Short & Tall Tales Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Short & Tall Tales

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2002 by Lilian Jackson Braun

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

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  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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  ISBN: 0-7865-5643-9

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: May, 2005

  ALSO BY LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN

  The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

  The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern

  The Cat Who Turned On and Off

  The Cat Who Saw Red

  The Cat Who Played Brahms

  The Cat Who Played Post Office

  The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare

  The Cat Who Sniffed Glue

  The Cat Who Went Underground

  The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts

  The Cat Who Lived High

  The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal

  The Cat Who Moved a Mountain

  The Cat Who Wasn’t There

  The Cat Who Went into the Closet

  The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

  The Cat Who Blew the Whistle

  The Cat Who Said Cheese

  The Cat Who Tailed a Thief

  The Cat Who Sang for the Birds

  The Cat Who Saw Stars

  The Cat Who Robbed a Bank

  The Cat Who Smelled a Rat

  The Cat Who Went up the Creek

  The Cat Who Had 14 Tales (Short Story Collection)

  Dedicated to Earl Bettinger,

  The Husband Who . . .

  JAMES MACKINTOSH QWILLERAN

  WISHES TO SAY:

  “Let us give credit where credit is least expected. To the automated coffeemaker that did yeoman duty during the preparation of this book. To my trusty typing machine, older than I am and still clicking. To Kao K’o Kung and Yum Yum, who sat tirelessly on my desk, supervising. Koko, as he is known, was ever willing to stare at my forehead when I was slow in thinking of the right word. Yum Yum, my official Muse, inspired with her mere presence and never once caught her whiskers in the typewriter platen.”

  Introduction

  by Lilian Jackson Braun

  When James Mackintosh Qwilleran and his tape recorder left the crowding and anonymity of the megalopolis and discovered Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, he learned two things: In a small rural community, everyone is a celebrity, and everyone has a story to tell.

  Here was a journalist who had never known his grandparents or even his own father! And he was interviewing folks whose roots went back to 1850. Their tales were short, and some were beyond belief. He listened and captured them for this volume of Short and Tall Tales. Also included are some of Qwilleran’s own research papers based on chats with historians, members of the Oldtimers Club (no one under eighty), and descendants of backwoods pioneers.

  A word about the author: Qwill, as he likes to be called, was a prize-winning journalist on major newspapers Down Below—until circumstances (read “an inheritance”) caused him to go native, so to speak. He is a tall, rugged individual if middle aged, with graying hair, an oversize mustache that is much admired, and brooding eyes that harbor both sympathy and a sense of humor. He lives in a converted barn in Pickax City, the county seat (population 3,000). As is well known, his housemates are two Siamese cats. And yes, he has a girlfriend.

  * * *

  1.

  The Legend of the Rubbish Heap

  A Chronicle of Two Pioneer Families

  How a miraculous bit of good luck started a three-generation course of success and disappointment, love and hatred, disaster and . . . all’s well that ends well. It happened in Moose County, and details are corroborated by interviews with oldtimers and by diaries, letters, and other documents in the Pickax historical collection.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  In the mid–nineteenth century, when Moose County was beginning to boom, it was a Gold Rush without the gold. There were veins of coal to be mined, forests to be lumbered, granite to be quarried, land to be developed, fortunes to be made. It would become the richest county in the state.

  In 1859 two penniless youths from Germany arrived by schooner, by way of Canada. On setting foot on the foreign soil, they looked this way and that to get their bearings, and both saw it at the same time! A piece of paper money in a rubbish heap! Without stopping to inquire its value, they tore it in half to signify their partnership. It would be share and share alike from then on.

  Their names were Otto Wilhelm Limburger and Karl Gustav Klingenschoen. They were fifteen years old.

  Labor was needed. They hired on as carpenters, worked long hours, obeyed orders, learned everything they could, used their wits, watched for opportunities, took chances, borrowed wisely, cheated a little, and finally launched a venture of their own.

  By the time they were in their thirties, Otto and Karl dominated the food and shelter industry. They owned all the rooming houses, eating places, and travelers’ inns along the shoreline. Only then did they marry: Otto, a God-fearing woman named Gretchen; Karl, a fun-loving woman nicknamed Minnie. At the double wedding the friends pledged to name their children after each other. They hoped for boys, but girls could be named Karla and Wilhelmina. Thus the two families became even more entwined . . . until rumors about Karl’s wife started drifting back from the waterfront. When Karl denied the slander, Otto trusted him.

  But there was more! One day Karl approached his partner with an idea for expanding their empire. They would add saloons, dance halls, and female entertainment of various kinds. Otto was outraged! The two men argued. They traded insults. They even traded a few blows and, with noses bleeding, tore up the fragments of currency that had been in their pockets since the miracle of the rubbish heap.

