The Happy Valley Mystery Page 2

  “We’d love it!” Brian, Diana, and Mart chorused. “Honey? Trixie? Jim? Coming along?” Mart called back.

  “I want to stay in the house and work with Mrs. Gorman if she’ll let me,” Honey said.

  “Not a thing to do, soon as I get through with these dishes,” Mrs. Gorman said. “But you just stay here, Honey, if you want to. I’ll be glad for company... the rest of you, too,” she added.

  “I was just wondering,” Trixie said, “about that crying noise I heard just now—like a hurt animal someplace, sort of far off. Was it?”

  “Not hurt,” Mrs. Gorman said. “At least, I don’t think so. It’s a little calf born out of time, and its mother is bawling for it. It’s lost. She came right up under our bedroom window last night and bawled, asking us to hunt for it. Betsy’s a pet, but sometimes she’s a pest. Bight now she is. If she’d just hunt hard enough and cry less, she’d find her calf.”

  “Is that where Mr. Gorman is—hunting the calf?” Trixie asked.

  Mrs. Gorman nodded. “He just can’t bear it when an animal of any kind is in trouble.”

  “Would he mind if I went out and helped him?” Trixie asked her.

  “Me, too?” Jim inquired.

  “Of course he wouldn’t. He’d be glad of company, even if he didn’t need the help. He’s right over the top of that hill, see, south of the farm, in the direction of that big sycamore tree on the slope.”

  Her last sentence followed Trixie and Jim out the door. After they’d gone through the barnyard fence, they heard the soft tinkle of bells and the baaing of the sheep. Mr. Gorman had told them on the way to Happy Valley that the sheep had been let out to crop the short early grass, after being kept in the barnyard all winter.

  They were running from one patch of grass to another, kicking up their heels, shoving, frolicking. “They’re acting more as I thought lambs would act,” Trixie said to Mr. Gorman when they caught up with him, “instead of grown sheep.”

  “They’re like lunatics in the spring,” Mr. Gorman said, “so crazy about anything green they don’t know what to do with themselves. Look at those two over there, for instance.”

  Two ewes, heads down, approached one another, ears laid back and legs stiffened.

  “They look just like the good guy and the bad guy walking toward one another on TV. Look at them, Jim.”

  “Expect them to pull a gun any minute, don’t you?” Jim agreed. “Hey, you, you’ll get a headache!”

  The ewes butted their heads together hard, retreated, approached again, and butted. They repeated the play several times; then, the game apparently over, they separated and began greedily cropping the grass again, not at all disturbed by the spectators or by Betsy’s mournful bellowing from across the field.

  “Will you let us help you find Betsy’s calf?” Trixie asked. She held up her foot. “We’ve heavy boots on.”

  “It’s a good thing you have. Of course; come along.

  Goodness only knows where that crazy calf has strayed. Oh, Betsy, pipe down; were coming to help you,” he called. “Right now I’ve other business to attend to. Just wait your turn!”

  The two collies, Tip and Tag, who had been ranging the hills, came up barking. Tag ran back and forth in front of Mr. Gorman, while Tip ran over the slope, still barking, back to Mr. Gorman, then back over the slope again.

  “One of the sheep is down somewhere,” Mr. Gorman explained. “All right, Tip, I’m coming.”

  As he followed the barking dog, Trixie and Jim hurried after him. At the top of the hill they saw a strange sight. Tip and Tag were circling about a fat ewe who lay on her back, her spindly legs sticking straight up in the air.

  “She sounds terrible,” Trixie said, watching the ewe struggle, gasping and gurgling, as though she were strangling. “Is she going to die?”

  “Thanks to Tip and Tag, no,” Mr. Gorman said. “Give me a hand, Jim. There, you take her head, and I’ll manage her hindquarters. Flip her over onto her feet. There!”

  The poor ewe staggered, righted herself, and, before their eyes, seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon. “They try to roll over,” Mr. Gorman explained. “Then their thin legs aren’t strong enough to hold them, and they can’t get back on their feet. They start to swell, especially if they have new grass in their stomachs, as this one does, and they’d die in half an hour, actually choke to death, if someone didn’t help them.” He reached down to pat the dogs and pull their ears affectionately. “These boys save a lot of sheep for me.”

