It did not take Grandpa Martin long to pull back to the mainland in the boat which was empty save for himself and Ted. Thelake was smooth, a little wind making tiny waves that gently lapped the side of the boat.
"I think we'd better bring Nicknack over this trip," said Grandpa Martin, when a second farm hand met him on shore and began to help load the boat for the second trip. "The sooner we get that goat over on the island the better I'll feel."
"Why, you're not afraid of him, are you?" asked the hired man whose name was George.
"No. But I don't know how easy it's going to be to ferry him over. He may start some of his tricks. So we won't put much in the boat this time. We'll leave plenty of room for the goat and the cart."
"Oh, Nicknack will be good," declared Ted. "I know he will. Won't you, Nicknack?" and he put his arms around his pet. The goat had been driven down near the dock whence the boat started for Star Island.
"Well, unharness him and we'll get him on board," said the farmer. "Then we'll see what happens next."
Nicknack made no fuss at all about being unharnessed. His wagon was first wheeledon the boat, which was a large one and broad. Then Ted started Nicknack toward the craft.
"Giddap!" cried Teddy to Nicknack. "We're going to camp on Star Island, and you can have lots of fun! Giddap!"
Nicknack stood still on the dock for a few seconds, and he seemed to be sniffing the boat and the water in which it floated. Then with a little wiggle of his funny, short tail, he jumped down in near his wagon, and began eating some grass which Ted had pulled and placed there for him.
"It's a sort of bait, like a piece of cheese in a mouse trap," remarked Ted, as he saw the goat nibbling. "Isn't he good, Grandpa?"
"He's good now, Teddy; but whether he'll be good all the way over is something I can't say. I hope so."
George put in the boat as much as could safely be carried, with the goat as a passenger, and then he and Grandpa Martin began rowing toward Star Island. At first everything went very well. Nicknack seemed a little frightened when the boat tipped and rocked, but Ted patted him and fed him more grass, which Nicknack liked very much.
"I knew he'd be good!" Teddy said, when they were almost at the island, and could see Jan waving to them. "I knew he'd like the boat ride, Grandpa."
"Yes, he seems to like it. Now if we——"
But just then something happened.
The wind suddenly blew rather hard, roughening the water and causing the boat to tip. Nicknack was jostled over against the wagon, and some water splashed on him.
"Baa-a-a-a-a!" bleated the goat.
Then, before anyone could stop him, he gave a leap over Teddy's head, and into the water splashed Nicknack.
The goat had leaped overboard into the deepest part of Clover Lake!
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"Oh! Oh!" cried Teddy. "Oh, there goes my nice goat! Catch him, Grandpa! Stop him!"
Grandpa Martin stopped rowing and looked in surprise at the goat. So did the hired man.
"Well, just look!" exclaimed George.
"Oh, he'll be drowned! He'll be drowned!" wailed Teddy, tears coming into his eyes, for he loved Nicknack. "He'll be drowned!"
Grandpa Martin rested his hands on the oars and looked into the water. Then he smiled.
"I guess you'd have hard work drowning that goat," he said. "He's swimming like a fish!"
"And right straight for Star Island!" added the hired man. "That's a smart goatall right! He knows where he wants to go, and the shortest way to get there!"
Surely enough Nicknack was swimming toward the island. When he jumped out of the boat he floundered a little in the water, and splashed some on Teddy. Then he struck out, paddling as a dog does with his front feet. Nicknack turned himself about until he was headed toward the island, and then he swam straight toward it.
"Oh, won't he drown, Grandpa?" asked Teddy.
"I don't believe so, my boy! I guess Nicknack knows more than we thought he did. Maybe he didn't like the way we rowed, or he may have wanted a bath. Anyhow he jumped overboard, but he'll be all right."
"See him go!" cried the hired man.
Nicknack was swimming quite fast. Of course a goat is not as good a swimmer as is a duck or a fish, but Ted's pet did very well. On shore were Nora, Mrs. Martin, Janet, Trouble, and the farm hand who had gone over in the first boatload. They were watching the goat swimming toward them.
"Did you throw him into the water, Teddy?" asked Janet, as soon as the boatwas near enough so that talking could be heard.
