Old Man Hinkle operates an antique store out of his home. It is located in an out-of-the-way place, so not too many shoppers patronize his business, which might . . . for their sake . . . be a good thing. You see, Old Man Hinkle is arguably the orneriest person in town. He can find fault with anything, and his tirades against local officials are legendary. The birds even seem to avoid his property . . . lest they do something to provoke the old sourpuss into some act of aggression.
So when his prized Yankee soldier turns up missing one morning the old man hits the ceiling. It is a statue . . . life-sized . . . of a civil war soldier dressed in the traditional blue Northern uniform, and it normally stands out in front of his antique shop. It is old and partly corroded, but that makes no difference to Old Man Hinkle. He is breathing fire!
It is at about the same time that a curious ad appears in the “Lost and Found” section of The Courier’s classified advertisements. The lost and found ads are usually about some keys that have been lost or some keys that have been found, cats that have been lost or, more frequently, cats that have been found, and dogs too, of course. So it rather catches the public’s attention when the following lost and found ad appears:
LOST: Anna Belle, dearly beloved cow and close companion for many years to elderly woman. Last seen in high school area. If found, please call . . . .
Many hearts go out to the unnamed elderly woman, and, when cow tracks are spotted going across the high school football field, a search and rescue party is quickly organized and then deployed to the high school where they hope to find poor Anna Belle so they can return her to her heartbroken owner.
The cow tracks lead the search team across the football field and then into some nearby woods. The trail, at this point, gets a little hard to follow, but they manage to track Anna Belle out into a small clearing and then on toward an old abandoned house at the far end of the property. Mud tracks . . . in the approximate shape of cow hoofs . . . can be seen going up the house’s front porch steps and . . . to the astonishment of all . . . on into the house. The front door is open a bit, so the group slowly moves forward and enters the house.
Once inside, they follow the trail to the bottom of a stairway where the mud tracks are seen going up the steps to the second floor. A few . . . not all . . . of the search party members carefully tip-toe up those stairs. Mark Long, a local carpenter and member of the search team, remarks, “This cow sure knows how to get lost.”
At the top of the stairs, more mud tracks can be seen going into a bedroom, and then, from inside the bedroom, on into a walk-in closet.
The men carefully pull open the closet door, and there it is . . . Old Man Hinkle’s Yankee soldier statue.