The Mystery off Glen Road

leave your property or go back to it, you have to trespass on Mr. Wheeler’s property.”
    He shook his head. “There’s a law about that to protect property owners. Now Mr. Wheeler, he got real angry when I laughed at his offer of a thousand dollars an acre. Said he was going to block up the paths and trails so I’d be penned up like a bull in a fenced pasture. I kept on laughing and told him to talk to his lawyer. Next day he came back, real meeklike and humble, and offered me twenty thousand dollars for the land.” The old man, chuckling reminiscently, ladled the delicious-smelling stew into earthenware bowls.
    Honey giggled. “I wish I’d been there. Daddy-meek! It must have been a riot. He’s so used to buying anything he wants.” She tasted the stew. “Yummy-yum. It’s divine, Mr. Maypenny. I wish you were cook at our house. The one we’ve got now is just terrible. Nothing has any flavor.”
    “Well, now,” Mr. Maypenny said, sitting on the bunk, “a stew just isn’t worth putting into a pot unless you put everything in your garden in it. In that I got turnips and parsnips and carrots and potatoes and beans and corn. And I don’t use any water a-tall. Why should I? Onions and cabbage and tomatoes are full of water—the right kind of water. I must have used a peck of tomatoes in that goo-lash. Spices, too. I’m a bit heavy with garlic and basil and thyme. There may be some folks who don’t go for such, but it suits me to a tee.”
    Trixie had been eating steadily and now felt less disgruntled. “It suits me, too,” she said, grinning. “But, Mr. Maypenny, you’ve been setting snares for rabbits. That’s illegal, even on your own property.”
    “No, ma’am,” he replied pleasantly but emphatically. “Rabbits is varmints. The little robbers would get everything in my garden before I did if I didn’t catch ’em first. I got a license to trap ’em. Coon and fox, too. There’s a bounty all year round on fox pelts. I trap otter and mink, too, because they go after the trout in my section of the stream. With the money I get for the skins, I buy what I can’t grow. Sugar, salt, canned milk, coffee, tea, and such. I don’t need a lot, so I don’t trap a lot. Personally I like the little critters, but they’d eat me out of house and home if I didn’t discourage ’em.”
    Honey scraped her bowl clean and said, “Mr. Maypenny, Daddy will be home tomorrow. He’s going to spend the whole weekend trying to get a deer. If he does get one, will you please show our cook how to make this stew?”
    “Better than that,” he said. “I got plenty of venison left from the deer I shot with my longbow on Sunday. I aim to pot some of it in a day or so. I’ll just pot double the amount. Half for you folks and half for me. I’ll put some up in jars for you, too, if you’ll bring me the jars. I like to be friendly with my neighbors, though I don’t get time to see much of ’em.” He chuckled. “Your paw and I could be good friends if he weren’t so derned muleheaded stubborn. Told him he could shoot over my property so long as he gave me notice. He seemed pleased, because it’s sort of hard to tell exactly where the boundary lines are.”
    Trixie suddenly remembered something. “Mr. Maypenny,” she asked, “is there a crazy person loose in these woods?”
    Honey gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. “I forgot all about that. He is crazy, Mr. Maypenny, because he rides around on a unicycle. Trixie saw the tracks.”
    The old man shook with silent laughter. “I’m your lunatic, girls. Those tracks were left by my deer-carrier. It’s a one-wheeled contraption and mighty handy. I’m not as young as I used to be. Get sort of tuckered out if I tote a deer -carcass more than a mile or so.” He led them outdoors and around to the back where the deer-carrier was parked. It looked like a huge supermarket basket that had been attached to a bicycle wheel.
    “Daddy would love having one of those,” Honey cried admiringly. “It’s wonderful!”
    Mr. Maypenny sniffed. “Matt Wheeler is just a boy. If he can’t tote his own game, his bow and arrow should be taken away from him. A likeable lad, but what he doesn’t know about how to run a game preserve would fill a library.” He frowned, sucking in his lips. “That Fleagle! Do you mean to stand there, Honey Wheeler, and tell me your paw paid that man good money? Why, that redheaded adopted brother of yours, Jim Frayne, has more