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    Exercised Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 16): Historical Cozy Mystery
    Exercised Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 16): Historical Cozy Mystery
    Exercised Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 16): Historical Cozy Mystery
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    Exercised Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 16): Historical Cozy Mystery

    By Alice Duncan

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    About this ebook

    When a Woman Mysteriously Disappears From an Orange Grove Mansion, Daisy Gumm Majesty, Sam Rotondo, and the Ever Crotchety Lou Prophet Launch A Search in Exercised Spirits, a Cozy Historical Mystery by Alice Duncan

    —1925, Pasadena, California—

    Already irked about having to participate in an exercise class with some church chums, Daisy is horrified when her beloved Aunt Vi—the greatest cook in Pasadena—goes missing from her place of employment, Mrs. Pinkerton’s mansion on Orange Grove Street.

    Daisy, Sam and Lou Prophet launch a search, with some help from Mrs. Jackson, a real live Voodoo mambo from New Orleans, who is at present living in Altadena.

    In the meantime, food preparation in the Gumm/Majesty/Rotondo households takes a severe downturn. Lou Prophet lends a hand, and the family finds themselves choking down some concoctions they never even knew existed.

    It’s going to take all the shrewd sleuthing Daisy can muster plus Sam, a peg-legged man, and some clever roping to bring Aunt Vi home.

    From the Publisher: The Daisy Gumm Majesty Cozy Mystery Series is a light-hearted mystery in a historical setting. There are no explicit sexual scenes and minimal cursing (Lou Prophet can be a little coarse) and will be enjoyed by readers who appreciate clean and wholesome reads. Fans of Carola Dunn, Amanda Quick, Elizabeth Peters, Rhys Bowen, and M. Louisa Locke will not want to miss this series.

    “If you like the 1920’s era, cozy mysteries and hints at paranormal this is absolutely a series for you!” ~Peggy, Avid Fan

    “I love this series! I love the writing style, and the characters. Ms. Duncan has a fun way of telling a story and having Daisy make funny ‘asides’ to the reader.” ~Nova Todd

    “I always enjoy Daisy’s adventures but the addition of Mr. Prophet is the best! I highly recommend to readers of cozy mysteries.” ~Joanna Lindsey, Verified Reviewer

    You can start anywhere, but you’ll want to read all of the Daisy Gumm Majesty Mysteries:
    Strong Spirits
    Fine Spirits
    High Spirits
    Hungry Spirits
    Genteel Spirits
    Ancient Spirits
    Dark Spirits
    Spirits Onstage
    Unsettled Spirits
    Spirits United
    Spirits Unearthed
    Shaken Spirits
    Scarlet Spirits
    Exercised Spirits
    Wedded Spirits

    ABOUT ALICE DUNCAN:
    In an effort to avoid what she knew she should be doing, Alice folk-danced professionally until her writing muse finally had its way. Now a resident of Roswell, New Mexico, Alice enjoys saying no smog, no crowds, and yes to loving her herd of wild Dachshunds.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherePublishing Works
    Release dateJan 5, 2021
    ISBN9781644571392
    Exercised Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 16): Historical Cozy Mystery
    Author

    Alice Duncan

    In an effort to avoid what she knew she should be doing, Alice folk-danced professionally until her writing muse finally had its way. Now a resident of Roswell, New Mexico, Alice enjoys saying "no" to smog, "no" to crowds, and "yes" to loving her herd of wild dachshunds. Visit Alice at www.aliceduncan.net.

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      Exercised Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 16) - Alice Duncan

      1

      By the time Easter Sunday in 1925 arrived, I’d begun harboring the irrational feeling that 1925, as a year, had it in for me. I tried to tell myself to snap out of it, that years can’t bedevil individual persons, and, if one took a peek at the rest of the world, the year was being hard on darned near everyone.

      I mean, looked at objectively, the whole world seemed to be reeling. For instance, the Irish and the English persisted in blowing each other up. Russians still starved in droves even as the Red Army under their new revolutionary leaders kept snapping up Eastern European countries and stomping the countries’ natives to bits under their boots. Bones from soldiers and civilians killed during the Great War continued being dug up by farmers in Belgium and France, seven years after the war’s end. Belgium, by the way, didn’t look as if it would ever completely recover from German depredations.

