The Boxcar Children Mysteries Box Set

by Gertrude Warner

  “Right!” said Henry. He took Violet’s arm as they went into the store. “You are always right.”

  There was only one person in the store. It was a boy of about Henry’s age. Under his arm he had a college book. Henry knew it at once.

  The girls started to buy groceries, but Henry gave the boy a friendly smile and said, “I noticed your book. Do you go to college?”

  “I certainly don’t,” said the boy loudly. Then he went out of the store and banged the door.

  “Hey, what’s the matter with him?” asked Henry. He stared after the boy.

  “He’s looking for trouble, that feller!” said Benny. His voice sounded just like his grandfather’s.

  Mr. Hall said, “He doesn’t have to look for trouble. He’s got trouble.”

  “What trouble?” asked Henry. “He looks so cross at everybody.”

  “Well, his father won’t let him go to school,” said Mr. Hall.

  “School?” cried Benny. “He wants to go to school, and his father won’t let him?”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Hall.

  Benny said, “Didn’t that boy go to high school?”

  “Oh, yes, he had to go to high school. It’s the law. He’s very smart, especially in science. He got through high school at sixteen.”

  “Well,” said Henry, “he is smart, then. But he’s looking for trouble. It wouldn’t hurt him to be polite to a stranger.”

  “He isn’t polite to anybody,” said Mr. Hall. “I try to be nice to him, but you see how he acts. He doesn’t want friends.”

  “Now that is too bad,” said Benny. “Everyone ought to have friends.”

  “I guess it isn’t hard for you to make friends,” said Mr. Hall. He laughed.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Benny. “I’m lucky. We’re all lucky.”

  Henry was quiet. At last he said, “I wish we could do something with that father. A boy like that ought to go to college if he wants to.”

  “He wants to all right. That’s all he thinks about—college—college—and I guess whatever lives in the sea. He’s always picking up shells or bits of seaweed. Now I say if any boy wants to learn, let him learn.”

  “Right,” said Benny. “There are lots of boys I know that don’t want to learn.”

  “I don’t think you can do anything with his father,” Mr. Hall said. “You’re not the first people who have tried.”

  Then the four Aldens thought of the same name—Grandfather. But they did not say it. Grandfather knew how to get things done.

  “That boy is another queer character,” said Benny. “Two cross people in ten minutes.” Benny did not see many cross people.

  Then Mr. Alden said, “By the way, Mr. Hall, our dog barked in the night. We feel that someone was prowling about. I thought I’d see the police today.”

  Mr. Hall shook his head. “No police in this town,” he said. “Never had any trouble here.”

  “No police!” said Mr. Alden. “I never heard of such a thing. Who looks up a mystery?”

  “Nobody, I guess. Never had a mystery either.”

  As the Aldens drove home, they were all thinking.

  Grandfather said, “I suppose I could send for John Carter.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” cried Benny. “We want to find out for ourselves. No police, no Mr. Carter, no help at all!”

  “Very well,” said Grandfather with a smile.

  “We’ll have to solve the mystery, Ben,” said Henry.

  “Maybe we can do it better than Mr. Carter can,” said Benny.

  “Oh,” said Jessie. “Somebody thinks he’s pretty smart, Mr. Benny! But we all know that Mr. Carter is right there. He would come to help us in a minute.”

  When they reached the lighthouse with the groceries, Jessie said, “I wonder just the same about that black-eyed man and the cross boy. Could one of them have anything to do with our mystery?”

  “I don’t see how,” said Benny. “But you never know. Maybe they are cooking up something or other.”

  Benny didn’t know then how near he was to the truth.

  CHAPTER 3

  Cement for a Project

  Jessie boiled a dozen eggs and a dozen potatoes. She put them in the refrigerator. By noon she had made an enormous potato salad. She had bought rolls and butter and a cherry pie.

  “Let’s eat lunch out on the rocks,” she said. “It’s too hot in the lighthouse. You carry the salad, Henry. And, Benny, you carry the cherry pie and the knife.”

