The Mystery at Bob-White Cave (12 page)

Back of the kitchen, a cold cellar was built into the hillside. Inside were shelves of canned meat, fruits, vegetables, preserves, catsup, and pickles. There were jars of sweet butter and crocks of milk. Bins held diminished stores of apples, gourds, carrots, and beets from last summer’s garden, still cool and quite fresh.

The fire had only singed the porch, but it had blackened the floor and cracked the windows. Later the boys and Uncle Andrew would paint the floor and repair the windows.
If Linnie wants us to,
Trixie thought,
we can show her something we learned from those Four-H girls in Iowa—how to paint cans, fill them with flowers
,
and have hanging baskets all around this veranda.

In the living room the walls were pasted over with pictures from calendars. The fire had not reached the inside, but Linnie said, “I wish I could paint these walls. I’d love to have smooth walls like the ones in the lodge.”

“That won’t take long,” Trixie said briskly. “That is, if you can find the right kind of paint. Let’s go over to the lodge and see what’s there. I know there’s some of the soft pine-colored paint that Uncle Andrew used inside his place.”

“I’d love that!” Linnie said.

They found far more paint than they would need and brought old newspapers with which to cover the floor while they painted. Soon all three were brushing busily at the walls.

“The paint has a latex base, and it’ll be dry before your mother can even get over here to look at it,” Trixie said.

“She’s out telling your uncle and Mr. Hawkins and the boys what the chicken house has to have. She won’t be in here for a long time. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you ever saw?” Linnie, brush in hand, stood off to look at a finished wall. “Even those old lace curtains’ll look better when we put them back up.”

“Would you like other curtains better, maybe some like those I made for Mr. Belden’s living room?” Honey asked. “If you would, I think there’s some material left. They’d be a little skimpy, but they’d look better sill-length in here, anyway.”

“That beautiful flowered material?” Linnie’s eyes glowed. “Mama won’t mind nearly so much having her flowers burned up if she can have flowers inside the house. I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like.”

“All right. If you and Trixie will paint the bedroom after you get through here, I’ll get going on the curtains. It won’t take long. They only have to be hemmed at the top and bottom. I’ll measure the windows, then run over to the machine in our room at the lodge, and I’ll have the curtains finished in a jiffy.”

It was lunchtime before they knew it, and the girls followed Mr. Hawkins, Uncle Andrew, and the boys to the big kitchen table.

As Mrs. Moore went around the table pouring coffee, Bill Hawkins asked, “How’s Slim turning out as a guide?”

Mart snorted, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Uncle Andrew told Bill the whole story.

“That looks pretty bad,” their neighbor said. “If you’ll remember, I wasn’t too sure about him. He’s one of a big family, and his father and older brothers don’t amount to a hill of beans. They’re downright ornery. When they moved out of the mountains, Slim stayed behind. He always was a strange one, but I didn’t think he was downright bad. Maybe he took to drinkin’ moonshine or runnin’ with some wild ones way back in the hills. If he set that fire, it won’t take long for the men around here to take care of him.”

“That’s just why I don’t want to mention his name.

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t either, Bill. I want Sam Owens to bring him in for a fair trial.”

“You’re a juster man than I am,” Bill Hawkins said. “He didn’t act fair settin’ that fire.”

“I’m not certain that he did it, especially after what you told me about the stranger over at the ghost cabin.”

“But Slim might have been tryin’ to get revenge on you for firin’ him.”

“It sounds logical,” Uncle Andrew agreed, “but I intend to get the truth. There’s been hanging done in these parts before when people weren’t sure. I’m not going to be a party to such a thing now. Right at this minute, first things first. We’ll get the work done here, and then I’ll talk to the sheriff and see what he says.”

“Have it your way. Feelin’ flares up quick in the Ozark hills.”

Uncle Andrew didn’t say any more about Slim to Bill. “Your chicken house is up,” he told Mrs. Moore. “All it needs now is a door to shut out animals that have a yen for chickens and eggs. Shall we get at Martha’s shed now, boys?”

