The Witch Tree Symbol

by Carolyn G. Keene

  Disappointed, Nancy had returned all but one piece, which she now examined. It was a small hassock with mahogany legs and a petit-point top with a design of red roses and festoons of green leaves. It fitted the description of a footstool taken from the Follett mansion!

  “Ned,” Nancy whispered, excited. “We’re surely on the right track. This is exactly like one of the stolen pieces on the inventory. And this horse is black, like the one Hoelt took. I think we have enough evidence to report him to the police.”

  “Great!” Ned exclaimed, but he reminded her that by the time they could get to a phone, the thief might return and drive away with the evidence.

  Nancy nodded. “You’re right. Then we’ll have to take the horse and carriage with us!” she declared. “You ride the horse and I’ll drive the buggy.”

  Ned did not think this was a safe thing for Nancy to do. The man who had been driving the carriage might be waiting in ambush and would prevent them from reporting the incident to the police.

  “That could be,” Nancy said, “but I think he’s not very familiar with this area. He didn’t know about the stream and when he reached it, he was afraid to cross over.”

  Ned said that sounded logical, and added that the man probably had known someone was on his trail and had fled in fear of being caught. The question was, Where was he now?

  Nancy got into the carriage and urged the horse into a full turn. Then, leading the way, she started off with Ned guarding the rear.

  Though both the young people had shown no fear of what they were about to do, each of them was nervous. It was possible that the missing driver had gone off for reinforcements.

  At any moment Roger Hoelt and his assistants might come to claim what they considered to be their property! What they might do to the young couple to keep them from going to the police gave Nancy and Ned some uneasy moments. But as they reached the end of the woods road, the tension began to lessen. The riders were not stopped. In fact, they met no one on the road.

  Since Nancy knew none of the farmers in the neighborhood and saw no lights in the houses they passed, she decided it would be unwise to stop to telephone at any of them. She concluded that the best plan would be to go to the dance.

  Half an hour later she and Ned reached the Fischers’. Instead of going to the barn, where the dance was still in progress, Nancy drove directly to the house. By the time the door was opened by a smiling, broad-shouldered man, Ned had joined her.

  Mr. Fischer invited them into the kitchen. Together, they quickly told their story, and the Amish man’s face showed his astonishment. He immediately called the State Police.

  “They will send a man,” he reported after he had talked with the captain. “It is good that you two found the stolen furniture. But it is too bad that you should miss the dance. Why don’t you go over there and make a square? I will call you when the police come.”

  Nancy thanked him, but said that after their accident she was more ready for a bottle of liniment than a dance!

  “I guess I’m not so hardy as your Amish girls,” she added.

  The man chuckled. He remarked diplomatically that even an Amish girl who had been thrown out of a buggy and then ridden an unsaddled horse for miles might need a massage with liniment. He offered to awaken his wife to give Nancy a rubdown, but she said a hot bath and a good night’s sleep would fix her up.

  While waiting for the police to arrive, she and Ned talked to Mr. Fischer about the farms in the vicinity, and Nancy asked him if he had ever heard of a place called the schnitz.

  “No,” the man said. “But I have not lived here many years. I came from Ohio.”

  At once Nancy inquired if he had ever heard of Roger Hoelt from Ohio. The farmer shook his head.

  At this moment a car stopped at the house and two State Police officers came in. They introduced themselves as Officers Wagner and Schmidt.

  “You are the couple who may have found some stolen furniture?” Officer Wagner asked Nancy and Ned.

  “And a stolen horse and carriage,” Ned added.

  Nancy told the police about her interview at the carriage factory, and also of hearing that a black horse had disappeared from one of the nearby farms. Officer Schmidt pulled a little book from his pocket and turned several pages.

  “Here is a report on both items,” he said. “And unless the person who stole the carriage added a final coat of paint to the underside of the right shaft, it may be possible for us to identify the carriage.”

