Mayflower Treasure Hunt Read online

  Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose aren’t the only kid detectives!

  What about you?

  Can you find the hidden message inside this book?

  There are 26 illustrations in this book, not counting the one on the title page, the map at the beginning, or the picture of the missing necklace that repeats at the start of many of the chapters. In each of the 26 illustrations, there’s a hidden letter. If you can find all the letters, you will spell out a secret message!

  If you’re stumped, the answer is on the bottom of page 118.

  Happy detecting!

  This book is dedicated to my nephews Bob and Bobby,

  and my niece, Desiree.

  —R.R.

  To Academy School reader Max Cobb

  —J.S.G.

  CHAPTER 1

  Josh peered inside the deep, dark oven. “Wow!” he said, backing away. “It smells like bacon in there!”

  A tall man standing next to Josh laughed. “Aye, son, we roasted a pig for the tourists this past Sunday.” The man wore baggy pants, a navy blue shirt with a white ruffled collar, and boots. He had dark curly hair and a thick beard.

  Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose were inside the cook room on board the Mayflower II, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This ship was a replica of the original Mayflower, which brought English passengers to Massachusetts in 1620.

  The kids’ families had decided to have this year’s Thanksgiving meal here, in the town where the first Mayflower passengers had landed. Dink’s mother had driven the three kids to the historic town. Everyone else would arrive tomorrow, the day before Thanksgiving.

  Dink’s mother was spending the day with an old college friend who lived a few miles away. So the kids were on their own until she got back at five o’clock.

  Ruth Rose had bought a guidebook. Inside were pictures and information about the Mayflower and other sites in Plymouth. She turned to a page that showed an inside view of the Mayflower. “Is this where the Mayflower passengers did all the cooking?” she asked.

  “Aye, most of the meals were prepared here in the galley by the boat’s cook, lassie,” the man said. “But a few of the women brought their own small iron stoves. They lit them on deck to cook stew or soup or porridge for their children.”

  A few other tourists were exploring the boat. Workers, dressed the way the Pilgrims had dressed, were stationed around the decks to explain things to the visitors. In fact, the workers were all actors pretending they had just arrived aboard the real Mayflower. They could even speak the way the original passengers spoke.

  Dink looked around the small, dark galley, or kitchen. He was amazed that food for over a hundred people was cooked in this tiny, cramped space! Of course there was no refrigerator or stove. Just this dark oven made of bricks, a small worktable, and a couple of crude benches.

  It was a mild week in late November. Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose wore sweatshirts and jeans. Ruth Rose’s outfit was all blue. She liked to wear clothes that matched. Even her headband matched her sneakers!

  “Where did the passengers sleep?” Dink asked.

  The man pointed down a narrow set of stairs. “’Tween decks, down those stairs,” the man said. “Careful as you go!”

  The kids walked down the stairs, holding on to a rope that had been attached to one wall. A woman in a long purple dress stood at the bottom. She wore a tight white hat that covered her hair. She smiled at the kids.

  “Yes, this is where we slept and lived for nearly ten weeks—and crowded it was!” she said.

  The room was narrow and dark.

  There were a few small openings high on the walls for light and fresh air. A mattress lay in one corner, and a couple of wood sleeping platforms had been attached to one of the walls. The kids checked out a row of hammocks that were strung up along one side of the space.

  “Didn’t everyone get a mattress?” asked Josh.

  The woman shook her head. “No. A few of us had mattresses stuffed with straw,” she said. “Some slept right on the wood floor. I slept in a hammock.”

  “It must have been crowded,” Ruth Rose said. “I read that there were over a hundred passengers!”

  “Yes, and about thirty crew,” the woman said. “’Tween decks here ’twas crowded and smelly. The rats would come around looking for food. We’d feel them at night walking over our beds.

  Many of us got sick, and one passenger died.”

  Dink noticed clay pots under some of the hammocks. He knew from his reading that these were called chamber pots. There were no bathrooms on the Mayflower.

