The Curlytops on Star Island/Chapter 11

a crackle and a snap the grapevine swing sagged down on one side. Janet tried to hold Trouble in her arms, but he slipped from her lap, just as she slipped off the piece of carpet which Ted had folded for the seat of the swing. Then Janet toppled down as the vine broke, and she and her little brother came together in a heap on the ground.

"Oh!" exclaimed Ted. "Are you hurt?"

Neither Jan nor Trouble answered him for a moment. Then Baby William began to cry. Jan lay still on the ground for a second or two, and then she jumped up with a laugh.

"I'm not hurt a bit!" she said. "I fell right in a pile of leaves, and it was like jouncing up and down in the hay."

"What's the matter with Trouble?" asked Ted.

Baby William kept on crying.

"Never mind!" put in Jan. "Sister'll kiss it and make it all better! Where is you hurt, Trouble dear?"

The little fellow stopped crying and looked up at Jan, his eyes filled with tears

"My posy-tree is hurted," he said, holding a broken flower out to his sister. "Swing broked my posy-tree!"

Trouble called any weed, flower or bunch of grass he happened to pick a "posy-tree."

"Oh, I guess he isn't hurt," remarked Teddy. "If it's only a broken posy-tree I'll get you another," he said kindly. "Are you all right, Trouble? Can you stand up?" for he feared, after all, lest Baby William's legs might have been hurt, since they were doubled up under him.

Trouble showed he was all right by getting up and walking about. He had stopped crying, and Ted and Jan could see that he, too. had fallen on a pile of soft leaves near the swing, so he was only "jiggled up," as Jan called it.

One side of the grapevine swing had torn loose from the tree, and thus it had come down with Jan and Trouble.

"I guess it wasn't strong enough for two, said Ted. "Maybe I can find another grapevine."

"I'd like a rope swing better," Janet said. "Then it wouldn't tumble down."

"I guess that's so," agreed her brother. "We'll ask grandpa to get one."

Grandpa Martin laughed when he heard what had happened to the grapevine swing, and promised to make a real one of rope for the Curlytops. This he did a day or so afterward, so that Ted and Jan had a fine swing in their camp on Star Island, as well as one at Cherry Farm. They were two very fortunate children, I think, to have such a grandfather.

"Where are you going now. Grandpa?" called Jan one day, as she saw the farmer getting the boat ready for use.

"I'm going over to the mainland to get some things for our camp," answered Mr. Martin. "They came from a big store in some boxes and crates, and they're at the railroad station. I'm going over to get them. Do you Curlytops want to come along?"

"Well, I just guess we do!" cried Ted.

"Me want to come!" begged Trouble.

"Not this time, Dear," said his mother. "You stay with me, and we will have some fun. Let Jan and Ted go."

Trouble was going to cry, but when Nora gave him a cookie he changed his mind and ate the little cake instead, though I think one or two tears splotched down on it and made it a bit salty. But Trouble did not seem to mind.

Ted and Jan had lots of fun riding back in the boat to the main shore with their grandfather. When the boat was almost at the dock Mr. Martin let the two children take hold of one of the oars and help him row. Of course the Curlytops could not pull very much, but they did pretty well, and it helped them to know how a boat is made to go through the water, when it has no steam engine or gasolene motor to make it glide along, or sails on which the wind can blow to push it.

"You can't know too much about boats and the water, especially when you are camping on an island in the middle of a lake," said Grandpa Martin. "When you get bigger, Ted and Jan, you 11 be able to row a boat all by yourselves."

"Maybe day after to-morrow," suggested Jan.

"I wish I could now," said Ted.

"Oh, but you're too small!" his grandfather said.

The boat was tied to the wharf, and then, getting an expressman to go to the depot for the boxes and crates, Mr. Martin took the children with him on the wagon.

"We're having lots of fun!" cried Jan, as the horse trotted along. "We're camping and we had a ride in a boat and now we're having a ride in a wagon."

"Lots of fun!" agreed Ted. "I'm glad we've got grandpa!"

"And grandpa is glad he has you two Curlytops to go camping with him!" laughed the farmer, as the expressman made his horse go faster.

At the depot, while the children were waiting to have the boxes and crates of things for the camp loaded into the wagon, Ted saw Arthur Weldon, a boy with whom he sometimes played.

"Hello, Art! "called Ted.

"Hello!" answered Arthur. "I thought you were camping on Star Island."

"We are," answered Teddy.

"It doesn't look so!" laughed Arthur, or "Art," as most of his boy friends called him.

"Well, we just came over to get some things. There's grandpa and the expressman with them now," went on Ted, as the two men came from the freight house with a number of bundles.

"I wish I was camping," went on the other boy. "It isn't any fun around here."

"You can come over to see us sometimes," invited Jan. "I'll ask my mother to let you, and you can play with us."

"He don't want to play girls' games!" cried Ted.

