Thanks to Jen for sending me chapter 4 as a word file.  I believe this is from the original Cameo edition.  I took over from where Jen left off, so there's a bit of chapter three in here just to make the transition a bit smoother.
 

"Anyone for a ride in Central Park?" Ned asked. He got up from the breakfast table and looked down across Central Park West to the park below. "We could get an eyeful of a lot of places around here if we'd take a slow cab. Besides, I've never ridden back of a horse; just on one. I had to come from the country to the biggest city in the United States to ride behind a horse. That's a switch!"

"I guess what Trixie's father said about New Yorkers never seeing New York is right," Honey said. "I have never been in a hansom cab in Central Park in all my life!"

"Neither have we—not any of the Beldens," Trixie said quickly.

Dan laughed. "My budget didn't run to cabs when I lived in the city—unless I could catch a ride on the back end of one."

"You must have had a wonderful life, turned loose in New York," Ned said, with obvious envy.

"It wasn't what you might think. An orphan on the streets is not a person for anyone to envy. I don't care who he is. Life wasn't too bad when my mother was alive. We were poor, but I don't remember minding that at all. After my mom died, it was tough going till my uncle showed up and took me to Sleepyside. Now I have friends like the Bob-Whites. I don't think I'll ever get over wondering why they let me into their club.... I sure did get in with a bad bunch of kids here in the city. I never want to see any of them again. They're down around the Bowery and the water front. I never think of them except when someone brings it up like right now. . . . No, I didn't like being turned loose in New York, Ned. I'll settle for a few strings tied to me."

Everyone was quiet for a while and Dan's words brought back memories I was still struggling to forget.  I remember being on the run, not knowing where your next meal is coming from, not sure if you were going to get caught.

Where would I be if Trixie hadn't found me?  I thought soberly, looking over at her serious face.  I can't even begin to imagine life without her now.

Brian finally broke the silence. "If we're going for a ride in the park, we'd better collect the hansom cabs. Come on, fellas. They'll be down on the Fifty-ninth Street Plaza."

The six of us headed out of the building and down to Fifty-ninth Street.  It was a clear day, slightly cool and the streets were bustling with people.  Dan and Brian lead the way, followed by Mart and Bob then Ned and I.

"I really put my foot in it back there, didn't I?" Ned asked me quietly.  I glanced quickly at the pained expression on his face and was quick to put his mind at ease.

"No, you didn't," I assured him.  "This is a pretty romantic and exciting city for newcomers, and Dan realizes that.  He's just seen the other side of this town and, like all of us with a past, it's painful to remember."

Ned nodded soberly.  "Thanks, that makes me feel a little better.  I guess I really should have thought about it before I opened my mouth."

"You weren't to know," I shrugged.  "You never know what skeletons people have in their closets."

"Not me," Ned smiled.  "I've had a pretty boring life."

A smile crept over my face.  "Life can hardly be boring with Dot Murray around."

Ned reddened.  "She asked me to say hi to you by the way."

It was my turn to redden with embarrassment.  "Thanks for telling me that while Trixie wasn't around.  She'd never let me hear the end of it."

"So are you two a couple?" Ned asked slowly and I felt the heat in my face intensify.  "I wasn't sure..."

Luckily for me, Mart turned around and called to us before I could even think of a reply.

"Hurry up you guys!  Brian and Dan have got the cabs."

Ned and I broke into a jog and caught up to Bob, Mart, Brian and Dan.  Two Irishmen sat behind the reins as the horses shifted impatiently.  We climbed aboard and sat back as the cabs headed towards the apartment.

"Now this is seeing New York in style!" Bob cried.

"You're telling me," Dan laughed.  "A year ago I never imagined I'd actually be riding around in one of these with my best friends."

Dan shot Ned a smile, who nodded gratefully, and I was pleased Dan had tried to show Ned that he hadn't taken his remark to heart.

