Cherry Ames 22 Rural Nurse (11 page)

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

think? He isn’t working there. He never has worked there. The people who do the hiring at the cannery never even heard of him.”

“Then where—” Cherry stopped short. She had started to say:
Then where does Floyd get the money he
now gives his mother occasionally
?

But Jane said: “Oh, that’s enough about Floyd! We have more important things to worry about. You know, Cherry, I was thinking that if we could clear out these big beds of ginseng—”

A knock on the front door interrupted Jane. “Goodness, you’ll never get your tea!” she said, rising.

There was a fl urry of activity as Jane and Mrs. Barker reached and opened the door together. Mr. Brown, a neighbor, had come to talk to Jane about repairing the water pipes in the old farmhouse. Mrs. Barker and Cherry went into the kitchen.

“I heard Jane say you wanted a cup of tea,” Mrs. Barker said. Cherry asked her not to bother. “Oh, I’ll have one with you, Miss Cherry. I can do with a hot drink after an afternoon’s baking.”

Emma Barker’s kitchen was a warm and cheerful place to be on a rainy afternoon. It was fi lled with the fragrance of butter and sugar, and of fl owering begonia in pots on the windowsills. Cherry admired the copper teakettle, and asked about a row of books on a shelf.

“Those are cookbooks,” Mrs. Barker said. “Some of them belonged to my mother, and some to my grandmother.” She opened one for Cherry, to show her the recipes handwritten in faded ink.

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Cherry read aloud: “Take three pounds of unsalted butter, three pounds of fi ne white sugar, a dozen and a half freshly laid eggs—Why, that would make enough cake to feed several families!”

“People used to have big families,” Mrs. Barker put the cookbook back on the shelf. “Sit down, child, and let’s have our tea. I don’t refer to these old books much.

They’re just curiosities nowadays.” Her hospitable hostess took a pan of cookies from where they were cooling in the sink, and offered them to Cherry.

“Speaking of curiosities,” said Mrs. Barker, “I have one old book that’d specially interest you, since you’re a nurse. It’s called
The Compleat Housewife
. The title page says it was published in 1753, in England, and it’s been handed down in our family. It has six hundred recipes for cooking and remedies.”

“Remedies?” Cherry repeated. This might be a fi nd!

She hid her excitement.

“Would you believe it, my copy is the
fi fteenth
edi-tion! Some country folks still use those recipes for nourishing dishes and medical herbs and simple home remedies. For myself I’d rather use a doctor and up to date scientifi c medicine. Still, people who live close to the soil know some sensible ways of living. Same as the animals know what’s good for them. Let’s see where that old formula book is.”

Mrs. Barker rummaged through the volumes on the shelf. She grew fl ushed. “That’s peculiar, I can’t fi nd it.

I always keep it right here.”

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CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

She hunted through other shelves and drawers. She was so disconcerted that Cherry helped her search.

The old book did not turn up.

“Well, never mind,” Mrs. Barker said at last, sitting down again at the kitchen table. “Floyd probably knows where it is, he may have borrowed it. I can’t imagine that anyone else’d take it. He’s always looking up the names of the green things he fi nds in the woods and fi elds. A real countryman.”

Countryman, indeed! Cherry recalled the sour odor in the deserted farmhouse. Was Floyd compounding a medicine there? Where
did
Floyd get the money he gave his mother now and then? It was easy to guess: he might have a stake in the patent medicine. He and the old pedlar might be in this racket together—a racket that centered around the abandoned farm.

Cherry was convinced of one thing: that Mrs. Barker herself was in no way involved. She was such a strait-laced, hardworking woman, it would never even enter her mind that Floyd could be connected with such an evil scheme.

“You know, Miss Cherry,” Mrs. Barker was saying,

“in olden days, a farm without a few medicinal herbs growing would have been as unheard of as a barn without a barn cat or a well without a pail. People
had
to treat themselves, because doctors and medicines were a rarity.”

“Tell me about this old formula book,” Cherry said.

“What about the homemade remedies?”

