The Curlytops on Star Island/Chapter 10

what had happened to her brother, Jan hurried on toward the place from which his voice came. It sounded more than ever as if he were down a cellar.

"But there can't be any cellars in these woods," thought the little girl.

"Where are you, Teddy?" she called after a bit. "I can't see you!"

"Here I am, right behind you!" was the answer, and Jan, turning quickly, saw the head of her brother sticking up out of a hole in the ground.

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Ted's sister. "Where's the rest of you? Where's your legs and your feet?"

"Down in the hole," explained Teddy. "I'm in the cave. I fell in. That's how I found it."

"Is it a real cave?" asked Janet.

"It is. It goes away back under the ground, only I didn't go in 'cause it's so dark. I'm going to get a light and see what's there."

"I'm not!" said Jan, very decidedly.

"Well, then I'll get grandpa. Maybe this is the cave where the tramps live. Come and look where I am. You won't fall in."

"How did you find it?" asked Janet, as she walked toward the hole, down in which Teddy was standing. It was a little way from the path the two Curlytops had walked along through the woods the path leading from the spring.

"I just fell in it, I told you," Ted answered. "I was walking along, and, all at once, I slipped down through the dried leaves. First I thought I was going down in a big hole, but it isn't over my head and a lot of leaves went down with me, so I didn't get jounced hardly at all."

Jan went to the edge and looked down in the hole. It seemed to be a large one in between two big rocks, and Ted showed her where the hole slanted downward and went farther underground. It was dark there, and Jan made up her mind she would never go into it, even if Ted did.

"You'd better come up," she said at last. "Maybe mother wouldn't like it. Besides, there might be snakes down in there."

"Oh! I didn't think about them!" exclaimed Ted, and he tried to scramble up, but it was not so easy as he had hoped. He was a little excited, too, since Janet Had spoken of snakes. Teddy did not like them, and they might be in among the leaves that had fallen down into the hole with him.

"Can't you get up?" Jan asked, when her brother had slipped back two or three times.

"Maybe I could if you'd let me take hold of your hand," suggested Teddy.

"Then you'd pull me in, and we'd both be down there."

Ted saw that this was so. He tried again to get out, but could not, for mixed with the leaves were many dry, brown pine needles from the trees growing overhead; and if you have ever been in the woods you know how slippery pine needles are when the ground is covered with them. Teddy slipped back again and again.

"Oh, Ted! can't you ever get up?" asked Janet, almost ready to cry.

"Oh. I'll get out somehow," he said. Then dangling down from a tree behind his sister, he saw a long wild grapevine, which was almost like a piece of rope.

"If I had hold of that I could pull myself out," Teddy said. "See if you can reach it to me, Jan."

After two or three trials his sister did this. Then, holding to a loose end of the grapevine while the other end was twined fast round a tree, Teddy pulled himself out of the hole. Once on firm ground he made the loose end of the grapevine fast to a stone that lay near the edge of the hole.

"What made you do that?"" asked Janet.

"So the next time I get down there I can pull myself out," Teddy answered.

"Are you going down there again?" Jan queried.

"'Course I am!" declared Ted. "I didn't half look in the cave. It's a big place. I could see in only a little way, 'cause it was so dark. I'm goin' to tell grandpa and have him bring a lantern."

Grandpa Martin was surprised when Ted and Jan told him what they had found in the woods.

"I didn't suppose there was a cave on the island," said the farmer. "I must have a look at it."

"And may I come? And will you take a lantern?" asked Teddy eagerly.

"Well, yes, I guess so," said grandpa slowly.

"Oh, Father, do you think it is safe?" asked Mrs. Martin.

"Yes, I think so. I won't go very far in with the children. It may be only the den of a fox or some small animal, and not a real cave."

"I think it's a big cave," declared Ted. "Come on, Grandpa."

"Me come!" cried Trouble, as the two Curlytops set off with Grandpa Martin through the woods, toward the place where Teddy had fallen down with the pile of leaves. "Me come!"

"No, you stay with me," laughed Mother Martin, catching him up in her arms. Trouble did not want to stay behind, not having been with his brother and sister of late as much as he wished. "We'll bake a patty-cake!" Mrs. Martin added, and then Trouble laughed, for he liked to help Nora bake. That is, he thought he helped. And at least he helped to eat what Nora took out of the oven.

"Now show me where the cave is," said Grandpa Martin to Ted, as they neared the place. "But be careful not to fall into it again."

"Oh, I've got a grapevine rope so I can pull myself out," said Jan's brother. "Here it is, over this way."

Teddy Martin was an observing little fellow. He could find his way around in the woods very well, once he had been to a place, and he did not go wrong this time. He led his grandfather right to the entrance of the cave.

And it proved to be a real cave. Grandpa Martin found this out when he jumped down into the place where Teddy had fallen, and when the lantern had been lighted and flashed into the dark hole.

"Yes, it's a cave all right," the children's grandfather said. "And to think the many times I've been on this island I never found it! Well, I'll go in a little way."

"Can't I come?" asked Ted, as he saw his grandfather start into the dark hole which spread out from the open place into which Ted had fallen.