It was only a few moments later that the cabs came to a stop outside our apartment.  Mart ran up to get the girls and Ned and I got out to help Barbara and Trixie into the cab.

I could tell by the look on Trixie's face that she was going to refuse my help, but she obviously thought better of it when she saw Ned take Barbara's hand and Mart help Honey into the cab.

"Thanks Jim," she murmured to me as grasp my hand, and it was all I could do not to continue clinging to her small hand.  I released it reluctantly and she raised it to wave to Bob, Di, Brian and Dan in the next cab.

"Everyone in?" Brian asked, and looked around.  "Okay, Central Park here we come!"

The drivers lifted the reins and we were off at a steady pace to Central Park.  Our heads turned to take in every site and we exclaimed at the sights that seemed so different from a slow moving hansom cab.

In the park the sun was shining and the morning air was cool. There was movement everywhere.  Children playing, mothers strolling with baby carriages and pigeons scurrying from the path of the people.

The hansom cabs skirted the big lake which was alive with rowboats carrying families — mothers, fathers, children. Back of the rowboats children trailed paper boats on strings. One boy had made a flotilla of little aluminum foil ships and the sun, glinting through the trees, turned them to fairy ships.

I found myself wishing that I was a boy again and that it was me sailing those ships, watched proudly by my mother and father.  My childhood seemed like a lifetime ago.  Sometimes I wondered if it even existed, but there were faint memories that I still clung to.

It was quiet in the park. The Irish drivers kept up a constant flow of information and, since the two cabs kept close together, we talked back and forth. One of the drivers, the older one, a round-faced gentleman in his sixties, had been driving a hansom cab for years. "I used to drive for Mrs Andrew Carnegie," he told his group proudly.

The other driver snorted. "Don't believe a word of it," he said hotly. "He's driven that self-same cab since Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the Indians for forty guilders."

"I'm not that big a liar," the old Irishman replied. "But I did drive the old lady herself. She was a great old lady and she loved the park. She'd always wait for me. She liked everybody. Every year she had red geraniums planted in front of her house up there on Ninety-first Street." He pointed north with the tip of his whip. "It was so working people who rode the busses could see them."

"How big is Central Park?" Barbara asked. "It seems almost as big as the whole city of Des Moines."

I opened my mouth to answer but, of course Mart beat me to it.

"Eight hundred and forty acres."

"That's not much bigger than your Uncle Andrew's farm and ours put together," Ned said.

Bob and Barbara and Ned—in fact everyone in the two cabs—was fascinated with the park and the two drivers, except Honey and Trixie her were having a whispered conversation.

Uh,oh!  I thought.  What are they are up to now?

I glanced over at them just as Honey burst out laughing. Everyone looked over at her and she clapped her hand over her mouth. "It's a private joke," she said hastily.

"It sounded funny enough to share," Mart suggested.

"You wouldn't think it funny at all," Trixie said.

I stared at the two girls as Trixie whispered again to Honey.  Something was definitely going on here.

"Just look at those boats!" Bob cried and we turned to look. His eyes almost stood out from his head. "Over on that little pond!"

"That's Conservatory Pond," Brian told him. "Do you think we could leave the cabs here, driver, and go over to the pond to look at the boats? I've only been there once before, Bob."

"Let's," Mart said. "The boats are really neat. They're all scale models. Men over there at the Kerbs Memorial Boat House help boys, and grownups, too, to make model boats."

"Gosh!" Bob scrambled out and Mart and I followed eagerly, helping the girls down from the cab.

Conservatory Pond was a clear mirror set in a green frame of fresh-cut grass. Scale model boats of all kinds and sizes dotted its waters. Their white sails were reflected in the clear water which rippled gently, stirred by a gentle breeze that sent boats to windward, each with its own self-steering rig.

We settled ourselves on the sun-drenched bank to watch, mesmerized by the bobbing boats.

