The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

sorry I was such a grump. I’m not always like that.”
    “No, she’s not, Linnie.” Honey spoke up loyally. “She’s just the most wonderful—”
    “Take it easy,” Mart drawled. “She’s far from perfection’s prototype right now.” Mart loved to use big words.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Linnie said, “but I like Trixie. I like all of you. Not many people around my own age come here. Mostly it’s older people who come to visit your Uncle Andrew. Then I have to help Mama. There’s lots to do around here—not today, of course, when it’s raining. Except, it is getting on toward lunchtime now, and I’d better
    go and see if Mama needs me.”
    “She’s sweet, isn’t she?” Trixie asked Honey as Linnie left the room. “She’s so calm. I’d give anything if I could stop getting so excited about everything.”
    “So would I,” Mart agreed.
    “It’s this great, overpowering hunk of nature all around her that makes Linnie so calm,” Jim said, “though we do have a good supply of nature ourselves back home, right in the lap of the Catskills.”
    “And with that big game preserve on Honey’s father’s land,” Brian added.
    “But none of it is as wild as this land is.” Trixie picked up a magazine, riffled through it, then settled down near a table. “It was fascinating country that we came through yesterday. The mules practically stood on their heads coming down that steep road; I can’t wait to explore it.”
    “There you go again,” Mart said, disgusted. “Settle down and give the rest of us a break. Keep your nose in a magazine for a while.”
    Mart unreeled his line, wound it again, and made a short cast into a corner by the huge fireplace. “What’s got into you now, Trixie?”
    Trixie, her eyes glued to the pages she was turning, mumbled incoherently, the words tumbling over one another. Then she jumped to her feet, flapping the pictured pages dramatically. “Look! Just listen to this! See the funny ghost-white fish in this picture? Listen!” The pictured fish looked like almost any creek fish, except that it was snow-white. Also, where its eyes should have been, there were only little rises covered with flesh.
    Mart reeled in his line.
    Trixie’s brother Brian and his partner, Jim, left their dart game.
    Honey looked up quickly from her sewing.
    They were used to Trixie’s bursts of enthusiasm, and they always paid attention to her. Life with her might be exasperating at times, but it was never dull. She had led them into and out of some mighty thrilling episodes.
    “Listen!” she repeated, then read from the magazine. “ ‘Biologists and other men engaged in medical research are showing great interest in fish found in underground caves. These fish, trapped by shifting earth or cavern breakdown, couldn’t escape to the outside.’ ”
    “So what?” Mart asked. “Why all the agitation?”
    “Be patient! I’m getting to it. ‘Because they couldn’t escape outside, and because it was pitch-dark inside, gradually, through thousands of years, as generation followed generation, their eyes became mere mounds of flesh, then disappeared altogether.’ ”
    “That’s interesting,” Mart agreed. “It isn’t earth-shaking, though. Evolution is going on all the time. That’s how human beings lost their tails. There are times when I could use a prehensile tail, I can tell you —when I’m playing basketball, for instance.”
    “This article I am reading is very important, Mart. Please may I go on?”
    “Shoot! But make it a fast draw.”
    “The magazine goes on to say, ‘Scientists want to make an intensive study of these fish, to determine the effect of environment on blindness and to observe how nature works to help animals adjust to blindness.’ “Now I’m coming to the part that’s important to us. This magazine,” Trixie said impressively, “is prepared to pay a reward of five hundred dollars for live specimens of Ozark cave fish in three stages of evolution—with fully developed eyes, with partly developed eyes, and eyeless.”
    Brian, who was fascinated by science and intended to become a doctor, was instantly intrigued. “That sounds interesting, Trixie. May I look at the article?”
    Trixie handed him the magazine and jumped excitedly from one foot to the other. “Just think! Here we are, right on the scene. Doesn’t it say in the article, Brian, that the fish are most likely to be found in caves in the vicinity of Lake