The Mystery at Maypenny's Page 2

  Mr. Maypenny threw back his head and laughed. “What you’re saying, Honey Wheeler, is that your dad and brother aren’t the only stubborn ones around these parts. And you’re right. I should have listened to your father’s explanation. It might have saved me some embarrassment— and a whole batch of hunter’s stew!”

  The Bob-Whites laughed, feeling relieved that the tension had been broken—and a little self-conscious as they realized that the enormous pot of stew Mr. Maypenny had set before them was now almost empty.

  Suddenly Dan Mangan snapped his fingers and jumped to his feet. “You’re not the only forgetful person around these parts, either, Mr. Maypenny,” he said. “I picked up a letter for you down at the mailbox, and I completely forgot to give it to you.” He left the room for a moment to retrieve the letter from his jacket and came back holding out a long white envelope.

  Mr. Maypenny regarded the envelope curiously for a moment before he took it from Dan’s hand. The old man had lived his entire life on this small piece of land. Letters from the outside world were a rarity. He seldom even thought to check his mailbox, which was almost a quarter of a mile away, on the road to town.

  Finally he took the envelope and held it in his gnarled hands. He looked at the return address and postmark for a clue as to the sender. Finding none, he took out the letter and began to read.

  The room was uncomfortably quiet again as the Bob-Whites tried not to break his concentration by either staring at him or talking among themselves.

  Mr. Maypenny suddenly folded the letter and rose abruptly from his chair, clearing his throat. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll be right back. I—” He broke off, turned, and left the room—but not before Trixie saw the glint of tears in the old man’s eyes.

  A Clash of Viewpoints ● 2

  TRIXIE AND THE OTHERS stared after him in concern. “Do you think he’s all right?” Trixie asked softly. “I hope the letter wasn’t bad news.”

  As she spoke, Mr. Maypenny returned to the room as abruptly as he had left it. He was wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, but there was a broad grin on his face. “It isn’t bad news at all, Trixie,” he said. “In fact, it’s about the best news I’ve had in ages.”

  “Who’s the letter from, Mr. Maypenny?” Trixie asked curiously.

  “It’s from my nephew, David Maypenny,” the gamekeeper said, sitting back down at the table. He unfolded the letter again and stared down at it as if he couldn’t quite believe it was real.

  “You never told me you had a nephew,” Dan Mangan said.

  “I’d almost forgotten I did have one,” the old man said. “I’ve never even met the boy. Actually, he’s not a boy anymore. He must be almost thirty by now.” Mr. Maypenny’s face clouded over, and his eyes glistened. “I quarreled with the boy’s father, my late brother, several years before David was born. My brother moved to the city and I never saw him again. I later heard that he’d married and had a son. Then I heard he’d died. I—I wrote to the boy’s mother then, asking if I could do anything, send a bit of money from time to time to help out.” He sighed. “I never got an answer to my letter. I figured my brother had turned her against me—turned the boy against me, too, probably. I never wrote again.”

  “And now your nephew has written to you,” Trixie said softly. “But why, after all these years?”

  Mr. Maypenny shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. He just says he thinks it’s time we buried the hatchet and got to know one another. He has some vacation time coming, and he wants to come up here for a visit.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Honey said. Her own unhappiness was completely forgotten in the face of Mr. Maypenny’s good news. “When is he going to come?”

  “He says he’d like to drive up the end of next week. He says he won’t come unless he hears from me, though,” Mr. Maypenny said. “I think I’ll write to him tonight.”

  Brian rose from the table and stretched. “I think that sounds like a good idea, Mr. Maypenny. And I think it would be a good idea if we went home and let you get started with your letter. It’s getting late.”

  “A perspicuous observation,” Mart said, rising to his feet. “I have an arduous assignment in geometry still ahead of me this evening, and I seem to recall that dear Beatrix also transported a textbook or two from the halls of academe.” Trixie wrinkled her nose at the sound of her hated full name, which Mart used only when he wanted to tease her. Then she too stood up. “I do have some homework to do yet tonight. Thanks for the great stew, Mr. Maypenny. And we’ll look forward to meeting your nephew.”

