There had been a vast uproar about it in town, and even a meeting to protest “the advent of these darkies, which come in a Horde.” Things had settled down and turned out okay, as things have a way of doing, more often than not. The shanty town most locals had expected on Day’s Hill (for so Tidwell’s Meadow was called in 1900, when Son Tid-well bought the land on behalf of his extensive clan) had never appeared. Instead, a number of neat white cabins sprang up, surrounding a larger building that might have been intended as a group meeting place, a rehearsal area, or perhaps, at some point, a performance hall.

Sara and the Red-Top Boys (sometimes there was a Red-Top Girl in there, as well; membership in the band was fluid, changing with every performance) played around western Maine for over a year, maybe closer to two years. In towns all up and down the Western Line—Farmington, Skowhegan, Bridgton, Gates Falls, Castle Rock, Morton, Fryeburg—you’ll still come across their old show-posters at barn bazaars and junk-atoriums. Sara and the Red-Tops were great favorites on the circuit, and they got along all right at home on the TR, too, which never surprised me. At the end of the day Robert Frost—that utilitarian and often unpleasant poet—was right: in the northeastern three we really do believe that good fences make good neighbors. We squawk and then keep a miserly peace, the kind with gimlet eyes and a tucked-down mouth. “They pay their bills,” we say. “I ain’t never had to shoot one a their dogs,” we say. “They keep themselves to themselves,” we say, as if isolation were a virtue. And, of course, the defining virtue: “They don’t take charity.”

And at some point, Sara Tidwell became Sara Laughs.

In the end, though, TR-90 mustn’t have been what they wanted, because after playing a county fair or two in the late summer of 1901, the clan moved on. Their neat little cabins provided summer-rental income for the Day family until 1933, when they burned in the summer fires which charred the east and north sides of the lake. End of story.

Except for her music, that was. Her music had lived.

I got up from the rock I had been sitting on, stretched my arms and my back, and walked back down the lane, singing one of her songs as I went.

Dring my hike back down the lane to the house, I tried to think about nothing at all. My first editor used to say that eighty-five percent of what goes on in a novelist’s head is none of his business, a sentiment I’ve never believed should be restricted to just writers. So-called higher thought is, by and large, highly overrated. When trouble comes and steps have to be taken, I find it’s generally better to just stand aside and let the boys in the basement do their work. That’s blue-collar labor down there, non-union guys with lots of muscles and tattoos.

Instinct is their specialty, and they refer problems upstairs for actual cogitation only as a last resort.

When I tried to call Mattie Devote, an extremely peculiar thing happened—one that had nothing at all ro do with spooks, as far as I could tell. Instead of an open-hum line when I pushed the cordless’s on button, I got silence. Then, just as I was thinking I must have left the phone in the north bedroom off the hook, I realized ir wasn’t complete silence. Distant as a radio transmission from deep space, cheerful and quacky as an animated duck, some guy with a fair amount of Brooklyn in his voice was singing: “He followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day. Followed her to school one day, which was against the rule…” I opened my mouth to ask who was there, but before I could, a woman’s voice said “Hello?” She sounded perplexed and doubtful.

“Mattie?” In my confusion it never occurred to me to call her something more formal, like Ms. or Mrs. Devore. Nor did it seem odd that I should know who it was, based on a single word, even though our only previous conversation had been relatively brief. Maybe the guys in the basement recognized the background music and made the connection to Kyra. “Mr. Noonan?” She sounded more bewildered than ever. “The phone never even rang!”

“I must have picked mine up just as your call was going through,” I said. “That happens from time to time.” But how many times, I wondered, did it happen when the person calling you was the one you yourself had been planning to call? Maybe quite often, actually.

Telepathy or coincidence? Live or Memorex? Either way, it seemed almost magical. I looked across the long, low living room, into the glassy eyes of Bunter the moose, and thought: I3s, but maybe this is a magic place now. “I suppose,” she said doubtfully. “I apologize about calling in the first place—it’s a presumption. Your number’s unlisted, I know.” Oh, don’t worry about that, I thought. Everyone’s got this old number by now. In fact, I’m thinking aboutputting it in the Illow Pages. “I got it from your file at the library,” she went on, sounding embarrassed.

“That’s where I work.” In the background, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” had given way to “The Farmer in the Dell.”

“It’s quite all right,” I said.

“Especially since you’re the person I was picking up the phone to call.”

“Me? Why?”

“Ladies first.” She gave a brief, nervous laugh. “I wanted to invite you to dinner. That is, Ki and I want to invite you to dinner. I should have done it before now. You were awfully good to us the other day. Will you come?”

“Yes,” I said with no hesitation at all. “With thanks. We’ve got some things to talk about, anyway.”

There was a pause. In the background, the mouse was taking the cheese.

As a kid I used to think all these things happened in a vast gray factory called The Hi-Ho Dairy-O. “Mattie? Still there?"

“He’s dragged you into it, hasn’t he? That awful old man.” Now her voice sounded not nervous but somehow dead. “Well, yes and no. You could argue that fate dragged me into it, or coincidence, or God. I wasn’t there that morning because of Max Devore; I was chasing the elusive Villageburger.” She didn’t laugh, but her voice brightened a little, and I was glad. People who talk in that dead, affectless way are, by and large, frightened people. Sometimes people who have been outright terrorized. “I’m still sorry for dragging you into my trouble.” I had an idea she might start to wonder who was dragging whom after I pitched her on John Storrow, and was glad it was a discussion I wouldn’t have to have with her on the phone. “In any case, I’d love to come to dinner. When?”

“Would this evening be too soon?”

“Absolutely not.”

“That’s wonderful. We have to eat early, though, so my little guy doesn’t fall asleep in her dessert.

Is six okay?”

“Yes.”

“Ki will be excited. We don’t have much company.”

“She hasn’t been wandering again, has she?” I thought she might be offended. Instead, this time she aid laugh. “God, no. All the fuss on Saturday scared her. Now she comes in to tell me if she’s switching from the swing in the side yard to the sandbox in back. She’s talked about you a lot, though. She calls you ’that tall guy who carrot me.” I think she’s worried you might be mad at her.”

“Tell her I’m not,” I said. “No, check that. I’ll tell her myself. Can I bring anything?”

“Bottle of wine?” she asked, a little doubtfully. “Or maybe that’s pretentious—I was only going to cook hamburgers on the grill and make potato salad.”

“I’ll bring an unpretentious bottle.”

“Thank you,” she said. “This is sort of exciting. We never have company.”

I was horrified to find myself on the verge of saying that I thought it was sort of exciting, too, my first date in four years and all. “Thanks so much for thinking of me.” As I hung up I remembered John Storrow advising me to try and stay visible with her, not to hand over any extra grist for the town gossip mill. If she was barbecuing, we’d probably be out where people could see we had our clothes on. . for most of the evening, anyway. She-would, however, likely do the polite thing at some point and invite me inside. I would then do the polite thing and go.