Mike's Mystery (Boxcar Children #5)
Gertrude Chandler Warner
CHAPTER 1
Yellow Sands
The four Alden children could hardly wait to get back to Mystery Ranch.
Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny had planned for weeks what they would
do.
"We'll go on that dear old train!" said Violet. "Remember Mr. Carter who
helped us carry our bags, Jessie?"
"I'll carry the bags!" shouted Benny. "Mr. Carter won't be on the train
this time."
"Maybe I'll carry some of the bags, old boy," said
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Henry. "But you know we won't get off at Centerville."
Jessie nodded at her older brother. "Yes, we will get off at Yellow
Sands now. I think that is a beautiful name. Our uranium fields looked
just like yellow sand."
Grandfather said, "Sam will meet you. Maybe Sam will carry the bags."
The children laughed. "Fighting over old bags," said Benny.
"Too bad Watch has to ride in the baggage car," said Henry. "But they
don't allow dogs anywhere else on the train."
"I'll ride in the baggage car, too," said Benny. "Then he won't mind."
Mr. Alden laughed. He said, "I'm afraid you can't do that. But you can
go and see him once in a while. Then he will know you are near by."
At last the day came when they were off to Mystery Ranch where Aunt Jane
lived.
Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny loved Aunt Jane
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and they were to visit her for the summer vacation.
Once she had been a very cross old woman. But now she was a very
pleasant lady.
When they got off the train at Yellow Sands, they all looked for the old
black horse. But instead they saw Sam and Maggie with a station wagon.
Sam took care of the ranch, and Maggie took care of Aunt Jane.
"Hello, Sam!" cried Benny. "Where's Snowball?"
"Snowball's all right," said Sam smiling. "I always thought that was a
funny name for a black horse."
"I named him," said Benny. "I thought it was a funny name, too. Where is
he?"
"He is taking it easy these days," said Maggie. "He stays out in the
field all the time eating grass. This car goes faster."
"You mean you can drive it, Maggie?" asked Jessie.
"Yes," said Maggie smiling. "Sam says I drive all right."
"Let's go," said Sam. "Now that Watch is out of the baggage car, we are
ready."
Everyone carried a bag. In no time they were going
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through the new gate to Aunt Jane's house. At the top of the gate were
big letters saying,
Mystery Ranch.
How glad Aunt Jane was to see them! Watch did not care much for Aunt
Jane's new dog, Lady. But when lunch was ready, Watch lay down at
Jessie's foot, and Lady lay down at Aunt Jane's foot. So all was well.
"Oh, this place has changed in just this one year," Aunt Jane said. "You
would never know it. There is one long street down the middle of my old
hay field."
"Is it a real street?" asked Benny.
"Oh, my, yes! There are lots of stores and a church, and a school and a
High School."
"I can't imagine it," said Henry. "We shall have to go and see it soon."
"Go any time you like," said Aunt Jane. "I know you are just dying to
see that street."
"We want to see you, too, Aunt Jane," said Violet.
"Well, you've seen me now," said Aunt Jane.
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Yellow Sands 13
[PICTURE NOT SHOWN]
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"Lunch is over. So you go along and enjoy yourselves."
"Be back for supper," said Maggie. "We are going to have a fine supper."
"Oh, we will get back long before supper," said Jessie. "We just want to
see what the old ranch looks like."
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CHAPTER 2
An Old Friend
The ranch belonged to the four Alden children. So, of course, they
wanted to see how it had changed since last summer when uranium had been
found.
Benny said, "I suppose Grandfather had to get hundreds of miners to work
in the uranium mine. And the miners have lots of children, and they must
have clothes and something to eat, and a school and a church. So that's
how the town grew."
"Right!" said Henry with a smile. "You have it all worked out." The four
children went out the back door.
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"Yes, Watch, you can come," said Henry to the dog. "Can Lady come too,
Aunt Jane?"
"No," said Aunt Jane. "Lady always stays with me."
Watch was delighted to go with the four children, so he barked and
barked. He ran along barking. On they went, past the hen houses. These
were all mended and painted. They went through a field to the street. It
was very strange to see a city street in the middle of the old field.
"There's a five and ten," said Benny, "and a big super-market! We won't
need to hoe any vegetables if we don't want to."
"What a beautiful dress shop!" said Jessie. Then she almost bumped into
a boy about Benny's age. He was walking with his hands in his pockets
and he was whistling.
When he saw the children he stopped and stared at them. Then he said,
"Hi, Ben! Don't you know me?"
Benny took one look. "Mike! Mike Wood!" he
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yelled. "It's Mike, Henry! Remember he came to the picnic on Surprise
Island?"
