"Hmm?" Harold turned his eyes from the contestant who was making a fool of himself on the television quiz show and glanced in the direction of his cousin Steve Wall, who had more or less invited himself to visit with Harold for a week or two.

"This." Steve held up an old, faded, slightly water-stained book that he had found on a back shelf of Harold's small bookcase.

Harold resisted a quick impulse to tell his cousin what he thought of people who invited themselves to visit and then started snooping around. To be fair, though, Steve had originally intended to spend most of his time immersed in, or at least in the general vicinity of, the lake just beyond the back door of Harold's cottage, but an unexpected spell of rain (unexpected by Steve, at any rate) had driven the young man indoors, leaving him with little to occupy whatever passed for his barely post-adolescent mind. And, Harold reflected, at least poking around in the bookcase kept Steve out of the refrigerator, which was already beginning to make funny groaning noises as if begging for mercy every time the young man made a move in its direction.

"It's just a book, " Harold shrugged.

"I already knew it was a book," Steve sneered. "What kind of book is it, though? It looks pretty old."

"It's old enough, I guess," Harold said indifferently. "It's a hymnbook, believe it or not. It's one of the things they found stashed away in Grandma's house after she died and I more or less wound up with it."

Harold was distracted momentarily by a giggling young woman on the television screen who was bouncing up and down in a manner suggesting that she had either won something big or had been disqualified. On quiz shows Harold often found it hard to tell the difference between the winners and the losers based solely upon their behavior.

Steve flipped briefly through the old hymnal and then looked up with a puzzled expression. "How come it's all in a foreign language?" he asked.

"What does it matter what language it's in?" Harold retorted. "If you were planning on reading your way through that thing, I warn you, it doesn't have much of a plot."

"I just wondered why Grandma would have a hymnal like this," Steve said defensively. "She and Grandpa Wall were both pure English, weren't they?"

"Well, they were both English, at least," Harold agreed. "I'm not sure how pure they were, though."

"But then why-"

"Look, Steve, grandparents come in two pairs, right? One for each parent, in case you never realized that.

Grandma and Grandpa Wall were both English all right, but that hymnal came from my other grandparents, the Schmits. They were pure German. Or German, anyway," he added after a pause.

"Oh, yeah, I suppose that would explain it," Steve said with a grin. He sat there for a moment staring at nothing in particular and then he sniffed. "But I don't think it does, though," he said finally. "Did your family have trouble learning English or something?"

"Remarks like that will get you thrown into the lake if you don't watch out," Harold warned him. He turned his attention back to the television just as it began advertising some business machine whose precise function and use Harold wasn't quite able to understand, though it seemed every millionaire should want one.

"No, really," Steve insisted stubbornly. "I know your family has been here for generations. You keep talking about what they did in the Civil War, anyway. So how come they wound up with a hymn book in a foreign language? And just what language is it, when it comes right down to it, German?" He looked up inquiringly.

Harold shrugged. "Yeah, it looks like German to me," he agreed. "All those funny Gothic-looking letters and stuff."

"What is it, then, an heirloom from the Old Country or something?"

Harold grinned. "That would be just my luck, wouldn't it? Other families brought over diamonds and gold coins and things like that and my ancestors brought over a hymn book."

"Well, is it?" Steve insisted.

"No, of course not. You have to realize, the early settlers in this area were all German, and they were pretty much isolated from the rest of the state, back then. For a long time they just kept speaking German among themselves. From what little I've heard about it, they kept using the old language in their church longer than anywhere else. That's just one of their old hymnals from back there."

"What were they, a bunch of fanatics or something?" Steve asked. "I mean, did they think God speaks German?"

"Well, doesn't He?" Harold asked reasonably. "And all the other languages too, of course. But why shouldn't they have used German among themselves if they wanted to? It didn't hurt anybody, did it? And as far as the hymns were concerned, at a guess I'd suppose they were familiar with the songs and maybe they liked them, so they just stuck with their favorites. Sort of like Golden Oldies fans. What's wrong with that? After all, when you listen to opera you can't understand all that Italian and French and stuff, can you? But you don't complain because it's in a foreign language."

