“There’s a coin purse in it. I wish it could be filled with gold, as Mart said when he was teasing me. Think what I could do for Moms if that ever happened! Why, Honey, there’s a folded paper here. I wonder what it says.”
Trixie unfolded the note excitedly and spread it on her lap. “There’s writing on it in some strange language. Look at it, Honey. What language is it?”
“Spanish, I think. Do you suppose the woman wrote you a letter?”
“Could be,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “She was busy writing something when I brought the drink to her. It isn’t a letter, though. It’s funny. It’s a sort of verse. What can it be? Do you know any Spanish, Honey?”
“Very little. I can recognize a word here and there. There’s grande. It means ‘big.’ ”
“Or ‘great,’ maybe.”
“Yes. Then here’s the word cabeza. Do you know, that one?”
“ ‘Head.’ Cabezagrande... ‘big head.’ Someone’s big-headed.”
“She couldn’t possibly have meant that you were big-headed, Trixie,” Honey declared loyally.
“She’d never have said it to me even if she thought it. Anyway, there’s the word hombre... ‘man.’ It must mean ‘big-headed man.’ Honey, when she gave me the purse, I remember she said the word cuidadito.”
“Heavens, that means ‘beware’!”
“I don’t understand that at all. Just before she went out to her plane, she said to me, ‘It is more than purse. It is great fortune.’ I surely wouldn’t beware of great fortune. I’d run toward it.”
“Then why are there words on this paper like grito? It means ‘cry.’ And ladrones, which means ‘thieves’?” Honey looked at the paper more closely. “Here’s riesgo, which surely means ‘danger.’ ”
“Pistolas, too, Honey. That means ‘guns,’ doesn’t it? Here’s the word malvado, too. I’m pretty sure that means ‘bad man’ or ‘villain.’ ”
“You’re right. Trixie, I know now why my mother and father are always telling me I should know one foreign language fairly well.”
“That’s because you’ll probably go to Europe with them soon. You know French. Just think how you ordered for all of us in that French restaurant.”
“Oh, that! Anyone could do that. Just look at me now... an exciting piece of paper in front of us, and I can’t get any sense out of it at all because I don’t know the Spanish language. Say, wait a minute... Miss Trask speaks Spanish almost as well as she does English.”
“I know that. What good will it do us right now, though, to know that Miss Trask can figure out what this paper is all about? She’s sound asleep. It’s one o’clock... a million hours till morning, when we can ask her what that Mexican woman meant.”
Honey folded the paper and replaced it in Trixie’s straw purse. “Right there it’s going to stay until morning, when Miss Trask can help us with it. Let’s go to bed, Trixie.”
“I can’t stand to go to bed. I don’t think you can, either, Honey Wheeler, even if you do act so calm. Have we ever in our lives had anything like this happen to us? Have we?” Trixie’s voice rose in excitement as she spoke.
“No, we haven’t,” Honey admitted. “It’s the middle of the night, though, Trixie. Don’t you understand? You never could wait for anything.”
Trixie smiled. “Maybe I don’t have to wait for this, either. Did you hear Miss Trask’s door open?”
Honey didn’t have time to answer before a light knock sounded on their door. “Come in, Miss Trask!” she invited.
“I heard your voices. You sounded upset about something. What can it be to have kept you awake so long?” Miss Trask closed the door silently and approached the girls.
“It’s this.” Trixie showed her the paper.
“Hmmm... sort of odd couplets, aren’t they? Where did you get this piece of paper?”
“It was in that straw handbag the Mexican woman gave me. It’s very important, I know. She told me the purse would mean a fortune. Jeepers, Miss Trask, if you can make any sense out of this, tell me quickly or I’ll die!”
“Calm down, Trixie. You’re so dramatic.” Miss Trask smiled at Trixie’s enthusiasm.
Honey sat down on the bed next to the older woman. “Do translate it if you can,” she begged. “There are words in it that frighten us.”
“Maybe they are frightening words, but I know, somehow, the Mexican woman meant good fortune for me,” Trixie added.
Miss Trask glanced again at the paper, then started to speak.
