Sweet and Sour Pie: A Wisconsin Boyhood

The Fannie Farmer Mystery

22 l The Fannie Farmer Mystery When you buy an old house on the outskirts of town, there’s a good chance that some resident wildlife will be there to welcome you. At least, that was our experience. A couple of days after we moved into our place on River Road, Mom was cleaning the kitchen drawers before stowing away the silverware and utensils. “The people who lived here must have liked rye bread,” she said. “These drawers are just full of caraway seeds.” Dad was in the dining room, washing the windows with vinegar water and an old T-shirt. He came into the kitchen to have a look. “See for yourself,” Mom said. Dad opened a drawer and wiped it out with the T-shirt. “Charlotte , I hate to tell you this,” he said, “but these little things aren’t caraway seeds—they’re mouse poop.” 23 “Oh my God,” Mom gasped. “Now what do we do?” “Catch ’em, I guess,” Dad said. “When I’m done with these windows I’ll run in to the A&P and get some mousetraps. We should be able to thin them out in a week or so.” “All right,” Mom agreed, “but don’t go to the A&P. If you buy mousetraps there, they’ll know we have mice.” “Charlotte, the A&P doesn’t care if we have mice,” Dad said. “Yes, they do,” Mom responded. “We were there the day before yesterday, and I don’t want them whispering about us the next time we go in.” Dad sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “OK, OK, I’ll go to the hardware store.” He grinned at me and dug the car keys out of his pocket. While Dad was gone Mom wiped out the drawers with bleach. “When you live in an old barn out in the sticks, you’re going to be infested with things, I suppose,” she said. “First there were bats in the bedroom, and now mice. What’s next, rattlesnakes?” “Mom, there was only one bat,” I pointed out. I loved the house and wanted to defend it. “Hah!” Mom said. “Where there’s one, there’s more. You wait and see.” Dad was back in about an hour. He had bought six mousetraps, two extra blades for his coping saw, a rat-tail file, a pound of eightpenny nails, and a set of screwdrivers. He was not to be trusted in hardware stores. After Mom and I went to bed that night, Dad baited the traps with peanut butter, put them in the drawers, shut off the kitchen lights, and retired quietly to the dining room to await results. To pass the time he smoked his pipe and worked on the newspaper crossword. It took him about ten minutes to fill in as many of the horizontal words as he could, and he had just started on the verticals TheFannieFarmerMystery 24 TheFannieFarmerMystery when there was a loud snap in the kitchen. Satisfied, he went to bed, setting his alarm clock for five-thirty. He wanted to be up early to run his trapline. But the shipyard beat him to the punch. At ten after five the phone rang and he ran downstairs to answer it. Someone at the yard wanted him to drive in and witness a hydrostatic test, right away. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Dad said, and hung up. He put on a pair of white coveralls, rubber boots, and a tin hat. “I’ll be home for lunch,” he hollered. “Fine,” Mom said. I got up at about seven o’clock and went downstairs to see what was for breakfast. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and staring grimly out the window. “Don’t even look in the drawers,” she said. “They’re full of dead mice.” She rummaged in the refrigerator and pulled out a quart of milk, a loaf of bread, a stick of butter, and a jar of apricot jam. “I guess it will be safe to have toast,” she said. “I don’t think our little friends have invaded the icebox or the toaster.” When I had finished my toast I whistled up Rip, and the two of us went outside to explore the woods across the road. It seemed like a good morning to stay out of the house. Dad came home for lunch at about noon and found Mom still sitting at the table...