The Cat Who Sang For The Birds

-2-

As a journalist, Qwilleran was interested in newsworthy characters; as one who had never known his grandparents, he was drawn to octogenarians and nonagenarians. That was reason enough to visit Mrs. Coggin. Another incentive was Koko’s cavalier treatment of The Crucible.

While Qwilleran was feeding the Siamese the next morning, he began to wonder how the aged eccentric would react to a casual visit from a stranger. There was no listing for her in the telephone directory. Just “dropping in” or “stopping by” was customary in the north country but not in Qwilleran’ s book. He still had some city blood in his veins.

Nevertheless, he rationalized. On the roadside across from her house there was a newspaper sleeve as well as a rural mailbox… . All residents over ninety received a free subscription to the Moose County Something… If she read it, she should recognize his moustache. It appeared at the head of his column every Tuesday and Friday and was better known in Moose County than George Washington’s wig on the one-dollar bill… A token of neighborliness, such as muffins from the Scottish bakery, might be in order.

“How does that sound, Koko?” he asked the cat, who was concentrating on his breakfast.

“Yargle,” came the reply as Koko tried to swallow and comment at the same time.

In mid-morning, Qwilleran set out from the barn carrying a baker’s box tied with red plaid ribbon. He said goodbye to the cats, told them where he was going, and estimated when he would return. The more you talk to cats, he believed, the smarter they become. Koko was disturbingly smart. Qwilleran called him a fine fellow and had a great deal of respect for him. Yum Yum was a dainty little female with winning ways and a fondness for laps, the contents of wastebaskets, and small shiny objects she could hide under the rug.

He gave them some parting instructions. “Don’t answer the phone. Don’t pull the plug on the refrigerator. Don’t open the door to poll-takers.”

They looked at him blankly. From the bam a narrow lane led east to the county highway, a matter of a few tenths of a mile. It wound through the bird garden, then a meadow that had once been a blighted apple orchard, then an age-old grove of evergreens and hardwoods. At the end, fronting on Trevelyan Road, was the two-acre plot where Polly had been building a house until health problems forced her to abandon the project. Fortunately, the Klingenschoen Foundation took it off her hands and gave it to the local art community as a center for exhibitions and related activities.

The new Art Center had a residential air, being sided with the stained cedar popular in the north country. As Qwilleran walked past, he found everything shipshape for the official opening - except the driveway and parking lot. These paved areas were crisscrossed with brown mud tracked in from the highway. Trevelyan Road was used chiefly by farmers, and mud from the fields was transferred to the pavement by truck tires and tractor treads, thence to the Art Center premises. Officers of the Arts Council had drawn the condition to the attention of county officials, but what could be done? In farming country, mud

happens! Yet, the new manager of the Art Center had written an irate letter to the newspaper, a move that brought angry replies from the agricultural sector.

Across the road from the handsome new building was a dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by a hundred acres of well-tilled farmland. The house was sadly neglected and would have appeared abandoned but for the chickens pecking around the wheels of a rusty truck in the front yard. As Qwilleran approached, five elderly mongrels limped and waddled from behind the house.

“Good dogs! Good dogs!” he said as he headed for the front stoop. They followed him with benign curiosity, too tired or too old to bark.

Nevertheless, the front door was flung open, and a scrawny woman in strange clothing screeched, “Who be you?”

Qwilleran raised the bakery box and replied in a pleasant voice, “A messenger from the Moose County Something, bringing a present to one of our favorite readers!”

“Laws a’mighty!” she exclaimed. “I declare it be the moustache from the paper! Come on in and have a sup. There be a pot o’ coffee b’ilin’ on the stove.” She spoke in a local patois common among old-timers in the area. Polly was doing research on Old Moose as an almost forgotten dialect. Qwilleran was glad he had brought his tape recorder.

The entrance hall was totally dark. Groping blindly in her wake he found himself in a large, dusty, cluttered kitchen. Besides a pot-bellied stove, pots and pans, and a dry sink with hand pump, there were such furnishings as a narrow cot, a chest of drawers, and a large, old-fashioned Morris chair with tom upholstery. This was where she lived!

She cleared rolled-up newspapers and assorted litter from a wooden table and a scarred wooden chair. “Sit ye down!” she invited as she poured coffee from an enameled tin pot into thick china mugs with chipped handles. It had been boiling on a kerosene heater. The cast-iron stove, not needed in this weather, was piled high with rolled-up newspapers.

Qwilleran said, “I hope you like these muffins, Mrs. Coggin. They’re carrot and raisin.”

She bit into one with good teeth, large but discolored. “So they be! Ain’t had nothin’ so fancy since Bert passed on. That were twenty year ago. Livin’ alone, a body gets to livin’ mighty plain. He were seventy-eight, Bert were, when he passed on. I be ninety-three.”

