I just wish I needn’t ever be so bossy, she thought to herself. What would I do without Honey and Diana? I guess maybe especially Honey, for she’s my very best friend in the whole world.
Something similar must have been going through Honey’s mind because she put her arm around Trixie and hugged her. “I do love you so much, Trixie,” she whispered, “and everyone in the Belden family.”
When they went into the living-room Mr. Belden was playing Simon Says Thumbs Up with Bobby, Terry, and Larry. They were falling all over themselves on the cushions, laughing so hard they couldn’t obey one of the “Thumbs Up!” “Thumbs Down!” commands. “You are supposed to obey me only when I say ‘Simon says,’ ” Mr. Belden explained. “Try again now, boys.”
When the Bob-Whites joined the group around the fireplace, Mr. Belden decided they would add forfeits as a penalty for failing to obey Simon’s commands. To make it easier, the forfeits wouldn’t apply to the little boys.
“Simon says Thumbs Up!” Mr. Belden said. All the thumbs went up. “Thumbs Down!” he ordered. Honey and Mart put their thumbs down!
“Simon didn’t say it,” Mr. Belden explained. “Mart and Honey must pay forfeits. Will you take the forfeits?” he asked Mrs. Belden.
Within half an hour every Bob-White had contributed something, a shoe, a barrette, a wrist watch, a ring, a tie, or a bracelet.
Redeeming the forfeits was lots more fun than the game itself, especially with the forfeits the girls gave.
“I know what to tell Trixie to do,” Bobby whispered in his mother’s ear.
“Trixie’ll never do that, Bobby,” his mother said, smiling.
“She’ll have to or she won’t get her ring back,” Bobby insisted. “Go on, Trixie!”
So Trixie stood in the middle of the floor and sang “The Star Spangled Banner.” Her voice was true, and she did fairly well until she came to the high notes. “And the rockets red glare …” she tried. Her voice cracked and failed, and she dropped to the floor laughing as hard as Bobby.
“Now you tell me what penalty to give Diana,” Mrs. Belden said to Terry. The little boy whispered in her ear.
“I’m really going to enjoy this one,” Mrs. Belden said and looked over to where Mart sat on the sofa. Then she whispered the penalty in Diana’s ear.
Diana, blushing to the ends of her finger tips, leaned over and brushed Mart’s cheek with a kiss.
That was the high point of the forfeits. Everyone was laughing so hard they couldn’t go on. Mart, who teased everyone else all the time, had finally had the tables turned on him by the little Lynch twin.
After that they knelt in a circle in the center of the room. Mr. and Mrs. Belden knelt, too.
Trixie started the game.
“I went to New York today,” she said.
“What did you buy?” Jim, next to her, asked.
“A fan to fan myself,” she said and waved her hand back and forth.
“I went to New York today,” Jim then said to Diana on his other side.
“Did you really?” Diana asked. “What did you buy?”
“A rocking chair and a fan,” Jim said and rocked back and forth while he fanned.
Down the line it went, each one adding a purchase and acting it out. Most of them wobbled and fell and were out of the game. Terry and Larry and Bobby were tumbling all over themselves trying to rock and fan and do half a dozen other things.
Patch and Reddy ran around the boys barking and adding to the general confusion and fun.
They wouldn’t excuse Mr. Belden, at the end of the line, from trying, so he fanned, he rocked, he held an umbrella, he smelled a rose, winked his eyes back of dark glasses, kicked his heels in new shoes, swayed to the music of a record player he bought, and finally fell over trying on a new hat.
Mrs. Belden brought in the popper and corn.
Jim whooped when he saw it. “I couldn’t down a grain of corn if my life depended upon it,” he said, “after that dinner I ate.”
“I could!” Bobby cried.
“I could!” Larry and Terry echoed.
So Mr. Belden brought in the big dishpan lined with waxed paper. Mrs. Belden poured a handful of corn into the popper and handed it to Mr. Belden. It sputtered and crackled and popped in no time into enormous white flakes which Mrs. Belden salted, buttered, and offered to the guests.
“Don’t pop another grain!” Honey finally said.