  The group walked outside. Officer Schmidt took a flashlight from his pocket, got down on the ground, and beamed the light under the right shaft. A smile crossed his face.

  “This is it, all right,” he said. “The final coat was never put on.”

  Both officers congratulated Nancy and Ned on recovering the stolen carriage, then looked into the back of it.

  “What makes you think this is part of the collection of stolen furniture?” Officer Wagner asked Nancy.

  She told him about the petit-point pattern on the hassock. He smiled and remarked that she certainly was a thorough and discerning detective.

  “We’ll take the horse, carriage, and furniture with us,” said Officer Wagner, “and would you like us to return the horse and buggy you rented?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Ned said, and told the policemen where they would find the carriage.

  The officers said they would explain what had happened to the owner. Ned asked them to have the man send him a bill and gave his address.

  After the police had gone, Nancy and Ned decided to go to the dance and find their friends. They went outside, and for the first time realized that Ned’s car was not there. They concluded that their friends must have gone back to the Glicks’.

  “But how are we going to get home?” Nancy asked.

  “Surely somebody here will give us a lift,” Ned suggested.

  They walked to the barn door and stepped inside. They had no sooner appeared than one of the Amish girls who was dancing stopped short and shrieked.

  Pointing a finger at the couple, she cried out, “The witch girl! The witch boy! They’ve flown back here to hex us!”

  The dancing ceased abruptly and the musicians stopped playing. There was a surge of unfriendly looking young men and women toward Nancy and Ned. Fearfully the couple wondered what was going to happen!

  CHAPTER XII

  A Hideout

  WEARY from the experiences of the evening, Nancy was in no condition to cope with the oncoming hostile group. But Ned instantly took command of the situation.

  “Stop!” he cried, holding up his hands.

  As the young Amish couples paused, he told them that all the talk about the witch girl and boy was utterly ridiculous. Furthermore, both he and Nancy might have lost their lives because of the foolishness of one of their drivers.

  There was silence for a moment, then one of the boys called out, “Ya, but I go by the old ideas. This girl makes trouble, ain’t?”

  “On the contrary,” Ned said in a loud voice so that all could hear him. “Nancy Drew is doing your neighborhood a favor. She has just found a horse and a carriage that was stolen from some of your people.”

  The dancers exchanged glances of amazement. The girl who had made the original statement about Nancy being a witch girl withdrew from the forefront of the group, embarrassed. Ned went on to tell the whole story.

  “Nancy is an excellent detective,” he stated firmly in conclusion, “but she is not a witch girl. And now, tell us where our friends are. We would like to go home.”

  Some of the people in the group shook their heads, then most of them turned away. The music started and the dancing began again, but several young men approached Nancy and Ned and offered to drive them wherever they wanted to go.

  “I am sorry about what happened,” one of them said. “We thank you for what you have done.”

  Ned was about to accept the offer of a lift when he and Nancy heard the sound of a familiar car motor. Looking outside
, they saw Ned’s convertible come to a stop. Bess and George, spotting the missing couple, quickly climbed out and rushed over to them.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re all right!” Bess exclaimed, hugging Nancy.

  George added, “You scared us out of our wits. We heard you had an accident, and we saw the overturned buggy. We couldn’t find you.”

  “We’ll tell you all about it on the way home,” Nancy said, as Ned took her arm and helped her into the car.

  Burt and Dave grinned. “Why didn’t you two tell us you were going to ride around all of Lancaster County by yourselves on a horse?”

  “How were we to know?” Ned joked.

  As they rode toward the Glick farm, Nancy surprised the others by saying that she and Ned had actually come to the dance hours before.

  “You heard about our little accident,” she said. “Well, Ned and I chased the horse and caught him. We were so close to the dance that we thought we’d just ride him there and make arrangements to pick up the carriage later.

  “After we tethered the horse and were walking to the barn, we noticed an Amish carriage and a black horse some distance away from the others. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take a look. No one was in the carriage, but in the back was some furniture that looked like the stolen Follett pieces.”

