The Blue Herring Mystery (21 page)

Mr. Boots’s pickup truck was parked in front of his shop. The boys leaned their bikes against the shop wall and Djuna cautioned Champ to wait for them. Then they entered the shop.

Old Mr. Boots had his bald head with its fringe of white hair bent over a piece of lumber on his workbench; he was carefully measuring the timber with a steel rule and making small dots at intervals on the wood with a pencil. His face broke into a welcoming smile when he saw Djuna.

“Well, hello, sonny,” Mr. Boots said. “First day of vacation, ain’t it? And still ye thought to stop by an’ see me fer a minute, eh? I call that neighborly of ye, Djuna.” The old carpenter peered at Jimmy. “Who’s yer friend?”

“This is Jimmy Douglas, Mr. Boots. He’s new around here. And you know where he’s just moved in? A house in the woods of the Fieldcrest Golf Club! His father’s the new golf professional at Fieldcrest! What do you think of that?”

“Ye don’t say!” Mr. Boots shook hands solemnly with Jimmy. “Always wanted to know the son of a golf professional.”

“Oh, boy, he’s a great player!” Jimmy responded with enthusiasm. “And a great golf teacher, too. He knows everything there is to know about golf.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if ye were kind o’ interested in golf yerself, eh, Jimmy?”

“Oh, I am. You can’t start too young, Pop says.”

Djuna said to his old friend, “Are you awfully busy right now, Mr. Boots?”

“I ain’t busy a bit. Just making a spoon rack for old Mrs. Jenkins. Why?”

“Do you think you could fix the bottom of a drawer for Jimmy that got broken in his moving today? Champ scared the movers and they dropped the drawer. Could you fix it, if it isn’t too much trouble?”

“No trouble at all, Djuna. Glad of a chance to do something for
ye
for a change, seeing as how yer always doin’ something for
me
. Where’s this broken drawer? I’ll go pick it up and start work on it this afternoon. That be all right?”

“Oh, thanks, Mr. Boots! That’ll be swell. It oughtn’t to take you long because it’s just the bottom of the drawer.”

“Never seen the drawer yet I couldn’t fix,” chuckled Mr. Boots. He washed his hands, hung up his carpenter’s apron, and went out to his truck. “How do I get to yer new house, Jimmy?”

Jimmy told him, and Mr. Boots climbed into the truck and started it up. “Ought to be fixed by tomorrow, I reckon. I’ll let ye know, Djuna.” And he started down the road toward the Brookville highway.

By the time the boys rode to Miss Annie Ellery’s house it was past noon, and Jimmy said he had to hurry home for lunch. So all he had time for right then was a hurried introduction to Miss Annie and a promise to come and have supper with Djuna and Miss Annie that evening, if Grandma would allow him.

“If I know anything about moving,” said Miss Annie with a smile at Jimmy, “your Grandma will be glad to have you out from under foot tonight when she’s trying to get settled in your new house.”

When he returned to Djuna’s house for supper, his unruly hair slicked down and his hands and face spotlessly clean, Jimmy admitted Miss Annie had been right. “Grandma says for me to thank you for your invitation,” Jimmy reported. “And she says not to eat so much I’ll disgrace her. I have an awfully big appetite,” he added frankly. “I hardly ever seem to get enough to eat.”

“Well, start right in on this ham and cabbage,” Miss Annie said. “I think there’s enough here to fill up even two starving boys!”

The ham and cabbage, lubricated by three glasses of milk for Jimmy and two for Djuna, disappeared at an alarming rate. But when the boys finished two pieces of Miss Annie’s homemade apple pie apiece, topped with thick slices of cheese, Jimmy sat back in his chair with a glazed look. “Boy, was that
good,”
he said. “Miss Annie, you’re as good a cook as Grandma … maybe better!”

“That’s a rare compliment, Jimmy,” Miss Annie returned, chuckling. “Did Djuna tell you where he was going to get a job this summer?”

“Yes. In Brookville, he said. Did you find one yet, Djuna?”

Djuna shook his head. “I can’t find out till tomorrow. I forgot that all the stores in Brookville are closed Monday afternoons in summer.”

“Well, gee!” said Jimmy, his face animated. “Then maybe we can still do it!”

“Do what?”

“Get Miss Annie to let you work with me at the Club this summer.” As he said this, Jimmy cautiously eyed Miss Annie, who clicked her tongue in surprise.

“Work at the
Club?”
Djuna’s voice broke with eagerness. “At
Fieldcrest
, you mean? What kind of job, Jimmy?”

“Caddying,” Jimmy said. “It’s fun. I’ve caddied for Pop, and he says I can start caddying for the club members if I want to earn some money. He said maybe Djuna would like to caddy, too.”

