the bird stamp,” protested Chris. “You promised to trade that one with me for the airplane stamp. Remember?”
“Sure, I remember, but I have some duplicate stamps that my cousin sent me from Japan.”
The conversation was interrupted by a loud voice coming from the restaurant below. “Anybody home?”
Skeet knew immediately that it was Lefty, his grown-up friend who had been a famous baseball player.
Lefty was a big man, six feet three inches tall. Ever since he had moved to Springdale he had taken an interest in Skeet because the boy liked baseball and played on one of the town’s Little League Teams. Once, when he had practiced with Skeet, he let the boy use the professional baseball glove that he had used when he had played shortstop for the Blue Sox, a big-league team.
Lefty had also started Skeet collecting stamps and showed him how to go about it.
Skeet lost no time hurrying down the narrow stairway to see his friend. Chris and Gayle went too, for they liked Lefty.
“Hi, Lefty,” greeted Skeet. “Are you going fishing?” he asked, noticing the rod Lefty was carrying.
“Yes, I plan to go with Dad,” answered Lefty.
Lefty lived with his father who was eighty years old. They liked to go off together and fish, but lately Lefty’s father was acting forgetful. He seldom showed up when he promised to meet anyone.
“Dad said I should pick him up at the post office,” continued Lefty, “but he wasn’t there. He’s getting more forgetful every day. I thought maybe he’d dropped in here.”
“I haven’t seen him,” replied Skeet.
By this time Mrs. Macdonald had come out of the kitchen. “You’re just in time for coffee, Lefty,” she said. “And I have baked some doughnuts. They’re still warm.”
Before Lefty could answer, three hungry faces looked up at Mrs. Macdonald in such a pleading way that she could not refuse them. “All right. Doughnuts for all.”
Gayle went to the kitchen with Mrs. Macdonald to help bring out the food.
“We have another stamp collector in town, Skeet,” said Lefty, sitting down at a table. “He’s Mr. Doolittle who bought the old Smithfield house at Four Corners. He started collecting stamps when I did.”
“I’m starting to collect stamps, too, Lefty,” said Gayle, returning from the kitchen with Skeet’s mother.
“Glad to hear it, Gayle,” answered Lefty. “You’ll learn a lot about your country and other countries all over the world. You’ll have to go to Mr. Doolittle’s house with the boys to see his stamp collection. I was telling the boys about him. He collects all kinds of stamps, some with ships on them, others with airplanes.”
“Boy, I can hardly wait to see them!” cried Skeet, “but are you sure Mr. Doolittle will show us his collection?”
“You tell him that you’re stamp collectors and that I sent you,” answered Lefty. “I’ve known Mr. Doolittle for some time. Don’t act surprised, though, when you see him. He has a beard like Santa Claus. Some people call him an eccentric old man—you know, a person who acts strange and stays by himself. But I’ve found Mr. Doolittle very friendly. I know you’ll like him.”
“I’m sure that man had dinner here last night,” said Mrs. Macdonald. “He told me he had bought a house in Springdale.”
“And he told me that he likes animals,” added Skeet. “I wanted to show him my pets, but he had to leave in a hurry.”
“That must have been Mr. Doolittle,” said Lefty. “He’s very fond of animals. At one time he had ten cats.”
“Did they all have kittens?” exclaimed Gayle.
Lefty laughed. “I don’t know. Dad and I moved to another town. By the way, there is a secret passageway in the old house Mr. Doolittle just bought. So ask him to show it to you when you call on him.”
“A secret passageway!” exclaimed Skeet. He pictured himself crawling down a dark passage like the one he had seen on TV.
“What is the secret passageway like, Lefty?” asked Gayle. “Is it spooky?”
Lefty tried to hide a smile. “There are no goblins in it, but there are plenty of spiderwebs, and the floor makes funny noises when you walk on it.”
Gayle swallowed hard. She hated spiders and scary places. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to go to Mr. Doolittle’s house.
“I meant to tell you, Skeet,” said Lefty, “that your pet rabbit was sitting in the driveway when I came in here.”
“She was!” exclaimed Skeet, looking amazed. “How did Pixie get out of her cage? I hope she hasn’t run away. Thanks for telling me, Lefty.”
Skeet hurried out of the restaurant.
Chris and Gayle went, too, for if Pixie had run away, they wanted to help look for her.
But the rabbit had not gone far. She was eating clover near the driveway.
Skeet picked her up and hugged her. Then he and his friends took turns carrying Pixie back to her cage in the other barn on the farm—the one set back from the road where the cows were milked.
When the children got there, they found Mr. Macdonald cleaning up the barn.
Skeet immediately went to help his dad, and Chris and Gayle did what they could. But all the while Skeet worked he kept trying to figure out how Pixie managed to get in the driveway. Finally he told his dad about it.
“Did you close the door to her cage after you fed her this morning?” asked Mr. Macdonald.
Skeet thought a moment. Last week he had forgotten to close the door of Pixie’s cage. Fortunately, Dad had spotted it just as the rabbit was about to jump out.
Now Skeet, feeling guilty, said in a low voice, “I’m to blame, Dad. I’ll have to be more careful the next time.” Then Skeet quickly added, “But Dad, how did Tiny get away last night? I’m sure I closed her door.”
Tiny was another one of Skeet’s pets. She was a pure white mouse.
Mr. Macdonald paused before answering. “I don’t know how your pet mouse got away, Skeet. I’ve been thinking about it, and it puzzles me.”
“It does me, too, Dad. I guess Tiny will never come back. I’ll miss her.”
Gayle did not care for mice, but since Skeet was fond of them, she supposed that someday she might like them. “I’ll ask everyone I know if they’ve seen a white mouse, Skeet.”
“That would help, Gayle.” Skeet then went to the cage where an opossum blinked at him from behind the wire. He was Skeet’s favorite pet, and he called him Possum White because he was an albino. Skeet had found the opossum on a country road when the little fellow’s mother was killed by a car.
Opening the door of the
