Honey, terrified, beat them off. “Go away! They’ll get in my hair, and I’ll never get them out!”
“Don’t be afraid!” Trixie said. “They won’t hurt you.
That’s a superstition—bats getting in people’s hair.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like them!” Honey wailed. “They’ve settled down now, since you took your light off them,” Jim said. “They’re interesting. Bats fly by radar; did you know that?”
“At least they have their own warning signals,” said Mart, who seemed to know something about almost everything. “They send out a high-pitched beep. Humans can’t hear it.”
“It must be something like the whistle we use to call Reddy back home,” Trixie said.
“They seldom bump into anything,” Brian explained further. “They send out those beeps, and the sound waves bounce back from any obstruction in their paths. When they fly, they screech at the rate of about thirty times a second. Aren’t they something? I’d like to know a lot more about bats.”
“Here’s your chance,” Slim said. “Wait’ll you see what the buzzards and hawks do to ’em!” He picked up a handful of rocks and threw them against the far wall. The startled bats roared into flight, circling the cave clockwise and beating against the Bob-Whites, almost knocking them down. Everyone waved their arms wildly and ran out of the cave. Slim, pushing the others aside, ran ahead of them.
The whirring wings of the frenzied bats sounded like the roar of an express train as they found the exit. Outside, they flew in disorganized flight till hawks, flashing down from the sky, pounced on the helpless creatures.
The scene that followed was sickening. Trixie and Honey hid their faces as little brown balls of fur fell to the ground around them, dropped from deadly claws. The hawks were startled by the sudden appearance of the young people.
Gradually the bats escaped into the sky, and several ugly buzzards that had lurked on the outskirts of the fray, afraid to claim the little bodies on the ground, disappeared from sight.
“That was the cruelest thing anybody ever did!” Trixie said, her eyes flashing fire. “I hate you, Slim! Those poor little things!”
“Can we bury them?” Honey asked, trembling.
“We’ll dig a trench with the pickax,” Brian answered her.
When the grave was ready, the tiny victims were covered completely with sand, then mounded over with stones.
Slim watched the whole proceeding, evidently arrogantly unaware of the Bob-Whites’ indignation. When the bats were buried, he spat contemptuously and announced to the sky, “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Not everything,” Jim answered slowly, anger reddening his face. “You march down to the boat!” he commanded.
“Who says so?” Slim inquired belligerently.
“We do!” Brian said, backing up Jim. “We’re through with you. March!”
Slim snarled viciously and came at Brian, head lowered. Suddenly he seemed to realize that he was outnumbered, so he stopped and swaggered down to the boat.
Jim and Brian, their faces stern, followed him. “You stay with the girls, Mart. Brian and I’ll be back as soon as we deposit Slim’s mean hide on the other shore.”
“I hope that’s the end of Slim,” Honey said with a big sigh as the boat pushed off.
“It won’t be,” Mart said. “I think we’ll have more trouble with him.”
“He’s mean, hateful, and cruel,” Honey said and shuddered.
“You sure called the turn on him the first time you saw him, Trix,” Mart said. “I guess Jim and Brian will go up to the lodge and tell Uncle Andrew about Slim and why we’re through with him.”
Mart, Trixie, and Honey extinguished their carbide lamps to save fuel and sat huddled on the beach, waiting for Jim and Brian to come back. Shading their eyes, they saw the boys put Slim ashore; they saw him turn on them and shake his fists, then go up the steep bank. They saw Jim and Brian go up the path to the lodge, then return, get into the boat, and shove off for the cave.
Uncle Andrew said it’s okay without Slim,” Brian shouted from the boat. “Man, what a relief!”
Hooray!” Trixie cried. “I feel as though Plymouth Rock has rolled off my chest.”
Their carbide lamps again gleaming, the Bob-Whites reentered the cave. Brian threw a quick flash to the far wall, and they saw that some of the bats I were still clinging there.
