CHAPTER XIXTHE LOLLYPOP MAN
“Whatyou doin’ that for?” asked Jan, as she saw her brother knotting the rope that was fast to the goat’s horns: “What you making it so tight for?”
“So Nicknack won’t walk off. I don’t want him to be any more lost than he is.”
“Really are we lost, Ted?”
“Don’t you guess so?”
Jan looked about among the trees. It did seem as though they were a great way from Cherry Farm. They could see no houses or barns. There was no sign of a regular road, such as the one on which carriages and automobiles were wont to pass. And it was very still and quiet in the woods. It was getting dark, too!
“What—what are we goin’ to do?” asked Janet.
Though she was used to looking after herbrother, and doing things for him, even if he was a year older than herself, still now she turned to him for comfort. She wanted to know what he was going to do.
“Don’t you know the way back home?” asked Janet, anxiously.
Ted shook his head slowly.
“Nope,” he answered. “Do you?”
Janet shook her head, sadly this time.
“You playin’ a game?” asked Trouble. “I want to play, too. I’s twired ob singin’!”
“I should think you would be!” exclaimed Janet, putting her arms around him as he sat in the goat wagon. “Oh, Trouble! If we shouldn’t ever get back home again!”
“I want to be homenow! I’s hungry!” cried Baby William.
Ted and Jan looked at one another. This was one bad thing about being lost—the getting hungry part. Of course there were other bad parts, too—such as being out alone in the dark, not having a nice bed in which to cover up to go to sleep.
“Course, leaves are all right to sleep in when you’re camping,” said Teddy. “But we’re not campingnow.”
This was after he and Jan had looked about in the woods hoping to find a paththat would take them back to the main road that led to Cherry Farm.
But they had not found the path. Nicknack had wandered far into the woods just as it pleased him to go, and he had not kept track of the way he had come. Before Jan or Ted had noticed him he had strayed very far from the path. Now he could not find it again. Nicknack was not like a dog or a cat which could find its way home again, sometimes when it had gone miles and miles away.
“I’s hungry!” announced Trouble again. “I want some tookies!”
“What’ll we do?” asked Janet. “We haven’t any to give him.”
“Dat’s in my Muvver Hubbard song, about her dog an’ ze bone!” wailed Trouble. “But I don’t want ze bones—I want ze tookies!”
“I wish I had one for you, Trouble, dear,” said Jan. “But there isn’t a one left.” She looked in a little box under the seat, a box Grandpa Martin had made for the children to use as a sort of lunch basket. They often put pieces of cake or some cookies in it, or even sandwiches which their mother or Grandma Martin made for them, if theywere to go on a long ride. But now only a few cookie crumbs in a paper bag were all Janet found.
“I wants more!” cried Trouble, when he had hungrily eaten these. “I wants more!”
“Ted, we’ll justhaveto find the way home,” said his sister.
“I wish I could,” he answered slowly. “It wouldn’t be so bad if we were campin’ out, for then we’d havesomethin’to eat. We are goin’ campin’ with grandpa some day,” he went on. “He said so—on Star Island, maybe. But then we’ll have lots to eat, and we won’t mind if we’re lost.”
“Well, I mind itnow, and so does Trouble!” declared Jan. “Let’s look again for the way home.”
They left Nicknack tied, and, holding the hands of Trouble, the two Curlytops wandered about in the woods. They took care not to go too far away from the goat wagon, for they did not want to lose sight of that. Such a thing must never happen. The goat did not seem worried. He nibbled bits of grass, leaves and ferns and then knelt down and stretched out on his side and seemed to go to sleep.
“It must be gettin’ night,” said Jan in awhisper, as they came back, not having found anything that looked like a path.
“It isn’t very dark,” answered Ted hopefully.
“No. But see, Nicknack’s going to bed.”
“Oh, well he often sleeps in the daytime,” went on her brother. “Anyhow it’s dark because there’s so many trees in the woods. If we could get out on the road it would be light.”
“But we can’t find our way out,” said Janet, and her voice shook a little. “If we go too far we’ll get more lost than ever. Oh dear! I wish we hadn’t come! I want mother and daddy and grandma and grandpa. I want to go home!”
“Maybe they’ll come looking for us,” said Ted eagerly.
“They won’t know where to find us.”
“We can holler! Come on! Let’s do that!”
Jan and Ted made their voices sound as loudly as they could in calls that echoed through the woods. Trouble, too, joined in, sometimes singing his funny song.
“Here we are! Here we are!” cried Jan and Ted.
But, though they called and shouted noone seemed to hear them. Every once in a while they would stop and listen, but they heard no answer. The only noises were the country sounds—the fluttering of the birds through the trees, with now and then a song from one of the feathered creatures. The leaves blew in the wind, making a rustling, and sometimes, when the bushes moved, Trouble would hide behind Jan, for he was afraid.
“Oh, what shall we do?” asked Jan, half ready to cry, while it seemed to grow darker in the woods. “We are truly lost, Ted, and whatshallwe do? Look, Nicknack is fast asleep!”
The goat’s eyes were closed. He had eaten his supper and gone to sleep. He was not worried about being lost. Any place was home to him if his friends, the Curlytops, were there. But it was different with the children.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Ted, at length.
“What?” asked his sister.
“We’ll holler a little more, and then, if no one answers us, we’ll start and go.”
“Where will we go to?”
“I don’t know. We’ll go any way at all.We’ll be sure to get somewhere, and maybe somebody will find us and take us home. Come on now, let’s all holler real loud.”
They got no answer, however; so presently Teddy awakened the goat, the children got into the wagon and let Nicknack draw them along through the wood. It was an uncomfortable, rough ride, however, over tree roots and ruts, and after a while the children stopped the goat and got out once more.
“Now, let’s holler again,” suggested Teddy.
“And you sing, Trouble,” begged Jan. “Sing real loud!”
“Don’t want to. I’se twired of singing!”
“Then cry. Maybe you’ll make more noise that way.”
And cry Trouble did, loudly wailing, while Jan and Ted shouted at the tops of their voices and the bottoms too, as Ted said afterward.
“Hello! Hello! Hello!” they cried. “Hello!”
Hark! What was that? Some one answering? Surely yes!
Through the woods came a voice:
“Oh, ho! Oh, ho! I love a goat! Some day I will get me a goat! I will feed him onlollypops and soap! Oh, ho for a goat! Oh, ho!”
Ted and Jan looked at one another. Then they both cried joyfully:
“The lollypop man! It’s the lollypop man!”
And so it was. Through the trees they saw his red wagon and white horse going along what must have been a woodland road.
“Here we are! Here we are!” cried Jan.
“Over here!” added Ted. “We’re not lost any more! The lollypop man has found us!”