Stitch in Time

by John Gould

  Gertrude Cimek, who was solicited to bake a cake for the annual benefit supper of the Ladies’ Aid of the Community Volunteer Firemen’s Association. She made a three-level vanilla cake with chocolate icing. Because it was snowing and she was home alone she then shoveled out the garage door and along the driveway to the main road. Next, she drove seven miles to town and found a note tacked to the fire station door: “Due to Storm, Supper Cancelled.”

  Silsby Soames, who for seven straight months got a printout bill with compounded 18 percent interest penalty when he had paid the bill eight months ago. Having written seven letters, he wrote another.

  Everett Malm, II, who keeps a lobster boat foghorn by his telephone shelf. He blows it vigorously into the mouthpiece whenever he is connected to somebody’s leave-a-message tape machine.

  Jackie Nesmith, who got an advertising letter from the Home Craft & Hobby Shoppe that started, “Dear Ms. Nesmith.” He went into the store and tipped over a counter of loose buttons.

  Gunther Laboute of the Meadow Road, East Shore, who was pushing a hive of bees on a wheelbarrow and absent-mindedly waved at some summer people.

  Sissy Bomgard, who spent $38.75 for groceries at Benner’s Market, and by mistake carried home the wrong bag. She has six pairs of used sneakers.

  Luther Prindle of Cobb’s Cove, also East Shore, who sent nine dollars for reregistration and stickers for his boat, learning too late that the old registration and stickers were good for two more years.

  Dipsy Dunbar, townhouse custodian (janitor), who stood on the top step of a ten-step stepladder to replace a burnt out electric light bulb. He is resting comfortably at his home on Maple Avenue and can have visitors in the afternoons.

  Shorty Connover, baseball statistician, who announced that Boomer Bagshot, left fielder for the Tri-Town Tigers, batted .218 against lefthanded pitchers and .218 against righthanded pitchers, for a combined season’s average of .218.

  Reginald Ransome of R.F.D. No. 3, Box 547, who saves all his junk mail and carries it once a month to dump on the postmaster’s lawn.

  Bruce Dunphy, letter-writing adict, who wrote a letter to the editor of the Clarion-Bugle to say the latest issue was excellent and he didn’t find a thing in it to write a letter about.

  Chet Ringrose, who drove 1,500 miles without finding a participating dealer in the big automobile pay-back sale.

  Otis Oldheimer, spry and chipper at eighty-seven years, who had his spirits crushed when a girl stood up in the bus and gave him her seat.

  And Freddie and Clarice Sturtevant who, for their golden wedding anniversary, received not one, but two congratulatory messages from the White House.

  Faulty Translation

  The glad morning cry of a diligent and dedicated barnyard rooster is such a resoundingly joyous call that it seems impossible human beings could fight over it. But here it is, right in the newspaper—a couple of Germans in Bavaria are in court over the kikiriki of Tscheki. In Germany, it appears, roosters do not crow as they do here in the Boston States; they say kikiriki. True, those of us skilled in the languages know that when a German rooster stands tippy-toe on the Hühnerstange at Dämmerung and lets go with his kikiriki, it sounds very like he was saying cocky-doodle-do, but this is because of faulty translation. In France, roosters incline toward the tonic accent, and say coquerico, but this is close enough to kikiriki to be almost Teutonic. In classical Latin, the dawn cry of the bull chickabiddy was simply galli cantus, or song of the cock, and the name of the last military watch of the night derived from the rooster who sang at daybreak—the gallus—and was the gallicinium. This has nothing whatever to do with the cockyleeky of the Scottish highlands.

  Which returns us to our story:

  In the smallish commune of Landsberg, in Bavaria, lives a farmer, Hans Gebele, who has a now somehat famous rooster named Tscheki. Tscheki was not always Tscheki, but was just another scrub barnyard rooster until he was taken into court as a common nuisance, and a reporter on the Landsberg Blatt thought a rooster in the news should have a proper name. Tscheki is, therefore, a nom-de-plumage. A neighbor of good Farmer Gebele, and consequently a neighbor of Tscheki, one Rudolf Kofron, complained that when Tscheki went kikiriki at dawn’s early light it roused him from the rest to which he is constitutionally entitled, and thus Tscheki should be rendered null and void in the public interest. I have no information as to why the judge decided as he did, any more than I have any notion of why our judges in the United States say foolish things, but the beak in Landsberg agreed with Plaintiff Kofron and Tscheki was remanded to the stewpot. Bauer Gebele has appealed, and Tscheki is on his personal recognizance—biding with his pertelotes and kikiriking as has been his wont. In his appeal, Bauer Gebele has asked the court to take notice that said Kofron once put up a spite fence, indicating that he is hard to get along with, and that “a person of more or less normal sensitivity will find the crowing of a rooster a thoroughly enjoyable thing.” There is also a contention that if Neighbor Kofron has constitutional rights, so does Tscheki, and a suggestion, which I think is a dandy idea, that Neighbor Kofron move to the city.

