I thought about this. “Not every night, but he often comes whenever the moon is bright,” I replied. “But even with a bright moon it will be pitch black on that trail through the forest and easy enough to fall over the cliffs.”

“We’ll carry flashlights,” said Winifred.

“Which will attract the cougars that prowl at night.”

“Well, no plan is perfect,” said Winifred.

I looked at her to see if she was joking, but she turned to me a face bereft of fun and games and said, “I’m terribly worried about Father, Franny. Terribly.”

“So it’s a plan,” I said.

*   *   *

That night the sky was so thickly covered in clouds that the moon wasn’t visible and the hermit never came. So we waited patiently for Sunday night, hoping the skies would clear and doing our best to appear normal with such plans in the offing. We ate Gladys’s terrible cooking. She had decided to try making the Sunday chicken. She claimed she had a better recipe than Old Tom’s. We all begged Old Tom to overrule her and make the chicken himself, but he said we must give her a chance to shine, which was very like him. So we crossed our fingers and hoped she really did have a good recipe, but it turned out to be scorched chicken and dumplings.

“How in the world,” said Sina, more in wonder than criticism, “do you manage to scorch dumplings? They’re made in liquid.”

“Not always,” said Gladys, who invariably ate her own cooking with relish.

Gladys had spent the afternoon first visiting the soldiers with offerings of burnt cookies, which she claimed they liked just fine, then slumped against the outside of Sina’s studio listening to the radio and periodically calling out, “Change the station,” to which Sina would reply, “Go away,” before Gladys finally did in order to make dinner.

After dinner we sang around the piano as the moon shone brilliantly through the window and Winifred and I nodded meaningly at each other.