The Boxcar Children Mysteries: Books One through Twelve (4 page)

They all walked along through the woods, looking this way and that. After awhile the old track came out into the sun, and the explorers found that they were on top of a hill. They could look down and see the town below them.

“Henry is down there,” said Jessie.

Benny was walking along behind his two sisters.

Suddenly he cried happily, “Look, Jessie! There’s a treasure—a wheel!”

The girls looked where he was pointing, and they saw a big dump with many old bottles and tin cans on it. There were also both wheels and cups. Indeed, there were dishes of all kinds.

“Oh, Benny!” cried Jessie. “You saw the treasures first. What should we do without you!”

Violet ran over to the dump. “Here’s a white pitcher, Jessie!” she cried.

Jessie looked at it. It was all right, with only one small crack.

“Here’s a big white cup, too,” she said, happily.

“Can you use a teapot, Jessie?” asked Benny.

“Yes, indeed!” she replied. “We can put water in it. I have found two cups and a bowl. Let’s look for spoons, too!”

Violet held up what she had found—five spoons, covered with rust.

“Good!” said Jessie. “Here’s a big kettle. Let’s pile all the dishes in it. Then we can carry them back to the boxcar.”

Benny had found four wheels just alike and laid them to one side. Now he held up a pink cup. There was a big crack in it, but it had a handle.

“This will be my pink cup,” said Benny.

“I hope it will hold milk,” said Jessie, laughing. “It’s a beautiful cup, Benny.”

The children laid all their treasures, even the wheels, on a board, and the girls carried the board back to the boxcar between them. They put the dishes down by the brook.

“Now we must wash them,” said Jessie.

“All right,” agreed Benny. “We’ll wash my pink cup.”

And never did a little boy hand dishes so carefully to his sisters as Benny did.

The girls washed the dishes with soap, and Jessie used sand to get the rust off the spoons.

“There!” she said, washing the last shining spoon. “How fine they look! But I’m afraid they still aren’t clean enough to eat from. When Henry comes, we’ll get him to build a fire. Then we can have hot water to rinse them, and they will be
very
clean.”

The children sat back and admired the dishes.

Suddenly Violet cried, “Oh, I know where to put them. Come and see what I found in the car last night.”

Both girls looked in at the door.

“Look on the door on the other side of the car,” said Violet.

All Jessie saw were two pieces of wood nailed to the closed door of the car. But she knew at once what was in Violet’s mind. She ran to get the board they had carried from the dump and laid it carefully across the two pieces of wood. It made a fine shelf for the dishes.

“There!” said Jessie.

The children could hardly wait to put the shining dishes on the shelf.

“Let’s put them on now,” said Violet, “and see how they look, without waiting to rinse them.”

When they were on the shelf, Violet picked some white and yellow flowers and put them in a cup full of water in the middle of the shelf.

“There!” said Jessie, stepping back to look at it.

“You said ‘There’ three times,” remarked Benny happily.

“So I did,” replied Jessie, laughing. “And I’m going to say it again.”

She pointed into the woods and said, “There!”

Henry was coming through the woods, and he carried many funny-looking bundles in his arms. But he would not open his bundles or tell what he had been doing until it was time for dinner.

“Where did you get the dishes?” he cried, when he saw the shelf.

“We went exploring,” said Violet, “and found a big dump.”

The children began telling him about their treasures. Benny told him about the tin cans and his pink cup and his wheels. Jessie took out the big kettle and asked him about building a fire.

“We want to use the dishes to eat from,” she told him, “and it’s hard to get them clean in cold water.”

So Henry made a small fire in an open place where it could not burn anything. He put big stones all around it.

“We ought to have a fireplace,” he remarked.

Jessie cleaned the kettle with sand and filled it with water. Then Henry put it on the fire. Soon the water was boiling, and Jessie rinsed the dishes carefully.

“Now I know they’re clean enough to eat from,” she said happily.

A
T LAST IT WAS
dinner time, and the children sat down to see what Henry had in his bundles.

“I bought another loaf of brown bread at the store,” said Henry, “and some more milk. Then I bought some dried meat, because we can eat it in our hands. And I bought a bone for Watch.”