  “Did you bring furniture and stuff with you?” Dink asked. He was trying to imagine what it would be like to live in this dark room for more than two months!

  “Aye, some did, but it was kept down below in the hold,” the woman said. She pointed to a wide opening cut into the wood deck. The dark hole was covered by a grate. It looked like the grates that cover street sewers, only bigger. Dink peered down through the grate slats. He could see a large pile of straw-filled mattresses.

  “Everything we brought was kept there—clothing, furniture, keepsakes,” the woman went on. “We were not allowed to touch our things during the crossing.”

  “Why not?” asked Ruth Rose. “What if you needed more clothing?”

  “Thievery is why not,” the woman said, shaking her head. “The boat master was afraid we’d steal each other’s things, so the hold was off-limits.

  “Still and all, items were stolen. My friend Emma Browne had her jewelry-taken. She had packed it with her belongings down there. When we reached land and were allowed to see our possessions, dear Emma’s necklace was gone. Emma cried for a week. She said it had belonged to her grandmother.”

  “Did they ever find out who took it?” Josh asked.

  The woman shook her head. “No, but we all think it was that Lawrence Mudgett, a crew member,” she said. “He was in jail in England before the crossing. Oh, he was a mean ’un. Mudgett used to kick the dogs and the children if they got in his way. All the passengers hated and feared him. Aye, Mudgett is the Mayflower thief!”

  “There were dogs on the Mayflower?” Josh asked.

  “Aye, two, and a few cats. They helped by eating the mice and rats,” the woman said. “Other animals came across with us. Chickens and geese for eggs, and pigs and goats for their meat. We kept some alive so we’d have livestock once we landed.”

  More tourists were coming down the stairs, so Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose explored the rest of the boat. They talked to more workers, all dressed in costume and speaking with British accents. As the kids were leaving the ship, they were stopped by a man wearing baggy black pants and a tight-fitting black jacket. His hat was black, too, showing off his ruffled white collar and white beard.

  “Did you enjoy the tour?” the man asked. “I am the boat master, what you Americans call the ship’s captain.”

  “This boat is awesome!” Josh said. “But I don’t think I’d want to live on it like the Pilgrims did!”

  “We were very thankful when we landed,” the boat master said.

  “We heard about a man named Mudgett,” Dink said. “Did he really steal stuff from the passengers?”

  The man nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so,” he said. “Poor Emma Browne lost her jewelry.”

  “What happened to the thief?” asked Ruth Rose.

  The boat master looked over the side of the ship. “He disappeared, missy,” he said. “When we landed, there was a terrible windstorm. We all stayed in our quarters to wait it out. The storm finally let up, but we never saw Mudgett again.”

  The boat master leaned down. “Some think he escaped with the jewelry, then made his way back to England,” he said. “Myself, I believe he fell overboard and became
a meal for sharks!”

  Josh looked over the side of the Mayflower II. “There are sharks here?” he said.

  The boat master laughed. “I don’t know about now,” he said, “but I saw quite a few during the crossing. They followed the boat to eat the kitchen leavings that the crew tossed overboard.”

  “We want to see Plymouth Rock next,” Ruth Rose said. “Can you tell us where it is?”

  The man pointed to a small concrete building not far away from the boat. “’Tis under that roof,” he said. “Be sure to visit the Pilgrim Hall Museum, too. ’Tis a short walk from the rock.”

  The kids left the Mayflower II, then hiked across a parking lot. They passed through a small grove of trees and came to a concrete building with columns in front. Behind the columns was a black fence. A few other people were standing by the fence, looking down at a large gray rock. The date 1620 had been etched into one side of it.

  Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose joined the people at the fence. Ruth Rose opened her guidebook to the right page. “No one knows for sure if the Pilgrims really stepped on this rock when they got off the Mayflower,” she said. “But the ship landed near here, so they might have.”

  Suddenly Josh lifted his head in the air. He sniffed, turning his head into the breeze. “I smell food,” he said. “I’m hungry.”

  Dink looked at his friend. “Again?”

