Behind Every Would-Be Hero is a Busy-Bodied Woman

I'm beginning to think that every morning, Hick surveys the sky for the Hick Signal. That must be how people out here summon him when they need help.

Last Monday evening, our across-the-road neighbor, the dog-groomer, asked Hick if he'd seen her package. Heh, heh! Good thing that scenario wasn't reversed! Hick said that he had not. No package had been delivered here.

DG said that tracking told her the package had been delivered. She called the post office, who said that her package HAD been delivered, to the lock boxes down at Mailbox Row. DG never got a key in her mailbox to retrieve her package from one of the four lock boxes.

"Well, some ne'er-do-well must have been rummaging through the mailboxes, and took her key, and stole the package."

"That wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, I told DG I'd keep an eye out for her package."

On the way to town Tuesday, I saw a cardboard box along the edge of the gravel road, across from the waterfall entry. I thought maybe somebody stole DG's package, took out the good stuff, and left the box so they couldn't be tied to the evidence. I didn't stop, because I came up on it by surprise. I figured I'd get a picture on the way home.

I didn't get that picture, because I was getting out of T-Hoe to fetch our mail when I got back, and Hick pulled up in SilverRedO, back from his own trip to town.

"Did you see that box?"

"What box?"

"I guess that's a NO. Look on the left side of the road as you go past the waterfall entry. There's a box that looks like it could be an Amazon box. I'm pretty sure it's been opened, but you could see if it's addressed to DG. At least she'd know somebody got it."

Hick retrieved the box. Back home, he said it was indeed empty, but had some other lady's name on it. With an address a few numbers off from ours, so on past our house. Nobody Hick recognized. Either she picked up her own package, couldn't wait to open it when she got home, and is a litterati! Or else somebody stole HER package and dumped the evidence. Hick informed DG. Which didn't exactly solve her problem, but let her know that something's afoot.

We've been getting our mail delivered anywhere between 11:00 and 2:30. A crafty thief could hang out at the Creach, waiting for the mailman, and pounce on the mailboxes when the coast is clear.

Of course there's more to this story. Tomorrow...