CHAPTER XVIIJIMMIE HAS A TUMBLE
Downthe road trotted Nicknack, while Ted and Jan sat on the front seat of the wagon and looked eagerly ahead for the first sight of some boy or girl to whom they might offer a ride, and so earn money for the Crippled Children’s Home where Hal Chester hoped to have his lame foot cured.
“See anybody, Jan?” asked Ted, after a bit.
“Nope! Do you?”
“Nope; but I hear someone calling. It’s behind us. Maybe somebody wants a ride. Listen!”
Somebody did. But when Jan and Ted looked around they both laughed and cried out:
“Trouble!”
And Trouble it was, toddling along after the goat wagon, and calling as he hurried on:
“Waits a minute! Waits a minute! I wants a wide!”
“What’ll we do?” asked Ted.
“Oh, we’ve got to take him with us, I s’pose,” replied Janet. “But if he rides there’ll be that much less room for someone else, and then we can’t earn as much money.”
Ted thought this over for a minute.
“I’ll tell you what we could do,” he said, as he stopped Nicknack and let the goat eat the sweet grass that grew beside the road.
“What?” asked Janet.
“We could let whoever wanted to ride hold Trouble on his lap. Then he wouldn’t take up any room.”
“That’s so. But maybe they wouldn’t want to hold him. Trouble is awful heavy sometimes, and he does wiggle and squirm a lot!”
“Well, if some of ’em didn’t want to hold him they could pay a penny more and Trouble could sit in a seat by himself.”
“That’s so!” cried Jan. “Then we’d make a little extra money out of Trouble.”
“That’s it!” agreed her brother. “And if they wanted to hear him, Trouble could sing his funny little song for them.”
Janet laughed at this. Mother Martinhad taught the little baby a queer mixture of Mother Goose verses, and Trouble sang these in a funny, squeaky voice—that is, he sang when he wanted to.
“But it would be just like him not to sing if someone asked him to,” sighed Janet. “Then we’d have to let them ride free if they didn’t want to hold the baby.”
“If Trouble won’t sing he can’t ride,” decided Ted. “Here, Trouble!” he called to his little brother. “Will you sing the Crumpled-Cow-Jack-Horner-Pie-song if I let you ride?”
“I will sing it two times,” said Trouble earnestly. “I do want a wide. I runned after you to hab a wide.”
“All right—hop in,” returned Ted; and with their baby brother on the seat between them Ted and Jan drove off again.
They had not ridden far before they came to where Jimmie Dell lived. Jimmie was swinging on his front gate, and as he saw the goat wagon coming up with his three little friends in it, he called:
“Where you goin’? Give us a ride, will you?”
“We will for a penny,” answered Ted.
“A penny!” cried Jimmie, who had alwaysbefore ridden for nothing behind Nicknack.
“You see,” explained Janet, “we’re trying to make money for the Home where Hal lives. We’ll ride you down the road and up again for five cents, or give you a little ride for a penny.”
“And you’ll be in the wagon all by yourself,” went on Ted. “I’ll get out and walk, and Jan will be conductor and collect the fare. Come on!”
“You’ll have to hold Trouble on your lap, though,” said Janet; “but he’ll sing for you, so you won’t mind holding him.”
“I’ll sing now!” decided Trouble, and he began to croon:
“‘Once a crumpled bossy-cow,Was eatin’ some gween cheese!Dack Horner dropped his Twistmas pieAn’ made Bo Peep to sneeze!’”
“‘Once a crumpled bossy-cow,Was eatin’ some gween cheese!Dack Horner dropped his Twistmas pieAn’ made Bo Peep to sneeze!’”
“‘Once a crumpled bossy-cow,
Was eatin’ some gween cheese!
Dack Horner dropped his Twistmas pie
An’ made Bo Peep to sneeze!’”
“There’s a lot more verses like that,” explained Ted, as Trouble stopped singing to catch his breath. “You’ll like it. Won’t he, Jan?”
“Oh, yes!”
“I’d like a ride, too,” said Jimmie, “onlyI haven’t got five cents, or even a penny.”
Janet and Ted looked thoughtful on hearing this. Then Janet said:
“Say, Ted, I think we ought to let Jimmie have the first ride for nothing.”
“Why?”
“Well, ’cause it will give us a start. You see if some other boys and girls see him riding they’ll want to ride too, and it will be a sort of advertisement for us.”