“They’ll all be back tonight,” he said. “They’re just like homing pigeons. A guy at school told me that when the Pennsylvania turnpike was being built, a bat colony that had lived there for years just wouldn’t leave. Workmen moved them to a nearby cave so smooth cement walls could be put in the old tunnel, but the bats kept flying back to roost in their old lodgings each night.”
“I’ve had enough; of bats for one day,” Mart said. “Maybe you can continue your research some other time.”
“Yes, please!” Honey begged.
Trixie had left the group and was crouched at the edge of the stream, her eyes searching the shallow water. “Finally we can hunt for the ghost fish,” she said.
The other Bob-Whites walked carefully up and down the length of the stream that flowed through the big room. Once they saw another cricket on the rocks, and once Mart was sure he saw the flash of a white tail disappear under the rock where the stream left the room.
“We’re just going to have to follow that stream,” Trixie announced. “There must be some way we can do that. There’s only a trickle of water here, and maybe in another part of the cave there’s a real spring. I intend to find out.”
“I saw a kind of funnel opening midway on this side of the wall,” Mart said. “Do you suppose....”
Trixie was on her feet. Her light shining a short distance ahead of her, she followed the wall till she found a small opening.
“It’s easy to crawl through here,” she announced.
“Here I go!”
Before anyone could speak, she lay flat on the ground and wriggled into the passage. Mart was close after her. “There’s plenty of room,” he called back.
“I can even see the opening ahead,” Trixie’s muffled voice announced. “Come on in, all of you!”
Brian had already entered the crawlway. Honey slid along after him, followed by Jim.
The passage, only about fifteen feet long, led to a room smaller than the one they had left. Here, however, they heard the rush of running water from a spring.
The ceiling was domed, exposing a dozen different strata—brown, orange, yellow, white, and a deep layer of black. The dome had the appearance of an upside-down pothole worn by some long-ago stream that had rushed with terrific force down through the cavern.
The floor was covered with fragments of limestone that had scaled from the dome and fallen to the cave floor. Iron, brought in by dripping water, had colored fantastic flowers and fernlike spirals that protruded from the wall and ceiling. Huge stalactites hung down, constantly dripping water that formed thick stalagmites or rimstones that cradled nests of calcite balls. It was a lovely fairyland, sparkling and scintillating under the searching lights of the Bob-Whites.
Trixie, usually sensitive to beauty, was so engrossed with her search for the fish that she didn’t see the rock formations around her. Her hand clasping Honey’s, she walked along the side of the stream.
Suddenly she let out a whoop, dropped to her knees, and brought up a ghost fish!
Mart came stumbling over the rough floor. Brian and Jim tore themselves from a study of the stratified dome to answer Trixie’s cry.
“It’s a fish! It’s a fish! What shall I do with it? Where shall I put it? Oh, why didn’t I bring the bait bucket?”
“Hold tight, Trixie, and I’ll run for the bucket!” Jim said and vanished through the tunnel.
Trixie had the agonizing experience of watching a crayfish crawl by, followed by its ghostly brother, and still another before Jim returned.
Into the bait bucket went the fish. Then Trixie bent earnestly ove
r the water. She snared a crayfish and added it to her catch. Concentrate as she would, though, not another ghost fish appeared.
The other Bob-Whites, eager to help, struggled over the wet clay, straining their eyes. Finally Brian announced, “It’s almost five o’clock. We’d better go. Uncle Andrew’ll be concerned if we don’t show up soon.”
“Oh, Jim, what shall I do with my ghost fish and my crayfish?” Trixie asked.
“I think it’ll be better to leave the bucket right here, don’t you, Brian?”
“Nobody asked me,” Mart piped up. “Nobody thinks I know anything about cave fish. Any amateur spelunker would know that the specimens are more likely to survive captivity if they are kept in an environment to which they are inured.”
“In other words, leave them here in the cave till tomorrow?” Trixie asked.
“Mart’s right,” Jim said. Brian agreed. So they inched their way back to the big room, Trixie pushing the bait bucket ahead of her.