  Karl proceeded on his own and did extremely well, financially. To prove it, he built a fine fieldstone mansion in Pickax City, across from the courthouse. In retaliation Otto imported masons and woodworkers from Europe to build a brick palace in the town of Black Creek. How the community reacted to the two architectural wonders should be mentioned. The elite of the county vied for invitations to sip tea and view Otto’s black walnut woodwork; Karl and Minnie sent out invitations to a party and no one came.

  When it was known that the brick mansion would be the scene of a wedding, the best families could talk of nothing else. The bride was Otto’s only daughter; he had arranged for her to marry a suitable young man from the Goodwinter family; the date was set. Who would be invited? Was it true that Otto had taken his daughter before a magistrate and legally changed her name from Karla to Elsa? It was true. Elsa’s dower chest was filled with fine household linens and intimate wedding finery. Gifts were being delivered in the best carriages in town. Seamstresses were working overtime on costumes fo
r the wedding guests. Gowns for the bridal party were being shipped from Germany. Suppose there was a storm at sea! Suppose they did not arrive in time!

  Then, on the very eve of the nuptials, Otto’s daughter eloped with the youngest son of Karl Klingenschoen!

  Shock, embarrassment, sheer horror, and the maddening suspicion that Karl and Minnie had promoted the defection—all these emotions combined to affect Otto’s mind.

  As for the young couple, there were rumors that they had gone to San Francisco. When the news came, a few years later, that the young couple had lost their lives in the earthquake, Elsa’s father had no idea who they were.

  Karl and Minnie lived out their lives in the most splendid house in Pickax, ignored by everyone of social standing. Karl never knew that his immense fortune was wiped out, following the financial crash of 1929.

  Toward the end of the century, Otto’s sole descendant was an eccentric who sat on the porch of the brick palace and threw stones at dogs.

  Karl’s sole descendant was Fanny Klingenschoen, who recovered her grandfather’s wealth ten times over.

  Eventually the saga of the two families took a curious twist. The Klingenschoen Foundation has purchased two properties from the Limburger estate: the mansion in Black Creek and the hotel in Pickax. The former has become the Nutcracker Inn; the latter is now the Mackintosh Inn. The “legend of the rubbish heap” has come full circle.

  * * *

  2.

  Secret of the Blacksmith’s Wife

  Revealed to Her Grandson

  on Her Deathbed

  Eddington Smith never revealed his grandmother’s secret until he, too, was at death’s door. Then he shared it with the local historian, and—as they say—one thing led to another. The secret has outlived the statute of limitations.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  When Pickax was named the county seat—because of its central location—it was only a hamlet, but a building boom started almost overnight. The blacksmith, who made nails as well as horseshoes, could hardly keep up with the demand as ambitious settlers built dwellings and shops. Then one day he was kicked in the head by a horse and died on the spot. There was panic in Pickax! No blacksmith! No nails!

  The next day, by a strange coincidence, a stranger walked into town—a big brawny man carrying a stick over his shoulder with a bundle tied on the end. He wore his hair longer than was the custom in Moose County, and at first he was viewed with suspicion. When he said he was a blacksmith, however, the townfolk changed their attitude.

  Could he make nails?

  Yes, he could make nails.

  What was his name?

  John.

  John what?

  He said, “Just John. That’s all the name you need to make nails.”

  This was somewhat irregular, but they needed nails, so the local officials put their heads together and listed him on the town rolls as John B. Smith, the middle initial standing for “Black”.

  When Longfellow wrote “The smith a mighty man is he,” he might have been writing about John B. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with large and sinewy hands, and his muscles were strong as iron bands. No one dared criticize his long hair. Furthermore, he was twenty-two and good-looking, and all the young women in town were after him. It was not long before he married Emma, who could read and write. They had six children, although only three reached adulthood—not an unusual situation in those days. He built them a house of quarry stone with a front of feldspar that sparkled like diamonds on a sunny day. It was much admired by the other settlers, who liked novelty.

  The smithy was in the backyard, and there John worked industriously, turning out tools, wagon wheels, cookpots, horseshoes, and nails. He was a good provider and went to chapel with his family twice a week. Emma was the envy of most women in town.

  Once in a while he told her he had to visit his old mother in Lockmaster, and he would get on his horse and ride south, staying a week or more. The local gossips said he had another wife down there, but Emma trusted him, and he always brought her a pretty shawl or a nice piece of cloth to make into a dress.

  Then came a time when he failed to return. There was no way of tracing his whereabouts, but Emma was sure he had been killed by highwaymen who wanted to steal his horse and gold watch. Lockmaster—with its fur-trading and gold-mining—offered rich pickings for robbers. Someone from the next town wanted to buy John’s anvil and tools, but Emma refused to sell.

