The treasure of Belden place

Table Of Contents

Chapter Page

I. Belden Place _ 9

II. The Surprise. 23

Foreword

Treasures are the heritage of children, and a treasure hunt is the supreme adventure. Mystery is a rightful part of childhood; the deciphering of the unknown is a natural and worthy impulse.

Belden Place yielded many treasures—not only the jewels for which Patty and Patsy make such a gratifying search. It yielded secrets of the past to the young adventurers, and these secrets enrich their lives. The pre-Civil War days of the Under¬ ground Railroad become living days, and the great¬ grandmother who had been such a valiant figure during those troublesome times becomes a living figure.

Aside from entertainment, the story does much toward building up an understanding of American life and the things for which it stands. The condi¬ tions of Civil War days become a part of the tale, and the reader, in the midst of narrative interest, r all unconsciously absorbs facts of definite informa¬ tional value.

May the treasures which Patty and Patsy found at Belden Place also enrich the lives of the boys and girls who read about them!

The Treasure of Belden Place will prove to be one of the most enticing treasures of any juvenile library.

—The Publishers.

CHAPTER I ff'^T'ES, it must be there some place,” said Mr.

Whitney, as he tied up my sack of sugar.

“You don’t mean there’s a secret room in my Grandfather Belden’s house — one that nobody knows anything about?” I gasped, so excited that I almost dropped the package he handed me over the counter. “Oh, Mr. Whitney, are you sure?”

“Well, now, that’s what my father told me when I was just a little shaver, and he knew your greatgrandpap pretty well. It was during the late fifties and the old house was one of the stations, as they used to call ’em, in the Underground Railroad.”

“And the secret room must have been the place he hid the poor black folks,” I said. “Why, Patty will be so thrilled that—”

“I wouldn’t set too much store by what I told you,” Mr. Whitney interrupted a bit doubtfully. “More’n likely, they walled the secret room up long ago.”

I looked the old storekeeper straight in the eye. “You haven’t just been teasing me, have you?”

“Indeed, I haven’t, little missy,” he said seriously.

“I’ve just been telling you what my father told me once.”

Patty Morrison was my cousin and she and her mother, who was my mother’s sister, still lived in the rambly old house at the edge of town that had belonged to our Grandfather Belden and to his father before him. Everybody in Fayetteville called Patty and me “those Pat girls” or the “twin cousins,” because she was born just one day after I was, and we were both named Patricia after our Great-grandmother Belden. Mother and Daddy were living in San Francisco at the time, so they didn’t know anything about Aunt May having a little girl named Patricia. And, of course, Aunt May didn’t know anything about me; and by the time letters had a chance to travel back and forth, we were already named and our births had been registered. But when we moved back to Fayette¬ ville, it hadn’t been so confusing as you might think, because I had been nicknamed Patsy and my cousin was called Patty.

Patty and I were to be separated for a whole month, so I wasn’t at all happy as I walked home from the grocery store—in spite of the splendid secret that old Mr. Whitney had told me. I was crazy to begin exploring the old house, which the townspeople still called Belden Place, and I knew that my cousin would be, too, because she loves treas¬ ure hunts just as much as I do. You see, Great¬ grandmother Belden’s jewels had disappeared very mysteriously, away back in Civil War days, and no trace of them ever had been found. But now I had a hunch that they might be in the secret room.

Daddy had to be away on a business trip, so Mother and I were leaving the next day to spend four or five weeks at a very stupid hotel at the sea¬ shore where we had gone for several summers. My cousin and aunt were going to the mountains, and Patty said that her hotel was just as stupid as mine. Our cottage was to be closed, but Aunt May was leaving Belden Place in charge of the new house¬ keeper—John the gardener’s sister—who was to come down from Arlington, the city twenty miles up the river. Of course, my aunt stored the silver and things like that in the bank, but you couldn’t put antique furniture in a lockbox, no matter how valuable it was. The gardener had all he could do looking after the grounds and the greenhouses, and he seemed very anxious to have his sister with him.