“The twins will burst,” Diana insisted, though they shook their heads vigorously. “I never saw them eat so much in all their lives.”
“It’s the goodest food,” Larry said.
“The goodest food in all the world,” said Terry, “an’ I’m goin’ to come here and live with Bobby.”
“Oh, Moms, can he? An’ Larry, too? Can’t they stay forever?”
“I’m afraid not, Bobby, honey,” Diana said. “But your mother said you will be able to come and see us soon, and, twinnies, there’s Tom now. He’s come for all of us.”
“I won’t go home,” Terry sobbed.
“I won’t, too,” Larry said. “Go home, Tom!”
“Tell me a riddle, Tom,” Bobby begged. “Regan always does.”
“All right,” Tom said, as he helped Diana and Honey button the howling twins into their snow suits. “Listen!” he said and miraculously they listened.
“What did the doughnut say to the layer cake?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” Terry yelled. “Tell me, Tom.”
“Don’t give up!” Bobby shouted. “Don’t tell, Tom!”
“I won’t,” Tom said, zipping the legs of the twins’ suits. “What did it say, Bobby?”
Bobby thought and thought and thought, but he didn’t have the answer. “Awright, I give up, too,” he finally said. “What did the doughnut say?”
“If I had all your dough I wouldn’t be hanging around this hole,” Tom said. “Come on, kids, let’s go.”
Mrs. Belden brought out some cookies and an extra pumpkin pie and put them in a basket for Tom to take to Celia.
“It’s the most fun we’ve ever had in all our lives,” they all insisted as they trooped out. Trixie and the boys followed them, coatless, out to the station wagon.
Bobby called good-by constantly from the doorway, and the twins answered, waving till they almost fell from the seat beside Tom.
Just before they left, Tom called to Trixie, “You’ve heard about Bull Thompson’s Uncle Snipe, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” said Trixie, wondering. “What about Snipe?”
“He’s back at that bookie business on Hawthorne Street, I guess,” Tom said. “I saw him the day after Diana’s Valentine party driving a big blue and white sedan. Say, he could have been here when the clubhouse was wrecked.”
“Blue and white sedan!” Trixie exclaimed. “There was a blue and white sedan stolen that night. I’ve wondered about that Snipe Thompson … he just could have been angry enough at me about Bull to want to burn our clubhouse.”
“Sounds like Snipe’s doing,” Tom said. “I think he’s just out of prison after serving time for robbery. Forget about it tonight, Trixie, but better check on it with Spider in the morning.”
“I will. Thanks, Tom. Wait till I tell Spider!”
“That Snipe’s a bad one,” Tom said. “Well, everyone in?” he asked the Wheelers and the Lynches. “Guess Regan and I are elected to pick up the antiques tomorrow for the show. See you then, Trixie. Let’s go, kids.”
Chapter 16
The Show Takes Shape
Trixie, Brian, and Mart had set the alarm for seven o’clock. First they had to collect all the mended furniture from the clubhouse and take it to the showroom.
Then the boys had to go to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s, to the Wheelers’, to half a dozen other places to pick up the antiques to be exhibited. Tom and Regan would be waiting to help.
The Hakaito brothers were due at the showroom at eleven o’clock to arrange their exhibit.
After the antiques were
all assembled the Bob-Whites would have to arrange them in the showroom, and in the windows.
Before any of this would be done, however, Trixie had an errand she thought more important than anything else on their schedule.
“Did you hear what Tom said to me just before he left last night?” she asked her mother.
“No. I didn’t go out to the car. What was it?”
“I told you that Sergeant Molinson told us the thieves used a blue and white car they stole, to make their getaway from our clubhouse that night, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did, and Mart told me the sergeant told you pretty emphatically to stay out of their business,” Mrs. Belden said. “I hope you’ll take his advice.”
“He’s a terrible sour-puss,” Trixie said. “I can at least call Spider over at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house and tell him. He doesn’t go to work till about ten o’clock.”
So Trixie called Spider.
When she came back from the telephone her face was serious.
“Spider said he knows Sergeant Molinson won’t try to do anything about Snipe Thompson,” she said. “At least not till he has more evidence.”
