CHAPTER IXTHE CURLYTOPS GO FISHING
“Oh, Ted! what shall we do?” asked Jan, as she looked at the sheep all around them. “They may knock us down and walk on us!”
“Oh, I guess they won’t do that. They don’t seem like bad sheep.”
So far the animals had been rather gentle, though they did crowd too closely around the children. They poked at them with their heads, and some, that had horns, seemed to want to try their sharp points on Trouble’s fat, chubby, bare legs.
“Go ’way—bad sheeps!” he called to them. But the sheep only went “Baa-a-a-a!”
“Oh, here comes an old ram!” called Jan.
“Yes, and he’s a big one,” announced Ted, and he looked about for a stick, a stone, or something he could throw at the ram if it should try to butt him, his sister or Trouble.
“Make sheeps go away!” begged Baby William, ready to cry.
“Shoo! Scat!” called Jan, shaking her skirts at the animals.
“That’s the way to drive chickens or a cat, but not sheep,” Ted told her.
“Then you drive ’em off!” begged Jan. “I don’t like it here! I wish we hadn’t come! Oh, they’ll knock us down if they’re not careful!”
The sheep were crowding more closely than ever about the children. Perhaps the woolly animals meant no harm, and were only wondering what the Curlytops were doing in the pasture. But the sheep certainly did crowd too much, and Jan and Ted had all they could do to save themselves from being pushed over. They tried to keep Trouble between them, for Baby William was much frightened.
“Whose sheep are they?” asked Jan, as she tried to walk out from the flock toward the fence. “They weren’t here the other day.”
“I guess they belong to the man who owns the farm next to Grandpa Martin’s,” said Teddy. “They weren’t here before, or Hal wouldn’t have crossed this field. Go onaway! Get back there!” Ted suddenly cried, as he saw the big ram pushing aside the sheep in the outer ring, as though he wanted to get in himself closer to the children.
Ted found a stone on the ground near his feet, and, picking it up, threw at the ram. The stone struck the animal on his big, curved horns, and bounced off, not hurting him any, and not scaring him, which was what Ted wanted to do.
“Do sheep ever bite?” whispered Jan, as she got closer to her brother.
“No!” he said, more to make his sister feel less afraid, than because he was sure they did not. “Anyhow, they don’t bite very hard.”
“Well, I don’t like even little bites,” returned Janet.
“I won’t let ’em bite you at all,” promised Ted, though how he was going to stop the sheep from doing this, especially the ram with his big horns, the Curlytop boy did not quite know. And, as he looked at those horns, he was sure a blow from them would be worse than a bite.
“They’re bigger than Nicknack’s,” thought Ted.
“Where’s our goat?” asked Trouble, peeringout from where he had tried to hide himself behind Jan. “Where’s Nicknack?”
“Back in the field where we left him,” answered Ted. “Do you want him, Trouble?”
“Maybe him could make sheeps go ’way,” answered Baby William. “Nicknack could hit ’em wif his horns.”
“Maybe he could and maybe he couldn’t,” answered Ted. “Anyhow,” he said to himself, “I wish we were back in the goat wagon. If I’d’ve known these sheep was here I wouldn’t have come in this field!”
Meanwhile the sheep were pressing closer and closer about the Curlytops and Trouble. The woolly animals perhaps meant no harm, and might not have hurt the children. But the old ram was anxious to get very close to the two little boys and their sister. Maybe he wanted to make sure they would not bother the sheep, for the ram of a flock of sheep is a sort of guard, or policeman, you know.
And the ram, pushing his way in through the flock from the outside, kept edging the sheep nearer the three children.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Janet. “I don’t like this a bit!”
“It isn’t much fun,” agreed her brother.“Maybe we can get out. Come on, we’ll try.”
He started to push his way through the flock, but the big ram gave a loud “Baa-a-a-a!” and lowered his head and horns as if to tell Ted that this was no time for going away.
Suddenly, when Janet felt that she must cry, and tears were already in the eyes of Baby William, a voice called to the children:
“Hi there! Don’t be afraid! I’ll make the sheep go away!”
They looked up, expecting to see Grandpa Martin, or perhaps their father. Instead, they saw lame Hal Chester climbing the fence to get into the field where the ram and others of the flock had penned in the Curlytops.
“Go back! Go back!” yelled Ted. “The sheep are bad!”
“I’m not afraid!” called out Hal. “I’ve got something to make them be good!”
“Oh, he has got something!” exclaimed Jan. “It’s in his cap. I wonder what it is?”
Hal was carrying something in his cap, which he held upside down in one hand. He scrambled over the fence in his funny way,and then came on toward the sheep and the children, swinging his lame foot along after him.