I stopped at the hollow tree which Patty and I used for a post office. We were always leaving let¬ ters for each other there and little surprise pack¬ ages—paper dolls and things like that—and, sure enough, this time I found a note. I opened it hur¬ riedly and read: “Isn’t it wonderful? Mother just told me. Hooray!”

What she meant by that I had no idea, but I knew that when Patty said, “Hooray,” she meant “Hooray.” If her mother knew, then mine would, too. Besides, they were waiting for the sugar at home, so I had to go there first. I broke into a run, sure that something very splendid must have hap¬ pened.

But Mother’s first words didn’t make me feel so certain. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Patsy,” she said, and suddenly all the rest of me seemed to sink right down into my stomach. Perhaps there wasn’t to be any surprise after all. Then Mother went on, “Would you mind very much if you didn’t go to the seashore this summer—if you had to stay up at Belden Place with Patty instead?”

“Would I mind?” I said, and I gave Mother such a hug that she cried out, “Have a heart, Patsy darling!”

“Why, Mother,” I told her, “I’d rather stay at

Belden Place than anything I know of, if I can be with Patty. And I love my river better than all the seas in all the world.”

“I’m glad of that, Daughter, because I don’t care about having a good time if my little girl can’t have a good time, too. You’ve heard me talk of Mrs. Richards. Well, she is planning to have a house party—a reunion of our old college crowd— and your Aunt May and I are very anxious to go.”

“Will Mrs. Fisher, Aunt May’s new housekeeper, take care of us?” I asked.

“Yes. May says that she seems so reliable and kind and that John has always been so trustworthy, that we need not hesitate to leave you youngsters with her.”

“Mother,” I begged, “I just can’t wait another minute to see Patty. Please, may I go up there, just for a tiny while?”

Mother laughed. “Run along, but be back by half past five. We’re having an early dinner.”

Belden Place was at the very edge of the town, so I had quite a distance to walk—as distances in small towns go. There were several acres to the grounds, just as there had been in Great-grand'

ratners time, and though Aunt May had received many good offers, she wouldn’t have sold any of it for anything.

On one side was the orchard where Patty and I loved to play in the summer. In the back were the greenhouses and, facing a side street, the gardener’s cottage, now unused and much in need of repairs. Grandmother Belden had started with a conserva¬ tory, just because she loved flowers. Then when Aunt May had come into possession of the property and Patty’s father had died, she had gone into the florist business and had added more greenhouses. John had charge of them and lited at the house, but he had several other gardeners who came in to help him by the day.

I turned in at the gate and followed the winding gravel walk up the sloping terraces to the wide porch with its high, round pillars. The house had once been yellow, but now it had aged into a musty, grayish brown, wherever any of the bricks peeped between the ivy. A long hall, upstairs and down, opened info rooms on either side—huge rooms with huge fireplaces, just like the ones that Great-grand¬ father had had in his home in Virginia. Why, there was even a fireplace in the higfi-ceilinged kitchen, which formed a wing by itself, with only a walledup garret above it.

Patty saw me coming and hurried down the walk to meet me. She was such a pretty girl, with long golden-reddish curls and dark brown eyes and a dimple in each cheek which looked nice when she talked and perfectly darling when she smiled. But the dimples weren’t showing very much just then, and I saw right away that she was in the dumps about something.

Before I even had a chance to say a word about what Mr. Whitney had told me, she burst out, “Oh, Patsy, Mrs. Fisher doesn’t want to stay.” And she dragged me into the hall where her mother was talking with John, the gardener, and his sister.

Mrs. Fisher looked much older than her brother. She wore a shabby black hat and a lightweight wrap. She was rather tall and a little stooped, and she seemed very tired, and worried, and discouraged. But she had such a nice smile that I soon forgot everything else.

“I’ll gladly raise your wages,” Aunt May was say¬ ing. “I intended to do that when I learned that the children were to be left in your care.”