“Please, darling Miss Trask, don’t ask us to wait till morning,” Honey begged. “If you do, you can just figure on putting Trixie in the hospital at sunrise. She’ll never be able to bear it. I won’t, either.”
“Now who is being as dramatic as Trixie?” Miss Trask inquired. “Just sit quietly, both of you, for about fifteen minutes, and I’ll see what I can do. I’m so wide-awake I can’t sleep. I might as well try to do what you want me to do.”
“Isn’t she marvelous?” Honey whispered under her breath.
“Heavenly!” Trixie agreed.
They both sat without making a sound, without even moving a muscle, while Miss Trask found a pencil and paper on their bedroom desk. She read. Then she wrote. She wrinkled her forehead, puzzled. She wrote again, hastily and easily for a while. Then she sat, puzzled, turned the paper over, and scribbled some more. Half an hour passed. The girls still waited without speaking.
“Does this make any sense at all to you?” Miss Trask finally asked, and read:
“Great-headed man, with blinking eye,
A shaded road, a horse’s cry,
Foreign words for all to hear,
First clue is now so very near.
Watch out for thieves; they’re everywhere,
At home, on island, dead beasts’ lair.
Where shines a beacon ’cross the sky,
Beware, great danger lurks close by.
Be not misled by evening’s fun;
A villain’s work is never done.
When guitars play, thieves linger ’round,
But not till later are they found.
Twin rails of steel, a trembling square,
Watch close, you’ll see the guilty pair.
A lonesome journey, gleaming gun,
Foolish girl, what have you done?
Great-headed man does prostrate lie,
A bright stone in his blinking eye.
All is not lost, though, little friend;
Rejoice, for peril, danger end
Near silver wings, past river’s bend.
Fortune is yours, fit for a king,
And hearts of little children sing.”
“Jeepers, what on earth could all that mean?” Trixie asked, awed.
‘‘It doesn’t mean a single thing to me,” Honey said forthrightly. “I never heard of such a meaningless, mixed-up lot of words in my whole life. I don’t think that paper was ever meant for you, Trixie. I doubt if the Mexican woman even knew it was in the handbag she gave you.”
“Yes, she did, Honey,” Trixie said positively. “Look at what it says at the top of the paper, Miss Trask.”
“Hmmm, yes. It does say ‘Trixie, cuidadito!’ The woman meant it for you, all right, Trixie. It’s interesting, isn’t it? That woman was no common fortuneteller.”
“That’s what I tried to tell all of you.”
“You’re right, Trixie,” Honey said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn now that she’s a seer and kings and queens consult her before they ever make a move!”
Miss Trask laughed heartily. “I’d not go that far. That sort of thing happened way back in the time of King Louis XVI of France. This paper is just a little jabberwocky the Mexican woman amused herself with while Trixie was busy at the information desk. It doesn’t mean a thing. If fortune-tellers were ever to foretell anything, don’t you think the President of the United States would have one on his cabinet?”
“I guess it was a little silly,” Honey admitted slowly. Trixie di
dn’t admit any such thing. She just said casually, “Thanks so much for translating the note for me. It was thoughtless of me to ask you to do it in the middle of the night. I’ll put it back in the handbag right away.”
When Miss Trask had gone back to her room, however, and Trixie and Honey had climbed into their beds, Trixie turned on her side before she put out the bed lamp. “That prophecy isn't all foolishness, Honey, and you know it as well as I do. I’m going to go over it tomorrow and try to find out what it’s trying to tell me.”
A sleepy mumble came from Honey’s bed. “I’ll bet a cookie Mart will make fun of the whole thing.”
“He won’t have a chance to do it,” Trixie declared fiercely. “I’m not going to tell one soul about it, and don’t you tell anyone, either—unless, maybe—well, if we have to, we can tell Jim.”
“You’ll end up by telling all the Bob-Whites. I know you, Trixie.”
The next morning, Trixie and Honey yawned their way through a delicious breakfast Diana and Barbara had prepared while Miss Trask got ready to go to the hospital.
