Benny watched Jessie roll out the top crust. “Make it big enough this time, Jessie,” he said. “There are lots of apples.”
Jessie rolled the top crust a little thinner. It was just right. When the pie was in the oven, she began to boil some sugar and water in a saucepan.
“What’s that for?” asked Henry. He began to take the things off the table.
“Just wait,” said Jessie. “I think it’s going to be the best thing about this pie. You see there isn’t any sugar in the pie yet, so there is no juice to boil over. Why don’t you get out the bread and milk and set the table? Then everything else will be ready when the pie is done.”
When the crust was nice and brown, Jessie took the pie out of the oven. She lifted up the top crust with a knife, and carefully poured the hot juice over the apples. Then she let down the crust again.
Just as Jessie was about to cut the pie into four pieces, there was a knock at the barn door.
“Who in the world can that be?” cried Henry. He was so surprised that he almost dropped his cup.
When Henry opened the door, he was even more surprised to see a tall man standing there.
“I’m sorry,” said the stranger, “but I went to the fisherman’s hut, and nobody was at home.”
“Won’t you come in?” asked Jessie.
“Thank you. It is a cold day,” said the man with a smile. “Oh, I see that you are about to have dinner. I’ll just stay long enough to ask you something.”
“Won’t you sit down?” said Henry.
“Thank you. My name is Browning,” he said as he sat down in the company chair. “A young man who went exploring for me last year has been lost. I heard that he was dead. Then later I heard that he was living on the Alden Island. This is the Alden Island, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “But there is nobody on the island but Captain Daniel and his friend Joe.”
“Who is this Captain Daniel?” asked Mr. Browning.
“Oh, Captain Daniel is old,” said Henry, “and I’m sure he never went exploring. He has been with my grandfather for years.”
“How about his friend Joe?” asked the man.
“He’s nice. He’s my best friend in all the world,” said Benny, proudly “all but Jessie, and maybe Watch and Captain Daniel—and of course Violet and Henry and my grandfather—”
“You have a lot of best friends,” said the man, laughing. “Tell me, what color are Joe’s eyes and hair?”
“He has brown hair and brown eyes,” said Benny, “and he has a violin.”
“I don’t think he is the one I know, then,” said the man. “I never heard that he played the violin. Just the same, I should like to see your Joe.”
“Won’t you wait for him? He is sure to come back soon,” said Jessie. “Why don’t you stay to dinner and help us eat our first apple pie?”
The man looked at the big pie and said, “If you are sure there will be enough, I think I will.”
So the pie was cut into five pieces. Violet quietly got an extra cup of milk and set another place, and the stranger sat down to a strange dinner.
“When I look at that pie,” said Mr. Browning, “my mouth fills up with water.” And certainly everyone was watching Jessie as she took out the big juicy pieces.
“Milk seems to go with apple pie,” said Henry.
“I never knew pie could be so delicious,” said Mr. Browning when dinner was over. “But now, if I may, I think I will see if I can find Joe.”
“We think that Joe is more than a handy man,” said Henry.
“Joe knows everything in the world,” said Benny. “He knows all the flowers and the birds and the clam shells, and Indian things.”
“Indian things!” cried Mr. Browning. “It must be the very one. He was the head of a museum before he went away. I must see him.”
But Mr. Browning did not see Joe. Captain Daniel came back to the island without him. He said that Joe had gone away for a day or two.
“Is he coming back?” asked Benny, getting ready to howl.
“Oh, yes,” said Captain Daniel. “He will come back, all right.”
When Mr. Browning left, he told Jessie that he was glad he came, for now he had met a girl who could make a wonderful apple pie with an old green bottle for a rolling pin.
CHAPTER 12
The Picnic
The children were waiting upon the dock when Joe came back. But it was too late then to find Mr. Browning.
Jessie began, “You know, Joe, Grandfather said we should never build a fire outdoors unless someone older helped us. Now we have such a good place for a picnic, we thought we’d invite our school friends over for a picnic on the beach. They have never seen the island.”
