"Oh, she's all for it! She says it'll make our neighborhood world-famous. I'm not sure that prospect appeals to me... But look! Why am I burdening you with my problems?"
"No burden. No burden at all," Qwilleran said. "I can put myself in your shoes. I know exactly how you feel. " he had an interviewer's talent for empathy, and often it was genuine.
Driving home from Pleasant Street, he was glad he had no parental responsibilities. It was mid-afternoon, and it had been a day of diffused activity, little of which really concerned him. It was his congenital curiosity that involved him in the problems of others. What he needed now was a good shower, a dish of ice cream, and an absorbing book.
The Siamese were sleeping soundly. Only when he opened the refrigerator door did they wake and report to the kitchen for a lick of French vanilla. After that, Yum Yum ran around in a joyful circles, but Koko read Qwilleran's mind. That cat knew it was booktime and stood on his hind legs at the hutch cupboard and sniffed titles.
There were favorites brought from the barn, recent purchases from Eddington Smith, and gifts from friends who knew Qwilleran's fondness for old books. Koko's nose traveled up and down each spine, moving from one to the other until it finally stopped, like the planchette on a Ouija board. It stopped at Ossian and the Ossianic Literature, the book written by A. Nutt.
Qwilleran thought, Is he expressing an uncomplimentary opinion about me? Or does he really want to hear about ancient Gaelic poetry?
Although not in the mood for a scholarly study of a centuries-old mystery, Qwilleran gave it a try. He read aloud, and after a while all three of them were asleep in the big lounge chair.
-10-
By the end of January, Qwilleran had several leads for Short and Tall Tales, and one that particularly appealed to him was the story of Hilda the Clipper. It was funny, old-timers said, and yet it was sad. She was an eccentric woman who had terrorized the entire town of Brrr seventy years before. Brrr, so named because it was the coldest spot in the country, was a summer resort town situated on a promontory overlooking the big lake. In winter it resembled an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
The person said to know the details of the Hilda saga was Gary Pratt, proprietor of the Black Bear Caf‚ in Brrr, and Qwilleran drove out to see him one day. The noon rush was over, but one could still order a bearburger - not related to Ursus americanus but simply the best ground beef sandwich in the country.
The caf‚ was in a hotel on the highest point in town; a sign on the roof, visible for miles, said: ROOMS.. FOOD...BOOZE. A kind of poetry in the internal vowels made it memorable, and it had been there as long as anyone could remember, guiding trawlers and pleasure boats into harbor.
Affectionately known as the Hotel Booze, the plain, boxlike structure dated back to the rough-tough days of mining and lumbering. Gary Pratt had inherited it along with its debts and code violations. Wisely he had preserved its dilapidated appearance, which appealed to boaters and commercial fishermen, while making just enough repairs to satisfy the county license bureau.
He leaned on the bar while Qwilleran sat on a wobbly bar stool, eating a bearburger. Gary was a big bear of a man, having a lumbering gait and a shaggy black mop of hair, with beard to match. "Glad you agreed to be grand marshal of the Ice Festival, Qwill."
"I wasn't aware I'd agreed," Qwilleran muttered between bites. "Who else is in the parade?"
"The queen, wrapped in synthetic polar-bear skins and riding in a horse- drawn sleigh. Dogsleds drawn by packs of huskies. A fleet of motorbikes with riders in polar-bear costumes. Two high=school bands on flatbeds. Eight floats celebrating winter sports. And torch bearers on cross-country skis."
Qwilleran refrained from making the cranky remarks that came to mind. The festival, after all, was going to be good for the country, and hundreds of go- getters were working hard to make it a success. Besides, the sandwich he was eating was courtesy of the house.
"Tell me about your book," Gary said. "What's the idea?"
"A collection of stories and legends about the early days of Moose County, to be published by the K Fund and sold in gift shops. Proceeds will go to the historical museum. How do you happen to know about Hilda?"
