The Trail of the Green Doll

by Margaret Sutton

  CHAPTER IX A Strange Mistake

  Excited squeals and whispers came from the back seat. Everything wassuddenly magic, even the rain. It was really coming down now. Thechildren could hardly see the ruins of the big dam as they passed it.Judy said something about it, but they were no longer interested inanything but the magic that now had them in its spell.

  Judy and Mrs. Riker and the children were all in the back seat. It hadgrown a little uncomfortable with Penny and Paul bouncing from onewindow to the other and finding magic in everything.

  Both children now took it for granted that the magician had made thetrees talk. The matter was all settled in their minds, but not inJudy’s.

  “There are two kinds of magic,” she told them. “I like the natural kindbest. Even that voice you’re talking about could have been the wind.Sometimes it does make a funny moaning noise when the trees are bare andthe branches swing against each other.”

  “Now, Judy, you know it wasn’t,” Honey objected from her place in frontbeside Horace. “The wind wasn’t blowing as hard as it is now, and thesetrees aren’t talking—”

  “So they aren’t!” Horace commented as if the whole thing was nothing buta big joke.

  They were driving through a thickly wooded section. A rabbit ran acrossthe road, and the children squealed and nearly let Blackberry leap outof the car after it. Then Paul said something about how clever themagician had been to make a puppy jump out of his hat.

  “I didn’t get my wish yet,” Paul added, “but I can wait for it.”

  “I got mine,” Penny whispered, “but I’m not telling what it was.”

  Still deeper in the woods they came suddenly into a cleared place wherea number of deer had taken shelter under a big pine tree. They stoodmotionless for a moment and then vanished into a thicket.

  “That’s what I mean about natural magic,” Judy pointed out. “Those deervanished under their own power—no tricks!”

  “I never saw deer except in the zoo,” Paul said gravely. “I’ll bet thatmagician couldn’t make a deer jump out of his hat.”

  “You’re funny,” giggled Penny.

  She and Paul were city children. Judy was seeing sights that werecommonplace to her through their wondering eyes. If they did return withher, she’d have to let them ride Ginger and watch as she milked Daisy.That would seem like magic to them.

  “The talking tree was magic,” Penny insisted. “Anne says it told her andMuriel to run, but I only heard it whisper. If I listen again, maybe itwill tell me a secret.”

  “I heard nothing but the wind,” Paul said. “Is this the road to UnclePaul’s house? It doesn’t look like a millionaire’s estate.”

  “It hasn’t been very well cared for,” Mrs. Riker agreed. “You used to beable to see the top of the house from here. And where’s the gate?”

  “I just drove through it,” Horace replied. “It was standing wide open.”

  “Uncle Paul never allowed it to be left open. Something must be wrong,”Mrs. Riker exclaimed.

  “Something is wrong!” exclaimed Judy. “That forest fire did spread. Thegrounds are all burned over. What a shame!”

  “It may not be as bad as you think. There seems to be something upahead,” observed Horace, peering through the windshield. “You can hardlysee it for the rain. Or is it smoke that makes everything so hazy?”

  “I smell wood burning,” Honey began. But Paul interrupted with a shout.

  “That must be the house! I can see the steps going up to it. Oh, please,stop the car and let me run up first and tell Uncle Paul who we are!”

  “Wait, Paul, wait!” cried his mother, as Horace pulled up at the side ofthe road.

  But the boy was already out of the car with Penny after him. Blackberryran ahead of them up the steps at the top of which was a stout oak doorwith stonework all around it and a tall, grim statue looming up besidethe entrance. Suddenly Judy recognized it from a picture she had seen ofthe Hindu god, Shiva. But before she could tell Paul it was not a housebut a vault that he had discovered, he was knocking loudly on the door.

  Paul knocked loudly on the door]

  “I don’t really think anyone will answer you,” Judy called. And for somereason it seemed suddenly funny.

  “Good heavens!” Honey exclaimed when she saw what it was.

  “My sentiments exactly,” agreed Horace. “What a weird place to build atomb!”

  “That’s Shiva, the Destroyer, beside the entrance. And look!” Judygasped. “There’s been plenty of destruction. You can see that a houseonce stood over there, but it’s been burned to the ground!”