After they had gone, Mrs. Moore shooed the girls out of the kitchen. “I have to get things in order for dinner, and I’ll do the dishes at the same time. Don’t wear yourselves out over there at my cabin. I’m just so thankful it didn’t burn that I’ll not mind the cleaning up.”

“Don’t come over till we tell you, Mama!” Linnie Warned. “We’ve got the most wonderful surprise!”

Linnie and Trixie finished painting the bedroom walls, then went back into the living room to hang some pictures. For her mother’s Christmas present, Linnie had made a frame of hickory wood for her father’s portrait. They hung it over the fireplace.

“I wish we had some of that pottery I saw at White Hole Springs,” Trixie said, “the kind that’s made here in the mountains.”

“I have two vases in my hope chest in our bedroom,” Linnie said. “I made them at school. I’ll go and get them. Maybe you’d like to see my marriage quilts and other things Mama and I made,” she added shyly.

“I’d love to. Heavens, you surely are getting ready for your wedding in plenty of time, aren’t you?”

“It takes so long to make quilts. Don’t you have a hope chest?”

Trixie shook her head. “I wouldn’t have any idea about how to make a quilt. I guess Honey would, but I’m sure she hasn’t started a hope chest, either.”

“Every girl in the mountains has one,” Linnie said proudly, and she threw back the top of the wooden box. “This is my Wedding Ring quilt. This is the Ozark Star. That’s only
two
quilts, and I should have at least six. I have some hooked rugs, too. See, Trixie!”

“They’re beautiful, Linnie. Could we use the rugs in the living room right now? The dark green color of the floor would be a perfect background.”

Linnie nodded, pleased.

“Then we’ll put your darling terra-cotta vases on the mantel against the soft pine color we painted the walls. Let’s try it! I can’t wait!”

“All right. First I want to show you my dream.” Linnie reached under some embroidered pillowcases, brought out a school catalog, and opened it for Trixie to see.

“It’s a catalog from the School of the Ozarks over at Point Lookout,” she said. “Oh, Trixie, that’s where I’m going to high school next year.”

“And leave here?”

Linnie nodded. “Mama and I are going to Point Lookout soon to see the school and make arrangements. It’s a far piece over there. It’s the most beautiful school. See the picture of the dormitory where I’m going to live?” Linnie turned a page. “It doesn’t cost some students one cent of money to go there.”

“It doesn’t cost anything?”

“Not if you have no money but a whole lot of ambition. Of course, now that Mama is earning money working for your uncle, she can pay some, but they’d have taken me, anyway. They said so. I just need my eighth grade diploma from Turkey Hollow School. My teacher told me about the School of the Ozarks. It’s where she went to school, and she thinks it’s really wonderful.”

Linnie’s words fell over one another. “Everyone who goes there works. They all help maintain the buildings. They work with the cattle. They work in the dairy and make the ice cream they use in the dining room. They plow, cultivate the fields, and do everything that needs doing.”

“What about the indoor work?”

“They wash clothes, make beds, help with the cooking, take care of sick people... everything... just about everything.”

“How can they study and do all that work at the same time?”

“It’s wonderfully planned. Everybody starts at seven o’clock in the morning, and they work and go to school till dinner time, six o’clock. You don’t mind working when everyone else is working. My teacher said she just loved the school. Now they have a junior college, too. I want to be a teacher. Of course, I’ll have to go to the University of Missouri before I can do that. But I may have a chance to get a scholarship.”

“Where do they get the money to keep it up?”

“From people everywhere, people who give pennies and people who give thousands of dollars. I never dreamed I’d ever have a chance to go to such a school, much less to college. I intend to work hard for that scholarship. It means everything in the world to me.”

“I just know you’ll win it!” Trixie said positively. “Won’t your mother be proud of you! She’ll—jeepers, Linnie, she’ll be over here before we finish! Here’s Honey with the curtains. Let’s hurry.”

The little room was transformed by the flowered draperies, hooked rugs, colorful bits of pottery, and newly painted walls.