“Maybe it would. Come on, Jimmie. You get in and I’ll walk along ’side the wagon and drive Nicknack. Janet will be conductor and make-believe she’s collected your fare. Then it will look as if we had made a start.”
“Do I have to hold Trouble?” asked Jimmie.
“Course,” decided Ted. “He can’t walk. But you don’t have to hear him sing if you don’t want to, or he can sit beside you if you don’t want to hold him. Only don’t let him fall.”
“I’s goin’ to sing,” declared Baby William, and he began on the tenth or maybe the fifteenth verse. Sometimes he put the first and last verses together and made an entirely new one, so one never could tell whenthe song ended except when Trouble stopped singing.
“Oh, well, you can sing, and you can sit on the seat next to me,” said Jimmie. “I’m much obliged for the ride.”
“You’re an advertisement like a newspaper,” explained Janet.
“And I think he ought to sort of holler out like, and say what a fine ride he was havin’ so’s more would come,” went on Ted. “We’ve got to make money somehow.”
“I’ll holler,” promised Jimmie.
So, as he rode in the goat wagon, with Trouble on the seat beside him, while Teddy drove and Janet tried to look as if she had collected her first fare, Jimmie called out:
“Come on and ride, everybody! It’s great! A penny for a little ride, a nickel for a bigger! Come on! Come on! Come on and ride!”
His shouts, the painted sign on Nicknack, the voice of Trouble singing his queer song now and then, and Jan and Ted walking beside the goat wagon drew the attention of the few people they passed on the country road.
But none of them seemed to want a ride, and at the few houses they passed, though some children came to the gates and lookedvery much as though they would like to ride, they shook their heads, for they had no money—not even a penny.
“Well, I’m havin’ lots of fun,” said Jimmie, after a while. “But maybe I’d better——”
Just then Nicknack saw a bunch of green grass beside the road he thought he would like to chew. He made a sudden jump for it, and so quickly that Jimmie toppled off the seat backward and fell with a “ker-thump” on the grass beside the road.
“Whoa!” called Ted.
“Look out for Trouble!” exclaimed Jan.
Baby William, too, had tumbled off the seat when Jimmie had fallen, but Trouble only rolled to the bottom of the wagon, and there he stayed, on his back, his eyes wide open looking up at the sky.
“Are you hurt, Baby?” asked Jan, anxiously.
“Nope,” answered Trouble. “Did de goat runned away?”
“No, he only gave a jump and Jimmie fell out,” answered Ted. “Are you hurt, Jimmie?” he asked the other boy.
“Nope! Not a bit, Teddy! I’m used to tumbles like that. The grass is as soft as ahaystack. But I guess I’ve had enough ride. I’ve got to go to the store for my mother. Good-bye!” and he ran off down the road. “Thanks!” he called back, over his shoulder, almost forgetting this part of it. “I had a dandy ride, and I wish I had some money to give you.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” answered Ted, putting Trouble up on the seat again.
And he and Jan walked on beside Nicknack, hoping someone with even a penny would hail them and ask for a ride.
When the wagon came to the house in which Mary Seaton lived, she was out in the front yard.
“Oh, Mary!” cried Jan, “don’t you want a ride?”
“Indeed I do!” answered the little girl. And out she ran and got in the seat.
“Does I hab to sing for her?” asked Trouble.
“What does he mean by singin’?” asked Mary.
“Like dis,” explained Trouble. “I likes you, Mary, so I sings.” And he started all over again at the first verse. Mary liked the song so much that she had Trouble sing it all the way through. By this time she had beengiven a ride quite a way down the road, and then as Ted turned the goat around Mary seemed to notice, for the first time, that Jan and Ted were walking.
“Why don’t you ride?” she asked. “There’s room.”
“Oh, we have had lots of rides,” explained Jan. “Besides you’re our first regular passenger. You can give me your five cents now if you want to.”
“My five cents?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“Your fare. Didn’t you see the sign?” and Jan pointed to the one on Nicknack’s side.
“Oh! Why, I haven’t any money!” cried Mary. “I’ll have to get right out! I thought you wereaskingme to ride as you often do.”
“We’re trying to make money for the Crippled Home,” explained Janet. “But I guess we won’t take in much, Ted.”
“No. I guess not,” and her brother sadly shook his head.
“I’m goin’ to sing again!” announced Trouble. “You mus’ all lis-ten!”