Missing Verse

A town song gains a sixth verse—and three endings that refuse to agree.v

Ternwick knows its town song has five verses. At a summer singalong, three groups add a sixth, each with a different ending.

Radio host Della Quade would love to uncover a forgotten piece of local history. But nobody at the singalong can name the writer, and listeners are already arguing over what they have heard: a rediscovered tradition, or an addition that has no business being there?

The concert organizers need a leaflet people can sing from, not another argument. With engineer Hugh Bexley and producer Mina Pruitt, Della follows the words through rehearsal rooms, song sheets, and conversations that refuse to fit her first explanation. Before the leaflet goes to print, she must find out whose work the town is singing—and how it reached so many people in such different forms.

Meanwhile, a music stand keeps turning up in the wrong room, and photographs of one bouquet cannot agree on its colors. In between the careful questions come sisterly walks, a disappointing football match, and the pleasures of getting to know someone familiar in a new way.