`About timing,' Alden said. 'The doors open at seven-thirty. The business meeting starts at eight with election of officers.'
`What time do you want me to report?'
`Between eight and eight-thirty. Use your key and come in the side door. Stay in the office with Dundee until we're ready to introduce you.'
`Does Dundee make his entrance with me?' Qwilleran asked.
`Dundee stays in the office all evening. He's too much of a scene stealer. Any questions?'
‘What to wear?'
`I'd say . . . jacket, no tie. And by the way, the parking lots at north and south ends will both be full, but there'll be a space reserved at the side door for you.'
Qwilleran found it a pleasure to do business with Alden; he was always so well organized.
At the barn, Koko's frantic cavorting in the kitchen window brought Qwilleran indoors on the double. Strangely, the phone had not started to ring. Stranger still, when it did ring, it was an unusual call from Moira MacDiarmid.
`Qwill, I need to discuss something with you. Is this a suitable time?'
`There's nobody here but two nosy cats, and they can be trusted. What is it, Moira?'
`I know Kip and I talked about having dinner with you and Polly soon, but my husband abhors gossip, and this is rather . . . speculative.'
Qwilleran's curiosity was piqued. Although not prone to spread gossip, he was willing to listen to it, especially when it was called 'speculation'. What his friend's wife was suggesting was a private conference - not easy to do in either Lockmaster or Pickax without arousing suspicion. He got the message.
`Are you there, Qwill?'
`I'm here. I'm thinking. I need a topic for Tuesday's column, and - since Dundee has been such a hit in these parts - a dissertation on the marmalade breed would be of great interest to my readers. Since you're the sole authority on the subject, an interview with you would be expedient. Could you spare time tomorrow afternoon?'
'Oh, Qwill!'
'How many residents do you have in your cattery at the moment? Could they be available for interviewing tomorrow afternoon at one-thirty?'
After a few guarded words on Moira's part and a few noncommittal words on Qwilleran's, they hung up. He was chuckling to himself; there was nothing like a little intrigue to add zip to the daily routine. As for Koko, he was sitting on the kitchen counter, listening. How had he known the phone was going to ring? How had he known the caller was a cat breeder in the next county?
Koko jumped off the counter and went under the kitchen table, where he stared at his empty plate. Qwilleran gave him a morsel of Gouda cheese and had a slice of it himself.
That was the evening that fifty good folk of Moose County met at The Pirate's Chest to found the Pickax Literary Club. They elected Lyle Compton president, Mavis Adams vice president, Jill Handley secretary, Gordie Shaw treasurer, and Alden Wade programme chairman.
The keynote speaker, sporting a green blazer and trimmed moustache, drove to the bookstore, found his reserved parking space, and let himself in the side door. Peggy was feeding the cat.
'Dundee is dining fashionably late this evening,' Qwilleran said.
'I'm running behind schedule with my work, but he doesn't mind,' she said. 'Why are you sneaking in the back door, Mr Q? You're the star of the whole show!'
'I was told to report here and stay out of sight until called to the platform . . . And by the way, would your overworked computer be able to do a little research for the "Qwill Pen"?'
'Love to! Sit down and tell me about it.'
'Did you see the dedication of the bookstore? There was some ruckus about ribbon cutting. How did the custom originate? When? Where? Why? I need it early next week.'
At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Qwilleran followed Alden to the meeting room.
'Stay outside the entrance, Qwill, until I give you a grand introduction - everything but the trumpets. Then burst through the door and go to the platform with a masterful stride. You know how to grab an audience!'
Qwilleran waited until he heard 'James Mackintosh Qwilleran'. He waited another three seconds, then entered briskly, throwing the salute that downtown pedestrians knew so well. All fifty of them rose to their feet in a torrent of applause.
After all, he was more than a popular columnist and a sympathetic listener to anyone with a problem. He was the modest presence behind the K Fund and everything it had done for the county.
He nodded graciously and used two hands, palms down, to coax them back into their seats.
The lights dimmed, except for one soft downlight over speaker and lectern. On the back wall appeared a blowup of an old grey-on-grey photo; a frail little man in front of a little old bookshop.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we would not be here tonight, launching a literary club under the auspices of a first-class bookstore, if it were not for the late Eddington Smith.'
(More applause)
`For fifty years he sold pre-owned books in the quaint old shop where this building now stands. Before that his father peddled books from door to door, and Eddington went along as a willing helper when he didn't have to go to school.'
Visuaclass="underline" Father and son standing alongside a horse-drawn van: `Smith Book Wagon.'
The books were sold on credit: ten cents down and the rest later. Eddington told me that none of their charge customers ever defaulted.
Did you ever think that Eddington was a rather elegant name for the modest Edd that we knew? It was his mother's maiden name. She taught school in the days of one-room schoolhouses.'
Visuaclass="underline" Severe-faced woman in high-necked blouse, holding book and ruler.
`The ruler, we presume, was for rapping the knuckles of slow students. Edd always spoke fondly of his father but never mentioned his mother. Perhaps his knuckles had been rapped once too often.'
(Laughter)
`But before the stern mother and book-loving father . . . there was Eddington's grandfather.'
Visuaclass="underline" Old oak tree.
`And thereby hangs a tale.
`Upon the formation of Moose County, the founding fathers needed to establish a county seat, centrally located. And there -where two trails intersected in the wilderness - they found a rusty pickax in a tree stump. It was an omen! A backwoods building boom commenced overnight, and a local blacksmith was kept busy producing nails to build homes and shops. Then he was kicked in the head by a horse! No blacksmith . . . no nails!
`At the height of the panic, a stalwart young man walked into own and said he was a blacksmith.
"'Can you make nails?" he was asked.
"Of course I can make nails."
"'What's your name?"
"John."
"John what?"
The cocky young man said, "That's all the name you need to make nails."
`It was highly irregular, but they needed nails, so his name was put on the town rolls as John B. Smith, the initial standing for "Black".
`John was a tall, brawny fellow. To quote the poet: "He had large and sinewy hands and muscles like iron bands." All the young women were after him, it was said, but the one he married was considered the best catch. Not only could she cook and sew hut she could read and write - skills that were scarce among the early settlers.
`John built a home for his family, using feldspar, a stone that sparkled in the sunlight. He built it with his own hands. In the backyard was a mighty oak tree, and under its spreading branches he set up his anvil.
The oak tree has long gone. Either it succumbed to old age and heavy rains . . . or Edd had it removed to make room for more parking spaces that he could rent to downtown workers.
`Edd, for all his shyness, was a practical man. He first acquired a cat to discourage the mice that were nibbling on the books. But a succession of Winstons became an attraction for tourists and local shoppers alike. By now, everyone knows that the cat's famous namesake was an American author and not a British prime minister.'