THE CURLYTOPSATCHERRY FARMCHAPTER IIN THE MUD
THE CURLYTOPSATCHERRY FARM
“Ted! Teddy! Where are you?”
Janet Martin stood in the hall and called to her brother.
“Here I am, in the bathroom,” he answered.
“What you doing?”
“Combin’ my hair.”
“Oh, you forgot to put your ‘g’ on!” shouted Janet. “You forgot to put your ‘g’ on!” and she clapped her hands as though at some joke.
“I don’t need any ‘g’ on my hair,” declared Ted, opening the bathroom door and looking out at his sister. “I put on some of the switch-hazel daddy uses when he shaves. It smells good. Want some?”
“Nope, I’ve combed my hair and it’s all fixed now. But you didn’t put your ‘g’ on combing, and I haven’t dropped any of my ‘g’s’ to-day.”
“Well, I was in a hurry,” explained Ted, now using the comb with both hands, the more quickly to get his hair in order.
The children’s mother was trying to teach them to speak correctly, and not drop the ‘g’ of the words where it belonged. Sometimes they forgot, and at other times they remembered. Once in a while Janet would remind Teddy that he had forgotten, and, again, it would be his turn to tease her a little.
“Hurry up and come on out!” cried Janet. “We can have some fun in the swing and hammock. This is the first week of vacation, and we want to have some fun!”
“I’m hurryin’—I mean hurrying—as fast as I can, but my hair is all snarls, and mother’ll send me back to fix it if I don’t comb it. Wow! That pulled!”
Ted made such a funny face as the comb became tangled in his tightly curling hair that Janet laughed.
“Huh! you wouldn’t giggle if it happened to you!” protested Ted.
“Mine was all snarly too, but Nora helped me,” said Janet. “Wait, Ted, I’ll comb it out for you and then we can go and play,” and she ran toward the bathroom, reaching out her hand for the comb.
“You won’t hurt, will you?” asked Ted, anxiously.
“Nope! I’ll do it easy.”
Jan took hold of the comb, but no sooner had she started to pull it through her brother’s tangle of hair than he gave a howl, almost like those he used when he was playing Indians with the boys and pretended to be on the warpath.
“What’s the matter? Don’t yell so!” cried Jan.
“You pull like anything!”
“Well, I can’t help it. The comb is caught fast, or something! I’ve got to get it out,” and the little girl did her best to untangle the snarls.
“Ouch! Let it alone!” again Ted howled, and this time his mother’s voice called up from the foot of the stairs:
“Whatareyou children doing now?”
“I’m combing Ted’s hair,” answered Janet.
“She’s pullin’ it,” declared Ted, and thistime his sister did not mention the dropped “g.” “She pulls awful! The comb’s stuck!”
“Wait a minute. I’ll come up,” said Mother Martin with a half sigh as she started up the stairs, for there was much to do that day and she had hoped that the children could get themselves ready for their play.
“Where’s the comb?” she asked, as she entered the bathroom.
“Ted has it,” answered Jan. “He wouldn’t let me do anything for him.”
“She pulled too much,” her brother explained.
“I don’t see the comb,” remarked Mrs. Martin.
“It’s on my head—in my hair,” explained Ted further.
If you had been there to see him you would not have wondered that he was called “Curlytop” about as often as he was by his regular name. Jan had the same tightly curling hair as her brother, and the two children were often spoken of, even by strangers, as “The Curlytops.” The name just fitted them.
“No wonder I couldn’t see it,” said Mrs. Martin, as she gently brushed aside the hairon top of her little boy’s head and saw the comb caught in a tangle of curls. “It’s hidden like a hen’s egg in a nest of hay. Stand still now, and I’ll soon have you looking nice and tidy.”
If Ted’s mother pulled his hair he did not speak of it. Once or twice he caught his breath as though about to give a cry, but he held it back, and finally, nicely combed and brushed, he was ready to run downstairs with his sister.
“If their hair keeps on growing and curling,” said Mrs. Martin as she put the bathroom in order, “they’ll be losing more things in it than combs. Look after Baby William!” she called to Ted and Jan from the window, as she saw them down in the yard.
“We will,” promised Jan.
