The Woodshed Mystery (9 page)
“Yes,” said Benny. “Just as quick as you can.”
Now at last the whole story would be told.
So Aunt Jane began to read. She read slowly because sometimes the writing was hard to read.
My name is Mary Cooper and my husband is called James. I am telling my true story just as it happened. When the war is over, I hope someone will find it. Then they will know why we did what we did. My husband and I love this country and we want it to be free. But we are in great danger. We are storing ammunition on our farm. A man who loves liberty came and asked my husband if we would do this, and he said yes.
Where could we hide it? We thought of two places. One was in a woodshed on the hill. The other was in our cellar in the potato pit.
One night James said to me, “Mary, the men who come here with ammunition are in danger. Perhaps we could hide them somewhere.”
“In the same place with the guns and bullets,” I said.
So we began to dig under the woodshed to make a place to hide the men. We had to work at night. I went with James and helped him dig. It was very hard, but at last we had a big hole. We put in a stool and a candle. Then we dug another hole in the potato pit. This was harder. James made a door to look like the stones. But it was very good. I could hardly see it myself.
One night there was a great knocking on our door. We got up and went to the door. There stood a Redcoat holding a poor man by the arms.
The Redcoat said, “I caught this man hiding ammunition. We want to know if there were others with him.”
James said, “I have not seen anyone.”
I said, “Bring the poor man into the kitchen. He looks half dead.”
The man laughed. “Soon he will be dead. I am taking him to Boston. He will be hanged as he deserves.”
“I have a plan,” said my husband. “Let us talk it over. You will want a horse and food. Put this man down in my cellar. There is no door to the outside, so he cannot run away.”
“How can I believe you?” asked the soldier.
“Here,” said James, “take these two chairs. You and I will sit at the head of the cellar stairs by this door. We will know if he comes up.”
When the poor man was thrown down the cellar stairs, James whispered to him
“Potato pit.”
How I hoped he would understand! We had planned to dig a tunnel from the cellar to the woodshed, but it was too hard.
James had to give a horse to the Redcoat. He would have been shot if he had not. I went out to the barn and got the horse out. We owned four horses. Then the Redcoat went to the cellar stairs and called, “Come up, you!” But nobody came. We all went down the cellar. The Redcoat hunted and hunted. He said to James, “You have let him escape.”
James said truly, “You sat right here yourself all the time. There is no other door to the outside.”
The Redcoat was angry. He could not find the poor man. So he rode away. He said he would come back, but he never did.
When he had gone, we took the poor man upstairs to the kitchen and gave him food. Then we told him to hide in the hole under the woodshed until we came for him. That night we went up and got him. We gave him a horse and the ammunition and he rode away and we never saw him again, either.
We hid many men in those two places. I am so unhappy that we could not be friendly with our neighbors. But we were afraid someone would tell what we were doing. We never let anyone come to see us and we never went to see anyone, so we lost all the friends we had. In those days we could not tell who was a friend and who was an enemy. I hope we did our share to make this country free, but in doing so, we lost all our friends.
M
ARY
C
OOPER
Of course Benny was the first to speak. He said, “Isn’t that too bad? To lose all their friends? But they helped win the war, that’s sure. Did you find this in the woodshed?”
“I found that long ago, young feller! I have carried it with me all these years.”
“How did you find the hole under the woodshed, Andrew?” asked Aunt Jane.
“Easy, I went up there one day and I went in and looked it over. I thought the floor looked queer, so I found the cover and went down into the hole. I found the flintlock and bullets and this bag. I tried to make Jane come and see it, but she wouldn’t go.”
“I do remember,” said Aunt Jane. “But you were always up to some new trick, so I wouldn’t go. I’m sorry now.”
“Never mind, Jane. The past is past. One day I went down to get potatoes for your mother and I found that hole, too. I wanted to tell somebody, but I didn’t dare. At last I showed the gun to John Cole, but he wasn’t interested. He said he didn’t know how to shoot it. He wasn’t interested in the story, either. So I didn’t even read it to him.”
Henry looked thoughtful. “I think I see now,” he said. “Way back, Mary Cooper acted so queerly that at last no one had anything to do with her. I suppose people began to make up stories to explain why they wouldn’t go to the Cooper place. Finally I expect that no one remembered how it all started. People just knew there was something mysterious about the farm. And if anything new went wrong, someone was always ready to say, ‘Well, what can you expect?’“
Andrew looked at Henry and nodded. “I think you understand the people around here. Sometimes they act just that way.”
“All those ideas about something wrong with this place lasted a long, long time,” said Jessie. “We’ll have to tell the real story now.”
“Don’t worry!” cried Andrew. “When people see me, the story will go like wild fire. It may even be in the Sunday papers!”
Aunt Jane was laughing. “You’ll put it in the Sunday papers yourself! My, my! It will be exciting living with you, Andy!”
“What?” cried Andy. “Did you say living with me, Jane? You kids just run off and let me talk to your aunt!”
