The Mystery Girl

Boxcar Children #28 The Mystery Girl by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1992. The Alden children are visiting their Aunt Jane, and Aunt Jane takes them to her local general store. The general store, like all old-fashioned general stores, carries a wide variety of goods, and the kids like the shop. However, the owner has been having some trouble. He’s lost his usual employees, and he has some new competition from a modern shopping center that’s been built. The store is still great as a local store for people who live nearby, but customer service is suffering without the usual employees. At the moment, the store owner only has one employee, a 19-year-old girl named Nancy. Nancy is pleasant and eager to work, but the Aldens can tell that she’s not very experienced. When Nancy is overwhelmed, trying to deal with multiple customers at once, Henry steps in and helps her because he used to work in a hardware store. He knows how to help a customer pick out hardware, and he can operate the store’s…