“Where is Trouble?” asked Ted.
“Out in the hammock. But don’t swing him too high, or he may fall out,” answered his mother.
“All right,” assented Jan.
Trouble was the nickname given to the baby brother of Jan and Ted. He was about three years old, and often got into mischief. That was why he was called Trouble.
It was a beautiful, sunshiny day—the last of June—and Monday morning. It was the beginning of the long summer vacation, school having closed the Friday before.
“Now we’ll have some fun!” laughed Ted as he ran over the thick, green grass and turned a somersault. “Let’s build a tent and play Indians.”
“I don’t want to play that,” objected Jan.
“Then I’ll get Tom Taylor,” declared Ted. “Here he comes now,” and he pointed to a boy, a little larger than himself, who was walking along the street whistling.
“Here’s the letter man,” added Jan, as she saw the mail-carrier approaching. “I wonder if he’s got anything for us.”
She ran to the low hedge that was between the Martin side yard and the street, and Ted followed.
“Hello, Curlytops!” was the postman’s greeting. “Here’s the mail for you. Don’t lose it,” and he handed Jan two letters. “Any birds been nesting in your hair to-day?” he asked Ted, putting his hand over the hedge and ruffling up the boy’s curls.
“Nope!” answered Ted.
“He lost the comb in it and mother couldn’t find it,” Jan put in.
“I should think not!” agreed the postman, laughing. “If I had such a head of hair as you two youngsters have, I’d be afraid of losing my whistle in the curls. Then I’d have to stop being a postman until I found it. But run along with the letters, Jan. Your mother may be waiting for them.”
He gave a blast on his whistle, and crossed the street, while Jan hurried into the house and Ted waved to Tom Taylor, calling:
“Come on in and we’ll play Indians.”
“All right,” agreed Tom.
He wiggled his way through a hole in the hedge, not waiting to go around to the gate, and he and Ted started for a shady spot under the trees, where Jan soon joined them.
“Come on down to the back lot,” urged Ted. “We’ll get a blanket and make a tent like the Indians. Jan can be a squaw if she wants to.”
“I don’t want to,” Jan said quickly. “I’m going over and play with Edna Lewis.”
“I’ll play Indian in a minute,” promised Tom. “Let’s rest a bit. I just went to the store for my mother. She says I must help a little, even if it is vacation. I like to help, though,” he added quickly. “She gave me apenny for going to the store. Where are you Curlytops going on your vacation?” he asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, he added quickly: “I’m going down to the ocean.”
“We were there once,” said Janet. “It’s an awful big place.”
“We’re goin’ to grandpa’s farm,” said Teddy, and this time Jan did not speak about the “g” he dropped. Perhaps she was thinking too much about vacation fun.
“Are we really going there, Ted?” she asked her brother.
“Yep! Mother and daddy were talking about it last night. We’re to go to Cherry Farm and stay all summer. Oh, what fun we’ll have!”
“I’ll have fun at the ocean, too,” added Tom. “But what makes ’em call your grandpa’s place Cherry Farm?”
“’Cause it’s got so many cherry trees on it,” explained Ted. “You ought to see ’em! There’s more’n a million!”
“There can’t be that many cherry trees in the whole world,” objected Tom.
“Well, there’s a hundred, anyhow,” declared Ted. “I’ve seen ’em, an’ I’m going to eat a lot of cherries.”
“I wish I had some now,” sighed Tom.
“It isn’t time for ’em to be ripe, yet,” explained Janet. “Maybe we could send you some when they are,” she kindly added. “It’s an awful nice place at Cherry Farm. I wish you could come with us, Tom.”
“Oh, I’ll have fun down at the ocean. I’m going to sail a boat on it. Maybe I’ll be shipwrecked,” and Tom seemed to think that would be great fun.
“I wouldn’t want to be shipwrecked,” remarked Ted. “My mother read me a story once about a sailor that was wrecked, and he didn’t have a thing to eat but his old shoes.”
“Didn’t he have any bread an’ butter with ’im?” asked Tom.
“Nope.”
“Then I guess I won’t be shipwrecked,” decided Tom. “I like bread and butter.”
“You could be shipwrecked on my grandpa’s farm, and eat cherries,” suggested Jan.
