The Red Trailer Mystery (21 page)

Jimmy Crow broke the silence with a loud, hoarse “Caw” of disgust and flew away, flapping his wings, to the top of a tall maple tree. He glared down at them jealously as Trixie and Honey and Jim all began talking at once.

It was bedlam.

“It sure is good to see you girls again—”

“Oh, Jim, my father went to school with your father—”

“You don’t have to worry about Jonesy any more, Jim, because Mr. Rainsford—”

And then Joeanne chimed in, making the confusion even worse.

“I saw you riding down a road on horseback and hid in the woods—”

At last Jim held up his hand for silence. “One at a time, puh-leeze,” he commanded. “And is there any reason why we can’t have a second breakfast in Mrs. Smith’s nice sunny kitchen while we talk?”

“Wonderful,” Trixie cried. “She’s such a darling I know she’ll love hearing every word we say.”

In a few minutes Mrs. Smith was scrambling eggs, to which she added chunks of yellow cheese. As usual, she dominated the conversation.

“Now mind you,” she admonished Honey who hadn’t had a chance to utter a complete sentence since all four of them had gathered around the big kitchen table. “Nobody told me in so many words that Joeanne was a boy, nor did anyone come right out and tell me that they were brothers.” She poured a cup of cream into the mixture and stirred vigorously. “I thought it was simpler to jump to conclusions, and ask no questions, with help as hard to get as it is. Now Nat, only last night, said to me, ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘they are no more brothers than you and I are. Brother and
sister
, maybe, but they resemble each other about as much as that pet crow of yours resembles a peacock.’

“ ‘My pet crow, indeed,’ I said, changing the subject because I knew as well as Nat did that the little one here was a girl and that somebody had done a clumsy job of hacking off her hair.” Her black eyes twinkled at Jim. “I’ll give you a few lessons in barbering before you go, boy. You’re handy around a farm, I won’t deny, but you’d never get a job in a beauty parlor.” She ran one hand through Joeanne’s thick, roughly cropped hair. “Reminds me of the mess Mr. Darnell’s mane was until I took shears and razor to him!”

Joeanne gulped and started to say something but Jim broke in sheepishly, “Ah, I didn’t want to hack off her pigtails, Mrs. Smith, and we didn’t plan to fool you—not that we did. When I found the poor kid crying in the woods not far from my camp, half of her hair was tangled in a bramble bush and she couldn’t get loose. I
had
to chop her free.”

Joeanne nodded. “And then I looked so funny with only one braid and I’d lost both hair ribbons by then, so I made him chop off the other pigtail.” She smiled across the table at Trixie and Honey. “If I hadn’t hurried into the thicket to hide from you, my hair wouldn’t have got snarled in the brambles. I was afraid you’d take me to an orphan asylum, and I wanted to find Daddy and Mommy.” Tears welled up in her big black eyes. “It was awful of me to run away and leave Mommy with the babies to take care of, but when Sally took your puppy I couldn’t stand it any longer.” She folded her arms on the table and buried her face in the crook of one elbow. “Daddy’s not a thief, I tell you. He’s
not!
”

“There, there,” Mrs. Smith said, gathering the thin little shoulders into her arms. “Nobody said he was, lambie, and you mustn’t worry any more. Everything will turn out all right, just wait and see.”

She glared defiantly at Jim, who hadn’t the vaguest idea of what she was talking about. “Do you take
Nathaniel Smith for a fool?” she demanded belligerently. “I’m the one who takes in every stray tramp, dog, boy, girl, and crow that taps at my door and I ask no questions. Although I must say for myself I do know a man’s daughter when I see her, especially when she’s the spit and image of her old man as this one is.”

Jim’s green eyes popped. “Are you telling me, Mrs. Smith, that you know Joeanne’s father?”