  Honey was also ready to leave. “Thank you for the dinner, Mr. Maypenny,” she said.

  “Thank you for your help,” Mr. Maypenny said. “Tell Jim I said thanks, too. And—and tell him I’m sorry for getting him all upset tonight. I hope he won’t stay mad at me.”

  “He won’t,” Honey replied. “Jim’s anger is pretty powerful, but it usually doesn’t last very long.”

  Calling out final good-nights, the Bob-Whites walked out into the deepening twilight. The Beldens walked Honey down the path to the Manor House until they could see the front door. They waited until their friend was safely inside before they turned and walked back to their own house.

  Trixie pulled her red Bob-White jacket close to her body to ward off the evening chill. “It’s beginning to feel like fall,” she said. “I just hope this cool air wakes me up before we get home. It’s been a long day, and I still have to read ten pages in my history book before I go to bed.”

  “It really isn’t that late,” Brian said. “It’s only a little after seven o’clock. So much has happened, it feels as if it should be midnight.”

  Trixie nodded. “We haven’t even been home since we left for school this morning. Oh, that reminds me! There was a car pulling into our driveway this morning just as we left on the bus. I was going to ask Moms about it this afternoon, but I never did, of course. I’ll have to do that as soon as we get home.”

  But when Trixie and her brothers walked through the kitchen door, the sound of Bobby’s screams drove all other thoughts from their minds.

  “I won't go to bed,” they heard him wail. “I hurried an’ hurried to get ready for school this morning ’cause Trixie said she’d read me a story before I went to bed tonight, if I hurried. She promised!”

  Trixie groaned while Mart chuckled and Brian shook his head sympathetically. “It sounds as if you ‘forgotted’ something in the excitement over at Mr. Maypenny’s,” Brian said.

  Trixie nodded, wrinkling her freckled nose. “But Bobby remembered, as usual. There’s no escaping it, I guess.”

  Just then Bobby spotted Trixie. His wails stopped immediately, and he ran to her. “Come on, Trixie. Come and read me a story,” he demanded.

  “All right,” Trixie said. “You go crawl into bed while I drop off my books in my room. I’ll be right there.”

  By the time she was halfway through the story, the little boy’s eyelids were drooping. When she finished and closed the book, he was sound asleep. She stood up and tiptoed out of his room, pausing to look back at his peacefully sleeping figure as she turned out the light.

  Walking down the hallway to her own room, she muttered, “I wish someone would read me ten pages of history while Fm drifting off to sleep.” In her room, she picked up the book and flopped down on the bed. She discovered when she started reading that the chapter she had been assigned was about the Battle of Saratoga, the turning point in the Revolutionary War. She read on with a growing feeling of excitement.

  Saratoga was more than just a history lesson to Trixie. She and Honey had visited the town together when Regan had disappeared from the Wheeler estate. They had tracked the groom to Saratoga and persuaded him to come back to Sleepyside. They had also solved a crime committed years before and prevented another one in the process.

  During the trip, Trixie had been impressed by Honey’s knowledge of the history of Saratoga. Now she found that what Honey had told her then was true, and bei
ng able to picture in her mind the areas that were being described in the book made the reading easier. The dates and facts all fell into place in one reading, and the story of the battle was actually exciting.

  When Trixie finished the chapter and closed the book, she felt as if only a few minutes had passed. She was startled to discover that the time, according to her alarm clock, was eight thirty. Almost an hour had gone by!

  She was startled, too, to hear voices drifting up from downstairs. The Beldens were an early-rising family. Usually by this time the house was quiet, with Bobby asleep for the night and the three older children in their rooms doing homework or getting ready for bed.

  Trixie stood up, stretched, and walked out of her room and down the stairs.

  “So you see,” her father was saying as she reached the living room, “Matt Wheeler does have his reasons.”

  “Reasons for what?” Trixie demanded.

