The Mystery Off Glen Road Read online

  “Well, now, girl,” he said with a pleased expression on his weatherbeaten face, “it would take a stronger man than I am to refuse you anything. If you’d just tell me what you’re talking about.”

  Honey merely winked. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Mr. Maypenny. You’re the only man in the whole wide world who should be the gamekeeper for Daddy’s preserve. He would engage you tomorrow if Jim and I told him that you would accept.”

  He winked back at her with such a droll expression on his face that Trixie burst into laughter. “Well, now,” he said, laughing as hard as she was, “I sort of got the impression that you kids were the gamekeepers. Wouldn’t want to cut you out of any money.”

  “Oh, no,” Honey cried. “On account of school and all, we can’t work after this weekend. We only did it because there wasn’t anybody else, and besides, we had to have the money.”

  Both talking at once they told him the whole story then. When he heard about Trixie’s ring and Brian’s car, and the clubhouse, he threw up his hands. “Why, it’s like something out of a book,” he chortled. “If ever a bunch of kids needed help, it’s you all. But I must say I admire you for carrying on by yourselves.”

  “We tried,” Trixie said forlornly. “But if you don’t think we deserve that fifty dollars tomorrow, we won’t accept it.”

  He frowned at her. “Never said anything of the kind. In my opinion, you’ve done a grand job. Why, Fleagle would never have noticed those single-tire tread marks, and he’d never have found my dead deer and the rabbit snare unless he fell over them.” He stared at his gnarled fingers. “Got a touch of arthritis. Means a storm’s coming. Most likely a blizzard. The thing to do first is make that clubhouse weatherproof. And I know how. Jim Frayne knows about as much as I did when I was a boy of his age, but don’t forget that I’ve learned a lot since. If I had a horse, now, I’d ride over to that clubhouse and teach Jim a few tricks.”

  “Oh, oh,” Honey cried. “I’m so glad you know how to ride, Mr. Maypenny. Daddy’ll buy you a horse as soon as you accept the job, but right now you take Starlight—the chestnut gelding. Trixie and I’ll take turns riding back on Lady. Won’t we, Trix?”

  Trixie shook her head and carefully strapped Bobby’s compass around her wrist. “You ride to the clubhouse with Mr. Maypenny, Honey. I feel like walking—and thinking. It’s all so wonderful I don’t want to hurry.”

  Chapter 20

  Snow and Surprises

  The blizzard started with a snow flurry around nine o’clock that night. Trixie fell asleep without any worries because, thanks to Mr. Maypenny, the clubhouse was as tight as a drum. The whole day had been so wonderful that she tried to stay awake as long as she could so she could think over all the nice things that had happened.

  In the first place, Bobby had been so delighted when she gave him back his compass that he rushed to his mother, crying:

  “Oh, I’m such a bad boy! I tookted Trixie’s ring, and losted it, but she didn’t get mad, ’cause it wasn’t the right ring. The right ring ’longs to Mr. Lytell on account of Brian’s car. But it really ’longs to Trixie, so I’m going to get it back when I give him my squirrel-bird.”

  He went on with his strange and garbled version, chanting loudly every now and then:

  “Old lamps for new. Old lamps for NEW. Hey! I’m Aladdin.”

  So in the end Trixie had had to explain the whole transaction to her parents. To her relief they were very sympathetic and did not scold her at all.

  “You’re a banker at heart, Trix,” Mr. Belden said cheerfully. “But next time you want to borrow money on that ring, I hope you will consult me. Poor Mr. Lytell! He must have been flabbergasted when you made him take it as security.”

  “I’ve always said he was a very nice man,” Mrs. Belden said, “and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he and Miss Trask got married some day. Also,” she finished rather smugly, “I never objected to Ben Riker. He really is a sweet boy. You can’t expect an only child to be as well-adjusted as one with—”

  “Siblings,” Trixie finished, giving her mother a hug. “I’m so glad there are so many siblings in this family and that nobody’s mad at me.”

  Feeling very close to tears of sheer joy, Trixie had rushed up to her room. It was then that she noticed that big fluffy flakes of snow were falling. The wind came up as rapidly as the temperature dropped and the snowflakes were turned to swirling masses of powdered sugar.