“You’re the last ones in, and you have to wash the dishes,” Mart said. “Boy, do you and Honey look like zombies, Trixie! Didn’t you sleep well?”
Honey helped herself to bacon from a platter. “Trixie was thinking about those men who followed us. She couldn’t figure it out.”
“What an imagination! Why would anyone want to hold us up? There were dozens of likelier candidates going by that antique shop every minute. If they wanted to rob someone, they didn’t have to come way up here.”
“You’ll sure make a good detective, Trix,” Brian said with a smile. “You don’t let a day pass without suspecting someone of something.”
“Hold on, there... I’m not too sure it was Trixie’s imagination working last night,” Jim said. “On the other hand, it doesn’t seem logical that crooks would be following us. Dad told us to take cabs when we were out at night. That’s what we’d better do from now on. What’s on the program for today?”
“Anyone for a ride in Central Park?” Ned asked. He got up from the breakfast table and looked down across Central Park West to the park below. “We could get an eyeful of a lot of places around here if we’d take a hansom cab. Besides, I’ve never ridden back of a horse, just on one. I had to come from the country to the biggest city in the United States to ride behind a horse. That’s a switch!”
“I guess what Trixie’s father said about New Yorkers never seeing New York must be right,” Honey said. “I’ve never been in a hansom cab in Central Park in all my life!”
“Neither have we—not any of the Beldens,” Trixie said quickly. “What about you, Dan?”
Dan laughed. “My budget didn’t run to cabs when I lived in the city—my budget required making use of my own two feet.”
“You must have had a wonderful life, turned loose in New York,” Ned said with obvious envy.
“It wasn’t what you might think. An orphan on the streets is not a person for anyone to envy, no matter who he is. Life wasn’t too bad when my mother was alive. We were poor, but I don’t remember minding that at all. After my mom died, it was difficult until my uncle showed up and took me to Sleepyside. Now I have friends like the Bob-Whites. I don’t think I’ll ever get over wondering why they let me into their club.... I sure did get in with a bad bunch of kids here in the city. I never want to see any of them again. They’re down around the Bowery and the waterfront. I never think of them except when someone brings it up, like right now.... No, I didn’t like being turned loose in New York, Ned. I’ll settle for a few strings tied to me.”
, Everyone was quiet for a while. Then Brian said, “If we’re going for a ride in the park, we’d better collect the hansom cabs. Come on, Jim. They’ll be down on the Fifty-ninth Street Plaza.”
While the boys were gone, everyone else helped wash the dishes and make the beds. Then Trixie telephoned her mother. Her younger brother, Bobby, age six, answered.
“Moms is out in the garden watering her flowers,” he reported. “Mrs. Wheeler and Di’s mother are with her. They came here for coffee this morning. Trixie, did you go to the toy store yet?”
“No, Bobby, I didn’t,” Trixie replied, smiling to herself. “We’ll save that, probably, for someday when you’re with us. Will you please call Moms in from the yard so I can talk with her?”
“I will if you say hello to Reddy first. Here he is.”
“Arf! Arf!” Bobby’s big red setter barked.
Then Trixie’s mother answered. Trixie’s words tumbled over one another in her haste to tell her mother about the fun they were having in New York.
“Barbara wants to say hello to you,” Trixie finished up after a while. “Then Honey wants to talk to her mother, and Di wants to talk to Mrs. Lynch.”
The others were still talking when the boys came back with the cabs. “We have to go now,” Trixie said hastily. “The boys have brought the cabs. Moms, I wish you could see them. I’m looking at them right now, down on the street below. The drivers have tall black silk hats. Oh, it’s going to be such fun! Goodbye now.”
Laughing and chattering, the young people crowded into the cabs, and the drivers lightly touched their whips to the flanks of their horses, turned around, and followed the edge of the park to the Seventy-second Street entrance.
A Treacherous Trip ● 4
IN THE PARK the sun was shining, and the morning air was cool. Children played. Mothers strolled with babies in carriages. Pigeons were everywhere, strutting around on their pink feet, making contented plouplou sounds in their throats.
