The Waltons 2 - Trouble on the Mountain Read Online Free Page B

continually glanced from the house to the logs, and back to the house again. Ben, Jim-Bob, and Elizabeth were digging up new soil for the garden, but that appeared to have no interest for him.
    “You figure the house is going to get up and walk away, Grandpa?” John finally asked.
    “Nope. But, John-Boy, you just be ready to move when I tell you.”
    “Okay, Grandpa.” John-Boy smiled, and then found himself watching the house as closely as Grandpa—waiting for some kind of mysterious signal. But there was nothing unusual. Olivia came out to shake a carpet and went back inside. Then Grandma came out, closely followed by Mary Ellen carrying a basketful of wet clothes.
    “Okay, boy,” Grandpa said, “let’s go.”
    Before John-Boy could protest, Grandpa had him by the elbow, hustling him toward the back door. “Be back in a couple minutes,” he said to John.
    Olivia and Erin were shelling peas at the kitchen table, but Grandpa moved past without a word.
    John-Boy smiled. “What are we doing, Grandpa?” he asked as they passed through the living room.
    “Shhhh.”
    At the top of the stairs, Grandpa paused for a second, listening, and then took John-Boy into his and Grandma’s room and carefully shut the door. “Okay, John-Boy, we gotta move fast now.”
    He was already in the closet, pulling a heavy trunk out from behind the hanging clothes. John-Boy watched as he struggled with the clasp for a minute and then hoisted the lid. Grandpa laughed.
    “Your grandma says I never learned to throw anything away.”
    From what John-Boy could see, his grandmother was right. There was old clothing, books, a pair of old boots, and an array of unidentifiable bundles and packages. Grandpa rummaged deep into the trunk, then paused as he drew out a small daguerreotype picture. “That was Amy,” he said, “Died of scarlet fever.” He shoved the picture back where he found it, and this time came up with a handful of medals. “Look at those, John-Boy. Won by your Uncle Matt in the World War.” The medals went back in the trunk, and this time he brought out a sheaf of papers tied in a string. “There they are, John-Boy. Now you look through those. See if one of ’em wasn’t written on a typewriting machine.”
    John-Boy stared at him for a minute. He knew Grandpa had been struggling all morning to remember something, and there was some kind of plan in his mind. But the last thing John-Boy would have guessed was that it had something to do with his writing.
    “Come on, come on,” Grandpa urged.
    John-Boy shuffled quickly through the papers, then stopped at a yellowed envelope. It was addressed to Zebulon Walton, and it was typed. “You’re right, Grandpa.”
    “Who’s it from?”
    “The Honorable Morely J. Baldwin,” John-Boy read.
    “Uh-huh, just as I thought.”
    “But what . . . ?”
    Grandpa held up his hand, silencing him. “John-Boy, them Baldwin sisters is just like me. They never throwed anything away in their lives. I’ll bet you my supper tonight and my breakfast tomorrow they still got that old typewriting machine out at their place. They kept everything else that belonged to their papa.”
    John-Boy’s heart almost leaped from his chest. A typewriter! He couldn’t believe it. Right here in Walton’s Mountain! “You really think they have it, Grandpa?”
    “We’re sure going to find out, John-Boy. But we gotta keep this secret. You know what your mama and your grandma would say about our having anything to do with those old ladies.” He stuffed the papers back in the trunk and shoved it to the rear of the closet again. John-Boy watched him, his excitement suddenly checked by Grandpa’s warning.
    Miss Mamie and Miss Emily Baldwin were known in half a dozen of the surrounding counties. They were very kind and generous old spinsters, but their fame did not stem from that. Their father, the late, Honorable Judge Morely J. Baldwin, had developed a recipe for distilling bourbon that had gained an