"I don't listen to opera," Steve told him.

"Well, neither do I," Harold admitted. "That was just an example, you know. Say some really popular rock group came out of Poland or something, more like. You wouldn't refuse to listen to their songs just because you couldn't understand the words, would you?"

"I don't know any really good rock groups from Poland," Steve said doubtfully. "Heck, I don't know any rock groups from Poland at all!"

"You have a very literal mind," Harold told his cousin. "I was just making up a f'rinstance."

"I get your point," the younger man relented. "And I guess it makes sense. I just thought everybody back there tried to become just as American as they could right away."

"Maybe they did, in the cities," Harold agreed.

"Anyway, I heard there were whole boxes of old German hymnals found in the basement of the old church my family attended when they closed it down about thirty years ago."

"So how did your grandmother get a hold of one?" Steve asked.

Harold shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they let what was left of the congregation make free with them, or maybe ol' Gramma just swiped one when nobody was looking. However she got it, it wound up tucked away in the attic and forgotten. When a family lives in one house for a couple of generations all sorts of odd things tend to accumulate there, you know. You should have seen some of the other things that turned up when they cleaned out the house after Gramma died. My aunts got most of the good stuff. I just got that old book and a few beat-up knives and forks. Not worth anything, but then you take what you can get, if it's free." Harold returned to the television as Steve began to leaf through the old hymnal.

"I can't read a word of this!" the young man exclaimed in disgust after a time.

"We just went through all that, remember?" Harold said in exasperation. "It's in German, right?" He said each word slowly as if explaining to someone who was slightly dim-witted.

"Yeah, but I took some German in high school," Steve explained. "I should be able to understand at least some of the words, but these funny letters don't look anything like what I was taught Germans supposed to be."

"Somehow I think the guy who wrote up that book was a better judge of what's German and what isn't than you are," Harold pointed out. "Probably a better judge of English, too, when it comes to that."

"So I flunked Senior Lit," Steve said absently. "So what? Hey, did you know there's something written in this thing?"

"That's what books are for, isn't it?" Harold asked reasonably. "Whoever heard of a book that was nothing but blank pages?"

"No, I mean somebody wrote in it by hand, with a pen, it looks like," Steve said.

For the first time Harold felt a faint pricking of interest in the old book. "What does it say?"

Steve held out the book to his cousin. "How's your Deutsche?" he asked.

"Fine, how's yours?" Harold pried himself out of his favorite easy chair- a definite challenge since the lowest part of the cushion was sagging halfway to the floor- and took the old book from his younger cousin's hand.

He was more surprised than his cousin's overall credibility deserved to find that Steve had been telling the truth, for he saw a few lines written by hand in the margin of one of the hymns, in a thin, spindly penmanship common to the days before ball-points and felt tip pens. The ink had faded badly, but it would have been legible if it has been written in any language Harold could understand. Not that there were all that many of those, of course. Just one, in fact.

"Can you read it?" Steve asked in excitement.

"Sure."

"What does it say?" the young man demanded.

"Loosely translated it says, 'the sermon is long, the pew is hard, my butt is sore,'" Harold said with a grin.

"Aw baloney," Steve sneered. "You mean you can't read it any more than I can."

Harold shrugged as he held out the book for his cousin. "I'll bet I'm right," he said. "What other kind of graffiti would you expect to find scribbled in the margin of a hymnbook?"

"But you really don't know what it says?" Steve insisted.

"Nope. Sorry."

"And you call yourself a German!" Steve said contemptuously.

"I never!" Harold denied. "I'm a fifth generation American, cousin, or fourth or maybe- no, I think-" Harold fell silent for a moment, counting ancestors on his fingers.

Steve frowned down at the writing in the book. "I sure wish I knew what this says," he said in frustration.

"It's probably nothing," Harold assured him. "Nobody would write down anything important in a hymnbook, would they?"

"I'll bet it's something terrific, though," Steve said stubbornly.

"Why do you say that?" Harold demanded.