"He jumped in," Ted answered. "Isn't he a good swimmer?"
"I should say so! Here, Nicknack! Come here!" Janet called.
The goat, which had been headed toward a spot a little way down the island from where Janet and her mother stood, turned at the sound of the little girl's voice and came in her direction.
"Oh, he knows me!" she cried in delight. "Now don't shake yourself the way Skyrocket does, and get me all wet!" she begged, as Nicknack scrambled out on shore, water dripping from his hairy coat.
But the goat did not act like a dog, who gives himself a great shaking whenever he comes on shore after having been in the water. Nicknack just let it drip off him, and began to nibble some of the grass that grew on the island. He was making himself perfectly at home, it seemed.
The goat-wagon and the other things were soon landed, and then Grandpa Martin and one of the hired men went back for the last load. When that came back and the things were piled up near the tents, the work of settingup the camp went on. There was much yet to be done.
Ted and Jan helped all they could in putting up the tents. So did Mother Martin and Nora, who was large and strong. She could pull on a rope about as well as a man, and there were many ropes that needed tightening and fastening around pegs driven into the ground so the tents would not blow over in the wind.
Nicknack had been tied to a tree, near which, a little later, Ted and Jan were going to make him a little bower of leaves and branches. That was to be his stable until a better one could be built by Grandpa Martin—one that would keep Nicknack dry when it rained.
At last the tents were up, one for sleeping, another for cooking, and a third where the Curlytops and the others would eat their meals. It was a fine camp that Grandpa Martin made, and he knew just how to do it right, even to digging little trenches, or ditches, around the tents so the water would run off when it stormed.
"And now let's take a walk and see what we can find," suggested Ted to Janet, when Mother Martin said they might play aboutuntil supper was ready, for they had called the lunch they had eaten their dinner.
"Don't go too far," cautioned Mother Martin.
"Oh, we can't get lost on this island," said Ted. "All we'd have to do, if we were, would be to walk along the shore until we came to this camp."
"I know that. But it wasn't so much about your getting lost that I was thinking," said Mrs. Martin.
"Oh, you mean—the tramps?" half whispered Janet.
"Well, I don't know whether there are any here or not," went on her mother. "But it's best to be careful until grandpa has had a chance to look about. Where is grandpa now?"
"He's getting some water at the spring," Ted answered.
There was a fine spring on Star Island, not far from the place where the tents had been set up, and Mr. Martin was now bringing pails of water from that and pouring them into a barrel which would hold so much that even Trouble would have plenty to drink no matter how thirsty he was.
"Well, don't go too far away until eithergrandpa or I have a chance to go with you," added Mrs. Martin.
"Me come, too," called Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister starting off.
"Oh, Mother!" exclaimed Teddy.
"No, you stay with mother," said Mrs. Martin. "I'll give you a nice drink of milk."
"Don't want milk. I's had milk. Trouble want Ted an' Jan."
"But you can't go with them, my dear. Come on, we'll go and throw stones into the lake and make-believe it's a great, big ocean!"
Baby William pouted a little at first. He liked to have his own way. But when he saw what fun his mother was having tossing stones into the lake and making the water splash up, Trouble did the same, laughing at the fun he was having.
"Dis a ocean, Momsey?" he asked as he set a little stick afloat, making believe it was a boat.
"Well, we'll call it an ocean," Mrs. Martin answered. "But this water is fresh, and that in the ocean is very salty. Some day I'll take you and my two little Curlytops to the real ocean, and you can taste how saltythe waves are. Now we'll throw some more stones."
Meanwhile Ted and Jan started for a little walk down the path that went the whole length of Star Island.
"Shall we take Nicknack?" asked Jan.
"No, let's wait until he dries off after his bath," decided Teddy. "I don't like wet goats."
"Why, Teddy Martin! Nicknack got dried out hours ago!"
"Well, anyway, a goat isn't like a dog. We don't want a goat along when we are going out walking."
So Nicknack was left to nibble the grass, while the Curlytops wandered on and on. Grandpa and the hired men, having finished putting up the tents, were getting the stove ready so Nora could get supper.
"What are you looking for?" asked Jan when she noticed that her brother walked along as if searching for something. "Are you trying to see if any tramps or gypsies are here on the island?"