“Oh, it’s not that, ma’am,” Mrs. Fisher an¬ swered, looking more troubled than ever.

“Is it that you don’t like children?” my aunt sug¬ gested.

“Oh, no! I — I love children.”

But that must be it, even if she wouldn’t admit it, I decided. Mrs. Fisher didn’t want to look after Patty and me, and Aunt May’s plans had been changed so suddenly that she hadn’t had time to let the new housekeeper know before she came on from Arlington.

I stepped up to her and, acting just as grown-up as I could, I said, “Mrs. Fisher, Patty and I shall try not to be a bit of trouble, and we’ll be very care¬ ful to mind you.”

“Bless your heart!” she said, smiling down at me. “I’d like to stay.”

Here John interrupted. “I hope you won’t think it—queer, Mrs. Morrison, but if I can see my sister out on the porch a minute, well, maybe I can get her to change her mind.”

“Good for you, John! Do all you can for me,” Aunt May told him.

They started out, but at the door he turned. “If my sister stays,” he asked, and seemed to hesitate,

“do you reckon she can have the back, west room?”

Aunt May seemed surprised. “Why, I suppose so. For the summer anyway. We have never used that room because it seems impossible to heat it. It isn’t in very good repair, but if Mrs. Fisher really wants it—”

“It’s because it’s at the head of the back stairs,” John hastened to explain, “and with me sleeping just at the foot of the stairs and it being a strange house and all—”

Aunt May cut John’s struggling explanations short. “It will be quite all right,” she said. “She will be near enough to hear the girls if they should call.”

A queer little pucker drew Aunt May’s eyes together as she watched the gardener and his sister walk the length of the long veranda and stand there, near the honeysuckle vine, in earnest conversation with each other. “Well,” she said, “I’ve had house¬ keepers make all sorts of propositions to me, and requests, and demands, even; but never have I had one who begged to sleep in the shabbiest room in the house.”

“What if she won’t stay?” Patty looked worried.

“There’d be nothing we could do but close up Belden Place,” Aunt May replied.

“You and Mother wouldn’t give up your house party?” I asked.

“We’d have to, dear. We couldn’t leave you girls with just anybody, you know. I’ll take Patty to the mountains, as I first intended, and your mother probably will decide to go to your same old seashore resort with you.”

My aunt was called to the telephone, and Patty and I looked at each other in dismay. If Mrs. Fisher wouldn’t take charge, it would just spoil everything.

“What’s the matter, Patsy?” my cousin asked. “You look so funny.”

“I’d like to have a conference with you,” I whis¬ pered, remembering this was what Daddy always said, whenever he had to talk over anything impor¬ tant with another person. “I must see you alone.”

“Oh, stop trying to be so mysterious,” Patty laughed and tried to act indifferent. But she led the way into the library all right and closed the door behind us; and when she sat down beside me on the davenport, I saw that I really had aroused her curiosity. It seems that Patty is always the one who is telling me interesting things, and it was fun to turn the tables just this once.

“In this house,” I began, as solemnly as I knew how, “there is a secret room.”

Patty wasn’t at all impressed, as I had thought she would be. She burst right out laughing and said she guessed she hadn’t lived at Belden Place all her life for nothing. “Why, Patsy, I know every inch of this old house. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Mr. Whitney gave it to me,” I retorted. “Our Great-grandfather Belden told his father all about it and said that he used to hide the runaway slaves in there, when they were trying to escape from their masters down south.”

When I said that Mr. Whitney was the one who had told me, Patty began to pay attention. She knew and I knew that he was one of the oldest resi¬ dents of Fayetteville and that there wasn’t much of anything he didn’t know. Then when I men¬ tioned the poor black folks our great-grandfather had done so much to help in the days before the Civil War, she began to perk up like everything.

“There may be something to it,” she said, grab¬ bing hold of my arm, her hands icy cold in her excitement. “You know, this house was one of the stations in the Underground Railroad, and Great¬ grandfather really did hide the runaway slaves.”