“With the antique show tomorrow, why don’t you forget about Snipe?” Mart said. “We got the desk back and the swords back. Now forget about it!”
“Mart is right,” Mr. Belden said, as he put his coffee cup on the table. “There hasn’t been a robbery on Main Street for fifty years—oh, maybe shoplifters in the stores, but that goes on all the time.”
“Maybe this will worry you, then,” Trixie said. “Spider can’t be on the job tonight because he has late duty at his intersection. He said he’d go over to the showroom on his own time after eleven o’clock.”
“Spider doesn’t need to go at all,” Mr. Belden said, “and he knows it. He’s only doing it because of his interest in the Bob-Whites. The regular patrolman will be on duty and that’s enough protection.”
Trixie’s face fell. “Doesn’t anyone feel any responsibility?” she asked.
“I for one am not going to give it another thought,” Brian said. “Tom and Regan will be here any minute with the station wagon and pickup truck. I’m going to finish my breakfast and be ready when they come.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Mr. Belden said.
“Honey and Diana are coming with them,” Trixie said. “Tom will go with us to the clubhouse to get a load of things there and then take us to the showroom.”
“Here they come now!” Bobby shouted, peering from his place at the table. “Terry and Larry aren’t with him. Can I go to their house, Moms? And can we help with the anteeks?”
“Later in the day maybe, Bobby, if the sun comes out and the day is warm. Please try to say ‘may I’ instead of ‘can I,’ will you?”
Bobby hid his head. “I don’t get to holp with the show at all,” he said.
“I know what we’ll do this afternoon,” Mr. Belden told Bobby. “If it’s a warm day I’ll go over and get the boys at the Lynches’ and we’ll all go to Sleepyside and distribute the handbills for the Bob-Whites.”
“That will be super!” Trixie said and hugged her little brother. “That will be the biggest ‘holp’ of all.”
There was good hard work to do in the showroom before the girls could even begin to decorate it for the show. The windows were dusty. The floor needed to be cleaned. There was dust everywhere. It would take dozens of pails of water and detergent to make the room presentable. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before,” Trixie said.
It all looked pretty hopeless till Tom arrived with Celia. “Mrs. Wheeler said I could help you a while,” Celia said and she took the mop out of Trixie’s hands. “Your mother is sending Mrs. Bruger, your cleaning woman,” she told Diana. “We’ll soon have the place looking like something. You girls just go ahead and put papers on the shelves and arrange everything.”
Honey had brought a roll of flowered shelf edging, and the girls dusted the shelves, tacked the edging in place with thumbtacks, then covered the shelves with fresh white paper.
Along the shelves they arranged a group of duck decoys Tad had brought them. They had belonged to the father of one of the Hawks. When Tad told him about the show, he donated them.
“The ducks look as though they were alive,” Trixie said.
“Yes, wasn’t it swell of Tad?” Diana asked. “The wooden toys he got for us can go on the next shelf,” she went on. “Hand me that old tin peddler’s cart, Honey, please. There! Doesn’t that look marvelous? Look at all the little tin pans and bowls he has for sale in his cart.”
“And the lanterns,” Honey said, as she hung a cluster of miniature tin lanterns on the back of the tin peddler’s cart. “My little brothers would be thrilled to have a toy like that.”
“It would last about ten minutes with Bobby,” Trixie said. “Now take this doll-baby buggy, Diana, and put it next on the shelf. Isn’t it priceless? The original flowered lining is still in it, and it rolls. See?” Trixie pushed the high, carved wood baby carriage along the shelf to stand back of the peddler’s cart.
“They are ours, too, to sell,” Trixie added. “They aren’t just to exhibit. Tad said the woman gave them to him for us to sell.”
“There surely has been a change in Tad,” Diana said. “Remember what a goon he used to be?”
“Maybe we just thought so. Maybe we were the goons, not Tad,” Trixie said.
“That’s what Spider seemed to think, didn’t he?” Honey asked. “I like Tad now. I like him very much.”
“I guess we all do,” Trixie agreed. “Shall we put some of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s silver on this other shelf?”