"No. I was thinking maybe I could find that fallen star."
"But didn't grandpa say it all melted up?"
"Maybe a piece of it's left," went on Ted. This was the second time that he had spoken of the star that day. "If I can't find a chunk of it, maybe I can find the hole it made when it hit," he added. "I'd like to find that. Maybe it would be bigger than the one I dug when I thought I could go all the way through to China."
"Yes. The time Skyrocket fell in!" laughed Jan. "'Member that, Teddy?"
"I guess I do! Daddy had to go out in the night and bring him in. Come on, let's look for the hole the shooting star made."
"All right."
The two Curlytops walked on over the island, looking here and there for star-holes. They found a number of deep places, but after looking at them, and poking sticks down into them, Ted decided that none of them had ever held a shooting star.
"Maybe bears made them," half whispered Jan.
"There aren't any bears on this island!" Teddy declared.
"I hope not," murmured his sister, as she looked over her shoulder and then kept close to her brother during the rest of the walk.
Pretty soon the children heard theirmother's voice calling them. They could hear very plainly, for the air was clear.
"I guess supper is ready," said Janet.
"I hope it is!" sighed Ted. "I'm awful hungry!"
Supper was ready, smoking hot on the table in the dining-tent, when Ted and Jan reached the camp grandpa had made.
"Oh, how good it smells!" cried Ted.
"And how nice the white tents look under the green trees," added his sister. "I just love it here!"
"It is the nicest place we have yet been for the summer vacation," said Mother Martin. "This and Cherry Farm are two lovely places."
They sat down under the tent and began to eat. Nora had gotten up a fine supper, for a regular cook stove had been brought along, and it was almost like eating at Grandma Martin's table, only this was out of doors, for the sides of the tent were raised to let in the air and the rays of the setting sun.
"What's the matter, Father?" asked Mrs. Martin, as she saw the children's grandfather pause after tasting the potatoes. "Is anything wrong?"
"I think I'd like a little more salt on these."
"Yes, they do need salting. Nora, bring the salt please."
"There isn't any, except what I used when I was cooking—a little I had in a salt-shaker."
"Oh, yes, there must be. I brought a whole bagful. I saw it when I unpacked some of the things. There was a sack of salt."
"Well, it isn't here now," said Nora, as she looked among her kitchen things.
"Has anyone seen the bag of salt?" asked Mrs. Martin.
She looked at Ted and Jan, who shook their heads. Then Trouble's mother looked at him. He was busy with a piece of bread and jam. One could have told Trouble had been eating bread and jam just by looking at his mouth and face.
"Did you see the salt, Trouble?" asked his mother.
"Iss, I did," he answered, taking another bite.
"Where is it?"
"In de water," he replied. "I puts it in de water."
"You put the salt in the water? What water? Tell mother, Trouble."
"I puts salt in de lake water to make him 'ike ocean. Trouble 'ike ocean. Come on, I show!" and, getting down out of his chair, he toddled toward a little cove near the camp. The others, following him, saw something white on the ground near the edge of the lake. Grandpa Martin touched it with his finger and tasted.
"The little tyke did empty the whole bag of salt in the lake!" cried the farmer. "Fancy his trying to make it like the ocean! Ho! Ho!"
"Oh, Trouble!" cried Mrs. Martin. "You wasted a whole bag of salt, and now grandpa hasn't any for his potatoes!"
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Baby Williamlooked a little bit frightened and ashamed as his mother spoke to him in that way. He loved his grandfather, and of course he would not have done anything to make him feel bad if he had thought. But Trouble was a very little fellow, though his father often said he could get into as many kinds of mischief as could the larger Curlytops.
"Oh dear! This is too bad!" went on Mrs. Martin. "Why did you do it, Trouble? What made you empty the bag of salt into the lake?"
"Want to make ocean wif salt water," was the answer.
"I suppose it's my fault, for telling him so much about the big sea and its salt water," said Trouble's mother. "He liked to hear me talk about the ocean, and I guesshe must have been thinking about it more than I had any idea of.
"He must have tasted the water of the lake, and found it wasn't salty, and then he thought that, to make an ocean and big waves out of a lake, all he had to do was to put in the salt. I'm sorry, Father."