Miss Annie exclaimed, “Heavens to Betsy! You mean carrying those heavy golf bags for goodness knows how many miles a day? You boys are too young for that.”

“Not a bit,” said Jimmy stoutly. “Lots of littler kids than us do it. And you can make a lot of money caddying, Miss Annie. Every eighteen holes you earn two dollars and a half, and they usually tip you fifty cents more, besides. And Mr. Jonas says caddies are scarce at Fieldcrest, and we’d get a chance to carry for somebody almost every day.”

“Three dollars a
day?”
Djuna’s eyes widened. “We’d be rich!”

“Sometimes, when you carry twice, or carry double, you get
six
dollars a day.”

Djuna jumped up. “Jeepers!” he said. “Wouldn’t that be a wonderful job, Miss Annie? I’d
much
rather caddy than work behind Mr. Evans’s soda fountain! And you said yourself you wished I could do something out-of-doors instead of being cooped up all summer inside an old drug store! Will you let me try it? Please, Miss Annie? Please?”

Miss Annie Ellery rose abruptly from the table and bustled out to the kitchen. She called over her shoulder, “Well, you boys carry those dishes out here and help wash up, and I’ll think about it.”

Djuna and Jimmy could hardly contain themselves. It was obvious from Miss Annie’s tone that when she had “thought about it,” her answer was going to be yes. Djuna whispered to his friend, “What a
terrific
idea!”

They helped Miss Annie clean up the dinner dishes, chattering about golf and caddying a mile a minute. Miss Annie was trying to hide the twinkle in her blue eyes so they wouldn’t suspect she was pleased with Jimmy’s suggestion. For it would keep Djuna closer to home all summer, avoiding the long bicycle ride to and from Brookville each day—even if he managed to find a job there, which wasn’t very likely in Miss Annie’s opinion.

The dishes finished, Djuna suggested that, if Miss Annie didn’t mind, he and Jimmy would walk over to see how Mr. Boots was getting along with his repair work on Jimmy’s broken chest drawer.

“Go ahead,” said Miss Annie. “But don’t stay too long. Jimmy ought to get started home before dark.”

As they walked down the path past Mr. Pindler’s little grocery store, Champ romping ahead of them, Djuna said, “Will we need a work permit or anything? I don’t think you can get one in this state till you’re fourteen.”

“We might need a permit at some clubs, but we can caddy at Fieldcrest without one, Mr. Jonas told me,” Jimmy said. “Especially since Pop is going to be responsible for us. We wouldn’t be full-time caddies, anyway. There’s nothing to it, Djuna, honest. They won’t let us carry double, probably, because the older caddies get the first chance to do that. But Mr. Jonas said we’d get plenty of jobs if we really want them.”

“Who’s Mr. Jonas?”

“The caddy-master.”

“Oh.” Djuna was wordless for a moment. “This is going to be the best summer of my whole life!”

The door of Mr. Boots’s shop was open when they got there, and the carpenter was busily smoothing a piece of thin plywood with a plane. Champ ran in and stood on his hind legs and put his paws on Mr. Boots’s apron and panted a greeting.

“Hi, boys,” Mr. Boots said. “Just puttin’ in a last lick at yer drawer job before the light gits too bad.”

“Can you fix it all right?” asked Djuna.

“Sure thing. I ain’t sayin’ the finished job’ll be as good as th’ original, though, mind ye. That chest was made by somebody who knew his business, sonny!”

“I think it was an old Englishman who lived a couple of hundred years ago,” Jimmy said. “That’s what Grandma says.”

“It’s a sweet job of work. Too bad ye had to go and bust a hole in the bottom. I took out the part that was left, and I aim to put in a whole new bottom. Ought to have ’er done by tomorrow. I’ll tote ’er back to your house before lunch if I can, Jimmy.”

“Thanks, Mr. Boots. You’re awful nice to fix it for us.”

“Any friend o’ Djuna’s a friend o’ mine,” Mr. Boots said. “Did ye know this young feller saved a man’s life one time, Jimmy?”

“No!” Jimmy looked at Djuna. “Honest?”

“It wasn’t anything,” Djuna began; but Mr. Boots interrupted him.

“Maybe not anythin’ to most folks,” he chuckled, “but powerful important to me! ’Cause it was
my
life Djuna saved, ye see.”

“How did it happen?” Jimmy asked eagerly.

“I’ll tell ye all about it some time,” Mr. Boots promised. “But not when Djuna’s here. He thinks I make too much of it. But he’s a wildcat when it comes to solvin’ mysteries. Yessirree!”