"Well, I'd never forget that," said Henry. "It is Mike, sure enough! You
came over to our picnic and your dog had a race with Watch."
"Yep," said Mike. "That was my dog Spotty. He's out with my brother Pat
now. I remember how he beat your dog in the race."
"Oh,
no!"
cried Benny. "He never did! Watch was the one that beat
Spotty! Don't you remember?"
"No, I don't," said Mike. "I know Spot beat Watch."
"He didn't either!" shouted Benny. "Spot was a stranger. He didn't even
know which way to run!"
"Stop, you boys," cried Henry. "Don't fight the minute you meet."
"Well, Mike started it," shouted Benny.
"I did not! You started it," shouted Mike.
"Boys!" said Henry. "Stop this minute. Aren't you friends?"
"We're friends," said Benny, "unless Mike tells lies
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about Watch. Watch won that race and I won't give in for anybody."
"Well," said Mike, "maybe he did. But it wasn't a fair race, because
Spotty didn't even know the way."
"O.K." said Benny. "That's all I care. If you say Spo
tty didn't beat."
"Well, maybe he didn't beat," said Mike, "but how could he beat when he
didn't know where to run?"
"Well, he couldn't," said Benny. "That's what I said. He couldn't and he
didn't. I never said it was a fair race."
"Mike," said Jessie pleasantly, "how did you happen to come out here?
You're so far from where we saw you last."
"I know," said Mike. "But we like it here. My Uncle Bob invited us to
live here when my father died. Uncle Bob said he could give Pat a job.
Remember Pat? My big brother?"
"Oh, yes," said Henry. "He was the one who almost got drowned at the
picnic."
"Well, Pat works at the mine for my Uncle Bob.
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An Old Friend 19
[PICTURE NOT SHOWN]
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Not in the mine, but outside. I do all sorts of work for the mine, too.
We all work. Mother washes the miners' clothes."
"Where's your house?" asked Henry.
"Over there," said Mike, pointing. "That pink one. The houses are all
alike, only different colors. Each house has a yard around it, but the
grass is dry and brown. My house has an electric stove and a washing
machine. It's different from our old house back home. Come and see my
mother."
"All right," said Henry. "We'd like to."
"Pat isn't home, but my mother is," said Mike. "She is making a pie,
maybe, and we could have some to eat."
They reached the door of the pink house. "Ma, look who's here!" said
Mike.
Mrs. Wood was indeed making pies. She was taking the third pie out of
the oven. When she looked up and saw Benny, she laughed out loud.
"Hello, Benny Alden!" she cried.
"You have never seen the rest of us," said Jessie,
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laughing. "But you have seen plenty of Benny, when he went to school
with Mike back in the East."
"I've heard lots about you," said Mrs. Wood. "Benny is a great talker.
He's a fine boy. It does Mike good to play with him."
"It does Ben good to play with me," said Mike loudly.
"Yes, I think it does," agreed Henry.
Mike looked up in surprise. He did not know what to say. He thought
Henry would not agree with him. "Ma makes pies for the neighbors," he
said.
"And you are surely neighbors," said Mrs. Wood at once. "So take your
choice. I have cherry, apple, and blueberry pie. All hot." She began
cutting the three pies. The smell was delicious and the pie crusts were
brown and flaky.
"I didn't really have much lunch," said Benny.
"Pull up your chairs around that table," said Mrs. Wood. "And Mike, you
get a bit of cheese out of the refrigerator."
"Where's Pat?" asked Mike, getting the cheese.
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"Gone to the bank. It's pay day. He puts Uncle Bob's money in the bank
every week. You go get him, Mike, and tell him to come home and see the
company."
Mike ran off down the street. Mrs. Wood watched him with a smile.
"He's not a bad boy, is Mike," she said. "He's just a big talker."
"We know that," said Jessie, smiling too.
"He'd do anything for his friends," said his mother. "He helps the men
at the mine a lot, even if he fights, too. They joke with him and argue
with him, but they like him."
Henry said, "This is the best apple pie I ever ate."
"I agree," said Jessie. "The cherry must be even better than the apple."
Violet laughed softly. "I was going to say the same thing about this
blueberry."
"I'm glad," said Mrs. Wood very quietly. "I love to bake pies the best
of anything. I wish I had time."
"Haven't you time?" asked Jessie, puzzled.
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"No, dear," said Mrs. Wood. Her voice sounded sad. "I wash all day to
earn money to help keep us. I'm lucky to have a washing machine. Here's
Pat now."
When Pat came in, he said at once, "Hello, Ben! You used to come down to
our house and play with Mike."
