“Now listen to item number twenty-nine,” the chair intoned, pounding the gavel on the aluminum picnic table, as she prepared to read from the Warrant the second to last time that third Monday in April.
“Vote to see if the Town will raise $350 to lay a raised strip of tar to form a speed bump across the road at the top of Meekum’s Hill,” Claudia read aloud, and then asked the assemblage, “The floor is now open for discussion or a motion on item number twenty-nine. What is your pleasure?”
All this while, Pilikia had been sitting silently, just as instructed by Selene and Purrfect, watching and listening, learning in quiet fascination about the ways of humans. But when she heard Claudia Fisher reading item number twenty-nine, she stirred.
“That’s our cue, Cantachiaro,” Pilikia whispered into the canvas posing as her clothing, “It’s item number twenty-nine, the speed bump.” Pilikia was so excited she did not notice that Cantachiaro made no reply.
From the floor, there came a motion. “I move that we relegate item number twenty-nine to the custody of the planning board for careful study or other inappropriate handling, and as for the rest of us, let’s get on to item number thirty so we can go home!” The voice was that of Colin Masters, who, you will recall, had earlier pestered Claudia Fisher about the town’s having paved a road that “goes nowhere except to your wood lot.”
Had a suggestion to dispense with item number twenty-nine been offered by anyone else, Claudia probably would have entertained it, and engineered a quick enabling vote. But she was still a little irked at Colin, and she chose to act it out. Thus, Claudia pointedly ignored Colin’s motion, and instead recognized a lady in the back row.
“I live in the last house on the Meekum’s Hill Road,” the speaker, the gray-haired, elderly woman seated next to Pilikia, began meekly, unnecessarily identifying herself to the town inhabited since its inception by members of her family, and even now by four generations of them. Her name is Gloriana Trevor, and the man seated to the other side of her, perhaps ten or fifteen years her senior, is her husband, Torrance Trevor. Gloriana and Torrance live at the dead-end a half mile or so beyond the Wensleydales, and it was they from whom Peter and Anna had bought the land on which to build a new life.
“That’s Gloriana’s voice,” Peter whispered to Anna.
“I know,” Anna replied. “I’ve never heard either of them speak out in town meeting before.”
Peter and Anna first met Gloriana and Torrance Trevor at the Trevor home in the presence of the realtor who listed the land the Trevors were selling and on which the Wensleydales wanted to make an offer. Peter and Anna had set foot on the property only once, the preceding day, but there was no question then, and neither has there been ever since, that it was the piece for them. And by that time, they were quite certain they had seen and walked every parcel of land then up for sale, barter, or exchange in the entire state of Maine.
Actually, the Wensleydales came across the Trevor listing almost by accident. About noon one day after what seemed to them endless weeks of land shopping, Peter and Anna were in their car, Simone, the Volvo sedan they had brought home with them from Gazinga, driving north on Route 1 after having just been shown, and disappointed by, still another “adorable Down East waterfront parcel” that turned out to be under water. (“Well, yes, I see what you mean about the drainage,” the realtor, a young man originally from out of state himself, acknowledged to Anna as she sank to her knees in mud, “but that needn’t be a problem,” to which Anna had replied, “Not if you’re a duck!”), when their frustration and exhaustion finally erupted into anger vented on each other, not over anything in particular so much as simply for lack of any other suitable target so close at hand, climaxing with Anna’s shouting to Peter, who was at the wheel, “Stop the car, I’m getting out!” which he did, slamming on the brakes, and which she did, slamming the door behind her. Peter drove away in fury, leaving Anna standing at the side of the road, wondering to herself, “Now what?”
Right in front of her was the answer to her question, in the form of a small, one-room building, with a nicely painted sign proclaiming the home of Rustic Rural Realty. “Oh, why not,” Anna muttered aloud as she walked into what must have been the only real estate office within a several hundred mile radius that she and Peter had not yet visited. In fact, as Anna closed the door behind her, she wondered how they had missed this one.