  The town in which I grew up was on the main line of the railroad, and had fifteen grade crossings within the village limits. An engineer was required to blow two longs and two shorts on the locomotive’s steam chime whistle for each crossing. Just about midnight, seven times a week, the Boston to Halifax “Maritime Express” would roar through town at a sustained speed of 80 mph. The compact part of town, where the fifteen crossings lay, amounted to about a mile and a half. If you want to put your slide rule to this, you’ll find that the engineer on the Halifax train blew sixty times in a bit more than one minute. We were a rootin-tootin town.

  But, the Halifax train usually ran in two sections. The first, making fewer stops, had the returning fish cars and the sleepers. The second had the work cars, mail and baggage, and the coaches. Allowing five or six miles as a safety distance between sections, this meant that four-five-six minutes after the first section passed, the second section would arrive—with another required sixty blasts from the chime whistle.

  Relative to Tscheki and his kikiriki, the people in our town thought this midnight hullabaloo was a natural consequence of affairs, and instead of pestering a judge about it, we just got used to the noise and lived with it. An interesting thing is that some nights, for want of passengers or fish cars, the Halifax train would run in just one section. This would pass through town with the usual sixty blasts, and then in four-five-six minutes there would follow an unaccustomed silence that woke everybody up.

  I commend the moral of this parable to the justice of the Bavarian appellate court who is considering the fate of Tscheki. Perhaps he should ask Kofron to move to Munich. Perhaps he should just tell Kofron to learn to like Tscheki. Because even Kofron is going to be unhappy if we ever come to that dark morning when the world has no chanticleer to rouse the orient sun.

  Except the Eggs

  This story is just as true as any you’ll ever hear out of the State of Maine. Seems our good friend Nathaniel Bow-ditch Sinnett, only year-round resident of Outer Dovetrap Rock—rock being a Maine coastal euphemism for an island—got a codhook through the ham of his jigging hand whilst pursuing a haddock chowder in its native lair, and finding it bothered him some he ran up the flag on his fishhouse. Marty “Gundalow” Bascombe, across the way on Tinsnip Island, saw the flag and rowed over in his dory to find out what it meant. He decided Natty needed better attention than he could give him, so he cranked up the motor in Natty’s boat and ran into Smeltrun Cove, where there’s an old folks’ home. The nurse there fixed Natty right up, and he’s all right, but the codhook was a total loss. It was now something like half past two, going on three o’clock, in the morning, so Natty and Marty decided to wait for daylight before going back down the bay. They took some sleep in one of the vacant rooms up on the third floor, and breakfasttime they sat down with the fifteen-twenty-odd old folks and tucked away some food.

  Wh
ile they were eating, an “interviewer” arrived from the State Department of Humane, Ecological, and Helpful Services for Gracious Living, Bureau of Statistical Investigation, and she began asking questions about the general situation at the Smeltrun Cove Old Folks’ Home. Not knowing that Natty and Marty were what you might call transients, she asked them the questions, too, and they told her they thought everything was finest kind, except for the scrambled eggs. After breakfast, Marty ran Natty back to Outer Dovetrap, rowed his dory back to Tinsnip, and the two of them went separate ways about their affairs—said affairs being seaward and remote.