"Oh, that's all right," laughed Grandpa Martin. "I guess I can get along without any more salt."
"Trouble sorry, too," said the little fellow, when he understood that he had done something wrong. "Me get salt water for you," and he started toward the place where he had emptied the bag into the water, carrying a spoon from the table.
"No, Trouble! Come back!" ordered his mother. "I guess he wants to dip up some salt water for you," she said laughingly to the children's grandfather, "but he'd be more likely to fall in himself."
She caught Trouble up in her arms and kissed him, and then Nora managed to find a little salt in the bottom of the shaker, so Grandpa Martin had some on his potatoes after all. But Trouble was told he must never again do anything like that.
He promised, of course, but Jan said:
"He'll do something else, just as bad."
"I guess he will," laughed Teddy.
Supper over, Mr. Martin took his two men over to the mainland. On his return they all gathered about a little campfire grandpa made in front of the sleeping tent. The cot beds had been set up, and a mosquito netting was hung at the "front door" of the white canvas house, though really there was no door, just two flaps of the tent that could be tied together. But the netting kept out the bugs. Fortunately there were no mosquitoes, though all sorts of moths, snapping bugs and other flying things came around whenever a lantern was lighted.
"Tell us a story, Grandpa!" begged Janet, when they had finished talking about the many things that had happened during the first day in camp.
"Tell us about the shooting star that fell on this island," begged Teddy.
"Tell us about de twamps!" exclaimed Trouble, who ought to have been asleep, but who had begged to stay up a little longer than usual.
"I don't know anything about the tramps," laughed grandpa, "and I don't believe there are any on the island, though it isa large one, and it will take two or three days for us to walk all about it.
"As for the shooting star, which Teddy thinks about so much, I really didn't see it fall, and all I know is what the old men in the village have told me. It was many years ago."
"And did you ever see the blue light?" asked Ted, thinking of what he and his sister had seen the night they were coming home from the little visit to Hal Chester.
"No, I never did; though I'd like to, so I might know what it was."
"Children, how is grandpa ever going to tell you a story if you keep asking him so many questions?" laughed Mrs. Martin.
"All right—now we'll listen," promised Teddy, and Grandpa Martin told a tale of when he was a little boy, and lived further to the north and on the edge of a big wood where there were bears and other wild animals. His father was a good hunter, Grandpa Martin said, and often used to kill bears and wolves, for the country was wild, with never so much as one automobile in it.
Grandpa finished his story of the olden days by telling of once when he was a small boy, coming home through the woods towarddark one evening and being chased by a bear. But he crawled into a hollow log where the bear could not get him, and later his father and some other hunters came, shot the bear and got the little boy safely out.
"Whew!" whistled Teddy, when this was finished. "I'd like to have been there!"
"In the log, hiding away from the bear?" asked his mother.
"No, I—I guess not that," Ted answered. "I'd just like to have seen it up in a tree, where the bear couldn't get me."
"Bears can climb trees," remarked Janet.
"Well, I'd go up in a little tree too small for a bear," her brother answered.
"I guess you'd all better go to your little beds!" laughed Mother Martin. "It's long past your sleepy time."
And the Curlytops and Trouble were soon sound asleep.
It must have been about the middle of the night—anyhow it was quite late—when Teddy, who was sleeping in his cot next to one of the side walls of the tent, was suddenly awakened by a noise outside, and something seemed to be trying to get through.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Teddy, quickly sittingup in bed, and wide awake all at once. "Oh, Mother! Something's after me! It's a bear! It's a bear!"
"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "You'll waken William, and frighten him!"
"But Mother! I'm sure it's a bear! He growled!"
"What is it?" asked Jan, from her cot on the other side of the tent.
"It's a bear!" cried Ted again.
There did seem to be something going on outside the tent near Ted's side. There was a crackling in the bushes, and once something came pushing hard against the side of the white canvas house with force enough to make a bulge in it. Teddy jumped up from his cot and ran over to his mother, who was sitting up on her bed.
"Oh, Mother! It's coming in!" cried Teddy.
"Nonsense!" and Mrs. Martin laughed as she put her arms around her small son.
"What is it?" asked Grandpa Martin from the curtained-off part of the tent where he slept.
