The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

up,” he told Mrs. Moore. “All it needs now is a door to shut out animals that have a yen for chickens and eggs. Shall we get at Martha’s shed now, boys?”
    After they had gone, Mrs. Moore shooed the girls out of the kitchen. “I have to get things in order for dinner, and I’ll do the dishes at the same time. Don’t wear yourselves out over there at my cabin. I’m just so thankful it didn’t burn that I’ll not mind the cleaning up.”
    “Don’t come over till we tell you, Mama!” Linnie Warned. “We’ve got the most wonderful surprise!”
    Linnie and Trixie finished painting the bedroom walls, then went back into the living room to hang some pictures. For her mother’s Christmas present, Linnie had made a frame of hickory wood for her father’s portrait. They hung it over the fireplace.
    “I wish we had some of that pottery I saw at White Hole Springs,” Trixie said, “the kind that’s made here in the mountains.”
    “I have two vases in my hope chest in our bedroom,” Linnie said. “I made them at school. I’ll go and get them. Maybe you’d like to see my marriage quilts and other things Mama and I made,” she added shyly.
    “I’d love to. Heavens, you surely are getting ready for your wedding in plenty of time, aren’t you?”
    “It takes so long to make quilts. Don’t you have a hope chest?”
    Trixie shook her head. “I wouldn’t have any idea about how to make a quilt. I guess Honey would, but I’m sure she hasn’t started a hope chest, either.”
    “Every girl in the mountains has one,” Linnie said proudly, and she threw back the top of the wooden box. “This is my Wedding Ring quilt. This is the Ozark Star. That’s only two quilts, and I should have at least six. I have some hooked rugs, too. See, Trixie!”
    “They’re beautiful, Linnie. Could we use the rugs in the living room right now? The dark green color of the floor would be a perfect background.”
    Linnie nodded, pleased.
    “Then we’ll put your darling terra-cotta vases on the mantel against the soft pine color we painted the walls. Let’s try it! I can’t wait!”
    “All right. First I want to show you my dream.” Linnie reached under some embroidered pillowcases, brought out a school catalog, and opened it for Trixie to see.
    “It’s a catalog from the School of the Ozarks over at Point Lookout,” she said. “Oh, Trixie, that’s where I’m going to high school next year.”
    “And leave here?”
    Linnie nodded. “Mama and I are going to Point Lookout soon to see the school and make arrangements. It’s a far piece over there. It’s the most beautiful school. See the picture of the dormitory where I’m going to live?” Linnie turned a page. “It doesn’t cost some students one cent of money to go there.”
    “It doesn’t cost anything?”
    “Not if you have no money but a whole lot of ambition. Of course, now that Mama is earning money working for your uncle, she can pay some, but they’d have taken me, anyway. They said so. I just need my eighth grade diploma from Turkey Hollow School. My teacher told me about the School of the Ozarks. It’s where she went to school, and she thinks it’s really wonderful.”
    Linnie’s words fell over one another. “Everyone who goes there works. They all help maintain the buildings. They work with the cattle. They work in the dairy and make the ice cream they use in the dining room. They plow, cultivate the fields, and do everything that needs doing.”
    “What about the indoor work?”
    “They wash clothes, make beds, help with the cooking, take care of sick people... everything... just about everything.”
    “How can they study and do all that work at the same time?”
    “It’s wonderfully planned. Everybody starts at seven o’clock in the morning, and they work and go to school till dinner time, six o’clock. You don’t mind working when everyone else is working. My teacher said she just loved the school. Now they have a junior college, too. I want to be a teacher. Of course, I’ll have to go to the University of Missouri before I can do that. But I may have a chance to get a scholarship.”
    “Where do they get the money to keep it up?”
    “From people everywhere, people who give pennies and people who give thousands of dollars. I never dreamed I’d ever have a chance to go to such a school, much less to college. I intend to work hard for that scholarship. It means everything in the world to me.”
    “I just know you’ll