“Pooh!” exclaimed Tom. “You couldn’t be shipwrecked without an ocean, and there isn’t any ocean on Cherry Farm I guess.”
“There’s a lake!” returned Teddy quickly. “I’m going to sail a boat on that, and maybe I’ll be shipwrecked. I’ll takesome cherries with me, though. I guess I’ll go and fix my small sailboat now. That’ll be more fun than playin’ Indian.”
“And I’ve got to wash my doll’s dress,” said Jan. “Oh, look!” she called to her brother. “There’s mother in the door waving to us.”
“She wants us to run, I guess,” added Ted, “for she’s waving awful hard.”
“I wonder what she does want,” murmured Jan.
“Maybe she wants us to go to the store,” suggested Ted. “She’s got a paper in her hand like she writes down things so we don’t forget to remember.”
“That’s the letter I gave her from the postman,” explained Jan, and she and her brother ran faster than before toward their mother.
“Oh, children!” cried Mrs. Martin as Ted and Jan drew near, Tom having gone back home the way he came, through the hedge, “have you seen Baby William?”
“Seen Trouble?” asked Ted, laughing.
“Yes, only I wish you wouldn’t call him that name when he’s lost!”
“Lost?” cried Ted and Jan in a chorus like twins, only they weren’t.
“He must be lost,” went on Mrs. Martin. “I can’t see him anywhere. Did you go to him when you went out after having had your hair combed?”
“No—we didn’t,” and Ted spoke slowly. “We forgot.”
“Then please go to look for him,” went on Mrs. Martin. “I saw him playing in the yard near the hammock, but he may have crawled through the hedge. I’ll come after you as soon as I answer the telephone which is ringing. Hurry, and find William!”
“We will!” answered Ted. “Come on, Jan!”
Jan and Ted hurried around to the rear yard of their house to look for Trouble. That, really, was what Baby William was called more often than anything else. Daddy Martin called him a “bunch of trouble,” while Mother Martin always put “dear” before the name. To Ted and Jan their little brother was just plain “Trouble” for he seemed to get into so much mischief.
“Where do you s’pose he is now?” asked Jan, as she looked here and there in the yard.
“Maybe he’s in the chicken coop,” replied Ted. “He hid there once and came out allcovered with feathers, like a rooster.”
But Trouble was not there. Though an old hen that flew cackling off her nest probably thought the two children made trouble enough for her, getting her all in a flutter just when she wanted to lay an egg.
“Look in the toolhouse,” suggested Ted, when he and his sister had searched in several places without finding their little brother.
Together the two children started toward a small building where the hoe, rake, shovel and other garden tools were kept. This was one of the places where Trouble best liked to come when he could toddle off by himself.
But Trouble was not in the toolhouse. Ted and his sister stood looking about the yard and garden. They were wondering where next to search, and they were wishing their mother would come out to help them, when they heard a sudden laugh. The sound came from the little brook that ran at the lower end of the garden.
“There he is!” cried Ted.
“Oh, I hope he hasn’t fallen in!” gasped Jan.
“He couldn’t laugh if he had,” declared Ted. “His mouth would be full of water.”
“Oh, Trouble would laugh no matter what happened,” returned Jan. “Come on—let’s find him!”
The two Curlytops parted the currant bushes that grew on the edge of the small brook. Then they saw Trouble.
Their little brother was standing in mud and water over his knees, holding out a bunch of watercress to a brindle cow that stood in the brook, reaching out her tongue for the bunch of green.
“Oh, Trouble!” cried Jan. “Oh, Trouble!”
“My! what a sight you are!” exclaimed Ted. “Maybe mother won’t give it to you for getting all muddy! What you doin’?”
“Feedin’ posy-tree to bossy-cow!” gurgled Trouble. He called any bunch of weeds, flowers or grass a “posy-tree.”
“Come right here to me this minute!” ordered Jan, as she had heard her mother call. “Come here, Trouble!”
“Trouble can’t! Trouble got to feed posy-tree to bossy-cow.”
“I guess he’s stuck in the mud,” remarked Ted. “That mud’s awful sticky. I’ve been in it. Trouble is stuck in the mud all right!”