The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain Page 9

  “It’s fine,” said the artist, “only you know it takes me forever to letter. I’ll tell you what, why don’t I draw the beer cans and you put in the words?”

  “Ellie, I can’t do posters!”

  “You can so. You lettered every one of those seventy million signs, for the flower show, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but that was to get out of being on the Cleanup Committee.”

  “Well, this is for a higher and nobler purpose. Come on, Dittany, Lobelia Falls needs you.”

  “Lobelia Falls is getting too darn much of me as it is,” grumbled Dittany as she plunked herself down at the table and reached for a Magic Marker. She and Ellie had their public relations assembly line, rolling along nicely when Samantha called in a Grade A tizzy to say the Lobelia Leader’s society editor had just this minute called up to ask for an interview and what was Dittany going to do about it?

  “What can I do? You’re the one she—oh, all right, Samantha. What time does the balloon go up?”

  “She said she’d be here at two on the dot. And I haven’t even made the bed yet!”

  “Samantha, I doubt very much if it will be that sort of interview. Tidy up the living room and come over here about half past eleven for a bite of lunch so we can talk over what you’re to say.”

  By then, God willing, Hazel would be back from her shopping trip and Dittany could filch something out of the grocery bags. Otherwise, there’d be slim pickings. Dittany’s thoughts about the interview were pretty slim also. She did know they’d have to be awfully careful not to mention McNaster’s name in any way, shape, or form. If he found so much as a whisper of an excuse he’d have that blot on the legal escutcheon slap them with a charge of slander or whatever it was when you accused somebody of doing something rotten before he’d actually got the chance ‘ to pull it off.

  Knowing her home town as she did, of course, Dittany realized that by now, which was roughly ten o’clock, every member of the club and sundry of her friends, neighbors, and third cousins twice removed had heard under vows of strictest confidence the inside story about Samantha’s candidacy, and that every single one of them was out hunting up some as yet unbent ear to whisper it into.

  From the campaign’s point of view, that was marvelous. There was no surer way to get a listener’s complete attention than to start a sentence with “You mustn’t breathe a word of this, but—” From Dittany’s personal angle, it wasn’t so great. Sooner or later, and more probably sooner than later, word would get to the ears of Sam Wallaby that everybody involved in this sudden attack on what he’d expected to be a shoo-in election was operating out of the Henbit house. And he might remember he’d mentioned a write-in campaign, as the only possible way to defeat him. And he might remember that a strange charwoman in a bright red wig had tried to gate-crash McNaster’s strategy session directly after he’d said it. And how could he possibly not remember Dittany’s mother’s smash performance as the Madwoman of Chaillot because kindly old Sam had donated the pink champagne for the cast party afterward.

  Kindly old Sam was by no means always in his liquor store. He was apt as not to leave his clerks Alf and Ralph to mind the counter while he went off to do his banking or deliver an order. And everybody knew kindly old Sam used these errands as a thin excuse to sneak in a little extra practice at roving because Sam Wallaby, for all his girth and guffaws, was one of the keenest competitors and the deadliest archers in town.

  And maybe the Binkles would let Ethel sleep over again tonight.

  Chapter 10

  DITTANY WOULD HAVE TO put off worrying about getting murdered until some other time. Right now there were those posters to finish. Notwithstanding three or four more interruptions, she and Ellie Despard had half a dozen ready by eleven o’clock. They did look more than a bit homemade but, as Ellie said, theirs was a grass-roots campaign and a little extra grassiness wasn’t going to hurt.

  “I’ll take them along and stick them in store windows downtown on my way to collect Petey. I wouldn’t dare go in once I’ve got him with me. He could clean a place out in two minutes flat. Expect me back tomorrow morning early, eh, but probably not very bright. And for heaven’s sake don’t let Ethel eat those gold lace doilies because Mr. Gumpert doesn’t have any more.”

  “Drat,” said Dittany, “that reminds me, I meant to have you knock off a little art work for the flyers. We’ll have to do that first thing tomorrow.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to spend too much more time on campaign stuff. I did promise Hazel-those twenty centerpieces for the tables, plus the decorations for the table and the mantelpiece, and I can’t come Thursday because Petey’s going to be a pussy willow in the spring pageant and I have to be at school to put his fuzz on.”

