The Gatehouse Mystery

A Discovery • 1

    OH, MOMS," Trixie wailed, twisting one of her short blond curls around the pencil she had stuck behind her ear. "Do I have to write Brian and Mart? They'll be home Saturday, and then I can tell them everything." Mrs. Belden looked up from the sweater she was knitting for Bobby, Trixie's young brother. "That's the point," she said with a smile. "Your older brothers have been at camp all summer, and you've never sent them anything but a few scribbled postcards."
    "There just wasn't time," Trixie said, staring down at the sheet of paper on which she had hastily scrawled, Crabapple Farm, Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, New Y ork, Tuesday evening, August 22nd.
    "There just wasn't time," she repeated. "What with our going off in a trailer to find Jim; and, before that, the fire at the Frayne Mansion and, before that, meeting Honey Wheeler, and—"
    Mr. Belden, who worked in the Sleepyside First National Bank, had been trying to add a long column of figures. He interrupted Trixie now with a little frown.
    "Stop talking about it, Trixie. Write it. Your brothers will want to know all the news before they get home. Why, they don't even know that Honey's parents bought the big estate up on the west hill last month." He grinned. "You don't have to go into details. Just prepare them for the pleasant surprise of Jim and Honey."
    With a stifled moan, Trixie licked the point of her pencil and began to write.

Dear Junior Counselors:
I hope you saved every cent you earned at camp the way I did working home this summer, because Dad says I can buy a colt from Mr. Tomlin next spring, and, if you help me pay for his feed—the colt's, I mean—I'll let you ride him, sometimes.
I learned to ride this summer, because some rich people from New York bought the Manor House, and they have three horses and a simply darling daughter named Honey, who is my best friend. Dad talked to the principal and it's all set—she'll be in my class at Junior High when school starts next month. Oh, woel Only two more weeks before the grind begins!
Anyway, Honey and the Wheelers' groom, Regan, who is super, taught me to ride. Honey was an only child, a poor little rich girl—I really mean it—until we found Jim. He's old Mr. Frayne's grandnephew and inherited half a million dollars from him. I know Moms and Dad wrote you that he died just before the old Mansion burned to the ground. Well, Jim ran away then, because he has a mean old stepfather who wanted to get control of Jim's inheritance. Honey and I went off searching for him last month in the Wheelers' gorgeous trailer with Honey's governess, Miss Trask, who is a perfecdy marvelous person, as nice as Regan, in spite of being a governess. And after we found Jim, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler adopted him, so now Honey has a brother.
He's just about the most wonderful boy in the world —almost a year younger than you, Brian—he had his fifteenth birthday in July—but he'll be in your grade at High, because he did two years in one and won a scholarship to college, too. But he isn't a bookworm at all. He's simply super at all sports and woodcraft. Even Regan says that he handles Jupiter, Mr. Wheeler's enormous black gelding, better than anybody else, and Mr. Wheeler is going to buy another horse for himself and give Jupe to Jim. He's already bought him a gun and a springer spaniel puppy, Patch; so won't you all have fun when you go hunting in the fall? Honey and I are going to make you teach us how to shoot.
Besides Jupe, the Wheelers have a strawberry roan, who belongs to Honey, and a darling dapple gray mare, named Lady, who belongs to Mrs. Wheeler, but she lets me ride Lady a lot. Mrs. Wheeler isn't very strong. She's slim like Honey, with the same huge, hazel eyes and honey-colored hair. Mr. Wheeler looks enough like Jim to be his real father. They both have red hair and freckles and are tall and husky. Like Regan, they have quick tempers but never stay mad long. Regan is only twenty-two and loves horses and hates cars, so Miss Trask does most of the chauffeuring. She is very brisk and sort of runs the whole estate, because, of course, Honey doesn't really need a governess any more than I do. And Mrs. Wheeler can't go out in the hot sun and see to it that the gardener keeps the grounds looking beautiful, or waste her energy planning menus with the cook, and things like that. The Manor House is run like a small hotel, with more help than I think is really necessary, but they all love Miss Trask.