  They found a fine seat for Grandfather that just fitted him. “Really, this is an easy chair,” he said, “made out of rocks.”

  The other seats were not so easy. The rocks were sharp. The table was not very flat either.

  “I have an idea,” shouted Benny suddenly. “Let’s find stones and make five easy chairs. Then build up the table with a flat stone. And then get some cement and fill in the cracks.”

  “A wonderful idea, Ben,” said Henry. “A small bag of cement would be enough. We’ve got plenty of sand.”

  “I saw a place where they had cement,” said Violet. “Some men were building a driveway.”

  “Where?” asked Benny.

  “Well, don’t you remember when we came from Aunt Jane’s there was a big new gas station where some men were building a driveway?”

  “I remember it,” said Mr. Alden. “It was right beside a little fish market.”

  “Let’s go the minute lunch is over,” said Benny.

  “Lunch is over for me right now,” said Mr. Alden. He ate the last of his cherry pie. “The ocean will wash away the crumbs.”

  Jessie and Henry picked up all the dishes and washed them in the sea. Then Henry backed the car out and they all went down to the little fish market. Sure enough, the men were at work on the driveway. Bags of cement were lying around.

  “Where can we buy some cement?” asked Henry, stopping the car. He put his head out of the window.

  “How much do you want?” asked the man who was the foreman.

  “Well, we want to make some seats and a table down on the rocks by the lighthouse. How much would you think we’d need?”

  “Take this small bag,” said the foreman. “Bring back what you don’t want.”

  Henry said, “Is it three parts of sand to one part of cement?”

  “Right,” said the foreman. “You can borrow this hoe if you want.”

  “That’s neat!” cried Benny. “I’ll hoe!”

  “Wish I could come and help you,” said the man, smiling. He looked at the laughing family. They all laughed again. Henry lifted the bag into the car, and Benny took the hoe.

  “I’ll put the cement on Violet’s feet,” said Henry. But he was joking.

  Then the Aldens noticed that one of the men was staring at them with big, black eyes. It was the same man who had almost bumped into Jessie.

  When he saw that they knew him, the man turned his back and began to work again.

  After they had driven away, Jessie could not help saying, “That was odd seeing that man again.” Everyone agreed.

  “Stop at the store, Henry, and buy a trowel,” said Grandfather. “You’ll have to smooth the cement and carry it to the rocks.”

  When the Aldens got back to the lighthouse they went to the rocks at once. The only seat which was comfortable already was Mr. Alden’s. They walked around trying to find big rocks of the right shape. Benny sat down on every seat he could find to try it. Then the boys began to carry big stones and the girls took the little stones to fill the cracks. At last they had five seats around a fine table.

  Henry began to mix the cement. “Not with salt water,” he said. “We must have fresh water.”

  He found a big rock that was shaped like a tub. He mixed the cement in that.

  “Now let me hoe it, Henry,” begged Benny. “I know just how to do it. I watched the men.”

  “Don’t mix up too much at first,” said Jessie. “It will get hard before we finish all the seats.”

&nb
sp; “Isn’t this fun?” cried Benny, hoeing away. “Just like making mud pies. Let’s do Violet’s seat first. She has such a comfortable looking chair already.” So they carried the cement in a newspaper and Benny plastered the seat and smoothed it with the trowel.

  “Isn’t that wonderful!” said Violet. “I’d love to try it.

  “Better not,” said Henry. “Let it dry overnight.”

  Then Jessie and Henry took turns with the trowel, and at last they all helped Benny with his own seat and the table.

  “Let’s make places for cups on the table,” said Violet. So when the cement on the table was soft and smooth she pressed a cup into it in five places. The mark made a wonderful saucer. The cup could not fall off.

  “Plates, too!” said Benny.

  With a stick he drew B for Benny, J for Jessie, V for Violet, H for Henry, and G for grandfather beside the plates.

  The cement was almost gone, but they took the bag back to the workmen and Henry paid the foreman for it. He gave back the hoe. They noticed that the black-eyed man was not there.

