CHAPTER IIIPUSHING AND PULLING

CHAPTER IIIPUSHING AND PULLING

For a moment or two Jan and Ted stood looking at Mrs. Ransom. They knew her very well, for she had kept her little store near their house as long as they could remember. They often went there to buy candy or small toys.

“What’s the funny man doing?” asked Jan, forgetting, for a little while, her sorrow over the loss of Skyrocket.

“Is he funny like a clown in a circus, and is he turning somersaults?” Ted wanted to know.

“Gracious goodness, no, child! Why should he do that?” asked Mrs. Ransom. “When I said he was funny, I meant he was acting in a queer way. He walked toward your house, fell down, got up again, and fell down once more. You’d better go and tell your father.”

“We will!” exclaimed Ted, starting for the house, followed by his sister.

“I’d go in and tell him myself,” said Mrs. Ransom, “but I must get back to my store. I left it all alone to run over and tell him about the queer man. When I saw you two Curlytops I thought I’d tell you. Hurry in, now!”

“Oh, maybe he knows something about Skyrocket!” cried Jan, with new and sudden hope.

“Huh! How could he know Skyrocket?” asked Ted. “Come on, we’ll go and see what he’s like.”

“Oh, aren’t you going to tell daddy first?” asked the little girl, as she watched Mrs. Ransom hurry across a short-cut path through the garden, and so back to her store.

“Let’s look at the man first, and see what he does funny,” suggested Teddy. “Maybe he’s a clown, anyhow, and maybe Mrs. Ransom never saw one that wasn’t in a circus. Come on!”

Janet hung back for a second or two, and then followed Ted around the corner of the house.

There, just as the storekeeper woman had said, was a strange man lying on the lawn of the Curlytops’ home. He was not doing anything funny just then. Instead, he seemed very still and quiet.

“He isn’t a bit funny!” declared Janet.

“No, I don’t think he is,” said Teddy. “Maybe he got tired of being funny. I’ll go in and tell daddy.”

It did not take Mr. Martin long to hurry out to the front of the house after Ted and Jan had come in with the strange story of the “funny man.” And Mr. Martin had no sooner bent over the man and rolled him to one side, to get a better look at his face, than he cried:

“Why, this poor man is sick! He needs a doctor! Ted, run in and tell mother to telephone for Dr. Whitney. Have her ask him to come right over here. Jan, you skip back to the tool house and see if Patrick is there. If he is, tell him I want him.”

“Yes, Daddy!” exclaimed Janet.

“Yes, Daddy!” echoed Ted, and together they hurried off, one into the house, the other to get Patrick, the kindly old Irishman who cut the grass, made the garden, and did other work about the Martin home.

Janet found Patrick sharpening the lawnmower, ready for a day’s work. Laying that aside, he hurried to the front of the house, where Mr. Martin was bending over the stranger.

“Is he a tramp?” asked Patrick.

“No, indeed,” answered Mr. Martin. “He seems to be a poor man, but he is clean, and few tramps are that. And though some of his clothes are ragged, they are clean, too. Help me carry him into the house, Patrick. I’ve sent for Dr. Whitney.”

And when Dr. Whitney came he said that the man, who had not opened his eyes since he was carried in, was quite ill.

“But I think that if he has a good rest, a little medicine, and plenty to eat he will soon be better,” said the doctor. “Are you going to keep him here, Mr. Martin, or shall I have him sent to the hospital?”

“Oh, keep him here, Daddy!” cried Teddy. “He looks like a good man, and maybe he knows where our Skyrocket is.”

“No, I hardly think that,” answered Mr. Martin. “But I believe I will let him stay here, Dr. Whitney. My wife says she and Nora will look after him, and he will be better off than in the hospital, as long as he is not very ill.”

“He is sick mostly because he hasn’t had enough to eat,” said the doctor. “Feed him well, and he’ll soon be all right.”

The doctor went away, after leaving some medicine for the stranger. And stranger he was, since nobody at the Martin house knew him, and Mrs. Ransom, who came over again, after she had found some one to stay in her store for a little while, said she had never seen him around Cresco before.

“And I know ’most everybody in Cresco,” she added, as indeed she did, since many of the fathers and mothers, as well as the boys and girls, bought a good many things in her little shop.

As for the “funny man” himself, he could not tell who he was, for he seemed to be asleep from the time Mr. Martin and Patrick carried him in and put him to bed in a spare room. The man was not really asleep, as Jan and Ted learned later. It was his illness that made him keep his eyes closed, and would not let him talk or hear things that were said.

“Now you children run out to play,” said Mrs. Martin to Ted and Janet, after Dr. Whitney had left. “Take Trouble with you, and look after him. Nora and I are going to be busy with—well, with him,” and she nodded toward the room where the strange man lay so quietly.

“What’s his name?” asked Ted.

“I don’t know, my dear,” answered his mother. “When he wakes up he may tell us. Run out and play now.”

“We’ll go and see if we can’t find Skyrocket,” said Janet.

“Oh, yes! We’ve got to find him!” added Ted.

The children had hurried through their breakfast, and now with Baby William, or Trouble, in their care, they started to search around the yard for the missing Skyrocket.

There were several buildings on the Martin place. There was the garage, where Daddy Martin kept his automobile, there was the tool house, where Patrick kept the lawn mower, the hose he used for sprinkling the lawn, and such things. There was a hen house and the stable where Nicknack the goat used to live. Then, of course, there was the woodshed, which was the home of Skyrocket. But alas! Skyrocket was not in it now.

“Let’s look there just once more!” said Janet, as she and her two brothers walked down the back steps toward the woodshed. “Maybe he came back.”