Under Mr. Boots’s workbench, Champ was lying on his stomach, holding a flat piece of wood in his front paws and chewing industriously at its edge. Little splinters of wood came off, and Champ sneezed and tried to spit them out.

“Champ!” said Djuna. “Come out from there! Stop chewing up Mr. Boots’s wood!”

“Oh, leave him be,” Mr. Boots said. “That’s just scrap stuff under there.” He peered at Champ. “He’s chewin’ on the broken piece of wood I took out o’ the chest drawer. I got no use for it.”

“Okay,” Djuna said. “I guess we have to go now, Mr. Boots. Jimmy has to start home before dark. Thanks for fixing the drawer.”

“Glad to help out.”

Djuna and Jimmy said good night and left.

Halfway back to Miss Annie’s, Djuna noticed that Champ was still carrying the scrap of wood. “Give me that,” he said, “your manners are getting terrible, Champ.” He took it from Champ’s jaws and was about to toss it aside when Jimmy said, “Wait a minute, Djuna. Aren’t there some marks on that piece of wood?”

Djuna turned the wood over and, sure enough, there were some faint marks on it. “Looks like writing,” Djuna said. The marks were old and faint, almost worn away in a few places; but they certainly seemed to form letters.

“What’s it say?” Jimmy asked.

Djuna held the board up in the fading daylight. They looked closely.

“A
p
comes first,” Djuna said. “And then a
u
, I think. It’s such fancy writing I can hardly read it. What’s that next letter?”

“It could be an r, but it’s a funny-looking r. Almost like a handwriting r.”

“It’s
all
handwriting,” Djuna said. “Don’t you see? The letters are connected.”

“It looks so dirty.”

“This is awfully old wood, remember. You said the chest belonged to your great-great-grandfather, or something. It looks as though the letters were
cut
into the wood, doesn’t it? They make a kind of little groove.”

“The last letter isn’t all there,” Jimmy said. “But it looks like a
p
too.
Purp
, that’s what it spells! Purp! How about that? Champ went and found a piece of wood to chew on that was marked especially for him!”

The boys laughed heartily at this coincidence. Champ, who seemed to share their joke, cocked his head at them and barked once, proudly.

“Why would there be writing on a drawer bottom?” Jimmy wondered.

“Maybe they signed their furniture then, the way artists sign pictures. And your chest was made by somebody named Purp.”

“Anyway,” said Jimmy, “it’s no good any more.”

“I was only pretending to throw it away. Here you are, Champ. Your own chewing board, marked specially for you. Don’t lose it now, purp!”

The boys laughed as Champ seized the proferred board in his jaws and ran as fast as his short legs would carry him around Miss Annie’s house, into the shed and his kennel. Once there, he peered out at them, with the board in his mouth and a clownish expression on his shaggy face.

Jimmy said to Djuna as he got on his bike, “Meet me in the caddy-house at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, can you? We ought to get there early to talk to Mr. Jonas.”

“I’ll be there, don’t worry,” Djuna promised. “Boy, it seems too good to be true. Me—a caddy!”

W
HEN
Djuna arrived at Fieldcrest the next morning, Jimmy was waiting for him. “Park your bike behind the caddy-house and come on, Djuna,” Jimmy said eagerly. “I told Mr. Jonas we’d come in and see him as soon as you got here,”

“I hope it doesn’t rain,” said Djuna anxiously, glancing at the gray sky. “I guess not many people play golf in the rain, do they?”

“No, but there’s a good chance it won’t rain today. Anyway, we can get our jobs set with the caddy-master.”

The caddy-house was a small separate unit about twenty feet behind the clubhouse and connected to it by a covered breezeway. At the other end of the breezeway was the door to the pro shop, the future domain of Jimmy’s father. The breezeway provided a shaded spot where the caddies could congregate to argue, joke, eat lunch and play cards while awaiting assignments from the caddy-master. Behind the caddy-house Djuna noticed a long narrow building, obviously new, with large doors standing open on the macadam path that led up to the first tee.

“What’s in there, Jimmy?” he asked his friend.

“Golf carts. Any members who want to can ride around the course in an electric cart instead of walking the whole way. A lot of women and old guys like carts, but I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“The more golf carts they use, the fewer caddies they need. And that’s us.”

“Gee, I never thought of that.”

There were already half a dozen boys sitting in the breezeway, waiting for assignments.

They entered the caddy-house. Mr. Jones, the caddy-master, stood behind a counter that fronted the ranks where members’ golf bags were kept. Row on row of bags full of clubs lined both walls behind him. Djuna hadn’t realized there were so many golf clubs in the world. “Wow!” he muttered to Jimmy. “How do they keep them all straight?”