The Boxcar Children Mysteries Box Set

by Gertrude Warner

  “Oh, my!” said Benny. “That’s the cross boy we saw in the store, and the cross man with the black eyes is his father. That explains a lot, doesn’t it, Grandfather?”

  “Yes, Benny. Those two will always be in trouble unless we do something about it.”

  “Did you say ‘we’?” asked Henry in surprise.

  “Yes, we,” answered Mr. Alden with a smile.

  CHAPTER 5

  Little House with a Secret

  The Aldens went right back to their lighthouse with the new suits. They put them on at once and went out to their own little white beach.

  “Be careful now,” said Mr. Alden. “You don’t know this beach, and you must find out how deep the water is.”

  “Mr. Hall says it is very deep on the other side of the lighthouse,” said Henry. “But it is not over your head on this side. I asked him.”

  “I like it deep,” said Benny, swimming away.

  Every one of the Aldens could swim very well. Henry and Jessie could dive. But this was no place to dive. It was too rocky.

  The water was cool, but the day was hot. Mr. Alden sat in his own rock chair and watched the swimmers. They threw water and swam under water. Even Watch swam around, barking for fun.

  “You bark all you want to now, Watch,” said Violet, laughing. “Just keep still at midnight tonight.” She really had no idea that Watch would bark every single night.

  That night the family sat up late. It was dark when Benny went climbing up to his top floor. He put on light blue pajamas and went out on his little lookout. He sat down in a beach chair.

  Benny did not know that he showed up plainly in the moonlight in his light pajamas.

  He was looking at the stars. They looked very bright here because there were no street lights. Then one star moved. Soon Benny knew that it was not a star but a light on a boat. The boat was coming in. Suddenly the boat stopped and turned around and went out to sea again.

  “Well, well,” thought Benny. “Whoever he is, he changed his mind.”

  Ideas began to spin around in Benny’s head. He remembered what Mrs. Ross in the hat shop had said. He thought about seeing the Sea Cook at the dock.

  Then next he thought, “I wonder if he saw me from his boat. I bet he did. I bet it’s our Cook boy with his father’s boat. That boat is certainly a beauty.”

  Benny jumped up to turn out his light. He put on a dark coat and watched at the window. Very soon the boat turned around again and came in to the dock not far from the lighthouse. It looked like a man who jumped out. But Benny knew that the Cook boy was as big as a man. Benny watched him as he bent over his boat. He took out a pail.

  “A pail this time,” thought Benny. “I do wonder what is in it.”

  But he didn’t find out. The boy looked all around. The whole town had gone to bed. The boy took the pail and disappeared up the street. Benny went to bed. If he had watched a little longer he would have seen more. But he was soon asleep.

  At midnight Watch began to bark.

  “Oh, my, Watch!” cried Jessie. “I guess you are going to bark every night. But you’ll stop in about ten minutes. So bark away.”

  That is just what the dog did. He barked and howled for ten minutes and then he went back to sleep.

  Violet said, “You’re just like a baby, Watch! You wake us up every night crying.”

  Several hours later Watch growled softly but nobody heard.

  For the next few days no one was surprised to hear Watch bark during the night. No one got up. They knew Watch would bark for about ten minutes and then he would stop.

  But one morning Henry said, “I don’t like it, just the same.” He frowned. “The dog must hear something.”

  The girls said they had seen the woman again going away very quietly. She had a bag in her hand.

  Henry said, “I am going to find out why that woman comes here. I’m going to hunt all over this point of land.”

  “We’ll help you,” said Jessie.

  On the other side of the lighthouse, behind the little summer kitchen, there were enormous rocks. The land went downhill to the water. The young Aldens hunted over every inch of land to find some way to get into the house. They found nothing.

  Then Henry said, “Let’s look at those boards nailed over the windows. There must be a crack somewhere. Maybe we can see in.”

  They all looked up at the windows. “Do you see that board high up?” asked Jessie, pointing. “There’s a big crack there, but it’s too high to see through.”