“I don’t know whether or not bats eat ghost fish,” Trixie said.
Mart hooted. “They only eat insects.”
“I’m not too sure you’re right. To be sure, I’ll buckle down the perforated top of the bucket, and my ghost fish and crayfish will be safe. And, jeepers, isn’t the ghost fish a beauty?”
“It’s the beginning of five hundred dollars’ worth of beauty,” Mart said. “It has those little knobs of flesh where its eyes used to be. We still have to find one with eyes and one without eyes or even knobs before we have a chance at winning all that prize money.”
“I know that,” Trixie said. “But this is a start. The other specimens are around here someplace, and we’ll come back after them tomorrow.”
Surprise Party ● 9
THERE, THERE, NOW, what’s all the excitement?” Andrew Belden asked as Honey and Trixie burst through the door, almost knocking him down.
“It’s just that we found a ghost fish!” Honey called. “One of them. Trixie found it!”
“We all found it,” Trixie announced breathlessly. “As soon as Slim was out of the way, everything clicked. I wish we could have found the other specimens, but ghost fish are rare. You don’t just find them waiting for you around any old corner.”
“Where is it? May I see it? Do you have it, Jim?”
Jim, Brian, and Mart had come in the back way and were talking to Mrs. Moore in the kitchen.
“We left it in the bait bucket in the cave,” Trixie explained. “We have a ghost crayfish, too. We thought the temperature in the cave would keep them much better.”
“That was a wise thing to do,” Uncle Andrew said. “Yes, what is it, Mrs. Moore?”
“See what I have. The boys found it at the back door—and not a sign of anyone around.”
Mrs. Moore held a splint basket in her hand. She sat on a chair Linnie pushed forward for her and took off the cloth that had been laid over the contents of the basket.
“A dressed wild turkey,” she exclaimed, “and two fat squirrels! Where on earth did they come from? It must be one of the neighbors who’s coming here tonight—”
“Mama!”
“Oh, Linnie, what will you and Mr. Belden do to me? I didn’t mean to let it out. It’s a surprise party,” she said to the Bob-Whites. “You might as well know it, anyway, because I never could keep it a secret from five pairs of bright eyes—two pairs of them belonging to famous detectives!”
“A surprise party! We just love surprises. Who’s coming?” Trixie forgot her weariness from the cave explorations. Her eyes glowed with anticipation.
“We just let it be known around that we’d have a play-party tonight. The news goes from place to place, and we never really know who’ll be here.” Mrs. Moore got up to take the basket to the kitchen. “Now, wasn’t it nice of someone to leave this offering? We’ll have our dinner right now, and you come and help me please, Linnie.”
“Yes, Mama,” Linnie answered, then added, “It’s a good dinner!”
It was a good dinner. There were shelled garden peas cooked with scraped new potatoes. There were snap beans cooked with an end of salt pork. There was ham, just brought in from the smokehouse that afternoon, along with fried chicken and baked yams.
The Bob-Whites bowed their heads while Uncle Andrew asked the blessing, then ate as though they hadn’t tasted food for days. “How could you possibly cook a dinner like this and plan a surprise party, too?” Honey asked.
“Linnie is a great help to me,” Mrs. Moore said. “Everybody’s going to have to help now, though,” Linnie said. “Trixie, if you and Honey will help Mama with the dishes, and if the boys will help me, we can be ready before the first person comes.”
The girls hurried about, scraping dishes and dipping water for washing out of the big reservoir on the kitchen stove.
At Linnie’s direction, the boys folded up the hooked rugs in the living room, pushed the furniture back, and brought in planks to put across chairs pushed against the wall.
“Will there be that many people? Will they have to sit on planks? Aren’t there enough chairs?” Sitting on a plank wasn’t Mart’s idea of having a good time at a party.
“You’ll see,” Linnie answered. “The women Mama’s age always sit along the wall and watch while we play games and dance. The men will play Pitch Up here in the corner. We’ll put this table there for them. Jim, maybe you’d bring some of those camp chairs in from the porch.”