  Yet as time went on and she thought about his past behavior, she remembered how he used to go out into the yard in the middle of the night without a lantern. She never asked questions, and he never explained, but she could hear the sound of digging. That was not so unusual; there were no banks, and valuables were often buried. Then she recalled that it always happened after a visit to his old mother.

  Emma was fired by curiosity, and she went out to the smithy with a shovel. It was dark, but she went without a lantern rather than arouse further gossip. Most of the yard was trampled hard as a rock. There was one spot near the big tree where she tried digging. There were tree roots. She found another spot.

  Then, just as she was about to give up, her shovel struck metal. She dropped to her knees and began scraping the soil furiously with her bare hands, gradually exposing an iron chest. With her hands trembling and heart pounding, she opened the lid. The chest was filled with gold coins! Frightened by the sight, she closed the lid and knelt there, hugging her arms in thought—deep thought. There had been a dark rag on top of the gold. Once more she opened the lid—just a few inches—and reached in stealthily as if afraid to touch the coins. Pulling out the rag, she took it indoors to examine by lamplight.

  It was bright red. It was the red bandanna that a pirate tied around his head.

  She went back to the yard, covered the chest with soil, stamping it down with her feet. The next day she had the yard paved with cobblestones.

  Emma had always wondered where her husband had acquired his gold watch.

  * * *

  3.

  Housecalls on Horseback

  A Look at the Medical Profession—A Long Time Ago

  What was it like to be a doctor—or a patient—in the early days of Moose County? Descendants of pioneer physicians contributed some astounding facts for the “Qwill Pen” column.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  A knock on the door in the middle of the night! A farmer standing on the doorstep.

  “Doctor, come quick! My wife—she’s got the fever! She’s ravin’ like a madwoman!”

  No time to lose. Throw on some clothes. Saddle the horse. Grab the medical bag with the long shoulder strap. And off into the dark night at a gallop, to a crude log cabin in the woods.

  Physicians were needed desperately in Moose County 150 years ago—not only to treat fevers, smallpox, and lung disease, but to rush to the scene of accidents. Pioneer life was filled with hazards. Widespread forest fires caused great suffering. Spring floods, poisonous snakes, runaway horses, kicking mules, hunting mishaps, shipwrecks, and mining accidents increased the casualty list. Moreover, a major industry—lumbering—was a dangerous one. Lumbermen were injured horribly in the woods, on the river during spring log drives, and around the sawmills that operated at the river’s mouth. Amputations were a frequent necessity in the risky business of cutting, milling, and shipping lumber—not to mention the casual amputation of an ear in a saloon brawl on a Saturday night.

  The local physician, if the community happened to have one, responded to calls for help day or night, in any weather. No wonder the pioneers referred to him as “the good doctor.” In the spring he rode his horse through deep mud and swollen streams. In the summer he fought the mosquitoes that infested the swampland. In the winter he rode against biting winds from the lake and through blinding blizzards, sometimes a few yards ahead of a howling pack of wolves. Or he trudged cross-country on snowshoes and struggled through snowdrifts to reach the door of a remote cabin.

  At
the patient’s bedside he administered the simple remedies carried in his knapsack. He might have to use crude material for bandages and make splints from whatever boards were at hand.

  The pioneer doctor carried his drugstore in his shoulder bag or in the saddlebags on his horse. There were powders for colds and fevers and rheumatism. There were potions in corked bottles for use as tonics or as remedies for croup or snakebite. His miracle drugs were rhubarb powder, quinine flakes, digitalis, arnica, capsicum, nux vomica, and the like, many of which had been used in healing for centuries. The backwoods physician also carried a pair of “twisters” for pulling teeth.

  He might put arnica lotion on a wound while fighting off the flies and perform surgery by candlelight in a cabin that was as dark in daytime as it was at night. Then he probably prescribed rest and a diet of gruel for the patient, before riding back to town on his horse. If it was still daylight, he let the horse find its way home while he himself rocked in the saddle and caught up with his reading of the latest medical journals.

  For his labor the pioneer doctor was often paid in eggs and homemade butter, or a scrawny hen. Later, a patient might take a bushel of apples to the doctor’s house or a piece of fresh pork when the pig was slaughtered. Another would offer to plow his field or chop a cord of wood in return for medical care.

  Why did these physicians brave the wilderness a hundred years ago? Many were young men with the ink barely dry on their diplomas. They came from medical schools in Detroit, Toronto, Cincinnati, and Louisville, sailing up the lake in a schooner that was destined to pick up a load of lumber. Pioneering was the spirit of the times, and the wilderness was an adventure for young doctors, as well as an opportunity to use their new skills and knowledge. No doubt they were gratified, also, by the instant acclaim and hospitality accorded a new physician in a frontier town. His presence relieved some of the terror of pioneer life.