“I’m coming!” he called. “I’ll soon make those sheep go away!”
“Do you—do you s’pose he’s got a gun?” asked Jan. “Will he shoot the sheep?”
“No! Course not!” answered Ted. “He couldn’t carry a gun in his cap that way.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Hal came a little nearer. He was at the outer rim of the flock of sheep now, and the Curlytops saw him take something from his cap and throw it on the ground. Instantly the sheep nearest him scattered and began licking up what had come from the lame boy’s cap.
He came forward a little farther and scattered some more of the stuff which, Jan and Ted could see, was white. More sheep spread out and away from the Curlytops and began licking up with their tongues what Hal had spread on the ground for them.
“Here, old ram, this is for you!” and Hal laid some of the white stuff in a little pile right in front of the big-horned animal. The ram gave a loud “Baa-a-a-a!” and beganeagerly licking up what Hal had given him.
“Oh, it’s sugar!” exclaimed Jan.
“No, it’s salt,” explained the lame boy with a laugh. “Sheep love salt better than sugar, though they may eat that, too, for all I know. But they’ll do almost anything for salt, and so will cows and horses, at times. So when I scattered this salt about the sheep just broke away from you to eat it. Now you can get away and they’ll never notice you.”
“Where did you get the salt?” asked Ted.
“Oh, I found some over in that other field,” and he pointed behind him. “You see the farmers around here have wooden troughs in some of the pastures where they salt their cattle. When I came from the Home, and saw the sheep in my field, I thought they might make trouble, as I hadn’t seen any around here before. I call thismyfield,” he went on, motioning to the one where the Curlytops had first seen him. “Though, of course, I don’t own it. But it’s just as nice as if I did. For I can hop along in it, and see the daisies and buttercups and dandelions in the green grass.
“They’re just like the jewels the Princess Blue Eyes wears around her neck,” he wenton. “The flowers are, I mean. And they’re much nicer than real diamonds, for nobody wants to take them. I can leave ’em out in the fields all night, and they’re safe here in the morning, or whenever the Princess Blue Eyes wants to come and get them.”
“Who is the Princess Blue Eyes?” asked Jan.
“Oh, she—she’s just a make-believe,” said Hal softly, and his cheeks turned red. “I make up stories about her you know,” he went on. “I pretend that she likes me, and I like her and—and some day maybe she is going to change my crooked foot into a straight one. Anyhow, if she doesn’t maybe Dr. Wade will. But I’ll tell you more about Princess Blue Eyes some day.”
“I wish you would,” half whispered Jan. “I love fairy stories.”
“But what made you think of the salt?” asked Ted.
“Oh, when I started across my field and saw the sheep eating some of the crown jewels of the Princess Blue Eyes,” answered Hal with a laugh, “I thought of the salt I’d seen in that other field, so I went back for some. Then I saw you all penned in by the sheep, and I was glad I had it.”
“So are we!” laughed Jan.
She could laugh now, for the sheep were so busy licking up the salt Hal had scattered that they paid no more attention to the Curlytops. Trouble was lifted over to the other side of the fence, where Nicknack was still eating grass. Jan, Ted and Hal followed, and then the three children and Baby William sat down in the shade of a big elm tree and talked.
It was two or three days after this, and Hal had been given several rides in the goat wagon, that, one afternoon when he was about to go back to the Home to supper, he said:
“Don’t you ever go fishing?”
“Fishing? Where?” asked Ted.
“In Clover Lake. There are some boats on it that belong to the Home. Sometimes the nurses or the doctors take the boys and girls out for a row. I can row myself, and they let me once in a while. But they never let me go fishing, and I’d just love to! I was thinking maybe if you went fishing I could go with you.”
“Wewillgo!” cried Ted, who was used to at least starting to do whatever he thought would be fun. He did not always finish,though, for his father or mother often stopped him.
“It will be great to go fishing!” went on Ted. “Grandpa Martin has a boat on the lake. I’ll ask him if we can’t go and take you.”
“Oh, will you?” cried Hal, with eager, sparkling eyes. “It will be the best fun ever. I wonder if they’ll let me go?” and he looked wistfully over toward the big, red brick building—the Home.
“I’ll get my father to ask them,” said Jan. “I’ll tell them how you scared the sheep away from us with salt, and everything like that.”
“I didn’t scare the sheep,” said Hal. “I wouldn’t want to do that. I like ’em. But I knew salt would scatter them better than by throwing stones. Oh, I do hope we can go fishing.”
He and the Curlytops did. Grandpa Martin spoke to the superintendent of the Home, and as Hal was quite well and strong except for his lame foot and as Daddy Martin promised to go along in the boat to see that all was well, the little party started off on Clover Lake one morning.