Free Norton, Andre - Novel 32 by Ten Mile Treasure (v1.0) Page B

"Just
doll clothes. Let's open some thing else." He turned away to inspect the rest of the boxes and bags.
    Christie paid no attention to him but rather spoke to Libby. "If we
washed our hands maybe
we dare look at the rest."
    Libby nodded, as eager as Christie. "Let's just take all this outside!"
    Christie was willing to leave the rest to the boys. Lady Maude was too wonderful
to just put aside all
at once. She picked up the box by its rope handles. It was heavy, but she could manage. Libby carried Lady Maude
and Perks tagged along.
    Hunting up one of the canteens and a roll of paper toweling, Christie washed her hands and Perks then took the doll while Libby did the same.
    Sometime later they sat just staring at a wealth of treasures. Christie had
thought that the doll Mrs. Edwards had shown them had lovely things, but Lady Maude was
wealthier. There was even a jewel case,
holding two more pairs of earrings, a
necklace, three bracelets, and a
little crown thing to wear in the hair, as well as two jeweled pins.
There were stockings folded into a case,
shoes, hats, a corset, dress ing gown,
nightgown, comb, brush, mirror, a very
tiny bottle, which must have been meant for perfume, and hairpins so small Christie was afraid they would be lost. Another purse held foreign-looking coins, French maybe, and was laid
away among dresses and petticoats all em broidered,
tucked, and ruffled—even a pair of eyeglasses
mounted on a stick fastened to a chain.
And there were long gloves and short ones, all made to fit over the doll's kid
hands, which were so perfectly made
that even the tiny fingers were
separated by sewing.
    "You know, Christie, even in those days, when things were a lot cheaper,
Lady Maude must have
cost a lot of money." Libby sur veyed
all they had unpacked as if she could not quite
believe what she saw.
    "Maybe even hundreds of dollars," Perks said. "Only—she's fun to
look at, but you never could play with
her, could you? I'd rather have Raggedy Ann."
    "I don't think she was ever meant to be played with, not really,"
Christie answered. "The doll Mrs.
Edwards showed us didn't have near as much as this, and her hair wasn't nice anymore the way Lady Maude's is. I'll bet Lady Maude is worth twice as much as that doll! If she were put in a case, why, everybody would want to come and see her!" Christie thought of a big glass case set in the station. Lady Maude would be better than any old ar rowheads.
    "I bet she was disappointed," she said slowly.
    "Who was disappointed?" Libby wanted to know.
    "Maude Woodbridge, the little girl Lady Maude was going
to. I wonder what she thought when
Lady Maude never got there."
    "Maybe she never even knew the doll was coming," Libby suggested.
"That letter was in the box, so she never got it either."
    "But
she would know about it after her father got
home," Christie said. "I wonder if he told her all about Lady Maude. If he did she must have been so sorry she was lost. Why, it's over a
hundred years ago! Lady Maude has been lost a
long time."
    "Look—" Libby had glanced up at gathering clouds. "Rain's coming. We'd
better get back under
cover."
    They dared not hurry too fast in repacking everything for fear they might
lose some of the tiny
things, so the first big drops fell just as Christie closed the box lid on Lady Maude. Now that she
had seen it all she felt that she simply could not leave that box in the cave again. But they pulled it back
with them out of the
beginning storm.
    "We didn't find anything else but a lot of old clothes and such stuff,"
Neal was plainly disappointed.
    "Passengers' luggage." Toliver thumped a small
trunk. "But people like to look at old clothes—if they're as queer as some of these. They do belong in a museum, I
guess. And we have
the shotgun, that belt and holster out of the rats' nest—"
    "And the strongbox," Parky reminded them. "Maybe
it does have gold dust or something like that in it."
    Neal looked a little more cheerful. Christie wondered what he