The secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell Read Free Book Online Page B

would bear a late crop of green tomatoes which her mother would pick just before the first frost, and they would ripen slowly indoors so the family could have fresh tomatoes up until Christmas. "I’d better water them after I feed the chickens," Trixie said. "Otherwise, they’re sure to die."
    She worked along the row of broccoli plants, weeding and cultivating with her scratcher but thinking mostly about Jim and Honey. "I hope Jim isn’t still mad at me," she thought with a little pang of regret. "I’ll apologize the first thing in the morning." She began to wonder, then, whether old Mr. Frayne would ever get well and whether or not there really was hidden wealth up at the old Mansion. She was lost in thought when she was startled out of her preoccupation by Bobby’s screams.
    She scrambled stiffly up from her knees, momentarily blinded by the bright sunlight shining in her eyes. Then she saw that the gate was open and there was no sign of Bobby.
    "Trixie 1" he screamed again, and she realized that he was somewhere in the woods just outside the garden. For a moment panic seized her; Bobby’s screams usually meant that he was in trouble, for Bobby was almost always in some sort of trouble. But then she remembered how he had screamed earlier that day just to attract her attention, and she called out sharply, "What is the matter, Bobby? Where are you?"
    "I’m here," he called, and she saw him, then, at the edge of the woods, waving a forked stick. "I caught a snake," he said, half-crying, half-laughing. "But he didn’t like it, and you were wrong. He did bite me." He stuck out his bare foot as she ran to him. "He bitted me on the toe. It burns."
    Panic swept back over Trixie as she saw the drops of blood on Bobby’s big toe. It could have been a copperhead, she thought wildly. Oh, no, no. It must have been a black snake. They get very bold when they’re teased. Aloud she asked in as calm a voice as she could muster, "What did it look like, Bobby? Was it a black snake? Tell me quickly, was it long and black?"
    Without even waiting for his answer, she made a hasty tourniquet with her handkerchief and a stick and twisted it tightly around the bleeding toe. Bobby’s lower lip began to tremble as he sensed her panic. "It wasn’t black," he sobbed. "It was sort of brown with spots and stripes. Ooh, that’s too tight. It hurts."
    But Trixie had already scooped him up into her arms and was running back to the house as fast as she could. "It was probably nothing but a harmless little garter snake," she kept telling herself to keep her legs from buckling under her. "But it might have been a copperhead. Oh, why did I let him go barefoot?" she reproached herself. "Why didn’t I keep him in the garden with me?"
    She laid him gently on the living-room sofa and ran upstairs, calling, "Lie perfectly still, Bobby. Everything’s going to be all right. Just he still." In her father’s medicine cabinet, she found a new razor blade wrapped in sterile paper. Just then, she heard someone calling her name, and, looking out the window, she saw Honey coming up the driveway.
    Trixie leaned out the bathroom window, whispering hoarsely, "Bobby was bitten by a snake. I don’t want to frighten him, and I don’t know whether it was a copperhead or not, but I’ve got to give him first aid, anyway, because we might not be able to get a doctor out here from town for half an hour."
    She tore downstairs and almost collided with Honey in the hall. "You hold him in your arms," she whispered to Honey, "while I cut the fang marks with this razor blade. The quieter he is, the less chance there’ll be of the poison spreading."
    Luckily, Bud had followed Honey into the house, and Bobby was so happy hugging the little puppy he hardly felt the quick incisions Trixie made in his toe. "I’m going to suck out as much blood as I can with my mouth," Trixie told Honey over her shoulder. "You call Dr. Ferris and ask him to come out right away with the