CHAPTER IXAT THE FARM
Whilethe young Curlytops did not think much about the missing albums, they could see that their father was worried because he had not got them back from Mr. Portnay. And anything that worried their father and mother also worried Ted and Janet.
For they could see that Mr. Martin was bothered by the failure to meet the moving picture actor and get back from him the box his man had taken by mistake, thinking it contained false hair, false beards and make-up paint.
“What are you going to do?” Mrs. Martin asked her husband.
“I hardly know,” was his answer.
“Can’t you telephone or telegraph on ahead to Cub Mountain and ask him to wait for us, or to leave the box of albums where we can get it when we arrive there to-morrow?” Mrs. Martin asked.
“I might do that if I knew where to send a telegram or where to telephone to Mr. Portnay,” answered her husband. “That’s what I should have done here—sent a telegram to that actor at this hotel. He would have received it and have left the box here for me. But I didn’t think of that; so he has gone on, taking my box with him. Very likely, he doesn’t even know he has it; he is so busy making this picture.”
“You say you can’t reach him at Cub Mountain?” Mrs. Martin inquired.
“No, the people at this hotel say Cub Mountain is only a small settlement, and that there isn’t even a hotel there. If the moving picture company doesn’t set up a camp, Mr. Portnay will probably stop with some friends or in a private boarding house. There may be telephones in some houses or cabins at Cub Mountain, but there is no telegraph station there. The only thing to do will be to go on there.”
“Now?” asked Ted, who was getting hungry and who looked at the Midvale hotel with longing eyes.
“Oh, no, we won’t go on now,” replied his father. “We’ll stay here for the night and travel on to Cub Mountain in the morning.The roads aren’t any too good. I want to travel them by daylight. Well, you may as well get out and come in,” he told his wife and children.
While Mrs. Martin was signing her name to the hotel register, she listened to her husband talking to the clerk about the moving picture actor.
“Yes, he was here,” the clerk said; “he and a number of his company. But the crowd stayed only to eat and then went on. I heard one of them say they had a lot of scenes to take at Cub Mountain, and they wanted to start the work early in the morning.”
“Did you see Mr. Portnay have a reddish brown box, about so large?” inquired Mr. Martin, showing the size of the little chest containing the albums.
“No, he didn’t bring in any baggage,” was the answer.
“Then it’s probably still in his car,” said the Curlytops’ father. “I hope I can get it back to-morrow.”
They went up to their rooms, Ted and his father having one, with two beds in it, while Mrs. Martin took Janet and Trouble in with her.
“Better get ready to eat, children,” suggested their father, as he noticed Ted and Janet looking from the windows out across the country, for Midvale was on the side of a hill from which a good view could be had.
Mrs. Martin washed Trouble, and put clean clothes on him from the supply carried in the valises, and thus he was first ready to go down to the dining room. When neither his father nor his mother noticed him he wandered out into the hall.
Mr. and Mrs. Martin were ready to go down, and so were Ted and Janet, when Trouble’s mother looked around for him.
“Where’s William?” she asked.
“I saw him go out into the hall,” answered Ted. “I’ll get him.”
As he opened the door to go into the hall, the others following, they heard the tinkle of broken glass, and then, directly afterward, a bell began to ring.
Instantly, throughout the hotel, which was not a very large one, there was a great commotion. The elevator shot up to the floor where the Martin family stood and the colored boy in the cage cried:
“Come on! Git in! Ah’ll take yo’ all down ’fore de place burns!”
“Before the place burns? What do you mean?” asked Mr. Martin. “The hotel isn’t burning!”
“Yes, ’tis!” cried the colored elevator lad, his eyes big with fright. “Doan yo’ all hear de ’larm!”
“I do hear a bell ringing!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin.
There was more commotion in the hotel, and several guests began running from their rooms, carrying bags and clothing. It began to look as if there was a fire, but there was no appearance of flames, nor could Mrs. Martin smell smoke.
Then Ted exclaimed:
“It was Trouble! He sent in a false alarm! Trouble pulled the fire alarm! Look!”
He pointed to the little fellow who was climbing down from a chair in the hall. The chair was some distance down the corridor, and near a small red box fast to the wall.
In a moment Mr. Martin understood. He had seen these fire signal stations in various places about the hotel. In front of a small iron box was a sheet of glass, and hanging down from the box by a chain was a little iron hammer. Directions on the box saidto break the glass with the hammer and pull down the hook inside, which could only be reached when the glass was smashed.
“Trouble smashed the glass and pulled the hook!” cried Ted.
“I heard some glass break,” added Janet.
Mr. Martin ran down the hall to the small boy, who stood near the chair. On the carpet were pieces of shattered glass.
“Trouble, did you do this?” cried his father.
“I—now—I jist hit the glass a little wif de hammer and it did break,” confessed William. “Den I pulled on de button hook!”
“Well, you did more than that!” exclaimed his father, with a grim laugh. “You sent in the alarm when you pulled the hook. There’s no danger, my friends!” he called to the guests who were crowding out into the corridor. “There’s no fire. It was a false alarm! I shall have to punish my little boy for breaking the glass and sending in a false alarm.”
