The Mystery in Arizona

Dad with a big fat check. He told me to use it to buy presents for everyone and especially for the Bob-Whites.”
    “That’s nice,” Trixie said, grinning. “I got lots of mail this morning, too. A long letter from Moms, a note from Dad with a check so I can buy little presents in the dime store for everyone, and, wonder of wonders, a letter from Bobby.”
    “How marvelous!” Di cried. “He only started school this fall, didn’t he? Can he really write well enough to read?”
    Trixie sighed. “As usual, you re not making much sense, Di. How well he writes has nothing to do with how well he reads.”
    Di pretended to sulk. “I meant, was his writing good enough so you could read it?”
    Trixie giggled. “Just about. The illustrations helped, although I can’t say that his chickens look much like ours.” She took a grimy piece of paper from her skirt pocket and unfolded it carefully. “Here, you might just as well try to decipher it yourself.”
    Taking the note and gurgling with laughter, Di read,

    “Dere Trix. I fee th cikens ver day. I go ridn.
“lov
“ROBERT BELDEN”

    “My goodness,” Di gasped, “if nothing else he knows how to spell his own name.”
    “He learned how to print it out in kindergarten last year,” Trixie explained. “Isn’t it a riot the way he covered this whole huge sheet of paper with those few words and those scratches which, I guess, are supposed to be chickens?”
    “We were just as bad when we were in first grade,” Di reminded her. “I remember that my writing slanted downhill while yours slanted uphill.” They separated then to go on to the cabins on their list.
    After lunch, when Trixie was finishing her homework, Uncle Monty tapped on the door. At Trixie’s “Come in,” he poked his head inside.
    “I’m going to finish my Christmas shopping this afternoon,” he told her. “Taking the suburban. Want to come along?”
    “I’d love to,” Trixie cried. “I hate to miss the ride, but, since we’re going to have a steak fry on the desert this evening, I guess the riding that we’ll do then will be enough to keep me satisfied.”
    He nodded. “The others plan to go along. I’ve bought most of the presents for the piñata already, but I thought it would be best if you kids picked out little jokes for one another. What I mean is this: You and Jim might pick out something for Honey while Honey and Mart pick a gift that seems just right for you.”
    “That would be great fun,” Trixie replied enthusiastically. “We’ll divide up in teams and go to different ten-cent stores to make sure there’ll be no peeking.
    Uncle Monty nodded. “Jane Brown and Mrs. Sherman are going to wrap the gifts for me this evening. They insist that they’d rather do that than attend the steak fry.” He chuckled. “Mrs. Sherman says the boys can broil and fry steaks as well as she can and that the last time she cooked on a desert she came a little too dose to a rattlesnake for her comfort. That’s all Jane Brown needed to know about the hazards of the desert.”
    Trixie smiled. “She enjoyed the steak fry we had last week on the desert and didn’t seem at all nervous when Tenny told some of his tall tales about rattlesnakes as big as his arm.”
    “That’s right,” Uncle Monty said. “She’s probably staying home from the party tonight just to be a good sport. A great gal is my Jane Brown—and to think we used to call her Calamity Jane!”
    “I know,” Trixie said, “and isn’t it nice the way Mr. Wellington turned out to be such a wonderful soft-drinks waiter? He seems so much happier since he started working.”
    “Things are working out very satisfactorily,” Uncle Monty said. “Well, see you on the front patio in about ten minutes.”
    The boys and girls had a wonderful afternoon shopping in Tucson. They bought inexpensive presents for one another and also little gifts to take back home.
    The steak fry on the desert that evening was lots of fun, too. After they had eaten until they couldn’t swallow another morsel, they sat around the fire singing cowboy songs until almost midnight.
    “It’s as though we re all one big family,” Mr. Wellington kept saying happily.
    But Trixie knew that he wasn’t really as happy as he would have been if his children had joined him at the ranch.
    “I wish there was some way we could make his kids come out here,” she told Honey the next morning. “It would be such a wonderful Christmas present for him.”
    It