The Secret of the Mansion (5 page)

“Boy, he is a Simon Legree,” Trixie breathed excitedly.

Jim nodded in agreement. “We had a heck of an argument when school closed, and day before yesterday, I guess that was Wednesday, I decided to try to find

Uncle James and see if he’d help me. I hitchhiked part of the way and walked the rest, sleeping in the woods, because I didn’t have any money, you know.

I wasn’t sure exactly where my uncle lived, and I didn’t dare ask anybody, but by luck, this morning, as I was walking along the road, I noticed the faded

letters on the mailbox at the foot of the driveway. I remembered that Mother had said his place was called Ten Acres, so I came up

50 42 here.” He grinned. “I tell you, I was pretty disappointed when nobody answered my knock, and I saw how rundown the place was. But I was so tired I

climbed in through the window and flopped down on this old mattress. So, here I am.”

“Golly,” Trixie gasped. “Haven’t you had anything to eat since Wednesday?”

He shook his head. “A few berries I found, that’s all.”

Honey scrambled to her feet. “We’ll go right home now and get you something. You must be starving.”

“I could do with a little something,” he confessed, patting his stomach. “I planned to shoot a rabbit and roast it on an outdoor spit; but, now that you

mention it, I’m so hungry I doubt if I could wait long enough to skin and clean it.”

“I’ll be right back,” Trixie declared, starting for the window. “My house is just down in the hollow over there.”

“Hold on,” Jim called out. “How’re you going to get food out of the house without someone getting suspicious?”

“Oh, oh,” Trixie admitted. “I never thought about that.”

“I know,” Honey broke in, “I’ll tell Miss Trask we

51 43 want to have a picnic in the woods. The cook’ll pack up enough food for a regiment, and we can bring it up here and have our lunch with Jim.”

“Wonderful!” Trixie reached into a back pocket and produced a crushed, half-melted candy bar. “Will this keep you going till then, Jim?” she asked, offering

the candy.

Jim wolfed down the chocolate and unashamedly licked the paper clean. “Thanks,” he began and then stopped as the neigh of a frightened horse broke the Still1less

of the outside air. The three of them rushed to the Open window, and, over the top of the hedge, they could see Lady and Strawberry rearing and plunging

in fright.

Something was crashing wildly in the underbrush, something that was apparently caught in the tangled vines of the thicket. Jim turned back swiftly for the

gun and vaulted through the window. Trixie hesitated a moment, then followed. Just as she got near the hedge, wh4tever it was broke free and dashed away

through the woods.

“What was it?” Trixie panted as she reached Jim’s side. “Did you see it?”

Jim had raised the shotgun to his shoulder and was sighting along the barrel. “It was a dog,” he said as he

52 44 slowly lowered the gun. “Wish I could have shot it.” “Shot it?” Trixie was aghast. “You wouldn’t shoot a

poor helpless dog, Jim Frayne, just because it frightened the horses?”

Jim shook his head. “It looked like a mad dog to me,” he said soberly. “I’m almost sure I saw foam dripping from its muzzle.”

Just then a child screamed from the depths of the woods. The helpless scream came again, and Trixie heard her name called in a high-pitched, terrified voice.

She felt her knees buckle under her. “It’s Bobby,” she gasped. “Bobby, alone in the woods with a mad dog!”

53 45

The Brass Key

Somehow Trixie’s trembling legs carried her through the thicket. She raced along the bridle path, tripping and stumbling and shouting, “Bobby, Bobby!” at

the top of her lungs. And then she saw him, and as relief flooded over her, rage took its place, for Bobby was sitting calmly under a tree, grinning from

ear to ear.

“Bobby Belden!” she gasped. “What do you mean by screaming like that when nothing’s wrong with you?” He tossed his silky curls. I couldn’t find you, and

I

want to ‘splore, too. So I screamed. I knew you’d come if I screamed.”

Trixie put out her arms to shake him, but then, because she really was so glad he was safe, she pulled him to her instead and hugged him tightly. “You’re

a bad boy, Bobby,” she scolded. “Did you run away from Miss Trask?”