  When she awoke in the morning the sun was shining with dazzling brightness on the thick white carpet that covered the ground and almost every inch of the pine and spruce trees. Trixie dressed hurriedly and dashed out to join her brothers.

  “Perfect sledding weather,” Brian said. “When I get my car, Trix, I’ll drive up and down the Wheelers’ driveway until the snow is hard-packed.” He gave her a hug. “Thanks to you, I can get my jalopy right after breakfast.”

  “How come?” Trixie asked. “Our week isn’t up until this evening. If I remember right, we started last Sunday morning.”

  “True,” Mart put in, “but we can’t patrol today. Not on horseback in this deep snow.”

  “Miss Trask and Mr. Maypenny arranged it all last night after you went home, Trix,” Brian told her. “He assured her that we were in for a blizzard, so she gave me a check then and there. All it amounts to is this: We owe Mr. Maypenny a day’s work. He says he’d rather have it strung out in hours here and there. And best of all, Jim has a permanent job with him as part-time assistant gamekeeper.”

  “Swell,” Trixie cried enthusiastically. “How does Regan like Mr. Maypenny? That’s important.”

  “They’re crazy about each other,” Mart replied. “Not that it really matters. They won’t see much of each other because Mr. Maypenny is going to keep his horse in a stall on his own place which we promised to help him build. We owe him something for the work he did on the clubhouse yesterday. What a man! As nimble as a monkey and a wizard with carpentry tools.”

  Trixie nodded. “Is it really all settled then? I mean, what if Mr. Wheeler disapproves when he comes back?”

  “He called up Honey last night while we were all there,” Mart said. “Just to say hello and that he and Mrs. Wheeler would arrive this afternoon unless there was a blizzard. Honey and Miss Trask and Mr. Maypenny all talked to him so it was settled before he hung up. I gather Mr. Wheeler was so pleased all he could say, to the tune of about forty dollars, was, ‘Yes, yes, by all means.’ Mr. Wheeler is no fool. He knows he’s lucky to get a man like Mr. Maypenny.”

  “He sure is,” Trixie agreed. “I can’t wait to talk to Honey about it.” They hurried in for breakfast then and afterward Trixie did her chores as fast as she could. Then she pulled on rubber boots and plowed her way up the hill to the Manor House.

  Jim and Ben were shoveling paths from the house to the driveway and the girls were inspecting the snowshoes they had brought up from the clubhouse. The moment Honey caught sight of Trixie she called out:

  “Guess what?”

  “I don’t have to guess,” Trixie panted. “The boys just told me all. It’s too, too good to be true.”

  “But the boys don’t know,” Honey replied, sliding along one of the slippery paths to meet Trixie halfway. “Not about Celia and Tom, anyway.”

  “Oh,” Trixie asked, “are they back?”

  Honey nodded. “They arrived around midnight, but even with chains Tom couldn’t get up the driveway so their car is parked down by the mailbox.”

  “Oh, dear,” Trixie moaned. “If the roads are that bad then Brian won’t be able to drive his car home from Mr. Lytell’s after all.”

  “Yes, he can,” Jim assured her. “The snow plow just went through. It’s only our driveway that’s hopeless. We’ve got to fix it so cars can get in and out.”

  “Let’s don’t and say we did,” Ben said with a grin. “If I can’t get out, I’ll have to stay here, and that suits me just fine.”

  “But you’ve got to be back in sch
ool tomorrow evening at the latest,” Di pointed out.

  “Well, if I can’t, I can’t,” he said cheerfully.

  “I know just how you feel,” Trixie told him, chuckling. “I wanted the roads to be okay for Brian’s sake, but I was hoping maybe we’d get a thaw and then a freeze tomorrow night so the school bus wouldn’t run on Monday.”

  “Instead,” Jim said, looking up at the sky which was now filled with scudding clouds, “I think we’re going to get more snow.”

  “Then there’s no sense in shoveling the driveway,” Trixie cried enthusiastically. “Let’s just fix it so it’ll be good for sledding. Brian planned to drive his car up and down until the snow was hard-packed, but I guess that’s out.”

  “It’s too soft for anything but snowshoes,” said Honey, demonstrating. Di tried to demonstrate but lost her balance and pitched headfirst into the bank of snow that lay beside the path.

  Jim and Ben hastily extricated her but she was laughing so hard she couldn’t stand up. “You can have these snowshoes,” she finally told Trixie. “I’m sure I’ll never learn how to manage them.”