“As a matter of fact, I just finished speaking on the telephone with a man who has asked me to list a piece of land that sounds precisely like what you described,” the agent said to Anna after she told him what they were looking for. “If you like, I can give you directions so you and your husband can go for a look at it today.”
That’d be great, Anna thought to herself, if I knew where my husband was. “Yes, do that,” she said.
Well, of course, in a matter of a few minutes, Peter came back in search of Anna.
“Where was I to go,” he asked her, as she got back into the car, “you’ve got my heart.” So, together, they drove out to look at the land they would come to live on.
“How much are they asking?” Peter inquired of Anna as they sat beneath a yellow birch that would eventually shade the chicken house from the summer’s midday sun.
“More than we can afford, I’m afraid,” Anna said.
“Great,” Peter groaned. “Either we like it, and we can’t afford it, or we can afford it, but we don’t like it. I wonder if this is the way it’s supposed to work?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not letting this one get away,” Anna replied. “We’ll make the best offer we can.”
“If it’s true that it was just put on the market a few hours ago,” Peter warned, “then the agent is going to urge the owners to sit tight.”
“We’ll insist on making the offer ourselves,” Anna rejoined, “and then it’ll be up to us to convince them.”
And so they did, the very next day. They decided to refrain from any fancy negotiating footwork in favor of simply telling the owners the truth. “We have seen the land you are selling, and we love it. We want to buy it. We want to build a house on it, and live there, the two of us and our two cats. This offer we make to you today is not a feeler, or an initial position, that we expect to have to adjust to your counter offer, or anything else of that kind. It is simply all that we can afford. We wish it could be more, but there it is.”
“It is enough,” Torrance Trevor said to them after discussing it privately with his wife and their agent for a few minutes in the kitchen.
The following morning, beneath a clear, blue sky, Peter and Anna drove out to the land for a picnic. Since then, there have been sunny days, and there have been rainy days, but the picnic goes on.
“#133; and …” Gloriana continued, standing now in order to be seen and heard from the back row of the room, “I can tell you that in the summer the traffic comes up toward our place at a terrible pace. One young man has already been badly hurt. I should think we would all want to avoid another incident of the kind.” With that, Gloriana resumed her seat, and sighed. Torrance, seated next to her, touched her shoulder gently with his hand, indicating his approval and offering encouragement.
“Why don’t we erect a sign?” someone asked. “A big red one, with huge letters, warning drivers to slow down.”
“The color red can be used only in stop signs,” the town constable interjected, pleased at this opportunity to play his role. “A sign such as you suggest would have to be either black on white, providing information, or black on yellow, presenting a warning.”
“Whose property you propose putting this sign of yours on?” an angry voice demanded.
“If a sign was all it’d take,” another offered, “then banks would long ago have replaced security guards with signs that say ‘No Robberies’! Let’s face it, no one’s going to pay attention to any sign, except perhaps to take shots at it.”
“Or put a chain saw to it,” still another opined.
“According to my calculations of the probabilities,” spoke out a young lad who had recently come into his own laptop computer as a birthday present, and who was fast turning into a full fledged hacker, “statistically there is not likely to be another accident along that stretch of road for ten point seven one years. So, from an actuarial perspective, the town could safely table this issue for reconsideration later, say, nine point seven one years from now.”
“Will someone please tell me what language the boy is speaking?” asked the youngster’s father, a man who loved his son dearly, and who had in fact given him the gift but who, just a little, wished his son had wanted a tractor or a snowmobile, something that spoke the same language he did.
Claudia Fisher was tiring of this discussion, which was clearly going nowhere. And besides, she had made her point to Colin Masters. She pounded the aluminum table with her gavel. “May the chair hear a motion to vote on item number twenty-nine?”
But Colin Masters wasn’t going to let Claudia off so easily. He would insist on the last word, even if it meant prolonging the evening. He raised his hand to be recognized.
