“Isee.” Qwilleran began to realize the seriousness of the matter. “I’ll bet Homer Tibbitt would recognize them.” One man was carrying a ledger; two were in sheriff’s uniforms; another had a hunting dog.
“Mr. Tibbitt used to come to the library every day, doing research, you know. Now that he’s moved to Ittibittiwassee Estates, we never see him-do we, Dora?… No. I thought he’d passed away. He’s almost a hundred.”
Qwilleran said, “I’m going out that way this afternoon. Do you want me to take the photo along?”
“That would be wonderful! We’ll put it in an envelope.”
Homer, the nonagenarian historian, and Rhoda, ten years his junior, had married late. Both had been educators. Neither had been married before. For visitors they always staged a comic act of marital banter. Everyone knew they were a devoted couple.
The retirement village where they now lived was out in the country-a four-story building with steeply pitched roof, looking somewhat like a Swiss resort hotel. When Qwilleran arrived with Gov. Witherspoon’s photo and a bunch of flowers for Rhoda, he parked in the visitors’ lot and was approaching the building when he saw Mayor Gregory Blythe coming out.
“Good afternoon, Mayor,” he said. “Have you been rallying your constituents?”
“It doesn’t hurt to keep the home fires burning,” said the impeccably groomed candidate.
Blythe, during his three terms, had promoted the annexation of surrounding townships for various reasons, one of which was to add voting districts.
“Met hizzoner in the parking lot,” Qwilleran said when Rhoda admitted him to their apartment. “Was he scrounging votes or selling stocks and bonds?”
“I tell you one thing: He won’t get a nickel of my money,” Homer railed in his high-pitched voice. “He comes here to charm the widows out of their pensions and their husbands’ life insurance.”
“Don’t get excited, Homer,” his wife said. “We’ll all have a nice cup of chamomile tea.”
“She’s trying to poison me with that stuff!” he said.
“That being the case,” Qwilleran said, “don’t drink it until you answer a question for the Pickax library. They miss your daily visits.” He explained the situation and showed the photo of Gov. Witherspoon and friends.
“That’s the Guv, all right. No mistaking those big ears! I know all these others, too. Can’t think of their names. Rhoda’s good at names; I recognize faces. Rhoda!”
She came hurrying from the kitchen. “Yes, that’s Gov. Witherspoon. My friends and I thought he was terribly romantic-looking. The two men on the second step I know very well. They’re the Brown brothers-“
“Which Brown brothers?” Qwilleran interrupted.
“There was only one Brown family,” she explained sweetly. “The one with the rifle and the dog is… It’s on the tip of my tongue: Fred Bryce-or Brook-or Broom-“
“Or Brown,” Qwilleran suggested.
“The funny thing is-I know the name of his dog! Diana! Goddess of the Hunt!”
“Makes sense.”
Homer had lost interest and was dozing off.
In a loud voice Qwilleran said, “But all this is ancient history. Let us talk about Eddington Smith.”
“Dear Eddington! A gentle soul!” Rhoda said softly.
“He wasn’t a reader, but he knew and loved books,” her husband added in a voice less strident than usual. “In his heyday he traveled all over the map. Certain estate liquidators used to save cartons of the best books for him. But he was getting old and tired, and so was his truck.”
“He’d come and have dinner with us and talk about his family,” she said.
“Worshiped his father, a door-to-door book salesman.”
“His mother died early, and he was raised by his grandmother. Her husband was a blacksmith, and he built the feldspar building for them to live in. The smithy was in the backyard.”
“Under a spreading chestnut tree?” Qwilleran asked.
“It happened to be a mighty oak,” Homer said. “It was cut down when Edd asphalted the yard as a parking lot. He rented a few spaces for parking.”
“You mentioned on the phone that you had some information-“
“Something his grandmother told him on her deathbed,” Rhoda said. “We thought it might be a story for your collection of Moose County legends.”
“I won’t know till I hear it. Do you remember the details?”
“Between the two of us, I think we can remember how it went, but you’ll have to write it in your own narrative style, Qwill.”
He turned on his tape recorder.
On the way back to town he began dry-writing the story in his head. First he dropped off the photo of Gov. Witherspoon at the library.
“Sorry to be unsuccessful,” he apologized to the volunteers. “But here’s what I suggest: Feature it as a mystery photo. Invite the townfolk to bring their family albums to the library and see if they can match up any of the faces. I’ll mention it in my column.”
His idea was received with delight. Polly was back from the dentist, but he had no time to go up to her office. He wanted to go home and write Secrets of the Blacksmith’s Wife, as told to Eddington Smith by his grandmother.
When Pickax was named the county seat-because of its central location-it was only a hamlet, but a building boom started almost overnight. The blacksmith, who made nails as well as horseshoes, could hardly keep up with the demand as ambitious settlers built dwellings and shops. Then one day he was kicked in the head by a horse and died on the spot. There was panic in Pickax! No blacksmith! No nails!
The next day, by a strange coincidence, a stranger walked into town-a big brawny man carrying a stick over his shoulder with a bundle tied on the end. He wore his hair longer than was the custom in Moose County, and at first he was viewed with suspicion. When he said he was a blacksmith, however, the townfolk changed their attitude.
Could he make nails?
Yes, he could make nails.
What was his name?
John.
John what?
He said, “Just John. That’s all the name you need to make nails.”
This was somewhat irregular, but they needed nails, so the local officials put their heads together and listed him on the town rolls as John B. Smith, the middle initial standing for “Black.”
When Longfellow wrote “The smith a mighty man is he,” he might have been writing about John B. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with large and sinewy hands, and his muscles were strong as iron bands. No one dared criticize his long hair. Furthermore, he was twenty-two and good-looking, and all the young women in town were after him. It was not long before he married Emma, who could read and write. They had six children, although only three reached adulthood-not an unusual situation in those days. He built them a house of quarry stone with a front of feldspar that sparkled like diamonds on a sunny day. It was much admired by the other settlers, who liked novelty.
The smithy was in the backyard, and there John worked industriously, turning out tools, wagon wheels, cookpots, horseshoes, and nails. He was a good provider and went to chapel with his family twice a week. Emma was the envy of most women in town.
Once in a while he told her he had to visit his old mother in Lockmaster, and he would get on his horse and ride south, staying a week or more. The local gossips said he had another wife down there, but Emma trusted him, and he always brought her a pretty shawl or a nice piece of cloth to make into a dress.
Then came a time when he failed to return. There was no way of tracing his whereabouts, but Emma was sure he had been killed by highwaymen who wanted to steal his horse and gold watch. Lockmaster-with its fur-trading and gold-mining-offered rich pickings for robbers. Someone from the next town wanted to buy John’s anvil and tools, but Emma refused to sell.