CHAPTER VUPSIDE DOWN
Withhammer and saw and nails, with bits of rope and string, here a piece of tin and there a board, the goat wagon was finally built. It did not look very spick and span. Rather it looked like some of the funny things the circus clowns make when they do their queer tricks in the ring.
But there were four wheels, even if they were of different sizes, to the wagon Jan and Ted had made, and there was a seat for them, with room in between for Trouble. And, as Jan said, the uneven wheels gave the wagon such a queer, wobbly motion that it was ever so much more fun riding in that than in a regular store wagon.
“Maybe we’ll get a new wagon after we learn to drive the goat,” said Jan, as she watched Trouble combing out Nicknack’s whiskers with a pine-cone he had picked up.
“Maybe,” assented Ted.
“I like the way this wagon rides. It’s part like a swing and the other part is like a seesaw,” observed Jan, when Ted, pulling the cart himself, had given her a ride about the front yard, to see how the wagon rode before they hitched the goat to it.
“It will do until we get a new one,” her brother agreed.
“How are you going to hitch Nicknack to it?” Jan suddenly demanded.
“Oh, I can make a harness. There’s lots of old straps in the barn.”
“But what about a bit? And reins? Haven’t you got to have an iron bit for Nicknack’s mouth, like grandpa has for his horses?”
“I think I can put a strap around his nose, with reins on each side of it. I saw a camel harnessed that way in the circus,” answered Ted. “I don’t like to put a bit in a goat’s mouth.”
Ted had been told by his grandfather that a goat’s mouth is not hard like a horse’s.
“Maybe a strap would be better,” agreed Jan.
And while Trouble sat in the rebuilt wagon and pretended to drive Nicknack witha string tied to the goat’s horns, Jan and her brother patched together a sort of harness. Grandpa and Daddy Martin helped them some, but the children could easily tell that something was wrong at Cherry Farm. Never before, in all their visits, had they seen the faces of Grandpa Martin and Grandma Martin so sad, and the two men did not talk and laugh as they used to do.
But the Curlytops did not think long about this sadness, for they were too eager to have fun; though they would have done anything in the world, if they could, to help their own dear daddy and their mother, and, of course, grandpa and grandma.
“Just wait until the cherries are ripe,” said Ted, as he put the finishing touches to the harness. “Then we’ll help pick them and cart them to market. As soon as we hitch up Nicknack we’ll go over to the cherry grove and see how big the green ones are.”
The goat seemed very willing to be hitched to the queer wagon Jan and Ted had made from odds and ends. True, it might not be like the smart cart and real harness he was used to, but Nicknack was a good goat, and he did not mind pretending that this queer rig was just the finest ever made. At leasthe might have made-believe, if goats ever do such things, of which I am not quite sure.
“All aboard now!” called Ted one afternoon, when the wagon and harness were ready. “All aboard!”
“Anybody would think this was a boat!” laughed Jan, as she led Trouble down off the back steps, ready for a ride.
“Well, it does wobble like one,” laughed Ted. “You wait and see! That’s why I called ‘All aboard!’ Come on. Get in!”
“Me goin’ to drive!” shouted Trouble.
“No, not at first,” answered his brother. “I’ll have to wait and see how Nicknack behaves. I’ll let you drive after a bit.”
“Then me holler ‘giddap!’” insisted Baby William, who was eager to do something.
“Yes, you may make Nicknack giddap,” agreed Jan, lifting him into the wagon.
Mother and Grandma Martin, as well as Nora, who had come to the farm, too, came out to see the children start off.
“How cute they look,” said grandma.
“Yes. I hope nothing happens—that that queer contraption holds together,” remarked Mother Martin.
“Well, if anything does happen I have a nice picture of them,” put in Nora, who hada little camera. She had “snapped” the trio as they started off in the wagon drawn by Nicknack. “It’ll come out lovely, I think.”
Along the shady, grassy lane Ted drove Nicknack. The lane led to the cherry grove where hundreds of trees had been in blossom.
Now the blossoms had fallen off, and in place of each one was a little round green ball, that, when the sun had warmed it and the rain had wet it, would turn into a beautiful, big black or red cherry. Grandpa Martin’s cherries were known all around Elmburg, and even on the other side of Clover Lake, as the best in that part of the country.
“And maybe we can ride to Clover Lake after we go to the cherry grove,” said Jan, as they jogged along the lane where the yellow dandelions looked like spots of gold in the green, velvet grass.
“Maybe,” assented her brother. “I don’t know whether Nicknack is afraid of water or not.”
“He wasn’t the day Trouble sat down in it after he broke the eggs,” laughed Jan. “Besides, this wagon is so like a boat that maybe it will float on the lake.”
“Maybe!” agreed Ted.
It surely was a queer cart, with two hind wheels alike, but with two different sizes for the front ones. As it rolled along first the left front end would rise up and then the right would do the same. If one had stood back of them and looked at the two Curlytops, with Trouble seated between his brother and his sister, one would have thought them on the back of a camel or an elephant. That was the way the goat cart swayed, up and down and sidewise.
But the wheels stayed on, which was more than Ted’s father and grandfather had dared to hope at first. And the harness, though much patched and made from many bits of straps and ropes, stayed on the back of Nicknack. So that the goat pulled the cart along after a fashion.
“And he guides good, too,” said Ted, as he pulled first on the left-hand cord and then on the right. “See how easy it is, Jan.”
