The Red Trailer Mystery

to me? Did I change into a pumpkin or something?"
    "No." Honey smiled. "You stayed just the way you are, and it was perfectly maddening. I kept yelling at you, ‘Catch her! Catch her!’ but you just grinned at me like the Cheshire cat in Through the Looking Glass."
    "Like this?" Trixie screwed her face into an evil grin for Honey.
    Honey nodded soberly. "I know this sounds crazy, but that nightmare makes sense in a way. I mean," she hurried on as Trixie stared at her, "about Joeanne. I've been thinking about her and how she cried ‘Nevermore’ in the dream ever since I woke up. Don’t you see? What she was really sobbing was ‘Never again. Never again.’ "
    "Why, Honey Wheeler," Trixie gasped, "you’re positively a wizard! I get it now. Joeanne ran away, but she was sorry right afterward, so she started out to look for her family. She must have known her father was going to try to get work on one of the big truck farms around here, and he knew that she knew it, so that’s why he didn’t worry about her too much. He was sure she’d show up sooner or later in this farming district"
    "That’s the way I figure it," Honey said slowly. "Except that I think her family worried an awful lot about her but couldn’t do anything."
    "I’ll bet her father felt it served her right," Trixie said, "and that spending a night in the woods would teach her a good lesson. I ran away from home once," she went on with a rueful giggle, "when I was just about Joeanne’s age. I hid in the woods between your place and ours and waited for them to come and find me with bloodhounds and mounted policemen. I had a wonderful time thinking how sad they were going to be when they found me starved to death under a tree, and I kept watching the house for signs of excitement. But nothing happened at all. Everybody went on about his business just as though nobody had even missed me. They had a lovely picnic supper out on the terrace, and I almost gave up when I saw they were having vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce for dessert."
    Honey burst into gales of laughter. "I bet that just about killed you! What finally happened?"
    Trixie grinned. "Well, after supper they calmly and coolly went to bed. One by one, the lights went out, and it got darker and darker in the woods. I made up my mind I was going to stick it out, but just then a huge owl swooped down, so close I could have touched its wings, hooting, ‘Who-who, whooo!’ and that finished me. I scampered for home, bawling like a baby."
    "Did you get an awful scolding?" Honey asked. Trixie shook her head. "Nobody said a word, not even Bobby. Dad let me in the back door, just as though it was perfectly normal for me to be out until ten o’clock, and I went right upstairs to bed without even asking for something to eat, although I was ravenous. I can tell you," she finished, "I’ve never had any desire to run away since, and I’ll bet Joeanne has learned her lesson, too."
    "I guess she has," Honey agreed, "but all the same, I’m glad Jim has been looking out for her. The poor little thing, all alone in the woods without anything to eat and in all that rain!"
    "I know," Trixie admitted, "but she didn’t have to stay in the woods. Any of the farmers around here would have taken her in. Fanners are usually kind and hospitable, like Mrs. Smith."
    "How do you suppose she got all the way up here from that picnic ground?" Honey wondered out loud. "She couldn’t have walked that far between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning."
    "She hitchhiked, of course," Trixie said, "and probably arrived in this part of the river country at about the same time we did. Miss Trask drove at the rate of about forty miles an hour, but a car without a trailer would travel much faster."
    "I wonder where she spent Saturday night," Honey said. "I’m glad it didn’t rain, aren’t you?"
    Trixie nodded. "And it was nice and hot. I remember thinking I was going to suffocate inside the Swan. It was probably a perfect night for sleeping outdoors, and you know yourself, Honey, eleven-year-old girls aren’t exactly babies. We were that age only a couple of years ago. Joeanne seems pathetic to us because she’s so thin, but remember how grown-up and independent she acted that first evening when we parked beside the Robin ?"
    "That’s true," Honey said. "She was a regular little mother to Sally, and she was the only one in the whole family who didn’t look scared when the father ordered them inside the