  “I’m glad,” said Benny as they drove back, “I don’t like him anyway.”

  “I wonder who he is,” said Mr. Alden.

  It was not too long before he found out.

  CHAPTER 4

  A Midnight Visitor

  It was delightful to sit on the beach that evening even though they could not use their new seats. The family sat there long after supper watching the sunset.

  Gulls flew overhead and landed on the rocks near by.

  Suddenly Henry said, “It’s queer how sleepy we get.”

  “It’s the sea air,” said Mr. Alden. “Go to bed anytime you want.”

  In fact, the whole family went to bed at nine o’clock and were asleep very soon after.

  The Conley town clock struck as it always did. Ten, eleven, twelve. And then Watch began to whine. His hair stood up along his back and around his neck. He began to howl.

  “No, Watch,” said Benny. “If you’re going to howl every night at midnight, you might as well go home. You’re no help to us.”

  But Watch went right on howling.

  “I wonder if someone is cooking in that little house,” said Henry.

  “No one’s there,” said Benny. “We would have heard him go crunch, crunch, crunch on those little stones.”

  “That house is all boarded up anyway,” said Jessie. “The door must be locked and the windows don’t open. Nobody could be in there.”

  “Someone might take off a board and get in a window,” said Henry. “Then he could put the board back every night. Tomorrow we’ll take a look.” Benny wanted to go right down. But just then Watch began to quiet down. He gave a last growl and went to sleep.

  “You’re a funny dog,” said Benny. “See that you keep still the rest of the night.”

  But it was not Watch who kept Jessie and Violet awake a little longer. When Jessie turned out her light she looked out of her window. In the moonlight she saw a woman walking quietly away. Her feet did not go crunch, crunch. She walked softly in the tall beach grass.

  Jessie called quietly to Violet. She came and looked out, too.

  “A woman!” she whispered. “What do you suppose she is doing here?”

  “She’s going away at least,” answered Jessie. “We certainly don’t need to get Benny down again. And Watch is quiet. Look, Violet. She is hiding behind those bushes before she goes up the street.”

  The street was empty. The stores were dark. Very soon the woman went quietly up the road and out of sight. The two girls went back to bed and fell asleep.

  About dawn Watch growled softly. But everyone was sleeping deeply. No one awoke.

  In the morning Jessie called everyone to breakfast out on the rocks.

  “I know my place,” said Benny, “on account of the B.”

  When everything was eaten, the girls told their strange story about the woman.

  Mr. Alden said, “I think we had better look that little house over. Everyone can help. Try each board to see if it is loose.”

  The Aldens began with the front windows and found everything tight. The door was locked. There was no loose window board. Watch trotted along quietly and did not bark.

  “It’s funny,” said Jessie, “that Watch doesn’t bark.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing for him to bark at now,” said Mr. Alden. “Certainly this house is shut tight.”

  “Hey! Look at this!” said Henry suddenly. He caught a sheet of paper that was blowing down to the sand. The paper was marked into little squares. There were numbers and strange letters in each. Sometimes there were question marks.

  “That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” said Jessie.

  “Me either,” agreed Henry. “But I think somebody is pretty clever. It looks like college science work, but I don’t understand it. It’s not in my studies so far.”

  “Just as if someone were testing something,” said Violet slowly. “Like an experiment.”

  “Exactly!” cried Henry. He smiled at his little sister. “But how does it fit in with cooking smells and your seeing a woman at night?”

  “Keep that paper, Henry,” said Mr. Alden as they went back to the rocks.

  Just then Violet spoke of the shells.

  “The beach is covered with them,” cried Benny

  He jumped off the rocks to the sand. “I know this one. It’s a clam shell, and this one is a scallop shell.”

  “Here’s a queer one,” said Jessie. “It has five toes.”

  “That’s a cat’s paw,” said Mr. Alden. “See how many kinds we can find.”

  Mr. Alden knew all about shells, as well as about birds and flowers.

  They found a snail shell, a slipper shell, and gold and silver colored shells. In all they found fourteen different kinds.

