Mike's Mystery (5 page)

“I have seen him before, too,” said Mr. Carter, frowning.

“Where?” asked Mike.

“I don’t know where,” answered Mr. Carter.

“Well, he was at the fire,” said Mike. “I saw him myself.”

“And he has been at the mine,” said Mr. Carter, “for here is his picture.”

“I don’t think he is a very good man,” said Mike. “He looks rough to me.”

“He looks rough to me, too,” said Mr. Carter. “We must keep our eyes open, Mike.”

There was a rap at the door.

“Come in,” called Mr. Carter. It was Benny.

Benny said, “Oh, here you are, Mike! We lost you. I have another idea.”

“Sit down,” said Mr. Carter smiling. “We’ll all sit down, and you tell us your idea.”

“Well,” began Benny, “you know Mike was making a new dog house for Spotty.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” said Mr. Carter.

“Well, he was,” said Benny. “And you know how Mike is. He isn’t very neat.”

“I am too, neat!” cried Mike.

“No, Mike. Listen! You had boards in the cellar. You had some boards by the heater, and some boards by the stairs, and some boards on both sides of the room.”

“Well, yes, I did,” said Mike. “But they were neat. They were standing up, neatly.”

“But I mean they were on all sides of the cellar,” cried Benny. “Don’t you see? That’s why the fire started on all sides of the house!”

“Good for you, Benny,” said Mr. Carter. “The firemen think the fire was set by somebody.”

“I didn’t. I never did!” shouted Mike.

“Be quiet, Mike!” said Mr. Carter sharply. “I never said you did. I said somebody.”

“Well, who?” asked Mike. “Who would set our house on fire with Spotty in the cellar?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Mr. Carter.

Then Benny said, “Think hard, Mike. What did you ever say to make anyone mad at you?”

“I never said anything.”

“Yes, you must have,” said Benny. “You know you talk a lot, Mike.”

Mike began to think. “Maybe I did say something one day. But it was last summer,” he said. “Maybe I said I was glad Miss Alden didn’t sell her ranch to those three men. Remember that, Ben? Maybe I said I would know them in a minute if I saw them.”

“Oh, my,” said Mr. Carter.

Benny said, “But Mike, you wouldn’t know them, because you never saw them!”

“I know it,” said Mike. “I’m sorry now I said it. I suppose that man in the picture heard me, and he thought I knew him.”

“Well, Mike,” said Mr. Carter slowly, “you see that’s why the story started that you set your own fire. The man in the picture may have heard you, and he was afraid of you. That would make him want to do something to hurt you the first chance he got.”

“We can’t prove it,” said Benny.

“We will, though,” said Mike. “You just wait.”

“Yes, Mike, I think we will. Now, boys, I am going to tell you something. I know you both talk too much. But you must not talk too much about this.”

“I won’t,” said Benny.

“I won’t,” said Mike.

“The three men who wanted to buy Miss Alden’s ranch last summer are known to be bad men. When they found the uranium by accident, they did not tell anyone. They tried to buy the land for almost nothing. They were wanted in another state by the FBI. When they came to this state, the FBI caught them and put them in jail. But one of them is out now, I hear.”

“Are you in the FBI?” asked Benny.

“I work for your grandfather, but I help the FBI too. I think this man may be one of those three, but you can’t see his face clearly in the picture.”

“They were mad because Aunt Jane wouldn’t sell the ranch,” said Benny.

“Right,” said Mr. Carter. “He may do something to the mine if we don’t stop him. So we are having two more night watchmen. Your mother will be perfectly safe up here.”

“Let’s go and help them settle things for the night,” said Benny.

Things were going very well without them. Everyone was rushing around fixing the rooms. A real table was set up for the pies. One barrel of flour was opened. Pat came in with some more men. They were bringing big cans of cherries and peaches and blueberries and apples. They had great bags of sugar. There were piles of pie tins.

“Oh, how kind everyone is!” cried Mrs. Wood.

At last the oven worked, the refrigerator worked, and the sink worked. The cans of beautiful fruit were ready for pies. The rolling pins and boards were ready on the table.

Benny and Mike were in time to help set up the beds. Jessie and Violet began to put on the white sheets.

Then Mike surprised them all. He said, “Ma, I’d rather stay down at the house with Ben. You see, Miss Alden fixed up a nice room for me. She said I could bring all my things, and have Spotty in my room. I don’t think it would be very nice for me to refuse it.”

“Well, Mike!” cried Mr. Carter. “You certainly are getting to be a very nice, kind boy!”

“I’m very glad you are going to stay with us,” said Aunt Jane with a smile.

“Yes, Mike,” said his mother, “that was very thoughtful of you.”

“I want to go with Ben,” said Mike. “We can talk.”

“Right! Right!” said Henry. “You can certainly talk!”

“I will take care of you, Ma,” said Pat.

“Yes,” said his mother smiling. “Pat will take care of me, and Mr. Carter says there are six night watchmen now instead of four. I wonder why?”

Mike and Benny looked at each other. They did not wonder at all.

CHAPTER
11

Pie Day

E
veryone was tired that night. Even Mike and Benny did not talk very long. They put down a soft rug for Spotty, but he would not sleep on it. He lay down on the hard floor just under Mike’s bed.

“That’s just like a dog,” said Mike. “They never stay where you put them.”

“Lady always sleeps in Aunt Jane’s room and Watch always sleeps in Jessie’s room,” said Benny. “He is really her dog, you know.”

“No,” said Mike, “I thought he was your dog.”

“Well, he is all our dog,” said Benny.

“I know what you mean, Ben,” said Mike, yawning. He was too sleepy to argue.

“Good night,” said Ben and went to his own room.

Both boys were soon asleep.

