CHAPTER IDOWN THE WELL

THE CURLYTOPSTOURING AROUNDCHAPTER IDOWN THE WELL

THE CURLYTOPSTOURING AROUND

“Comeon, Jan! Now will be a good time to try it!”

“All right, Ted. But are you sure it will be safe?”

“Course I am! Why, it’s a big rope and I’m not very heavy, Jan.”

“I know that. But s’posing I shouldn’t be able to pull you up again?”

“Well, I could get up by a ladder, I guess. Come on now before Trouble comes out to bother us. He’s in the house with mother and we have a good chance now.”

Two children, a boy and a girl, each with clustering curls on their heads, darted down a path, around the house, and ran toward the apple orchard at the rear.

Ted Martin’s hair was darker than that of his sister Janet, but the locks of each were so clustered on their heads that the children were more often called “Curlytops,” than their right name.

Now the curly tops of the brother and sister were bobbing about as they ran along, intent on having what they called “fun,” though, as you will soon see, it developed into mischief. But that, as Ted said afterward, wasn’t their fault.

“I’m glad Trouble is in the house,” remarked Jan, as she hastened along beside her brother.

“So’m I,” answered Ted. “William is a good little boy, but when you want to do something he always wants to do something else.”

“Always,” agreed Janet, with a wise shake of her head.

From this you may know that “Trouble” was only the jolly nickname of the small brother of Ted and Janet. Mother Martin used to call him “Dear Trouble” when he upset a glass of milk on the table or shoved his plate to the floor. Daddy Martin used to speak of William as a “Bunch of Trouble” when he had to drop his paper andrush out, perhaps to pull the little fellow’s head loose from between the fence pickets, where, possibly, he had thrust it.

Ted and Janet called their little brother simply “Trouble” and let it go at that.

The two older children had been playing in the front yard of their home when Ted had suddenly thought of a trick he had been wanting to try for a long while. He had a strange idea in his head, and he needed the help of Janet to carry it out. Now seemed a good time.

It was the beginning of the long vacation from school, and though the Martin family expected to go away for the summer, plans had not yet been made.

So Jan and Ted were amusing themselves as best they could until, tiring of “playing store,” into Ted’s head had popped his big idea.

“Wait a minute now, Jan!” cautioned Ted, as they neared the back of the house and could look over toward the apple orchard. It wasn’t a very large orchard, but there were enough trees to call it by that name. Though, as yet, the season being early, only green apples were on the branches.

“What’s the matter—aren’t you going to do it?” Jan wanted to know, as her brother put out a hand and detained her behind a screening bush.

“Course I’m going to do it!” he declared. “But I want to look and see if Patrick isn’t there. Patrick maybe wouldn’t let me do it.”

“That’s so,” agreed Janet. “And if Nora saw us, she maybe wouldn’t let us, either.”

“No,” said Ted, in a low voice. He looked carefully out from the fringe of the bush, but saw neither Patrick, who did odd jobs about the Martin place, nor Nora, the cook; so the coast was clear.

“Come on, Jan!” Ted whispered.

“Oh, I—I’m almost getting scairt!” whispered the little girl, as she and her brother neared the scene of their latest trick.

“Pooh! Silly! What’s to be scared of?” asked Ted. “Come on!”

Thus teased, Janet took her brother’s hand for a quick dash across the open space to the shelter of the orchard. Suddenly, when the children were halfway over the little space, they heard their names called:

“Ted! Jan! Where are you? Comehere! Mother says you have to ’muse me! Come on!”

“It’s Trouble!” gasped Janet.

“And we’ve got to amuse him!” sighed Ted. “Oh, jinkity jinks!”

He kicked the sand at his feet peevishly.

“Come on! Let’s make believe we didn’t hear him. He hasn’t seen us and we can hide from him.”

Janet was about to agree to this, but Trouble was smarter than either of the older ones gave him credit for. He had run on after his first call, and now he stood where he could look full at Ted and Jan.

