The Mysterious Code

that I fail. Jeepers, Honey, we’re going to be late
for class. The corridor is deserted. I didn’t hear the bell, did you?”
    “Not a sound,” Honey
said, and they hurried into the English classroom.
     
    At noon when Trixie
told the boys that Regan was provoked at them for not helping exercise the
horses, Jim said, “Honey must have seen Regan yesterday instead of today, or
she just must have misunderstood. Brian, Mart, and I rode all the horses last
evening. We took turns. I saw Tom this morning riding Susie, and Mother had
Strawberry.”
    “That leaves
Jupiter, Lady, and Starlight,” Honey said.
    “I’ll ride Jupiter
tonight,” Brian said. He usually rode the chestnut gelding, Starlight, but he
longed to give Jupiter, Jim’s big, black gelding, a real workout.
    “Not tonight,
Brian,” Jim said. “He hasn’t had enough exercise lately, and he’ll be too hard
to manage. I’ll take him. I seem to have put the Indian sign on him. He’s
better with me than with anyone else. We’ll all have to pay more attention to
exercising the horses from now on.”
    “Let me ride
Starlight,” Mart begged. “You said I could, Brian.”
    Brian nodded his
permission.
    “I’ll ride Lady,”
Honey said.
    “Then Brian and I’ll
go home and help Mother,” Trixie said. “It’s hard to do everything. We just have to work every minute we can on the furniture. We just have to study,
too, and to help at home. I don’t know what Tad can find to make him jealous.
We work harder than people do in the mines in Africa.”
    “I think you are
confusing, in your usual befuddled manner, Africa with Siberia,” Mart said
smugly. “If you'd do a little reading now and then, instead of pursuing elusive
individuals who practice infraction of the law, you’d—”
    “I’d be as big a
bore as you are, Mart Belden, with your big words that don’t mean anything,”
Trixie, her face red, retorted.
    “Don’t argue,
please,” Diana said. “Remember, we have to work together.”
    “All right, O dove
of peace,” Mart said. He really liked Diana. She had a way of smoothing
feathers when they were ruffled.
    Though Mart and
Trixie seemed usually to be at swords’ points, if anyone said a word against
either one of them, the other would spring to the defense immediately. It was
just that they were too near one another in age. Because Mart was eleven months
older, and a boy, and for that reason seemed to enjoy a few extra privileges,
Trixie continually tried to get even with him.
    When the school bus
stopped at Manor House that afternoon, Mart got off with Honey, Jim, and Diana.
Diana usually cut across the upper part of the Wheeler estate to get to her own
home. Trixie and Brian went on to Crabapple Farm.
    Jim’s black and
white springer spaniel, Patch, ran out barking and waving his tail like a
semaphore. Regan, leading Jupiter, called to Jim, “Tell him to be quiet! He’s
making Jupiter nervous, but he won’t mind me.”
    “You know I’ve
trained him to mind only me,” Jim said. “Stay, Patch!” The little dog dropped
behind Jim and froze into immediate obedience. It was such a beautiful
performance that everyone applauded, even the bus driver.
    Jim stooped to
scratch the little dog’s ears affectionately.
    “We’re sorry about
not exercising the horses,” Trixie called from the bus. “It’s just that we’ve
been so busy working on the antique show.”
    “I know that,” Regan
said, “but the horses don’t. You’ll have to do better, Trixie, or we’ll have a
bunch of wild horses on our hands and nothing to ride in the spring.”
    The bus driver
stepped on the accelerator. “We’ll do better,” Trixie called through the
window. “See if we don’t.”
    The bus went on down
the valley to Crabapple Farm.
    “I’m surely glad you
came home to help,” Mrs. Belden said. “This has been a day when everything
seemed to go wrong. I haven’t had a minute to feed the chickens, and Bobby has
been so cross.”
    “I wasn’t cross,”
Bobby called from the couch in the study. “I just wanted to get up and play
with Reddy, and Moms never letted me.”
    “That’s another
thing,” Mrs. Belden said. “I have not seen Reddy since morning. He always keeps
Bobby amused. He’s never stayed away from him this long before. Open a can of
his food and go out and call him, please, Brian.”
    Brian called,
“Reddy! Here, Reddy! Come, Reddy!”
    But no Reddy came
bounding out of the woods as he usually did at the