Watch looked hungrily at the bone and lay down at once to eat it.

Jessie got out four cups and bowls and put some milk into each one. Then the children put in little pieces of brown bread and began to eat it with their new spoons.

“What fun!” cried Jessie. “Eating with spoons. Now tell us what you did in town, Henry.”

Henry began, “The town below this hill is Silver City. I saw the name on a sign.

“I went into the town and walked along the first street I came to. It was a nice street, with big houses and flowers and trees. I saw a man out cutting his grass. He’s a good man, too, I can tell you—a doctor.”

“Did you work for him?” asked Jessie.

“Yes,” said Henry. “He was very hot, and just as I came to the house, his bell rang. He started to the house, and I called after him and asked him if I could cut the grass. He said, ‘Yes, yes! I wish you would!’ You see, he wasn’t used to cutting it himself.

“So I cut the grass, and he said, ‘Good for you. Do you want to work every day?’ And he said he had never had a boy who cut it as well as I did.”

“Oh, Henry!” cried Violet and Jessie.

“I told him I did want to work, and he told me to come back this afternoon.

“He has a pretty house and a garage and a big vegetable garden. Then he has a lot of cherry trees behind the house—a cherry orchard. You should see the beautiful big red cherries!

“Well, when I was cutting the grass near the kitchen, the cook came to the kitchen door and watched me.

“She asked me if I liked cookies. I said I did, and she gave me one.”

“What did you do with it?” asked Benny hungrily.

“When she went back into the kitchen, I put it in my pocket,” said Henry laughing.

“Did she see you?” cried Jessie.

“Oh, no,” said Henry. “I played I was eating it. For a long time I carefully ate away on nothing at all.”

Benny began to look at Henry’s pocket. It did look very funny.

Henry went on. “When I came home, the doctor gave me a dollar, and the cook gave me this bag.”

Henry laughed at Benny and pulled the bag out of his pocket. In it were ten delicious brown cookies.

“Oh, oh!” cried Benny. “Please, Jessie! Let’s have cookies for dinner.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Jessie.

Then Henry opened his last bundle.

“I thought we ought to have a tablecloth,” he said. “So I got one at the store. But it wasn’t hemmed.”

Violet begged, “Oh, let me hem it.”

She took her scissors out of her workbag and cut the two ends even. But before she began to hem the pretty blue tablecloth, she helped Jessie wash and rinse the dishes and put them away. Benny helped, too. When Henry said good-by and went back to town, all the children were working happily.

Watch was trying to make a hole with one paw to bury his bone in.

“I’ll help you bury your bone, Watch,” said Benny.

“Oh, no, Benny,” said Jessie. “Watch wants to bury his bone himself. You come and help me. I’m going to make a broom for the house.”

For a little while Benny ran around finding sticks for the broom, but he soon went to sleep on the ground with the dog for a pillow.

The two girls sat by the brook. Violet was hemming the blue tablecloth, and Jessie was making the broom with a long stick for a handle.

When Henry came back at supper time, the broom with its long handle stood in the kitchen, and the new tablecloth was hemmed. Henry admired the broom and the tablecloth. Then he gave Jessie a small bundle.

“Oh, butter!” cried Jessie, her eyes shining.

It was butter, yellow and sweet. The four children had not had any butter for many days. At last they sat down to their fine supper.

“Now this spoon is a magic spoon,” said Henry. “Turn it around and use the handle, and it is a knife!”

He showed Benny how to put the butter on the brown bread with his magic knife. With dried meat, bread and butter, milk, and cookies, the children could not ask for a better supper.

“What did you do this afternoon, Henry?” asked Jessie.

“Well, I washed the doctor’s car,” said Henry. “Then I washed the walks and the windows. Tomorrow I’m going to work in the garden.”

Then he looked at the brook. “Oh, how I would love to have a swim in that nice cold water!”

Henry was hot and sticky as he looked at the waterfall.

“Maybe we could make a swimming pool,” he said. “We could build a dam out of logs.”

“Oh, yes, we could,” said Jessie. “Violet and I know where to find some logs and some big flat stones.”