  Now, the food service at the Smeltrun Cove Old Folks’ Home is a contract job handled by a catering firm in Schenectady, New York, with a regional manager in Sanford, Maine, and an area distribution center in Bangor. The result is “institutional food,” but this company services a number of schools, hospitals, and so on in Maine and is proud of its long record of dietary and gustatory excellence, and to put things in focus, it takes its scrambled eggs very seriously. So when the service manager was notified by the State Department of Gracious Living that there had been a complaint about the food at the Smeltrun Cove facility, the computers went to work and the next day there was consternation in the home office at Schenectady, New York. Immediately, further details were asked for, and along the chain of command this request came at last to the resident house mother at Smeltrun Cove—this was the first she knew about any complaint. She knew none of her happy old folks had complained and presumed the whole thing was a mistake until she happened to recall that Natty and Marty had freeloaded a breakfast, so she wondered if the complaint might have been something of their doing. She knew both boys from away back, and they would never be malicious—could this have been their idea of a joke? Anyway, there was no need of a tumult, so she notified the catering command that there was no need to pursue the matter.

  But the catering company wanted its good name untarnished, and didn’t want the State House on its back, so it asked the interviewer of the Humane Etc. for more specific information. She, feeling this challenged her position, got uppity, and in snotty mood replied that the complaints had been made by Mr. Nathaniel Bowditch Sinnett and by Mr. Martin Bungalow (sic) Bascombe, at breakfast, such and such a date, and the item complained about was scrambled eggs.

  So files were pulled, sources of fresh eggs located, telephone calls made, and everything in the long line of ordering, receiving, forwarding, opening, cooking, and serving scrambled eggs seemed in order. The catering firm decided the interviewer was either misinformed or was trying to start something. Things were sticky enough so a trouble-shooter was sent to find Natty and Marty.

  He hired a lobsterman at South Overlook to run him down the bay in his boat, and when he found Marty and Natty he asked them just what was the matter with those scrambled eggs. He brought back their complaint: “Not enough of them.”

  Two-Horse Lalage

  In this great age of speed and dispatch, when a war that will kill millions will last only three seconds, there should be some recognition of the two-horse citizen. Composed and relaxed, I don’t care if school keeps or not.

  Here at Back River, “boat people” are the summer mahogany folks who come to Maine “from away,” in full possession of our nonpublic access, to scare the cats, disturb the dogs, raise a dust, and perform the yachtsman’s routine of readying the boat for those glad weekends ahead when it will be too foggy to sail. The boatyard by our shore (hauling, storage, repairs, brokerage at owner’s risk) isn’t too bad a neighbor. As I watch the boat people who support it I can see that their keeping a boat is much more of a job than I make. I keep a boat, but it doesn’t consume me, and I find plenty of time for my philosophies and philanthropies. Lalage does not intrude as other boats seem to, and I haul her myself and save money.

  I built Lalage one winter from select white pine and firm red oak, taking my time. I named her classically for the ladylove of Flaccus in Liber I, XXII. She is fourteen feet long and is powered by two ash oars, with auxiliary equipment of a two-horse hors-bord. In Maine coastal terms she is a skiff, flat-bottomed, seaworthy, tight as a cup, and trim. The Latin I carved on her stern sheets is meant to perplex these boat people who say port when they mean left, abaft the aft when they mean astern. My sea-manship is the pure Bellman kind, with rudder afoul the bow-sprit, and the garboard off the binnacle. But I did know about Lalage, and my stern sheets read:

  DULCE RIDENTEM LALAGEN AMABO

  Even though I look off on the Atlantic Ocean, Lalage has never been in salt water. She was built for a special purpose: once a year she is taken from my boathouse (which is also a woodshed and catchall) and rides in my pickup truck to Caucomogomac Lake to engage in the togue fisheries for a week and ferry Bill and me on our picnics. Togue is Maine for a lake trout, and Caucomogomac is pronounced cock-m’gommick. For two decades Bill and I have devoted the middle week of each July to this indolence, and we conduct our Maine wilderness pleasures in low-key dignity. Buying the two-horse outboard motor for Lalage established us as oddballs in the era of hustle. This is the jet age, and nobody should dawdle. I went to three dealers in marine matters and got essentially the same response: “A two-horse motor! Aw, come on—you don’t want anything like that! Here, look at this beauty!”