"Uncle Andrew gave you a sailboat when we came here before," Trixie said to Brian. "It was becalmed, and you were furious, do you remember?"

"I was furious because I sat here for hours waiting for it to come to shore." Brian laughed, remembering. "Then I had to leave. I don't know whatever became of it."

"The men at the boathouse over there probably hauled it in, and when no one claimed it, gave it to some boy— maybe like that one over there." Trixie pointed to a boy lying prone on the bank, his eyes never leaving his boat just launched.

I imagined the joy of a small boy, handed a sailboat of his own to sail on the pond.  It was such a simple pleasure, but one I imagined sharing with my own son one day.  I wondered if he would have curls and blue eyes?

"He makes me think of Stuart Little in E. B. White's book," Honey said. "Remember how he sailed the schooner Wasp to beat the big racing sloop?"

"He sailed 'straight and true,'" Trixie quoted, "and sent the sloop yawing all over the water."

"Everyone was so surprised to see a mouse at the helm," Honey laughed. "They kept yelling, 'Atta mouse! Atta mouse!'"

"He had a terrible time before he ever made port," Mart remembered. "The water was rough; the wind was blowing up a gale."

"I wish the wind were blowing today," Bob said, looking around him. "We'd see some action with those sails all filled. Gosh, do we have to leave?"

"I'm afraid we do," Trixie told him. "We have miles to go and many, many other things to see."

Reluctantly we went back to the carriages where we found both cabbies snoozing while the horses chomped at the feed bags.

"They've got a great job, haven't they?" Ned murmured to me.  "What I wouldn't give to spend my days driving a hansom cab around the city!"

I smiled in response.  I guess it wouldn't be bad for a while.

"I never saw a park so full of statues," Barbara said as the old Irishman sat up and rubbed his eyes. "There's one of Hans Christian Andersen, of the Ugly Duckling, the Mad Hatter, and Alice in Wonderland and—"

"Statues?" the driver repeated. "Yes, statues. It's a queer thing, though. You'll not see a sign of a statue of William Cullen Bryant, him that thought up the whole idea of Central Park."

"William Cullen Bryant?" Trixie remembered her English class at Sleepyside. "He was a Massachusetts poet."

"He was born there," the Irishman corrected her. "But for fifty years he lived right here in New York. He edited the best newspaper New York ever had, the Post. In an editorial, way back in the eighties, he spoke out for a city park where people could breathe clean air. The idea caught on and all this land was bought piece by piece. It cost a fabulous sum... about seven million dollars. Today this very same land is worth five hundred million dollars. A pity it is they never put up a statue to the greatest poet that ever lived."

"Dad always said if you want any information ask a hansom cab driver, or the driver of a taxicab," I whispered to the others. "Shall we go to the zoo now?"

"Gosh, yes!" Bob said.

"Then if it's all right with the rest of you," I continued, "we'll go out of the park at Seventy-ninth Street, down Fifth Avenue, driver, and back into the park at the zoo."

"Righto-o, laddie!" the old Irishman said, and led off with his carriage.

Trixie sat down in the cab across from me, and next to Mart. She wriggled around, stood up again, looked back at the crowd around the pond, sat down again, then turned her body completely around.

I followed her gaze and saw some sudden movement in the distance, but wasn't sure what it was.

"What is the matter with you?" Mart asked disgustedly. "Don't you think the driver knows where he's going? What is the matter?"

"I don't want to tell you. You're always making fun of everything I say."

I leaned towards her, staring into her serious blue eyes.

"Did you think you saw someone you knew back there?" I asked in a low voice.

"Yes, Jim," Trixie replied soberly, "Those men we saw at the antique shop window. The ones who followed us last night."

"Where?"  I looked around.

"Over on the bridle path, parallel to this road. Can't you see them? Oh, bother! They're gone now."

The carriages had reached the edge of the park, but I couldn't see them. The driver pulled up his horse and waited for a chance to slip alongside the Fifth Avenue traffic.

