some lemon sherbet in the refrigerator,” she said. “I’ll get it. And after that, it will be bedtime for you children.”
While Mamma was out in the kitchen Daddy turned the talk away from the stranger in the red car to thoughts of the vacation days ahead.
Neale still felt gloomy about the summer, with his friend Jimmy away and Grampa gone. “But at least I’ve got Firefly,” he said. “As long as I have that good little horse to ride, I guess I’m luckier than almost any other kids.”
“We’ve got our rowboat, too,” Margie reminded him. “And our own beach for swimming.”
A shadow passed over Daddy’s face. For a moment he was silent. Then, speaking a little heavily, he asked, “You can’t really do much riding on Firefly, can you? With that lame leg of his, he can’t go fast. And you have to stay right in that one small field.”
The children stared at him in amazement. The world seemed to be turning upside down when, instead of encouraging them to be cheerful about what they had, Daddy tried to make them feel dissatisfied.
“Firefly goes fast enough!” Neale declared. “We’ve taken every little rock and root out of his field and he knows he won’t stumble.”
“It’s so pretty there, with the grass all green and level, and the pond and the mountains so blue all around. It’s lots more fun riding there than along the road,” Margie added.
Daddy’s face was very serious. “Tell me, kids, if you had to choose between Firefly and two brand-new bicycles, which would you take?”
“Firefly, of course!” they both answered at once.
Margie turned her dark eyes on her father in surprise, “You don’t think we’d trade a real live horse that we love—and specially one who is lame and needs us—just for a bicycle, do you?”
Mamma brought in the dishes of lemon sherbet then, and some chocolate cookies. While they ate, she and Daddy talked about going to Rumford in the morning to do some errands. As soon as they finished eating, she shooed the children off to bed.
“I’m all mixed up,” Margie whispered to Neale, upstairs. “Mamma acted so funny about that stranger we told about. I’m sure she knew something Daddy didn’t want her to tell. And then Daddy talked about Firefly as if he wasn’t any good—when he always has bragged about what a smart little horse he is.”
“There’s something queer about everything, tonight,” Neale admitted. “It seems as if it began with Mr. Willey and his story about the stranger in the red car. I can’t figure it out.”
Margie wasn’t a bit sleepy. She got into bed and lay there listening to the sounds from downstairs. She could hear the dishes rattling in the kitchen as Mamma cleaned up the saucers they had used for the sherbet. Then she heard her snap off the light and walk into the living room. The TV was going in there, but after a moment somebody turned it off, and Daddy’s and Mamma’s voices began murmuring together.
It was then that Margie began to think she was thirsty. Of course, if she went to the bathroom to get a drink, she just might happen to hear what Mamma and Daddy were talking about down in the living room. Sounds came up quite clearly through the register in there. If she needed a drink and got it, it wouldn’t be like deliberately trying to listen to talk she wasn’t supposed to hear, would it? If she heard anything, it would just be an accident.
She told herself these things, while she lay there feeling more and more curious. At last she could stand it no longer. She got out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom.
While she slowly sipped the water, voices did drift up through the register, and what they were saying almost made her drop her glass in sudden dismay.
“Selling the beach and the shore field is the only way we can raise the money,” Daddy’s voice was saying unhappily. “But it’s going to break the children’s hearts to part with Firefly. How in the world shall we ever tell them about it? I tried to suggest to them that they might like new bicycles better, and you should have heard them turn on me!”
Margie clutched the water glass so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t break in her hands. Her face turned pale, and her eyes filled with tears. Part with Firefly! Why, they never could. They never would! Yet where could they keep him, if Daddy sold his field? Daddy’s gardens took up all the rest of the level land.
She was just going to rush into Neale’s room to tell him what she had heard when Mamma’s voice drifted up to her, sounding just as unhappy as Daddy’s, but very firm.
“If the man who came here yesterday did see our ad in the paper and does want to buy the land, we’ll have to sell it. We’ve got to be sensible about this. If you’re going to stay in the poultry business you’ve simply got to have that new water system installed. And there’s no other way to raise the money for it.”
Daddy sighed so deeply that Margie caught the sound of it even through the register. “If only Grampa had lived! He told me over and over again not to worry about the water system—he would pay for it himself. Yet we’ve been through all his papers and his bankbook, and he barely left enough to cover his funeral expenses. Where in the world did he expect to get the money? He knew it would cost a lot.”
“Grampa never made a promise he didn’t keep,” Mamma said. “That’s why I still feel he must have had something that could have been sold to bring in the money, if he didn’t have enough in the bank. Yet we’ve searched his belongings half a dozen times and haven’t found a thing.”
“He must have been confused,” Daddy said, at last. “Perhaps he wasn’t as clear in his mind as we thought he was. He may not have realized his money was so nearly gone. There certainly isn’t anything valuable among his things.”
A long silence followed Daddy’s words, and Margie stumbled back to her bed. She didn’t even want to tell Neale the awful news she had overheard. At least, not yet.
Were they really going to lose their beautiful beach where they kept their boat, and swam, and picnicked all summer long? Worse than that, were they going to lose Firefly, who was as dear to them as a little brother could have been?
Tears began to run down over Margie’s cheeks at the thought, but she wiped them away fiercely. Those terrible things weren’t going to happen. She wouldn’t let them happen!
“I don’t believe Grampa’s mind was so confused he didn’t know what he was talking about!” she muttered. “Of course he knew. He was the smartest person in this whole town right up until he died. And if he said he could pay for that water system, then he could have!”
Indignantly she thought back to some of her last chats with her grandfather. She and he had loved books so well, they had talked mostly about them instead of practical things like water systems or robots.
“My books are my real treasure, Margie,” he often told her. “You’re the only one in the family who understands what I mean by that.”
A sudden thought lit up Margie’s mind as if a real light had flashed on. Grampa’s books! He had so many that his bookshelves covered two whole walls of his room. What if some of them were rare volumes that were worth a lot of money? What if that was what he had planned to sell, to pay for the water system?
Margie had read stories about old books that had turned out to