  “What!” Bess and George cried in unison.

  Nancy smiled. “At least I thought so, and later I found out I was right. Well, we waited around to see if Roger Hoelt was in the vicinity. In a few minutes a man came sneaking around the side of the barn, as if he had been spying on the dancers.”

  “I guess he was looking for you, Nancy,” Burt put in. “Was he Roger Hoelt?”

  “No. The man came to the carriage, got in, and drove off.”

  Ned chuckled. “And you know Nancy!” he said. “She decided he was a pal of Hoelt’s. And of course she wanted to follow him. So we did!”

  He told the rest of the story and the others listened in amazement.

  Upon reaching the Glicks’, they found that the cobbler and his wife were still up. The couple were overjoyed to see Nancy and Ned and insisted on hearing the whole story.

  When it was finished, Mrs. Glick said, “How good that you are safe. And you must be hungry. We will have a little bite to eat. You will all sleep better.”

  As she started toward the stove, Mr. Glick raised his hand. “That is good, Mama,” he said. “But first, we will say a prayer of thanks for the safe return of our guests.”

  The group bowed their heads and he said a short prayer in German. At its conclusion everyone kept his head bowed in silence for nearly a minute. Each, in his own words, added a personal thanks for the safe return of Nancy and Ned. Then, after they had all eaten a hearty midnight snack, everyone went to bed.

  After breakfast the following morning, the boys announced that they must leave for their summer jobs. Each declared that he had crowded a lot of fun and excitement into the short visit.

  “I’m sorry you can’t stay long enough to solve the whole mystery, Ned,” Nancy said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  After the girls had waved good-by to the boys from the lane, they went into the house to help Mrs. Glick with the household chores. As they worked, Nancy remarked that she wanted to start out soon and continue the search for Roger Hoelt.

  Mrs. Glick’s face fell. “I was hoping you would go to Mrs. Stoltz’s quilting with me,” she said. “It is for her daughter.”

  When Nancy asked her about the “quilting,” Mrs. Glick explained that an Amish woman spends many years before her marriage making articles for her new home.

  “You mean that they know ahead of time whom they are going to marry?” Bess asked, wide-eyed.

  The woman laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “But Amish people like to be ready for the future. After a girl is asked in marriage, it is not long before the wedding takes place. She has to have her dowry ready.” Mrs. Glick looked steadfastly at the three girls. “Have you made no preparations for your weddings?”

  The girls blushed scarlet and confessed that they had not even thought of a dowry. Mrs. Glick shook her head sadly. “You should not stay leddich too long,” she said.

  Noting her listeners’ puzzled expressions, she translated, “That means not married. Ned, Burt, and Dave are such nice yuung maane.”

  “Yes,” said Bess, “they are nice young men, but none of us is ready to marry yet.”

  “You are old enough,” Mrs. Glick insisted. “You should think about it. Anyway, I want you to go to the quilting with me. You will see what an Amish girl does so that she will have many things ready for her new home.”

  The girls thought it would be interesting. They said they would stay at the quilting for a little while, then go on their sleuthing trip. An hour later they set off for the Stoltz farmhouse. Mrs. Glick drove her own car and the girls went in Nancy’s convertible.

  At the Stoltz house they found that several women from neighboring farms had gathered in the parlor. It was explained to the visitors that these were friends and relatives of the family and that they were going to help sixteen-year-old Rebecca Stoltz make a fancy bedspread.

  A large wooden quilting frame had been set up. Stretched taut across it was a white muslin bedspread. Rebecca had just finished cutting out pieces of colored cloth for the pattern to be sewed on the spread. Later, it would be quilted.

  Around the edges of the spread was to be a diamond design in bright blue. The center section would be covered at intervals by big red tulips with green stems and leaves growing out of terra-cotta flowerpots.