“You don’t look it,” Qwilleran said. “There’s something youthful about you.” She was indeed spirited and agile.

“Yep. Can read the paper ‘thout glasses. Never had no store-bought teeth. Live off the land and work hard, that be the ticket.”

Yet her face was furrowed and leathery, and her scant white hair was untamed. This wild aspect, plus her screeching voice and odd attire, could easily give rise to gossip. In spite of the mild weather and glowing kerosene heater, she was wearing a long heavy skirt over farmer’s workpants, topped with layers of men’s shirts and sweaters. She clomped around the raw wood floor in sixteen-eyelet field boots, somewhat too large.

“How long were you married, Mrs. Coggin?”

“Sixty year. This be Bert’s chair.” She flopped down in the Morris chair and propped her boots on a wooden crate. “And these be Bert’s boots.”

“Have you had this land all that time?”

“One acre, we started with. Worked it together. Di’n’t have a horse. I pulled the plow. I were young, then. I be ninety-three now. Do my own chores. Grow my own turnips and kale. Drive my own truck.”

“But how do you cultivate all this acreage, Mrs. Coggin?”

“Some young lads been tillin’ it since Bert passed on. Hunnerd acres, all-a-ways back to the river. With them big machines, it ain’t like it were. Good lads, they be. Paid me rent, they did, for twenty year, ‘thout missin’ a month.”

“I think I know them - the McBee brothers.”

“Don’t rent the land no more. Sold the whole caboodle! No more taxes to pay, an’ I can live here ‘thout payin’ rent. This new feller loves the soil, he does, like Bert did, He’s gonna plant food crops - taters an’ beans, not just hay and field corn.”

“Sounds like a good deal. Have you

always lived in this area, Mrs. Coggin?”

“Nope. Growed up in Little Hope.”

“Then you probably know Homer Tibbitt.” The retired high school principal was now official county historian.

“Yep, Lived on the next farm. Set my cap for that boy, I did, but he up and went away to school, so I married Bert. He were a good farmer and a good man. Give me three boys, he did, All moved away now. No tellin’ where they be. Passed on, mebbe.”

“You probably have great-grandchildren.”

She shrugged, “Don’t know where they be.”

Qwilleran glanced at the hand pump in the kitchen sink, He counted four oil lamps. “I don’t see any electric lights.”

“Don’t need none.”

“Do you have a telephone?”

“Nope. Waste o’ money… Want more coffee?”

He declined politely, Though notorious for his powerhouse coffee, Qwilleran was floored by the thick brew that had been boiling on the kerosene heater all morning. “What do you think of your new neighbors across the street?” he asked.

“A plague on ‘em! They be writin’ letters to the paper ‘bout mud! It be good honest farm dirt, an’ we be trackin’ it for seventy year! Let ‘em take their fancy stuff and go somewhere else. They come in here with all them cars, pollutin’ the air and botherin’ my hens! Artists, they say they be! Likely drawin’ pitchers of folks ‘thout clothes on!”

Qwilleran said, “I’m hoping we’ll all be able to live together in peace.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna write no letters to the paper. Me, I mind my own business. I be ninety-three.”

“Your dogs are very friendly.”

“Pore ol’ things! Nobody wants’ em. They come around, starvin’ and shiverin’, I give ‘em a blanket in the shed and somethin’ t’eat.”

“Do they have names?”

“I call ‘em Blackie, Spot, Dolly, Mabel, and Li’l Yaller. Yessir! When I pass on, I be leavin’ my money to take care o’ pore ol’ dogs. All I want - I want a tombstone next to Bert’s, an’ the words I want on it be: ‘Maude Coggin. Worked Hard. Loved Animals. Mound Her Own Business.’”

With assorted reactions Qwilleran walked away from the Coggin farm. He hoped there was no feud brewing between the art community and the farmers… . He knew Polly would appreciate the bucolic philosophy and Old Moose vernacular, which he had taped surreptitiously … He wondered if he should send a case of dog food to the Coggin Shelter for Pore ol’ Dogs.

It was too early for the newspaper

delivery, but he stopped at his mailbox on the side of the road. There were a few letters. Business correspondence went to a post office box and was handled by a secretarial service; fan mail went to the newspaper office.

In the Art Center parking lot the large number of cars prompted him to go in and investigate. He found a light interior with walls and vinyl floors in the pale neutral compatible with art. Volunteers were setting up the opening exhibit in two galleries. There was also a room with chairs and tables for classes and sliding glass doors opening to a patio. Down a hall were studios with north light, an office for the manager, and stairs leading to a future gallery on the lower level.

