Read Online The Mysterious Code by Julie Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

whisper, “He’d close up
like a clam if he knew we were listening. Stay right here with me behind the
door, Trixie. When Brom talks, it is worth listening.”
    “I couldn’t get
skinny,” Brom went on, “the way Mrs. Vanderpoel feeds me. When I get hungry, I
just rap at her door. How’d you find out about Rip Van Winkle, Bobby?”
    “’Cause Sleepyside
isn’t very far from Sleepy Hollow,” Bobby said. “The story’s in all the books.”
    “Is that so?” old
Brom said. “Is that so? I can tell you stories you’ll never find in any books,
Bobby, and they’re all true. The Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains
are full of witches and ghosts and goblins—it just takes a certain kind of eyes
to be able to see them.”
    “Do you have that
land of eyes?” Bobby asked.
    “I do,” old Brom
answered. “Listen—you’ve never heard of No-mah-ka-ta, the witch who fives on
top of the highest mountain in the Catskills, have you?”
    “No, sir,” said
Bobby. “Is she a real witch?”
    “Yes, indeed,” Brom
said. “In the morning she lets the day out of the dark cave where it’s been all
night. At night No-mah-ka-ta puts the day back in the cave, and everything is
black as night.”
    “And the owls come
out,” Bobby said.
    “That they do,
Bobby,” old Brom said. “But when No-mah-ka-ta wants fight in the sky at night,
she hangs out a new moon.”
    “What does she do
with the old ones?” Bobby asked, his eyes as big as saucers.
    “She cuts them up
into stars,” Brom said.
    “She must he a good
witch,” Bobby said.
    “No,” Brom said
thoughtfully. “I’ve seen her when she was good and mad.”
    “You really saw the witch?” Bobby asked.
    “That’s right,” Brom
said. “I’ve seen her right there on top of her mountain spinning clouds and
flinging them to the four winds. Of course, some people would say it was just
the mist I saw, blown by the wind.”
    “I like the wind,”
Bobby said.
    “Yes,” Brom said,
“the soft west wind. But No-mah-ka-ta spins wild winds, too, when she is cross
—black winds that bring rain, rain that floods the earth and sweeps away
houses.”
    “Brom will go on
like that for an hour,” Mrs. Vanderpoel said, “as long as there is a little
child to tell his stories to. What are you looking at, child?”
    “Your wonderful,
wonderful furniture,” Trixie said as Mrs. Vanderpoel led her into the large
family room. “That little melodeon—may I touch it?”
    “You sit right down
and play on it, Trixie,” said Mrs. Vanderpoel, turning the stool to the right
height. “It has a pretty tone, hasn’t it? Land, you’ve seen it a dozen times,
and the rest of the furniture, too.”
    “It’s different now,
though,” Trixie said. “I’ve always thought it was beautiful, but now...”
    She told Mrs.
Vanderpoel about the antique show they were planning. She told of the reason
for the show, of the need for money for little children far across the oceans.
    She didn’t have
enough courage to ask Mrs. Vanderpoel if they could exhibit some of her
heirlooms. She did not need to ask. Mrs. Vanderpoel offered them to the
Bob-Whites.
    “You say you only
want to borrow them overnight and for one day?” she asked.
    “That’s all,” Trixie
told her. “I’ll come after them myself, with Tom and Regan, and watch to see
that there isn’t a scratch on them.”
    “Mercy, I don’t
worry about that,” Mrs. Vanderpoel said. “Children have played around my
furniture for several generations. They’ve never done any harm that a little
rubbing with cabinet-maker’s wax won’t cure. Just tell me what you want for the
show, and I’ll have it ready and shined. I’m going to give you this small
carved oak lap desk,” she said. “It belonged to my father. I’d like to think
the money for it would be used to help children.”
    “That’s wonderful!”
Trixie exclaimed. “Why, our tickets won’t go begging when people hear about
these beautiful