The Red Trailer Mystery

car, ready to drive away." He sighed. "If I’d been delayed sixty seconds, I would have lost the best man I ever hired."
    "No, you wouldn’t," Mr. Darnell said quietly, still holding Joeanne close to him. "I was on my way over to ask you if you’d take me back after I’d returned Mr. Lynch’s trailer."
    "Oh, Daddy," Joeanne cried, "are we going to live with the Smiths? Please, Daddy, I’d rather live here than anywhere else in the world."
    Mrs. Smith dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. "I declare," she said to her husband. "The Lord is certainly looking out for us. Here I was counting on three children to fill up those empty bedrooms, and now we’re going to have five. Jim Frayne’s going to stay on, too, Nat. You tell him he has to, although what use he’ll have here for half a million dollars is more than I can say." She turned on Jim, scolding to disguise her fear that he might not stay. "If you must go to college, I suppose you must, but you’ll earn your bed and board during vacation time, I can tell you. There’ll be no lying abed in this house, even on Christmas Day, what with snow to be shoveled and logs to be cut and com to be popped for four little hungry children."
    Jim’s green eyes were misty as he grinned at Mrs. Smith. "I’ll be here my very first Christmas vacation," he promised, "and Thanksgiving, too, if you’ll have me."
    At that Honey burst into tears. "I want him for my brother," she wailed unashamedly. "You don’t need him, Mrs. Smith, not with all the Darnells. But I haven’t anybody."
    Mr. Smith came to the rescue. "There, there," he said soothingly. "Pay no attention to Mary. She’s never satisfied, no matter how many blessings the good Lord bestows on her. Seven sons of her own she has, and five grandsons. I must say, I’d like to have young Frayne stay with us, but if you have other plans for him, so be it."
    Trixie could not help laughing at the way people were calmly arranging Jim’s life for him. He winked at her and stood up. "It’s dry enough now to work in the garden. Let’s all go pick beans."
    "We’ll do nothing of the kind." Mrs. Smith bristled. "If Mr. Darnell will kindly go and get the rest of his family, I’ll try to scrape up enough food for a party. We’ll have a celebration this very afternoon, beans or no beans. I never cared for them, anyway—nasty, tasteless things unless drowned in fresh butter."
    "Get to your baking, Mary," Mr. Smith said mildly. "I can finish the beans myself. Win—I mean, Jim—did so much yesterday morning there’s hardly a bushel left on the vines."
    "I’d like to finish the job, sir," Jim said, but Mr. Smith waved him away.
    "These girls," he said in his flat, expressionless voice, "would like to have you to themselves, I think, for a little while, anyway. Come back for tea, all of you, but right now let’s clear out the kitchen. Mary likes to be alone when she bakes."
    Mrs. Smith was already yanking pie tins out of a corner cupboard and did not seem to notice when the others filed out the back door.
    Mr. Smith headed for the garden, and Mr. Darnell and Joeanne started down the driveway toward the macadam road. Trixie grabbed Jim’s hand.
    "Come on," she cried. "We’ll cut through the orchard and the fields to Autoville. I can’t wait to show you to Miss Trask and telephone Mr. Rainsford that we found you."
    "I still can’t believe it." Honey sighed as she hurried along on the other side of Jim. "Now, if only Mother—"
    "Sh-h," Trixie stopped her. "Let’s not talk about that now. I want to hear all about what Jim’s been doing since he left the Mansion."
    "Well, there isn’t much to tell," Jim said. "I bought a bike and headed for this part of the country. Rigged up a camp in the woods and tried to get a job at one of those boys’ camps I told you about. But no luck. I found Joeanne caught by her hair to a bramble bush and turned my camp over to her while I moved to the old barn down there in the hollow." He grinned. "You seem to know more about those trailer thieves than I do, although how you knew I loosened the core valve on their tire is more than I can guess." Trixie explained, and when she had finished, Jim chuckled. "If I’d only known Mr. Darnell was on their trail, too, I wouldn’t have worried so. But, as a matter of fact, I was pretty sure the troopers would find that van while it was still hitched up to the stolen trailer. Then all they had to do was wait there calmly until Al and Jeff