“Well, how do you do? I’m Charlotte Birmingham. I’d be out there helping Bill with the Maxwell, but I don’t know one end of a wrench from another. I see you have knitting yarns as well. I used to knit, but that was a long time ago. Things have changed a great deal since my time.” She shook her head as she glanced around at the baskets of knitting yarn. “Back in my teens, there was embroidery floss and there was wool for crewel, and wool or acrylic for knitting.” She picked up a skein of silver-gray yarn of grossly varying thickness. “This is different. But what on earth can you make with it?”
“Look up there,” said Betsy, gesturing at a shawl suspended on strings from the ceiling. She had nearly broken her neck fastening that up there.
“Why, it’s lovely!” Charlotte exclaimed, and it was, all delicate open work, the uneven yarn making it look as if it were knit from fog. She reached up to feel the edge between a thumb and forefinger. “Oooooh, soft!”
“It’s surprisingly easy to work with,” said Betsy, who had also knit the shawl.
“Really?” said Charlotte. Then she glanced at the price tag on the yarn and hastily put it back in the basket. “Actually, I came in for some DMC 285. It’s a metallic, silver. I couldn’t find it at Michael’s.”
“My counted cross stitch materials are in the back. Come with me, I’ll show you.” The back third of Betsy’s shop was devoted solely to counted. It was set off from the front by a ceiling-high pair of box shelves. Charlotte went to a tall spinner rack of DMC floss, but Betsy said, “No, that metallic comes on a spool. Over here.”
A small rack in one of the “boxes” held spools of metallic floss. “Here it is,” said Betsy.
“Thank you. So long as we’re back here, do you have cashel?”
“Certainly. What color are you looking for?” Betsy didn’t have the enormous selection of fabric that Stitchville USA had, but she was proud to have a wide selection, rather than restricting her shop to Aida and linen.
A while later, Betsy rang up a substantial sale- Charlotte was like many stitchers. She couldn’t resist poking through the patterns and the rack of stitching accessories, and adding to her initial purchase.
And then, riffling the sale basket of painted needlepoint canvases next to the cash register, Charlotte found a painted canvas of a gray hen that would look “darling” made into a tea cozy, so then Betsy had to help her select the gray, taupe, white, yellow, and red yarns needed to complete the pattern. She added the customary free needle and needle threader to the bag.
“Are you from around here?” asked Betsy after Charlotte had paid for her additional selections. “We have a group that meets every Monday afternoon in the shop to stitch. They do all kinds of needlework so you can bring whatever you’re working on.”
“Oh, that sounds nice,” said Charlotte wistfully. “But we live in Roseville, clear the other side of the Cities, which makes an awfully long drive.”
Reminded, Betsy checked her watch and made an exclamation. “We’d better get back out there. It’s almost time to start back to St. Paul.”
Charlotte said, “I’m not going to ride back in the Maxwell. It’s too hot, and the jiggle was making me sick.”
“ ‘Jiggle’?”
“It’s a two-cylinder and it jiggles all the time. Especially when it’s not running well. After a while you begin to think your stomach will never be right again.”
“Then how are you going to get home?”
“Oh, I’ll ask Ceil or Adam or Nancy if I can ride with them to St. Paul. I can help out in the booth until Bill gets back. Then I’ll help him put the Max into the trailer for the trip home.”
“Well, I’m supposed to go over there, too. Would you care to ride with me?” After all, Charlotte, who had come in looking for a two-dollar item, had just spent nearly seventy dollars.
“Why, thank you, I’d like that very much. Let me go tell Bill.”
They went out together and up the sidewalk to the brown car with a man leaning over the engine revealed by a rooked-up hood. He, too, had removed his duster, and had wrapped a towel around his waist to protect his immaculate white flannel trousers from the grease he was getting on his hands and on his fine linen shirt. Another towel, liberally smeared with grease, was draped over a fender. His head was well under the hood and he was muttering under his breath.
Charlotte came up behind him and said, “Bill, I’m riding to St. Paul with Betsy Devonshire here, one of the volunteers. All right?”
“Okay,” grunted Bill. Metal clanged on metal. “Ow.”
She bent over to murmur something to him, laughed softly at his unheard reply, touched him lightly on the top of his rump. “See you later,” she concluded, and went to open the passenger side door and haul out in one big armload a carpet bag with wooden handles, the duster she’d been wearing, and the big, well-wrapped hat.
“Let’s go see if Adam will keep these in the booth for me,” she said. “And maybe he has something for me to do.”
Adam sighed over the size of Charlotte ’s bundle, but found a corner for it. And he didn’t have anything for her to do, not at the moment. “But say, if you want to assist Betsy in recording the departure times, that would be nice. They are supposed to tie their banners on the left side, but some interpret that to mean the driver’s side, and if their steering wheel is on the right, they put it there; and some don’t read the instructions at all and put it on the back end or forget to put it on at all.”
Betsy said, “That’s right. I had to ask a lot of the drivers what their entry number was because it wasn’t where I could see it when they drove up.” One had had to get out of his car and dig it out of the wicker basket that served as a trunk, remarking he didn’t think it mattered until the actual run.
“If you’ll stand so the cars run between you,” said Adam, “one of you is bound to see the number.”
Betsy, remembering the wicker basket, asked, “Why does it matter? If it’s not a race, and they don’t get a medallion for finishing this run, who cares what time they leave here?”
“We need to keep track,” replied Adam. “So if someone doesn’t show up at the other end, we know to go looking for him.”
Ceil said, “They have special trucks that follow the route between New London and New Brighton, but they’re not here today. Someone could break down, and if we weren’t keeping track, they might not be missed until dark. Most of these cars shouldn’t be driven after dark.”
Betsy nodded. “I see.”
Ceil checked her watch. “The first arrivals can start back in about fifteen minutes. That will be the Winton and the Stanley.”
Betsy said, “Not the Steamer.”
Ceil asked, “Why not?”
“He lives here, he just wanted to see if the car could make it from St. Paul. Kind of a tryout for the big run.”
Adam asked, “His is the Steamer coming to the run, isn’t it?”
Betsy nodded, then said, “I haven’t seen the whole list of people signed up. Is there only one Steamer?”
Adam nodded. “Yes. Generally we get only one. The steam people have their own clubs. Their requirements and rules are different. Here, why don’t you sit inside the booth? It’s shade at least.”
“Thanks.” Betsy and Charlotte came in. The booth was roomy enough, even with the big quilt on its stand taking up most of the center. The booth had a board running around three sides of it that made a counter. Handouts about the Antique Car Club of Minnesota made stacks along it. There were also a few maps of the route stapled to a three-page turn-by-turn printed guide, for drivers who had lost or mislaid theirs. Postcards featuring pictures of antique cars were for sale. Mildred had taken up a post, her cash box on one side and the immense roll of double raffle tickets on the other. By the number of tickets dropped into a big, clear plastic jug, business had not been brisk, but she professed herself satisfied.