a circular staircase.
He prepared the cats’ breakfast absently, having two questions on his mind—both of more interest than chopped chicken livers. Who was Thelma Thackeray? he asked himself And what was about to happen to the opera house? After a career as a warehouse for household appliances, the old building had nowhere to go but up. Suppose the K Fund were to restore it to its former glamour! Would anyone attend concerts and lectures in this age of TV and videos?
He prepared super-strength coffee in his automated brewer and thawed a breakfast roll. Then he made phone calls.
First he called Amanda’s Studio of Interior Design, hoping Fran Brodie would be in-house, but she was still in California, working with the client, and Amanda was at City Hall, doing the duties of a mayor. Qwilleran left his name, and the new assistant said, “Oh! You’re Mr Q! I live in Lockmaster, but I read your column in the
Next he phoned the official county historian to inquire about the Thackeray family. Homer Tibbitt was ninety-eight, and he lived with his wife, Rhoda, at Ittibittiwassee Estates, a retirement residence out in the country. They were virtually newlyweds. Neither had been married before, and theirs was considered the romance of the century.
Rhoda answered the phone in her sweet trembling voice and turned it over to Homer, whose vocal delivery was reedy and high-pitched, but vigorous. “The only thing I know about the Thackeray family is that Milo was a bootlegger in the Thirties, Thornton Haggis would have all that information. He read a paper at a meeting of the historical society—all about our fair county during Prohibition.”
So Qwilleran phoned the Thornton Haggis residence. Thorn, as he liked to be called, was a fourth-generation stonecutter, now retired from the family’s monument works. He had a degree in art history from a university Down Below and now gave liberally of his time to the local art community. His wife told Qwilleran to call the Art Center; Thorn was helping to hang a new exhibition.
Sure enough, the volunteer was up on a ladder when Qwilleran phoned. “I can tell you a thing or two about Moose County’s boozy history. Where are you, Qwill? At the barn? The job here will be finished in a half hour, and I'll drive up there. Brew some of that lethal coffee you like!”
It was generally assumed that Thornton would take over the unpaid job of county historian when, if ever, Homer retired. The records of the monument works went back to 1850, when tombstones were chiseled with name, the vital statistics, cause of death, and names of survivors and family pets. Also, examples of wit and humor were chipped into the stone at modest price-per-letter.
Qwilleran’s visitor had a rampant shock of snow-white hair visible a block away. The Siamese always became unusually frisky when he appeared. “Is that a compliment?” he asked. “Or do they suspect me of something?”
Qwilleran suggested, “They associate your last name with something good to eat. Cats have a clever way of putting two and two together.”
“I drove around by the library and picked up the paper I wrote for the local history collection. It’s the one I read at the meeting of the Old Timers Club. It made some of them cry.”
“Good! Let’s go out to the gazebo with some refreshments, and you can read it to me. I'll take a box of tissues.”
It was a pleasantly warm day—and an hour when the wild creatures were not too noisy. What looked like red wine on the refreshment tray was actually Squunk water from a local mineral spring, with a slug of cranberry juice. Thom smacked his lips. “You could bottle this stuff and sell it!”
Qwilleran turned on his tape recorder, and the following was later transcribed for
MILO THE POTATO FARMER
Milo Thackeray and my grandfather were good friends. They played checkers and went hunting together—varmints and deer. Hunting was not a sport in those days. For many struggling families it was a way to put food on the table. Hard times had come to Moose County in the early twentieth century. Yet this had been the richest county in the state when natural resources were being exploited.
Then the ten mines closed, leaving entire villages without hope of work; the forests were lumbered out; there was no market for quarry stone; the ship-building industry went elsewhere when steamboats replaced tall-masted schooners. Thousands of persons fled Down Below, hoping to find work in factories, and those who remained had little money to spend on potatoes and tombstones. Milo was a potato farmer, and Gramps was a stonecutter.