Steve had no answer to that, except of course that he wanted it to be important, so he said nothing. Harold went back to watching television while Steve thumbed quickly through the rest of the old hymnal.

"Whatever it is, it's the only note in the whole book," he said finally when he had finished.

"It doesn't really matter what it is if neither one of us can read it, does it?" Harold asked absently.

"Don't you have any curiosity?" Steve demanded.

"Not really. I had it put to sleep years ago now. It kept having kittens I couldn't get rid of."

Steve glared down at the book. "I'd still like to know what it says," he insisted stubbornly. "Maybe it tells where a treasure is hidden or something like that."

"Oh come on, now," Harold exclaimed. "This is Michigan, not the Spanish Main. And what sort of treasure map would anybody put in a hymnbook? Except treasures in heaven, maybe."

"But what if that's what it is?" Steve wailed.

Harold sighed. "Well as a matter of fact, I do know somebody who might be able to translate it for you," he admitted. "I'd just as soon not ask her, though."

"Why not?" Steve asked in a rising voice that broke at the end in adolescent despair.

Harold grimaced. "Because she's one of Sheila's aunts, that's why."

"You mean.... I don't understand," Steve admitted. "I thought there were no hard feelings between you and Sheila when the two of you broke up."

"I don't know what you mean about hard feelings," Harold told him. "Sheila's still sending little 'thank you' notes to my lawyer for taking me off her hands, but that's happiness more than being mad at me. This aunt of Sheila's takes a different view of the matter, though."

"You mean she's mad at you?" Steve asked, grinning with a definite lack of sympathy.

"No, pretty much just the opposite, really," Harold said grimly. "In fact she's a very nice lady and she likes me and all that, but she just can't accept that Sheila and I have split for good. She keeps trying to talk me into going back to her niece."

"That would be kind of hard to do, wouldn't it?" Steve asked. "I mean, Sheila's new husband might have a few things to say about it."

"Sheila would have a few things to say about it, too, believe me," Harold said. "The kind of things that take the varnish off the woodwork. As a matter of fact, I'd probably make a few remarks of my own. Anyway, you're not up on the latest gossip. Sheila and her new husband have broken up."

"Oh, yeah?" Steve asked. "Well, no offense or anything, cousin, but I'm not surprised. I'd think six months would be about all anybody could put up with Sheila, unless she's done something to housebreak her tongue since the last time I was in the same room with her. But after all, how could I hear any gossip about her? I never knew Sheila except when you were married to her, and even then I didn't see her much. I sort of had the impression she disapproved of me, so I just tried to stay out of her way."

"Sheila doesn't approve of anybody," Harold told him. "There's nothing personal about it. She just has this sharp tongue and she can't resist using it on everybody who comes within reach."

Steve laughed. "That must make her a lot of friends," he commented.

"Oh, Sheila is all right in her way," Harold relented. "The trouble is trying to find out what her way is."

Steve looked puzzled. "Come again?"

"I just mean, Sheila's heart is in the right place, but you have a hard time finding it because her tongue is always getting in the way," Harold explained. "It gets a little monotonous getting insulted all the time. Anyway, now that she's divorced for a second time Sheila is available, in a manner of speaking, and I'm not sure her aunt wouldn't like to bring us back together."

"You mean you're not sure, like maybe you're wrong?" Steve pounced.

"Well, I couldn't absolutely swear to it, no," Harold said reluctantly.

"Then why not give her a call?" Steve urged. "Go ahead, give it a try. You said she was a nice lady, didn't you? So this gives you a chance to get in touch with her again. And then we could find out what's written in this book, right? It could be important somehow. You never know. Besides, it would give us something to do except just sit here and listen to the lake filling up with water."

Harold thought for a moment. It was true that he had become sick to the death of quiz shows- for which he had only limited tolerance at best- and also it was entirely possible that Steve's visit would rapidly sink into the stage of bickering and hostility if they didn't find something to do soon. Besides, except for her match-making proclivities Winnie was a charming enough old lady. Why not spend an evening in her company, hymnbook or not? So he shrugged and went to the telephone.

Be sure and come back next month for the next chapter of The Alchemy Trick.

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