  “There’s a lot about sheep-raising we’ll have to learn,” Trixie said. “I studied it in the encyclopedias, and I thought it was just a matter of turning sheep out to graze, then shearing them and sending them to market.”

  “Well,” Mr. Gorman said, “it isn’t all sitting on a hill watching them and whittling. You have to be alert twenty-four hours a day. Even then things happen that you can’t understand.”

  Trixie knew he was referring to the sheep that kept disappearing. Seems as though someone ought to be able to find out where they re going, she said to herself. Sometimes stealing goes on right under the noses of people, and they cant seem to see it because they’re used to everyday routine, she continued to herself, remembering some of the experiences she and Honey had had in tracking down thieves. They were going to be sure-enough detectives when they grew up, she and Honey.

  “There’s that bawling again,” Jim said. “Do you suppose that calf could have wandered into the creek down there, sir?” he asked.

  “Could be,” Mr. Gorman said. “I hope not. It’d mean the loss of a good Guernsey calf, and I can’t afford that —right now, especially. All right, Betsy, we’re coming. Hi, Tip! Hi, Tag! Go find her!”

  The dogs jumped ahead at the sound of his voice and ran up and down the banks of the swollen stream. Soon, from the near side of the stream, they heard a lusty bleat. The collies, furiously barking, rustled the little bawling calf from back of a fallen log. It was hungry. When she heard her baby, Betsy came hurrying to the creek’s edge, softly mooing to the small calf to comfort it. It paid no attention to anybody but greedily started feeding.

  “Betsy’ll get that blamed little nuisance back up to the barn by evening,” Mr. Gorman said. “Let’s wander back there ourselves. Tired, Trixie?”

  “Not a bit,” she said. “I love a farm. I love all the animals on it.”

  “Wait till the week’s over, Trixie, and I’ll ask you if you really meant that. She just might run into a skunk someplace,” he said and nudged Jim.

  “I meant I like all the animals that belong on a farm,” Trixie said and looked back toward the creek edge where Betsy still nuzzled her calf. Across the water, just disappearing back of some trees, she saw the figure of a man. His face, silhouetted against the sky as he topped the slope, seemed covered with a black, bushy beard. That’s strange, Trixie thought, and she turned to call it to Mr. Gorman’s attention. But he and Jim, deep in conversation, were far ahead.

  Back in the farmhouse kitchen, they found Honey busily peeling potatoes. Brian, Mart, and Diana were just in from touring the farm on horseback.

  The kitchen smelled of sugar and spice and everything nice—roasting chicken and strawberries! “The strawberries are right out of their own garden and into the freezer," Honey explained. “Stop tasting!”

  “Shortcake!” Mart whooped. He bent low and smelled the brown crust of the big, round shortcake. “She makes it just the way Moms does,” he added as Mrs. Gorman split the crisp brown cake and buttered it. Then she spooned crushed and sugared strawberries over it, gently replaced the top layer, poured the remaining strawberries and juice over it, and set it aside to let the goodness soak in.

  “I could eat a stalled ox,” Mart said as he raised his blond crew-cut head from the fragrant cake. “Come on, Jim and Brian, off to the shower! Say, Mr. Gorman, that’s a snug apartment you have for your help out there in the barn. Warm as toast and lots of books, most of them on farming. I’m going to be a farmer someday.�
�

  “It’s a good life,” Mr. Gorman said. “The books belong to Ben, our hired man. He’s taking a correspondence course in animal husbandry. This summer he’s planning to go to Iowa State University at Ames for a two-week course. That’s where he is now, in Ames, arranging for it. He’ll be back tomorrow, I think. Hustle along, boys. Dinner’s about ready, isn’t it, Mary?”

  Upstairs, the girls took out their pretty dresses Uncle Andrew had suggested they take “for a dance,” and, as they dressed, Honey and Diana hummed. Trixie, sober-faced and silent, seemed preoccupied.

  “What’s wrong?” Honey whispered, worried.

  “Not a thing,” Trixie answered and turned her back to Honey. “Button my dress for me, will you please?”