  “I’m a growing boy,” Josh said. “If I don’t eat eight times a day, my brain will shrink.”

  Ruth Rose and Dink burst out laughing.

  “Well, let’s go find food fast,” Dink teased. “We don’t want your brain to get any smaller!”

  The kids chose a restaurant across the street from the Pilgrim Hall Museum. They each ordered a tuna sandwich and hot chocolate. After they paid, Ruth Rose walked over to a game machine called the Iron Claw. It was filled with toy prizes.

  “These things are rip-offs,” Josh told Ruth Rose. He dropped some change into a candy machine, got peanut-filled M&M’s, and shoved the bag into a pocket.

  “Well, I want to get that stuffed mouse for my cat,” Ruth Rose said.

  Using the joystick, she moved the iron claw until it was inches above the mouse. She pulled the stick forward, lowering the claw. Then she pushed the button on the stick, and the claw grabbed at the mouse. But at the last second, the claw snagged a plastic necklace.

  “Told you so!” Josh said.

  The claw brought the prize to the little opening in front of Ruth Rose. With a rattle, the necklace landed in the tray. She pulled it out.

  The necklace had a cheap tin chain and ten plastic “diamonds” the size of grapes.

  “Oooh, look at those huge diamonds!” Josh teased. “Gee, that necklace must be worth about … NOTHING!”

  “It’s not so bad,” Dink said. “And it’s probably worth more than the quarter it cost you.”

  “Well, I like it,” Ruth Rose said. She slid the necklace over her head and tucked it beneath her sweatshirt.

  The kids hurried across Court Street to the museum.

  Inside, there were four little rooms. Each was filled with stuff from the Mayflower or from England in the 1600s. They saw furniture, cooking pots, and a hand-carved bench that came over on the Mayflower. There were several paintings showing the Mayflower and some of its passengers.

  Dink stopped in front of a glass display dome. Inside, he saw a quill pen and ink holder. A small sign said that these writing tools had belonged to William Bradford, the governor of the New Plymouth Colony. He later wrote a book called History of Plymouth Plantation.

  “Hey, guys, over here,” Josh said. He was looking at a list inside a frame. “These are the names of all the people who came over on the Mayflower!” he whispered.

  There were 102 names on the list, written alphabetically. Next to the names were the dates when the people had died, many in the winter of 1620.

  “Look, there’s Emma Browne,” Ruth Rose said. “It was her jewelry that was stolen from the hold.”

  Below the passenger list was a shorter list of Mayflower crew members.

  Dink quickly found Lawrence Mudgett. Next to his name was a question mark and “November 1620.” “This is the guy who stole it,” Dink reminded Josh and Ruth Rose.

  A man had walked up behind the kids. “They never found him or the jewelry” the man said.

  The kids turned and looked at the man. He was dressed in khakis and a blue shirt. His black hair was cut short.

  “My name’s Clint,” the man said. “I’m a docent, a fancy word for ‘guide.’ I’m really an actor, but I do this for extra money.”

  He opened a plastic container of mints, popped one in his mouth, and held the container toward the kids. “Want one? They’re cinnamon-flavored.”

  “No, thank you,” the kids said.

  Dink introduced himself and Josh and Ruth Rose. “We’re staying at the Governor Bradford Hotel,” he said. “Our families are going to have dinner on Thanksgiving Day like the Pilgrims did.”

  “If you’re interested in Lawrence Mudgett, I can show you something,” the man said.

  He led them to a stack of thin booklets piled on a table. The title of the booklets was Mudgett and the Missing Jewels: A Muddlesome Mayflower Mystery.

  The kids each took one of the booklets.

  Ruth Rose opened her guidebook. “This says the Mayflower landed in another place before they came here to Plymouth,” she said.

  “Right, that was up near Province-town,” Clint said. He popped another mint. “The crew spent about a month there exploring. But they couldn’t find freshwater, and winter was coming. So the Mayflower set sail again, and ended up here in Plymouth. Some people figure Mudgett hid the loot in Province-town, where they first hit land.” Clint shook his head. “Can you imagine what those jewels would be worth today?”