Most of the helpers were middle-aged women in blue denim smocks with the Art Center logo. There was one man on a stepladder, however, adjusting the track lights under the supervision of a businesslike young woman.

“Higher, higher,” she said, waving her arms. “Now a little to the left.”

Catching a glimpse of Qwilleran, she rushed to his side, and her expression changed from stern to hospitable. “You’re Mr. Q, aren’t you?” she said. “I’m Beverly Forfar, the manager.” Even while being pleasant she looked formidable, owing to the severe haircut that fitted her head like a helmet. Straight dark hair covered ears and eyebrows. She waved an arm around the interior.

“We have you to thank for all this, Mr. Q.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank those eggheads at the K Fund,” he said. “Do you think you’ll be ready in time for the Sunday opening?”

“Absolutely! Even if the entire crew has to work around the clock!”

“Answer one question, Ms. Forfar. How do galleries hang and rehang exhibits without leaving holes in the wall?”

“It’s very simple. Our walls are plywood covered with carpet. The nails go into the plywood, and the carpet weave conceals the holes.”

“Well! … Learn something every day! Don’t let me keep you from your work. I’m only snooping.”

“Will you be covering the opening for the paper?”

“No, Roger MacGillivray is assigned, but I’ll be here with friends. I hope you’re having refreshments,” he added playfully.

“Oh, definitely!” Taking him seriously, she enumerated the two kinds of punch and seven kinds of sweets, before returning to the exhibit space.

The man on the stepladder - no one Qwilleran knew - was waiting patiently with the bemused attitude of a volunteer. He had a distinguished appearance, with a shock of white hair that was hard to overlook and gold-rimmed glasses that gave his eyes a friendly look.

“Now - the other bank of lights,” Ms. Forfar instructed him, pointing and gesturing. “Bring them all down… First one to the left… Others straight ahead… No, that one slightly to the right and higher, higher! … Not so high! Slightly to the left!”

The white-haired helper turned to look at her, caught Qwilleran’s eye, smiled and shrugged, and Qwilleran composed an original Chinese proverb: Man on ladder, directed by woman below - not good.

Still, he decided, the manager was an attractive woman in her way: buxom, but slim-hipped. No blue denim smock for her! She was wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit.

As he ambled toward the studios, he heard a loud male voice saying irritably, “What did they hope to accomplish? They made fools of my kids! And my daughter has a weak heart; she could’ve had an attack!”

“What was it all about?” another man said quietly without any real show of interest.

Qwilleran maneuvered an oblique sightline into the studio and glimpsed an artist working at an easel while his subject sat in a chair on a raised platform. The subject, who had trouble sitting still, was Chester Ramsbottom, a county commissioner and owner of a restaurant, a chesty man with thinning hair and an air of authority.

“I’ll tell you what it was all about!” he said belligerently. “It was a stupid boondoggle! All fake! And the taxpayers will hafta foot the bill! They never consulted me about any of this, and I’d like to know why! They duped the kids into watching this fake accident, and they fell for it! It was an insult to their intelligence and, by God! I’m gonna investigate!”

“Aw, shut your big yap, knucklehead!” came a raucous voice from the next studio.

“Who said that?” the commissioner blurted, half rising from his chair.

“Whoops, dearie!” came the voice, followed by a wolf whistle. “Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Qwilleran moved quietly to the adjoining studio and saw a young woman at a drawing board, covering her face with her hands to stifle her giggles. In a large cage was a parrot-green bird with a touch of red on his tail. He was blinking and rocking on his perch.

“Pretty Polly!” Qwilleran said to him. “Pretty Polly!”

“Bug off’, knucklehead!” came the impolite reply.

The artist jumped up and threw a blanket over the cage. “I’m sorry! You’re Mr. Q, aren’t you? He doesn’t like to be called Polly. His name is Jasper.”

“Is he yours?” The question was asked in disbelief. She was a diminutive young

woman, rather like a twelve-year-old, and there was an innocence in her large brown eyes.

“My boyfriend gave him to me, and my mom won’t let me have pets at home, so I’m keeping him here until can get an apartment.”

Qwilleran glanced around the room. All the studios had narrow ledges on the sidewalls for displaying art, framed or unframed. Here the ledges were filled with butterfly paintings. On a side table he noted a butterfly guidebook, a ceramic vase covered with butterflies in low relief, and a bowl of peanuts.

“So you’re the Butterfly Girl!” he said. “Do you object to being called that?”

“No, I really like it,” she said.

“Do you like butterflies?”

“Actually, I’ve never paid much attention to them,” he said, “but my cats like to see them flitting around. We don’t have any like these in my backyard.”