      Then there was my own personal week before Easter, which had resulted in a host of bruises to my leg and injuries to several other people.

      But I suppose all that is neither here nor there. 1925 had been rough so far, but Easter should signify a new beginning —at least according to Mr. Merle Negley Smith, the pastor of our Methodist-Episcopal Church—and I was prepared to give it another chance. Therefore, I changed into my Easter duds, which, natch, I’d made myself, and came in a slow second to Spike, the family’s black-and-tan dachshund, as we hied ourselves to answer the knock upon front door. My bruised leg hurt, darn it!

      My astonishment at seeing Mr. Lou Prophet—clad in a suit and tie and with his left arm residing in a sling (another souvenir from the prior week)—arrive for Easter breakfast at our house made thoughts about my sore right leg and my grudge against 1925 fly right out the window.

      I suspected Sam Rotondo, my fiancé and detective at the Pasadena Police Department, had more or less bullied Mr. Prophet into attending church with us. Sam, you see, had hired Mr. Prophet to be caretaker of the charming bungalow Sam had bought right across the street from my parents’ house on South Marengo Avenue.

      Well…I don’t suppose Mr. Prophet couldn’t be called a proper caretaker. Then again, I’m pretty sure Mr. Lou Prophet and propriety stayed as far away from each other as they could get. But I liked the guy. He’d saved my own hide a few times since the beginning of the year.

      Told you 1925 had been mean to me.

      Mr. Prophet, who had come into our lives in a particularly harrowing manner, fitted into the staid and proper society of Pasadena, California, sort of like a Gila monster might fit on top of a frilly wedding cake. Mr. Prophet, you see, was a character straight out of the Old West. People had even written dime novels about him. He used to be a bounty hunter, for heaven’s sake. Actually, I’m pretty sure heaven and Mr. Prophet didn’t have much to do with each other, either.

      He’d managed to lose a leg during his long and adventurous life, only not in a noble way—if there is a noble way to lose a limb. What happened was, he was in a car with two ladies of the night and a crate of bootleg liquor when whoever’d been steering the machine drove it smack off a cliff in Malibu. He was the only survivor but managed to lose a leg in the process. The lost limb put paid to the work he’d been doing, which was serving as an advisor in some of the three million western flickers being produced at the time.

      But all that is beside the point. He came to our house for Easter breakfast and aimed to attend church with us! These two events might figure as wonders of the Western world, but I don’t think the people who keep track of such things pay much attention to us folks in Pasadena.

      You look like an Italian duke again, Sam, I told my fiancé, getting on my tiptoes and kissing him right on the lips.

      And you look lovely, too, said Sam, eyeing me up and down.

      Mr. Prophet said something that sounded like Rmmph.

      Shoving fear aside, I beamed at Sam’s guest and said, It’s so good to see you up and about, Mr. Prophet! How’s your arm feeling?

      Uh, said he.

      Okey-dokey.

      He’s just crabby because I’m making him come to church with us this morning, said Sam, patting Mr. Prophet on the back. He got a vicious frown for his effort, but it only made Sam’s grin broaden.

      "Consarn it, ain’t it bad enough I got a bullet hole in my arm? Now you’re gonna make me pray?" Mr. Prophet sounded sorely aggrieved.

      You don’t have a hole. You have a little graze. Besides, you don’t have to pray, said Sam. I never do.

      Sam!

      My exclamation was solely for show and my shock feigned. I knew my Sam.

      Ain’t never met me a gospel-grinder worth the meat to make him into a man, grumbled Mr. Prophet.

      I beg your pardon? I tilted my head, not sure I’d heard correctly.

      Never mind, said Mr. Prophet.

      Very well, I said, figuring if he was going to be that way, I’d just let him.

      Then I suddenly understood what his quaint words meant. Had to stifle a giggle as I thought of our minister. I considered Pastor Smith a fine Christian gentleman, but he did look rather as if God had run out of meat before he’d quite finished creating him. However, Mr. Smith wasn’t the only good Christian gent Mr. Prophet and I knew. Frowning at Mr. Prophet, I demanded, What about Johnny Buckingham?

      Johnny Buckingham and his wife, the former Flossie Mosser, ran the Salvation Army Church in Pasadena. They were loving, generous, charitable people. And Johnny definitely hadn’t been slighted in the meat department. Or the good-looks department.

