The name, however, did not sound familiar. Running through the different Stony Point families she had met over the many months, Annie could make no connection.
A glance at the clock told her how quickly the time had fled while she worked; Alice was likely to be home from her sales meeting. Annie grabbed the telephone and called her neighbor.
“Hello?” Annie felt a surge of relief when Alice’s cheerful voice spoke in her ear.
“I’m so glad you’re home!” Annie blurted.
“So am I.” Alice chuckled. “But I suspect we have different reasons. What’s yours?”
“I made two discoveries while organizing in the library today. I found the rest of the poem—with a signature and date, no less.”
“Seriously? In that library, you’ve accomplished the equivalent of finding the needle in a haystack! Who signed it?”
“I don’t recognize the name. The date on the poem is 1904. It’s in the same handwriting and the ink looks identical, so I don’t think a different person added it at a later time. Have you heard of a Clara Stewart?”
“Clara Stewart. Stewart.” Alice paused to think. “There’s a Starrett family out at the end of Elm who have been here for ages, but that’s as close to Stewart as I can come up with. We need to ask Stella, Gwen, and Ian. Their families have been in Stony Point much longer than most.”
“The club meeting tomorrow will be an exciting one, for sure,” said Annie. “Maybe by the end of it we will know who the collar first belonged to and will be a step closer to finding out how it ended up in the attic of Grey Gables!”
“Make sure you bring the last part of the poem with you tomorrow,” Alice said. “You mentioned two discoveries. What was the other one?”
“Thanks to Boots, I found Gram’s rose-hip jelly recipe! She knocked the mahogany box off the desk, and there it was.”
“Sounds like Boots has earned her treats for the week, instead of a scolding. And just in time for the first crop of hips. If I help you pick them, will that earn me a couple jars of jelly?”
“You realize you will be running the risk of getting a mediocre reward for your work, don’t you? I’ve never made jelly without Gram being right there with me,” Annie reminded her friend.
“I’m banking on the probability that the jelly-making gene has skipped a generation,” declared Alice. “And besides, with Betsy’s recipe, how can it go wrong?”
“Well, it is true Mom wasn’t one to bother with making jelly. I guess we’ll know soon enough,” Annie reasoned. “The hips should be ready any day, possibly even tomorrow. They were close when I checked them last.”
“Give me a heads-up when you know it’s picking day. I’ll use my comp time from working so hard on Saturday and give myself some time off. It’s one of the perks of being self-employed.”
“I had to butter up my boss for time,” Annie said with a smile. “It wasn’t too difficult; I had a pretty good relationship with the boss. I’ll let you go recuperate from your meeting. I want to get more done on my pillow tonight. Maybe it will help me figure out what other options I might have, if Kezi thinks there is a problem with my design.”
“I just hope there are no big issues with mine. I have no idea what to do if I have to start with something new! OK, time to go distract myself until bedtime, or I won’t get to bed early enough and will be late for the meeting.”
“We can’t have that!” Annie feigned horror. “A hot cup of chamomile might help too. See you tomorrow.”
“I already put the water on. But just in case, you might want to call me around nine.
14
Annie hummed as she rounded the corner onto Main Street, the mid-morning sun glinting off the windows of A Stitch in Time and The Cup & Saucer. The glass doors of the movie theater were recessed too far back for the rays to reach, but the brick entry looked burnished. She squeezed the Malibu into a space in front of the hardware store. Getting out, she waved to Mike Malone, out performing his daily ritual of sweeping the sidewalk.
“Good morning, Annie,” he called. “How are those storage containers working for you?” He drew his broom toward the small pile of debris one last time, and then turned to grab a long-handled dustpan.
“They’re working great, Mike,” Annie answered. “But they filled up too fast! I’m going to need a passel of them before I get Grey Gables anywhere near organized.”
Mike swept the pile into the dustpan with economic strokes. “I can round up plenty more for you.” He glanced at his watch. “You might want to hurry, or Stella will start without you.”