The paintings on display were about the size of an average book, each with a brilliant butterfly flat-out and another of the same species with wings folded back, resting on a twig or sipping nectar from a flower. The artist explained. “People prefer exotics, like the Paris Peacock and the Red Lacewing. The black-and-white one is a Tailed Emperor, and if you look closely you can see smidgens of blue, brown, orange, and maroon in the wings.”

“Hmmm,” he said, for want of a more intelligent response.

“A lot of people make collections, specializing in Blues or Swallowtails or Hairstreaks. They commission me to paint certain ones. It’s a lot of fun.”

“I imagine so,” he said. “Well, well! … That’s a beautiful vase.”

“Do you like it?” the Butterfly Girl said with eyes gleaming. “That’s my inspiration! My grandmother sent it from California… Do you mind if I uncover Jasper? The man next door has gone, I think.” She moved gracefully to the cage with a dancer’s posture, and Qwilleran noted that her hair was piled tightly in a ballerina’s topknot.

As soon as the cage was uncovered, Jasper squawked, “Gimme a peanut! Monkey gimme a peanut!”

“Who trained this bird!” Qwilleran asked.

“I don’t know. My boyfriend bought him at a bird show Down Below.”

“He has a murderous beak. I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.”

“He’s an Amazon hookbill. They’re supposed to be very intelligent.”

“He may have a high IQ, but his vocabulary needs to be cleaned up.”

“Same to you, knucklehead!”

Shaking his head in amused disbelief,

Qwilleran said goodbye to the Butterfly Girl and returned to the portrait studio, where the artist now sat alone. He had a bifurcated beard that gave him a comic look and twinkling eyes that suggested he had no objection to painting fools. Qwilleran wondered how Ramsbottom would be depicted - as an arrogant county boss or a genial purveyor of barbecue sandwiches?

“You must be Paul Skumble,” he said. “I’m Jim Qwilleran. We’ve never met, but I commissioned you to do a double portrait for a wedding gift last winter.”

“I remember well. That was a sad case. Sorry it didn’t work out. It would have been a challenge.”

“Are you relocating in Moose County?”

“No, my home and studio are still in Lockmaster, but I have several commissions up here, and I’m renting this studio on a temporary basis.”

“I’d like to have a portrait of a friend of mine, a librarian. I’d like her to be seated, holding a book. Would you be interested?”

“I think so. I’m very good at books. Some people say I paint books better than I paint faces.” His face crinkled with humor. He had a face that crinkled easily. Polly would like him.

“Will you be here on Sunday? I’d like you two to meet.”

“Is she willing to sit for a portrait? I don’t copy photographs. Painting from life has a rich tonality that can’t be faked.”

“She’ll sit. Trust me,” Qwilleran said.

“Some people don’t like to spend the time - “

“Leave it to me!”

As Qwilleran was leaving the building he beckoned Beverly Forfar away from her duties. “How many visitors do you expect on Sunday?”

“We’ve provided refreshments for three hundred. I just hope we don’t run out of punch. The open house is scheduled from one to five o’clock. Wouldn’t it be awful if they all came at once?”

“Where will they park after the lot is filled?” “On both sides of Trevelyan Road. We have permission, and the sheriff will monitor the situation.” She assumed a grim expression accentuated by the severity of her long straight bangs. “Mr. Q, can anything be done about that eyesore across the road?”

“The farmhouse? If I were an artist, I’d consider it picturesque,” he answered evasively.

“It might be if it didn’t have that junk truck in the front yard, and those ratty dogs and chickens. They’re always running out on the highway. They could cause accidents. I thought dogs were supposed to be tied up.”

“Only within the city limits,” Qwilleran said. “This building is in Pickax, but the farmhouse is in the township, and there’s no rural ordinance.”

“And how about the mud, Mr. Q? It gets tracked onto our parking lot and then into the building.”

“Unfortunately, Ms. Forfar, this is farming country, and it’s spring. In the growing season, it won’t be such a problem.”

“Well, something should be done about it before it ruins our floors!” she said vehemently.

On the perimeter of the Art Center, at the beginning of the lane to Qwilleran’ s barn, a new sign read: PRIVATE DRIVE. It had been installed just in time; otherwise, three hundred visitors to the open house would tramp up the lane to look at the fabulous structure. The public had always been curious about the barn. Six months before, it had been the scene of a charity cheese-tasting party, with guests paying three hundred dollars apiece to attend the black-tie event. They were still talking about it - not so much because of the architecture or the twenty-two cheeses but because Koko, in his inimitable way, had stolen the show.

Concerning the new sign, Polly had questioned , whether it would be enough to discourage sightseers.

“If not, we’ll add ‘BEWARE OF VICIOUS ANIMALS,’” Qwilleran had told her. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to resort to a moat and drawbridge. It’s not that I’m being asocial; I simply don’t want strangers peering in the windows at the cats and getting ideas.”