  “Good for you, Jess,” said Henry. “I see what you mean. I am not tall enough, but Benny will be.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Violet, laughing a little. “You are much taller than Benny.”

  “Well, Ben,” said Henry, laughing, too, “I’ll bend over and you stand on my back and look through the crack.”

  “Oh, boy!” said Benny. He climbed up on Henry’s back like a monkey and stood up. He put his hands around his eyes and peeked in the crack.

  “I can see quite well,” Benny said, “because there is another big crack in the front door we didn’t find. Oh, somebody does cook here!” he shouted. “There is a stove and a frying pan on it. There are pails of water on the floor with something brown in the water. There’s a little microscope on the table. It’s no good. It’s too small. I bet it cost about three dollars. Then there are a lot of papers with little squares like the one we found. Books and other stuff, too.”

  “Good!” said Jessie in excitement. “See if you can tell what is in the pails.”

  “It’s seaweed,” cried Benny. “It’s all over the floor, and some is hanging over the edge of the kettle near the stove.”

  “What a queer thing,” said Violet. “I wonder what it all means.”

  “Certainly it means that somebody comes here at night and makes the dog bark,” said Henry.

  “That woman?” asked Jessie.

  “You sound funny, Henry, upside down,” said Benny. “There are plates and cups on the shelf and it looks like a bag of flour.”

  “Better get down now, Ben,” said Henry. “You are getting heavy.”

  Benny jumped down lightly.

  “There was one pail under the window I couldn’t see very well,” said Benny. “But it looked as if there’s something glowing in it.”

  “Glowing?” asked Henry. “What can that be? Wait a minute. Do you remember how we saw something glowing in the water near Blue Bay? It was plankton, I think.”

  “I bet it is,” said Benny. “We saw that under the microscope going to Blue Bay. All tiny fishes and eggs and things you can’t see.”

  “That’s what the microscope here is for,” said Henry slowly. “To study the plankton and seaweed.”

  “We don’t know much more than we did,” said Jessie. “We just know someone—a woman—comes to work here every night. I suppose it could be some kind of hobby.”

  “But the woman comes at midnight and goes away in ten minutes,” put in Benny. “How does that fit in? Nobody can do much in ten minutes.”

  Henry said, “It seems to me there is no danger from someone who studies seaweed. Maybe the person’s afraid of something.”

  “Isn’t it strange, Henry?” asked Violet. “You said there’s a stove there, and we’ve smelled something cooking at night.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Henry, thinking. “I have heard that seaweed could be food for cows and horses and pigs. But they won’t eat it. It tastes awful.”

  “Wait!” said Benny. “I saw something else. I saw some bags on the shelf. They looked like bags of flour and sugar. There were others with no labels.”

  “Now what do you think those are for?” asked Violet.

  “Maybe someone is trying to make seaweed taste good,” said Jessie, half joking about the thought. “Well, let’s go. Grandfather may have some ideas.”

  Mr. Alden heard the strange story. And he did have a small idea. “I was talking to Mr. Hall about the Cook boy, and he says he often sle
eps all the morning.”

  “Well,” said Jessie, “you remember Mrs. Ross told us the Cook boy takes his father’s boat out at night. That’s why he sleeps days.”

  Suddenly Benny said, “Am I dumb! I had a clue and I didn’t fit it with the others. I was thinking about a woman in the summer kitchen because that’s all we have seen.”

  He stopped, but Henry said, “Go on.”

  Benny asked, “You remember when I thought I saw the Cook boy get out of his father’s boat and carry a pail away? I thought he went off up the street. I bet if I had watched I would have seen him come back into the summer kitchen. That Cook boy and the woman have something to do with our mystery.”

  Henry said, “That paper with the squares that looked like a college experiment could belong to the Cook boy. If he is coming around here at night, that explains how we found it here.”

  “Maybe we ought to put that paper back through the window, Henry,” said Benny. “The Cook boy may need it.”

  “No, Ben,” said Henry. “If we put it back, he will know that someone has been there. And it isn’t time yet to tell him that. We have to make friends with him first. Then we can tell him we’d like to know more about what he is doing.”

