The Mystery on Cobbett's Island

“doesn’t it?”
    Honey offered to sleep by herself in one room, while Di and Trixie occupied the twin beds in the other. As they undressed by the light of the single oil lamp, Trixie thought of how, just a short time ago, Honey had been a delicate, frightened little girl who had frequent nightmares as well as frequent illnesses and who would jump at the slightest unfamiliar noise. Now she seemed able to cope with any kind of emergency and showed no concern about the dark or the storm that was still raging outside.
    “Nine o’clock and all’s well,” Honey called back when she had reached the other room. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
    “Good night, Honey. You’re certainly the ‘hostess with the mostest’ when it comes to storms. Never a dull moment!” answered Trixie.
    “What do you suppose it will be like tomorrow?” asked Diana, stifling a yawn.
    Upstairs, Jim, Mart, and Brian were discussing the same thing. Brian noticed that the wind indicator showed the wind now turning to the northwest, even though it was blowing as fiercely as ever.
    “I read somewhere that when the wind shifts around like that, it means it may bring better weather,” said Jim, looking hopefully out of the window into the stormy night.
    “You’re undoubtedly right, professor,” said Mart as he flung himself into bed. “It certainly couldn’t produce more inclement atmospheric conditions than have prevailed today.”
    “For gosh sakes, Mart, do you always have to talk like a walking encyclopedia?” Brian asked half seriously as he turned down the lamp.
    “Not really. I just like to flex my literary muscles.” Mart chuckled. “Who knows? I may write The Great
    American Novel someday. But now—sleep!” Jim was the first to awake the next morning, and he tiptoed to one of the little round windows, opened it, and looked out. The rain had practically stopped, and the wind was certainly less strong than the previous night, but he was astonished at the appearance of the grounds around the house. Branches, big and little, littered every foot of space, and he saw that a huge tree had fallen across the driveway.
    With some difficulty, he woke Brian and Mart. At first they were too sleepy to take any interest in Jim’s proposal that they get dressed and start cleaning up the yard, but finally Mart’s nose caught the smell of frying sausage wafting through the window from the kitchen below, and he leaped out of bed immediately.
    “Jeepers, why didn’t somebody tell me there was sausage for breakfast?” he cried as he quickly started to get dressed.
    “Oh, that’s not really sausage,” said Jim, pretending to be serious. “That’s just a powder that smells like sausage when sprinkled on the stove. It’s my invention for rousing people who sleep through alarm clocks.”
    Mart threw a sneaker at him. Jim caught it neatly and jokingly refused to return it until Mart apologized. Mart grabbed his friend, and they rolled around on the floor until Brian finally got the shoe away from Jim and returned it to Mart.
    “Hey, what goes on up there?” called Trixie from the bottom of the stairs. “You woke us up with all your noise.”
    “Oh, Jim was just trying to prove that brawn is superior to brain,” said Mart, “but I was able, through subtle and devious machinations, to quell his enthusiasm and restore order.”
    “Another sentence like that and I’ll throw something heavier than a sneaker at you,” Jim said as they came downstairs and headed for the dining room.
    It was not as large a room as the one at the Wheelers’ house in Sleepyside, but it was most attractive. The furniture was painted white, the chairs had bright coral cushions, and there was a coral and gray rug on the black-painted floor. Over the sideboard hung a beautiful old Chinese painting of a heron standing on one leg among tall reeds. In the center of the table was an attractive arrangement of seashells on a straw mat.
    Honey rang the little brass bell she found at the head of the table, and Celia, looking very pretty in her trim blue uniform, came in with a tray of orange juice.
    “I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear the electricity is back on,” Celia said as she served the juice. “The power company crews must have worked all night to restore the service.”
    “Well, it looks as though our work is cut out for us. The yard is a mess,” said Jim, “but we told El we’d take care of things, so we’d better get at the job right