‘You were one of only four people who got a vote.’

‘Five,’ said Coot. ‘Down at th’ café, they said it was five people.’

‘Correct, yes. Five.’

‘I got m’ name in th’ paper last week, too.’

‘You did, I remember.’

Coot was visibly moved by two such public attentions, and didn’t say anything for a time.

‘You could read this ’un to me, if you wouldn’t object. They read it out too fast at th’ café, I could listen to it ag’in.’

He turned to the front page, scanned the piece, and did as directed. ‘Four votes for Wanda Basinger who has given us such a great place to have lunch, and two . . . for Coot Hendrik . . . who is a town fixture.’

Coot looked deeply into his coffee cup. ‘I was wonderin’—what exactly is a town fixture?’

‘Let’s step over there,’ he said, heading for the store dictionary. He thumbed through to F, to Fi.

‘You are a town fixture because you . . .’ He ran his forefinger slowly beneath the definition as Coot looked on. ‘. . . are invariably present in and long associated with this town.’

Coot nodded, grew thoughtful. ‘’At means you’re a town fixture, too.’

‘I certainly hope so,’ he said. ‘Come to think of it, your name is in this book.’

‘They ain’t no way.’

He thumbed back to C and ahead to Co.

‘Right here. Coot. Plain as day.’

Coot stooped, had a close look. ‘How’d it git in here?’

‘It’s the name of . . . “an aquatic, slow-flying, slate-colored bird of the rail family, resembling a duck.”’

Coot blinked. ‘Are they any way I could borry this book?’

‘Not this book. But I might have a dictionary in paperback.’

The chances were better than good that Coot couldn’t read. How would you go about teaching a full-grown adult to read? Maybe there was a book about that around here . . .

•   •   •

ESTHER CUNNINGHAM WAS PEERING in the display window; he could see her but she didn’t see him. Actually, her attention was riveted on the quotes taped to the glass; he saw her mouth moving as she read them one by one.

The bell jangled.

‘Esther!’

She was the Queen Mary sailing into Boston Harbor, flags flying. ‘I hear you’re gainfully employed again,’ she said.

‘No rest for the wicked, an’ th’ righteous don’t need none.’ Uncle Billy had authored that particular quote.

‘Was it your idea to tape that stuff on th’ window?’

‘I can’t really take credit for that.’

‘Credit? There’d be no credit to take for postin’ litter that’s goin’ to fall in the street and blow around ’til th’ cows come home.’

‘It makes good reading,’ he said.

‘That may well be, but such clutter on a public display window is not a good model for other merchants. As I recall, I passed a regulation on that very thing. Do you, Father, of all people, want to set a bad example for Main Street? To have every Tom, Dick, and Harry litterin’ their windows with fingerprints and gummy tape?’

This was a runaway horse. ‘How about buying a book today?’ His sales techniques, so far, were pretty limited.

‘A book.’ Esther looked at him as if from the depths of a coma.

‘Pick any title beginning with S and get fifteen percent off. Maybe a picture book for your grandchildren. The last I heard there were twenty-one of them, but that was a while back. What’s the latest count?’

‘Twenty-four!’ she said. ‘And more on th’ way. You know th’ Cunninghams carry out th’ biblical injunction to go forth and multiply.’

‘I know that, yes.’

‘You want to see pictures?’ She gouged in her handbag and pulled forth a four-by-six-inch album in the accordion format.

‘Do I want to see pictures? Esther, Esther, is the Pope Catholic?’

•   •   •

BEFORE HE TALKED TO SAMMY, he would talk to Harley. If Sammy kept going like this, he would end up in jail—that simple.

At two-fifteen, voices on the sidewalk. The door swung open, the bell jangled, and in swarmed Unbounded Clamor and Delight, with a couple of teachers in tow. It was story time for Mitford’s third grade.

‘My name is Hastings. I would like to buy a book, please.’ A boy peered at him from just below the top of the sales counter.

‘How do you do, Hastings?’

‘Very well, sir.’

‘What book will you be buying?’

‘I don’t know. But I have money. I saved it just for a book.’

‘Come with me,’ he said. He was playing this by ear. He had no idea what the bestsellers were, or what this demographic or that might be reading. It was the blind leading the blind.

The Call of the Wild—he had loved that as a boy. But it was a tearing, violent thing.

He found Miss Mooney squinting into the pages of a slender volume. ‘What do you think for young Hastings?’ he said. The boy walked ahead and joined a couple of classmates.

‘He’s gaining on Dickens. But for now, maybe Around the World in Eighty Days?’

‘How old is he?’

‘Nine,’ she said, ‘but small for his age. Very bright.’ She smiled. ‘Most of his body weight is constituted by his brain.’

‘Have you ever taught anyone to read, Miss Mooney?’

‘All the time,’ she said, and proud of it.

‘An adult?’

‘Never.’

‘Do you know anyone who might teach an adult to read? For pay, of course.’

‘I would be interested,’ she said, ‘considering I have two girls to put through school.’

Hastings came and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Excuse me, are we looking for my book?’

‘Absolutely. But help me out here. Is there something you might especially enjoy?’

‘Um. Maybe Mr. Wordsworth,’ said Hastings. ‘I’ve heard he can be a very good read.’

He turned away for a moment, smacked by the beauty of complete surprise.

•   •   •

‘WE CAN’T THANK YOU ENOUGH,’ said Scott Murphy. His therapy dogs, Luke and Lizzie, panted at the chaplain’s feet. ‘What can we ever do for you, Father?’

If there was a trait he especially admired, it was that of being earnest. Hope’s good-looking husband was earnest in spades.

‘I needed Happy Endings for my own benefit. God made a way for all of us in this—three birds with one stone. I’m the grateful party. How is she?’

‘Depressed.’

‘Is she ready for a visitor?’

‘You,’ he said. ‘But not yet.’ Scott took out his billfold. ‘I’d like to buy a book.’

There was the Murphy smile he always enjoyed. ‘And what book might that be?’

‘A book for you to give someone who needs it. I don’t know.’

‘Intriguing. Paper or hardcover?’

‘Hardcover.’

‘Deal,’ he said, taking thirty bucks from the good chaplain. ‘Will you let me know when to visit? I’ll take the Eucharist to her.’

‘Yes, please, that would be the best medicine.’ Scott’s face betrayed a certain pleading.

•   •   •

HE TOTTED UP THE DAY’S SALES, recalling that Esther Bolick had bought an almanac at forty percent off, just for the recipes, and a calendar at fifty percent off, just for the pictures.

Esther Cunningham had bought three children’s books and three birthday cards.

J.C. had bought a book on petit point for his wife, Adele, who, while lamenting her poor skills with the needle, was known to be handy with her Glock .45. J.C. had also sprung for a book of jokes which could likely be run in the Muse with proper credit to the person who collected them.

Seemingly without concern for the S for September discount, the mayor had stepped up to the plate and bought Ina Garten’s latest and a big-ticket coffee table book by Bunny Williams, which, he said, would please his Italian wife, who was doing over their bedroom.

As for Hastings, the boy had forked out $13.95 plus tax for a paper edition of Eighty Days, as there was no Wordsworth to be found save in a pricey anthology.

All of which, when added to Scott’s hardcover and the teachers’ rather brisk business, amounted to . . .