"It's a bear!" cried Janet.
Just then, from outside came a loud:
"Baa-a-a-a-a!"
Teddy looked very much surprised. Then he smiled. Then he laughed and cried:
"Why, it's our goat Nicknack!"
"I guess that's what it is," added Grandpa Martin. "But he seems to be in trouble. I'll go outside and look."
Taking a lantern with him, while Mrs. Martin and the children waited a bit anxiously, Grandpa Martin went to see what had happened. The Curlytops heard him laughing as they saw the flicker of his light through the white tent. Then they heard Nicknack bleating again. The goat seemed, to those inside, to be kicking about with his little black hoofs.
"Whoa there, Nicknack!" called Grandpa Martin. "I'll soon get you loose!"
There was more noise, more tramping in the bushes and then, after a while, Grandpa Martin came back.
"What was it?" asked Ted and Jan in whispers, for their mother had begged them not to awaken Trouble, who was still sleeping peacefully.
"It was your goat," was the answer. "He had got loose, and his horns were caught between two trees where he had tried to jump. He was held fast by his horns and he waskicking his heels up in the air, trying to get loose."
"Did you get him out?" asked Jan.
"Yes, I pried the trees apart and got his head loose. Then he was all right. I tied him good and tight in his stable, and I guess he won't bother us again to-night."
"Then it wasn't a bear after all," remarked Jan, laughing at her brother.
"No, indeed! There aren't any bears on this island," said her grandfather. "Go to sleep."
Nothing else happened the rest of the night, and they all slept rather late the next morning, for they were tired from the work of the day before. The sun was shining over Clover Lake when Nora rang the breakfast bell, and Ted and Jan hurried with their dressing, for they were eager to be at their play.
"What'll we do to-day?" asked Janet, as she tried to get a comb through her thick, curly hair.
"We'll go for a ride with Nicknack," decided Ted, who was also having a hard time with his locks. "Oh, I wish I was a barber!" he cried, as the comb stuck in a bunch of curls.
"Why?" asked his mother, who was giving Trouble his breakfast.
"'Cause then I'd cut my own hair short, and I'd never have to comb it."
"Oh, I wouldn't want to see you without your curls," Mother Martin said. "Here, I'll help you as soon as I feed Trouble."
Trouble could feed himself when his plate had been set in front of him, and while he was eating Mrs. Martin made her two Curlytops look better by the use of their combs.
After breakfast the children ran to hitch Nicknack to the wagon. Grandpa Martin was going back in the rowboat to the mainland to get a few things that had been forgotten, and also another bag of salt.
"And I'll hide it away from Trouble," said Nora with a laugh. "We don't want any more salty oceans around here."
"Let's drive away before Trouble sees us," proposed Jan to her brother. "He'll want to come for a ride and we can't go very far if he comes along."
"All right. Stoop down and walk behind the bushes. Then he can't see us."
Jan and Ted managed to get away unseen, and were soon hitching their goat to the wagon. Trouble finished his breakfast andcalled to them, wanting to go with them wherever they went. But his mother knew the two Curlytops did not want Trouble with them every time, so Baby William had to play by himself about camp, while the two older children drove off on a path that led the long way of the island.
"Maybe we'll have an adventure," suggested Jan, as she sat in the cart driving the goat, for she and her brother took turns at this fun.
"Maybe we'll see some of the tramps," he added.
"I don't want to," said Jan.
"Well, maybe we'll see a bear."
"I don't want that, either. I wish you wouldn't say such things, Teddy."
"Well, what do you want to see?"
"Oh, something nice—flowers or birds or maybe a fairy."
"Huh! I guess there's no fairies on this island, either. Let's see if we can find an apple tree. I'd like an apple."
"So would I. But we mustn't eat green ones."
"Not if they're too green," agreed Teddy. "But a little green won't hurt."
They drove on, Nicknack trotting alongthe path through the woods, now and then stopping to nibble at the leaves. At last the children came to a beautiful shady spot, where many ferns grew beneath the trees, and it was so cool that they stopped their goat, tied him to an old stump and sat down to eat some cookies their mother had given them. The Curlytops nearly always became hungry when they were out on their little trips.