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The old lady rattled off the names of several time honored favorites: mustard plaster; sassafras tea; asafetida worn in a bag around your neck for a spring tonic; ginseng to both soothe and stimulate.

“I’d say these things do good as far as they go—”

“Oh, I don’t hold much with ginseng,” Mrs. Barker said. “Mostly people used to value it because the root is forked and shaped like a human fi gure, but that’s only legend, superstition. Ginseng just makes you feel better temporarily. So would a cup of hot tea. I do believe there’s at least one ginseng formula in my book! You grind up the dried ginseng root into a powder, and then you add—let me see—Oh, dear, I forget.” Cherry kept silent. She did not want to put answers into Emma Barker’s mouth.

Mrs. Barker was not interested in ginseng and rattled on about something else. Cherry saw that she was not going to learn anything more about ginseng remedies here today. But there was another way she might fi nd out! A plan took shape in her mind. It was growing late, yet not too late, not too rainy and dark—

“Mrs. Barker, this has been a delightful tea party.

Now, I’m afraid I must go.”

“Can’t you stay and visit a little longer? Maybe Jane can join us now.”

“I wish I could stay. Thank you ever so much!” Cherry was grateful to her for more than tea and cookies.

Mrs. Barker had provided her with an important new lead.

Cherry said a hasty good-bye to Jane, got into her car, and headed for the river road. She almost regretted 102
CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

what she was going to do. She’d rather not discover anything about Floyd that would distress his mother.

But she wanted that old formula book.

Getting out at the old farmhouse, Cherry realized it was dangerous for her to have come here alone. She should have waited until Hal could come, too.

“Well, I’m here now. I’ll be quick—and cautious.” She picked her way through patches of ginseng and of weeds, and reached the front door of the empty house. Cherry opened the door quietly, and stood there listening, looking. The house was so still she could hear the nearby river fl owing. It must be swollen by the rain.

This wet afternoon the sour moldy odor in the house was stronger than ever. Cherry took a deep breath of it, but was not sure whether or not it smelled like the remedy.

If someone was making the worthless remedy here, where in the house was that likely to be? Where should she look fi rst for the ancient formula book? Or for jars of the medicine, or ginseng roots, or any telltale clue she could fi nd? Cherry was not eager to spend any more time searching alone in this deserted place than necessary—and she preferred not to come face to face with—whom?

“If I knew the layout of the rooms—” She peered in. Straight ahead of her was the staircase and the long, narrow hall. To her left was the empty sitting room, with only a threadbare carpet left in it. Also on her left and farther down the hall was—

apparently—a dining room. Although it was next to the

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sitting room, Cherry noticed there was no door connecting the two rooms.

The odor came from deeper inside the house.

Cherry started noiselessly down the hall. After three paces a fl oor board creaked. She caught her breath and halted.

“Was that someone moving around in here? Or was it my own footfall?” She listened and heard only the wind and river. “Oh, an old house is full of creaking woodwork, and on a windy, rainy day—” She started on tiptoe again. The odor grew stronger. At the doorway of the dining room, she cautiously looked in. Along one wall—the other side of the sitting-room wall—stood a heavy, old fashioned oak buffet. It stretched along nearly the length of the wall, standing a little askew. Except for a few worn-out dining room chairs and the buffet, there was nothing to see.

“Maybe what I’m looking for is in the kitchen,” Cherry thought. “There’d be a sink and a stove and running water, at least a pump, in the kitchen to use in making the remedy.”

She hesitated. Did she hear someone in the kitchen?

How warm it was in here! Had someone lighted the stove? Did she smell a kerosene stove? Well, there was only one way to fi nd out. Go and look. But if someone
was
in there—Cherry felt the back of her neck tingle with fear.

“I won’t turn back,” she told herself. “I’ll just take a quick look into the kitchen. I can always run for it.” 104
CHERRY

AMES,

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NURSE

The kitchen, she saw, ran across the width of the house. She was faced with a choice of whether to enter the kitchen by continuing down the hall, or by crossing through the dining room. But fading daylight streamed through the dining room windows—she could be seen from the kitchen if she crossed through.