The hansom cabs skirted the big lake, which was alive with rowboats carrying families—mothers, fathers, children. Back of the rowboats, children trailed paper boats on strings. One boy had made a flotilla of little aluminum foil boats, and the sun, glinting through the trees, turned them to fairy ships.
It was quiet in the park. The hansom drivers kept up a constant flow of information, and, since the two cabs kept close together, the passengers talked back and forth, exchanging impressions of the park.
One of the drivers, the older one, a round-faced white-haired gentleman, had been driving a hansom cab for years. “I used to drive for Mrs. Andrew Carnegie,” he told his group proudly.
The other driver snorted. “Don’t believe a word of it,” he said hotly. “He’s driven that selfsame cab since Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the Indians.”
“I’m not that big a liar,” the old Irishman replied. “But I did drive the old lady herself. She was a great old lady, and she loved the park. She’d always wait for me. She liked everybody. Every year she had red geraniums planted in front of her house up there on Ninety-first Street.” He pointed north with the tip of his whip. “She did it so that people who rode the buses could see them.”
Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. The patient horses traveled along.
“How big is Central Park?” Barbara asked. “It seems almost as big as the whole city of Des Moines.”
“Eight hundred and forty acres,” Mart answered quickly.
“That’s not much bigger than your Uncle Andrew’s farm and ours put together,” Ned said.
Bob and Barbara and Ned—in fact, everyone in the two cabs—were fascinated with the park and their two drivers... everyone, that is, except Trixie. Her mind seemed miles away.
Honey nudged her. “What’s the matter? You look so serious,” she whispered.
“I can’t help it. I keep thinking about that Mexican woman and what she wrote. Honey, it’s coming true!”
“You’re fooling. What are you talking about?”
“ ‘Great-headed man,’ ” Trixie quoted. “It really means ‘big-headed,’ as we first thought. If I’ve ever heard a big-headed man talk, it’s that driver with all his boasting.”
Honey burst out laughing. Everyone looked at her inquiringly, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “It’s a private joke,” she said hastily.
“It sounded funny enough to sha
re,” suggested Mart.
“You wouldn’t think it funny at all,” Trixie said. Then she added to Honey under her breath, “Laugh if you want to, but you’ll find out I’m right.”
Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.
“Just look at those boats!” Bob cried. His eyes almost stood out from his head. “Over on that little pond!”
“That’s Conservatory Pond,” Brian told him. “Do you think we could leave the cabs here, driver, and go over to the pond to look at the boats? I’ve only been there once before, Bob.”
“Let’s,” Mart said. “The boats are really neat. They’re all scale models. Men over there at the Kerbs Memorial Boathouse help boys, and grown-ups, too, to make model boats.”
“Gosh!” Bob scrambled out.
Conservatory Pond was a clear mirror set in a green frame of fresh-cut grass. Scale model boats of all kinds and sizes dotted its waters. Their white sails were reflected in the clear water, which rippled gently, stirred by a gentle breeze that sent boats to windward, each with its own self-steering rig.
They all settled themselves on the bank to watch. “Uncle Andrew gave you a sailboat when we came here before,” Trixie said to Brian. “It was becalmed, and you were furious. Do you remember?”
“I was furious because I sat here for hours waiting for it to come to shore.” Brian laughed, remembering. “Then I had to leave. I don’t know what ever became of it.”
“The men at the boathouse over there probably hauled it in and, when no one claimed it, gave it to some boy—maybe like that one over there.” Trixie pointed to a boy lying prone on the bank, his eyes never leaving his boat, just launched.
“He makes me think of Stuart Little in E. B. White’s book,” Honey said. “Remember how he sailed the schooner Wasp to beat the big racing sloop?”
“He sailed ‘straight and true,’ ” Trixie quoted, “and sent the sloop yawing all over the water.”
“Everyone was so surprised to see a mouse at the helm,” Honey said, laughing. “They kept yelling, ‘Atta mouse! Atta mouse!’ ”
“He had a terrible time before he ever made port,” Mart remembered. “The water was rough; the wind was blowing up a gale.”
The Mystery of the Blinking Eye Page 3