"Wouldn't it be funny," remarked Ted, after a bit, "if we should see a bear?"
"The-o-dore Martin!" gasped Janet. "I wish you'd keep quiet! It makes me scared to hear you say that."
"Well, I was only foolin'," and Teddy dropped a "g," a habit of which his mother was trying to break him. And he did not often forget.
"If I saw a bear," began Janet, "I'd just scream and——"
Suddenly she stopped because of a queer look she saw on her brother's face. Teddy dropped the cookie he had been about to bite, and, pointing toward a hollow log that lay not far off, said, in a hoarse whisper:
"Look, Jan! Itisa bear!"
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Fora moment after her brother had said this Janet did not speak. She, too, dropped the cookie she had just taken from the bag, and turned slowly around to see at what Teddy was pointing.
She was just in time to see something furry and reddish-brown in color dart into the hollow log, which was open at both ends. Then Jan gave a scream.
"Oh!" exclaimed Ted, who was as much frightened by Janet's shrill voice as he was at what he had seen. "Oh, Jan! Don't!"
"I—I couldn't help it," she answered. "I told you I'd scream if I saw a bear, and Ididsee one. It is a bear, isn't it, Teddy?"
"It is," he answered. "I saw it first. It's my bear!"
"You can have it—every bit of it," said Jan, quickly getting up from the mossy rockon which she had been sitting. "I don't want any of it, not even the stubby tail. I like to own half of Nicknack with you, but I don't want half a bear."
"Then I'll take all of it—it's my bear," went on Ted. "Where're you going, Jan?" he asked, as he saw his sister hurrying away.
"I'm going home. I don't like it here. I'm going to make Nicknack run home with me."
Teddy got up, too. He did not stop to pick up the cookie he had dropped.
"I—I guess I'll go with you, Jan," he said. "I guess my bear will stay in the log until I come back."
"Are you coming back?" asked Janet, as with trembling fingers she unfastened Nicknack's strap from around the stump to which he had been tied.
"I'm going to get grandpa to come back with me and shoot the bear," replied Ted. "I want his skin to make a rug. You know—like grandpa did with the bear his father shot."
Jan did not say anything. She got into the cart and turned the goat about, ready to leave the place. She gave a look over her shoulder at the hollow log into which she andTed had seen the furry, brown animal crawl. It did not seem to be coming out, and Jan was glad of that.
"Giddap, Nicknack!" she called to the goat, and as the animal started off Ted jumped into the wagon from behind.
"I wish I had a gun," he said.
"You're too little," declared Jan. "Oh, Ted! what if he should chase us? Was it an awful big bear? I didn't dare look much."
"It wasn't so very big."
"Was it as big as Nicknack?"
"Oh, bigger'n him—a lot."
"Oh!" and again Jan looked back over her shoulder. "I hope he doesn't chase us," she added.
"I'll fix him if he does!" threatened Ted. "I'll fix him!"
"How? You haven't any gun, and maybe you couldn't shoot it if you had, lessen maybe it was your Christmas pop gun."
"Pooh! Pop guns wouldn't be any good to shoot a bear! You've got to have real bullets. But I can fix this bear if he chases us," and Ted tried to look brave.
"How?" asked Jan again. She felt safer now, for Nicknack was going fast, and thehollow log, into which the furry animal had crawled, was out of sight.
"I'll make our goat buck the bear with his horns if he chases us, that's what I'll do!" declared Ted.
"Oh, that would be good!" exclaimed Jan in delight. "Nicknack is brave and his horns are sharp. 'Member how he stuck 'em in the fence one day?"
"Yes," answered Ted, "I do. And I'll get him to stick 'em in the bear if he comes too close. Giddap, Nicknack!" and Ted flicked the goat with the ends of the reins. I think he wanted the goat to go faster so there would be no danger of the bear's chasing after him and his sister. Perhaps Ted thought Nicknack might be afraid of the bear, even if the goat did have sharp horns.
The Curlytops were greatly excited when they reached the camp. Trouble was playing out in front and Grandpa Martin had just landed in the boat.
"What's that?" he cried, when he heard Ted's story. "A bear in a hollow log? Nonsense! There are no bears on Star Island."
