The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain (11 page)

“No, though it mightn’t be such a bad idea, at that. What I had in mind was to dye them gold and cut them up for tablecloths.

It would look so tacky to use mismatched cloths. By the way, you still have that bridge table and chairs of your mother’s, don’t you?”

“Yes, I use them in my office.”

“But you can surely spare them for a day or two.”

“If needs must. Anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Large casseroles, plates, cups, saucers, knives, forks, teaspoons, serving spoons, punchbowl, glasses, trays. Oh, and may we use those soapstone laundry tubs of yours to dye the sheets in? And your washer? And is your freezer very full?”

“Heavens, no. I don’t even bother to plug it in, just for myself.”

“Then plug it. We’ll need somewhere to keep the casseroles.

After we get them baked, that is. You know, what we’d best do is bring all the ingredients over to your house and get our crew together and assemble and bake them right there in your kitchen.

i Then we can pop them straight down cellar into the freezer. I’ll I do the first lot of shopping this morning and put the groceries in your pantry. That will be easiest.”

“Easiest for whom?” Dittany said nastily, but Hazel only murmured something about cream of shrimp soup and hung up.

Dittany made herself some tea and a great deal of toast. She was halfway through her first slice when the telephone rang again. Zilla Trott, full of beans from a good night’s rest induced no doubt by clean living and camomile tea, was also bubbling with plans. “It’s all set. The Boy Scouts will be over at the mountain directly after school lets out. Got any rakes, hoes, shears-“

“Machetes, bolo knives, can openers, hatpins, buttonhooks?

Sure thing, Zilla. Help yourself to whatever you can find in the tool shed.”

“Can’t you just load everything into your wheelbarrow and bring it along when you come?”

“What makes you think I’m coming’”

“Dittany, you’ve got to! We can’t let those boys go yanking and snipping without supervision. You’re the only one except myself and Minerva who’s really sure what grows where.”

“But I have to write a speech for Samantha and clear the pantry for Hazel to park her shrimp soup and find sheets to dye for tablecloths and-and besides, you’re not the one who got shot at.”

“Neither are you. Just because a stray arrow happened to land somewhere in your vicinity-“

“Didn’t mean a thing, eh? In one ear and out the other.”

“That’s a gross exaggeration. Anyway, if it did come close, that’s all the more reason why you need to overcome any irrational fears that may be lurking in your subconscious mind.”

“Zilla, my fears are neither subconscious nor irrational.”

“Then you must deal with them at once. Half past one and not a second later. Bring a ball of string and a bag of lime to mark trails with. And I’m sure you won’t mind if the work crew leave their shovels and stuff in your tool shed. It will be so much-“

“I know, handier for everyone. Okay, but somebody will have to keep track of which is whose. I’m darned if I’ll sort them out.”

She’d also be darned if she didn’t, no doubt. Groaning, Dittany hung up and took a bite of cold toast. She hadn’t got round to calling the Binkles about Ethel but it was too late now. They’d have gone on their way rejoicing ages ago. Would cold toast be more palatable with jam? She was about to experiment when Therese Boulanger called.

“Dittany, can we count on your help at the bake sale?”

“What bake sale, for Pete’s sake?”

“The one we’re holding Saturday morning to raise funds for the Enchanted Mountain Reclamation Project. Didn’t Hazel tell you?”

“I only remember soup and sheets.”

“Oh, I’m glad you mentioned sheets. We’ll need your grandmother’s old sewing room to get them cut and hemmed. And Ellie Despard’s going to make the most adorable butterfly centerpieces out of gold lace paper doilies, but she needs a space to work, so-“

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

“Well, you do have that big house all to yourself, Dittany.”

“That’s what you think, Therese. Look, why don’t I leave the key under the mat? You folks just march in four abreast and make yourselves at home.”

“But, Dittany, we’re counting on you! Where will you be?”

“Who knows? Up on the mountain catching poison ivy with Zilla, over helping Samantha memorize the speech I haven’t written yet, robbing clotheslines for you and Hazel-“

“Speaking of clotheslines, is your dryer working?”

“My clothesline is.”

“What if it rains?”

“It wouldn’t dare.”

Therese permitted herself a snicker. “Ellie said she’d do some posters for Samantha’s campaign.”

“Great!”

“I told her you’d show her what to put on them.”

“Merci and a rousing beaucoup. What time is she coming over?”

“I expect she’s on her way. She has to work while Petey’s at kindergarten, you know.”

Dittany knew. She’d made the mistake of offering to baby-sit Petey once. She was still quailing at the memory when Ellie arrived laden with scissors, paste pots, and sundry other items that were no doubt necessary for turning gold paper doilies into butterflies.

Ellie was about to dump her messy armload on Gram Henbit’s solid mahogany dining-room table when Dittany screamed.

“Ellie, wait. Let me spread something over the table before you begin slopping that gunk around.”

“Dittany, you’re turning into a regular old maid. Why don’t you get married and find out what life’s all about? Though I must say there are times when I wish I’d never learned,” Ellie added rather wistfully. “Do as you please, then. I’ve got to run down to Mr. Gumpert’s for poster board.”

Ellie dumped her armload on a chair and ran off, looking flushed and chic in her plaid coat, purple pants, and lime-green jersey with bright orange paint spots on it. By the time she got back, Dittany had the table set up for work and a rough sketch ready.

“How’s this for an idea, Ellie? See, you print the headline YOU HAVE A CHOICE … THIS … and you draw a few moldy looking beer cans … OR THIS … and you put in a tree and some flowers. Then you print at the bottom WRITE IN SAMANTHA BURBERRY FOR DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION WHEN YOU VOTE TUESDAY, APRIL 2.”

“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.

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 sighed, and went to ponder what she could scramble together by way of lunch since Hazel hadn’t yet 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.”