The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

close to Susie’s. “When I’m riding Susie, there isn’t!” Back in the stable, Trixie rubbed, currycombed, and brushed Susie till the small mare nickered her gratitude for being made so comfortable.
    Trixie gave her a final pat. “As soon as you cool off a little, I’ll feed you and give you fresh water.” Jupiter, still restive, even after the strenuous morning, had to be crosstied before Jim could approach him with the currycomb. He had been superb. There wasn’t a horse to match him in all of Westchester County. Nevertheless, Trixie gave him a wide berth as she walked around the stable to join Honey.
    The two girls sat side by side, soaping and rubbing leather and shining chrome till it sparkled. Then all the Bob-Whites hung up their tack exactly right, for Regan was watching out of the corner of his eye.
    “It seems to me,” Dan said as he measured out the horses’ feed for his uncle, “that you don’t need to talk about jumping quite so loud around Spartan. Horses have feelings. Suppose you’d been a prize pitcher for the Mets, and then you got to be as old as thirty, maybe, and had to listen to a lot of guff about a new record for strikeouts. How would you feel?”
    “Do you mean Spartan used to be a jumper?” Mart asked.
    “I’ll say he was. Ask my uncle.”
    “Was he, Regan?”
    “The best. Look at those legs. Look at that chest and shoulders! He jumped in the circus. He was one of the Cossack horses, too. He grew old in the business. Mr. Wheeler bought him for Dan to use for light work in helping Mr. Maypenny.”
    “He has a good life now,” Dan said as he untied Spartan and backed him out of the stall. “But he’s like an elephant. He remembers way back when. Look at that gleam in his eye!”
    Spartan seemed to know he was being discussed. He perked up his head, wriggled his big body, and pawed the ground.
    Dan laughed and led him out to where Diana was waiting with Sunny. “See you later!” he called as they rode off.
    “What a day!’’ Regan went about straightening this, hanging up that, running his hand down each horse s withers to see if they were cool enough to be watered. “Great jumping you did today!”
    The Bob-Whites glowed.
    “Even me?” Trixie asked.
    “Yep, Miss Fidget, even you,” Regan said, “at last.”

Juliana Is Alive! • 5

    EVERY MORNING Trixie was the first person to reach the postbox on Glen Road after the postman had passed. Every morning she came back looking woebegone.
    “You seem to think Holland isn’t any farther away than White Plains,” Mart told her. “Give the transcontinental mail a chance. Maybe there isn’t any such address now as Sixteen Seestrasse in The Hague. Time marches on, you know.”
    “I thought about that, smarty, and addressed the letter to occupant or neighbor. Oh, Mart, why do you always have to keep finding fault with me?”
    “Me? Finding fault with you? That’s a laugh. Did you hear that, Moms? Who’s always telling me, ‘Mart, feed the chickens; Mart, bring in the ripe tomatoes; Mart, do this; Mart, do that,’ hmmm? I ask you, who?”
    “Maybe I ask you to do all those things, but you never do them, does he, Moms?”
    “Is that so? Where did those eggs over there in that basket come from? Where did those tomatoes come from?”
    “I brought them in, not you. Moms is going to make catsup. I have the water boiling to loosen the skins so I can peel them for her. What are you going to do?”
    Mrs. Belden reached for a box of spice high on a kitchen shelf and measured some into the kettle on the stove. “Mart is going to pick some green peppers and onions and bring them to me,” she said. “But first, both of you are going to stop complaining about one another. I have more work to do today than seven women. Why does all the garden stuff ripen at once? Trixie, where is Bobby? He was bouncing a ball in here not more than three minutes ago.”
    “Here I am, Moms!” Bobby called as he burst through the door. “And I’ve got Trixie’s letter with a funny stamp on it. Here, Trixie.” He thrust it into her hand. “What does it say?”
    “Give me time to open it,” Trixie said, slitting the envelope. “Down, Reddy! It isn’t for you.”
    Bobby put his arm around the dog’s neck to quiet him. “He wants to know what it says, the same as us. What does it say, Trixie?”
    “Jeepers! It’s a long one. Here, Moms, you take it and read it out loud. I’m too excited. Brian!” she called through the