“Then didn’t he have to have some place to hide them?” I asked.

“Of course, he did. Oh, Patsy, we’ve been want¬ ing something exciting to happen and here’s a real mystery for us to solve.”

“And a real treasure for us to find,” I added.

“Treasure?”

“Goosey! Don’t you remember that old story about the mysterious way Great-grandmother’s jewels disappeared so long ago. We might come across them in the secret room.”

Patty gave a whoop and began waltzing me across the floor. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find them while our mothers are away, and surprise them when they get back?”

Of course, that was the very plan I had had in mind, but I knew that nothing very wonderful would happen if Mrs. Fisher didn’t consent to stay and look after us. I looked up at the old grandfather’s clock and saw that it was quarter after five.

“Oh, dear, I wish she’d hurry up and decide before I leave. Do you suppose it would do any good to go out and try to persuade her?”

My cousin rather doubted it, but we decided it would be worth trying. Then just as we opened the screen door leading onto the porch, we met John and Mrs. Fisher coming in. I looked at Patty and Patty looked at me; but now that we were face to face with them, it was hard to know how to begin our persuading.

“I hope you’ll like the back, west room,” Patty said at last. “It isn’t pretty like the other bedrooms— but—but it has a scrumptious view of the orchard.”

The tall, sad-looking woman smiled, and the trou¬ bled look left her eyes for a moment. “That’s what my brother told me,” she said.

“Oh, Mrs. Fisher,” I blurted out, “I hope that you decide to stay.”

She gave me a long, searching look; and then she looked at my cousin in exactly the same way. I squirmed and Patty squirmed, and we put our arms around each other. She seemed to be trying to read our thoughts—as people say in books—and it made us feel uncomfortable.

Mrs. Fisher turned to her brother. “All right, John,” she said, “I’ll try it.” And the two of them opened the door and went inside to find Aunt May.

Patty took me as far as the gate; or rather we raced each other to the gate, for we had to find some way of getting rid of our excitement.

“I believe I’m going to like the new housekeeper,” I panted, catching up with my cousin, who had reached the goal just ahead of me.

“Me, too,” said Patty. “But didn’t she act strange? I believe that Mrs. Fisher will be another mystery for us to solve, Patsy.”

There was no time to stop and talk about it then, because I realized if I were to reach home by fivethirty, I’d have to run every step of the way. But Patty’s words kept repeating themselves to me as I hurried along; and as my feet would strike the pavement with soft, resounding thuds, I seemed to hear instead that one fascinating word—mystery, mystery, mystery.

Oh, I was quite sure of it—a month of fun and adventure lay ahead of us.

Chapter II The Surprise

r J £ 1 HERE was little time to think of mystery and adventure during the days that followed. Both houses were in a flurry of packing, and I didn’t even see my cousin until the next Thursday when we drove over to Arlington to take our mothers to the train. We had written them nice long train letters, and by combining our allowances for the last two weeks we had had enough to buy them a box of candy.

The four of us were squeezed up together in the back seat, with Patty and me in the middle. We hadn’t intended to say anything about the candy until time for the train to leave, but when Mother hugged me up close to her, somehow or other I let the secret out and there was nothing to do but to hand over the present then and there.

“It was dear of you to think of it,” said Mother.

“Well,” Patty answered, “it’s our last chance to do anything for you for a whole month.”

“Oh, no it isn’t,” said Aunt May. “Do you really want to do something to help me while I’m away?”

Patty nodded.

“I’m having several pieces of that old furniture up in the attic fixed over by a Mr. Whiteside of Arlington, and he’s promised to call for them next week. Would you like to take the upholstering off the sofa and those two old horsehair chairs?”

“Of course, Mother,” my cousin promised.

“I’ll help, too,” I said.

“That’s fine,” Aunt May answered, “because Mr. Whiteside will do the work a little cheaper if the upholstering is taken off first. I’m also having that old bureau down in the basement fixed up, so you might clean the rubbish out of the drawers while you’re about it.”