Before long, the whole character of the lodge living room had changed. It looked just like an old-time Western dance hall.
When the sun began to sink behind the pine-covered hills, the purple shadows lengthened, and Mrs. Moore pulled down the hanging kerosine lamps to light them. Then the first guests came. They were the Bill Hawkins family. The children, dressed to starched discomfort, got down from the wagon and waited, silently and timidly, till their father unhitched his mules, put feed in the wagon, and came up to the house. Then they passed single file through the doorway.
The Bob-Whites, glad to see the children, greeted the family warmly, and soon they seemed quite at home in the lodge.
One after another, other neighbors came, till soon the big room overflowed. Mothers lined up against one wall, as Linnie had predicted, babies in their laps, and chatted happily. In the corner, playing cards snapped as the men played their game. Young people the ages of the Bob-Whites clapped enthusiastically as the last wagon arrived and the musicians came up, one with a concertina, one with a guitar, and a third with a fiddle. The fiddler led a fourth man by the arm, as he was blind, and half a dozen people ran forward to lead him to a seat. Blindness hadn’t taken away his spirit, however, and he tapped his foot to the tempo as the musicians swung into a tune.
The man with the concertina jumped to the middle of the floor to summon young people for a dance. “First thing, we’ll dance the hall!” he announced. Everyone began to stomp. The women cuddled their babies and stomped. The men at the card table stomped. The children playing around the room and in the kitchen stomped. Stomping to the tune, Jim led Trixie to the center of the circle that formed. Then, as Jim and Trixie danced, the circling couples clapped their hands and sang,
“Lost my sweetheart, skip to my Lou,
Lost my sweetheart, skip to my Lou,
Lost my sweetheart, skip to my Lou,
Skip to my Lou, my darling!
“Skip to my Lou, skip to my Lou,
Skip to my Lou, skip to my Lou,
When you’re through, remember my call,
Change partners now and waltz the hall.”
As the man with the concertina called the changes, Jim and Trixie retired to the outer circle and another couple took their place. This continued till all the pairs had “waltzed the hall.”
In the kitchen, Mrs. Moore had pitchers of lemonade waiting, and colas were cooling in the spring. Linnie and Honey and Trixie carried trays of paper cups to the older people in the big room, and the dance started again.
“Put your little foot,
>
Put your little foot,
Put your little foot
Right there!
“Take a step to the side,
Take a step to the rear,
Put your little foot right down,
And forever stay near!”
For the laughing, shouting, dancing young people, the musicians then bounced out “Black-Eyed Susie,” “Sugar in My Coffee,” and “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”
“I wish the gang at Sleepyside High could hear these boys,” Mart whispered to Jim. “They really lay it on the line, don’t they?” And Mart, who had only lately learned to dance, whirled out onto the floor with Linnie as his partner.
Meantime, a big moon hovered outside the open doors and windows, turning the outdoors to silver. In the yard, Uncle Andrew busily swished about with a spray gun, killing lurking mosquitoes and chiggers. The boys started smudges going, then spread blankets on the grass and took out several camp chairs for the older people and one for the blind man.
When the guests swooped out of doors, the fun went on. The dancing was over, but the blind man borrowed the fiddler’s fiddle, laid it across his knee, and drew out sweet music to accompany his thin voice.
He sang ballads that found their way to the Ozark hills when English-born settlers came from the southern states; French songs that were inherited from voyageurs who explored the long rivers in far-off days and tarried to become the ancestors of the people who sat now in Andrew Belden’s yard.
In the lodge clearing, tucked away in the friendly hills, a cool breeze came up from Lake Wamatosa while the people under the starlight sang and traded stories of witches and “haunts.”
Mrs. Moore went into the house to make fresh lemonade and to bring out some cakes she had baked. Trixie followed to help. Everyone called to Linnie to sing, so, as her fingers swept minor chords from her guitar, she sang plaintively,
The Mystery at Bob-White Cave Page 7