The Red Trailer Mystery

the kitchen window, beckoning to us. I’ll tie the horses while you take her the locket. I can’t bear to keep the darling in suspense another minute."
    "Neither can I," Trixie called over one shoulder as she raced up the back steps to the farmhouse. She let the screen door slam behind her with a loud bang and dangled the locket in front of Mrs. Smith’s startled red face.
    "Oh, dearie me," Mrs. Smith choked, collapsing into the huge rocker by the stove and hugging her babies’ pictures to her wide bosom. "Where on earth did you find it, lamb?"
    "In Jimmy Crow’s nest," Trixie told her breathlessly. "High up in a black walnut tree. And here’s the rest of his loot." She had tied the most valuable items in her handkerchief, and now she spread them out on the kitchen table.
    Rocking with laughter, Mrs. Smith kissed each of her babies’ faces and pinned the locket to the front of her flowered housedress. "This is where it stays from now on," she declared, "and at night it goes under my pillow. This time I make Jimmy Crow into a pie for sure." She sobered suddenly, her sharp eyes misty with tears. "And to think I suspected that poor little Darnell woman, who wouldn’t so much as borrow a straight pin she found in a crack of the floor without permission."
    Trixie bit her lip. Should she tell Mrs. Smith now that the Darnells had borrowed the Robin without permission? Before she could make up her mind, Honey came into the kitchen, and Mrs. Smith immediately began to set the table for a feast.
    "It’s not the best cake I ever baked," she apologized, although Trixie and Honey had never tasted anything like it. "Somehow my baking reflects my moods. I was so depressed this morning all four layers fell, and I couldn’t do a thing with the icing. But this grape juice is the best in the county, if I do say so myself."
    The girls ate hungrily and drank several tall glasses of the delicious spiced juice. They were so busy eating and listening to Mrs. Smith ramble on and on that they didn’t notice how dark it had suddenly become as storm clouds scudded across the sky.
    "And to think," Mrs. Smith was saying, "I might have called in the police. Oh, dearie me, heaven be praised that I didn’t. Nat would never have forgiven me. But he’ll shoot that crow this very night or my name’s not Mary Smith."
    Trixie and Honey winked at each other. They knew very well Jimmy Crow would go right on stealing without so much as a scolding.
    "That trailer," their hostess went on, "is the answer to their mysterious disappearance in the night. Poor Mr. Darnell is the nervous type. Afraid something might happen to borrowed property while it was in his possession. Although, why anyone would want such a contraption is more than I can imagine. A house on wheels! What will they think of next? I declare, I’m glad our radio broke down so Nat can’t make the loud-mouthed thing screech all during supper. I’d be just as glad if something would happen to the telephone, too. It rings all day, and when I get there it’s always for somebody else on the party line, or whoever is calling us rings off before I can drag my body down that long hall. Such a nuisance."
    Trixie, who was facing the window, saw lightning flicker in the sky and suddenly noticed how overcast it had become. If they wanted to look for traces of Jim, they couldn’t afford the time now to go into a long explanation of the Darnells’ stolen trailer. She pushed back her chair. "We’ve got to go, Mrs. Smith. It’s going to pour any minute. Oh, dear," she finished sympathetically, "that means your beans will get soaked. You’ll never get them picked at this rate."
    "Now, don’t you girls worry about me and my problems," she said. "Again the Lord has sent us help. Right after you left this morning, Trixie, two boys bicycled up the driveway looking for work. They’re down in the garden now with Nat, and such a husky lad the big one is. Knows his way around a farm all right and will eat me out of house and home before the crop’s in." She chuckled happily. "The younger brother is a puny little thing, but willing; I’ll say that for him. Beans or no beans, I’m not going to let them leave this house until I’ve put a few pounds on Joe; that’s all there is to it. If the Darnells come back after they return that trailer, all the better. We have plenty of room for them all, and I could use that little boy around the house, polishing the woodwork and doing up the dishes and