“I’ll be glad to help you build a fire, if that’s what you want,” said Joe.
“Oh, thanks, Joe,” said Jessie.
The four children invited their friends over Captain Daniel’s telephone. All of them said that they would come. Henry’s friend was a tall boy named Morris Wilder, and Jessie’s friend was Morris’ sister, Marjorie. Violet invited her friend, Barbara Black. Benny surprised them by saying that he wanted to invite Mike Wood, a little boy who was always in trouble.
“Mike and Benny will be quite a pair!” cried Henry. “But I suppose he can invite anyone he likes. We all did.”
“We’ll have fish chowder for dinner,” said Jessie. “We can always get some fish from Captain Daniel.”
“And we’ll all pick blueberries after the others get here,” said Henry. “That will be something to do.”
When the guests arrived, Watch was very excited. Mike had brought his big white dog, Spotty, with him. Jessie had a hard time trying to keep the dogs from fighting, but after a lot of barking Watch and Spotty were friends.
“Let’s race the dogs, Ben,” cried Mike, who could never be still very long.
The two boys held the dogs for a minute, and then let them go. Both dogs seemed to understand, for they raced to the beach where they dropped, panting, on the sand beside Joe. Watch knew the way, and got there first.
“Spotty got there first!” shouted Mike.
“He did not!” cried Benny. “He didn’t even know the way!”
“Benny, Benny!” said Henry. “Don’t start the picnic fighting.”
“Watch got there first and you know it,” said Benny.
“Spotty is better than Watch,” said Mike.
“Spotty is not better than Watch!” shouted Benny. “Watch can run faster than Spotty, and he got there first in the race!”
“You started this fight, Ben!” said Mike.
“I did not start it!” shouted Benny.
“Yes, you did, too!” shouted Mike.
“Now, you listen to me, young fellow,” said Morris, catching Mike’s hand. “You stop, or you’ll have to go home.”
Mike began to jump up and down, when suddenly he jumped on a very sharp shell. Then Mike sat down holding his foot and crying at the same time. Henry sat down, too, and tried to look at Mike’s foot. He took out his box of things for fixing cuts.
“Keep still, now, Mike,” he said. “You’ve got a long cut here, but it’s not deep. Let me fix it.”
The cut foot was a big help to everyone. It kept Mike in sight all morning, while the four older children and Joe picked blueberries.
At noon, Jessie and Violet watched while Joe made a fire and boiled some water. Henry and Morris cut the potatoes and onions and the chowder was soon ready.
Everyone enjoyed the chowder, and the boys had made enough extra for supper, too. After blueberries and milk, Jessie and Violet washed the dishes in the ocean, while Benny and Mike walked away slowly.
“Keep an eye on Mike, Henry,” said Jessie.
“I can see them. They are just sitting over there on the rocks,” said Henry.
But the next time he looked, the boys had gone.
“Where could they go?” he cried, getting up quickly. “There’s no place for them to go, because I
can see the whole beach!”
But the little boys were not in sight. As Henry climbed upon the rocks, he was very glad to hear Benny’s voice.
“I wonder who left the bottle here?” said Benny.
Henry and Morris looked under the rocks into a tiny cave.
“How in the world did you boys get in there?” asked Henry.
“The stone came off,” said Benny. “It was like a door, and we pulled it away. It was awfully heavy.”
“Say, you fellows climb out of there and let us go in,” said Morris. The little boys obeyed at once and the two older boys crawled in and looked around. They saw a big stone table with an old bottle on it.
“Let’s take out the bottle,” said Henry. “There may be something inside.”
“Look, Joe,” said Morris. “See what Ben and Mike found.”
“There’s a paper inside the bottle,” said Henry. “Shall we take it out?”
“Why not?” said Joe, turning it over. “Maybe there’s a name on the paper.”