  “You can’t fool us,” Diana said. “Something’s wrong. Out with it, Trixie. Did Jim say something to hurt ^ your feelings?”

  “Of course not!” Trixie denied vehemently.

  “He’d never say anything to upset Trixie,” Honey insisted. “He thinks she’s perfect.”

  “Except when she’s a ‘Schoolgirl Shamus,’ as he calls her,” Diana said. “What is it, Trixie?”

  Trixie still insisted there was nothing wrong. But when Diana went to her room for something, Honey whispered, “You can tell me, Trixie. Is it something about the lost sheep?”

  “I’m not sure,” Trixie said. “I never want to say anything about sleuthing to anyone but you. You’re my partner, and we’re going to be detectives together. The others just make fun of me.”

  “What is it, then?” Honey wanted to know.

  “I saw a very queer-looking man on the other side of the creek when we were out hunting for the calf,” Trixie said. “Honey, he looked like a sheep thief to me.” Honey put her hand to her face to conceal a smile. “Where did you learn what a sheep thief looks like?” she asked.

  “All right, if you’re going to make fun of me, too,

  I won t say anything to anyone,” Trixie said.

  Nothing Honey could say would get another word out of her.

  While the roast chicken, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, green peas, apple and celery salad, and an assortment of homemade pickles and relishes were disappearing into hungry mouths, a loud, raucous noise could be heard in the sky overhead.

  “It’s geese and ducks flying back to Saskatchewan,” Mr. Gorman explained.

  “There must be a million of them,” Brian observed.

  “Not that many, but hundreds,” Mr. Gorman said.

  “Were right on the direct line of the Mississippi flyway,” his wife explained.

  Their faces were so blank that she laughed. “Tell them about it,” she suggested to her husband.

  “The noise you hear now is probably blue geese and big Canada geese,” he said. “They’re migrating. One time four snow geese landed in the field near here to feed. The flyway that crosses this area is the biggest one on the northern continent. Each day at this time of year, we have strange visitors on the ponds, even cormorants and loons. They may stop overnight in the fields, unless the dogs around here start barking and frighten them away.”

  “I’ve noticed lots of fat robins,” Trixie said. “They’re so tame, too. And I saw a cardinal near the spring today.”

  “The robins are just starting to come back,” Mr. Gorman said, “but the cardinals stay all winter. Almost every bird you can name pays us a visit sometime during the spring migration. On a clear day we can hear golden plovers, flying high on their way from the Argentine pampas to the Arctic Circle.”

  “Do people do much hunting around here?” Jim asked.

  “Not in the spring,” Mr. Gorman said. “There’s a law about that. I don’t think many of my neighbors ever hunt. They don’t get much fun out of killing... not when so much of their time is spent trying to save the lives of animals. In the fall the birds fly a lot higher, though, on their way south. They seem to sense then that it’s open season, with every marsh and pond and stream lined with visiting hunters with lethal weapons. I hate it!”

  “Hunting has led to the extermination of some kinds of birds, hasn’t it?” Mart asked. “The passenger pigeon is one of them, isn’t it?”

  “It played a great part in its disappearance,” Mr. Gorman agreed. “It’s a pity, too,” he added. “Everybody finished? Then, let’s go into the living room.”

  “You and Mrs. Gorman go into the living room,” insisted the Bob-Whites. “We’ll get some wood for the fireplace; then we’ll all do the dishes.”

  In spite of Mrs. Gorman’s vigorous objection, they had their way. Soon a fire was blazing away and chairs were drawn around the hearth. Outside, the dogs were restless, starting up nervously at the call of a hound.

  “Call them in, will you please, boys?” Mr. Gorman asked. “They’ll startle the feeding birds outside. Anyway, my wife always feels better when Tip and Tag are part of the circle. I’ll let them out later, when we get ready to go to bed. They watch the animals at night—or try to,” he added with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

  Brian went to the door. Tip and Tag came bursting in, stopped at every chair for a pat, then settled down at Mrs. Gorman’s feet.

  It was cozy and warm around the fire. It had been a long and busy day. They had had to get up very early to drive to the airport. Soon some of the Bob-White heads began to nod.