"My father and grandfather told the story so many times, I learned it by heart. Are you gonna record it?"
"Yes. Let's go to your office, where it's quieter."
The following account was later transcribed:
My grandfather used to tell about this eccentric old woman in Brrr who had everybody terrorized. This was about seventy years ago, you understand. She always walked around with a pair of hedge clippers, pointing them at people and going click-click with the blades. Behind her back they laughed and called her Hilda the Clipper, but the same people were very nervous when she was around. The thing of it was, nobody knew if she was just an oddball or was really smart enough to beat the system. In stores she picked up anything she wanted without paying a cent. She broke all the town ordinances and got away with it. Once in a while a cop or the sheriff would question her from a safe distance, and she said she was taking her hedge clippers to be sharpened. She didn't have a hedge. She lived in a tar-paper shack with a mangy dog. No electricity, no running water. My grandfather had a farmhouse across the road, and Hilda's shack was on his property. She lived there rent-free, brought water in a pail from his handpump, and helped herself to firewood from his woodpile in winter. One night, right after Halloween, the Reverend Mr. Wimsey from the church here was driving home from a prayer meeting at Squunk Corners. It was a cold night, and cars didn't have heaters then. His model T didn't have side curtains, so he was dressed warm. He was chugging along the country road, probably twenty miles an hour, when he saw somebody in the darkness ahead, trudging down the middle of the dirt road, and wearing a bathrobe and bedroom slippers. She was carrying hedge clippers. Mr. Wimsey knew her well. She'd been a member of his flock until he suggested she quit bringing the clippers to services. Then she gave up going to church and was kind of hostile. Still, he couldn't leave her out there to catch her death of cold. Nowadays you'd just call the sheriff, but there were no car radios then, and no cell phones. So he pulled up and asked where she was going. "To see my friend," she said in a gravelly voice. "Would you like a ride, Hilda/" She gave him a mean look and then said, "Seein' as how it's a cold night.. " She climbed in the car and sat with the clippers on her lap and both hands on the handles. Mr. Wimsey told Grandpa he gulped a couple of times and asked where her friend lived. "Over yonder." She pointed across a cornfield. "It's late to go visiting," he said. "Wouldn't' you rather I should take you home?" "I told you where I be wantin' to go," she shouted, as if he was deaf, and she gave the clippers a click-click. "That's all right, Hilda. Do you know how to get there?' "It's over yonder." She pointed to the left. At the next road he turned left and drove for about a mile without seeing anything like a house. He asked what the house looked like. "I'll know it when we get there!" Click-click. "What road is it on? Do you know?" "It don't have a name. Click-click. "What's the name of your friend?' "None o' yer business! Just take me there." She was shivering, and he stopped the car and started to taking off his coat. "Let me put my coat around you, Hilda." "Don't' you get fresh with me!" she shouted, pushing him away and going click-click. Mr. Wimsey kept on driving and thinking what to do. He drove past a sheep pasture, a quarry, and dark farmhouses with barking dogs. The lights of Brrr glowed in the distance, but if he steered in that direction, she went into a snit and clicked the clippers angrily. Finally he had an inspiration. "We're running out of fuel!" he said in an anxious voice. "We'll be stranded out here! We'll freeze to death! I have to go into town to buy some gasoline!" It was the first time in his life, he told Grandpa, that he'd ever told a lie, and he prayed silently for forgiveness. He also prayed the trick would work. Hilda didn't object. Luckily she was getting drowsy, probably in the first stages of hypothermia. Mr. Wimsey found a country store and went in to use their crank telephone. In two minutes a sheriff deputy drove up on a motorcycle. "Mr. Wimsey! You old rascal!" he said to the preacher. "We've been looking all over for the Clipper! Better talk fast, or I'll have to arrest you for kidnapping!" What happened, you see: Hilda's dog had been howling for hours, and Grandpa called the sheriff.