But no Skyrocket was to be seen. There was a bone he had been gnawing the night before, and there was the nice, soft carpet Teddy had given him for a bed. But the pet dog was gone.

“Let’s look out in Nicknack’s stable again,” went on Janet.

So they did, and in other places, but no Skyrocket was to be found.

“I guess we’ll have to put a piece in the paper about him,” went on Jan, as she and the two boys sat down to rest after running about the yard, looking in all sorts of places.

“A piece in the paper—what do you mean?” asked Ted.

“I mean a—a tizerment,” declared Janet. “You know—a piece like the one Mrs. Ransom put in when she lost her pocketbook. She got it back, too. Somebody found it and brought it back. Maybe somebody has found our Skyrocket, and they’d give him back if they knew we wanted him. Let’s get daddy to put a piece in the paper.”

“Yes, we could do that,” agreed Ted, after thinking the matter over. “We’ll tell him when he comes home to dinner. But now let’s look out in the auto stable again, Jan. We didn’t look there very good. Maybe Skyrocket is hiding in there.”

“Me want wide in auto!” decided Trouble, as his brother and sister led him down the path once more.

“No, dear! Daddy has the auto down at his store,” explained Janet. “Trouble can’t ride now.”

“Oh!” said the little fellow. “Wide to-mollow?” he asked.

“Yes, maybe you can have a ride to-morrow,” said Ted. “And say, Jan!” he cried, “what about Silver Lake? We almost forgot! Maybe we’ll go there to-morrow!”

“Oh, maybe we shall!” cried Janet, with shining, eager eyes.

“Me go, too?” asked Trouble.

“Oh, yes, you’ll have to come, too!” sighed Janet. “I do hope you don’t fall in too much!” she said.

“Come on!” called Teddy to her. “Let’s go and look in the garage again. We didn’t look there very good.”

The garage had once been a stable, but no horse was kept in it now, since Mr. Martin had an automobile. There was, however, an old carriage, and several other things, such as a wheelbarrow, old boards, shutters, broken doors and the like, that Patrick had stored away.

“There’s lots of places for Skyrocket to hide!” said Ted, as he and Janet entered the garage. “Here, Sky! Sky!” he called, and he whistled for the pet dog, giving him the pet name of “Sky.”

But there was no answer. Skyrocket must have been far away, his little owners knew, not to answer their call. Ted and Janet forgot Baby William for a few moments while they searched all about the garage for their pet dog.

“I guess he isn’t here,” said Janet, with a sigh, after a while.

“No,” agreed Teddy. “We’ll have to put a piece in the paper. Maybe he——”

Teddy suddenly stopped speaking, for both he and Janet heard a funny little squeal.

“There he is!” cried Ted.

“That’s Skyrocket!” added Jan, clapping her hands. “He’s caught fast somewhere and can’t get out.”

They both stood still, listening for the cry to sound once more. It did, but in a different way. For besides the squeal came a call of:

“Ted! Jan! Oh! Oh! I tan’t det out! I caught fast! Oh, tum an’ det me!”

“It’s Trouble!” shouted Janet.

“Where is he?” cried Ted.

They looked around. They had let go of the hands of their little brother while searching in the back part of the garage among the odds and ends for Skyrocket. They had forgotten about Baby William for a time, and now they could not see where he was.

“Where are you, Trouble? Where are you?” cried Ted.

“I—I’se stuck!” was the answer.

“Yes, dear! But where are you?” asked Janet.

“In de horsie wagon!”

“Oh, he’s playing in the old carriage!” exclaimed Ted, for Trouble always called that the “horsie wagon.”

It did not take Jan and her older brother long to reach the place where Trouble was. But instead of seeing him upon the seat of the battered old carriage, where he sometimes climbed to play he was driving a horse, they saw him caught in between the spokes of one of the wheels.

“Oh, Trouble!” cried Janet.

“Oh, Trouble!” shouted Teddy.

And well might they say this, for Trouble was indeed in trouble. His head was stuck between two spokes, and he could not get it out either way.

“Come on!” he cried to his brother and sister. “Help me det out!”

“Of course we’ll help you, dear!” said Janet. “But how did you get caught that way?”

“I was playin’ peek-a-boo wif a chicken.”

“Peek-a-boo with a chicken?” echoed Ted.

“Yeppie! He chicken, he comed in de auto house, an’ he looked at me froo de horsie wagon wheel, an’ I looked at him, an’ I did stick my head froo de spokes, I did, an’ I did holler ‘peek-a-boo!’ an’ den I touldn’t det out!”

“Well, I should say you couldn’t!” cried Janet. “Take hold of him, Teddy, and push him out.”

“We can’t push him out, we’ve got to pull him!” decided Teddy; after looking at the way his baby brother was caught.

“No, he’s got to be pushed!” insisted Janet.

“Pulled!” cried Teddy.

“Oh, det me out! Det me out!” wailed Trouble.

Janet took hold of his legs, and Teddy took hold of his head. But as Janet pushed and Teddy pushed also, instead of pulling, which he had said was the right way, poor Baby William stayed just where he was, with his head caught between two carriage spokes.

“Oh, dear, we’ll never get him out!” said Janet. “What’ll we do, Ted?”

“We’ve got to try again,” decided Ted. “We’ll both push, and then we’ll both pull.”

“All right,” agreed Janet.

Whether it was that Ted and Jan pushed or pulled at the wrong time, or whether it was that they were so excited they didn’t know what they were doing, I can’t say, but Trouble was still held fast, and with tears in his eyes he looked up from his queer position and cried:

“Det me out! Det me out!”

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