Just as he saw his opportunity, just as he turned his horse south, two rough-looking men shot out of the park and caught his horse's reins. The frightened animal reared, whinnying loudly. The abrupt stop almost tumbled the driver from his seat

Trixie and I jumped up to help him, but as Trixie stepped from the cab she was tripped. I reached frantically for her, but she stumbled and fell to the pavement. One of the strange men swooped down and tried to pry her purse from her arm. I leapt down to the pavement, adrenaline rushing, and with a quick upper-cut I sent the man sprawling. Howling with pain he got to his feet and fled with his companion, just as a mounted policeman rode out from the park.

Shaking my hand to ease the sharp pain, I reached down to help Trixie up.  I held her tightly in my arms for a few seconds, looking into her eyes for reassurance.

"Are you okay?" I murmured.

She nodded tentatively.  "I-I'm fine.  Thank you."

I released her reluctantly as the others gathered around.  Why is it I spent a lot of my time protecting her from the scrapes she gets herself in to?  Not that I mind protecting her.  I just don't know what I'd do if one day I couldn't save her...

"It was those same men!" Trixie said emphatically, rubbing her elbow. "I told you I saw them in the park, Jim. The same ones who followed us last night. They're thieves."

"What were they after?" the policeman asked.

"My purse!" Trixie said indignantly.

"I think not," the old Irish driver said. "Not a little girl's purse. They have grander ideas than that, the rapscallions. They were like as not making a quick getaway from some job. They made off in a great hurry."

"They went into a car that was cruising along the Avenue. I saw them!" Ned said. "They brushed by our carriage and went north."

"The things that happen now in broad daylight!" the policeman said. "Everyone has sense enough to stay out of the park at night. But daylight! Are you all right, miss?"

Trixie couldn't answer. Tears got in the way.  I swallowed hard.  She was hurt.  I couldn't prevent that and the knowledge sickened me.

"Your knees are bleeding!" Honey cried, horrified. She used her handkerchief to try to stop the flow. "It's a disgrace! Those men should be put in jail!" Honey looked at the policeman.

"There's little the officer can do," the old Irishman put in. "Sure they were a couple of crooks runnin' away from a job. We just happened to be in the way. Shall I stop at the drugstore so you can get some Band-aids?"

The policeman jotted down our names and the address of the apartment, then moved on.  Brian and I looked at Trixie in concern.

"I think, instead, we'll just go straight back to the apartment," Brian told the driver. "I'll look after your cuts there, Trixie. Some Merthiolate and a bandage will do the trick.  Do your knees hurt very much?"

"Not too much," Trixie sputtered, "but I'm mad clear through. I've ruined two brand-new stockings and I'm afraid the afternoon is spoiled. I can't go to the zoo looking like this! Please go without me, won't you? Ned, Bob, Barbara?"

"I don't want to go anyplace till I'm sure you're not badly hurt, Trixie," Barbara declared firmly. "Heavens, bad things surely can happen in this city as well as good things."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Barbara." Dan helped her back into the carriage. "You can't wear rose-colored glasses all the time—not in New York!"

"You're dead right, Dan," I agreed and looked over at Trixie in admiration. "I'm sure Trixie's going to be all right, though. I'll go back to the apartment with her ... Brian, too. The rest of you go on to the zoo."

I needed to make sure she was alright.  I needed to find out why those men were following us.  I didn't want to leave her for a moment.

"Please do," Trixie begged. "All I need is an antiseptic and some fresh stockings."

"I'll go with you," Honey insisted. "The rest of you can tell us about the zoo later."

I helped Trixie back into the cab and this time I didn't let go of her hand.  Brian and Honey climbed in after us and we waved as the others took off for the zoo.

I squeezed Trixie's hand and looked down at her, wanting to make sure she was really okay.  She smiled bravely at me, but I could see the worry in her eyes.  Something was wrong, I knew it.

End of Chapter 4