"But I saw it, and so did Janet. Didn't you, Jan?" cried Ted.
"I saw something fuzzy with a big tailgoing inside the log," answered Teddy's sister.
"Then it couldn't have been a bear," laughed Grandpa Martin. "For a bear has only a little short, stubby tail. I'll go to see what it is. I think I know, however."
"What?" asked Mother Martin. "Don't go into any danger, Father."
"I won't," promised the farmer. "But I won't tell you what I think the animal is until I see it. I may be mistaken."
"Maybe it's a twamp," put in Trouble, who seemed to be thinking about them as much as Ted thought about the fallen star.
"Tramps aren't animals," laughed Jan.
"Furry animals, anyway," added Ted.
"Well, you stay here and I'll go see what it was," went on grandpa, and he started off toward the hollow log with a big club. He was not gone very long, and when he came back he was laughing, as he had the night before when Nicknack gave them a scare.
"Just as I thought!" cried the children's grandpa. "It was a big, red fox in the hollow log."
"And not a bear?" asked Ted.
"Not a bear, Curlytop! Only a fox that was more frightened by you than you wereby him, I guess. I knew it couldn't be a bear."
"How did you get it out of the log?" asked Jan.
"Oh, I just tapped on the log with my club, and Mr. Fox must have thought it was somebody knocking at his front door. For out he ran, looked at me with his bright eyes, and then away he ran into the woods. So you Curlytops needn't be afraid. The fox won't hurt you."
"I'm glad of that," said Jan. "Now let's go fishing, Ted."
"All right," he agreed.
"Can't you take Trouble with you?" asked his mother. "I want to help Nora and grandpa do a little work around the camp."
"Yes, we'll take him," agreed Jan. "But you mustn't put any salt in the water, Trouble, and scare the fish."
"I not do it. I tatch a fiss myself."
They gave him a pole and a line without any hook on it so he could not scratch himself, and then Jan and Ted sat down under a shady tree, not far from camp, to try to catch some fish.
They knew how, for their father had taught them, and soon Jan had landed agood-sized sunfish. A little later Ted caught a perch which had stripes on its sides, "like a zebra," as Jan said. After that Jan and Ted each caught two fish, and they soon had enough to cook.
"What do you Curlytops want me to do with these?" asked Nora, as the two children came along, laughing and shouting, with the fish dangling from strings each of them carried.
"Cook 'em, of course!" cried Teddy. "That's what we caught them for, Nora—to have you cook them."
"But won't they bite me?" asked the cook, pretending to be afraid.
"Oh, no! They can't!" explained Jan.
"They bit on our hooks, and now they can't bite any more, but we can bite them," said Teddy.
"Oh, would you bite the poor fish?" asked Nora.
For a moment the Curlytops did not know what to answer. Then Teddy replied:
"Oh, well, it can't hurt 'em to bite 'em after they're cooked, can it?"
"No, I guess not," laughed Nora, "no more than it can hurt a baked potato. Well, run along and I'll get the fish ready fordinner, or whatever you call the next meal. I declare, I'm so mixed up with this camping business that I hardly know breakfast from supper. But run along, and I'll fry the fish for you, anyhow."
"Let's go and take a walk," proposed Jan, when they had washed their hands in the tin basin that Mother Martin had set on a bench under a tree, with a towel and soap near by, for fish did leave such a funny smell on your hands, the little girl said.
"Where'll we walk to?" asked Teddy.
"Oh, let's go and look. Maybe we can find that cute little bunny we saw when we were looking for the den where the fox lived but didn't find him," proposed Jan.
"All right," answered Teddy, and they set off.
They had not gone very far before Teddy stopped near a bush and began to look about him.
"What's the matter?" asked his sister.
"Why, I saw a bird fly out of here," answered her brother, "and it seemed just as if it had a broken wing. It couldn't fly—hardly."
"Where is it?" asked Jan eagerly. "Maybe if we take it to mother she can fixthe wing. Once she mended a dog's broken leg, and he could walk 'most as good as ever when he got well, only he limped a little."
"But a dog can't fly," said Teddy.
"I know it," agreed Jan. "But if mother can mend a broken leg, she can fix a broken wing, can't she?"
