Mystery in Arizona (21 page)

Honey said with her usual quick tact, “We all do thoughtless things like that without really meaning to hurt anyone.” She opened her own little present and cried out with joy. “Did you ever see anything so cute in all your life?”

It was a tiny sewing basket complete with minute spools of thread and even a strawberry pincushion. Jim and Trixie had discovered it in a little gift shop and had immediately thought of Honey and how much she enjoyed mending.

“The strawberry,” Honey said excitedly, “reminds me of that larger one in your mother’s sewing basket and how we hid that diamond in it once. Remember?”

Trixie nodded. Sally, in a mystified tone of voice, asked, “You hid a diamond in a pincushion? Why on earth would anybody do such a thing?”

Her brothers looked equally mystified, so the Bob-Whites explained that Trixie and Honey had accidentally discovered a diamond in the gatehouse on the
Wheeler estate. While trying to find the owner they had solved an exciting mystery.

“Exciting is right,” said Sally enviously when they had finished telling the story. “Do you kids always get involved in such thrilling mysteries?”

“Trixie does,” said Di. “And Honey usually helps her solve them because, if you know Trixie, you get involved, too, and so there’s nothing else to do but try to solve mysteries.” She smiled. “My father’s red trailer disappeared very mysteriously once and they were the ones who finally found it.”

“That’s when we found Jim,” Honey put in.

“Found him?” Bob asked incredulously. “Did he disappear or something? What goes on anyway?” He scratched his head and crossed his eyes.

Honey giggled. “He disappeared twice. The first time we found him he was hiding in an old mansion. He’d run away from his mean old stepfather and—”

“Hey,” Jim interrupted, grinning. “Stop talking about me as though I were an inanimate object.”

“And that same red trailer,” Di went on just as though she had never been interrupted, “was the one Trixie and Mart got kidnaped in when they were trying to prove that this mysterious stranger was really—”

“Sh-h,” Honey cautioned. “Let’s not go into all of
that adventure now, Di. Your uncle might hear us and you know how upset he gets when anybody mentions what a narrow escape Trixie and Mart had.”

Sally sighed. “I’m beginning to guess that you kids belong to some sort of secret society.”

“We do,” Trixie admitted. “Some day we’ll tell you all about it and maybe you’ll become member.” She opened her own present and everyone burst into loud laughter. It was a miniature magnifying glass.

“We tried to find a Hawkshaw cap to go with it,” Mart said, “but no such luck.” He grinned at his sister.

Di, who so often got words mixed up, received a tiny dictionary. She looked hurt for a second, then laughed with the others.

Jim received a plastic puppy that looked so much like his springer spaniel, Patch, that he was amazed. Brian, the embryo doctor, found that his package contained a miniature stethoscope. Mart, whose current ambition was to attend an agricultural college, received a set of tiny garden tools.

Mrs. Sherman joined them then. “Look at what I got,” she shouted gleefully. “A skillet, no less, the size of my thumbnail.”

In a few minutes Jane Brown, Mr. Wellington, and
Tenny became the center of the group. They had all received plastic toys and were enjoying them immensely. Jane’s little cowgirl seemed made to order for riding Tenny’s bucking bronco. Mr. Wellington, who would play Santa Claus on Christmas Day, had been presented with a miniature of the jolly old elf.

“That reminds me,” he said, “I must try on my costume to make sure it fits perfectly. Who will volunteer to help me get into it?”

“We all will,” Sally and her brothers replied, and they hurried off to their cabin.

The cowboy orchestra began to tune up for dancing, and soon Jane and Tenny were waltzing together. Foreman Howie chose Mrs. Sherman for his partner while Uncle Monty danced with Rosita.

“Rosita looks very happy,” Trixie whispered to Honey, “but you can tell she’s only pretending. She’s such a good sport she wouldn’t let her worries spoil the Christmas Eve party.”

“We’ve just got to do something about her,” Honey whispered back.

When the music stopped, Rosita slipped away and Uncle Monty came over to where the Bob-Whites were standing beside the tree. He took a large white envelope from his pocket and said mysteriously, “This fell out of
the
piñata
but nobody seemed to notice. It’s got the name Bob-Whites on it.” With a grin he presented it to Trixie and Jim, the co-presidents of the club.

“You open it, Jim,” Trixie whispered excitedly. “I can’t slit the flap of the envelope.”