  “There’s plenty of seaweed here, too,” Benny said. “But who would want to collect that? Maybe that cross boy would find it interesting.”

  “This makes me think of Blue Bay,” said Violet, smiling. “We ate out of shells there.”

  “But this is safer for swimming than Blue Bay,” said Henry. “No sharks here.”

  Jessie said slowly, “It’s too bad we don’t have swim suits. I suppose four new suits would cost too much.”

  “No,” said her grandfather, “you need new ones anyway. And you mustn’t be on the beach and not go swimming.”

  “Maybe Mr. Hall has some suits,” Jessie went on. “He has almost everything.”

  She smiled to think of suits and groceries and everything else mixed together in the little store.

  They put their shells on the rock table and walked over to the store.

  “No,” said Mr. Hall, “I haven’t any swim suits. But there is a lady down the street who sells hats. She has suits, too. You’ll see the sign as you go out.”

  Benny said, “I saw the sign when I came in. It said ‘HATS’—and that’s where we go to buy bathing suits? That’s funny.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Hall with a laugh, “my sign says ‘GROCERIES’ and people come here to buy paint and wallpaper.”

  They went out of the store and down the street.

  The dock was near by and Benny pulled Henry over to see the boats. “Look at that one,” he said. “She’s a beauty. Her name’s Sea Cook II.”

  Henry said, “I guess a boat like that isn’t too big for one man to run. You’re right, Benny, she is a beauty.”

  Just then Jessie and Violet called to the boys. The girls were more interested in suits than boats. The boys saw Grandfather waiting with, the girls. Together the Aldens looked in the window of the hat shop. There were beautiful summer hats in the window—and one suit. It was blue.

  “There’s your suit, Jessie, if it fits,” said Henry. “Of course, Ben wants red.”

  “Right,” said Benny. “Red is my color.”

  The lady in the hat shop smiled to see the whole family coming in. She said her name was Mrs. Ross.

  Suddenly Henr
y looked out of the window. The black-eyed man was going by.

  “Do you know who that man is?” Henry asked.

  “Oh, yes, indeed. His name is Tom Cook.”

  “What does he do for a living?” asked Mr. Alden.

  “He’s really a fisherman. But sometimes the fishing is poor, so he works on odd jobs. They say he has made a fortune selling lobsters and renting houses to the summer people.”

  “He doesn’t look it, does he?” said Henry. “He looks poor.”

  “He saves his money,” said Mrs. Ross. “He won’t spend a cent. He has a fine boat and he won’t let his son use it, and his son is no little boy. He’s seventeen years old already.”

  An idea hit Benny, but he didn’t say anything aloud. The man was a Mr. Cook. That beautiful boat was the Sea Cook II. It must be the blackeyed man’s boat.

  Henry was thinking, too. That first day they had met Mr. Hall and rented the lighthouse—hadn’t he said a man named Cook had bought the summer kitchen? Maybe here was another clue.

  “Too bad,” said Jessie.

  “Yes, it’s too bad. The boy does use it, though. People say that he is always taking that boat out after dark. They say he has some fancy idea in his head. Nobody knows what it is. He always comes back carrying something. Sometimes it is a small thing like a jar, and sometimes a great big thing like a barrel. At least that’s what I’m told.”

  “I wonder what it is?” said Benny.

  “I haven’t the least idea,” said Mrs. Ross. “He goes way out. Out of sight. His father doesn’t know he takes the boat, though how the boy has kept him from finding out, I don’t know.”

  “I bet some day he’s going to find out,” said Benny. “Then there will be trouble.”

  “Trouble?” cried Mrs. Ross. “There’s enough trouble already in that house between Mr. Cook and his son. The mother stands up for the boy. The father will hardly speak to his own son.”

  “Why?” asked Mr. Alden.

  “Well, you see this boy is very smart. He finished high school at sixteen. He’s been just hanging around ever since. His father won’t let him work. Too proud. And the boy wants to go away to college. His father won’t let him.”