“Colin?” the chair inquired, reluctantly ready to accept his initial motion, after all.
Colin stood up. “Madame Chairwoman,” he said, speaking slowly and deliberately, stressing — even overstressing — the word “woman,” for this was the same Colin Masters who had earlier hissed vehemently at the proposal to adopt the appellation First Selectwoman for the duration of Claudia Fisher’s tenure in the position, “will someone please explain to me why the town is being asked by its Board of Selectpersons“ (this man was evidently not going to let go) “to raise $350 to construct a speed bump across the Meekum’s Hill Road when potholes, which have the selfsame effect of bringing traffic to a crawl, are provided free of charge by Almighty God?”
His was a point well taken, if rather meanly made. The annual pothole population in this town, even in this state, is legendary. There are wags who claim that, on more than one occasion, serious consideration has been given by the legislature in Augusta, the state capital, to declare the pothole the Maine state flower, for they grow prolifically in every corner of the state, on every highway, road, and lane, and from the evidence available to the average taxpayer, they seem to require no maintenance whatsoever. At least, they get none. And, with proper carelessness, they can indeed grow very deep, easily deep enough, as Colin Masters suggested, to slow traffic to a near standstill. In fact, it is said that in this town the practice of filling potholes every spring did not begin until the year after Malcolm Featherbridge’s son, Malcolm Junior, had been missing an entire growing season, only to be discovered harvesting forty rows of corn at the bottom of an average sized pothole in the road across from his father’s barn. In an ill-advised show of strength, the selectmen that year tried to claim Malcolm Junior’s corn crop for consumption by the citizenry at the Labor Day barbecue and fete, on the grounds that the roadbed, whatever its state of disrepair, is public property, and therefore any crops grown thereupon belong to the public. To no one’s surprise, the Featherbridge’s paid no attention whatsoever to the claim, and neither did anyone else. In fact, at town meeting the following spring, the town voted Malcolm Junior into the office of First Selectman, an office he retained virtually unopposed until he got caught at, well, to borrow Arthur Bestford’s phrase on the subject, about that enough best left unsaid. In succeeding years, rather than face the private use of potholes issue again, the town’s selectmen have chosen to order the spring crop of potholes filled before planting time. Unfortunately, the job is done with a loose mixture of sand and gravel, all of which washes out in the first heavy rain.
Anyway, when Colin Masters had finished speaking, he remained standing, pointedly awaiting Claudia Fisher’s reply. For her part, Claudia was most reluctant to take on his question, and all the less did she want to let it loose on the floor, for she knew that it could easily evolve into a general discussion of the condition of the roads, never a good subject for any politician in this state, or worse, now that Colin had, however flippantly, defined the matter as a religious issue, into a debate of First Amendment protection for potholes.
This was a test, and Claudia Fisher knew it. Further, she knew that she must prevail. Procedural rules of order to the contrary notwithstanding, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Once again, she banged the gavel firmly, wood to aluminum.
“There being no further comments or questions,” she announced, totally ignoring Colin’s hanging question, and thoroughly preempting the floor, “prepare now to vote on item number twenty-nine.”
Colin Masters looked about the room to his fellow citizens for support of his position. Finding none, he sat down, quietly. Claudia had won, but Colin, having irked her, had won, too. Once again, tradition was served, and once again, the town had survived.
“All those in favor of spending $350 to lay a speed bump across the Meekum’s Hill Road will so signify by raising their right hand,” the chair ordered.
“NOW!” Pilikia whispered loudly, stretching her tail as high as she could. But Cantachiaro had slipped part way off the chair, and Pilikia could tell that the blue cotton glove was not reaching high enough to be seen. “Cantachiaro!” she said, “you’ve got to stand up on the chair, so they’ll see my vote.” There was no response, neither was there any movement, from the rooster below. “Cantachiaro!” Pilikia repeated, louder. Still there was no answer. Finally, she peeked down into her canvas shirt and under the red and black wool skirt, and there, to her dismay, she discovered the problem. Cantachiaro, his head turned back and neatly nestled beneath a wing, was asleep. “Of course,” the cat declared, “chickens go to sleep at dark, and there’s no waking them until dawn.”