  “We shall overcome,” Dittany signed, and went to ponder what she could scramble together by way of lunch since Hazel hadn’t shown up with the groceries. She was opening a can of chicken soup when Therese Boulanger blew in carrying a heap of bedraggled white sheets and a small brown paper bag.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Therese panted. “They didn’t have one single packet of yellow dye in the whole village and I had to go clear over to Scottsbeck for it. Shall we cut first or dye first?”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’?” snarled Dittany. “I’ve spent the morning making posters with Ellie Despard, I have to fix lunch right this minute for Samantha Burberry and brief her on what to say in the newspaper interview she’s having at two o’clock this afternoon, and then meet Zilla Trott and Minerva Oakes at half past one on the Enchanted Mountain with a wheelbarrow full of marking twine. Go down cellar and mix up your dye bath, then come back and have a bite with us and kindly refrain from mentioning sheets while we eat.”

  “Yes, of course, Dittany. I do understand your position. I merely thought how awkward it would be for one person to handle those big things when they’re wet and it’s so important to keep them spread out and moving around so they don’t get spotty. I’ve been debating whether it would be better to cut them into tablecloth size first, but I was afraid they might fray unless they’re hemmed but if the thread were to pucker—”

  “Therese, do me a very large favor and go away till I can think what to tell Samantha. Hazel should be along any minute now and she can give you a hand. You dye the sheets first. My mother always does.”

  To the best of Dittany’s knowledge, the former Mrs. Henbit had never dyed a sheet in her life, much less cut one up for bridge cloths, but that was a bagatelle. What Therese needed was a precedent. If there were anything in Robert’s Rules of Order about dyeing sheets, she’d have had them all superbly finished by now. Dittany headed her in the direction of the washtubs, gave Ethel a handful of dog biscuit for an outdoor picnic, and reached for a second can of soup. It didn’t really matter what she served. Anything tasted good in somebody else’s kitchen. She was throwing a checkered tablecloth over the battered oak table and wondering how many places to set when Hazel blew in and started to dump her load there.

  “Don’t!” shrieked Dittany. “I’m setting that table for lunch.”

  “Dittany,” Hazel replied gently, “I’m not one to criticize, as you know, but I do think it might behoove you to watch that little habit of compulsiveness you’re getting into. You wouldn’t want to turn into a fussy old—”

  “I doubt if I’ll live long enough to be a fussy old anything. Samantha’s on her way here and Therese is down cellar dyeing sheets and I can’t serve in the dining room on account of Ellie’s butterflies. Shove that stuff in the pantry and haul up a chair.”

  “Oh. I’d offer to help but you can’t imagine how exhausting it is to shop for eighty people. And there’s still a raft of food out in the car. I don’t suppose—”

  “You are correct in not supposing. Nothing’s going to freeze or spoil for half an hour or so in this weather, is it? Here, have a sherry and whack yourself off a hunk of cheese while I stir the soup.”

  “Thanks, I will. Did I or did I not see a campaign
poster for Samantha in Mr. Gumpert’s window as I came past?”

  “I expect you did. Ellie said she’d put them around. We made six.”

  “But Ellie was supposed to be making the butterflies!”

  “Yes, Hazel. Have some more cheese, eh? They’ll get done. Somehow.”

  Samantha didn’t arrive until close to noon. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t get off the phone,” she panted. “Everybody and his grandmother was calling up about the election.”

  “What did you tell them?” Dittany asked as she handed Samantha a glass of sherry with one hand and turned on the broiler over some cheese sandwiches with the other.

  “It depended on who they were. This is good, Dittany. To the women’s righters, I said I thought it was time we had some female representation in town government; which in fact I do. I reminded those who are always crabbing about kids and noise that Sam Wallaby had got the Development Commission to cut down those nice old trees that used to be in front of his store so he could have more parking space, which was neither necessary nor desirable since it pollutes the air and brings a gang of outsiders in here on their motorcycles throwing beer cans all over the street. I said if this was Sam Wallaby’s notion of civic development it certainly wasn’t mine.”

