The Mystery of the Castaway Children

a brook, and trees. Except for the road and the electric wires that threaded through trees and flashed slivers of silver when touched by light, the strip of land seemed untouched by civilization. The car came to a halt in a driveway.
    Trixie carefully hoisted Moses against her shoulder and allowed the sergeant to help her from the car. Honey followed with the supplies.
    At the end of the driveway, a yard light blackened the shadows around an old, yellow brick farmhouse with a steeply pitched gable roof. Lonely silence seemed to flow like a current around the closely clustered buildings that made up the farmstead. No horse bumped a stall with his hoof. No cow muttered in her sleep. No hen scolded. There wasn’t even a dog to bark.
    Recalling that the Dodges had held an auction, Trixie asked anxiously, “Are you sure the people still live here?”
    “This is where I picked up the photograph this morning,” the sergeant said. He led the way and hammered at the blue wooden door. When there was no answer, he lifted the antique knocker, a gargoyle’s head, to hammer again.
    At last, the door opened a crack, and a man asked, “Who’s there?” It was a young voice, strained and tense.
    The sergeant held out his identification.
    “Oh, yes, Sergeant Molinson,” the man said.
    Trixie followed directly behind the policeman as they entered the Dodge house. She saw a young man in his mid-thirties, with electric blue eyes and stylishly cut brown hair.
    “Come in,” he said. “Here, let me move that box so you can sit down. As you can see, we’re pretty much in a mess around here. We re packing and—” Suddenly he stopped his restless speech and said, “Do you have news about our boys?” His eyes blazed with intense emotion.
    The sergeant stepped aside to bring Trixie and her bundle to the young man’s attention. “We’ve brought a child,” he began.
    In two long strides, David Dodge crossed the cluttered room. He moved the thin blanket to uncover Moses’ face. Work-hardened farmer’s fingers, well scrubbed but stained, shook so much that the blanket fluttered when he touched it.
    Trixie became uncomfortably aware of the thump of her own heart as seconds seemed to stretch into an eternity. Warmth from Moses’ body seemed to spread to her arms and creep through her veins and arteries all the way to her toes, while she watched those electric blue eyes, shaded by a tangle of curly lashes, widen and close, widen and close.
    “Are you all right, Mr. Dodge?” Honey asked nervously. She put out a hand and touched his elbow. “Are you going to faint?”
    “No!” Without touching the baby, he swung around and bellowed, “Eileen! Come here! Dodgy is home! Dodgy is home!”
    Trixie heard a thin cry from someone on the second floor, then a rush of feet. The last five steps of the narrow stairway were not boxed in. Trixie started to yell as she saw a bare foot reach for that first exposed riser and miss the step. With incredible speed, David Dodge leaped over a packing box and prevented his wife’s fall. The two came forward, clinging to and supporting each other. Both were crying and making no effort to stop the tears.
    “It’s Dodgy, honey—he’s home!” the man said.
    Mrs. Dodge was almost as tall as her husband but slightly built and blond. Her eyes were large and blue, the lids puffed by tears. She wore tailored cotton pajamas and no slippers.
    For an instant, Trixie was chilled with fear. What if David Dodge’s apparent state of shock had persuaded him that this was his child... when it was not?
    But it was. Oh, it was.
    The minute Trixie placed the baby in Eileen Dodge’s arms, she felt the change of temperature of her own skin. Shivering, she folded her arms and backed against Honey. Together the girls watched the young parents examine and wonder and murmur. All the while, their tears of relief flowed unchecked down their shining faces.
    The child they called Dodgy stirred, wakened, looked with wide, unwinking dark eyes, and grabbed handfuls of air. Eileen Dodge laid her cheek against his, and his tiny hand latched onto her blond hair. He obviously recognized the security of her touch and began to mew like a kitten. Someplace in the house, a clock chimed.
    “Ten o’clock,” Honey said. “I have his supplies. Would you like me to heat his formula so you can feed him, Mrs. Dodge?” And she moved toward the kitchen visible through a doorway.
    “Feed him?” the young mother repeated. Then she