“But,” Marjorie objected, “all of that happened last year.”
“It makes no difference,” Jimmy told her. “People use newspapers for lots of things besides keeping up with the news. They wrap china in newspapers, line shelves and drawers with ’em, for instance. Whoever wrote that dopey letter may have come across an account of Adra’s kidnaping just the other day.”
Penny nodded. “Let’s tear the ugly thing up and throw it away. Whoever wrote it probably won’t ever bother us again.”
“Right.” Jimmy tore the dirty sheet of paper to shreds and tossed them into the fireplace. Phil set a match to them and they all watched the scraps burn away to ashes.
“Well, that’s that,” Penny said. “As if anyone could scare us Allens away from the Lodge!”
Then the meeting did break up, and four very tired, but not at all frightened Allens, went upstairs to bed.
The next morning Jimmy’s first job was to overhaul the old bus and the Bronc. The Bronc was an old station wagon that had seen better days. It had served the Allens well, but right now it sputtered and rattled and wheezed. The Bus was a small truck and was used for a multitude of things. It hauled wood from the woods to the woodbin, it carted supplies from the town to the Lodge and Philip planned to use it for taking people on camping trips during the summer. Jimmy’s favorite pastime was tinkering with cars, and he seemed to know the intricate mechanics of the two old vehicles better than any trained mechanic.
While Jimmy was tinkering with the motors, Phil and Mal combed the nearby woods for timber. Some of it would be cut up into logs which would blaze merrily in the huge fireplaces on cool evenings. The rest of it, Phil planned to give Jimmy for his shack. Jimmy had picked a spot on the lake shore where he and the other boys could build a fire if they wanted. He also planned to build a little dock and rent a few rowboats. This was to be the bachelor’s retreat. The site was in a bit of a bay with some large rocks along the shore line that would make the dock construction simpler. Among the trees a little way back, there was a fairly open place where the shack could stand. When Phil and Mal had gathered quite a pile of wood, they called Jimmy down to view the spot.
“Now, all you have to do, Jimmy, is to go to it,” said Philip.