      Scowling spitefully at me, Mr. Prophet growled, He’s different. He’s a man.

      "Whatever that means," I growled back.

      Huh, said Sam and Mr. Prophet together. I led the way to the dining room.

      After we’d finished the wonderful breakfast my aunt, Viola Gumm, had prepared for us and were making last-minute spiffing-up efforts, Vi put a leg of lamb in the oven, where it would roast as we attended church. I saw Mr. Prophet eyeing the big hunk of meat with befuddlement.

      Therefore, as Sam helped me on with my pretty, lightweight spring coat, I said, Do you like leg of lamb, Mr. Prophet? Vi’s is the best you’ll ever eat.

      His pale blue eyes grew round in their nest of wrinkled flesh—the fellow was old—and he said, "You people eat sheep?" He kept his voice soft, probably so Vi wouldn’t hear him. He sounded horrified.

      To the accompaniment of my fiancé’s laughter, I gazed in astonishment at Mr. Prophet. What do you mean, do we eat sheep? We eat lamb sometimes. Haven’t you ever eaten lamb?

      "Sheep?"

      Lamb.

      Lambs grow up to be sheep, he said firmly.

      The one whose leg is in our oven won’t.

      He’s a wild westerner, said Sam, still chuckling. I think wild westerners prefer beef to lamb.

      Never ate no sheep in my life, Mr. Prophet announced as if he didn’t aim to break this personal record any time soon.

      You’ll eat some of this one, said Sam, if you aim to keep Vi happy.

      Dammit, said Mr. Prophet.

      It’s Easter Sunday, Mr. Prophet, I said in an insufferably prim voice. I hope you can refrain from swearing in church, at least.

      Aw, hell.

      So much for him.

      2

      However, in spite of Mr. Prophet’s blasphemy, the Easter service went beautifully. The choir sang our processional hymn, The Day of Resurrection, admirably, and Mr. Finster and Mr. Warden carried off their duet well. Not as well as the duet Lucille Zollinger and I sang on the fourth verse, but I’d never say so aloud.

      After church, I joined my family as soon as I’d doffed my choir robe, hung it neatly on its hanger in the closet, and returned my hymnal and music folder to their assigned cubby in the choir room. Mr. Prophet stood with Ma, Pa, Sam, and Aunt Vi in the courtyard outside the choir room. He didn’t look as though he’d experienced a religious epiphany, but he and Vi chatted with each other, and both looked happy. And this, in spite of lamb to come!

      Taking my life into my hands, I asked, Did you enjoy the service, Mr. Prophet?

      Singin’ sounded good, said he. Only I want a quirley.

      Not in the courtyard, I snapped. A quirley, by the way, is a cigarette. He rolled his own, although people could buy tins of cigarettes in stores by 1925.

      I’d never darken your courtyard with smoke from a coffin nail, Miss Daisy. You should know me better’n that by now. He actually sounded as if I’d hurt his feelings, although up until then, I hadn’t known he possessed any.

      I do know it. Sorry I was mean to you.

      You? Mean? He chuffed a snort of laughter. Miss Daisy, you don’t know what mean is. You couldn’t hurt my feelings if you tried. Why, I've been ridden over roughshod by some of the meanest, nastiest curly wolves to ever ride the long-coulees under an owl-hoot moon. I been shot so full of lead I rattle when I walk. I had the stuffing kicked out of both my heathen ends more times than I can count on my hands and both feet. I been given Dutch rides over sharp rocks—

      "What kinds of rides?" I regret to say the words came out a bit shrilly, although nobody else seemed to notice.

      With a snaggle-toothed grin, Mr. Prophet said in his rusty voice, That means I been drug by a rope behind a horse.

      Goodness gracious.

      His faded blue eyes twinkling devilishly, he said, What’s happened to me had nothing to do with either one o’ them things.

      Very well, then. I guess not. Peering at him and wondering how he’d survived so long, I said, I’m sorry.

      Fer what?

      For the awful things people have done to you.

      He chuckled. Miss Daisy, ain’t no more than what I’ve done to others. He tilted his head in what might have been contemplation. Or it might not have been. Have I mentioned I can’t judge a person’s mood by his expression? Well, I can’t. Ain’t that one o’ them…Whatcha call ‘em? Christian principles or something.

      Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? I asked in a faint voice. By this time Sam was actively laughing, confound him.

      Yeah. That’s the one, said Mr. Prophet.

      I said, Oh.

      Lucy Zollinger, soprano to my alto and a lovely young woman, approached me along with several other ladies of our congregation. I eyed them with suspicion, mainly because I suspected every one of them was heck-bent on forcing me to participate in the idiotic exercise class Lucy had asked me to join. Actually, she wanted me to lead the confounded class, based on exercises from some health book she’d been given by her precious Albert. Her husband.

      I think our duet went quite well, I said, hoping to forestall any talk of exercises from Lucy.

      No such luck. Albert said we sounded lovely. Oh, Daisy! she went on, evidently in raptures, I can’t wait to start our exercise class.

      Smiling at her, I was about to give a noncommittal rebuttal, when Miss Betsy Powell rushed up to me, beaming. She grabbed my arm. "Oh, Mrs. Majesty, I’m so looking forward to your exercise class!"

      Darn Sam Rotondo anyhow! I saw him roll his eyes heavenward and steer the rest of my family and Mr. Prophet toward his big old Hudson. He’d parked it on the other side of Marengo from the church’s east entrance. The least he could have done was take me with him! Nevertheless, I spoke to Miss Powell, figuring I could holler at Sam later.

      You are? I said, baffled. Miss Betsy Powell wasn’t one of my dearest friends. For one thing, she screamed at the drop of a hat. For another thing, she seemed doomed to attract the most evil and vicious men on the face of the earth. Maybe it wasn’t her fault, but I tried to steer clear of her in case her particular malady was contagious.

      Oh, yes! she cooed as if in ecstasy. Oh, and Mrs. Majesty, she continued, her ecstasy waning, "I know your aunt is positively famous for her cooking skills."

      Yes? I said, looking her slanty-eyed.

      Yes! cried she, hands clasped at her bosom and looking as if these were the End Times and Jesus was calling her home. My new gentleman friend’s employer needs a new cook! I don’t suppose your aunt would know anyone who might like the job, would she?

      How the heck should I know if Aunt Vi knew any cooks needing employment? Rather than say those words, I hedged. I don’t know, Miss Powell, but I’ll be happy to ask her.

      "Oh, thank you!" she said. And she waltzed off, probably to visit her new male friend. I wondered what kind of criminal she’d picked this time.

      How unkind of me, huh?

      Phooey. You don’t know her, or you’d wonder the same thing.

      At any rate, by the time Sam drove us all down the hill to my parents’ bungalow on South Marengo Avenue, my mood had taken a nosedive, and my grudge against 1925 resurfaced. I attempted to repress it, although conversation on the way home didn’t help.

      Nor did the sudden flash of heat from my Voodoo juju, made especially for me by Mrs. Jackson, mother of Mrs. Pinkerton’s—she’s my most lucrative client—gatekeeper, Mr. Joseph Jackson.

      I considered this juju-related jolt of heat as something of an ill omen, and it worried me.

      When we were halfway home, Mr. Prophet asked, Y’know that lady who talked to you right before we left?

      Miss Betsy Powell? I said.

      Guess that’s her name. Isn’t she the lady who screams all the time?

      After heaving a gigantic sigh, I turned my head, peered into the back seat, and said, Yes. Miss Betsy Powell. She not only has a God-awful scream, but she selects the lousiest men in the entire universe with whom to fall in love.

      There it went again. I slapped a hand over my dress under which my juju lay. Good Lord, what did this mean?

      Daisy, said my mother in the voice telling me I was being unkind.

      Nertz. It’s the truth, Ma. So far, two of the men she’s been madly in love with tried to kill me!

      Yeah? Mr. Prophet, who’d been sitting in the back seat with his eyes half-shut, evidently only nominally interested in the question he’d asked, suddenly opened the same and appeared much more interested.

      "What do you mean, ‘Yeah!’ You were there the last time one of them tried to do me in! I said in a snarly voice. You witnessed the event!"

      By golly, yeah. I remember. Never saw nobody try to kill somebody else with a lion before. He gave a rusty chuckle.

      "You think it was funny?" I roared, reminding myself of Miss Betsy Powell, which didn’t improve my mood, especially when my mother, my aunt and my father all winced.