“Let me get the paper out with my knife,” said Henry. The mouth of the bottle was just wide enough for the knife. Henry pulled the paper out easily and read, “’If found, give to J. Alden. Six feet from cross to red rock, and three feet down. J. A. and R. W.’”
“Grandfather must have left it here when he was a boy,” said Henry, “but I don’t see any cross.”
“I do,” said Mike. “It’s right over there.” He pointed at a strange rock. It did look like a cross.
“And there’s the red rock!” cried Violet. “See!”
“This will be easy,” said Morris. “You run a string from the cross straight to the red rock. Then what does it say?” He looked at the paper again. “Six feet. Well, six feet from the cross you dig down for three feet. There must be something there.”
The children were excited as they tied the string to the red rock. Joe showed them where six feet would be. Then they took turns digging with a spoon. With Watch and Spotty to help, they dug a hole three feet deep, but there was nothing in it but water. After an hour’s digging they had still not found anything.
“We can dig some other day,” said Henry at last. “It may be down twelve feet since the paper is very old.”
All the children but Mike were tired and were glad to sit down on the grass. The little fellow still sat beside the hole with Spotty, digging away with the spoon. Then suddenly he began to shout.
“It’s mine, all mine, because I found it. You can’t say it isn’t, because you all stopped digging.”
When the children ran to the hole, they saw Mike pulling out a black box covered with wet sand. And Mike went right on shouting.
“I found the cave, too, and made Ben help me take the door off, and I found the cross and I dug out the box, and it’s mine!”
“Don’t talk so much. Of course it’s yours, Mike,” said Henry. “Why don’t you open it?”
It was not hard to do this, because the box was very old. Mike pulled off the cover with his fingers, and the children saw a pile of old money. Mike put the money, one piece at a time, in the cover of the box.
“Just five dollars!” said Morris. “What a lot of money, Mike!”
“Grandfather will give him a five-dollar bill,” said Jessie. “I think he would like to keep this old money he put here when he was a boy. Wouldn’t you like to have a new five-dollar bill, Mike?”
“Y-yes, of course,” said Mike who had never had even a dollar bill before in his whole life.
Just then, the children heard a shout coming over the water. Then they noticed a boy in a rowboat who was standing up, shouting, and pointing at the water.
A dark head showed for a minute and then went out of sight.
“There’s somebody in the water, too!” cried Morris.
Henry heard Joe say to himself, “I’m well, now. I’m not afraid.”
Joe took off his shoes, jumped into the water, and swam very fast. “Bring the boat here!” he shouted to the boy in the boat.
But the boat went right past him.
“Oh, come back, Joe!” cried Benny.
“He’ll come back, all right,” said Morris. “He’s a wonderful swimmer! Look!”
As Morris spoke, Joe swam under water suddenly. When he came up he was pulling the boy to the rowboat. It seemed hours before Joe finally got the boy into the boat and pulled himself in.
“Good for Joe!” shouted Henry. “I hope he got there in time.”
“Everybody ought to know how to swim,” said Morris. “That boy was afraid. He just stood there and yelled. He couldn’t even bring the boat over when Joe asked him to.”
All this time Mike had not said anything. He stood very still as he looked out over the water. The little fellow seemed to have turned to stone.
“Why are you so scared?” asked Henry.
“I think it’s Pat,” said Mike, still staring at the boat.
“Pat? Who is he?” asked Henry.
“He’s my brother,” said Mike. “He’s eleven years old. I think he was the one in the water.”
“You can’t see that far,” said Morris. “What makes you think so, Mike?”
“Well, I told him there would be something to eat at this picnic, and that maybe we’d play ball.”
“I begin to see,” said Henry, looking at Morris. “Do you know who the other boy is?”
“Maybe Johnny,” said Mike. “I told Johnny, too, and he knew about a rowboat he could get.”
“How did they get the boat?” asked Morris.
“They just took it,” said Mike.
“What an awful thing to do!” shouted Henry. “Besides, they can’t swim or row.”