“Know him?” Mrs. Smith roared. “Didn’t I feed him three helpings of kidney stew only night before last in this very kitchen? And Nat insisting that I had nourished a viper until I made him walk to the gas station and telephone this very morning and check with the police on the license plates of that borrowed trailer. ‘Stolen,’ says Nat; ‘Borrowed,’ says I. So I sent him right back to the gas station to call Mr. Lynch himself. And what does he tell Nat? ‘The Darnells?’ he asks. ‘Why, they’re my very good neighbors. Please tell them they’re welcome to the use of the
Robin
for as long as they like.’ ”

She chuckled triumphantly. “I would have called the man myself if our phone wasn’t as dead as a doornail since the heavy rain yesterday.”

Joeanne raised her face and her eyes were starry now. “Then my father didn’t steal that trailer, Mrs. Smith? He only borrowed it just as Mommy said?”

“Of course, lamb,” Mrs. Smith assured her. “And even if he had stolen it, you had no business running away. If you were mine, I’d take the back of a hairbrush to you, and I may yet, but not until there’s more meat on your bones.”

It was so obvious that Mrs. Smith was probably incapable of even swatting a fly that everyone seated around the table burst into laughter.

When Jim sobered, he said, “So your phone was out of order. Every time I got a chance I’ve been trying to call police headquarters, but I thought that buzzing sound meant somebody was on the line.”

“And what were you going to call the police about?” Mrs. Smith demanded as she heaped the egg and cheese mixture on plates and filled four tall glasses with thick, creamy milk.

Jim looked embarrassed, and Honey broke in quickly, “I knew you’d do it, Jim, or at least try to. After you let the air out of the tire and hid the jack—”

“It doesn’t matter now, anyway,” Trixie interrupted. “Joeanne’s father notified the police, Jim, and we were hiding in the old barn when the troopers arrested Jeff and Al.”

Jim stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “You girls certainly get around.” He grinned. “I suppose
the whereabouts of Joeanne’s family at the moment is no mystery to you, either.”

“It isn’t,” Trixie told him tartly. “And as soon as we’ve finished eating Mrs. Smith out of house and home, we’re going to take Joeanne there, all three of us.”

“Not me,” Jim said. “I’ve got beans to pick and then I’m off again. I plan to hit the road tonight.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Mrs. Smith boomed at the top of her lungs. “The very idea! Going away just when I’ve grown to love you like one of my seven sons.” She patted her album locket. “Nat’s baby picture will have to come out, and I’ll put one of you in its place, Jim Frayne.”

Jim’s face turned white and the freckles stood out on the bridge of his nose. “Then—you—know—who I am?” he muttered under his breath.

“And why not?” Mrs. Smith sank down in her rocker. “I may be fat but I can still read the newspapers, and if I remember correctly there was a story on the front page about a missing heir just a week ago today. The nephew of one James Winthrop Frayne of Sleepyside, I recall. It is none of my business why you want to run away from half a million dollars, but when you knocked on my back door asking for work and I ask you your name, and you say, ‘Call me Win,’ and I say,
‘Short for Winthrop?’ and you nod that red head of yours, what else can I think but that you didn’t get burned alive in that fire?”

She stopped for breath and Honey said, “It’s all right, Jim. You haven’t anything to worry about.”

He acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “Half a million dollars,” he repeated dazedly. “Then Trixie was right.” His mouth widened into a smile. “Why, I can even buy my freedom from Jonesy with that much money. I’ll take enough to see me through college and he can have the rest.”

“Indeed, he can’t,” Trixie broke in. “He won’t see one cent of it. Mr. Rainsford, who’s the executor of your great-uncle’s estate, has already made arrangements to appoint another guardian.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that Honey hoped her parents would adopt him, but before she could begin, heavy feet clumped up the steps to the door.

On the other side of the screen was the tallest and thinnest man Trixie had ever seen. “Well, I found him, Mary,” Farmer Nathaniel Smith said as he walked into the kitchen. Right behind him was Joeanne’s father. He looked so different with his closely cropped hair that Trixie would never have recognized him if Joeanne hadn’t screamed, “Daddy!”

Joeanne jumped out of her chair, knocking it over and spilling her milk at the same time. Mr. Darnell, his face wreathed in smiles, pushed by Farmer Smith and gathered his daughter into his arms.

“It took you long enough,” Mrs. Smith told her husband, trying hard to keep back the tears as she watched Joeanne clinging to her father.

