The Marshland Mystery

its fragile white flower in a length of plastic wrapping material that would keep it fresh until they could get the specimen safely into water at home.
    They worked busily for a few minutes and soon had all the specimens neatly stowed away in the wire basket.
    It was a longer hike back to their bikes than they had realized, and Trixie hurried Honey along. She had noticed that the sky overhead was getting dark and the clouds were scurrying past over the tops of the tall trees that ringed the marsh.
    “Let’s eat some lunch and then get started home,” she suggested when they were back at the edge of the swamp. “It’s going to sprinkle, I’m afraid.”
    The lunch that Mrs. Belden had packed was full of pleasant surprises, and the girls did full justice to it, down to the last stuffed date and rosy-cheeked apple.
    Trixie snapped the lid down on the empty basket and moaned. “I’m simply stuffed. I know I’ll never pedal all that way home now.”
    “Why don’t we walk our bikes partway, till the fried chicken is settled down for the ride?” Honey laughed.
    Before Trixie could reply, a light spatter of rain answered for her.
    They mounted their bikes and headed for home, but the sprinkle turned into a steady spring rain before they had even reached the small white cottage.
    Trixie, with rain streaming down her face, called to Honey, “Why don’t we stop at the old witch’s house and ask her to let us come in till the shower’s over?”
    “I’d rather keep going,” Honey called back, with a shiver.
    “I know, you’re afraid she’ll turn us into gingerbread dolls! Or is that the way the story goes in ‘Hansel and Gretel’?” Trixie was never sure of her facts about fairy tales.
    Honey laughed. “Worse than that! She fattened ’em up and ate ’em. It was her house that was gingerbread!”
    They both stared hard at the small cottage as they went past, but no one came to the window. The door of the small barn in the rear was partly open, as it had been when they first went by, but there was no one in sight.
    Trixie was riding ahead now, against pelting rain. She stared suddenly at something lying partly in the ditch a few yards beyond the last pickets of the white fence. The object was a small child’s bicycle. It was lying on its side, half-covered with muddy water as the rain splashed down on it. But in spite of the mud and water that hid it, Trixie could see that it wasn’t a rusty old machine that somebody had discarded but a shiny, almost new one.
    “Pretty careless,” she reflected, riding on through the pelting rain. And she thought with a shudder of what her parents would say to her or the boys if they; treated their bicycles like that. All four had them, and because they knew that their father had paid a good price for the bikes, they were careful of them.
    Honey caught up with her, and they rode side by side on the slippery, muddy road. She called over to Trixie. “Did you see the bike in the ditch back there?”
    Trixie nodded vigorously. “I guess it belongs to the little girl who takes care of the rose garden,” she said. “She ought to be spanked.”
    “It was a boy’s bike, I’m sure,” Honey informed her. “Then either she rides a boy’s bike or she’s a he, even if she or he wears pointed shoes.” Trixie laughed. “I hope whichever one it is didn’t hurt himself-herself when he-she fell into that ditch!”
    “Maybe we should go back and see if there’s anything we can do, like going for a doctor.”
    Trixie hesitated, then grinned over at Honey. “That was a pretty neat little cottage. Maybe they even have one of them there newfangled things called tellyphones!” Honey giggled. “You would have to be sensible when I wanted to be a hero-een!”
    So they rode on through the rain and were glad to turn back onto .Glen Road a few minutes later. Even though Glen Road was called a country road, it was well surfaced, and they no longer had to plow through inches of mud. They pedaled along as fast as they could.
    They had almost reached the foot of the Wheeler driveway, when someone close behind them tooted an auto horn loudly. It scared Honey so that she nearly fell off her bike and into the path of the car. Brakes squealed, and Brian, at the wheel of his jalopy, barely managed to stop it a few feet from the wobbling bicycle.
    Brian climbed out and ran to Honey as she dismounted unsteadily. Mart, in the front seat, sat looking scared and sheepish as Jim swung out of