  They thought Bill and I should push sweet ladylike Lalage up the lake with one of these fifty-horse jobs that wash out loons’ nests. With the first dealer I tried to explain that we wanted a two-horse for Lalage because she goes too fast when I row, but he continued to pat the fifty-horse giant and to insist that he knew more about what I wanted than I did. With the next two fifty-horse pushers, I didn’t try to explain—I just walked out. Then I found a fine old gentleman of moderate habits who handles used things like trundle beds and stereoscopes, and he understood. He had just the motor for Lalage, and for me and Bill. Two-horse, and just exactly the motor—one day Bill and I started back to camp after a picnic, heading into a light breeze, and after churning Lalage for a half hour we were a mile behind where we started. It’s impossible to explain the satisfaction of that to our local boat people. It made me think of Dr. Hahn, and while I rowed to give the two-horse some help I told Bill about Dr. Hahn.

  Dr. Hahn was a physician and surgeon from Massachusetts, and he owned an “original” Friendship sloop named Depression. She was the oldest Friendship sloop afloat; he had bought her for little or nothing back in the Roosevelt days. He faithfully brought her each summer to the homecoming regatta of the Friendship Sloop Society here in Friendship harbor, and as faithfully competed in the races down Muscongus Bay. Year after year, every race, Depression came in last. I saw the doctor on the street one afternoon and asked him how he made out in that day’s race, and he said, “Fine! I got two pails of mackerel!” The doctor’s attitude toward speed always appealed to me. I liked to watch all the other sloops straining every effort to win trophies, with Depression limping along behind with the mackerel jigs astern. With lines out, Dr. Hahn was always my special winner.

  On my lathe, I made rollers so I can move Lalage by myself. I have a hoist that puts her up into the pickup and lets her down again. Simple devices demonstrated, back when Lalage was a little girl, by Archimedes. I pay no boatyard fees. In ten minutes I have Lalage ready to go, and another ten minutes unload her at the lake. A classic little lady who requires no more than that is worthy of respect, and Bill and I appreciate what we have. We sit up and ride in what Bill calls “deliberate speed,” and Lalage moves with stately dignity, in Asclepiadean serenity, making us, we feel, unusual in today’s larruping love of celerity.

  Now and then Bill looks up from his fly-rod handle to say, “Molle atque facetum.”

  Wrong Piece!

  Something happened right here, and it made me think of Bill Nye. Nobody has thought of Bill Nye all these long years. What happened is that I had a piece right here that I used once before in another book, and as I read the thing over before mailing the stuff to the publisher it sounded f
amiliar. So—Bill Nye. Let us consider Bill Nye for a minute, because he was worth it. Bill had several books published in his time, and each was a different color. Red, green, blue, and so on—and he said this was so the readers could tell them apart. Bill Nye did repeat himself some, and it didn’t bother him that the same piece was in several books.

  Speaking of Bill Nye, the three granddaughters came for a weekend, and paused on the way to attend a performance of Annie at the summer playhouse. They liked it, and arrived all a-sing. Grumpa dulled their enthusiasms by asking them about the songs, and did they know anything about this Annie? Something gave me an inkling they didn’t. Which was so. They told me all about the vacant-eyed youngster in the prolonged newspaper strip, about a dog named Sandy, and about Daddy War-bucks. Being a dedicated student of all the letters to the editors about what’s wrong with our public schools, I related, and as for Annie—what are our schools supposed to teach, anyway? How come three bright girls, all good readers, can attend one of our better school systems, get better than average grades, and yet their doddering old grandfather has to tell them about Little Orphant Annie! How does a school system delete James Whit-comb Riley from the inculcation of our cultural heritage? So I recited:

  An’all us other children, when the supper things is done,

  We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun

  A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ’at Annie tells about,

  An’ the Gobble-uns ’at gits you

  Ef you

  Don’t

  Watch

  Out!

  Then I told them to go to the library.

  I also told them to look up Bill Nye, too. I know that Bill Nye’s connection with Maine is tenuous, but he was born in our town of Shirley and that fact might lend local color to their literary research. Bill Nye and James Whitcomb Riley teamed up on the lecture circuit and worked together a good deal. Riley would come on stage and repeat his Little Orphant Annie and The Raggedy Man to give the audience some Hoosier sentimentality, and then Nye would follow with what amounts to preposterous Down East humor. He’d tell about the boy who stuck his finger in the molasses syruptitiously, about how he spoke to a felloe (sic) in The Hub, and about how every rich man in America was once a poor boy except Dr. Mary Walker. One critic was amazed that Nye came on stage, peered as if in a poor light at the audience, and then spent several minutes wiping his spectacles. The audience went into gales of laughter at this, and the critic couldn’t understand how wiping eyeglasses could be funny.