  “And how in the world are we going to make friends with that cross boy? I should like to know,” said Benny. “He doesn’t want friends. He said so.”

  “Maybe he did say so,” agreed Henry. “But I think he does want friends, even if he doesn’t know it himself.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Well Done for Benny

  Let’s have a picnic,” said Violet after the Aldens had made as many guesses as they could about what went on in the summer kitchen.

  “We have a picnic every meal, I should say,” said Benny. “We always eat outdoors on our own rocks.”

  “Well, I mean a real picnic,” said Violet, “with a fire and hamburgers.”

  “Good for you, Violet,” said Henry, smiling. “I’m all for it. You mean a real cook-out.”

  “I don’t want hamburgers this time. I want frankfurters,” said Benny.

  “You can have two if you want. Or three,” said Jessie. “And this time let’s get a real fire going and not be in a hurry. It cooks better when it has burned down.”

  They went to the store and bought long rolls, big sweet pickles, and brownies as well as the meat. They left Watch outside.

  Suddenly they heard him bark.

  “Oh, boy,” said Benny. “He’s barking just the way he does in the night.”

  They all rushed out and Jessie called, “Stop it, Watch! Come here!”

  Then they saw that he was barking at the Cook boy.

  “He won’t bite,” said Jessie. She smiled at the boy. “He just barks.”

  Watch came to Jessie when she called, but he still growled in his throat. Violet could see that the boy did not like this.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of Watch,” she said. “He’s a very gentle dog. He would never bite anybody.”

  “I bet he would, though,” said the boy, “if anyone tried to hurt you kids.”

  He went quickly down the street and Watch still growled. No one had time to say anything more to the boy.

  “Now that is very funny,” said Benny. “Watch did bark just exactly as he does at night. I bet that Cook boy is the one who is cooking seaweed.”

  Jessie laughed. “You said once that somebody was cooking up something. And it turned out to be true. It’s the Cook boy!”

  “Now I’m sure of it,” said Henry quietly. “There aren’t very many people in Conley who would be smart enough or interested enough to make those figures on that squared paper. The question is, what is he trying to do? And how does a woman fit into the puzzle?”

  “Well, we can’t do anything about it now,” said Benny. “Let’s go on with our picnic.”

  “Is this picnic going to be lunch or supper, Violet?”

  “Oh, lunch! We couldn’t wait for supper, now we are all set.”

  The Aldens went down on the beach and picked up dry sticks of all sizes. Henry and Benny made a fireplace of stones. They put the sticks in the hole with papers and dry seaweed.

  “No danger of fire here on the sand,” said Henry. “We. have the whole ocean to put it out.”

  At last the fire burned down to hot coals. It was hard to wait, but they did.

  Jessie gave Benny a long straight fork to cook his frankfurter on. He stuck the frankfurter on the end and put it over the fire. He had no sooner done this than the frankfurter slipped off.

  “Look at your frankfurter, Ben!” cried Henry. “It’s in the fire!”

  “Oh, so it is,” cried Benny. He stuck his fork in again and lifted it out. The frankfurter was burning on one side.

  “I like it burned,” he said. He blew out the fire.

  “But not burned up,” said Mr. Alden, laughing. As he spoke, plop! went the frankfurter again.

  “Do you want me to help you, Benny?” asked Jessie laughing, too.

  “No, indeed! Thank you! If I can’t cook a frankfurter, I’m a monkey.”

  “Well, I guess you’re a monkey then,” teased Henry, “for there goes your frankfurter.”

  Benny picked it up again. “You stay on!” he said to the frankfurter.

  “Watch out, Ben! Ooops! There she goes!” cried Henry. He couldn’t help laughing. The poor frankfurter was black all over.

  This time just as Benny was putting it on the fork it slipped off again—swoosh!

  “This time I’ll hold my fork the other way,” said Benny. His face was red with the hot fire. “I guess I can eat my own cooking.”

  He put the frankfurter into a roll and began to eat it. “Delicious!” he said, chewing happily.

