On the main workbench lay an old maple dining chair with a split front leg and two loose spindles.

It belonged to Mrs.

Gable down on Elm Street, who had dropped it off three weeks earlier, before the dinner.

I picked up the bottle of yellow wood glue and laid a clean bead straight down the crack in the maple.

I set an iron bar clamp across the leg and cranked the threaded handle until the joint closed up tight.

A bead of wet glue squeezed out along the seam, and I wiped it away with a damp rag.