A Mysterious Truck
“Please, Judy, come on,” Holly begged again as Judy stopped to examine
more of the used furniture piled near the front of the shop. The warped
and broken table had aroused her curiosity. It seemed as if she had seen
it somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember where.
“Somebody had furniture with claw feet like that,” she mused.
An old rocker looked familiar, too. It was in good condition. She was
tempted to ask the price and then thought better of it. Mr. Sammis was
sure to overcharge her. Then, too, there was always the danger that he
might break something else and blame her for it.
“It isn’t fair,” she repeated, more to herself than to Holly, as they
left the shop.
A builder’s truck bearing New York license plates drove up just as Judy
and Holly got into the Beetle. The driver, a husky man with a tanned
face and very light blue eyes, leaned out and called to them.
“Move your car out of there!” he said. “I’ve got heavy stuff in here.
Have to park as close to the shop as possible.”
“We’re on our way out,” Judy told him, “but you’ll have to back up a
little to give us room.”
“You’ve got room enough.”
He refused to move the huge panel truck. The name John Beer was lettered
on the panel with the words Carpenter and Contractor below it. To Judy
the truck seemed the size of a moving van. She couldn’t see what was in
it but supposed he was hauling building supplies.
“Watch out that side and tell me if I’m backing too close,” she directed
Holly.
“It’s pretty close.”
Judy was afraid of bumping up against the shop on the other side. One
bump would be enough to spill that whole window full of glassware. Then
she _would_ have a bill! But she finally made it.
“We cleared it!” she exclaimed. “Now if anybody knocks over the shop it
will be John Beer, not us.”
“He and Hugh Sammis are two of a kind. There! He’s opening the door of
the shop. He looks angry. Let’s wait and see what happens,” Holly
suggested.
Judy laughed. “I thought you were the one who wanted to leave—Just
listen to them!” she exclaimed.
Mr. Sammis was waving his arms and shouting, “You get out of here with
that stuff! How can I buy any more when my shop is crowded already? Take
it to some junk dealer.”
“But Sam,” the other protested in an equally loud tone of voice, “this
is good furniture. I’ve sanded and refinished everything—”
“Well, you can’t move it in here!”
“He may be an old meanie,” Holly commented, “but Mr. Sammis is right. He
certainly doesn’t have room for any more furniture.”
“Not unless he has an addition built on his shop. He could certainly use
it,” Judy said with a last glance at the sheared-off house as they drove
away.
Holly agreed. “He probably makes most of his money charging people for
things they don’t break.”
“He may make money that way, but he won’t make friends,” declared Judy.
“Do you think he really intends to send Dad a bill for twenty dollars?”
“He’s so mean he might do it. How did he know your name, Judy?”
“Oh, my picture’s been in the paper,” Judy replied airily. Then her face
sobered. “He must be one of Dad’s patients. Dad can’t choose them, you
know. He just goes where he’s needed and hopes the people will pay.”
Holly shook her head. “Mr. Sammis won’t.”
“I hope he doesn’t owe very much. Maybe he just came to the office.”
Judy went on exploring possibilities. “He could have seen my picture
there. You know how fathers are, always keeping family pictures around.”
“I know,” Holly agreed, now more interested in the passing scenery than
in the unpleasant shopkeeper. She noticed a little stream at the lower
side of the road and asked, “Is that the Allegheny River?”
“I guess so,” Judy replied. “It’s getting smaller, isn’t it? The head is
just beyond our lot in Gold.”
“Your lot in Gold?”
“Gold is the name of a town,” Judy explained, laughing. “The lot was
given to my father in payment of a bill. I used to think it was a gold
mine and would make us rich some day. But doctors like Dad never get
rich. Some people can’t pay him, and others won’t.”
Judy’s eyes narrowed as she thought again of Mr. Sammis. They drove on
for a little while in silence.
“Is this it?” Holly asked suddenly.
Judy, startled out of her thoughts, did not reply until after they had
passed the little town.
“Oh, you mean Gold? I think so. If it was you won’t see any more houses
for a while,” Judy told her as the car began its long climb to a lonely
plateau. “We’ll be on top of the world in a minute.”
“Oh, Judy! We _are_ on top of the world,” exclaimed Holly. “Isn’t this a
marvelous view?”
“It certainly is. Three big rivers flow in three directions from this
plateau. That’s why it’s called the watershed.”
“I don’t see any water,” Holly observed. “There’s nothing but miles and
miles of wooded hills, one after the other.”
“The rivers are off there somewhere. I can’t see them either, but I know
this is the watershed. The sky shed water on us the last time we drove
through here,” Judy remembered. “We thought we’d never make it to the
Jewell place.”
“It’s beautiful today.” Holly was really enjoying the ride. She seemed
to have forgotten her disappointment at not finding her typewriter. Now,
as they crossed the watershed, she said she was looking forward to
visiting the beaver dam.
“Do you think the Jewell sisters will go with us?” she asked.
“They may. If they don’t, I’m sure we can find it. They said it was down
the old road that passes their house. The bridge is out, and the road
isn’t used any more,” Judy added.
“Then how will we get across?”
“There’s a footbridge. Honey and I crossed on a plank that floated away
as soon as we were on the other side. The river was high then.”
“What river?” Holly asked. “You said the Allegheny heads back there.”
She waved her hand toward the wilderness behind them. Ahead were more
wooded hills with only now and then a farmhouse and barn with a little
cleared land. It was a narrow road with very little traffic going in
either direction.
“That’s right,” Judy agreed. “We’ve passed the head of the Allegheny.
The other two rivers are the Genessee and some remote branch of the
Susquehanna, I think.”
Judy knew where the road to the Jewell place turned off just beyond the
next town. They were nearly there when Holly startled her by crying out,
“Move over, Judy! That big panel truck is trying to pass!”
“But that’s dangerous on this hill!”
Judy could see the truck in the rear-view mirror. It was the same one
that had stopped at the used-furniture shop. Maybe she ought to move
over and let it pass.
“We’ll be turning off soon, anyway,” she decided, giving John Beer and
his truck plenty of room. “He seems to be in a hurry, doesn’t he?”
“Too much of a hurry,” Holly agreed. “He didn’t have time to unload his
truck or do any work. I guess Mr. Sammis won the argument, and he’s
taking everything back.”
“Back where?” Judy wondered as the truck sped down the long hill and out
of sight.