Bobby laid his cheek against hers, all innocence. “No, I got hungry, so I told her I had to go home for lunch. I did go home, too, but Mummy said it wasn’t

quite ready; so I came up here, ‘cause I saw the horses.

54 46 But then when I got here, I couldn’t see the horses any more.” His blue eyes clouded, and Trixie realized with a tug at her heartstrings that the

little boy really had been frightened. “I guess I got sort of losted,” he admitted, it and I was so tired, after climbing up the hill, I just sat down

and screamed.” He grinned suddenly. “Hey, who was that running behind you, and why did he sneak away when he saw me?”

Then Trixie knew that Jim must have followed her, but, seeing that Bobby was safe, he had slipped away. Bobby, she decided, must never guess Jim’s secret,

because Bobby could never keep any secret at all. “It must have been Honey,” she said quickly. “She went to get the horses, I guess.”

At that moment, Honey appeared, riding Strawberry and leading Lady. “You don’t have to come back to the stable with me, Trixie,” she said. “Ji-“

Trixie held up a warning finger. Honey flushed. “I hear that if a dog is mad, it always runs across country in a straight line,” she finished. “So we don’t

have to worry about its coming back.”

“Well, that’s good.” Trixie took Bobby by the hand. “You’ve got to go home for your lunch now,” she told him firmly. “See you later, Honey.”

For once Bobby was too tired and hungry to argue.

55 47 Obediently, he let Trixie take him home and trotted right upstairs to wash his face and hands.

“I’ve been invited to a picnic lunch by Honey Wheeler,” Trixie told her mother. “May I go if I come back afterward and take care of Bobby when he wakes

up from his nap?”

“All right,” Mrs. Belden agreed. “I’m glad you’ve found a new friend. Bobby said you went riding through the woods. Your shirt looks as though you’d had

a spill. Did you?”

Trixie nodded, grinning. “It’s not as easy as I thought it would be, Moms, but Regan-that’s the man who takes care of the Wheelers’ horses-said he’d give

me lessons. He also said he was sure I’d learn fast.”

“I’m sure you will, too,” Mrs. Belden smiled. “But try not to break any bones in the process.”

Trixie raced up the hill through the wooded path that led up from the vegetable garden to the Wheeler estate. She met Honey coming around the lake from

the opposite direction. She was carrying a large, napkin covered basket.

“I’ve got a whole roasted chicken and a quart of milk,” she called out, “and a dozen buttered rolls, besides a lemon meringue pie.” She giggled. “I told

Miss Trask you had an enormous appetite.”

56 48 1 have.” Trixie took one handle of the basket and peeked under the snowy white napkin. “Boy, Jim‘11 be glad to see all this, won’t he?”

As the girls entered the woods, Honey moved closer to Trixie. “Ooh,” she murmured, “it’s much more scary walking through here than it is riding.” The trail

was thickly carpeted with pine needles, and the heavy branches of the trees shaded them from the hot noon sun. Honey jumped as a chipmunk appeared from

nowhere and scurried across the path. “Regan told me there were foxes and skunks in these woods,” she said with a little shiver. “Do you think one of them

will attack us, Trixie?”

“Golly, she is nervous,” Trixie thought and said out loud, “Of course they won’t, silly. Wild animals never attack humans unless we attack them first.”

“How about that game hen?” Honey demanded, with a nervous laugh.

“That was different,” Trixie told her. “She thought we were after her eggs.” She sniffed the air. “I smell a skunk right now. Or a fox. Oh,” she finished

as they came around a bend in the trail, “there’s a skunk, now. Isn’t he cute?”

The little black and white animal stood smugly in the middle of the path, several yards ahead of them.

57 49 “Cute?” Honey cringed. “It’s a horrible, smelly creature, and it’ll squirt that awful stuff all over us.”

“Skunks aren’t really smelly at all,” Trixie told her. “They’re very clean little animals, and the Indians in Canada think skunk meat is delicious to eat.