Up at the mine, Mrs. Wood and Pat went to sleep in their new beds. Mrs. Wood wanted to get up very early next morning.

It was about six o’clock when Mrs. Wood called Pat to a breakfast of eggs and bacon, toast and cereal and two glasses of milk. “I can hardly wait to begin a pie,” she said to Pat. “You get washed at the sink and then come and eat. After that you can help me.”

Pat said, “I bet Mike and Ben will be up here early, too. They don’t want to miss anything, do they, Ma?”

“No. They don’t miss very much,” said Mrs. Wood with a smile.

Just as she finished washing the dishes, the other children came to the door.

“One of the men gave us a ride,” said Benny. “See what Violet has!” Violet had a piece of wood in her hands. There were big black letters on it. It was the new sign to go over the door.

Mrs. Wood read it. “MIKE’S MOTHER’S PLACE. Isn’t that grand?”

Henry climbed up and nailed it over the door.

“Now tell us what to do, Mrs. Wood!” cried Jessie. She was excited. Her cheeks were very pink.

“Well, I have a good rule for pies,” said Mrs. Wood. “You do not touch the crust with your hands. You put it between two pieces of wax paper before you roll it out. First you girls mix some flour with shortening in those big bowls. I’ll show you.”

“Jessie knows how,” said Benny. “She is a fine pie maker.”

“Yes, I am sure she is,” said Mrs. Wood with a smile. “You boys turn on the ovens to 400. It’s a wonderful stove you bought! Then set thirty of those tins in a row on the long table.”

Soon everyone was hard at work. Mrs. Wood said, “I shall make only two kinds of pie the first day. We’ll make cherry and apple. So you boys open the big cans, and leave them on the table. Just keep the dogs out of the way.”

“I’ll tie them up,” said Mike.

“Oh, no,” said Jessie. “Don’t tie Watch. Listen, Watch, lie down!” Watch lay down at once and looked up at Jessie. He wagged his tail, but he did not get up.

“I wish Spotty could do that,” said Mike. “I’ll have to tie him.”

“Some day we could teach him,” said Benny. “But it will take a whole box of fig bars. When he starts to lie down, you give him a piece of a fig bar. When he gets up you say No! loud, like that.”

“I’ll make some fig cookies some day,” said Mrs. Wood laughing.

They made thirty pies. The girls helped roll out the crust between two papers. They lifted the crust onto the tins without touching it.

“Oh, isn’t this fun!” said Violet.

“You children seem to have fun just being kind to somebody,” said Mrs. Wood with a loving look at her.

“Somebody’s coming!” shouted Mike from the open door. “It’s a lady from town.”

The lady laughed. She said, “I hear you sell pies.”

“Yes,” said Mike. “But they aren’t done yet.”

“When will they be done, little boy?” asked the lady.

“I’m not a little boy,” answered Mike, “but I’ll ask my mother.”

“About ten o’clock,” Mrs. Wood called out.

“About ten o’clock,” repeated Mike.

“I’ll be back then,” said the lady. “I want an apple pie.”

“We’ll save one for you,” said Mike. “I’ll know you by your face. It’s pretty.”

“Well, thank you,” said the lady, laughing. “Are you Mike?”

“Yes, I’m Mike, and it’s my mother making pies.”

When the pies were baked, they smelled delicious. They were nice and brown. The lady came back for her pie.

She said, “I told some people down on the street, and they are coming to buy pies.”

“I hope there will be enough for the miners,” said Mrs. Wood. “We really made the pies for the men.”

“Let’s make some more!” cried Jessie. “It will be too bad if the men don’t get any.”

The girls soon rolled out more pies. The boys opened another can of cherries. It was lucky they did so. When the whistle blew at noon, the men came pouring out of the mine. They saw the new sign, and they all wanted hot pies. Soon all the pies were sold.

“We haven’t any left for us,” said Mike sadly.

“Yes, Mike, I saved one pie,” said his mother. “It was burned a little. I can cut it into seven pieces.”

“I like pie burned a little,” said Benny.

The family all sat around the long table to eat lunch. Maggie had sent up a large basket of sandwiches and salad and pink lemonade with ice in it. Everyone was very hungry.

“What do we do now?” asked Violet.

“We don’t make any more pies, that’s sure,” said Mrs. Wood. “We have done enough work for today.”

“Let’s have that race!” said Benny. “Let’s race the dogs!”

“O.K.,” said Mike. “Let’s race them down behind my old pink house. There is a big empty lot there. Plenty of room.”

Jessie wanted to wash the dishes first. She filled the dish pan with hot soap suds. Then one by one, she slid the plates in, and washed them with a sponge. “I just love to do this,” she said.

She rinsed them in hot water and set them in the drainer.

“We don’t have to wipe them,” she said. “They will dry themselves, because they are so hot.”

In a very short time, the children were all in the back lot with the dogs. They had two enormous bones from the store.

Henry said, “Now Mike, you hold Spotty, and Jessie will hold Watch.”

“Right on this line,” said Benny.

“Yes,” agreed Henry. “Then I will take one bone and go way down there by the fence. Ben, you take the other bone and come with me. Let the dogs smell the bones first.”

The dogs wanted the bones very much. They tried to get away and follow Henry, but Jessie and Mike held them tight.

“You count, Violet,” shouted Henry from the fence. “Say one, two, three, go, and then you let go of the dogs!”

When Henry and Benny reached the fence, they sat down on the ground with the bones. They held up the bones for the dogs to see.

“One, two, three, go!” shouted Violet. Away went the dogs. Watch went for Henry. Spotty went for Benny. They ran very fast. They were very even. Once Spotty got ahead. Then Watch got ahead. Then they were even again.

Suddenly Spotty seemed to turn. He slowed down. He skidded, like a car. Then he ran back, smelled around and began to dig.