  “For selling land to International Pine,” Brian told her. His voice was soft, but the expression on his face was grim. “We were just telling Dad about our visit with Mr. Maypenny.”

  “And I was telling your brothers why Matt Wheeler is considering selling some land for the factory expansion,” Mr. Belden added.

  “Then there is an explanation, after all, just as Jim said there was!” Trixie exclaimed. She perched on the edge of the couch where her father was sitting. “What’s going on?” she asked excitedly.

  Peter Belden smiled at his daughter. “There’s nothing mysterious about it, if that’s what you’re hoping,” he warned. “There are some details I can’t reveal, however.” Mr. Belden worked at the bank in Sleepyside. His job gave him access to a lot of confidential information, which he was very careful never to talk about at home. “I can give you just the basic details, which I have already told your brothers. When International Pine first announced that they had bought that swampland along the river and intended to drain the swamp and build a furniture factory, some people in this area were upset.”

  “I was one of those people,” Brian said. “That swamp had lots of wild plants and herbs that can’t be found anywhere else around here.” Brian intended to become a doctor, and he had been interested in the plants that the early settlers in the area had used to cure diseases in the days before doctors and drugstores.

  Peter Belden nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “I was not one of the people who opposed International Pine. The fact is that there’s a desperate need for jobs in this area. The days of the small family farm are gone. So, for the most part, are the days of the small storekeeper. With the prices of land and equipment rising every year, they can’t compete with the larger operations.”

  “What about Mr. Lytell?” Trixie demanded. “His little store seems to do all right.” The tiny, old-fashioned store along Glen Road was a frequent stop for the Bob-Whites, in spite of the fact that the store’s owner was not always friendly to the young people.

  Mr. Belden shook his head. “Think about what you buy at Mr. Lytell’s, Trixie. Your mother sends you for a loaf of bread or a carton of milk, or you stop in for a can of soda when you’re out riding. That isn’t much, compared to the amount we spend at the supermarket in Sleepyside, where we do most of our shopping.

  “The fact is, Mr. Lytell could do twice as well by selling his store and going to work as the manager of a larger store in town.”

  “Then why doesn’t he?” Trixie asked.

  “He simply doesn’t want to. To Mr. Lytell, money isn’t as important as being his own boss and living in the area where he grew up. That’s the choice he’s made.”

  “Not many people would make that choice,” Brian observed.

  “Someone with a growing family to support would be almost sure to choose the higher salary,” Mr. Belden agreed. “Then the choice is a long commute to work or moving the entire family out of Sleepyside.”

  “Aren’t there any jobs in Sleepyside?” Trixie asked.

  “There are a few,” her father replied. “But most of the jobs in a small town are in what are called service occupations, like banking or teaching. They depend on serving people in manufacturing or farming occupations. In this area, which has never had much manufacturing and is seeing less and less farming, the number of jobs in service occupations is declining, too.

  “That’s why a factory like International Pine is a twofold blessing in an area like Sleepyside. They employ people directly in their factory. And, because their workers need groceries and haircuts and savings accounts and so forth, they create jobs indirectly, too.”

  “Matt Wheeler knows that,” Brian told Trixie. “That’s why he considered selling some of the preserve for the factory expansion.”

  “It sounds as though Jim was right,” Trixie said. “If Mr. Maypenny had waited to hear Mr. Wheeler’s explanation, he would have gone along with the plan to sell the land.”

  “I’m afraid not, Trixie,” Mrs. Belden said. “There are some people to whom saving the land is the most important consideration of all. They would say that people who want high-paying jobs have to pay the price by moving to the city.“

  “I can see how Mr. Maypenny would feel that way,” Trixie said. “He’s been living off the land all his life.”

  “It isn’t just Mr. Maypenny who feels that way,” her mother told her. “I had a visitor this morning who opposes the expansion just as strongly as Mr. Maypenny does.”

  “The man in the green car!” Trixie exclaimed. “I’ve been wondering about him since this morning. Who was he? What did he want?”