  “Great!”

  “And naturally we’re all up in arms about taxes so I got in a good lick about town projects that wind up in private hands and you can jolly well bet I cited that so-called high school annex as a prime example.”

  “You didn’t mention McNaster by name, I hope?” Dittany gasped.

  “Oh, no, I was most careful not to. Joshua warned me about that. But he said I could jump on Sam Wallaby as hard as I liked because that’s how you play politics unless you go in for the high-minded approach, which we don’t have time for. This isn’t by any chance Wallaby’s sherry we’re drinking?”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Dittany confessed, “but I shan’t buy any more. Here, have the last drop in the bottle and drink confusion to your enemies, eh? And from now on we spread the word to boycott Wallaby till he either withdraws from the election or we lick the pants off him, eh?”

  “Right on!” cried Therese, who wasn’t used to drinking anything stronger than cambric tea with her lunch.

  “Well, I don’t know what you thought you needed me for, Samantha,” said Dittany, rescuing the toasted sandwiches and beginning to dish up the soup. “Tell that reporter what you’ve told everybody else and you’re all set. I must say Arethusa didn’t lose any time.”

  “Arethusa Monk? What’s she got to do with my interview?”

  “Everything, naturally.” Dittany explained the midnight encounter. “And she says she’ll donate to the Enchanted Mountain and do whatever else she happens to think of.”

  “Lord have mercy!” exclaimed Hazel. “Who’s to say what that woman will think of?”

  “Well, that’s the chance we take, eh?” said Dittany. “Eat up, everybody. As Gramp Henbit used to say, a full belly maketh a stiff upper lip.”

  Chapter 11

  SAMANTHA DEPARTED FOR HER interview, her customary sangfroid quite restored. Hazel and Therese adjourned to the cellar for an ad hoc session on sheet dyeing. Dittany washed up the dishes, found her gardening gloves and a field mouse who was using the left one for a sleeping bag, apologized to the mouse and put on an old pair of mittens instead, loaded Gramp Henbit’s wheelbarrow with every implement that came to hand, and clanked off toward the Enchanted Mountain.

  She realized she was walking more slowly than usual. No doubt Zilla was right about conquering one’s fears by doing what one was afraid of Zilla hadn’t seen that arrow quivering in the ash tree, or old John Architrave pinned to the ground by its mate. It was perhaps just as well that Ethel upset the wheelbarrow, appearing to enjoy the resultant clash of mattocks and shears and giving Dittany something tangible to fuss about.

  Ethel at least had a lovely afternoon getting in everybody’s way and barking at the Boy Scouts, who might never earn their Nature Lore badges but were putting their youthful energies to good use wresting up rotted stumps and hurling dead branches into a gully where nothing grew but the weediest of weeds. Dittany kept busy enough so that she wouldn’t have time to think and was getting wobbly in the knees with fatigue by the time Minerva decreed it was too dark to work any longer.

  With profound gratitude on Dittany’s part and some reluctance on Ethel’s, they led the rattling, squeaking wheelbarrow brigade back to the tool shed and got the gear stowed. Dittany would have been glad to collapse and put her feet up after that, but she still had to replenish her larder and get square with the Binkles. That meant a trip to the shopping mall at the worst possible time of day.

  Worse still, as she was coaxing Old Faithful along the highway she was passed at an alarming rate by a huge baby-blue car that cut in front of her so abruptly that she had a narrow escape from being forced off the road. She knew the car and she recognized its driver. That burly hulk with the bright red neck and the shiny black hair could be no other than Andrew McNaster. Had he deliberately tried to wreck her, or was this just his usual way of showing courtesy on the highway?

  Anyway, he wasn’t waiting to find out what happened to her. He zoomed on ahead, and as she entered Scottsbeck she saw the baby-blue car parked in front of a block of offices. He must be having an urgent conference with that slimy friend of his crooked lawyer. No doubt McNaster was perturbed at Samantha’s suddenly announced candidacy and the burst of activity up on the Enchanted Mountain. But he couldn’t do anything drastic at this late date without tipping his hand and putting Sam Wallaby’s chances of election down the spout. Could he?

