The Mystery of the Uninvited Ghost

Di exclaimed, her mood obviously brightened by the wild activity.
    “Nice?” Mart repeated. “Better than that, by far. Hallie excels at the terpsichorean art!”
    Solemnly Bobby said, “Hallie doesn’t look sick.” Maybe it isn’t catching,” Hallie called over her shoulder.
    Jim and Trixie joined the dance. Brian and Honey continued clapping while Peter Belden played his ukulele. Even Hans tapped his foot.
    “Want to dance?” Juliana invited him.
    “Are you asking me to throw my spine out of alignment?” Hans retorted. “I’ll wait for a waltz.”
    “One waltz, coming up,” Mr. Belden said. At once he switched to a Hawaiian melody that completely confused the dancers on the grass. Hans and Juliana danced alone on the porch. The others returned to the steps, with Dan making sure there was a place for Hallie to sit.
    Trixie was not used to sharing the limelight, and she didn’t quite know how to make room for her cousin in this fun time. She sensed that this was also true for Di and Honey.
    All summer, Bobby had been trying to learn to play his father’s ukulele. Mr. Belden placed the small boy’s pudgy fingers on the instrument and set him to strumming.
    Honey asked Bobby if he could play “Good Night, Ladies.” He couldn’t, but he tried mightily. Honey sang as sweetly as if he had not missed a note, then hugged him to say thank you.
    When the guests had gone, Trixie went to the kitchen to set the drop-leaf table. Hallie followed. She slapped her brow when she saw Trixie’s actions. “We’re not eating again!”
    “I’m setting the table for breakfast. I have to pick berries with the boys in the morning.”
    “I'll help.”
    Trixie stared at Hallie’s long, bare legs and arms. Hallie answered the look. “I’ll wear Cap’s grubbies.”
    Trixie realized that Hallie was trying to make amends for a day gone wrong in many small ways. She appreciated the gesture and extended her own olive branch. “We better unpack them tonight. We’ll get up pretty early tomorrow so we can finish our picking before it gets too hot.”
    The next morning, the bushes were moist with dew when Brian, Mart, Hallie, and Trixie set to work. “Just call us the ‘Early Kids/ ” Hallie quipped.
    Mart laughed. Trixie turned to stare at this cousin who looked like a teen-age model and worked like a field hand. The fight seemed to have gone out of their relationship this morning, but Trixie wasn’t in tune with Hallie’s brand of humor. Not yet. Hallie herself was as warily polite with Trixie as Trixie was with her. Only with the boys was Hallie completely at ease.
    Trixie sighed. If only she looked like Hallie.... What she wouldn’t give to be long-legged, slim, and darkly beautiful!
    She heard Mart grumbling about suckers sprouting several feet from the raspberry stalks. Hallie countered that the pickers might be the “suckers” for having left their beds so early. Brian’s long hands moved swiftly. It was in Belden blood to love the land, but only Mart planned to make farming his life’s work. He was picking berries because he enjoyed being close to the soil. Brian was there to serve the family. Trixie was there because her mother had given an order.
    Why, Trixie wondered, was Hallie there? Looking like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz in Cap Beldens camp grubbies, she worked steadily. Each time she took her rack of cartons to the cooler, Mart and Brian were right there beside her, their cartons heaped high with berries. If Trixie happened to have hers full, she went with them. If she didn’t, she just enjoyed the cool morning till the three came back to the job.
    A robin decided that pickings were easy in her carton, and he helped himself. She muttered, “Thief,” but let him feed. Suddenly she burst out with, “Early! Kids! Those were the words on the crumpled paper in Di’s fireplace!”
    Brian raised his dark head to grin at her. “I wondered how long it would take you to get that.”
    Trixie threw a fat berry toward him. Brian caught it and stuck it in his mouth. He said, “I think we all agree that those words are a direct order from the boss man to his crew.”
    Trixie’s sandy curls bobbed as she nodded. “Sergeant Molinson agrees, too, or he wouldn’t have talked to a reporter about it. The order came from the country club. I saw the same kind of note pad by the telephone there. So the boss was an employee, or a board member, or a guest—”
    “—or a tradesman, or a salesman, or