      I’m sorry, I muttered and swiveled around to face forward again. Unfortunately, when I turned my head, I managed to catch the wide grin on my fiancé’s face. But I don’t know why everybody thinks it’s so darned funny that horrid man upended me into a lion’s den. It sure didn’t seem funny to me!

      Not at the time, Sam agreed. He’d helped rescue me, as had Mr. Prophet. But the lion was tame, so it wouldn’t have hurt you. Remember what Mr. Gay said?

      I chuffed out a huge breath. Of course, I remember. But I didn’t know Slats was a tame lion at the time, did I?

      Fair enough, admitted Sam.

      "I thought the stupid lion was going to eat me for dinner. Instead, he licked me! He had a scratchy tongue and stinky breath."

      Well, said Sam in a philosophical tone of voice, think of it this way. You’re one of the few people in the entire world who can honestly say she’s been licked by the MGM lion.

      Yeah! said Mr. Prophet with unbecoming enthusiasm. You can have that…whattaya call ‘em? That motto? You can have it carved into your gravestone!

      This time my father joined Sam and Mr. Prophet in a happy chuckle. Even my mother and aunt giggled. Bother them all.

      I cheered up when I remembered we aimed to dine on leg of lamb soon. I hoped Mr. Prophet would choke on it.

      3

      As I might have expected, he didn’t. Beastly man.

      When we entered our bungalow, after giving Spike the greeting he deserved, the men settled into the living room for a chat while we women took off our hats and gloves, headed to the kitchen, donned aprons, and assisted Vi with preparing the meal. The main thing I had learned from the fateful visit Sam, Mr. Prophet and I had made to Gay’s Lion Farm in Westlake Park earlier in the year was that women do all the work in the world, no matter what species they belong to. And don’t tell me men are out all day laboring to earn a living, either. In my family, we three women went out and earned the living. Then we came home and did all the housework.

      Mind you, the men in our family weren’t lazy or at fault for not working. My father had been a chauffeur and an automobile mechanic for a bunch of rich Pasadenans before he’d had a severe heart attack.

      My late husband, Billy Majesty, had been set to become a productive member of society, too, and had a job lined up for himself as a mechanic at the Hull Motor Works in Pasadena. He made the mistake of enlisting in the army after Kaiser Wilhelm and his bevy of German toads tried to take over the world, thereby getting himself shot and gassed and wheelchair-bound until his early death.

      Ah, well. What’s the old saying? A man’s work ends when the day is done, but a woman’s work is never done? It’s the truth.

      Spike, however—a man, if a canine one—joined the women in the kitchen. I doubt he did so out of a feeling of obligation and a desire to assist us. He just hoped one or more of us would drop something. He was about the fastest dog in the West, and I’d never yet been able to pick up something I’d dropped before Spike nabbed it.

      I’d already set a gorgeous salad of mixed greens on the dinner table and made sure each place setting had a little extra plate upon which a person could put his or her roll and butter or a spoonful or two of salad. In our household, nobody followed strict rules of etiquette. When I’d asked Vi what kind of salad dressing she’d prepared, she’d only shrugged and said, Just a regular old vinaigrette. Nothing fancy.

      Nothing fancy, my foot. If anyone told me he or she would kill me if I didn’t whip up a vinaigrette, I’d be a dead Daisy. I couldn’t even tell you what a vinaigrette contained. Well, except for vinegar, I guess.

      As Ma and I settled superbly roasted potatoes around the succulent lamb leg on the big white serving platter, Vi said, Will you please cut a hunk of butter and put it on the asparagus, Daisy?

      Yes, ma’am. I loved asparagus. I’d tried to grow it in our kitchen garden, but asparagus evidently didn’t like growing in Pasadena, so my effort had come to naught. I didn’t feel as bad about not being able to grow asparagus as I was about my many failures as a cook.

      And then take the rolls out of the oven and put them in the basket. Peggy’s already laid a napkin in the basket, haven’t you, Peggy?

      I have, Ma confirmed.

      Sure will. After I buttered the asparagus, I opened the oven door to the delicious aromatic combination of freshly baked rolls and superbly roasted leg of lamb. Are these Parker House rolls? I asked, hoping I’d managed to get one teensy bit of culinary vocabulary correct.

      They are indeed, sweetie.

      Aha! For some reason, I felt better about life.

      This dinner smells heavenly, Vi.

