The Mystery Off Glen Road

“It’s super-glamorous perfect, Honey,” Trixie said with satisfaction. “I never thought we’d get it all done before Thanksgiving, did you?”

“It seemed to take forever,” Honey Wheeler agreed.

The two girls were surveying the interior of their newly finished clubhouse. They belonged to a secret society and called themselves the B.W.G.’s—short for the Bob-Whites of the Glen. Other members were Trixie’s brothers, Brian and Mart, and Honey’s adopted brother, Jim Frayne.

In the days of carriages and sleighs, the small cottage had been the gatehouse of the huge estate which now belonged to the Wheelers. The Manor House, as it was called, formed the western boundary of Crabapple Farm, the Beldens’ property. Both homes faced Glen Road and were about two miles from the village of Sleepyside, a small Westchester town that nestled among the rolling hills on the east bank of the Hudson River.

All of the B.W.G.’s attended the junior-senior high
school in town, where Mr. Belden worked in the bank. Trixie and Honey were both thirteen but they didn’t look at all alike. Trixie was small and sturdily built with round blue eyes and short sandy curls. Her best friend was tall and slim with enormous hazel eyes. She had shoulder-length, golden-brown hair which had earned for her the nickname Honey. She loved to sew and it was she who had made the attractive curtains which Trixie had just helped her hang at the windows.

The boys had recently put a new roof on the clubhouse, painted it inside and out, and had partitioned off one section of the interior which they had lined with shelves. Here the boys and girls kept their winter and summer sports equipment: skis, skates, hockey sticks, sleds, pup tents, tennis rackets, and the like. Brian and Jim, who were sixteen and fifteen respectively, had made a big table and benches for the conference room, using odds and ends of pine which they had bought cheaply at the Sleepyside Lumber Yard. Mart, who was exactly eleven months older than Trixie, was not as handy with carpentry tools as the other boys were, but he had done his share by sanding and staining the furniture.

The cottage had a dirt floor which they hoped to cover some day with wide boards, but right now there was not a penny in the treasury. One rule of the club
was that no member could contribute money which she or he had not earned. Although Honey’s father was very rich, she had earned her share of what was needed for the necessary repairs through mending jobs. Jim, who had inherited half a million dollars from a great uncle, had worked as hard as the Belden boys, serving as a handyman after school and on weekends. Earning the money themselves had meant, of course, that there was very little time left for work on the clubhouse, but at last it was finished.

Trixie had put into the treasury every week the five dollars which her father gave her for doing household chores and helping her mother take care of mischievous six-year-old Bobby Belden. Because she hated any kind of indoor work, and was very apt to lose patience if Bobby were left in her care for too long, Trixie sometimes felt that she had worked harder than anyone else. But it had been worth all of their efforts because the clubhouse was now a “dream cottage.”

“Only one thing is lacking,” Trixie said to Honey. “Heat. Now that Indian summer is over, it’s going to be so cold in the evenings that we’ll have to wear fur coats when we hold meetings.”

Honey giggled. “Not that any of us has a fur coat! But the boys are wonderful trappers. Maybe they’ll
catch a couple of million minks for us. The streams on our property are filled with minks. Daddy hates them because they eat up all his trout.” She backed out of the cottage and stared at it speculatively. “The evergreens protect it from the wind, but you’re right, Trixie. It will soon be too cold for us to sit around. Up until now we’ve all been working so hard we haven’t noticed how chilly it gets after sundown.” She shivered and slipped her arms into the sleeves of the sweater she had been wearing over her slim shoulders. “B-r-r. This wind is an icy blast.”

Trixie nodded. “It was a gentle zephyr when we went inside early this morning.” She closed the clubhouse door and slipped on her own sweater. “Wow! It’s eleven o’clock, Honey. If this wind keeps up, it means we’re in for a hurricane.”

Honey sighed. “And only yesterday it was so hot we were wearing shorts and halters.” They linked arms and started up the sloping lawn to the big house. “Speaking of clothes, we’d better start getting ready for the wedding reception. The ceremony is at noon.”

“I know,” Trixie said mournfully. “I wish we could go just as we are. I never feel comfortable in anything but jeans. But I suppose I’ll have to wear a dress today.”

Celia, the Wheelers’ pretty little maid, was getting married that day to Tom Delanoy, the handsome young chauffeur. After a wedding breakfast at the Manor House, they were going off on a two-week honeymoon. On their return, they would make their home in the
Robin
, a luxurious red trailer which was parked on the hill above the stable. The
Robin
had been a gift from Mr. Lynch whose daughter, Diana, had recently been admitted to the secret club.

“I wish I had enough money to buy Celia and Tom a wedding present,” Trixie said to Honey. “Moms and Dad are giving them those Adirondack blankets they wanted, but I’d like to give them something on my own.” She reached into the pocket of her jeans and produced a grimy dime. “Do you think a box of toothpicks would be appreciated?”

Honey hugged her arm. “You’re so funny, Trix. Every time you hand over your money to the club you make a big fuss, but deep down underneath you’re the most generous girl in the world.”

Trixie flushed with pleasure. “I’m not generous at all,” she mumbled. “I’m terribly selfish. I don’t help Moms half as much as I should. If we were rich like you, it would be different, but Moms does everything and she never complains. Even when she’s canning gallons of
stuff all day in boiling hot weather she always looks so young and pretty. When I do help, I moan and groan. Honestly, Honey, half the time when Dad gives me that five dollars I feel so guilty I wouldn’t take it, if it weren’t for the club.”

“Well, I think you work very hard and deserve it,” Honey said loyally. “But you’d better hurry home now.” She started up the steps to the wide veranda and Trixie raced off down the path to her little white farmhouse in the hollow.

There she found that Brian and Mart had just finished putting up the storm windows. They were carrying a long ladder down the terrace steps and greeted her with sour expressions on their faces.