The Happy Valley Mystery

glance at her friend.
    “She made our jackets, too, and cross-stitched our club initials on the back,” Diana said. “Turn around, Mart, and let them see it.”
    “Barbara made all the Four-H emblems her group wear on their sleeves,” Mrs. Schulz said. “Honey, your work is beautiful. I’d like to have you in my group.” She went into the other room and brought back one of the green cloverleaf patches worn by the 4-H members. In each of the four leaves there was a white letter H.
    "I remember those at the Westchester County Fair,” Brian said. “This year I’m really going to find out more about Four-H and about the club projects.”
    “What does the letter H stand for?” Mart asked. “I mean the four letters in the green cloverleaf.”
    “Head, Heart, Hands, and Health,” Mrs. Schulz said. “The first H is for Head,” Bob said, “to think, to plan, to reason.”
    “The second,” Barbara continued, “is for Heart, to be true, to be kind, to be sympathetic.”
    “The third H is for Hands,” Ned said, “to be useful, to be helpful, to be skillful.”
    “And the last,” Mrs. Schulz said, “is for Health, to enjoy life, to resist disease, to increase efficiency.”
    “I guess we try to do all those things,” Trixie said, “but we don’t write them in detail. We have projects, too. For instance, Honey does mending for all our families and is paid five dollars a week for it.”
    “Trixie helps her mother with housework, and she’s paid five dollars for that,” Diana said.
    “And I hate housework,” Trixie said vehemently. “Di loves it. She does it, too, and takes care of her twin sisters and twin brothers. She gets paid five dollars for doing that.”
    “We do all kinds of jobs,” Brian explained. “Anything we can do to earn money.”
    “We don’t try to earn money with the things we do,” Barbara said. “We do them to learn, to better ourselves, to help others.”
    “Oh, I should have explained,” Trixie said quickly. “All the money we earn goes into a club fund, and we use it for charity.”
    “I’m sorry,” Barbara said. “Do you have a health program?”
    “We go in for all kinds of sports,” Mart said. “We’re outdoors practically all the time.”
    “I know how important health is,” Mrs. Schulz said. “It makes all the rest of our Four-H work possible. When Ned was only five years old, I was stricken with polio. Because of that, since my recovery, I have made it my own project to see that as many children as possible are immunized through oral vaccination. I’ve canvassed every inch of this county, until now every child in it, and every young adult, has had the vaccine.”
    “She’s done more than that,” Ned said. “Just last summer, right after we moved here, Dad built that pool for Mom. It has a heater in it, and all summer long Mom has it full of kids. She has a worthwhile project going three days a week, too. The Red Cross uses our pool to teach youngsters—little ones—to swim. Mom is crazy about kids, even if I am the only one she has.”
    “Jim will have to tell her, then,” Trixie said, “about his year-round school he plans to have someday when he’s through with college. It’s for orphan boys.”
    “And where Brian, when he finishes medical school,” Honey added, “is going to be the resident physician.”
    “And where I, if I have to speak for myself,” Mart said, “am going to run the farm so the school can eat.”
    “Do tell us about all of it,” Mrs. Schulz urged them. “First, though,” Bob said, “I’d like to hear a little about the country around where you live—and about Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman and all those places Washington Irving described....”
    “Henry Hudson and his crew of the Half Moon,” Ned said. “Do they still hang around the Catskills on moonlit nights? I wish we had something like that around here.”
    “Come and visit us, and we’ll take you all over the country next summer. Will you?” Jim urged.
    “It’s a deal, if our folks will let us,” the Hubbell twins chorused, exchanging pleased glances.
    “The thing that interests me most,” Trixie said, “is pirate gold. Pirates used to sail into the Hudson River for refuge after they’d pillaged ships on the high seas. They buried their gold along the shore.”
    “Captain Kidd did that,” Ned said, excited.
    “That’s just what I mean,” Trixie said. “And what I’m going to do someday is to find some of that