“I see you!” he laughed. “You playin’ hide-an’-find? Anyhow, mother says you have to ’muse me! Go on! ’Muse me!”

Mrs. Martin often, when she was tired of looking after William or when she had to do something else, would call to the other children:

“Come and amuse Trouble!”

Nearly always Jan or Ted would be glad to do this. But now they had something else they wanted to do.

“Too late!” sighed Ted. “We can’t skip away from him now.”

“No, if we did he’d tell mother,” agreedJanet. “Oh, I know what we can let him do! He can do it all alone, too, so we can go to the diamond mine!” she added.

“What?” asked Ted, to whom the reference to a “diamond mine,” did not seem strange. That was part of the game they were going to play.

“I’ll get the sifter we were using when we played store, and I’ll let Trouble sift a lot of sand and tell him to pick out all the stones,” suggested the little girl. “That will keep him amused a long while.”

“Yes, I guess it will,” stated Ted.

“You playin’ hide-an’-find?” asked Trouble again. This was his name for the game of hide-and-seek.

“No, we aren’t playing that, Trouble dear,” said Jan, with more sweetness than usual in her voice. She wanted to be nice to her little brother so he would be satisfied to play by himself.

“You goin’ to ’muse me?” demanded the little fellow.

“Sure we are!” exclaimed Ted. “I’ll get the sifter,” he told Janet. “You keep him here a minute.”

“Come here and I’ll tell you a little story,” offered Janet.

“I’m comin’,” Trouble announced, as he toddled to his sister. She kept him amused until Ted came running back with the sieve which, a little while before, he and Janet had borrowed from Nora in the kitchen so they could use it in sifting sand, which they pretended was sugar in their play store.

Near the spot where Trouble had so unexpectedly found his brother and sister was some clean sand, and it was this that Janet had thought William could be induced to play with, while she and her brother went on with their own plans.

And, for once at least, Trouble did just what was wanted of him.

“See the nice sand, Trouble,” murmured Janet. “Look, you put it in this sifter and you jiggle it and all the nice little sand falls through. The big stones and little stones stay inside. Then you pick out all the stones and put them in a pile and you sift more sand. See!”

“Yep, I see,” murmured Trouble. “Let me shift sand.”

Janet gave him the sieve and filled it for him. He moved it to and fro and a little pile of fine sand grew in the shape of a pyramid.Trouble looked at the stones left in the sieve.

“What I do wif these?” he asked.

“Put ’em in a pile and then we’ll make believe they’re raisins and we’ll stick ’em in mud pies,” said Ted.

“Oh, I like to make mud pies!” cried Trouble, with shining eyes.

“Yes, but not now! Not now! After a while!” cried Janet quickly, for the little fellow seemed ready to drop the sieve. “What did you want to say that for?” she asked Ted, in a whisper. “You’ll spoil everything! Leave it to me!”

“Oh, all right,” mumbled Ted. “Go ahead! As soon as you can leave him alone come on over to the old well.”

“All right,” answered Janet. “Now, Trouble,” she went on, as she filled the sifter again, “shake this out and pick out all the stones. Put the big ones in a pile by themselves and the little ones in a pile by themselves.”

“Den we make mud pies,” laughed Trouble.

“I guess so—yes—maybe,” murmured Janet, who did not want to be too sure on this point. “Now you play here, Trouble,and don’t go away, will you?” she asked, as she prepared to follow Ted.

“Trouble stay here and shift sand,” gravely promised the little fellow. “But where you goin’, Jan?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, just over here a little way,” she answered. “I’ll soon be back. Now sift a lot of sand, Trouble, and pick out all the stones.”

“Aw right—I shift sand.”

He was having fun now, being “’mused” as his mother had told him he would be, and he did not much care what Ted or Janet did—at least for a while.

“Is he all right?” asked Ted, as his sister joined him under an apple tree where an old well had been dug.