“Right you are, my dear,” Gloriana Torrance said, her right hand raised high for the vote count, apparently not the least fazed by the fact that Pilikia’s observation did not seem to have anything to do with anything.
“But you don’t understand,” Pilikia said, “he’s, uh, it’s my legs. They’ve fallen asleep.”
“Quite normal at our age, my dear,” her neighbor suggested. “Circulation, you know.”
“But my vote …” the cat cried.
The next voice was Claudia Fisher’s. “And now, all opposed.”
“But I haven’t had a chance to vote,” Pilikia wailed.
Claudia Fisher did not hear her. In a few moments, the chair reported the vote count. “Listen to the results of your voting,” Claudia said. “Eighty-four votes were cast. For, forty-two. Opposed, forty-two. The vote being evenly divided, the chair casts the deciding vote, against. Item number twenty-nine fails, forty-three to forty-two.”
Claudia was just about to wield the gavel again when Gloriana Torrance spoke out. “Just a moment,” she said, waving her hand to get the chair’s attention. “Claudia, this lady’s vote wasn’t counted.” She indicated Pilikia seated next to her. “Her legs have gone to sleep, don’t you know, and she was unable to raise her hand high enough to be seen.”
It was an unusual procedure, but by that time Claudia wanted nothing else than to put the matter to rest, one way or the other. She called on Pilikia. “How do you vote?”
“I vote Yes!” Pilikia exclaimed.
“Carried!” Claudia Fisher responded, her gavel pounding forcefully on the table, punctuating her relief that it was finally over. Before anyone could say anything further, she called for a motion to adjourn, which was quickly made, seconded, and passed. “Will all newly elected officers please come to the front of the room to be sworn in,” Claudia shouted above the commotion of mumbling voices and chairs scraping against the floor, as the townspeople prepared to leave for home.
Town meeting was over. Our conspirators had accomplished their mission. Pilikia had voted, and funds for the speed bump had been approved. But, now, how was Pilikia to get out of the room? Or, more to the point, what was she to do about Cantachiaro?
“Tancredi!” Pilikia remembered. She stuck her head out the window. There he was, big as life, stretched out on the landing, right where he was supposed to be, still gnawing on what was left of the soup bone.
“What’s happening?” he asked her, wagging his tail.
“We’ve got a crisis,” the cat said. “Cantachiaro has fallen asleep, and I can’t waken him.”
“Of course,” the dog replied, “as soon as it got dark. We should’ve known.” For a moment he considered what to do. Then, with authority, he announced, “I’m coming in.”
That evening, as folks emptied out of town meeting, apparently no one noticed a very big dog walking across the floor, down the stairs, through the parking lot to the old schoolhouse, with a rather strange looking lady in his mouth. Well, actually, one old timer did, but Pilikia defused that encounter quickly.
“You’ve heard of seeing eye dogs,” Pilikia said to the man who was staring in disbelief at her and Cantachiaro grasped between Tancredi’s huge jaws, “well, this is a carrying mouth dog. To replace walkers for the elderly.”
“Very sensible,” the man observed.
Early the next morning, the animals gathered in the Roomey’s barn for a full telling of all the exciting details. Word of the adventure, its perils and success, had quickly spread among the nocturnal inhabitants of the neighborhood, the raccoons, the owls, the field mice, for they were up and about when town meeting got out, and, at first light, they passed it along to their awakening diurnal friends.
“Susanne!” Wendell Roomey shouted to his wife as he looked out their bathroom window. “What is going on in our barn? It looks like Noah’s ark!”