  Just then Tom came snowshoeing down from the Robin, dragging a big sled behind him. “Hi,” he yelled to Trixie. “Did you hear about my deer?”

  “No,” she yelled back. “Did you get one?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Honey said. “The carcass is down in the car and Tom’s afraid somebody will steal it.”

  Regan, wearing snowshoes, too, appeared then. “Nobody’s going to steal that deer,” he said emphatically. “And we’re going to live on venison stew all winter. Aren’t we, Tom?”

  “We sure are,” Tom replied.

  “You’d better get the recipe from Mr. Maypenny,” Trixie and Honey said in unison.

  “From whom?” Tom asked curiously.

  Everybody tried to answer him at once—

  “I thought he was a poacher,” Trixie said.

  “He’s our new gamekeeper,” Honey said.

  “A great guy,” Regan said.

  “You’ll like him a lot,” Jim said.

  “He wears the oddest clothes,” Di said.

  “He’s terrific!” Ben said.

  Tom ignored the jumble of words and said to Regan: “These kids never did make sense. Let’s go get that deer. Maypenny, indeed! Why, nobody around here has a name like that.”

  Regan guffawed. “It’s an old Hudson River Valley name, I’ll have you know, and he is our new gamekeeper and a great guy to boot.” They went on down the driveway with the sled sliding after them.

  Celia poked her head out of the kitchen door then. “Hello, Trix. You and your brothers, Bobby included, are invited for lunch. Miss Trask just talked to your mother and Mart is on his way up now with Bobby.”

  “Wonderful,” Trixie cried. “Did Moms say anything about Brian and his car?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Celia shivered and ducked back into the kitchen.

  Honey stared at Trixie. “I should think at this point you’d be more worried about your ring than Brian’s car. How and when are you going to get it back?”

  “Brian will bring it home with his jalopy, of course,” Trixie said. “Dad and Moms know all, and they’re not mad at me, thank goodness.” She turned to Jim. “Brian keeps on thanking me because Mr. Lytell didn’t sell the car to a secondhand dealer, but he should really thank you. If it hadn’t been for that ring you gave me, Jim—”

  “What’s all this about a ring?” Ben interrupted. “It sounds as though you two were engaged or something.”

  Trixie sniffed. “If Jim were the last man on earth I wouldn’t marry him.”

  “Is that so?” Jim gave her a gentle push and Trixie found herself sitting in the snowbank with Di.

  She tried to scramble to her feet but her boots kept slipping on the icy path so she only went down deeper.

  “Do you think I’d get myself engaged to anybody as dumb as that?” Jim asked Ben.

  “No,” Ben admitted. “But why did you give her a ring? I wouldn’t even give her a ring on the phone.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Honey pleaded. “Why must all of you tease Trixie from morning to night? She’s always the one who always solves all of our problems. And you know it,” she finished stormily.

  Jim relented then and helped Trixie to her feet. “On you,” he said, “snow looks good. You should wear it more frequently. Especially on your eyelashes. Much more becoming than mascara.”

  Trixie angrily chattered her teeth at him. “Thanks to you, I’m soaked to the skin. If I’d known you were going to be so uncouth I’d have worn my ski pants instead of jeans. Now I’ll have to go home and change. And I’ll get that ring too, Jim Frayne, and give it back to you. I wouldn’t be caught dead with it.”

  “Before you do anything,” Ben insisted, “tell me the story of the ring. I’m dying of curiosity.”

  “If you’ll get me out of this snowbank and these snowshoes,” Di said, “I’ll tell you the story, but only over a cup of hot chocolate.”

  Trixie started off toward the path that led down to the hollow, but Honey grabbed her arm. “Oh, don’t go home,” she begged. “I’ve got a darling snowsuit that will just fit you.” She added to Jim: “Let’s all go in and have some hot chocolate.”

  “Suits me.” He bent over to untie the thongs on Honey’s snowshoes. “Hot chocolate, indeed! I wonder how long it will be before Trixie gets us all in hot water again.”

  Trixie scooped up a handful of the melting snow. “How would you like some icy water down your neck right now?” she asked in a threatening tone of voice. But deep down inside she asked herself a different question:

  Was another adventure waiting around the corner for them? Trixie sighed happily and sincerely hoped so.