“Yes, I guess he’ll stay there until we play diamond mine a while,” said Janet. “But are you sure it will be all right, Ted?”

“Sure I am. I’ll just step on the bucket and hold to the rope, and all you’ll have to do is to keep hold of the handle and let it unwind slowly. Then I’ll go down in the well and we’ll play it’s a diamond mine.”

“But how you going to get up again, Ted?” his sister asked.

“Why, you can wind up the handle just as you unwound it, can’t you? It’ll be like pulling up a bucket of water when there used to be water in the well. That’s how I’ll get up.”

“Oh, I see! All right.”

The Curlytops ran over toward the old well, which had not been used for a number of years, the water having seeped out of it, so that the well was dry. But the curbing, the windlass, the bucket, and the rope were still in place, and they had given Ted the idea for playing diamond mine. He had seen some pictures of miners going down a hole in the ground by means of a bucket and rope, and had got the idea that diamonds were thus secured.

The reason Ted and Janet had not, before this, played at the old well, was because they did not know it existed. It was on some land next to their house which Mr. Martin had recently bought. And, learning there was an old well on it, the children’s father had decided to do away with it, for it might be dangerous, even if there was no water in it, for it was about thirty feet deep.

The first step in doing away with the old well had been to have Patrick clear awaythe weeds around it. Then the curbing was to have been taken away and the well filled up. But when Patrick had cut down the weeds he was called to other tasks, and so the old well stood plainly revealed.

Ted and Janet had discovered it, and then into Ted’s mind had come the idea of going down into the dry well. He had tested the rope, with its bucket and windlass, and found that it worked.

“Now, Jan,” said her brother, when they were at the well, with no one near to stop their mischievous play, “I’ll climb up and stand on the bucket. You keep hold of the handle and let it unwind slowly. I don’t want to go down too fast, you know.”

“No, I guess you don’t,” agreed Jan.

“After I get down to the bottom I’ll make believe dig diamonds,” went on Ted. “Then you can twist the handle the other way and pull me up. After that I’ll let you go down.”

“I don’t want to go down!” said Jan quickly, after one look into the black depths of the well. “You can go. I don’t want to.”

“All right,” agreed Ted cheerfully. “I’ll go down twice. Now get ready.”

He climbed the well curbing and put one foot on the edge of the bucket, which was a little way below the top of the curbing, or elevated wooden rim about the well. The rope was wound around a wooden roller, or windlass, to the end of which a crank was made fast. And there was a ratchet catch to prevent the rope from unwinding and letting the bucket down into the well until such time as the person drawing was ready. This catch now prevented Ted from dropping down into the well.

The curly-haired little boy steadied himself on the edge of the bucket by holding to the rope above his head. He looked down into the well. It was deep and black, but there was no water in it, so Ted did not hesitate.

“All right, Jan! Let me down!” he called to his sister.

Already he was a little way down the shaft of the well, for the rope was partly unwound and the bucket perhaps two feet below the top of the curbing when Ted took his place.

Janet loosened the catch of the windlass and then, holding to the handle with all her strength, let it slowly revolve. It wouldhave gotten out of control, and would have whirled around very fast, for Ted was much heavier than a bucket of water, only the affair was old, rusted and stiff. So, after all, Ted was quite safely lowered.

Down and down he went into the black depths of the old, dry well.

“It’s lots of fun, Jan!” he called up. “You’d better come down next time!”

“I don’t want to. You can,” answered his sister.

“Now I’m all the way down. I’m standing on the bottom!” called up Ted. “I’m going to dig for diamonds!”

Jan could see that there was no longer a strain on the rope. The handle turned freely. Suddenly it gave a little quiver, Jan saw the rope slip loose from around the windlass and then, as the end of it fell down the well, the little girl screamed:

“Oh, Ted! Ted! Oh, something dreadful happened!”

Back to IndexNext