“Those splint-bottomed chairs look so pretty in here,” Trixie said as she stood off and looked at the room. “And the hickory tables, too. We’ll help you make some cushions later, so the chairs’ll be more comfortable. You have such good taste, Linnie. It’s a dear little house.”

“You and Honey have made it that way.”

“Oh, no, we didn’t. All the ideas were yours. We just helped.”

“I know Mama’ll think it’s just beautiful,” Linnie said, gazing about the room dreamily.

She did. She thought it was so beautiful that she cried. Then they all laughed because each one of them had tears in her eyes.

“Rest now,” Mrs. Moore said. “Bill Hawkins has gone home, and the boys and your uncle are stretched out on the lawn. You girls rest. There’s time before dinner. The chicken house is rebuilt. So is Martha’s shed. Shem and Japheth can wait for their shed.”

“I wish we knew how that fire started,” Trixie said as they went out the door. “Slim is mean enough and cruel enough to have done it. When the boys ran him out after he did that terrible thing to the bats in the cave, he looked so vicious—as though he’d like to murder all of us. He’s the only person I can think of who’d be wicked enough to start the fire.”

“Yes, but I keep thinking about that ghost cabin,” Honey said.

“That is a mystery. If it hadn’t been for Slim’s meanness, we’d have all the specimens we need right now to get that reward. Specimens!” Trixie cried. “Gosh! I forgot all about them. Mrs. Moore, do you suppose we’d have time before dinner to row over to the cave and check on them? They might have suffocated or starved in that bucket.”

They were walking across to the lodge as Trixie was, talking. Jim overheard what she said about the fish and jumped to his feet. “It won’t take more than a jiff to give them the once-over,” he said. “Come on, gang.”

The Bob-Whites hurried down to the boat.

Uncle Andrew had just settled down with his before-dinner pipe, when he heard Trixie shouting as she hurried up the hill from the lake.

“It’s gone!” she said as she burst into the living room. “The fish is gone. The crayfish is gone. Even the bait bucket that held them is gone. That Slim has been there! He wasn’t satisfied to burn down everything. He had to steal our fish, too.”

Uncle Andrew laid his pipe on the table. “Did you
see
him take the fish?”

“No,” Trixie answered, exasperated, “but, Uncle Andrew, we saw him going around the bend in a boat. That Englishman, Mr. Glendenning, was with him. If you look down there between the trees, you can still see their boat—see? It’s pulling in at the foot of the ghost cabin. Now can we put Slim in jail? He’s been trespassing in Bob-White Cave and stealing things that belong to us.”

“I’ll see about it tomorrow,” Uncle Andrew said. “Oh, my beautiful fish!” Trixie wailed. “I
hate
to wait till tomorrow to try to get it back!”

Search After Dark ● 12

SOMETHING SCRATCHED against the window outside. Trixie, in her bunk next to Honey’s, sat up straight, listened, and heard it again. “It’s nothing but an old branch rubbing against the eaves,” she said to herself, “but I
can’t
go to sleep.”

The she heard a door close softly downstairs. She struggled from the covers, looked over at Honey, saw that she seemed fast asleep, then slipped into her shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Quietly, stealthily, she went down the stairs.

She flashed her light around the room. Linnie and Mart, huddled beside the fireplace, dropped to the floor, trying to conceal themselves. “Oh, it’s you, Trixie,” Linnie whispered. “I’m
so
glad you haven’t gone. I knew at dinner time you’d try to go to that old cabin after the ghost fish tonight. I didn’t want you to go alone.”

“I had the same idea,” Mart said. “I thought I heard someone downstairs, thought it was you, then found Linnie. When your light flashed, we were afraid we’d wakened Uncle Andrew.”

“We’d better be real quiet, but I don’t think he can hear way over in his room beyond the kitchen,” Trixie said. “I’m glad you’re going with me.”
Isn’t this neat?
she thought to herself.
I’d just about given up the idea of trying to find that cabin after dark.