  It wasn’t so with Trixie. She was as wide-awake as she had been when Moms knocked at her door that very morning. Her mind was swimming with new impressions and alert with the problem that faced Uncle Andrew and his manager.

  “What makes sheep so valuable to raise?” she asked. “People don’t eat mutton anymore, do they?”

  “It’s the only meat that is universally eaten,” Mr. Gorman said. “In fact, if you were having a dinner for representatives of the United Nations, the only meat you could safely offer all of them would be mutton or lamb. There are no taboos against it, that I know of, such as there are against pork and beef.”

  “But we don’t eat mutton,” Trixie insisted.

  “Without knowing it you do,” Mrs. Gorman said.

  “It’s a base for every kind of canned soup. But meat isn’t the most valuable product of sheep.”

  “Wool?” Mart asked. “Clothing?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Gorman answered, “and fleece lining for coats for men in the armed forces stationed in the far North, for flyers....”

  “And women couldn’t get along without sheep,” Mrs. Gorman said, “for almost every beauty product has a lanolin base—refined from pure wool.”

  “Hair creams for men, too,” Mr. Gorman added. “Do you know a funny thing?” he asked as he thumbed his pipe. “In sheepshearing season, the hands of the shearers are as soft as a baby’s. Guess nothing beats sheep grease for calloused hands.

  “Then there are buttons, pipe stems, briefcases, diplomas, and twisted peritoneum for violin strings; bagpipes are made of sheepskins, and skins of frankfurters come from sheep’s insides,” Mr. Gorman continued, “and— Say, Diana’s just about asleep. Mart, you don’t need to hold back a yawn. No wonder you’re tired. Here I’ve been going on and on. Come, Tipi Up, Tag! We’ll go and put the farm to sleep.”

  “Would you mind very much if I went with you?” Trixie asked. “I’m so wide-awake. I’d love to go.”

  “Well, then, come along,” Mr. Gorman invited her. “This is Sunday night,” Mrs. Gorman reminded him. “That’s right,” her husband answered, and he took down the Bible and seated himself in his big old morris chair. He turned to Genesis and read:

  “And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering: but unto Cain, and to his offering, he had not respect: and Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.”

  When Mr. Gorman had finished, the other Bob-Whites
scattered for the night.

  “We’ll see first if Betsy brought her calf to the barn,” Mr. Gorman told Trixie as he went ahead of her with the lantern. The light threw long shadows dancing around them. Here and there in the valley a dog barked and then was answered.

  “That’s Ingham’s old liver-and-white pointer,” he said to Trixie, “and one of the Schulzes’ big German shepherds answering. They’ve got a raccoon treed someplace, probably, or a possum. Look over there in that comer by the stalls, Trixie.”

  Curled in deep straw, the little calf lay, its head tucked back along its side. Above it, contentedly chewing her cud, Betsy turned a curious head and allowed Trixie to smooth her nose.

  Mice rustled overhead, and the tangy fragrances of cows’ milk, hay, and com mingled. Late birds settled in their nests, twittering. Tip and Tag were off to the four ends of the farm. In the moonlight the white sheep grazed peacefully, some with new lambs by their sides.

  “It’s beautiful here,” Trixie sighed.

  “Yes,” Mr. Gorman agreed, “and yet....”

  Trixie knew what he was thinking. Sheep were disappearing, no one knew where, and all was not as peaceful as it seemed.

  A Bad Mistake • 3

  THE NEXT MORNING, Monday, the sun was shining brightly. There wasn’t a sign of a cloud in the sky, but the air still held some of the sharpness of winter.

  The Bob-Whites took turns riding the horses: Diana on Nancy, a gentle gray mare; the boys and Honey and Trixie riding Satan’s Baby, a roan firebrand, and Black Giant, a huge black stallion. Nancy was too slow and quiet for anyone but Diana, so Diana lazed along by herself, while the other five took some of the spirit out of the bigger horses.

  When the mounts had been carefully groomed and the saddles returned to the harness room, it was lunchtime, and the Bob-Whites went into the big kitchen.

  Mrs. Gorman had filled glasses with milk and was putting the finishing touches on a huge tray of choice sandwiches.