An Unlikely Savior

P.B.Biddiford: Part Two-'On The Origins Of Owl's Hill'

 It is indeed generally darkest right before dawn, the moon long down and the  stars winked out 'til next time. Just before the first birds begin to sing, and the gray of false dawn settles in. Dark. That's where the Biddiford sisters found themselves: a long, dark night, with no promise of dawn to follow. A mountain of sketchy debt, accumulated by their  late father, seemed insurmountable. And wolves howling from every direction. demanding a bone or two.  The Biddiford sisters were in a tight spot. A real tight spot.

Penitence Biddiford let her story unfold slowly, the twists and turns and colorful characters swirling about like reefer smoke in a high-ceilinged studio, in an old mill, with the sun setting low.  She stayed with her sister Constance, in Connie's big apartment at the Biddiford Academy, where she was Administrator. The Academy sits high atop Schleprock's Bluff, looking off westwards, a magnificent pile of a building, all wings and Great Halls, cut from native fieldstone. Another legacy of dour Cerberus Biddiford, a Biddiford had helmed the Academy since its founding in 1875.

"Connie hosted a euchre game every Wednesday night up there. It was tradition." Penitence Biddiford shakes her head, a rueful, sweetly stoned smile playing across her features. "We tried so damn hard to keep it all between us: just Connie, me and Daddy's lawyer, old Dewey Cheatham. And I do mean old. He was Grandpa's lawyer, too. He  was the only man they let play Wednesdays, which was handy, once I got back. Salty and smart though he may be, Dewey hadn't any more answers than we did. We were stymied, and ready to cry one Wednesday, talking about all this, when we realized someone else was with us, listening from the doorway."

Bella Feent-Swain, an imposing and immense woman, had heard the whole thing. The wife of Ruben 'Tater-Boy' Swain, the potato magnate, she was a sorority sister of Connie's, and a close confidant.  "I'm surprised, really, that Connie hadn't said anything to her before. Those two are tight." But she hadn't, and who could blame her, given the sorry and sordid circumstances?

And Then The Cat Got Out Of The Bag

"Bella stood there looking at the three of us, outrage and sorrow, and pure righteous fury building. I've never seen a person's face go beet red in so little time. Shoulders on up. She was pissed. She said to us, 'Sisters, Dewey, this aggression cannot stand. These swamp-hounds, sloth-devils and toe-jammers need to be chased back under the rocks and into the hollow logs from whence they've come.  May I share this sorrowful story with my Grandfather?' Neither Connie nor I realized the full import of the question, but old Dewey sure did.

"'Would you please, Bella?' he asked her." 

To Be Continued!

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