What happened, you see: Hilda’s dog had been howling for hours, and Grandpa called the sheriff.
Eventually Hilda was lodged in a foster home—for her own protection—and had to surrender her hedge clippers. The whole town breathed a lot easier. I asked my grandfather why they put up with her eccentricities for so long. He said, “Folks still had the pioneer philosophy: Shut up and make do!”
Qwilleran was gratified by the cordial welcome of the Literary Club, their response to his reading, and the number of books presented for signing. He regretted only that it could not happen in Pickax at The Pirate’s Chest—as it was destined to be named.
THREE
It was Thursday—time to write another thousand words for the “Qwill Pen” column—and Qwilleran’s head was devoid of ideas. That meant resorting to the Koko System. The man yelled “Book!” and the cat came running—leaping onto a bookshelf, sniffing bindings, and nudging a selected title off the shelf. And that became the topic for the “Qwill Pen.”
Qwilleran would be the first to admit that the system was ludicrous . . . but it was simple, and it worked. It gave Koko pleasure, and it gave Qwilleran a challenge. He boasted that he could write a thousand words about anything—or nothing.
On this occasion, the chosen book was
This copy was signed by the author.
Qwilleran described it in his column as a superb literary work, a scholarly history of the domestic cat, beginning almost forty centuries ago in Egypt. There were names of famous artists and statesmen who cherished the cat as a household pet. And there were the names of tyrants and murderers who hated or feared the very mention of the animal. Particularly interesting were the myths and superstitions that persisted throughout the centuries.
Qwilleran himself, living with a cat that seemed to be psychic, was encouraged in his belief by attitudes in the Orient, where cats were considered supernatural. In Siam they were considered to be royalty. He had long wanted to trace Koko’s ancestry. Readers of the “Qwill Pen” knew Koko to be a smart cat, but even close friends like Polly and Arch had not been told the whole story—for the simple reason that they would scoff. A detective lieutenant Down Below did not scoff; the Pickax police chief had been gradually convinced; and a retired police detective from California was ready to be converted. Qwilleran found it a curious fact that they were all members of the constabulary!
The prospect of doing another one-man show for a Moose County audience filled Qwilleran with elation. He remembered audience reaction to the first one: They were spellbound; they gasped; they cried. In college he had focused on theater training before switching to journalism, and he still relished the idea of using his voice dramatically to influence an audience.
Now, to refresh his memory, he reviewed the script of the Big Burning. The audience had been told to imagine that radio actually existed in 1869, as he announced the news of the disaster, read bulletins from other parts of the county, and interviewed eyewitnesses by telephone.
Radio was still in the future at the time of the Great Storm—1913. There were no broadcasting stations, no home receivers using cat whiskers, no commercials for tin lizzies or potbellied stoves. Then he thought, Why not add to the realism with a few commercials? There could be bargains in kerosene and ten-pound bags of oatmeal.
In 1913 Moose County had no real newspaper—only the
“Kip! Do me a big favor. Meet me for lunch at Inglehart’s and bring some photocopies of the
“Good deal!” said the editor. “Which pages and how many?”
“Just three or four. Inside pages with display ads for groceries, clothing, hardware—whatever.”
The two newsmen met at the restaurant in a Victorian mansion on Lockmaster’s main thoroughfare and were given a table by a window hung with lace curtains. Kip had a glass of wine; Qwilleran asked for Squunk water on the rocks with a twist but settled for club soda. He knew no one south of the border had ever heard of Squunk water.
“Your groundbreaking was a great show,” Kip said. “Did you know the chest was empty?”
“No one had the foggiest idea!”
“I hope you’re going to call the bookstore The Pirate’s Chest. Is Polly excited about running it?”