“Claire, your father wants to know what you’ve got going on in the barn,” Susanne said to her daughter, guessing it was almost certainly her doing.
“Oh, that. It’s nothing,” Claire responded, making up an answer as fast as she could. “It’s part of a biology experiment for Mrs. Checkleword’s class.”
“Well, that’s okay, then,” Wendell observed, “as long as we’re not feeding them.”
Claire left her breakfast, and walked out to the barn to shoo the animals away before her father had a chance to think about the matter any further. On seeing the girl, the creatures broke out into applause.
“Well done, Claire,” Montauk said, speaking for the lot of them. “We couldn’t have managed without your help.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Claire replied, “not for all the world.”
“What I still don’t understand,” Cantachiaro said, “is how did you get me home?”
“Easy,” Pilikia explained. “Once we found Montauk, Tancredi jumped onto the hood of a car, and from there to the cab of a pickup truck, and then it was just a leap over to the horse’s back.”
“With you in his mouth,” Purrfect added, sharing in the enthusiasm.
“My only regret,” Tancredi observed, “was having to leave that bone behind. There’s plenty of good gnawing left in it.”
“Is this what you’re missing?” a pair of shiny black crows inquired, one of whom was lightly perched on the soup bone. Tancredi’s tail set to wagging. “We retrieved it for you off the fire escape first thing this morning.”
“The school bus will be by for me any minute,” Claire said, reluctantly breaking up the happy gathering, “and the rest of you had better go, too, before …”
“The adult humans find us,” Selene said.
“Yes,” Claire answered.
As the other animals returned to their routines in the surrounding woods and fields and the sky above, Selene and Purrfect sat alone together alongside the cedar fencing at the end of the Roomey’s driveway.
“It was close, Purrfect,” Selene said, “but we pulled it off.”
“Yes, we did,” Purrfect replied, “and it was fun, especially our working together.”
Selene turned to him. “Yes,” she agreed, “it was.”
They sat there for several hours, the two cats, quietly purring in the morning sun. That evening, Pilikia, who covertly observed this intimate encounter between her feline friends, made a special point of raising the name Tomas, the heretofore presumed sole object of Selene’s affection, to discover what kind of reaction it would get. Undoubtedly onto Pilikia’s game, Selene replied simply, but cryptically, “A rose has many petals,” and walked off.
Now, it was not until seven months later that the town’s big, red truck growled up the Meekum’s Hill Road with its two man crew, to lay down the speed bump. By then, of course, summer was well over. The need for a speed bump, if there ever was one, had passed. Traffic had returned to its normal nil. Still, the crew had its instructions, and there was no arguing with that.
“You’re not going to believe what I just witnessed,” Peter said to Anna later than afternoon over a cup of tea.
“Try me,” Anna replied.
“You remember the speed bump business at town meeting,” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well,” Peter informed her, “the road crew finally laid it today.”
“A little late, perhaps,” Anna observed, “but so?”
“So,” he explained, “they laid it across the strip of road just in front of …”
“You don’t mean …” she interrupted him.
“Precisely,” he interrupted her.
While the potholes are always fierce all along the Meekum’s Hill Road, that year there had developed one particular pothole that might just as well be labeled a pot canyon. In fact, so deep was it that it almost devoured the big truck itself, which doubles as the town’s snow plow, during the last storm of the preceding winter. Thus, just as fast as the road crew lay the tar for the speed bump, it was swallowed up by the pothole.
“Well, if we didn’t get a speed bump,” Anna opined, “at least we filled the pothole.”
“That was a deep hole, Anna,” Peter reminded her. “When the crew left a few minutes ago, all that new tar was still not enough to reach the level of the roadbed.”
From her perch overhead on one of the peeled spruce logs, Selene listened to this report, and shook her tail in disgust.
“Humans,” the cat wondered aloud to herself. “What’s the point?”
“The Cranberry Tales” is
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