      It certainly does, agreed my mother.

      Please get me the gravy boat, Daisy, Vi said. The gravy’s all ready.

      Oh, good. Leg of lamb, roasted potatoes and gravy. And asparagus! What could be better? Not a whole lot, by crikey.

      And then please call the men in for dinner, added Ma, as she took off her apron and hung it on its hook on the service porch.

      Will do.

      Naturally, the men popped up from their seats and raced to the dining room as soon as I’d carried the good news about dinner being ready. Well, because of his present state of health, Mr. Prophet didn’t precisely run. Then there was his grudge against lamb, which was even more irrational than my grudge against 1925.

      Pa said a short grace as soon as we’d taken our accustomed places at the dinner table. Vi and Pa took up the two end places. Sam and I sat on one side, and Ma and Mr. Prophet sat on the other. Mr. Prophet sat next to Vi because, although he hated it, someone had to cut his meat for him because of his left arm being in a sling.

      Nobody spoke as plates were handed out and vegetable bowls, the gravy boat, dinner rolls and butter made the rounds. Our house smelled so good!

      I kept an eye on Mr. Prophet. To give him credit, he didn’t wrinkle his when Vi set his plate before him. He did look down at it for a couple of seconds before picking up a roll and attempting to break it open.

      Here. Let me help you with your roll, said Vi, doing the same. She buttered it for him, too.

      Thank you, ma’am, said he, giving her a tight grin.

      I had long been under the impression Mr. Lou Prophet, legendary hero (or perhaps anti-hero) of the Old West, didn’t appreciate people having to do things for him. For as many times as he’d been shot or otherwise injured in and out of the line of duty, you’d have thought he’d be used to it by this time, but I reckon he still valued his independence—what there was left of it.

      He nibbled on his roll and butter, then stabbed a piece of asparagus and chewed. Tilting his head slightly, his expression eased a bit, giving me the impression asparagus pleased him. This, of course, made me wonder. I mean, the fellow had lived a really rugged life for years and years.

      Have you eaten asparagus before, Mr. Prophet? I asked out of curiosity.

      None as good as this, said he. It grows along some of the riverbanks in my old stompin’ grounds, so we’d eat it sometimes, but it didn’t taste near as good as this does. He smiled at Vi. You’re the best cook I ever met, Mrs. Gumm.

      My aunt blushed. Her blush didn’t surprise me. If you’ve read any of those old dime novels written about him, you’d have learned all about Mr. Prophet’s way with the ladies—or, perhaps, women who weren’t ladies—as well as his skill with firearms.

      When I was laid up after a stupid car rammed me into a stupid tree on New Year’s Day, I read lots of yellow-back novels purporting to be about Mr. Prophet. A fellow named Heywood Wilden Scott wrote several books fitting into this particular brand of literature—if it can be called literature—mainly because he and Mr. Prophet had ended up at the Odd Fellows Home of Christian Charity in Pasadena together. Don’t know if or how Mr. Scott ever managed to free himself from the dismal place, but Sam and I had sprung Mr. Prophet at the first of the year.

      According to those books, Mr. Prophet had once possessed a hefty appetite for violence, women and liquor. And the poor fellow had ended up in staid and proper Pasadena, California, in the midst of Prohibition! With a peg leg and an arm in a sling! The notion nearly gave me the giggles, but I suppressed them, knowing my mother would disapprove.

      Anyhow, I wanted to monitor Mr. Prophet’s attack on his Easter dinner, so I munched happily on salad, asparagus, lamb and roasted potatoes and watched him across the table. A few minutes after I’d begun my discreet surveillance, I felt a knee-nudge from Sam and glanced at him. He dropped his napkin, and both of us bent to retrieve it.

      Quit staring at Lou, he whispered as we clunked heads.

      I’m not staring! I whispered back.

      You are, too. He pinched his napkin, sat up, and spread it across his lap once more, then smiled at everyone. Napkin slipped, he announced, as if to account for his napkin’s sudden disappearance.

      I sat up, too. This is so good, Aunt Vi, I said, deliberately not looking at Mr. Prophet.

      It’s wonderful, agreed my mother.

      Pa had his mouth full, so he couldn’t agree aloud, although he nodded his head with vigor.

      Delicious, said Sam. It was his usual comment when he took dinner with us, which

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