"I'm not coming," declared Janet, "and I don't want to stay here all alone."

"You stay there with your sister, Curlytop," directed Mr. Martin. "If I find out it's all right and is safe, I'll come back and take you both in a little way."

Grandpa Martin walked into the dark hole, his lantern flickering like a firefly at night. The Curlytops watched it until they could no longer see the gleam. Then they waited expectantly.

"Maybe somethin'll grab grandpa," said Jan, after a bit.

"What?" asked Ted.

"A fox—or somethin'!"

"Pooh, he isn't afraid of a fox!"

"Well, a bear, maybe!"

"There isn't any bears here, Janet Martin! I'm not afraid."

Perhaps Ted said this because, just then, he saw his grandfather coming out of the cave. The farmer had not been gone very long.

"Is it a cave?" called Ted.

"A sure-enough one!" added his sister.

"Yes, it's a sure-enough cave. But there's nothing in it."

"No wild animals?" Jan demanded.

"Not even a mouse, as far as I could see," laughed Mr, Martin. "But some one had been in the cave eating his lunch."

"Maybe there was a picnic, Grandpa," suggested Ted.

"No, I think only one or two persons were in the big hole," said his grandfather. "For it is a big hole, larger than I thought it was. I could stand up straight once I was inside."

"Take us in!" begged Ted.

"Yes, I think it will be all right. Come along, Jan. I'll hold your hand, and there isn't anything of which to be afraid. Come on!"

So Janet and Teddy went into the cave. By the light of grandpa's lantern they could see that it was a large place, a regular underground house—a cave just like those of which they had read in fairy stories.

"And was there somebody here, really?" asked Ted eagerly.

"Yes," answered his grandfather. "See. Here are bits of bread scattered about, and papers in which some one brought his lunch here."

"Maybe it was the tramps," whispered Janet.

"Maybe," agreed Mr. Martin. "I must have another look over the island."

There was not much else in the cave that they could see with the one lantern. Grandpa Martin wanted to look about more, and back in the far corners, but he did not like to take the children along, and Jan held tightly to his hand as if she feared she would lose him.

"I'll come here alone some other time, and see what I can find," thought Grandpa Martin to himself, as they came out.

"I don't like it in there," said Jan, once they were again out in the sunshine. "I don't like caves."

"I do," declared Ted. "When Hal Chester comes to visit me, as he said he would, he and I will look all through this cave."

"Is Hal coming?" asked Jan, remembering the boy, once lame but now cured, who had played with them and told them about Princess Blue Eyes.

"Yes, mother asked him to come and spend a week, and he said he would. We'll have some fun in the cave."

"What do you suppose the big hole can be?" asked Mrs. Martin, when Grandpa Martin and the children reached camp after their visit to the strange place.

"I don't know," he answered. "It doesn't seem to have been dug with picks and shovels. It's just a natural cave I guess, and some fishermen may have eaten their lunch there one day when it rained. But there is no one in it now."

Ted and Jan talked much about the cave the rest of that day. They went for a ride in the wagon drawn by Nicknack, taking Trouble with them. On their way back Jan said:

"Oh, I wish I had a swing."

"It would be fun," agreed Ted. "Maybe I can make one."

"You'll have to get a rope," said his sister. "Grandpa is going to row over in the boat to-morrow. Ask him to bring us one."

"No, he don't need to bring us a rope," went on her brother.

"Why not?"

"'Cause I can get a rope in the woods."

"A rope in the woods? Oh, Teddy Martin, you can not! Ropes don't grow on trees."

"The kind I mean does," answered Ted with a laugh. "Wait and I'll show you. "

When Nicknack had been put in the new stable which Grandpa Martin had built for him, Teddy, followed by Jan and Trouble, walked a little way into the woods. Ted carried with him a piece of old carpet.

"What's that for?" his sister asked.

"For a swing board," he answered.

"But where's the swing rope?"

"Here!" cried Ted suddenly. He pointed to a long wild grapevine, which hung dangling between two trees, around which it was twined. The vine was a very long one, and as thick around as the piece Teddy had used to pull himself out of the hole near the cave. It did seem like a regular swing.

"Well—maybe," murmured Jan.

"Now we can have some fun!" cried Ted. He folded the piece of carpet and laid it over the grapevine. Then he sat down, gave a push on the ground with his feet, and away he swung as nicely as though he was in a regular swing, made with a rope from the store.

"Oh, how nice!" cried Janet. "Let me try it, Teddy."

"Wait till I see if it's strong enough."

He swung back and forward several more times and then let his sister try it. She, too, swayed to and fro in the grapevine swing, which was in a shady place in the woods. Then Trouble, who had seen what was going on, cried:

"I want to swing, too! I want to swing!"

"I'll take you on my lap," offered Janet, and this she did.

"Ill push you," offered Teddy, and he gave his sister and his baby brother a long push in the grapevine swing.

But, just as they were going nicely and Trouble was laughing in delight, there was a sudden cracking sound and Janet cried:

"Oh, I'm falling! I'm falling! The swing is coming down!"

And that is just what happened.