Chapter XII: At the Library

The next morning, Judy was at Holly’s door soon after Peter left with Hank Lawton in the official FBI car. The library exhibit was ready, and she hoped her pictures would be ready, too.

“Want to come with me to Roulsville?” she asked Holly the minute the door was opened. Ruth, as usual, was busy with the baby. He was walking now, and making noises that sounded like words.

“Do I!” the younger girl exclaimed. “But wait, I have some more stuff for the exhibit. May I help arrange it in the glass case?”

“Of course. Bring your sweater. It’s a little chilly this morning,” Judy said, “and tell your sister you’re off for the day.”

“You deserve to be after staying home with Bobby all day yesterday. Don’t forget your letter,” Ruth advised as Holly hurried off.

“It’s to my other sister. The letter, I mean,” Holly explained. “I asked about my typewriter. I know Doris didn’t take it, but I felt better asking. It’s funny, but I feel closer to my sisters when they’re away and I just write letters. That’s the way it was for so many years.”

“I know.” Holly and her sisters had been separated after their parents died, each living with a different relative. It would take time for them to become fully acquainted with each other. “You don’t feel closer to me when I’m away, do you?” Judy asked to change the subject into more cheerful channels.

Holly giggled. “Of course not. I feel closer to you when I’m helping you solve a mystery. Did you find out about that thing you saw in the pond?”

They were walking along the shortcut between her house and Judy’s. A chill was in the air. Judy shivered.

“You mean the lady table leg? What about it?”

“That’s what I’m asking _you_. But I can see you didn’t find out very much,” Holly concluded.

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t,” admitted Judy, “but Peter intends to question Hugh Sammis today. He may find out a great deal. He went with another agent in an official car and left the Beetle for me. Put your things in it, and I’ll get mine. Then, on the way to Roulsville, I’ll tell you all about it.”

First she told Holly about the lady table leg and how it had vanished by the time Peter got to the dam. “It’s a funny thing,” she continued, “but Horace and I both saw it. He was going to pull it out of the water, and then Danny warned him not to touch it.”

“Who’s Danny?” Holly asked. “Do I know him?”

“You’ve heard about him,” Judy reminded her. “He’s the orphan Meta Hanley told us about. Remember?”

“Now I do,” Holly answered. “She said he liked to watch the beavers. Was he there at the beaver dam?”

“He certainly was. When we first heard him Horace thought I was throwing my voice. Imagine! Then he jumped down from a tree where he was hiding and told us who he was. Horace called him a wood sprite. He’s such a strange little boy.”

“Everything you’ve told me so far is pretty strange,” agreed Holly. “Did you take him back to the orphanage?”

“Under protest. He wanted to stay and play watchman for the beavers.”

Holly laughed. Then she saw that Judy was serious and asked, “Why would he want to do that?”

“He had a reason,” Judy replied, “because someone must have removed that table leg minutes after we left. When Peter looked for it he found a broken place in the beaver dam and no lady—”

“It was an apparition,” declared Holly. “I don’t believe it was there in the first place. Horace is right. It couldn’t have washed down from the Roulsville flood.”

“But Horace saw it, too,” Judy objected.

“Are you sure?” Holly was not convinced. “Imagination plays strange tricks on people.”

Judy knew that. Often, passing the broken dam in the valley above Roulsville, she seemed to see the devastated town as she saw it right after the flood. Today a mist hung over the valley. It was raining by the time they reached Roulsville. Judy spread a newspaper over the box containing the things for the exhibit and, together, she and Holly dashed through the rain into the library.

Maud Wheatley, the librarian who had rented Judy’s house earlier in the summer, looked a little startled. Then she saw it wasn’t noisy children rushing into the library, and her expression changed.

“Oh, it’s you, Judy, and your friend, Holly Potter. Put the things right down here on the table,” she directed. “The case is empty. You may arrange them any way you wish.”

Holly was a real help with her artistic ideas. The souvenir booklet and the old textbooks were arranged toward the back of the case with the smaller Reward of Merit cards scattered in front. Judy had brought a ball of yarn and a long needle to go with the sewing cards, and Holly had contributed her great grandmother’s sampler in its antique frame.

“It will be safe here, won’t it?” she asked anxiously when they were ready to leave.

“Perfectly safe. The case will be locked. This is a beautiful exhibit,” the librarian declared. “I knew those treasures in your attic would make a fine display, Judy, but this is even better than I expected. It amazes me that a young girl like you should be so interested in family keepsakes.”

“It may be because we lost so many family keepsakes in the flood. Everything went except what few things we had stored at Grandma’s,” Judy told her. “Your home was washed away, too, wasn’t it?”

“Only the porch. It’s still known as the Pringle house,” she replied, “although no Pringles live there any more. When we went back after the flood the rooms were empty of everything valuable. I remember how bare the mantel looked without the old pine clock and the chalkware lambs—”

“The chalkware lambs?” Judy questioned.

“Yes, do you remember them?”

“I don’t think I ever visited your family when you lived in that house,” Judy admitted, “but I did see some chalkware lambs in a shop up in North Farringdon.”

“They’re not uncommon. Whoever looted the house left us nothing but a few chairs, a bare table, and a kitchen stove. And the piano, but that was water-soaked and ruined. We sold the house and rented a furnished apartment in New York. My brother was married that year, so there was just Mother and me. She died soon afterwards. Losing everything was just too much for her,” the librarian finished.

“You never found out who did all that looting, did you?” Judy asked.

She knew the answer. It seemed to distress Mrs. Wheatley to talk about her former home. Like many of the people who used to live in Roulsville, she had moved away only to come back.

“We’re buying one of the new houses and gradually furnishing it with antiques,” she confided. “Bob can’t understand why I want them, but I guess I treasure old things for the same reason you do, Judy. Thank you for sharing your treasures with the children who come to the library. You, too, Holly. The sampler is yours, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it belonged to my great grandmother, Felicity Kane. Judy helped me find out who she was. I can help her with the October exhibit, too,” Holly offered. “There’s a map of the world among my uncle’s things. It’s the way people imagined it in the time of Columbus with pictures of sea monsters near what they thought was the edge of the world.”

“Lovely! Lovely!” Mrs. Wheatley exclaimed. “We’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we?”

“Full circle,” Holly said. “Then we were afraid of sea monsters. Now it’s each other.”

When the girls were outside the library Judy asked, “Why did you say we’re afraid of each other?”

“Because we are,” Holly answered. “I don’t mean you and me, of course. We’re friends. But you know yourself there are people who live by stealing and cheating and misrepresenting what they have to sell. Take that Mr. Sammis with his chalkware lambs. Where do you think he got them?”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Judy admitted.

“Do you think some of that stuff in his shop could have been loot from the Roulsville flood?”

“Possibly. Though I should think he would have sold it all by now,” Judy added, “unless he waited for fear of being caught.”

“Maybe he’s waiting to sell my typewriter, too. Oh, Judy! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you and I could discover what he’s up to?” Holly exclaimed, fairly skipping in her excitement.

They were on their way to pick up the films. It had stopped raining, but there was still a chill in the air. Summer was ending as it had begun, with Judy on the trail of another mystery. Would the pictures she had taken help solve it, or would they add more pieces to the puzzle? Judy knew the answer the moment she opened the yellow envelope that said, “Here are your color prints.”

“Holly!” she exclaimed, nearly dropping the pictures as she held them out for her friend to see. “I thought I was photographing beavers in the dark, but look what I took!”