“No,” Honey said. “It isn’t for sale. Let’s try to keep all the things for sale on one side of the room, and the ones for exhibiting on the other side. That way we won’t be in danger of selling anything that doesn’t belong to us.”
Celia and Mrs. Bruger had finished cleaning the main showroom and had moved on behind the partition to put the back room in better order.
Regan and Brian and Mart arrived in the pickup truck and unloaded the first group of antiques for the exhibit side of the room.
The girls just had to leave their work to admire the beautiful old mahogany three-tiered table, the oak Bible box with its lining of blue Williamsburg paper, the pine settle and book rest, and Mrs. Vanderpoel’s little old ebony melodeon.
“Do you know what Mrs. Vanderpoel did?” Brian asked as he and Regan settled the melodeon in place. “She let us take that black walnut chest that stands in her living-room. She called it a kas or schrank. Take a look at it, Trixie.… Wait, we’ll bring it in next.”
Trixie well knew what the big Holland Dutch chest looked like. She knew, too, that it was Mrs. Vanderpoel’s dearest treasure.
On top of the chest the girls arranged the George III silver they had polished the night Bull Thompson had been captured. The old tankards and salvers shone against the waxed walnut background.
Tom arrived then with a second load of furniture from the clubhouse. Mr. Maypenny, drawn into service, had helped him load them. Now the boys, Brian, Jim, and Mart, arrayed them on the sale side of the room. There were the cherry gate-leg tables that were Mart’s pride, the wooden Indian from the Wheelers’ attic, the gilt mirror, which stood on its base, the Pembroke table, some ladder-back chairs that came from Mrs. Vanderpoel’s lean- to kitchen, several odds and ends of wall whatnots, and some painted chairs.
“Mrs. Wheeler told me to take this, and not to put it in anyone’s hands but yours,” Tom said. He handed the doll trunk to Trixie.
“It’s the gold musical jewel box!” Trixie cried, delighted. “I haven’t seen it for weeks. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you ever saw?” Carefully Trixie took it from the small doll trunk and set it, for exhibit, on top of the Chippendale three-tiered table, just inside the front window.
“It almost knocks your eyes out, doesn’t it?” Mart asked.
“Yes, and we’d never have had it ei
ther,” Diana said, “if Trixie hadn’t snooped till she found it hidden in the chimney.”
“I don’t like the word ‘snooped,’ ” Trixie said indignantly. “Oh, here are the Hakaito brothers with their swords and things. Isn’t this the most fun in the whole world? Jeepers, I told them I’d have some Japanese lanterns hung in the corner where they are going to put their Japanese display. Here’s the ladder. Help me, will you please, Jim?”
Jim brought the ladder to the corner just as the Hakaito brothers came in smiling, their arms full of carefully wrapped tissue bundles.
“We hang lanterns,” Oto said. “Later, when exhibit is in place. Now we work. You see later.” He adjusted a tall Japanese screen to close off the corner.
Jim turned around, held out his hands palms up, and shrugged. “That’s that!” he said.
While they had been talking, Diana and Honey had been busy. In the corner opposite the one where the Japanese brothers were working, on the sales side, they hung two lengths of clothesline. To these they pinned the aprons they had made. The gay-flowered patterns and bright colors made a lovely picture.
Back of the aprons, and above them, so they were in plain view, the stuffed elephants, kittens, dogs, tigers, and bears ranged in patterned calico. Beside them the dolls sat primly, their kapok-stuffed toes hanging over the edge of the shelf.
“We’ll have to put the price tags on these later,” Honey said. “Here they are.” She took a handful of white paper squares from her pocket and put them on the shelf. “It won’t take long.”
“I’m getting so excited,” Trixie said as she stood off to look at the other girls’ work. “The room looks simply gorgeous!”
“It does!” Mr. Belden said as he stepped through the door, followed by three sturdy little boys, their hands full of sale bills. “I never guessed you had done so much work on this show.” Mr. Belden put his arm proudly around Trixie’s shoulders.
“I kept trying to tell you what it would be like, Daddy,” Trixie said, her eyes shining. “Did you have fun?” she asked the little boys who stood with big eyes in front of the toy shelves staring at the array of colorful animals.
The Mysterious Code Page 13
