Time was when one of our iron-producing towns almost became the capital of the state instead of Albany. But then competition and technology closed the ironworks. Later a disastrous fire in Fountain took most of the company houses and stores. But the little towns are still here, existing on forests and orchards and farms. And tourists in season.
My home now is in Keeseville a few miles downriver, closer to the county seat where I used to work.
I didn’t think I’d have much luck trying to trace the ready-mix concrete. It’s cheaper to get your sand and gravel and cement separately. But if you need just a small amount, like a wheelbarrow load, you can’t beat the convenience. Each little town has a hardware or building supply store, and I would try them later if I had to.
But I learned a long time ago that if you don’t know the town get a haircut. The local barbershop is a good place to troll for information. And I got lucky; I got a piece of the puzzle.
The shop in Fountain was a one-chair affair. It had the usual mounted deer head on the wall and some lethal looking bow-hunting equipment in a glass case. Eight folding chairs were occupied more often by spectators than by customers.
The barber’s name was on the wall, Charles Pike. I had known an uncle of his, so we got to talking right away.
The big news item was that Fountain was being considered for a QuickStop convenience store. Men had been in and out of town for a month looking at different locations, asking questions, making traffic counts.
The biggest thing that can happen nowadays in a small upstate town is a new prison, but a branch of a big convenience-store chain would be a fine addition to the local economy.
“A QuickStop would be a right nice boost for the town,” Charles said. “Ray Maples at the Citgo station is agin it, but the competition would do old Ray good. Everybody in town who has some property has been after the Quick-Stop people, but they haven’t signed anybody up yet, far as I know.”
I mentioned that I had heard about the concrete in front of the post office.
“Sounds like somebody’s got it in for the post office,” I ventured.
“Maybe, but he better not tangle with Mrs. Otis. She won’t stand for no foolishness. Give you the rough side of her tongue if you’re not careful. Old Lady Peaselee’s the only one that can give her a hard time.”
“How’s that?”
“Peaselee owns the building the post office is in. And about half of Main Street. A real skinflint. Her granddaddy was a manager when the mills were here.”
We agreed that it looked promising for the trout season and that the black flies would be here before long. I left with thanks and a sizable tip.
I decided to go back to the post office and ask some more questions. If Peaselee owned the building where the post office was, maybe she was the vandal’s real target. But the vandalism would have to be a lot more destructive to get her attention. And if she wanted the post office out of her building, there were better ways to break a lease than a timid little postcard campaign.
I walked down Main Street to Forge Street and turned right. The post office was a long block down, at the next corner.
Behind the row of stores on Main was a service alley, and between the alley and the post office was a good-sized vacant lot. A weatherworn For Sale sign was half hidden in the weeds.
Somebody, probably Nancy, had run the flag up the pole. It was moving gently against a clear blue sky. The sky is such a pure blue here in the mountains because the air is so clean. I’m glad I won’t be around when acid rain kills off all the lakes and vegetation.
When I went in the front door, a tall elderly woman was standing at the counter talking to Nancy. She was complaining in a loud voice that the windowsills were dusty, and she was wearing a hat.
That was unusual — the women here wear hats only to funerals and church weddings. This hat was a bowl-shaped affair with some scruffy linen flowers in front and two tails of faded ribbon in back. Nevertheless, the hat said authority. This had to be Mrs. Lucinda Peaselee, town matriarch and Thelma’s landlady.
I pretended to read the notices on the bulletin board and looked over the second person at the counter.
This was a young woman with the biggest head of hair I’ve ever seen. Bright yellow, puffed out and stiffened into waves and ringlets. She had enough hair for three people her size.
Every minute or so she would reach up and touch it gently; clearly it was her proudest possession. I found out later that it served as a walking billboard.
The blonde was about twenty-five with a pipe-thin figure. She wore heavy eye makeup and deep red lip paint to balance the sunburst above. She was Bonnie Mae Shalley, Nancy told me, a niece of Mrs. Peaselee’s. She carried a shopping bag in one hand and two letters in the other.
“Tell Mrs. Otis I expect to see a great improvement in her housekeeping for the rest of the time you’re here!” Mrs. Peaselee rapped on the counter, glared at Nancy, and started for the door. To Bonnie Mae she said, “Here, child, get the stamps.”
She handed her niece a dollar bill. Bonnie Mae hurried to the counter and bought two stamps from Nancy. She went back to her aunt with the change. Lucinda counted the coins before she dropped them in her purse. Only then did Bonnie Mae put the stamps on the letters and push them in the slot. A real tightwad, the barber had said of Mrs. Peaselee. I believed him.
The Hat swept out, Bonnie Mae a step behind her.
I waited while Nancy took care of another customer and then walked over to the counter.
“Was that Mrs. Peaselee, your landlady?” I asked.
Nancy nodded. “For now. She says she’s going to throw us out. The old witch gravels me,” Nancy muttered. “I’m going to deck her someday. You get a load of the hat?”
“Couldn’t miss it.”
“The pope has his ring, Lucinda has her hat. Never leaves home without it. Got half the money in the county but she squeezes every nickel. And proud as a peacock.”
She told me that Bonnie Mae and her brother Davie were poor relations. Bonnie Mae was Lucinda’s secretary, driver, housekeeper, and whatever.
“I’ll give her credit, though,” Nancy said. “Bonnie Mae just finished beautician’s school up at Clinton. Works part-time in Irene Townsend’s beauty shop. Wants to get away from the old bat and make something of herself.”
While we were talking the back door opened and. Davie Shalley came in. He’d finished his highway delivery run, his appointed round from which neither rain nor snow nor dark of night would stay him. I’d met him that morning when he cleaned up the concrete mess. He was in his thirties, beefy, wore his hair long, raised rabbits as a hobby.
“He might be a sandwich short of a picnic,” Nancy had told me, “but he’s cheerful and helps out around the place.”
Davie finished whatever he was doing and left. I had noticed his car in the alley. In addition to the U.S. Mail sign above the windshield, his car wore bumper stickers like FIGHT CRIME... SHOOT BACK and SAVE A TREE... EAT A BEAVER.
“You hired Lucinda’s nephew?” I asked Thelma.
“What the hell,” she said, “a little nepotism can’t hurt.”
Nancy filled me in on some of her paperwork. “We keep a log of money order purchases and packages sent C.O.D. If we see a pattern, it tends to make us suspicious.”
“It would make me suspicious, too,” I replied. I was hearing more than I wanted to know about how post offices are run. “How about some lunch?”
Thelma joined us at the counter. She had been on the phone reporting the concrete episode to the High Poom, the Post Office Operations Manager down in Albany. She told them that local authorities were working on it. “Big deal,” she growled. “They got more excited when I ran out of Elvis commemoratives a couple of years ago. Did somebody say lunch?”