Fred was absent when they arrived home, but returned just as Cynthia was cutting a warmed apple pie for a late afternoon snack. Donnie Ryland followed close behind him.
"His ma said he could take a stroll up town with me," Fred explained. Cynthia offered the dessert but, surprisingly, Fred declined.
"Me and Donnie just had a banana split," Fred said, putting his arm about the boy's shoulders. Donnie smiled shyly as Fred continued. "We were celebrating."
"Celebrating what?" Dean asked as Donnie wandered out of the room and up the stairs. But before Fred could answer, Cynthia patted him on the shoulder.
"That was sweet of you to take Donnie under your wing," she said.
"Nothing to it. He's a nice kid. We get along just fine."
"I'll second the compliments, Fred," Dean added. "It strikes me the boy could use a friend. It looks as if you pushed all the right buttons with him."
"It's no big deal just because he doesn't want to talk," Fred grumbled. "If he wanted to bad enough, he probably would. It ought to be something of an annoyance to him if everybody keeps hounding him to do something he so obviously don't want to do. I talk enough for the two of us. Told him if he wanted to get my attention, just whack me on the arm."
Dean smiled and gave the old man a pat on the arm. "Keep it up." Then he added, "and tell us why you're celebrating."
The three sat at the table amid the warm smells of chocolate and apples, the Deans looking expectantly. Fred leaned back, as smug as a raffle winner. "I sold Annie Quincy's dress and letters. That's what I'm celebrating. And that's not all. I booked two more rooms for Bird Song as a result of it!" He paused, letting his pronouncement sink in and then added, "There's a couple of ladies from Boston who are shopping for airplane tickets as we sit here. They're coming to Bird Song, just because of that important merchandise you called junk! How about them bananas?"
"I think I'd like to hear the details," Dean said between bites of pie.
"I can't take all the credit," Fred added with smug modesty. "Miss Worthington was the one that actually found them ladies. She listed Annie Quincy and Reverend Martin on one of them ancestor search bulletin boards on the computer. Sure enough, in just a couple of days she gets a message from these ladies up in Boston. When she told them the valuable stuff I had, they asked for my telephone number. I got a call from this one lady who was as excited as a bear in a beehive. Seems she and her sister have been chasing after this long lost relative for years. It was their ancestor who wrote the letters I've got! This here Annie is their great-aunt. The family knew she died out here in Colorado of the flu, but they didn't know exactly where."