In one minute the young Aldens were on the other side of the house. They sat down on the back step. Maggie came to the door. “Is Miss Jane all right?” she asked.
“She’s fine,” said Benny. “I think she’s going to marry Andy Bean. Then she’ll be Mrs. Bean after all.”
“I hope so,” said Maggie.
“Do you?” asked Jessie.
“Yes, I do. I feel homesick for the West. Sam and his wife feel the same way. If Miss Jane was in good hands, we’d all go back to the ranch country.”
Henry said, “Andy won’t be a very good farmer, but he’s a strong man and Aunt Jane can hire men to run the farm.”
“I just wonder what Andy will find for excitement up here?” said Jessie.
“Maybe he’ll take Aunt Jane on trips,” said Benny.
“Oh, but she isn’t strong enough to go on trips!” cried Violet.
Maggie said, “My dear girl, your Aunt Jane is strong enough to do anything she
wants
to do. And if she doesn’t want to, she’s as weak as a rag.”
“That’s right,” said Benny. “I’m even like that myself.”
A
t supper, Aunt Jane said to everyone, “I have something special to tell all of you.”
She stopped and smiled at Andrew Bean, then went on, “Andy and I are no longer young, but we are going to be married. We are not going to wait any longer!”
Jessie and Violet jumped up and kissed their aunt. Henry took her hand, but Benny just smiled from ear to ear.
Then everyone turned toward Andy and soon it seemed as if the most wonderful kind of party had begun.
“From now on,” Andy said, “Jane and I will share our adventures. I promise you that.”
Benny said, “Do you want to run the farm, Uncle Andy?”
“Don’t call me uncle! You started with Andy. Keep on with Andy. No, I’m not a very good farmer. But I can get plenty of help to run the farm.”
“How about Willie?” asked Benny. “He’s a good farmer.”
“Right,” said Andy. “He can handle growing things.”
“He doesn’t talk much, does he?” said Benny.
“No, he’s not a talker,” agreed Andy.
“We didn’t guess for a long time he knew part of the mystery,” said Henry.
By now the whole meal was over, and the whole family moved outdoors to sit together in the yard. How good it seemed to have Andy as a part of the family! Already he seemed to belong to them all. Who would have guessed the mystery would end this way?
Aunt Jane said, “I’m glad we know the whole story of the woodshed and the potato pit.”
“We have had a lot of mysteries,” Jessie added. “But this is the first time we ever solved one without Grandfather’s help.”
Violet nodded. She said, “He will help us with that old letter. I think he might want to put it in a museum.”
Benny said, “I think the things ought to be loaned to a school museum. Kids will be interested.”
“Yes, that’s an idea, Benny,” said Henry. “We found the things and you could tell about them. Just like a mystery story.”
Andy broke in and said, “No,
I’ll
come if you want me, young feller! I like to talk to kids.”
“Oh, that will be neat, Andy!” cried Benny. “You know the whole story better than I do.”
Henry looked at Jessie. He said, “We could take pictures of the woodshed and the potato pit. We’d have to take flash pictures. Your John Carter has a wonderful camera, Jessie. Let’s ask him to come up here.”
Jessie said, “He isn’t
my
John Carter, Henry.” But Violet looked at her sister’s face and saw it turning pink.
“Ask him anyway,” said Henry laughing. “He will be here in a minute, I know.”
“How do you know?” asked Benny.
“Well, he wanted to stay when he brought Aunt Jane here in the plane. He told me he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t say why.” Henry smiled.
“Well, we still have most of our summer left,” said Benny. “I wonder if we will have any more adventures this vacation?”
Aunt Jane laughed. She said, “You will. If Andy is around, there will always be some excitement.”
Andy said, “Right, Jane! I’ll see to it that you will always have something interesting going on.”
“My wedding will be enough excitement for me,” said Aunt Jane. “We’ll have to get your grandfather to come up here soon. Maybe Mr. Carter will drive him up.”
Everyone heard what she said. But nobody knew what would happen before the summer was over. Not even Aunt Jane herself, nor Andy, nor Henry, nor Grandfather, nor Benny. Not even the man who used to work for the F.B.I.,—John Carter.
G
ERTRUDE
C
HANDLER
W
ARNER
discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book,
The Boxcar Children,
quickly proved she had succeeded.
Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car—the situation the Alden children find themselves in.
When Miss Warner received requests for more adventures involving Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden, she began additional stories. In each, she chose a special setting and introduced unusual or eccentric characters who liked the unpredictable.
While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner’s books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens’ independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible—something else that delights young readers.
Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her book. And so she continued the Aldens’ adventures, writing a total of nineteen books in the Boxcar Children series.
The Boxcar Children Mysteries
T
HE
B
OXCAR
C
HILDREN
S
URPRISE
I
SLAND
T
HE
Y
ELLOW
H
OUSE
M
YSTERY