  He could if he thought of something sneaky and rotten enough, and if anybody excelled in the sneaky and rotten department, it was Andy McNasty. Well, they’d just have to maintain eternal vigilance, which reminded Dittany she mustn’t forget the peace offering for the Binkles, though she wasn’t really all that concerned about their wanting Ethel back.

  At half past six she was ringing their doorbell, clutching a gift-wrapped bottle she’d brought from the mall. “This is by way of apology,” she explained when Jane Binkle came to the door. “In case you were wondering who kidnapped Ethel last night, I’m the guilty party.”

  “Heavens, you don’t have to apologize,” said Jane. “We merely assumed our prayers had at last been answered. Far be it from me to turn down a bottle of Duff Gordon. Come in and have one with us.”

  “Well, just one. I don’t want to butt in on your supper.”

  Dittany knew Jane and Henry were folk of settled habits. In fact there wasn’t much she did not know about the Binkles. She’d lived next door to them all her life and cried on Jane’s shoulder when her father died, although Ditson Henbit’s passing had been neither sudden nor unexpected. He’d been the middle-aged son of elderly parents when he’d taken unto himself a wife something less than half his age. Though it was claimed by some that Ditson’s mortal span had been curtailed by his efforts to keep up with his young bride, nobody could say he hadn’t enjoyed the experience while it lasted.

  Because of their retiring natures, the Binkles were probably the only people in Lobelia Falls who still hadn’t heard the full story of McNaster’s perfidy. As they sipped their drinks, Dittany told it with all the trimmings. By the time she finished, Jane was gasping and Henry was gazing down thoughtfully into his half-empty glass. His initial reaction surprised both women.

  “I wonder who gets John Architrave’s money?”

  “Why, Henry,” exclaimed his wife, “whatever made you’ think of that?”

  “Consider the facts, Jane.”

  Jane considered, then nodded. “Henry, no wonder you beat me three games out of five. There’s that big house of John’s sitting right smack cheek by jowl with McNaster’s den of iniquity that used to be such a nice old inn. You took Papa and Mama and me to dinner there the day we got engaged. Do you remember, Henry?”

  “I remember.” Henry Binkle smiled h
is sweet, shy smile. “You had on one of those big floppy hats they used to wear and a pink dress with the roses I gave you pinned to your shoulder. And you were almost as pretty then as you are now.”

  “Why, Henry!” Jane Binkle smiled back as sweetly and shyly as her husband and reached across the chessboard to touch his sleeve.

  Dittany cleared her throat. “Would you two lovebirds prefer my room to my company, eh, or might I stay and pursue this interesting train of thought for a moment? I must say it hadn’t crossed my mind. Didn’t Mr. Architrave have any family at all?”

  “Let me think.” Henry Binkle flushed a bit and folded his hands across his vest. “As you of course know, he was married for many years but never had any children.”

  “Typical of John, eh?” said Jane. “I expect he had some vague understanding of the general principle but never got round to applying it.”

  “I must say, Jane, you’re getting very advanced in your views lately,” her husband retorted with a twinkle that suggested their own childlessness was not due to any lack of application. “Getting back to Dittany’s question, John was one of three brothers, if I’m not mistaken. He was the only one too young to go. The others didn’t come back.”

  Dittany knew what he meant. Canadian boys of John Architrave’s generation had gone to places like Vimy Ridge and Chateaux-Thierry. There’d been sentimental songs like “Keep the Home Fires Burning” and “Roses of Picardy” that Gram’s and Gramp’s friends had liked to sing around the piano, and another about “Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire” that nobody ever cared to remember.

  “Did either of the older boys marry before they went overseas?” she asked.

  “Not that I ever heard of. Do you know, Jane?”

  “I don’t think so, but wasn’t there a half sister who sort of went to the bad and left town? Seems to me she ran off with that red-haired masher who worked in the hardware store. I can just barely remember him.”