Snowbound Mystery by Gertrude Warner Read Free Book Online

I’m sure we can eat that stew now. It’s all cooked anyway, and it is nice and hot. Now, take seats at the table. I’ve found three more dishes for chicken stew.”
    “Chicken stew?” said Puggsy. “I’ve never heard of that.”
    “It’s delicious,” said Benny.
    “Well, if you say so,” said Puggsy, looking at him.
    They all began to eat the chicken stew. Mr. Nelson said, “How thankful we are to be here!” He drew a long breath.
    While the others were eating more stew, Violet and Jessie made the snow ice cream. They mixed the soft, white snow with the milk and sugar and currant jelly. It was a lovely pink color.
    “Wouldn’t Grandfather laugh at this ice cream!” said Benny. Then he told the Nelsons about the message from Mr. Alden that had come over the Greenfield radio station.

    “But Grandfather didn’t know that you were coming,” he added.
    Just then everyone heard a strange humming sound outdoors.
    “What’s that?” asked Jessie. She stopped to listen.
    “A helicopter!” shouted Benny. “I know that sound! Where’s my jacket?” He was out of the door in a second, putting on his jacket as he ran. Henry was right behind him.
    The sound grew louder. The helicopter seemed to be standing still in the air right above the hunters’ cabin.
    “The pilot can’t land here,” Benny said. “What’s he going to do?”
    “Get back, Benny!” shouted Henry. “The pilot is throwing something out.”
    Bump! Something hit the cleared spot where the boys had shoveled.
    “Hay!” Benny exclaimed. “Just the way they throw hay out to cattle lost in the snow. But how did Grandfather know about the deer? We can’t eat hay.”
    But now Tom Nelson was outside, too. He said, “Benny, it’s a haylift. There’s something inside the hay. They put the hay around it for a soft landing. It’s a good thing you shoveled out this place! That showed the pilot that you can pick up anything he drops.”
    The helicopter flew low and the pilot waved both arms. The helicopter made such a noise the boys couldn’t hear a word. The pilot hovered over the cabin. Suddenly he held a blackboard out of the door.
    C AN’T LAND.
M ESSAGE IN HAY.
B ACK IN 2 HOURS.
    The boys nodded their heads back and forth, and waved their arms again.
    Off flew the helicopter.
    The boys dragged the bale of hay into the narrow path. The others were watching from the window. Then the boys dragged the bale into the house and everyone began to pull off the hay.
    “Don’t go too near the fire with that hay!” said Jessie. “We don’t want a fire as well as a blizzard.”
    Then they found the packages.
    “Canned milk,” said Henry. “And canned peaches.”
    “Loaves of bread,” said Jessie.
    “And a bag of sugar and lots of hamburger meat,” said Benny. “And that’s all. It’s lucky that the sugar was wrapped in the hay. We would have sugar all over everything if the bag had broken.”
    “And now where’s the message?” asked Henry. “That’s most important of all.”
    “Here it is,” said Benny. “A card all done up in plastic.”
    Henry read it aloud:
    From Your Grandfather: The State Police and the Highway Department will get you home as planned. Find something big for a message. Print what you need in large letters. Lay the sign on the snow. The pilot will come again and drop whatever you need. Tell me how you are.
    “What can we write our message on?” asked Jessie.
    “Oh, dear,” said Violet. “We haven’t anything big enough! And no paint or ink.”
    “Let’s look around,” said Benny. He sat down and began to look at everything in the room. Jessie went into the bedrooms to look. Nothing was big enough. There was not even a big calendar on the wall.
    The Nelsons tried to think, too.
    “It can be either light or dark,” said Violet, “if it is big enough.”
    “What will you print with?” asked Puggsy.
    “Wait until we settle our first problem, Puggsy,” said Henry. “We must find a big card or