Boxcar Children

#99 The Finders Keepers Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2004.

Jessie and Benny are returning from a trip to the post office when Jessie insists on taking a shortcut by the old Bidwell house, where no one has lived for a long time. Benny doesn’t want to take the shortcut at first because there are rumors that the old house is haunted. However, Jessie is eager to get home to dinner, so they take the shortcut anyway. Technically, they’re trespassing, but that’s how they find out that the house is no longer empty.

When someone bangs open one of the shutters of the house, the kids are frightened, thinking that maybe there really is a ghost in the house. However, they also notice that there’s now a broom on the porch. Thinking about it later, at home, they realize that a ghost wouldn’t be interested in sweeping. The next day, all of the Alden children go to look at the old house, and they notice a van in the driveway and that new flowers have been planted in the pots. The new owner of the house, Lina Diaz, introduces herself to the Aldens.

Lina recently inherited the house from a cousin. She’s an architect, and she’s looking forward to renovating the house. It used to belong to a great-great-aunt, Hope Bidwell, which is how the house got its name. The house is filled with antiques and family heirlooms, so Lina is going through things to decide what she wants to keep and what she might want to sell. She’s thinking of having a yard sale. The Aldens offer to help with cleaning and sorting items and setting up the sale, and Lina happily accepts the offer.

While they’re looking through things in the attic, they find a trunk with some beautiful old quilts. Lina says that they were probably made by Hope during the mid-1800s because she had a reputation for making beautiful old quilts. There is also a rumor that Hope left a treasure hidden somewhere in the house, although Lina doesn’t know what kind of treasure that’s supposed to be. She considers the quilts a kind of treasure because they’re beautiful and because of their family connection.

Lina tells the Aldens more about Hope. She was supposed to be married to a man named Robert, but sadly, Robert died of a sudden illness before their wedding. Hope supposedly made a beautiful wedding ring pattern quilt for her marriage, but nobody knows what happened to it since the marriage didn’t take place, and it doesn’t seem to be among the other quilts in the trunk. Each of them has a different quilt pattern, except for one that’s a plain gray and doesn’t seem to fit with the others, although it’s well-worn, showing that it was used a lot. A set of letters hidden in the lining of the trunk confirm the story about Hope and Robert and the existence of the wedding ring quilt Hope was making.

Almost from the moment they find those quilts, other people are interested in buying them from Lina, but Lina is reluctant to sell them because of the beautiful workmanship and sentimental value. She invites Edward Muncie from the state history museum to see the quilts because he’s an expert on quilts, he tries to persuade her to donate them to the museum. He thinks that they would make a wonderful exhibit, and he worries that they might get damaged if they’re simply left in the attic. If she isn’t willing to donate them, he says maybe he can persuade the museum to purchase them from her. Lina says that she’ll think about it, but she doesn’t really want to accept the offer.

Although they tell Mr. Muncie not to discuss the quilts with anybody, it seems that he has told other people about them. Someone tries to break into Lina’s house during the night. Then, a reporter named Regina shows up at Lina’s house, insisting on interviewing her about hidden treasure and rare quilts in the house. They suppose that she heard about it from Mr. Muncie. Regina Lott does a news story about the quilts and Regina’s yard sale that gets collectors and antique dealers pounding on Lina’s door to be first to see what she has to offer … especially the quilts, although Lina still says they’re not for sale. One man who comes to the yard sale even tries to sneak into the house and look around, but the kids catch him.

A woman named Coral Weaver is the last to leave the sale. She’s interested in old clothes and cloth scraps. She explains that she owns a quilting store. She’s also interested in the antique quilts and the stories behind them. Lina doesn’t want to show her the quilts, but Coral invites her and the Aldens to come to her shop sometime so they can talk about quilts. Coral is the one who tells them that the man who tried to sneak into the house during the sale is Dirk Gray. He used to work for the state history museum, and he owns an antique store.

There is an obvious motive for many people to want the quilts because they have value as collector’s items. Collectors want them, and other people might want to sell them for the money. However, is it possible that the quilts are the key to the treasure that Hope supposedly left behind?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

The mystery includes some interesting facts about quilts. At one point, the children go to the library and do some research about quilts to understand more about the quilts they found and why someone would want them so badly. The book explains that quilts can become collector’s items and that they can be worth a great deal of money.

The part I liked the best, though, was when they explained that quilts have different patterns, some more rare or intricate than others. Besides the wedding ring pattern quilt, the book also mentions patterns like flying geese and log cabin. The names of the patterns are based on what they resemble. Each of the patterns is a series of geometric shapes, but the shapes can resemble other things, sort of like the way basic shapes form pictures in tangrams.