The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

While Bessie did that, Miss Rogers was turning the pillow in her hands. “There’s something very curious . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she frowned, puzzled. “Whatever can it be, Miss Bloodworth?” She held out the pillow so Bessie could have a look.

Now that the red knitted cover had been removed, they could see that there was another, second cover under it. It was made of a coarse, tan-colored fabric, linen, perhaps. Both sides were covered with neat columns of colored cross-stitch embroidery in a bewildering pattern of hieroglyphics, interspersed with numerals and a few letters of the Greek alphabet. The pillow had a musty scent, as if it had been stored in a closed trunk for a very long time.

Bessie stared at it for a moment. “How mysterious,” she said at last. “It looks like a secret code or something. Have you ever tried to figure it out?”

“I’ve never even seen it,” Miss Rogers replied. “I thought . . . I assumed that there was stuffing inside the knitted cover. Or maybe a plain cotton cover, with the stuffing inside. But nothing like this.” She turned it over. “What do you suppose these symbols mean?”

“I couldn’t even begin to guess,” Bessie said honestly. And then she hit on a strategy—a very clever strategy, she thought—that might keep Miss Rogers occupied while she dealt with Mrs. Sedalius and Lucky Lindy.

“I have an idea,” she said. “You could copy the letters and numbers and symbols. Maybe, when we see it on paper, we’ll be able to solve the mystery.” She paused, thinking. “Or we could show it to somebody else. Mr. Dickens at the newspaper, for instance.”

Charlie Dickens, as well as being the editor of the Darling Dispatch, was a veteran of the Great War, where he had served in Europe and been a captain in the army. Bessie had known his sister when they were girls, and she and Edna Fay were still good friends. Charlie was always busy reporting the news, trying to keep the antique press working, and tending to the job printing business that supplemented the slim returns from subscriptions and ad sales. She didn’t think he’d be eager to try to decipher a random assortment of symbols transcribed from somebody’s musty old pillow.

But he had once given an interesting talk at the Darling Literary Society on the history of codes and ciphers, which had been his specialty in the army. If anybody in town would know about such matters, he was the one. Maybe he could tell at a glance whether the symbols had any meaning. And if copying the complicated cross-stitching on her pillow would keep Miss Rogers busy and her mind off Lucky Lindy, it was certainly worth a try. In fact, that part of the strategy seemed to be working already.

“Oh, what a good idea,” Miss Rogers exclaimed enthusiastically. “Mr. Dickens comes into the library sometimes to do research, and I know that he’s interested in all manner of things. I’ll start copying this immediately. Really, Miss Bloodworth, I had no idea that it might be anything other than—”

She was interrupted by a shrill shriek from two doors down the hall. Bessie jumped to her feet, startled.

And then she heard another cry. “Lindy, Lindy, you naughty, naughty boy! Just look what you have done to my knitting!”

With Miss Rogers at her heels, Bessie hurried down the hall to see what was wrong. She found Mrs. Sedalius standing in the middle of her room, holding a half-knitted sock in her hand. Rows of stitches had been pulled loose, and at her feet lay a tangled ball of yarn. Lucky Lindy sat on the top of her dresser, head cocked, green eyes alight with mischief.

“Oh, dear,” Bessie said sympathetically. “Oh, Mrs. Sedalius, I’m so sorry!”

“So am I.” Mrs. Sedalius looked down at her sock, pressing her lips together, shaking her head. “Bessie, Bessie,” she moaned. “I have been forced to a terrible decision. I’m afraid that this will make all the ladies desperately unhappy. They will hate me for it. But I have no other choice.”

Bessie pulled in her breath. “What decision?”

“I’m afraid that we’ll have to find another home for dear Lucky Lindy. This is the third piece of my knitting he has ruined—two socks and a scarf.” She looked mournfully at the cat. “I didn’t tell anyone because I kept hoping the dear fellow would mend his ways and learn to be better behaved. But I’m afraid that he had already picked up too many bad habits before he came to live with us. He’s incorrigible.” Her old face crumpled. “But oh, I will miss him! It will tear out a piece of my heart to see him go.”

“Oh, dear,” Bessie said again. “I am sorry. Yes, we will all miss him. What a terrible, terrible shame.”

She had to turn away so Mrs. Sedalius couldn’t see her smile.





FOUR

Lizzy