"Maybe," admitted her brother. "Oh, there's the bird again, Jan! See how it flutters along!" and the little boy pointed to one that was dragging itself along over the ground as though its wings or legs were broken or hurt.
"Come on!" cried Teddy. "Maybe we can catch the bird, Jan!"
Brother and sister started after the little feathered songster, which was making a queer, chirping noise. Then Jan suddenly called:
"Oh, here's another!"
And, surely enough, there was a second bird acting almost as was the first—fluttering along, half hopping and half flying through the grass.
"We'll get 'em both!" yelled Teddy, and he and Jan hurried along. But, somehow or other, as soon as they came almost to theplace where they could reach out and touch one of the birds, which acted as though it could not go a bit farther, the little creature would manage to flutter on just beyond the eager hands of the children.
"That's funny!" exclaimed Teddy. "I almost had one of 'em that time!"
"So did I!" added Janet. "Now I'm sure I can get this one!" and she ran forward to grasp the fluttering bird, but it managed to hop along, just out of her reach.
The one Ted was after did the same thing, and for some time the children hurried on after the birds. At last the two songsters, with little chirps and calls, suddenly flew high in the air and circled back through the woods.
"Well, would you look at that!" cried Teddy, in surprise.
"They can fly, after all!" gasped Janet. "What d'you s'pose made 'em pretend they couldn't?"
"I—I guess they wanted to fool us," said her brother.
And that really was it. The little birds had built a nest in a low bush, close to the ground where the children could easily have reached it if they had seen it. And theywere very close to it, though their eyes had not spied it.
But the birds had seen the Curlytops and, fearing that Jan and Ted might take out the eggs in the nest, the wise little birds had pretended to be willing to let the boy and girl catch them instead of robbing the nest.
Of course, Jan and Ted wouldn't have done such a thing as that! But the birds knew no differently. Not all birds act this way—pretending to be hurt, or that they can't fly—to get people to chase after them, and so keep far away from the little nests. But this particular kind of bird always does that.
Some day, if you are in the woods or the fields, and see one bird—or two—acting in this queer way, as though it could not fly or walk, and as though it wanted you to hurry after it and try to catch it—if you see a bird acting that way you may be sure you are near its nest and eggs and this is the way the bird does to get you away.
"Let's look for their nest," suggested Teddy, when the two birds had flown far away, back through the woods.
"Oh, no," answered Jan. "We don't want to scare them. Maybe we can look atthe nest of a bird that won't mind if we watch her feeding her little ones."
And, a little later, they came to a bush in which was a robin's nest. In it were some tiny birds, and, by standing on their tiptoes, and bending the nest down a little way, the Curlytops could look in. The baby birds, which had only just begun to grow feathers, opened their mouths as wide as they could, thinking, I suppose, that Jan and Ted had worms or bugs for them.
But the children did not have.
"Your mother will soon be along to feed you," said Janet, and soon the mother bird did come flying back from the field. She seemed afraid at first, when she saw how close Jan and Ted were to her nest, but the children soon walked away, and then the robin fed her young.
Ted and Jan had a nice walk through the woods and then they went back to camp.
"We'll take Trouble for a walk, so mother won't have to look after him so much," said Janet. "Come, Trouble!"
"Show me where the fox was," begged Baby William, and Ted and Jan turned their steps that way. But there was no sign of the big-tailed animal in the hollow log,though the children pounded on it as Grandpa Martin said he had done.
Then they wandered on a little farther in the beautiful woods. Jan saw some flowers she wanted to gather, and leaving the path where Ted stood to take care of his little brother, she began picking a handful.
Janet saw so many pretty blossoms that she went a little farther than she meant to, and, before she knew it, she had lost sight of her two brothers, though she could hear them talking.
Suddenly, after crawling through some bushes, Jan found herself on another path. On the other side of it she saw some black-eyed Susans.
"Oh, I must get some of them!" she cried.
She darted across the path, and, as she was about to pick the flowers, she saw, standing behind a big tree, a man who had on very ragged clothes. He looked at Jan, who dropped her bouquet and gasped:
"Oh! Oh, dear!"
The ragged man looked at Janet and smiled. But Jan did not smile. One thought only was in her mind.
"Here is one of the tramps!"