The Marshland Mystery (2 page)

“Well,” Di sighed, “I suppose you can count me in.”

“And the rest of us, I imagine.” Honey smiled. “I’m sure
Jim
will think it’s a great idea.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she glanced at the identification bracelet on Trixie’s wrist.

Trixie’s cheeks got red as she flashed a reproachful look at her best friend, then pulled her sweater sleeve down over the inexpensive gift that Honey’s adopted brother had given her after their adventurous Easter holiday on Trixie’s uncle’s farm in Iowa.

Honey and Di knew it wasn’t really a sentimental gift, but they liked to make Trixie blush. Jim Frayne had been a runaway not too many months before, when Trixie and Honey had first met him. They had helped him escape from a brutal stepfather, and Jim had been deeply grateful. Now, adopted by the Wheelers, and himself the inheritor of an estate of half a million dollars, Jim was a senior at Sleepyside High and planned to go to college in the fall. After college, he intended to use his entire fortune to establish a home and school for homeless boys such as he himself had been.

All the B.W.G.’s were proud of Jim because, in spite of his wealth, he worked as hard as the Belden boys after school and on weekends. He and Trixie were copresidents of the club, and it had been his idea that no member could use money for the club that she or he hadn’t earned. So they all had jobs at home, for which their parents paid them small regular salaries.

It wasn’t easy to get schoolwork finished and attend to their other jobs, too, but they managed somehow, and each put something into the club treasury every week.

That was how the clubhouse had been fixed up out of the old run-down gatehouse at the foot of the Wheeler driveway. The gatehouse, almost hidden by wisteria and honeysuckle vines, had been the scene of one of Trixie’s first mysteries. Now it was the neat, weathertight little Bob-White clubhouse, thanks to many hours of hard work by all the B.W.G.’s.

“Oh, well,” Di sighed as the bus came along and stopped, “I suppose we can wear old jeans and sneakers in the swamp.”

When they had crowded on with the rest of the boys and girls, they were too late to find a seat together.

“Oh, fine!” Trixie grumbled. “Now we each squeeze onto a corner of a seat, and we can’t even visit!”

“Ow!” A football player had just stepped on Di’s foot as he pushed toward the rear.

Honey giggled. “Maybe this kind of thing builds character!” she suggested as the bus picked up speed and hurtled around a corner, jiggling everyone.

It wasn’t until they had limped out at the Wheeler bus stop that they took a free breath.

“Whew! Now I know how a sardine feels!” Di groaned.

“Do you suppose that’s what they mean by ‘togetherness’?” Honey laughed as she straightened the skirt of her pretty spring dress.

They were still laughing when they noticed Mart sprawled out nonchalantly on the bench.

“Where have you females been?” he demanded. “Don’t you know you all have chores waiting? Two demerits each for stopping for ice-cream bars!”

“We didn’t,” Trixie answered pertly. “We were planning an exciting trip for tomorrow, and since you’re the only B.W.G. around, I suppose we’ll have to tell you about it before we tell the intelligent ones.”

“Trip?” Mart stirred lazily and got up. “So?”

Di smiled warmly at him. “To gather herbs in a swamp. And you and Jim and Brian are invited, too. Tell him, Trixie.”

But before Trixie could start, Mart put up a warning hand. “Stop right there, dreamer. This is
the end.
Tomorrow we males are booked to labor from dawn till sundown. Hast thou forgotten that this is the time of planting? In other words, didn’t you hear Dad tell Brian we’d help Mr. Maypenny with his garden tomorrow?”

“Yipes! I forgot all about it!” Trixie frowned. “And we were counting on getting Brian to take us in his car!”

“Something tells me, squaw, you won’t get far from the family tepee tomorrow, unless you bike your way.” Mart chortled. “Dan will be working all day and so will Jim.”

“I guess we could bike if the swamp isn’t too far,” Honey said, a frown on her pretty forehead. “If it’s a long way, I suppose we’d better give up the idea. Don’t you think so, Trix?”