"This is Jessie," said his mother. "This is Violet, and this is Henry."
"Oh, I know them all," said Pat. "They saved my life on that picnic."
"Our cousin Joe did that," said Henry. "He is a fine swimmer."
Then Mike said, "When I met Pat, he was just coming out of the bank."
"It seems too funny to have a bank here," said Jessie. "This whole place
used to be great fields of long grass."
"We have almost everything," said Pat. "We have a newspaper every day.
The newspaper office is right by the bank."
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"Oh, yes," cried Benny. "I saw the paper up at Aunt Jane's. The Daily
News. It had a big picture of the uranium mine buildings on the front
page."
"Yes, the mine is almost always on the front page," said Mike. "Here it
is. We saved this one, because Pat is in the picture. See, right there?
That's Pat. Standing by the short man. Gosh, that's funny. I've seen
that man before some place. He don't live here."
"Doesn't," said Pat.
"Well, doesn't, then," said Mike. "You say
Don't
to me often enough."
"That's very different, Mike," said Pat.
"Well, it don't sound any different to me," said Mike.
Jessie laughed. "Mike makes me think of Benny, sometimes," she said.
"They both love to argue."
"I'm not arguing," said Mike. "I'm thinking. That short man in the
picture don't-doesn't-live around here. He's a stranger. But I know I've
seen him before."
Pat looked at the picture. "I don't remember him
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[PICTURE NOT SHOWN]
at all," he said to his younger brother. "I didn't even know when they
took the picture."
Mike was very quiet for a while. He kept looking at the picture.
"We must go," said Jessie. "We want to go into every store on the street
and see all the sights."
"I'll go with you," said Mike. "I can show you everything. I've been
here two months."
It was true. Mike did know everything. He
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showed them the door of the super-market which opened all by itself. He
showed them a garage where new cars were for sale. Jessie bought five
big straw hats in one store. The sun was very hot, so they all put on
the hats. Everyone in the stores seemed to know who the children were.
Aunt Jane had put their pictures in the paper many times since they
owned the ranch where uranium had been found.
At last Jessie said, "Come on, let's go home. Maggie said she had a fine
supper."
"Thank you, Mike, for showing us," said Violet.
"See you tomorrow, Mike," said Benny.
"Yep," said Mike. He went off whistling. He didn't know then that
tomorrow would be so exciting.
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CHAPTER 3
Fire!
The children slept soundly. They all woke up once to hear a loud,
strange bell ringing. But they thought it was midnight, so they all went
to sleep again. When they came down in the morning, Sam and Maggie were
talking about a fire.
"What fire?" asked Henry.
"Didn't you hear the firebells ringing and ringing in the night?" asked
Sam. "Here comes the paper boy. The news will be in the paper."
Sam took the paper. It was full of pictures. Benny
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looked over his shoulder. "It's Mike's house!" yelled Benny at the top
of his voice.
"The paper says that it was the Wood's house that had burned to the
ground."
"Let me see the paper, Benny," Jessie cried. "I can read faster."
"I can read fast enough," said Benny excitedly. "See that picture? It's
Mike all right."
"I'm afraid it is," said Jessie, trying to read. "That lovely new, pink
house, and the washing machine and electric stove!"
"No lives were lost," read Benny. "Not even the dog. Their big dog,
Spotty, who slept in the cellar barked and gave the alarm. The fire had
started in the cellar, and by the time the fire engine came, the whole
house was burning. The fire seemed to start on all four sides of the
house.
"Nothing was saved except clothing and bedding. When Mrs. Wood saw that
the house could not be saved, she put some sheets on the floor, threw
all the clothes from bureau drawers and closets on the sheets,
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tied them up, and threw them out of the window."
"Well, wasn't that smart?" said Jessie. "That costs the most of
anything, doesn't it, Aunt Jane? The family clothes and bedding?"
"Yes, my dear," replied her aunt. "I wonder what the Wood family will do
now."
"I have to go right down there," said Benny. "I have to see Mike."
"Wait a minute, Benny," said Aunt Jane. "You must eat your breakfast,
first. When you get down there, you won't come back for a long time. I
know you!"
Benny knew that this was true, so he sat down and tried to eat. They all
tried to eat, but everyone was thinking about the fire.
"Mike could come here for a few days," said Aunt Jane, "if he has no
other place to go."
"Oh, Aunt Jane, thank you!" said Jessie. "You are very kind. But I don't
think you want Mike. He would upset everything."
"I don't mind being upset," said Aunt Jane. "Benny
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and Mike would be something amusing to watch."