Jim obeyed and pulled out a check. “Four hundred dollars!” he yelled. “Wow! But we don’t deserve it, Uncle Monty. Our two weeks won’t be up until next Monday.” The surprised Bob-Whites looked at their host.

Uncle Monty chuckled. “Felt I ought to give you a little extra in place of notice,” he said. “Because as of midnight you’re fired.”

“Fired?” Trixie gasped. “Why?” And then she knew the answer. “Oh, oh, the Orlandos have come back!”

He nodded. “They’ll be back tomorrow morning. I got a letter from them today explaining the whole mysterious departure. You were right, Trixie, they didn’t dare tell me why they wanted to go for fear I wouldn’t understand. As a matter of fact, they liked working here so much that they almost didn’t go this year, but at the last minute
Señor
Orlando’s brother arrived and convinced them that they would be very wrong to stay away.”

“The dark stranger,” Trixie muttered. “No wonder Petey called him Tio—he’s his great-uncle.”

“Stop mumbling to yourself,” Mart whispered.

“Trixie was right about another thing,” Uncle Monty continued, “but perhaps I’d better begin at the beginning. Come along.”

He led the way to his own suite of rooms and, when he and the girls were settled comfortably on the huge divan with the boys curled up on the bright rug at their feet, he began:

“It all dates back to the middle of the sixteenth century when the founder of the Orlando family set off with Coronado to find the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. He was a lad of eighteen, the son of an Aztec noble who had been a member of the great Montezuma’s court. The boy’s mother was
Doña
Isabella of a royal Spanish family, so when the child was baptized he was given the name Pedro and her illustrious last name, Orlando.

“At any rate, when the lad returned with the other remnants of Coronado’s band, he was only twenty and so was not too disheartened by the failure of the expedition. He went into the business of raising cattle, built an enormous hacienda, married, and had a large family. It is his birthday which his descendants celebrate every year in the ruins of the ancestral home.”

“We guessed that it had something to do with a
birthday,” Trixie murmured, “but from what Petey said, it sounded as though the Orlandos might have been visiting an ancestral tomb.”

“That’s right,” Uncle Monty said, taking a letter from his pocket. Consulting it, he continued, “Traditionally the
fiesta
lasts a week, and the final day is in commemoration of the first Pedro’s death. Maria and Petey arrived in time for that, so I imagine she has been forgiven for not going with her in-laws earlier. I can understand why she, a widow with a child to support, hesitated for so long. In fact, they are all still afraid that I may not understand and will not take them back. At least they were,” he corrected himself. “I sent them a wire pronto, saying that I would welcome them with open arms if they would return immediately by plane.”

Trixie sighed contentedly. “I’m glad now that they did leave. It gave us the chance to earn the exact amount of money that Rosita needs.”

“True,” said Mart, elevating his sandy eyebrows. “But what good does that do Rosita? She wouldn’t have it as a gift.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “At any other time of the year she probably would refuse it, but if we give it to her as a Christmas present she can’t possibly refuse.”

Honey clapped her hands joyfully. “You’re right, Trix. Since Mr. Wellington is going to play Santa Claus tomorrow we’ll have him give the money to her. Everyone else will be receiving presents at the same time, so she won’t have any excuse for refusing to accept hers.”

“She’ll have to accept it,” Uncle Monty agreed emphatically. “But are you kids sure you don’t want to keep the money for yourselves? You worked awfully hard and you deserve every penny of it. Are you absolutely sure you want to make this generous gesture?”

It was Jim who answered the question. “We’d much rather that Rosita had it, sir. And we really didn’t work hard. It was fun, wasn’t it, gang?”

“Yes,” they chorused.

Jim took Trixie’s hand in his. “You
did
work hard at your assignments and I hereby give you a double E for Excellent Effort. Right, Brian?”

“Right,” said Brian. “I also vote that we give her a holiday from now until next Monday morning.”

“I agree,” said Jim.

“Gee, thanks.” Trixie tried to make her voice sound sarcastic but she couldn’t. She was truly grateful to the boys for the help they had given her, and she knew now that she would pass the midyears with flying colors.
Furthermore, if it hadn’t been for the boys she wouldn’t have been allowed to fly out to this wonderful place.

The old clock on the mantel began to strike. Christmas in Arizona was no longer a dream. It was happening right now.

“Merry Christmas!” Trixie shouted. “Merry Christmas!”