The tall, thin man folded himself tiredly into a straight-back chair. “Tramped every inch of the woods on both sides of the road,” he said in a monotone. “Found the camp where Win here was hiding out before he came to work for us. You were right about him too, Mary. Saw his name on a christening mug under the blanket on his bunk.”

Mrs. Smith rocked back and forth placidly. “We’ve been married thirty years,” she told Honey and Trixie, “and yet it never fails to surprise Nat when I’m right. Go on, lamb,” she urged her husband. “Where did you finally find the Darnells?”

“I followed the stream by Win’s camp,” Mr. Smith
continued, “and then I heard a dog barking. Sounded as though it came from Frog Hollow and sure enough, it did. In a few minutes more I saw the
Robin
in a clearing and Mr. Darnell himself in the tow car, ready to drive away.” He sighed. “If I’d been delayed sixty seconds I would have lost the best man I ever hired.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Mr. Darnell said quietly, still holding Joeanne close to him. “I was on my way over here to ask you if you’d take me back after I’d returned Mr. Lynch’s trailer.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Joeanne cried, “are we going to live with the Smiths? Please, Daddy, I’d rather live here than anywhere else in the world.”

Mrs. Smith dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. “I declare,” she said to her husband. “The Lord is certainly looking out for us. Here I was counting on three children to fill up those empty bedrooms and now we’re going to have five. Jim Frayne’s going to stay on too, Nat. You tell him he has to, although what use he’ll have here for half a million dollars is more than I can say.” She turned on Jim, scolding to disguise her fear that he might not stay. “If you must go to college, I suppose you must, but you’ll earn your bed and board vacation-time, I can tell you. There’ll be no lying abed in this house, even on Christmas Day, what with snow to
be shoveled and logs to be cut and corn to be popped for four little hungry children.”

Jim’s green eyes were misty as he grinned at Mrs. Smith. “I’ll be here my very first Christmas vacation,” he promised, “and Thanksgiving too, if you’ll have me.”

At that Honey burst into tears. “I want him for my brother,” she wailed unashamedly. “You don’t need him, Mrs. Smith, not with all the Darnells. But I haven’t anybody.”

Mr. Smith came to the rescue. “There, there,” he said soothingly. “Pay no attention to Mary. She’s never satisfied no matter how many blessings the good Lord bestows on her. Seven sons of her own she has, and five grandsons. I must say I’d like to have young Frayne stay with us, but if you have other plans for him, so be it.”

Trixie could not help laughing at the way people were calmly arranging Jim’s life for him. He winked at her and stood up. “It’s dry enough now to work in the garden. Let’s all go pick beans.”

“We’ll do nothing of the kind.” Mrs. Smith bristled. “If Mr. Darnell will kindly go and get the rest of his family I’ll try to scrape up enough food for a party. We’ll have a celebration this very afternoon, beans or no beans. I never cared for them anyway, nasty tasteless things unless drowned in fresh butter.”

“Get to your baking, Mary,” Mr. Smith said mildly. “I can finish the beans myself. Win—I mean, Jim—did so much yesterday morning there’s hardly a bushel left on the vines.”

“I’d like to finish the job, sir,” Jim said, but Mr. Smith waved him away.

“These girls,” he said in his flat, expressionless voice, “would like to have you to themselves, I think, for a little while anyway. Come back for tea, all of you, but right now let’s clear out the kitchen. Mary likes to be alone when she bakes.”

Mrs. Smith was already yanking pie tins out of a corner cupboard, and did not seem to notice when the others filed out the back door.

Mr. Smith headed for the garden, and Mr. Darnell and Joeanne started down the driveway toward the macadam road. Trixie grabbed Jim’s hand.

“Come on,” she cried, “we’ll cut through the orchard and the fields to Autoville. I can’t wait to show you to Miss Trask and telephone Mr. Rainsford that we found you.”

“I still can’t believe it.” Honey sighed as she hurried along on the other side of Jim. “Now, if only Mother—”

“Sh-h,” Trixie stopped her. “Let’s not talk about that now. I want to hear what Jim’s been doing since he left the mansion.”