The Red Trailer Mystery

screamed, "Oh, oh! Now I know who stole Mrs. Smith’s album locket!"

A Locket and a Barn • 11

    HONEY CRANED her neck so hard it hurt. "Trixie," she got out, "you’ve climbed so high the rarefied air is making you dizzy. Come down from that lookout before you fall out!"
    From the leafy branches high up in the tree, Trixie called back, "I’m in a crow’s nest, all right, and I do mean crow! In this fork is where Mrs. Smith’s pet, Jimmy, hides his loot. So far I’ve counted two gold thimbles, three silver ones, a dollar bill, four quarters, several yards of tarnished Christmas ribbons, a brass key—" She started downward, still chanting the list.
    "—six marbles, enough bits of bright cloth to make a patchwork quilt, four silver spoons, a rusty razor blade, a ball of red yam, and, last but not least," she finished triumphantly as she slid to the ground, "one solid gold album locket studded with real pearls and turquoises."
    She handed the lovely piece of jewelry to Honey. "See if all the baby pictures are intact. Thank goodness it hasn’t rained since yesterday morning. That crow probably flew out of the parlor window with the locket right after Mrs. Smith showed the pictures to Mrs. Darnell."
    "Crow!" Honey giggled as she released the clasp and unfolded the tiny sections. "He must be a magpie.
    "A first cousin," Trixie told her as she mounted Prince, "and even closer to the raven. Jimmy’s as bad as the one who perched on Edgar Allan Poe’s door. ‘If bird or devil,’ " she quoted. "What comes next?"
    "I don’t know," Honey answered, gazing at the baby faces in the album locket. "Something about, ‘Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my doorl’ "
    " ‘Quoth the Raven, Nevermore!’ " they shouted in unison.
    "And that’s no joke," Trixie continued soberly. "That crow could have caused a lot of innocent people an awful lot of trouble. Oh, aren’t those babies cute? This one looks just like his mother. Let’s take the locket back to Mrs. Smith right away, Honey. The farmhouse is only half a mile or so from where I saw that shiny piece of metal on the mound in the woods."
    "Let’s," Honey agreed, closing the locket and giving it to Trixie. "As a matter of fact, Trixie, I’m starved. Those sandwiches we slapped together were awful. Didn’t you say something about spiced grape juice and chocolate layer cake?"
    "I did." Trixie licked her lips. "But let’s be rude for once and eat and run. We might even have time to look for that abandoned barn before we explore the woods on the other side of the highway."
    "Is there any reason why we can’t look for it now?" Honey asked as they guided their horses between the rows of gnarled apple trees. "If this is the right orchard, it must be near here."
    "I know," Trixie agreed. "But I think we ought to give Mrs. Smith her locket right away. She was terribly upset this morning, and that barn isn’t going to be easy to find. It must be way down in a hollow and almost covered by the branches of trees. Otherwise we could have seen it from the top of that big hill."
    "That’s true," Honey admitted. "And we can’t be sure this is the orchard Jeff and his bushy-haired friend were talking about. After all, if there is an abandoned barn near here, it seems to me Mrs. Smith would have known about it."
    "Not necessarily," Trixie argued. "It’s funny how you can miss seeing things on your own place. I’ll bet you’ve never seen the old tenant house that’s on your property."
    Honey stared at her. "No. Is there one?"
    Trixie grinned. "Mart and Brian and I found it one day when we were exploring. It’s down in a hollow, too, and almost completely covered with wisteria and honeysuckle vines."
    They were nearing the farmhouse now, and Laddie began to bark before he even caught sight of them. His bark was answered defiantly by Reddy and Bud, who burst out of the wooded area just north of the orchard.
    "Oh, golly," Honey gasped, "now were in for a dogfight."
    Laddie ignored the black puppy and challenged Reddy with a threatening growl. But the happy-go-lucky Irish setter, unaware that he was trespassing, immediately began to frolic invitingly around the collie. Laddie promptly gave in, and the dogs raced off together, the best of friends.
    "Reddy," Trixie chuckled with relief, "hasn’t got sense enough to recognize an enemy when he sees one."
    "Bud doesn’t even know there is such a thing," Honey said, laughing. "Oh, there’s Mrs. Smith at