Ice Cream Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Page A

Butterscotch be in the ice-cream business?” asked Henry.
    “Why don’t we go get some ice cream and I’ll explain,” Brianna suggested.
    Inside, the shop was white with red trim. Old photographs of farmers and farm scenes decorated the walls. Gingham curtains hung in the windows.
    Katy, the owner of the Ice Cream Barn, stood behind the red counter in a long white apron. She had just handed a customer a scoop of vanilla on a sugar cone.
    The customer, a blond woman with thick, dark eyebrows and a stiff frown, said, “This is a single scoop?”
    “Yes,” said Katy. She cocked her head and looked at the enormous mound of vanilla ice cream. The Ice Cream Barn was well known in Greenfield for its big servings. The Aldens knew that the woman couldn’t be from Greenfield or she would have known that.
    The woman pushed her sunglasses farther back on her head and stared at the scoop of ice cream.
    Katy grinned. “If that’s not enough, I could add a little more.”
    “Where?” Benny whispered to Violet. The cone looked very full already.
    “It’s too much!” the blond woman declared. “How can you stay in business with such big single scoops?”
    “It’s a mystery!” said Katy cheerfully. “But our customers just keep coming back. Big scoops, exciting flavors, that’s our specialty.”
    The woman sighed, as if Katy had said something upsetting. Then she turned away, balancing the vanilla ice cream carefully, and took a seat at a small table near the window.
    Katy looked over at Brianna and the Aldens and winked. She was a small woman with a big pile of black and silver hair wound in a bun on top of her head, almost like a swirled ice-cream cone. Her eyes were chocolate-brown.
    “I’ll take care of these customers,” Brianna said, motioning toward the Aldens.
    “Okay, but wash your hands,” Katy said. She smiled at Benny, then disappeared through the door to the kitchen.
    “Yes, ma’am!” said Brianna, laughing.
    Soon Henry was digging into an ice-cream float with chocolate ice cream. Jessie had chosen peanut chunk swirl with chocolate sprinkles, while Violet had cherry vanilla in a dish. Benny picked two scoops, one of pistachio and one of the special flavor of the week, double lemon pie.
    “A mix like that might give some people a stomachache,” Brianna said as she handed Benny his double scoop.
    “Not me,” said Benny. “Not my cousin Soo Lee, either. She lives in Silver City and she likes ice cream, too. But she’s on vacation with Uncle Joe.”
    “We’ll still be serving ice cream when Soo Lee gets back,” Brianna promised as she set a bowl of water outside the door for Watch. Next to it, she put a dish with a little taste of vanilla ice cream. Then she poured herself a glass of water and leaned on the counter across from the Aldens.
    Benny’s eyes got round. “Don’t you want ice cream?” he asked Brianna.
    “There’s such a thing as too much ice cream, Benny,” Brianna said.
    Benny looked shocked. “No, there isn’t,” he argued.
    Everyone laughed and Benny smiled a little sheepishly.
    “It’s too bad we can’t take some chocolate mint chip back to Mrs. McGregor,” said Violet. “She loves the chocolate and the little green mint chips. And the ice cream is extra good today.”
    “Who is Mrs. McGregor?” asked Brianna.
    “She’s our housekeeper,” Violet answered. “We live with her and our grandfather.”
    “We used to live in a boxcar in the woods,” Benny added. “Just by ourselves. That’s where we found Watch. And then Grandfather found us.”
    “We were orphans and we didn’t know we had a grandfather who wanted us,” explained Jessie.
    They told Brianna all about how they’d found the old boxcar in the woods where they’d lived until their grandfather, James Alden, found them and took them to live with him in his big old white house in Greenfield.
    “And now the boxcar is in our backyard,” concluded Henry.
    “Grandfather put it there for us,” Violet