“No!” Trixie set her jaw stubbornly. “And if nobody else wants to go, I’m going alone.”

Mart took a quick look at his sister’s expression and knew that she meant it. He had seen that look before. “Just where is the swamp you’re heading for?” he asked, a little more seriously.

“Miss Bennett said most of her plant specimens came from Sedley Swamp. That’s where we’re going.”

“Sedley Swamp!” Mart exclaimed. Then he shouted with laughter. “My dear lame-brained sister, there ain’t no such animal. Sedley Swamp is no more. It is now part of our new concrete superhighway!”

Strange Visitors ● 2

OH, NO! YOU’RE JUST trying to be funny, Mart Belden!” Trixie accused her brother.

“Don’t tease, Mart,” Honey seconded her. “Really, we re very serious about gathering some plants out there tomorrow for Miss Bennett.”

“If you are,” Mart said, still amused, “you’ll have to dig down under a few feet of concrete before you find Sedley Swamp. It has faded into history.”

“Well,” Trixie sighed, “I suppose that’s that. And I had such big plans for walking into botany room Monday with my arms full of milkweed and bee balm!”

“Now you’ll have to study, instead of trying to get good marks by buttering up Miss Bennett,” Mart continued teasingly.

Trixie flashed him an annoyed look. “We weren’t buttering her up at all.” Then she explained about the destruction of the teacher’s prize specimens.

Honey added the last word. “So, you see, Trixie was being very unselfish, Mart. And it was her own idea, not Di’s or mine.”

“Very noble, I’m sure,” Mart agreed, “but why do you busy little bees have to gather the plants from one special swamp? Won’t any other one do?”

“Of course. Only I never heard of another swamp within biking distance,” Trixie said promptly.

“There
is
one, but you probably didn’t think of it as a swamp. It’s called Martin’s Marsh, but that would convey nothing to you, dear sister, because you, with your complete lack of familiarity with your native tongue, could hardly be expected to realize that
marsh
is simply a synonym for
swamp.
”

Trixie sniffed. “I happen to know that marshes and swamps are practically the same, but I never heard of any Martin’s Marsh—and I bet you made up the name.”

“I wish you’d mean it even half the times you say ‘I bet,’ ” Mart chuckled. “I’d be rich with all the money I’d win from you. It just happens that it’s about a half mile east of Sleepyside, beyond the old Martin Manor House ruins. Brian gathered most of his specimens there when he was taking botany.”

“Oh, good!” Honey said quickly. “You can ask him how to get there, Trixie!”

“And find out which plants should be blooming there now, this early in the season,” Di added. “I’ve heard that some herbs should be gathered in spring and others when they’re in bloom in July or August. And some you shouldn’t pick till they go to seed—and—” She was getting interested in the project now.

“Brian knows all the answers,” Mart interrupted. He glanced at his wristwatch. “But if you intend to ask him anything, Trix, you’d better scoot off home, quick like a rabbit, and do it before he gets too deep in his Latin. He has to study all evening to make up for taking the day off tomorrow to help with the planting.”

“I’ll be on my way right now,” Trixie assured him. And to the girls she said hastily, “I’ll phone you both the very minute I’ve talked to Brian. Then you can talk to your folks and arrange for the trip. Don’t forget to remind them that it’s really part of our schoolwork.”

“Mother is having some people at the house for a few days,” Honey said, a little frown creasing her forehead, “but I’m sure they aren’t any of our relatives or anybody she’d want me to stay home and entertain. I can’t remember who they are. Some foreign name, I think. Something to do with the Arts Club that Mother’s president of.”

“I don’t think I’m doing anything special this weekend,” Di said, “so I won’t have much trouble getting away.”

“Wonderful! Don’t go far from the phone, and I’ll call just as soon as I can.”

Trixie shifted her load of books to her other hip and started off along Glen Road toward the small white Belden farmhouse. Mart caught up with her in a couple of strides, and they hurried along in silence for a few minutes.

“Pretty decent of you to want to cheer up the old girl with some new specimens,” Mart said finally.