When it came to telling Mother good-by at the station, it was much harder than I had expected. But I had made up my mind I wouldn’t cry, and I didn’t. I knew she was looking forward to that house party, and I wasn’t going to do a single thing to worry her. We waited there until the train pulled out, and the last she saw of me, I was smiling away like everything.

We had driven over with Mrs. Meredith and Peg, and if it hadn’t been for them, I’m afraid it would have been a mighty gloomy ride back to Fayette-

The Surprise ville. Peg is one of our best friends and just about the jolliest girl I’ve ever known, and some of the things she said would have sent Patty and me into gales of giggles at any other time. Her mother tried to cheer us up by telling us that she and Mr. Meredith were planning to take our Jolly Half Dozen Club for a ride in their new launch the fol¬ lowing afternoon and that we would have a picnic supper on the Kentucky side. But even that didn’t seem to do much good.

At the end of our twenty-mile ride back to Belden Place, we found Mrs. Fisher in the front doorway waiting to welcome us. It was the first time I had seen her since that day more than a week before when her brother had made that odd request about the back, west room. I had liked her then and I liked her now—there was something so comfortable about her—and I felt we wouldn’t miss our mothers quite so much with her there to look after us. But there was something queer about her, too, just as Patty had said, for though she smiled she didn’t seem to mean it. Not that she was cross or any¬ thing like that — it was only that she looked so worried.

“Now if you’ll run upstairs and change into play dresses,” she said, “I think John has a surprise for you.”

Change into play dresses at four-thirty in the afternoon—that was a funny thing to do. The housekeeper must have noticed how astonished we were, for she added quickly, “You’ll understand when you see it.”

We rushed upstairs to the big front bedroom, - which I was to share with my cousin during my stay at Belden Place. The housekeeper had unpacked my trunk, and when I opened the door into the closet there hung my dresses in a gay little row like posies in a flower bed. I picked out a blue-checked ging¬ ham—the one with the little appliqued flowers forming the pockets—and Patty slipped into the tan linen with the Buster Brown collar and the brown tie I’ve always liked so much. We were down on the front porch again before you could say, “Abra Cadabra” three times or even twice, and there we found John grinning so mysteriously that we were sure something very nice was about to happen.

“Make ’em blind their eyes,” he said to his sister.

So Patty and I closed our eyes tight shut and put our fingers over them. Mrs. Fisher turned us

The Surprise around again and again. And then she began walking us, guiding our steps through the orchard,

I suspected, from the feel of the ground beneath my feet. It wasn’t easy to mix us up—we knew Belden Place too well for that.

Finally Mrs. Fisher brought us to a stop and said, “Now you may uncover your eyes, girls.”

We did and, as we had thought, we were in the orchard, and we were standing beneath the old apple tree we had so often climbed.

“Look up!” said John.

We did that, too, and there, perched in the branches above us, was a darling little house.

“Why, John!” Patty gasped, and climbed up into the old apple tree almost before she had finished say¬ ing it.

“Oh, goody!” I squealed and climbed up after her.

What we found was not a really truly house but a platform about six feet square, with a railing around it high enough to keep us from tumbling off. The green-leaved branches with the sunshine sifting through made the walls—if you used your imagina¬ tion just a little—and the blue sky made a roof. On one side where the branches parted was a window, and through this we could look out over the other trees and have a glimpse of the Ohio River beyond. The river was beautiful that day—quiet and glassy and very blue, except where a passing skiff sent out rays of indigo into the pale stream. (I used that sentence in a composition once and the teacher marked it “A.”)

“Thank you, John,” Patty called, leaning over the railing and looking down at him. “You’re one of the nicest people in Fayetteville.”

“It’s a perfectly scrumptious surprise,” I added, “and I think you’re awfully smart.”

