The secret of the Mansion

because of nervousness."
    "I know," Trixie put in. "When Reddy was a puppy he used to when he was carsick."
    Honey shuddered. "But suppose he had hydrophobia and had bitten me. I would have died, wouldn’t I?"
    "Oh, no," Jim said easily. "There’s the Pasteur treatment, you know. Your doctor would have immediately vaccinated you against hydrophobia." He smiled at Honey sympathetically. "You had a nasty scare. Feel all right now?"
    Honey nodded. "But I’m awfully glad that dog won’t bother us anymore." They told him, then, about Trixie’s accident and how she had thrown the cushion in the mongrel’s face.
    "I was wondering where you got that bump." Jim grinned admiringly at Trixie. "It took plenty of nerve to do what you did, but it took a heck of a lot more nerve to do what you did yesterday. You have plenty of courage."
    Trixie flushed uncomfortably. "I don’t know what you mean."
    "Sucking the venom out of Bobby’s toe," he explained. "If you’d had a cut or a sore in your mouth—"
    "I never even thought about that," Trixie admitted truthfully.
    "If we’re going to do a lot of roaming through these woods and fields," Jim said thoughtfully, "we really ought to carry snake-bite kits. They come equipped with a scalpel, suction pump, and tourniquet, you know. The important thing with snake bites is speed and keeping the victim quiet, so the poison won’t spread. But the most important thing," he finished, "is to avoid being bitten. And you, Trixie, ought to be more careful. You were all set to barge into that summerhouse this morning. Don’t you know that snakes love to nest in deserted houses?" Trixie stared, shamefaced, down at her hands, and Honey quickly changed the subject. "Whatever happened to Queenie?"
    "She’s okay," Jim told her. "I saw her tearing across the courtyard just before you came up. She just pretended to be hurt, the way wild birds do, to lure the dog away from where her nest is hidden in the thicket."
    "I’m glad of that," Trixie said. "She’s a wonderful little hen. I was wondering how we were going to catch her so we could put a splint on her wing. She scurries away at the first sound of anyone coming near."
    "We would have had to do it at night," Jim said. "If we could have found her nest. And I doubt if we could have done that."
    "Wait till you see her baby chicks," Trixie told Honey. "They’re the cutest little balls of yellow fluff with stripes down their backs like chipmunks."
    "I’d love to see one," Honey said. "But I wouldn’t dare go near them."
    "You wouldn’t have a chance," Trixie said. "If you think Queenie’s mean while she’s setting, you ought to see her after the eggs are hatched. Boy! She’s a terror." She turned to Jim. "Come on, it’s getting late. Aren’t we going to explore the top floor?"
    "Okay," Jim said reluctantly as he led the way around to the bam in the back of the house. "But I still don’t like the idea."
    "I don’t, either," Honey said determinedly. "I wouldn’t go up there for anything in the whole wide world."
    "What’s that?" Trixie asked, pointing to an oil drum which hung from a branch of a large evergreen.
    Jim grinned. "That’s my outdoor shower. I got so hot and dirty looking for hidden treasure, I rigged it up."
    "How does it work?" Trixie demanded.
    "Well, first I suspended the drum from the tree by looping a rope over that branch and tying the end to another tree. Then I stretched a piece of inner tube over the open end of the drum and poked holes in the rubber. Finally I filled the drum with water and attached a pull rope to make the drum tip when I want a shower."
    "Why, it’s wonderful," Trixie cried. "I’m going to make one for Bobby. He’ll love it! He’s always begging me to squirt him with the hose."
    "Down at your place," Jim said, "you probably have a hose, so you can make a permanent shower.
    Tie the can securely to the trunk of the tree, place one end of the hose in it, turn on the water, and there you are. But," he cautioned, "you’d better not waste your water until we get a good long rain. The well up here is almost dry."
    "Our brook is nothing but a trickle," Trixie said. "I wish it would rain. With the cistern so low, we’re going to have to bring water soon from the house to the garden, and that’s an awful chore. I don’t like to carry heavy water buckets."
    They found an old cobwebby ladder in the bam and dragged it around to the house. The girls held the ladder in place while Jim tried one