Mart had a

pet skunk once till Dad discovered it in the chicken coop calmly eating the eggs.” She laughed. “They carry that fluid in two little sacs under their tails,

and when they jump around that’s the time to run. Reddy didn’t run fast enough once, and it was days before Mother’d let him inside the house.”

“Oh, Trixie, please let’s go back,” Honey begged. “I’m more afraid of skunks than anything else in the woods.”

“Well,” Trixie said, “we’re perfectly safe unless we come too close. I’m going to throw this stone at him and see if that won’t make him move.”

Honey let the basket slip to the ground and got ready to run. The skunk, completely ignoring the pebble that bounced beside it, unconcernedly rooted through

the leaves for a bug. The second stone landed on its back. The little animal stood perfectly still as though considering the matter carefully, then after

a moment, ambled slowly across the path and into the woods.

“See?” Trixie demanded triumphantly.

58 50 “Yes,” Honey said doubtfully. “But did you ever hear of a mad skunk?”

“Of course not,” Trixie cried in derision. “Where did you ever get such a dopey idea?”

“From Jim,” Honey told her in a low voice. “He said he hoped that the dog who frightened the horses this morning didn’t have rabies. He said that a mad

dog will attack anything in its way, and if it bit a fox or a weasel or a skunk that animal would go mad, too, and attack anything or anybody.”

“I don’t believe it,” Trixie said. “And, anyway, we’re not sure the dog did have rabies. It could have been foaming from the mouth because it got so hot

thrashing around in the tangled vines.” Trixie had already forgotten how terrified she had been earlier when she thought Bobby was alone in the woods with

a mad dog and was convinced that Jim had deliberately made up a story about mad animals and dogs especially, just to tease Honey.

When they arrived at the hedge, Honey drew back timidly. “You go first,” she said. “I’m so jittery I think I’d faint if Queenie even cackled at me.”

Trixie laughed and led the way through the thicket, calling out to let Jim know that he didn’t have to hide. He promptly appeared at the window and eyed

the lunch

59 51 basket hungrily. “We ought to have a special signal,” he said as they handed him the basket and climbed through the window. “I’ll teach you how to

imitate a bobwhite; then, whenever I hear that bird call, I’ll always know it’s you.

By the time they had spread out the picnic on the old mattress, both girls had learned how to whistle, “Bob white!” almost as well as Jim did.

“We really ought to clean up this place,” Honey said, looking around the cluttered living-room with distaste. “You can’t live here like this, Jim. It’s

perfectly horrible.”

Jim shrugged. “It is pretty dirty, but, after all, Uncle James must have liked it this way so we have no right to change anything without his permission.”

He munched thoughtfully on a drumstick. “I wonder if he’ll ever get well. If he doesn’t, I’m out of luck.”

“Dad is sure to stop by the hospital on the way home,” Trixie said, making a thick sandwich out of a buttered roll and a large slab of white meat. “I’ll

bring you the latest news tomorrow morning.”

When they finished lunch, Trixie said excitedly, “I think we ought to start right now searching for the hidden treasure. If Mr. Frayne dies without ever

regaining consciousness, nobody’ll ever know where it is.”

60 52 “How do you know there is any hidden treasure, Trixie?” Jim teased. “There’s a whole barrelful of bottle tops in the study, if that’s what you mean.”

Trixie ignored him. “I just have a feeling there’s a ton of money or jewels or something hidden around here. Let’s start looking.” She scrambled to her

feet.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Honey said doubtfully.

“Neither would I,” Jim agreed. “Although I suppose that big roll-top desk is the most logical place.”

“I don’t think we’ll find it in a logical place,” Trixie said. “If I were a miser and was afraid of robbers, I’d hide my treasure in the same room where

I slept and in the most illogical place imaginable.”

“For instance?” Jim arched his eyebrows unbelievingly.

“For instance,” Trixie retorted, “this pile of old newspapers. No burglar would have the time or the patience to sort through them all but between the pages

would be a swell place to hide a will or stock certificates or even money.”

“You mean there might have been a method in my uncle’s madness?” Jim said, thoughtfully staring at the debris.