Honeybee Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Read Free Book Online

just don’t want to do anything before we have the facts, that’s all. The man should still be treated fairly.”
    Clay turned back to the window and frowned. “I guess,” he grumbled.
    So they waited, and as soon as Georgie Cooper went to town on his lunch break, the Aldens and the Shermans ambled through the flowers to the farm-equipment graveyard.
    â€œHe lifted this with one hand?” Clay said, looking down at the old overturned trough.
    Jessie nodded. “Uh-huh. Lifted it as if it were made of cardboard.”
    â€œHow can one man do that?”
    Henry got a hand under it and said, “Okay, I’m going to need some help here.”
    The Aldens lined up next to one another and wiggled their fingers underneath. When they were ready, Henry said, “Okay, here we go. One … two … three !”
    They moaned and groaned and pulled their hardest, and slowly the trough began rising. Once it was high enough, Clay and Dottie wedged wooden poles under it to keep it up.
    Wiping his hands off, Henry said, “Whew, that was pretty heav —”
    â€œOh, my goodness, look!” Violet said, pointing underneath.
    There was no bottle of Menadrin anywhere in sight, nor any other kind of chemical that could stop bees from making honey. Instead there was one large gray-and-white cat with a family of tiny kittens attached to her belly, drinking her milk. The mother cat’s eyes were wide with fear.

    Benny smiled brightly. “Look at the kitties!” he cried delightedly.
    â€œOh, they’re beautiful!” Violet declared.
    â€œFood,” Jessie said flatly, hands on her hips. “That had to be what he had in his pocket both times. He’s been feeding them.”
    â€œAnd giving them milk,” Dottie added. “Look at the bowl.”
    There was a small plastic bowl nearby filled with milk.
    Clay took off his farmer’s hat and scratched the top of his head. “Well, I’ll be darned. Kittens. He was sneaking down here to feed them!” He looked at his wife. “I wonder why he hid them.”
    â€œHe seems to have thought he’d get in trouble if we knew about them,” Dottie said. “First I didn’t like him, and then you didn’t like him. He probably didn’t want to take a chance that we’d be mad about the kittens.”
    Clay looked back at the furry family and shook his head. “We’ve had him figured all wrong, Dot. Both of us.”
    Dottie nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, we sure have.”

CHAPTER 7
    More Spying Eyes
    W hen Georgie came back from lunch, the Aldens and the Shermans met with him in the farmyard and told him they found the mother cat and her kittens. For a moment he looked worried.
    â€œAw, gee, I’m sorry, Mr. Sherman.…” he said, in a voice that was surprisingly soft for a man of his size. “I was going to try and find a home for them myself, but the mama wouldn’t budge, so I had to feed her, and check on her, and get her milk … and then I was worried you’d think I wasn’t doing the job you hired me to do.”
    â€œOh, Georgie, we’re not mad at all,” said Dottie, and the children could see that she and Clay felt bad about doubting Georgie. “In fact,” she said, smiling at the kittens, “we’re happy to have these new residents at Sherman Farm.”
    â€œI know a spot in the barn where we can set up a crate for them,” said Clay. He showed Georgie a warm corner near the horse stalls, and before long they had carefully moved the cat family to their new home.
    It would be part of Georgie’s daily chores to make sure they had plenty of milk, food, and clean hay to sleep on. The Aldens thought they’d never seen anyone as happy as Georgie was when he heard all this.
    In the Shermans’ kitchen afterward, however, the good mood quickly drifted away.
    â€œOkay, so if it wasn’t Georgie, then it has