The Mystery of the Castaway Children

we looked around for the kids but couldn’t find ’em. So Sax made me up the ante to twenty thousand and write the second note.”
    “You knew how much the Dodges would make at their auction, and you asked for all of it,” Trixie accused.
    “Sure, why not?” Roger was unrepentant.
    “So it would end up in Sax’s pocket?” the sergeant asked.
    “So what?” Roger yelled. “It let me off the hook!” He had a slow wit, but Trixie suspected it was finally dawning on him that breaking a law had put him in worse trouble than owing money.
    In the crowded farmhouse kitchen, a small voice was heard. “I didn’t know those men wrote notes to my daddy,” said Davy Dodge.
    “Why did you take your baby brother and run away?” the sergeant asked gently.
    Davy’s lips quivered. “They told you. Daddy was going to sell the new Dodge and Wicky and me because he couldn’t afford to keep us. I—I guess he didn’t mean the baby, after all.”
    David held Davy close and said, “I’m sorry, son. I thought you understood I was joking.”
    “When someone’s hurting, you don’t make jokes, Mr. Dodge,” said Jim, a former runaway himself.
    Quietly David answered, “I guess I was hurting, too, so I tried to joke my way through losing the farm.”
    “Oh, Davy, how did you manage?” his mother cried.
    “I took some bottles and diapers, and I took Wicky’s fly sheet so I could take care of him, too. I broke my piggy bank and Dodgy’s, but he didn’t have much in his. I didn’t have room to take anything else, so I guess you sold my clothes and books and toys, huh?”
    “Of course not, Davy,” Eileen assured him. “We even kept that clock you like so much.”
    “Then what did you do, Davy?” the sergeant prompted.
    “Well, I had trouble getting on Wicky with Dodgy, so I used the fly sheet to tie Dodgy against me as tight as I could, so I wouldn’t drop him. I had to do that every time I climbed on Wicky. Sometimes, I—I bumped Dodgy and he cried.” Davy reached out to touch his brother, who had fallen asleep in his mother’s arms.
    “He cried when I stuck him with the pin, too. He cried an awful lot, but I tried to take care of him, honest I did! I was scared, though. There were lots of highways.
    “When we got across all those highways, I was glad to get into the woods. Only it was lots bigger than I thought it was. Wicky lost one of his shoes, so I borrowed some tools and took his other shoes off. I found a good place to stay, where some men fed me out of their lunch pails, and I milked a goat named Nancy. But Dodgy got so he didn’t wake up much, and he didn’t want to drink his milk.
    “He liked to be clean, so I washed his diapers in a brook and dried them on the bushes, but I had to chase Wicky part of the time. Wicky liked to play with Nancy at the barn. Once I saw that man.” Davy pointed a shaky finger at Roger. “I thought he was hunting for us to sell us, so I took a man’s T-shirt and tore it up to make diapers, ’cause Dodgy’s weren’t dry yet. Then we rode some more.
    “When it got dark that day, we slept under a bush at a kind of hotel. I had a hard time keeping track of things. I kept losing stuff, like diapers and bootees and bottles and the fly sheet. One night it got very hot and thundery. I knew it was going to storm. I tried to build a tepee, but it was too small for me and Dodgy, so I just kept going.
    “Then I saw this doghouse. There was no dog in it, so I just put Dodgy in to keep him dry till the rain stopped. Only—only then I couldn’t get him back!”
    By this time, Davy was sobbing. Both parents patted and cuddled him as if they would never be able to touch him enough in a lifetime. It seemed to Trixie that, as careless as the Dodges might have previously been with their money, they could never be as careless with their love for their sons.
    Davy rubbed his eyes and continued. “Wicky and me found plenty of places to sleep in the woods, but I tried to stay as close to Dodgy as I could. I knew Dodgy would be safe here in case that man was still hunting for us. This house is easy to get into. People go in and out all the time and leave doors open.”
    The shadows and sounds... the misplaced rug and the mud... the open refrigerator... Of course, thought Trixie. Davy’s been watching over Dodgy just like Miriam kept watch over her brother Moses in his basket.
    “Sometimes the dog barked at me,” Davy went on, “but no one else seemed to know I was