It had been a year of tragedy for the potato farmer. His eldest son was one of the first casualties of World War One; two younger children died in the influenza epidemic; and now his wife died while giving birth to twins, Thelma and Thurston. They were his salvation! Gramps was there when Milo swore an oath to give them a better life than he had known. A sister-in-law came in to care for them, and eventually Milo married her. Eventually, too, his life took a strange turn.
In 1919 the Volstead Act went into effect, and thirsty citizens provided a large market for illegal beverages. Somehow, Milo learned he could make hard liquor from potatoes. Gramps helped him build a distillery, and it worked! Customers came to the farm in Model T cars and horse-drawn wagons. Unfortunately for the jubilant farmer, revenue agents also came. They smashed the still and poured the liquor on the ground. (Even to this day the belief persists that the act accounts for the superior flavor of Moose County potatoes.)
Milo was undaunted! His twins were growing fast, and he had sworn an oath.
Across the lake, a hundred miles away, was Canada, famous for good whiskey. On the shore of Moose County there were scores of commercial fishermen who were getting only a penny a pound for their catch. Milo organized a fleet of rumrunners to bring the whiskey over under cover of darkness. Soon a steady stream of Model T trucks was coming north to haul it away, camouflaged in many ingenious ways.
The poor potato farmer became the rich bootlegger.
Transactions were made in cash, and Gramps held the lantern while Milo buried the money in the backyard.
Every weekend Milo took his family and their young friends to Lockmaster for a picnic and moving picture show. The back of the truck was filled with kids sitting on disguised cases of contraband. Milo never attended the show, and the seats were never there for the return trip.
There was no such entertainment in Moose County. The twins begged their father to open a picture show in Pickax.
Prohibition ended in 1933, but the potato farmer was in a position to indulge his twins. He bought the old opera house, long boarded up, and made it the Pickax Movie Palace. He financed their chosen careers. •
Besides their sex, the twins were very different. Thurston was slight of build and more sensitive; he loved dogs and horses and wanted to be a veterinarian. Milo sent him to Cornell, where he earned his D.V.M. degree.
Thelma was taller, huskier, and bolder; she wanted to be ‘in pictures’. Milo sent her to Hollywood with her stepmother as chaperone. He never saw either of the women again.
Thelma obtained bit parts in two B films and decided she would prefer the food business, playing the leading role as hostess in her own restaurant. Milo first financed a snack shop (the Thackeray Snackery) and then a fine restaurant called simply Thelma’s. She did very well. When Milo died he left his fortune to Thurston, to establish the Thackeray Animal Clinic in Lockmaster, and to Thelma, to realize her dream of a private dinner club for connoisseurs of old movies.
Milo was buried in the Hilltop Cemetery, with Gramps as the sole mourner. And Gramps chiseled the headstone the way his friend wanted it: MILO THE POTATO FARMER.
“Good story!” Qwilleran said as he turned off the tape recorder. “Is Thelma’s twin still living?”
“No, Dr Thurston was killed in an accident a year or so ago. There was a rumor that it was murder, but no charges were brought. The gossips said that a group of horse breeders had been trying to buy the Thackeray Clinic but Thurston wouldn’t sell. Right after his death they bought it from the estate and changed the name. I don’t read the
“Well, anyway, the twin sister is returning to her hometown for some "fun," according to an item in the
“My wife told me about it. Am I supposed to get excited about it? Sounds to me as if she’s been out in the sun too long!”
Qwilleran, although feigning a lack of interest, was beginning to have a nagging curiosity about Thelma Thackeray, and he looked forward to Fran Brodie’s return from California.
The Siamese knew something was about to happen –something important, not alarming. Their dinner was served early; the nut bowls on the coffee table were filled; glasses and bottles appeared on the serving bar. The cats watched the preparations, forgoing their usual postprandial meditation in a sunny spot.