Trixie was so startled by the unexpected compliment that she came to a complete stop and stood staring at her almost-twin in amazement. “Well!” she finally managed to get out. “Thanks!” And she meant it.

Mart frowned at her. “Come on! Moms is probably having fits, because you promised to get home early and take Bobby off her hands so she could go shopping.”

“Gleeps! I forgot!” Hurrying after Mart, she fell into stride with him, and they went along together again in comfortable silence.

A small warm wind sent the faint perfume of crab apple blossoms along Glen Road from the Belden orchard.

“Mmm! Smell that!” Trixie broke the silence.

Mart sniffed the air. “Hmf! It’s just gasoline fumes.”

“You know I didn’t mean that, Mart Belden,” Trixie snapped irritably and stalked on.

Mart chuckled. “How would anyone know what goes on in that infinitesimal think tank of yours?”

Trixie had a retort on the tip of her tongue, but they had reached the foot of their home driveway, and what she saw up in front of the small white farmhouse stopped her. It stopped Mart, too.

For a moment, they both stood staring at the three expensive cars that were parked there.

“Oh, Mart! Something must have happened!” Trixie’s quick mind went to work. “Maybe Bobby ran out in front of one of the cars or Brian bumped his jalopy into one of them. Let’s hurry!”

Mart took hold of her arm quickly. “Whoa, there! Don’t push the panic button! It’s probably the Landmarks Society examining our pegged floors again. You know, we’re quite historical—or should I say
hysterical,
at the moment?”

Trixie pulled, but Mart held on, and a minute later she stopped struggling. “All right, I’m calm. I’m sure it’s all right, or those three drivers wouldn’t be just standing around talking behind that second car.”

They were both walking at a dignified pace as they came past the three limousines lined up near the house.

“I don’t hear any chattering going on inside, do you?” Mart asked. “Wonder what the ladies are looking at this time. Could be the old butter churn out on the back porch.”

“Let’s go look.” Trixie hurried on.

But there was no one there, either. Trixie, poking her head in at the kitchen door, saw signs of interrupted dinner preparations but no Mrs. Belden.

Mart was close on her heels. “Mysteriouser and mysteriouser,” he hissed, helping himself to a red-cheeked apple from the dish that always stood in the center of the table. But he had no time to bite into it. Voices from a distance were being wafted to their ears from somewhere out in the crab apple orchard behind the house.

Mart dashed back to the door and started out. “Hey! Looks like a convention. Something’s going on out under the trees. I can see Moms and Bobby watching.”

Trixie hardly waited for him to finish speaking before she was on her way out. Mart and the apple followed.

The crab apple trees were a mass of blooms against the clear blue of the afternoon sky. Trixie had been admiring them every morning for the past week, after they had all burst into bloom at practically the same time, so her attention was all on the strangers in the orchard.

A man had set up a camera on a tripod and was apparently getting ready to photograph a small girl dressed in a vivid costume and holding a violin in her hand. She was very slight and frail-looking, with long golden curls. Trixie decided that she must be about seven years old, eight at the most. She was standing quietly while three women fussed over her curls, powdered her nose, and adjusted her costume. The only time she moved was when a stray blossom, loosened by the wind, floated down and landed on her cheek. Then she brushed it away impatiently and stood woodenly again, looking bored.

It was Mart who spotted the lettering on the photographer’s satchel: SLEEPYSIDE SUN.

“Publicity stuff,” Mart told a puzzled Trixie. “I don’t know who Goldilocks is, but it looks as if the
Sleepyside Sun
thinks she’s worth a picture. I hope Moms is charging rental on the crab apple trees!”

“Why, she wouldn’t—” Trixie stopped abruptly as she saw that Mart was just fooling. But a moment later, after studying the delicate-looking child a little more, she said thoughtfully, “I know I’ve seen her before somewhere.”

“Maybe you’ve been visiting a gypsy camp, looking for a clue to one of your mysteries. All those beads and the bright-colored clothes look like a gypsy outfit.”