"Pattykins, good-bye. The year will soon pass away, and then we'll have a jolly little home together," Patty Fairfield's father told her when he put her on the train. (She was going north to visit relatives for the year, while her fathersettled business here Virginia, where he'd come to make his fortune.) "Be brave and gentle always, and as a parting gift I give you this little box which contains a talisman to help you bear any troubles or difficulties that may come to you."
As he spoke, he put into Patty's hand a small parcel sealed at each end with red sealing-wax.
"Don't open it now," he continued. "Keep it just as it is until you reach Aunt Isabel's. Then after you have gone to your room on the first night of your stay with her, open the box and see what is in it."
Then the warning whistle blew, and with a final embrace of his little daughter, Mr. Fairfield left the car.
The train started, and for a moment Patty saw her father waving his handkerchief, and then he was lost to her sight. She felt just like indulging in a good cry, but Miss Powers (who was to travel with her till she reached her aunt) would have none of that.
Author Biography
Carolyn Wells (1862 - 1942) was an American writer and poet. Carolyn Wells wrote a total of more than 170 books. During the first ten years of her career, she concentrated on poetry, humor and children's books. According to her autobiography, The Rest of My Life (1937), she heard That Affair Next Door (1897), one of Anna Katharine Green's mystery novels, being read aloud and was immediately captivated by the unraveling of the puzzle. From that point onward she devoted herself to the mystery genre. Among the most famous of her mystery novels were the Fleming Stone Detective Stories which-according to Allen J. Hubin's Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1749-2000 (2003)-number 61 titles. Wells's The Clue (1909) is on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of essential mysteries. She was also the first to conduct a (brief, in this case) annual series devoted to the best short crime fiction of the previous year in the U.S., beginning with The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year (1931) (though others had begun a similar British series in 1929).