  “Please don’t eat it, Ben,” Henry begged. “You can have another and maybe it won’t slip off. You can put it on our grill this time.”

  “No,” said Benny. “No grill for me. I have to put it on a long fork. That’s the way to cook a frankfurter.”

  “What does it taste like, Ben?” asked Henry, laughing.

  “Coal,” said Benny. “Delicious coal.”

  “Maybe charcoal,” said Violet. “That’s what it really is. I hope you’ll try another one and have a decent lunch.”

  Benny was standing up on a rock eating brownies. He looked toward the street. There was the Cook boy going past.

  “Hi!” shouted Benny. “Hello!”

  The boy did answer. It was a very gruff hello. Then he went along.

  Henry said thoughtfully, “It might be that he’s more afraid than cross—afraid someone will stop his secret work.”

  Benny jumped down. “You know I think that Cook boy would like to come and eat with us. But he would never do it. I saw his face before he saw me. He looked as if he wished he could eat at our picnic.”

  “Very likely you are right,” said Mr. Alden. “Maybe you can get to be friends little by little.”

  But as it turned out, something happened suddenly—not little by little.

  CHAPTER 7

  Baked Beans and Chowder

  Henry went to the store to get the paper. He nearly bumped into the Cook boy coming out. The angry look on his face kept Henry from even trying to say hello.

  “What’s up now?” Henry wondered. Then he forgot about the boy because a sign on the store door said:

  VILLAGE SUPPER. JULY 25TH.

  Henry said to Mr. Hall, “What’s this supper on the twenty-fifth?”

  Mr. Hall sat down and said, “Oh, every July this village has a chowder supper outdoors. Everybody in town comes. We have chowder and baked beans, hot rolls and coffee, pies and cakes. It costs one dollar.”

  “It sounds good,” said Hendry. “Can anybody come?”

  “Oh, yes. We want all the money we can get. We are trying to put in street lights. This year I think we will do it. All the tickets will be sold in one day. Everybody wants to come.”

  “I had better buy five tickets now,” said Henry. “M
y family will all love to come.”

  “Here you are,” said Mr. Hall. He gave Henry five tickets. “I’ll tell you something else, too. You’ll be surprised. Guess who makes the chowder and coffee and baked beans? Larry Cook! You see he isn’t all bad. He does this every year. He loves to cook.”

  “Imagine that,” said Henry. “I wouldn’t think it.”

  “No, that Larry Cook is a surprise in many ways.”

  “Well, so he is,” said Henry, thinking. “I met him as I came into the store. He seemed crosser than ever.”

  “Want to know why?” asked Mr. Hall. “Every year two summer people come up and help him. This year they sent word they can’t come. That’s why Larry is crosser than ever. He can’t do this alone with such a big crowd. Everybody else is busy making pies.”

  “I wonder if we could help him?” said Henry. “We would do just as he said. Maybe that would cheer him up.”

  “I’m sure it would. Your family would be a big help.”

  Henry went home with the tickets and the paper and the news. Everyone wanted to help Larry.

  “I think Mr. Hall will tell him what I said,” said Henry. “But if we meet him, we’ll tell him, too.”

  “I heard something new about Larry’s father,” said Benny. “He is night watchman sometimes at the shipyard. So off and on he is busy all night. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t know his boat is gone.”

  Later that day the Aldens walked over to the dock. They met Larry. He went by them with a gruff hello.

  Benny said, “Wait a minute, Larry. Would you like some help with your supper? We can peel onions and potatoes, and we all know how to get clams out of the shells.”

  “Do you?” asked Larry. He almost smiled. “There will sure be a lot of clams. I can’t do it alone.”

  “Then we can help?” asked Benny.

  “Yes, I’d be glad of your help,” said Larry.

  “Grandfather will help, too,” said Jessie. “He is fine at getting out clams.”

  “Well, well!” said Larry. “I never thought Mr. Alden would be working for me, that’s sure. You come around at nine Saturday morning, and we’ll all get to work.”