  Four young women had seated themselves around the quilting frame, threaded needles in hand. Quickly they began to stitch on the blue diamonds Rebecca handed them.

  Nancy, Bess, and George were amazed at the dexterity of the sewers. Not a stitch showed!

  The girls stayed for half an hour. Rebecca showed them her dowry, which she kept in an old cedar chest. It held several dozen embroidered pillowcases, dresser scarfs, towels, sheets, and another bright quilt.

  Finally, when Nancy told her she and her friends must be on their way, Rebecca said she would like to give her guests something to remind them of the Amish quilting party. She lifted out a large pillowcase filled with pieces of material of various colors and designs, and gave a large handful of them to each girl.

  “You will your own quilt begin, ain’t?” she asked, smiling.

  Nancy and her friends promised to do this. “We will start patchwork quilts with these,” Bess said, and Rebecca nodded contentedly.

  After thanking her and saying good-by to Mrs. Glick and the others, the three girls left the house. As they started off in the car, George asked, “Where are we going, Nancy?”

  The young detective said she thought that the man who had run away from the carriage the night before had started toward the Hoelts’ hiding place. When the driver had realized he was being followed, he had deliberately taken another route.

  “What I’m going to try to do,” said Nancy, “is figure out at which point he turned off from the direction leading to his destination.”

  Bess asked Nancy if she had any idea where this was. “I think it may be where the man turned right into the wooded road,” the young sleuth answered. “When I reach that point, I’ll go in the opposite direction.”

  Driving to the spot, she pulled to the left and followed a narrow road for about two miles. Here it became little more than a footpath. Nancy drove along for a short distance, then decided it was too rough for further progress in the convertible.

  “I’m going to park in this field,” she said, “and we’ll continue on foot.”

  The path they followed became more and more overgrown and finally ended at a woods.

  “Well, this didn’t turn out so well,” George remarked, as the three peered ahead into the tangled undergrowth.

  “The wilder it gets, the more likely it is to be Roger Hoelt’s hideout,” Nancy reminded her. “Let’s go on.”
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  She set off through the woods with determination, the cousins following. After they had tramped a quarter of a mile they came to a clearing. Through the trees the girls could see a tumble-down house at one side of it.

  “We’d better be careful,” Bess warned.

  The girls proceeded cautiously. They spread out, with Nancy in the middle, their eyes on the house. Suddenly George gasped “Oh!” as her right foot sank into a hole.

  A second later, as she tried to wrench her foot free, George found she could not do it. Her whole right leg sank lower.

  The next second, the earth caved in around her and she went down with it!

  CHAPTER XIII

  The Attic’s Secret

  “HELP! I’ll be smothered!” George called out. The terrified girl was sinking lower and lower into the hole.

  Thoroughly alarmed, Nancy and Bess hurried toward George, but stopped a short distance away.

  “Careful, Bess,” Nancy warned. “We can’t help George if we fall in too. Some of this other ground may be treacherous.”

  The two girls tested the ground before taking each step. Meanwhile, George kept giving urgent cries, for she had now sunk up to her waist in the earth. The more she struggled, the deeper she went!

  “Try to keep calm, George!” Nancy cried. “We’ll get you out in a minute!” She turned to her other friend. “Bess,” she directed, “lie down on the ground behind me.”

  While Bess did this, Nancy quickly stretched out full length on her stomach at the edge of the hole. She reached out toward George.

  “Grab my ankles, Bess!” she called again. “When I count three, start wriggling backward.”

  Taking hold of George’s wrists, Nancy said, “Lock your hands over my wrists. Ready! One, two, three!”

  Instantly, Bess began squirming backward across the ground. Nancy did the same. But their efforts accomplished little to free George.

  “Pull a little harder, Bess,” Nancy called.

  Bess glanced backward. Almost directly behind her was a small tree. She hooked one ankle around it to give her better leverage. When she and Nancy tried a second time, they were able to heave George a foot out of the pit!