It did seem so, for Joe was rowing. One boy was out of sight in the boat, and the other boy sat at one end. When Jessie saw the boat coming, she called to Marjorie, “Let’s run to the barn and get some blankets and towels.”
“Good for you, Jessie!” called Joe when the girls brought the blankets. “Lay them down on the other side of the fire.”
Jessie and Marjorie spread out the blankets, while Henry and Morris caught the boat as it landed on the beach.
“It is Pat,” said Mike in a frightened voice. “Isn’t it, Johnny?”
“Yes,” said Johnny. “But he’ll be all right. This man said so.”
“He’s lucky,” said Henry. “Lucky that Joe knew how to swim.”
Pat was very still when the boys helped Joe lift him out of the boat and roll him in a blanket by the fire.
“We won’t talk to him now,” said Joe, rubbing the boy’s hair with a towel. “We’ll let him sleep first. He’s all tired out.”
“I guess you won’t have to talk to him,” said Johnny, who was very white. “We won’t ever take a boat again.”
“No, I don’t believe you will, either,” called Joe, as he went back to the hut for dry clothes.
Just then, Mike said, “Pat didn’t get any dinner. Will you heat up the chowder for him, Henry?”
“He can’t eat when he’s sound asleep, can he?” asked Morris.
“No, but he’ll wake up when he smells the chowder,” said Mike. “Maybe I could have some more myself, because I didn’t eat much lunch.”
“Ho, I should say you didn’t!” said Morris. “Only three bowls full!”
“I’ll tell you what we can do,” said Joe, who had come back wearing dry clothes. “We have just enough to play ball, if Mike is eating and doesn’t want to play.”
“Oh, I want to play! I want to play!” shouted Mike, jumping up and forgetting about the cut on his foot.
And so all the children played ball. Later, there was more chowder for everyone, and Pat did wake up when he smelled the food.
“This is the best picnic I’ve ever been to,” said Mike, passing his bowl again.
“Hold on, there!” warned Joe. “Don’t give him any more, Henry. Six bowls of chowder in one day are enough for one small boy.”
Just then Captain Daniel came with the boat to t
ake the children home. And now Benny began to cry because his friend was going.
“Ho! What are you crying about, Ben?” asked Mike. “I wouldn’t cry at nothing.”
So nobody cried when the company started for home in the boat. When Mike could not hear Benny’s answer, he put his two hands up to his mouth and shouted, “Spotty can run—faster—than—Watch!”
“Well, Benny, don’t you care,” said Henry. “Just be glad the day is over with no more trouble.” “You’re right,” said Joe. “What a day!” Then Henry remembered that Joe had said he was well again. And when Henry told Jessie about it later, she thought it was very strange, too.
CHAPTER 13
Joe Again
I wish Mike would come over every day,” said Benny one morning.
“Well, I don’t!” said all the others at once.
Henry looked up. “I think we can get along without any company at all.”
“You don’t call Joe company, do you?” asked Violet.
“Oh, no,” said Henry. “He’s just one of the family. Why? Did you want to invite him to eat with us?”
“No,” said Violet slowly. “But today he said I would be ready to play to you after my lesson.”
“Have him stay to supper,” said Jessie. She looked at Henry.
“Benny, come here,” said Henry. “Did you know that today is your birthday?”
“No,” said Benny, walking over to his brother.
“Well, it is,” Henry went on, “and now what do you want for a present? We will buy it for you.”
“Cream,” said Benny.
“Do you mean ice-cream?” asked Henry.
“No, I don’t. I mean cream in a bottle like milk. A big bottle ... not a little one.”
“That’s a queer kind of a present,” said Violet.
“You want to drink it?” asked Jessie.
“No, I want to put it on some blackberries, like Peter Rabbit.”
“We’ll get a big bottle of cream then, Jessie,” said Henry, laughing.
Benny began to jump around the barn and yell.
“Benny,” said Jessie, “Violet is going to bake you a birthday cake before she takes her lesson.”
The Boxcar Children Mysteries Box Set Page 12