“Oh, don’t punish him!” murmured a lady, who in running from her room had caught up a canary bird in a cage and a pairof old slippers. She hardly knew what she was doing in the excitement.
“No, he didn’t mean to do it,” said a man. Trouble, by this time, knew he had done something dreadful, and was crying behind his mother’s skirts.
Luckily, the alarm Trouble caused to be sent in was only a private one, just in the hotel itself. It did not bring the Midvale fire department out, for word went to the clerk downstairs that there was no danger and he did not call out the engines or hook and ladder apparatus.
So, after all, little harm was done, except to cause some excitement and fright among the hotel guests. But this soon passed, and when the Martins went to the dining room a little later, every one looked at Trouble as a guest of some importance.
“But don’t ever do it again!” his mother warned him.
“No’m, I won’t,” he promised.
The broken glass was swept up by one of the chambermaids, and a new sheet put in front of the hook in the fire alarm box.
That evening after dinner Mr. Martin took his family to the moving picture theater near the hotel. You can imagine howsurprised they were when one of the pictures proved to have been made by Mr. Portnay’s company, and he himself took a large part in it.
There, on the screen, the children saw the very man they had watched act in the green meadow that morning. Ned Weldon, the cowboy actor with whom the children had talked, was in it, too. Of course these were not the scenes they had watched being filmed, for that picture was far from being finished. But it was very exciting to see the people they had so recently watched.
“I wish Portnay were here in person instead of only in the movies,” remarked Mr. Martin, as they left the theater. “I’d ask him for those rare albums. But I suppose we shall have to wait until we meet him at Cub Mountain.”
The next morning, after a quiet night, the Curlytops resumed their tour, and made a safe trip to Cub Mountain, on which was a small country settlement. The scenery was just wild enough to be the right background for moving pictures.
“Where are you going to inquire about Mr. Portnay?” asked Mrs. Martin, as her husband stopped his car on what appearedto be the only, as well as the main, street of the village.
“Right here in the post-office,” he answered, for it was in front of the post-office that they had stopped. “They’ll know here about the moving picture people, I guess.”
But again Mr. Martin was doomed to disappointment. For when he inquired of the postmaster that official said:
“Yes, there was a company of movie people here. But that was early this morning—about three hours ago, I reckon.”
“Have they left?” asked Mr. Martin, wishing he had made an earlier start.
“Yes, they went on to the Dawson Farm. They’re going to film some scenes there, so I heard ’em say.”
“Where is the Dawson Farm?” asked Mr. Martin.
“About ten miles from here. Keep straight on and you can’t miss it. It’s a big place—old-fashioned white farmhouse, red barns, and all that. Just the thing for movies, I reckon.”
“Thank you, I’ll go there,” said Mr. Martin, and when he rejoined his family he said to his wife:
“This Portnay actor keeps me on thejump. I wish he’d stay in one place long enough for me to get back those albums.”
“You’ll very likely catch him at the farm,” said Mrs. Martin. “But perhaps it would be as well to telephone from here and say you are coming.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” the Curlytops’ father said.
He went back into the post-office, where he had noticed a telephone on the wall. But when he asked if he could use it to send a message to the Dawson Farm the postmaster smiled and said:
“Well, you’re welcome to use it as far as I’m concerned, but you can’t get Dawson’s Farm on that machine.”
“Haven’t they a telephone?” Mr. Martin wanted to know.
“Oh, yes, they have a ’phone. But this one here is out of order and it won’t work. I’ve sent for a feller to fix it, but he hasn’t come.”
“Is there another telephone here?” asked Mr. Martin.
“No, this is the only one, and this is out of order. I’m sorry!”
“I’m sorry, too,” Mr. Martin answered. “I’d like to get a message through to Dawson’sFarm, so Mr. Portnay won’t again leave and take my box with him.”
However, there was nothing to do but to hurry on to the farm as fast as they could go. The postmaster explained that the place was a real farm, not one for moving picture purposes, though scenes were frequently filmed there, as many farm animals were ready to be photographed as a background for the actors and actresses.
“It’s just like a game, isn’t it, Daddy?” said Teddy.
“Like hide-and-seek,” added Janet, giggling.
“Maybe,” agreed Mr. Martin. “But I don’t like playing the game very much.”
Down off Cub Mountain drove Mr. Martin with his auto load of family, and after rather a bumpy trip over rough roads he turned onto a firm, smooth highway and soon they read a sign which said it was but one mile to Dawson’s Farm.
“There it is!” cried Ted, a few minutes later, as they made a turn in the road. Before them lay the big farm and buildings spoken of by the Cub Mountain postmaster. And, as the Martins drew nearer, Janet cried:
“I see the movie people! There they are!”
She pointed to a number of persons, some on horses and others on foot, who were, undoubtedly, some of the same ones they had watched in the green meadow.
“Now I’ll get those albums back,” said Mr. Martin.