"Well, I guess I can play boys' games as well as girls' games!" exclaimed Janet, with some indignation.

"Oh, yes, course you can," agreed her brother.

"And maybe Art can bring his sister to the island to see us, and then we could play boys' games and girls', too," went on Jan.

"I'll ask my mother," promised Arthur.

Grandpa and the expressman soon had the wagon loaded, and Arthur rode back in it with the Curlytops to the wharf where the boat was tied.

"All aboard for Star Island!" cried Mr. Martin, when the things were in the boat, nearly filling it, "All aboard!"

"I wish I could come now!" sighed Arthur.

"Well, we'd like to take you," said Grandpa Martin, "but it wouldn't be a good thing to take you unless your mother knew you were coming with us, and we haven't time to go up to ask her now. The next time maybe we'll take you back with us."

There was a wistful look on Arthur's face as he watched the boat being rowed away from the main shore and toward the island. Ted and Janet waved their hands to him, and said they would ask their mother to invite him for a visit, which they did a few weeks later.

Once back on the island the things were taken out of the boat and then began the work of taking them out of the boxes and crates. There was a new oil stove, to warm the tent on cool or rainy days, and other things for the camp, and when all had been unpacked there was quite a pile of boards and sticks left.

"I know what we can do with them," said Teddy to Janet, when they had been piled in a heap not far from the shore of the lake, and a little distance away from the tents.

"What?" asked the little girl.

"We can make a raft like Robinson Crusoe did," answered Teddy, for his mother had read him a little about the shipwrecked sailor who, as told in the story book, lived so long alone on an island.

"What's a raft?" asked Janet.

"Oh, it's something like a boat, but it hasn't got any sides to it—only a bottom," answered her brother. "You make it out of flat boards and you have to push it along with a pole. We can make a raft out of all the boards and pieces of wood grandpa took the things out of. It 11 be a lot of fun!"

"Will mother let us?" asked Jan.

"Oh, I guess so," answered Teddy.

But he did not go to ask to find out. He found a hammer where grandpa had been using it to knock apart the crates and boxes, and, with the help of Jan, Teddy was soon making his raft. There were plenty of nails which had come out of the boxes and crates. Some of them were rather crooked, but when Ted tried to hammer them straight he pounded his fingers.

"That hurts," he said. "I guess crooked nails are as good as straight ones. Anyhow this raft is going to be crooked."

And it was very crooked and "wobboly," as Janet called it, when Teddy had shoved it into the water and, taking off his shoes and stockings, got on it.

"Come on, Jan!" he cried, "I'm going to have a ride."

"No, it's too tippy," Janet answered.

"Oh, it can't tip over," said Teddy. "That's what a raft is for—not to tip over. Maybe you can slide off, but it can't tip over. Come on!"

So Janet took off her shoes and stockings.

Now of course she ought not to have done that, nor ought Teddy to have got on the raft without asking his mother or his grandfather. But then the Curlytops were no different from other children.

So on the raft got Teddy and Janet, and for a time they had lots of fun pushing it around a shallow little cove, not far from the shore of Star Island. A clump of trees hid them from the sight of Mother Martin and grandpa at camp.

"Let's go farther out," suggested Teddy, after a bit.

"I'm afraid," replied Janet.

"Aw, it'll be all right!" cried Ted. "I won't let it tip over!"

So Janet let him pole out a little farther, until she saw that the shore was far away, and then she cried:

"I want to go back!"

"All right," answered Ted. "I don't want anybody on my raft who's a skeered. I'll go alone!"

He poled back to shore and Janet got off the raft. Then Teddy shoved the wabbly mass of boards and sticks, fastened together with crooked nails, out into the lake again. He had not gone very far before something happened. One end of the raft tipped up and the other end dipped down, and—off slid Teddy into the water.

"Oh! Oh!" screamed Janet. "You'll be drowned! I'm going to tell grandpa."

She ran to the camp with the news, and Mr. and Mrs. Martin came hurrying back. By this time Teddy had managed to get up and was standing in the water, which was not deep.

"I—I'm all right," he stammered. "Only I—I'm—wet!"

"I should say you were!" exclaimed his mother. "You mustn't go on any more rafts."

Teddy promised that he would not, and then, when he had put on dry clothes, he and Janet played other games that were not so dangerous. They had lots of fun in the camp on Star Island.

"Come on, Jan!" called her brother one morning after breakfast. "Come on down to the lake."

"What're you goin' to do?" she asked.

"I think he had better look for the 'g' you dropped," said Mrs. Martin with a laugh.

"What 'g?'" asked Jan.

"The one off 'going," was the answer. "You must be more careful of your words, Janet dear. Learn to talk nicely, and don't drop your 'g' letters."

She had been trying to teach this to the Curlytops for a long while, and they were almost cured of leaving off the final "g" of their words. But, once in a while, just as Jan did that time, they forgot.

