The Gatehouse Mystery

She hires them and fires them!

    Trixie stopped writing. She could think of a lot more to say, b»ut her cramped fingers wouldn't let her say it. She wanted to tell the boys about the exciting adventures she and Honey had had when they solved the secret of the Mansion and the mystery of the red trailer.
    "I'll give them the details over the weekend," she decided sleepily as she handed the letter to her mother.
    "That's fine, Trixie," Mrs. Belden said. "I'll enclose your letter with mine. Now run along to bed, dear. And peek in on Bobby, will you? Make sure he's on the bed, not under it."
    Trixie grinned. Her brother, on hot nights, preferred to sleep on the bare floor. And, ostrich-like, he kept thi n ki n g that since he couldn't see anyone when he crawled under the bed, nobody could see him. "I'll haul him out," she told her mother and went upstairs.
    The next morning, Trixie did her chores as fast as she could. Her father paid her five dollars a week for helping her mother with the housework and the garden; and, when Mrs. Belden was busy, Trixie had to keep an eye on mischievous Bobby. At this time of the year, Mrs. Belden was very busy canning the fast-ripening tomatoes. It was one of Trixie's chores to gather the ripe ones each morning.
    When Trixie brought in the last basketful, her mother said, "Thanks, dear. Now run along and have fun with Honey. I'm sorry you'll have to take Bobby with you, but I can't keep an eye on him and the pressure cooker at the same time,"
    "I don't know which is more dangerous," Trixie said, laughing.
    "I'm not going," Bobby announced when she joined him on the terrace. "I'd rather stay home and get wetted under the shower Jim made for me."
    "Don't be silly," Trixie said impatiently. "We're going to explore the old cottage down by the road."
    "Whoopee!" Bobby yelled, hitching up the strap of his sunsuit. "'Sploring, hey? What old cottage, Trixie?"
    "I don't think you've ever seen it," Trixie said as they climbed the path that led up the hill to the Manor House. "I've only had a glimpse of it myself."
    "You haven't got a blimpse," Bobby jeered. "A blimpse is a big, big balloon."
    Trixie sighed.
    Honey appeared then, at the top of the path that sloped down to wind around the willow-bordered lake. "I thought you'd never come," she cried. "Jim and Daddy went off to look at that chestnut gelding Mr. Tomlin has for sale, and Mother and Miss Trask went to New York to buy me some school clothes. I flatly refused to go with them. They didn't need me. They know my size and exactly what I want."
    "What do you want?" Trixie teased. "Prissy little blue velvet dresses with lace collars?" When the girls had first met early in the summer, Honey had, to
    Trixie's disgust, been wearing a dainty frock, but now they dressed alike. Except when it was very hot, they wore boyish sport shirts, patched blue jeans, and scuffed moccasins.
    That Wednesday morning it was very warm and muggy, as it often is during the late summer in the Hudson River Valley. The girls were wearing shorts and tops, so that they could take a dip in the lake whenever they wanted to, without bothering to change into swimsuits. After swimming, they dried off in the sun.
    Honey was proud of the fact that her blue denim shorts were almost as faded as the ones Trixie was wearing.
    "Velvet and lace," she said with a sniff. "Oh, Trixie, you don't know how wonderful it is not to be thinking about boarding-school uniforms at this time of the year. I still can't believe that I'm going to the Sleepyside Junior-Senior High with you and your brothers!"
    "And Jim, too," Trixie said as Patch, the new black and white puppy, came bounding down from the stable to fling himself ecstatically into her arms. "I was afraid that after Jim inherited half a million dollars he might want to go to some swanky school. Down, Patch!"
    The excited puppy immediately transferred his affections to Bobby, and the two rolled down the grassy slope together. Then Reddy, the Beldens' beautiful, but completely untrained, Irish setter, barked from the woods behind the stable. Patch raced off at once to join him.
    "When Jim starts to train Patch," Trixie said, "we'll have to lock up Reddy. He's so spoiled he doesn't know the meaning of the word 'point.' "
    "Point," Bobby repeated. "Point to the cottage, Trixie."
    Trixie dutifully obeyed. "There it is," she said, "way down by Glen Road where the lawn ends and the woods begin."
    The little cottage, which had been the gatehouse