A sort of muzzle of straps had been put around Nicknack’s nose, and on either side of it was a long cord. The cords were the reins, Ted not having been able to find light leather straps that were long enough. But the cord-reins did very well.
“Yes, he does guide nice,” agreed Jan, for when she pulled on the left cord Nicknack turned that way, and when she pulled on the right cord he went that way.
“Me want to drive de bossy-goat!” insisted Trouble, and they let him pull gently first on one cord and then on the other. He laughed and kicked his heels against the bottom of the cart when he found the goat would turn aside for him.
“Don’t kick too hard, Trouble,” said Ted, as his little brother kept up the drumming with his heels on the cart floor.
“Why not?” asked Jan. “He’s got his old shoes on. It won’t hurt them.”
“No, but it may hurt the cart,” replied Ted. “This bottom isn’t very strong, and it may drop out all of a sudden.”
“If it does, won’t we drop too?” asked Jan.
“Yes. That’s why I don’t want Trouble to kick so hard.”
“But he wants to kick,” said Trouble.
Janet looked over the side of the little wagon to see how far they would have to fall in case the bottom did drop out, but seeing soft grass all around her she concluded they would not be hurt if they did have such anaccident. Nevertheless, she held Trouble’s feet so he could not kick.
At first he wiggled, trying to get them loose; and to quiet him Jan reached over and pulled some long dandelion stems. Snipping off the yellow flower, she blew through the hollow stem, making a little noise as though she had blown a tin trumpet.
“Here, Trouble,” she said to her baby brother, “blow the dandelion horn.”
He puffed out his red cheeks and blew, making a tiny squeak which so delighted him that he forgot all about kicking the bottom out of the goat wagon.
On and on rode the Curlytops along the lane, on one side of which were pastured some cows that came and hung their heads over the fence, chewing their cud as they looked at the goat drawing the wagon. On the other side of the lane were some sheep, and some of them ran along the fence, as though they would like to get out and go with Nicknack and the children.
At last they came to the cherry grove. They rode along under the hundreds of trees, and on many were some quite large green balls, up among the leaves. On other treeswere smaller ones. These green balls would turn into ripe cherries a little later.
“Grandpa is going to have a lot of them,” said Ted, as he guided Nicknack under the bending branches. “Maybe the cherries will make him rich if he does lose his farm.”
And, though Ted did not know it, the cherries were to have a large share in clearing away the troubles of Grandpa Martin.
“I’s hungry!” suddenly announced Baby William, after they had been riding some time in the cherry grove.
“Well, let’s eat,” suggested Jan. “I’ve got the lunch.”
“Lunch!” cried Ted. “I didn’t know you brought any lunch!”
“Yes, grandma put some up for us in a little basket when you were harnessing Nicknack.”
“Goody!” roared Trouble.
And, oh, how good that lunch tasted! There were slices of bread and butter with just enough jam on, and no more. There were sugar cookies with just enough sugar sprinkled over the top, and not a grain too much. There were crisp brown crullers, just brown enough and not a smitch more, I do assure you!
Even Trouble had enough, and when he was hungry he was very, very hungry, like the little girl with her forehead on her curl, or the curl on her forehead, I forget which. So you can easily know that Grandma Martin’s lunch was just fine.
“Now we must go back,” said Ted, after a bit. “Mother told us not to stay too long. And, besides, Jimmie Dell is coming over to play ball with me to-day.”
“And Mary Seaton said she’d come over and we’re going to have a play-party for our dolls,” added Jan. “So I ’spect we’d better go back.”
Jimmie and Mary were two children who lived not far from Cherry Farm, and who, on other visits, had played with Jan and Ted.
So the Curlytops started back in the goat wagon with Trouble. They left the cherry grove, trying to remember how it looked, so they could tell grandpa the good news about the fine crop he would have, and they turned into the grassy lane again.
Now the lane was down hill going home, and this made Nicknack run rather fast. It was so easy pulling the wagon down the slope, you see.
“Whoa, there! Whoa!” cried Ted once or twice. “Don’t go so fast!”
For when the goat ran fast the queer wagon wobbled more than ever on its uneven wheels, and Jan had to hold tightly to Trouble so he would not slip out.
But Nicknack was like some horses. He went faster toward his stable than away from it. Besides, he was hungry. For though the children had given him bits of cake and bread, still he wanted hay and oats.
So Nicknack ran rather fast on his way home through the grassy lane, and some old sheep who saw him went:
“Baa-a-a-a-a! Baa-a-a-a-a!”
It was as if they, too, were calling:
“Whoa!”
But Nicknack did not stop. On and on he went faster and faster, and Ted pulled as hard as he could on the cord-reins, for he knew that was how grandpa stopped the farm horses when they ran too fast.
And then something happened. Two or three things happened, to tell you the truth.
Ted pulled so hard on one cord-rein that it broke. This yanked the goat’s head around sharply to the left and he almost ran intothe fence. Then one of the front wheels came off and, before Jan or Ted could do anything to stop it, the goat wagon turned upside down, throwing them out.
Then the harness broke, and Nicknack pulled himself completely away from the cart, though he did not mean to. But when he found he was free, he looked at the upset wagon and then began to nibble the grass at the side of the lane.
Ted and Jan picked themselves up off the soft ground. They had not been in the least hurt, and both were ready to laugh. That is, they were after a first look at the upside-down wagon. But when they glanced around a second time and could not see Baby William anywhere, they did not feel so much like laughing. They were a little bit frightened.