"What are you going to do?" asked Janet, slowly and carefully this time.

"Sail my boat," answered Ted. "I'll give your doll a ride if you want me to."

"Not this one," replied his sister, looking at the one she carried. It had on a fine red dress.

"Why not that doll?" Ted inquired.

"'Cause your boat might tip over and spill my doll in the lake. Then she'd be spoiled and so would her dress. Wait. I'll get my rubber doll. Water won't hurt her."

"My boat won't tip over," Ted declared. "It's a good one."

But even Jan's rubber doll must have been too heavy for Ted's small boat, for, half way across a little shallow cove in the lake, where the Curlytops waded and Ted sailed his ships, the boat tipped to one side, and the doll was thrown into the water.

"There! I told you so!" cried Janet.

"Well, she's rubber, and you can pretend she has on a bathing suit an' has gone in swimming!" declared Ted.

"But maybe a fish'll bite a hole in her and then she can't whistle through the hole in her back!" wailed Jan, ready to cry.

"There's no fish here, only baby ones; and they can't bite," Ted answered. "But I'll get her for you, Jan."

He waded out, set his ship upright again, and brought his sister's doll to shore. Nancy—which was the doll's name—did not seem to have been hurt by falling into the lake. Her painted smile was the same as ever.

"I guess I'll dress her now so she won't get cold after her bath, " said Jan, who sometimes acted as though her dolls were really alive. She liked her playthings very much indeed.

While his sister went back to the tent with her doll Ted sailed his boat. Then Trouble came down to the edge of the little cove, and began to take off his shoes and stockings to go wading as Ted was doing. Ted was not sure whether or not his mother wanted Baby William to do this, so he decided to run up to the camp to ask.

"Don't go in the water until I come back, Trouble," Ted ordered his little brother.

But the sight of the cool, sparkling water was too much for Baby William.

Off came his shoes and stockings without waiting for Ted to come back to say whether or not Mother Martin would let him go splashing in the water. Into the lake Baby William went. And he was not careful about getting wet, either, so that when Ted came back with his mother, who wanted to make sure that her baby boy was all right, they saw him out in the middle of the cove with Ted's boat. And the water was half way up to Trouble's waist, the lower part of his bloomers being soaked.

"Oh, you dear bunch of Trouble!" cried his mother. "You mustn't do that!"

"Havin' fun!" was all Trouble said.

"Come here!" cried Mrs. Martin.

"Wait till I sail boat," and he pushed Ted's toy about in the cove, splashing more water on himself.

"I guess you'll have to get him," said Mrs. Martin to Teddy, who half dragged, half led his little brother to shore. Trouble got wetter than ever during this, and his mother had to take him back to the tent to put dry things on him.

"Trouble," she said, "you are a bad little boy. I'll have to keep you in camp the rest of the day now. After this you must not go in wading until I say you may. If you had had your bathing suit on it would have been all right. Now you must be punished."

Trouble cried and struggled, but it was of no use. When Mother Martin said a thing must be done it was done, and Trouble could not play in the water again that day.

Toward the middle of the afternoon, however, as he had been pretty good playing around the tent, he was allowed to roam farther off, though told he must not go near the water.

"You stay with me, Baby," called Nora. "I'm going to bake a cake and I'll give you some."

"Trouble bake a cake, too?" he asked.

"No, Trouble isn't big enough to bake a cake, but you can watch me. I'll get out the flour and sugar and other things, and I'll make a little cake just for you."

On a table in the cooking tent Nora set out the things she was to use for her baking. There was the bag of flour, some water in a dish and other things. Just as she was about to mix the cake Mrs. Martin called Nora away for a moment.

"Now, Trouble, don't touch anything until I come back!" warned the girl, as she hurried out of the tent. "I won't be gone a minute."

But she was gone longer than that. Left alone in the tent, with many things on the table in front of him, Trouble looked at them. He knew he could have lots of fun with some of the pans, cups, the egg beater, the flour, the water and the eggs. A little smile spread over his tanned, chubby face.

"Trouble bake a cake," he said to himself. "Nora bake a cake—Trouble bake a cake. Yes!"

First Baby William pulled toward him the bag of flour. He managed to do it without upsetting it, for the bag was a small one. Near it was a bowl of water with a spoon in it. Trouble had seen his mother and Nora bake cakes, and he must have remembered that they mixed the flour and water together. Anyhow that was the way to make mud pies—by mixing sand and water.

Trouble looked for something to mix his cake in. The tins and dishes were so far back on the table that he could not get them easily. He must take something else.

Off his head Trouble pulled his white hat—a new one that grandpa had brought only that day from the village store.

"Make cake in dis," murmured Baby William to himself.

He pushed a chair up to the table and climbed upon it. From the chair he got on the table and sat down. Then he began to make his cake in his hat.