The gardener blushed at our praise and seemed as happy about it as we were. He’s always like that— he gets more fun out of planning surprises for peo¬ ple than almost anybody that I know.

“I’m glad you like it,” he called back to us. “I told your mothers that I thought you would.”

He went back to the house then with his sister and left us alone to enjoy our quaint little treetop home.

“Isn’t it like a bird’s nest,” I said, “tucked up here above the world? No wonder birds sing all the time—I feel like trilling, too!”

“It will be like a fairy bower in the springtime,”

The Surprise

Patty answered dreamily, “when the pale pink blos¬ soms are in bloom.”

“And like an everlasting Thanksgiving feast, when the fruit is ripe,” I added. “We can reach out and pick an apple whenever we want to.”

There were many plans to be made for the new play house, and it seemed that both of us were run¬ ning over with ideas. Patty remembered an old rag rug up in the attic, which we could use as a floor covering, and I thought of bringing cushions up to make the place more comfortable. And perhaps John would give us a porch box which he could fill with rich earth and nail in place on the outside of the railing. It would be fun to have a little flower garden of our own up among the treetops.

“We’ve forgotten the most important thing of all,” said Patty. “We haven’t given it a name.”

“How about ‘Treetop House’?” I asked.

“I like ‘Fairy Bower’ better.”

But that didn’t seem to suit exactly either; and we thought and thought and thought. Finally I had a wonderful idea.

“Don’t you remember how Peter and the Lost Boys lived in the treetops? Let’s call this the Peter Pan House.”

The Treamre of Bdden PUtce

“The very thing!” said Patty. You can pretend you’re Peter, and I’ll be Wendy because I have long curls.”

We left the tree house reluctantly when the din¬ ner gong rang and I said I thought Peter Pan cer¬ tainly had an advantage over ordinary mortal chil¬ dren, never having to pay attention to bells and things like that.

“But even Peter had to stop playing long enough to eat,” Patty argued; and when we sat down to the new housekeeper’s first dinner, we decided that we had a few advantages, too. For never, in Never Never Land, I am quite certain, was there such a good cook as Mrs. Fisher.

Chapter III The Beginning Of A Mystery

WERE so tired that night that we decided to go to bed right after dinner. We didn’t intend to let ourselves drop off to sleep until our reg¬ ular bedtime; but it would be fun to undress early and crawl into the big canopied bed and read out loud to one another. I had borrowed a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer from the public library more than a week before, but we hadn’t had time to finish it on account of helping our mothers and we could hardly wait to get back to it again. Patty and I just love boys’ stories anyway.

“We mustn’t get so excited about the Peter Pan House that we forget the mystery,” I said as we undressed. “That’s the important thing to remem¬ ber.”

“Of course,” Patty answered, “but the play house is going to be an awfully good place to think in. So we musn’t forget that either.”

I laughed, because my cousin always was arguing that it was easier to think in the treetops than down on the ground. I’ve even known her to climb up in a tree when she had a particularly hard arithmetic problem to solve. She said she could do twice as well in her school work in the tree-climbing season; but so far as I could tell, she had mighty good grades the year ’round.

It was Patty’s turn to read, so she took the side of the bed nearest the table lamp. Usually the big four-poster bed with its rich silk canopy gives me the feeling of being in a tent—not the kind we use when we go camping, but the beautiful sort of tent the people who live on the desert are supposed to have. To-night, though, it was more fun to pretend the bed was a haunted house. Tom and Huckleberry Finn had a very scary adventure in a haunted house, once, and it made the story seem so much more real.

“Go on,” I said. “We stopped last time where the boys dared each other to go upstairs.”

My, that was an exciting chapter and Patty read as fast as she could, so we wouldn’t have to wait very long to find out what happened. It seemed to me I hardly breathed from the time Injun Joe and his wicked companion entered the downstairs of the haunted house and the boys overheard them plot¬ ting. It was all a little scary, and I put my arm around Patty’s neck just for the comfort of it. When she reached the place where Injun Joe started