  Dink was looking at a little frame. Inside the frame was a charcoal drawing on a piece of cloth. It looked like a child’s drawing of the Mayflower anchored near a shore. There was a beach with trees and big rocks. One rock was tall and very narrow with a pointy top. It leaned to one side and looked like it was ready to fall over. The rock resembled an eagle with its beak pointing up at the sky. The picture also showed a small boat on the shore, carrying about ten passengers.

  “What’s this?” Josh asked, looking over Dink’s shoulder at the picture.

  “I think it’s supposed to be the Mayflower landing,” Ruth Rose said.

  “Yeah, but where?” Dink asked. “I mean, is this the first landing, or is it when they got here to Plymouth?”

  “They think it’s up the coast in Provincetown,” Clint said. “See those tall rocks? Some of them are still there.”

  The docent pointed to a small sign on the wall next to the drawing. “Excuse me, I have more customers,” Clint said as he walked away.

  Dink read the words out loud: “This drawing was found in the belongings of Mr. Lawrence Mudgett, who disappeared. It is believed that he drew the picture in November 1620, on the occasion of the first landfall.”

  “Gosh, if Mudgett drew this,” Josh said, “maybe it’s a map of where he hid the jewels!”

  Dink examined the drawing. “It doesn’t look like a map to me,” he said. “There are no directions or measurements, and nothing that says ‘X marks the spot.’”

  “Plus, it’s all smudgy,” Ruth Rose said. “This looks like a drawing done by some little kid, not a grown man. Why would Mudgett even keep it?”

  “He’d keep it if it was a map telling where he hid the jewelry,” Josh said. “Maybe the guy couldn’t draw very well. Maybe he made it smudgy on purpose, so if anyone saw it, they wouldn’t know what it was supposed to be.”

  Josh walked over and asked the woman at the door if she had a magnifying glass he could borrow. She found one, and Josh brought it back. He held it up to the drawing.

  Ruth Rose giggled. “Josh is looking for a little sign that says ‘Jewels buried here!’”

  “Very funny” Josh said.
“I just think it’s weird that the guy everyone says took the jewelry also had this picture.”

  “But we don’t know if he even hid the necklace anywhere,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe he had it with him when he disappeared. Maybe the jewels are inside some shark’s belly!”

  “Right,” Dink said. “He could’ve kept the jewelry on him.” He looked at Josh. “Okay, I guess it does seem strange that Mudgett had this picture if it wasn’t important. But if Clint is right, this drawing shows where the Mayflower first landed, up on Cape Cod. If Mudgett really hid the jewelry there, how would he get back there once the boat reached Plymouth?”

  The three kids stood there staring at the childish drawing.

  “What if Mudgett stole the jewels, then when the Mayflower got to land, he went ashore in one of those explorer boats?” Josh suggested, thinking out loud. “He hid what he stole. Then back on the Mayflower that night, he drew this picture to remind himself where he’d hidden it. He planned to go back for the jewels after the boat had been thoroughly searched. But before he had a chance, the Mayflower sailed again and landed here. And then Mudgett drowned during a storm.”

  “Or got gobbled up by a shark,” Ruth Rose added.

  “I suppose it could have happened that way,” Dink said. “So if you’re right—”

  “If I’m right, the jewels are still wherever he hid them!” Josh finished for him. “He never got back there, and the jewels have been waiting for someone to find them since 1620!”

  “But where?” Ruth Rose asked.

  “Wherever this piece of shoreline is,” Josh said, pointing to the drawing. “Who’s got something to write with?”

  Ruth Rose handed Josh a pencil and a sheet of paper. Josh began making his own sketch of the drawing.

  “Wait a second,” Ruth Rose said as she watched Josh’s sketch take shape. “What’s that where the eagle’s beak should be?” She pointed to the rock that looked like an eagle. “Doesn’t the eagle’s mouth look like an X?”