THE CAT WHO SANG FOR THE BIRDS

“Is she willing to sit for a portrait? I don’t copy photographs. Painting from life has a rich tonality that can’t be faked.”

“She’ll sit. Trust me,” Qwilleran said.

“Some people don’t like to spend the time - “

“Leave it to me!”

As Qwilleran was leaving the building he beckoned Beverly Forfar away from her duties. “How many visitors do you expect on Sunday?”

“We’ve provided refreshments for three hundred. I just hope we don’t run out of punch. The open house is scheduled from one to five o’clock. Wouldn’t it be awful if they all came at once?”

“Where will they park after the lot is filled?” “On both sides of Trevelyan Road. We have permission, and the sheriff will monitor the situation.” She assumed a grim expression accentuated by the severity of her long straight bangs. “Mr. Q, can anything be done about that eyesore across the road?”

“The farmhouse? If I were an artist, I’d consider it picturesque,” he answered evasively.

“It might be if it didn’t have that junk truck in the front yard, and those ratty dogs and chickens. They’re always running out on the highway. They could cause accidents. I thought dogs were supposed to be tied up.”

“Only within the city limits,” Qwilleran said. “This building is in Pickax, but the farmhouse is in the township, and there’s no rural ordinance.”

“And how about the mud, Mr. Q? It gets tracked onto our parking lot and then into the building.”

“Unfortunately, Ms. Forfar, this is farming country, and it’s spring. In the growing season, it won’t be such a problem.”

“Well, something should be done about it before it ruins our floors!” she said vehemently.

On the perimeter of the Art Center, at the beginning of the lane to Qwilleran’ s barn, a new sign read: PRIVATE DRIVE. It had been installed just in time; otherwise, three hundred visitors to the open house would tramp up the lane to look at the fabulous structure. The public had always been curious about the barn. Six months before, it had been the scene of a charity cheese-tasting party, with guests paying three hundred dollars apiece to attend the black-tie event. They were still talking about it - not so much because of the architecture or the twenty-two cheeses but because Koko, in his inimitable way, had stolen the show.

Concerning the new sign, Polly had questioned , whether it would be enough to discourage sightseers.

“If not, we’ll add ‘BEWARE OF VICIOUS ANIMALS,’” Qwilleran had told her. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to resort to a moat and drawbridge. It’s not that I’m being asocial; I simply don’t want strangers peering in the windows at the cats and getting ideas.”

-3-

Qwilleran, never an early riser by choice, now found himself routed out of bed at dawn when the birds convened for their morning singsong and the Siamese wanted to join them. Koko and Yum Yum would station themselves outside his bedroom door, the one yowling in an operatic baritone and the other uttering soprano shrieks until he got up and transported them to the gazebo. Yum Yum simply wanted to bat insects on the screens, but Koko was fascinated by the chorus of trills, chirrups, whistles, warbles, and twitters. The cacophony reminded Qwilleran of the Pickax high school band tuning up for Pomp and Circumstance.

Still, he would take coffee and doughnuts to the gazebo and marvel at the clarion sounds coming from feathered creatures half the size of his thumb. He used the time, also, for doodling ideas for the “Qwill Pen”

I column on a legal pad. He was working on a tribute to his tenth-grade teacher whose training in English composition had made his career possible. With a pencil he jotted notes:

Dear Mrs. Fish-eye, wherever you are … Great debt of gratitude long overdue… Your influence, precepts, and criticism… Something uncanny in your penetrating gaze… The arduous assignments that we all hated… And so on.

When he discussed the idea with Polly, she encouraged him, saying, “Remember the letter I received from a museum curator in New York? He thanked me for helping him with student assignments twenty years before, and for stimulating his appetite for research. I was thrilled!”

The highlights of Qwilleran’s life were his weekends with Polly Duncan, starting with Saturday night dinner.

She was a charming woman of his own

age, attractive in a classic way, and endowed with the qualities he admired: intellect, a gentle voice, a musical laugh, and literary interests that matched his own. Never before had he met anyone who knew, or cared, that it was Chesterfield who said: Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Polly lived in a condominium in Indian Village, a residential complex beautifully situated on the Ittibittiwassee River. When he picked her up on that Saturday evening in late May, her warm greeting was seconded by friendly nudges from Brotus, a dignified Siamese. Brutus had been Qwilleran’s enemy before having a name change. His disposition had been further improved by the advent of a little companion - same breed, opposite sex.