If someone was in here—Cherry decided to stick to the shadowy hall. She crept past the dining room, lift-ing and slowly setting down one foot on the old fl oor boards, shifting her weight, waiting a second, then taking the next catlike step. She moved almost soundlessly. It took her close to four minutes to reach the kitchen.

As she came to the kitchen door, Cherry heard a grat-ing, scraping noise. She was so startled, she thought her heart would fl y out of her chest. She whirled around in time to see a man’s shadow running swiftly in the dining room. His shadow fell through the dining room doorway and across the hall for an instant. She hesitated for a few moments, too scared to move. Then Cherry ran back up the hall to the dining room and peered around the doorway’s edge.

The dining room was empty. Cherry was trembling.

The man, whoever he was, knew that an intruder—

she—was here. His stealth proved that. She had to get out immediately! And by another route, so he couldn’t see and stop her. Through the kitchen? Out the back door, and then around the far side of the house? Yes, that should do it. She could go through the trees and reach her car unseen.

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She didn’t waste any time trying to be silent. Cherry ran through the kitchen for all she was worth. She remembered to touch the stove as she ran. It was stone cold. Not being used, then! Fleetingly she thought there must be another stove in the house, but her concern now was to escape. Thank heavens the back door of the kitchen opened at her touch.

She fl ed across the big back porch, down the steps, and around the back of the house.

She stumbled through a cluster of gnarled fruit trees.

The tangle of ginseng plants slowed her. It seemed like an eternity until she fi nally reached her car and jumped in.

Cherry started the car, pulling out of that place as fast as she could. She took one look to see whether anyone had followed her. No one was in sight. That didn’t mean no one was watching her! The man hiding in the house could have seen who she was. He didn’t want to be seen, either—of course. She headed the car along the weed fi lled roadway and out onto the highway, and stepped hard on the gas. She didn’t want anyone to follow her and catch up with her.

“What an experience!” she thought. “What a narrow squeak! Not worth the risk. I didn’t fi nd a single thing I was searching for—not the book nor ginseng roots nor the remedy. Only a shadow.”

But she knew now that someone—very likely Floyd or some pal of his—was up to something in the house Jane hoped to live in. The next thing was to prove his identity.

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CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

“Unless it was just a tramp, taking cover on a rainy day?” Cherry speculated. “I haven’t a scrap of proof about who the man was or what he was doing. No, no, a tramp is too easy and random an explanation.” Where had the man disappeared to? He had run into the dining room, evidently from the kitchen. Once in the dining room, where had he gone to? Not back into the kitchen, or she would have seen him a few seconds later when she ran through there. Not out the dining room windows, they were closed. Not into the hall, either, for when she saw his shadow, she was still standing in the hall. Yet when she had collected her wits and peered into the dining room, the man was gone. He had vanished, it seemed, into the wall. That certainly didn’t explain anything.

c h a p t e r i x

The Search

that evening cherry tried several times to reach Dr. Hal by telephone, but he was out on emergency cases. At ten o’clock she reached him.

“Hal, I know it’s late,” Cherry said, “but I’d better tell you this immediately. I think someone is making that fake medicine at the abandoned farmhouse.”

“Why do you think so?” Hal sounded tired, but he was not too tired to discuss this question. “Because the ginseng patch grows there?”

“That’s not the only reason,” Cherry said. “I went to the old house late this afternoon, and somebody was in there. … Yes, I went alone. Now don’t scold me, Hal—” She told him about Mrs. Barber’s old formula book, which was missing, and how Floyd had lied about working at the cannery. “I thought I might fi nd Floyd or the formula book, or both, at the old farmhouse.”

“Don’t you go there by yourself again!” Hal said.

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AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

“Someone will have to go back there. I was so scared I left before I had a chance to search.”

“Never mind that now,” Hal said. “Listen, I have a lot to tell you. Is it all right if I come over this late?. …