The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig Page B

managed to get out just one ecstatic whoofle before Dittany, ruthlessly deft as Heartless Harold the Huntingshire Highwayman, wrapped her jaws in the muffler, led her back past the forsythia and the weigela, the burning-bush and the mock orange, and shoved her inside. Dittany’s intention was to lure Ethel upstairs with dog biscuits, but the ruse proved unnecessary.
    Ethel was nicely tucked in before Dittany could get her own coat off.
    This was probably the first time in history, not counting that inexplicable impulse of the Binkles’ at the dog pound, that anybody had voluntarily sought Ethel’s company, but Dittany wasn’t sorry she’d done it. She’d known all along that Ethel snored and was prepared to endure the lesser annoyance for the sake of the greater good. In fact she found herself deriving a certain comfort from the sound. If Ethel could snore, then all was well on Applewood Avenue. Dittany relaxed and drifted into sleep.
    She dreamed she was marching to the beat of a different drum.
    ‘Something was making loud noises at her. Something huge and hairy was panting at her, exuding a peculiar halitosis that carried strong odors of dog biscuit. She stirred, opened her eyes, hastily closed them again, tried to persuade herself she was having a nightmare, then was forced to realize she wasn’t. The drumbeats were caused by Ethel’s tail thrashing against the blanket chest.
    The baying was Ethel’s greeting to a glad new day and the biscuity sighs a reminder that a good hostess ought to get up and fix breakfast for her guest.
    Dittany was a dognapper. Probably she should immediately phone the Binkles and confess to her crime. It did seem cruel, though, not to let them go on for another half hour or so in blissful ignorance of the fact that Ethel hadn’t really been stolen.
    She shoved a wet muzzle out of her left eyeball, dodged a loving tongue, and reached for the bathrobe that ought to have been hanging over the footboard of the bed. It was on the floor. Ethel must have been wearing it. Dittany shook off some of the dog hairs, slipped her chilly arms into the sleeves, played hunt-the slipper for a while and at last managed to get her warm moccasins on the right feet. Then, like Una and the lion, she and Ethel padded downstairs.
    Ethel expressed a polite wish to go out. Dittany secretly hoped she’d go home to breakfast, though it did seem scrimy to begrudge a can of dog food under the circumstances. Anyway Ethel didn’t choose to leave. She merely spent a discreet few minutes behind the Taxus canadensis and then requested to be let back in.
    It was going to be another of those gray, raw, windy days.
    Dittany felt weary, heavy-eyed, and really not up to meeting any new challenges. Challenges, however, were just what she was about to meet. She’d barely got Ethel settled with a basinful of light refreshment when Hazel was on the telephone wanting to know if she had any expendable white sheets kicking around.
    “Probably,” Dittany replied. “Why? Are you setting up a first-aid station in case the campaign gets rough?”
    “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