  Mrs. Belden smiled. “I should have known my eagle-eyed daughter would have spotted the car. The young man’s name was John Score. He represents a group called CAUSE—Citizens Alarmed and United to Save the Ecology. His group has heard about the proposed expansion, and they’re trying to stop it.”

  “Stop it?” Trixie echoed. “How can they do that? If International Pine finds someone who’s willing to sell them the land, then they can build on it, can’t they?”

  “Not necessarily,” Mr. Belden said. “For one thing, there are zoning regulations that restrict the ways in which land can be used. Some places are zoned only for private homes, for example. Others are zoned only for farming.

  “And even if International Pine finds a piece of land that is properly zoned for their uses, there’s still the matter of public opinion. That’s where a group like CAUSE comes in.”

  “John Score is trying to get people around here to sign a petition against the expansion,” Mrs. Belden said. “If he can get enough signatures, it will prove that people don’t want the factory to expand. That would make it very hard for someone to sell to the company—if they want their neighbors to keep speaking to them.”

  “Oh, woe,” Trixie moaned, covering her face with her hands. “When you said there was an explanation for Mr. Wheeler’s offering to sell part of the preserve to International Pine, I thought you meant a simple explanation. This is the most complicated thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Our sophisticated elucidation is causing mental torment for our simpleminded sibling,” Mart said. “Allow me to summarize. Point one: People need jobs. Point two: Animals and plants need land. Point three: These two needs are sometimes mutually exclusive. Point four: It’s a very emotional issue. Point five: There are going to be a lot more quarrels before this issue is settled.”

  “I’d say that’s a very accurate summary,” Mr. Belden said. “You’ve already heard of an argument between Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Maypenny, and you’ve seen one between Mr. Maypenny and Jim—and the proposed expansion isn’t even common knowledge yet.”

  “It will be soon,” Mrs. Belden said. “John Score is devoting all his time to circulating those petitions. It won’t be long before everyone in the area is taking sides on the issue.”

  “Which side did you take, Moms?” Trixie asked. “Did you sign the petition or not?”

  “I didn’t sign the petition,” Mrs. Belden said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve taken a side.
It’s just the opposite, in fact. I can see both sides of this issue a little too clearly to make up my mind one way or the other.”

  Trixie turned to her brothers. “What about you two? Which side are you taking?”

  Her brothers looked at each other, each wanting the other to speak first. Finally Brian broke the silence. “I don’t know, either, Trix,” he said. “I love that preserve, and I’d hate to see it changed. But I’d hate to see a whole way of life ruined, too. And that’s what will happen if the economy in Sleepyside goes bad. The small-town way of life will disappear. I need more time—and more facts—before I make up my mind.”

  “Brian said it all,” Mart said simply, too lost in thought to come up with his usual string of big words. “I only hope the issue can be settled without destroying too many friendships.”

  Thinking about the anger she’d seen on Jim’s face as he left Mr. Maypenny’s cottage, Trixie silently agreed.

  “One thing I do know,” Mr. Belden said. “We can’t settle this issue here tonight. I suggest we

  all get some sleep. We’ll have plenty of opportunity to make up our minds about International Pine’s expansion in weeks to come. In fact, I doubt that the people of Sleepyside will talk about anything else until the matter is settled.”

  Trixie and her brothers said good night to their parents and trooped up the stairs to their rooms.

  Once she was settled in her bed, Trixie felt herself quickly drifting off to sleep. But her mind was still a confused jumble of thoughts about Mr. Maypenny, Mr. Wheeler, Jim, and a lot of other people she didn’t know but whose lives were bound to be affected, one way or the other, by the furniture factory’s proposed expansion. “I’m glad I don’t have to make the final decision,” she murmured as she fell asleep.

  Bob-Whites Divided! ● 3

  THE NEXT MORNING, when Trixie climbed onto the school bus ahead of her brothers, she scanned the crowd of people, as usual, for Honey, Jim, and Dan. Usually there was a frantic wave from one of the three to let the Beldens know where they were sitting. Today there was none.