The Thanksgiving Treasure Read Free Page B

cute,” Carla Mae said, looking over at me to see my reaction.
    â€œCute!” I snorted. “He’s a dodo and always will be!”
    â€œHe offered us a ride!”
    â€œSure,” I said. “Because he wants to hang on to us and squeeze us. Yuck!”
    Carla Mae laughed, and we rode on toward Rehnquist’s.
    Grandma had told me that Rehnquist had lived on his old farm alone for nearly fifteen years, since his wife had died, and that he never spoke to anyone and had no friends. The Rehnquists had never had any children, so he was still farming his place all alone. He had been selling off his land bit by bit, and had sold all his milk cows. He still had a few acres for growing vegetables, and in the summer he would come into town in his battered old car and sell corn and tomatoes and cucumbers and a few eggs to the grocery store.
    As we rounded a bend in the road I saw the farm, and I knew it must be his place because his old Model T was in the yard. The big, old barn stood empty, with a broken hayrake rusting in the barnyard. Near the barn was his house, a boxy, white farmhouse with peeling paint and a big porch across the front with a creaky old porch swing.
    I knew we shouldn’t be there, but my curiosity had been aroused, and I wasn’t going to be deterred by the mere threat of a horrible death.

Chapter Three
    I stopped and got off my bike, leaning it up against the fence a few yards down the road from his house.
    â€œWhy are we stopping here?” asked Carla Mae.
    â€œCome with me,” I said, starting to climb the fence.
    â€œWhy? Whose house is that?”
    â€œOld Man Rehnquist’s.”
    â€œOld Man Rehnquist’s!” she gasped. “We can’t go in there!” Carla Mae knew about Rehnquist’s feud with my father, and being a loyal friend, she was perfectly willing to consider him her personal archenemy too.
    â€œWho says we can’t go in?” I asked, and went over the fence. “There’s a little stream down there behind that barn, and I bet the cattails are great. I could see them from the road.”
    â€œAre you nuts? He’ll come out and blast us to smithereens with his shotgun!”
    â€œWe’ll jump on our bikes and beat it with the cattails if he comes out with his gun.”
    â€œIf he comes out with a gun,” said Carla Mae, “you can forget the darn cattails—I’ll be running so fast you won’t even see me.”
    â€œChicken.”
    â€œYeah? I bet you’ll run even faster.”
    â€œWe’ll see,” I said, pretending to be brave.
    We quickly sneaked to a spot behind the barn where we couldn’t be seen from the house. We were planning our next move when suddenly there was a noise from around the corner. We both flattened ourselves against the barn wall. I knew a shotgun would poke around the corner any second, and it would be all over. We waited a moment and nothing happened. I could feel my heart beating all the way through to my back.
    I cautiously crept up to the corner of the barn and peeked around. Then I saw what the noise had been. There was a pinto horse there, eating some hay out of an open stall and bumping the door as she put her head in and out. I stepped softly toward her, and motioned Carla Mae to come along. When I got closer, I saw it was a mare with the prettiest face I had ever seen on a horse. She backed off when we approached, and I held out some hay to her. She looked at us for a moment, and then came slowly forward and nibbled the hay out of my hand.
    â€œAddie, come on!” hissed Carla Mae.
    â€œWait a minute—I just want to get a good look at this horse. She’s beautiful!”
    â€œOh, for gosh sakes! Horses aren’t beautiful!”
    Carla Mae was not much interested in horses, and she had no patience with my love for them. I would have happily given up any member of my family or any friend, including Carla Mae, to have a horse,