UNCLE TOBY'S LETTER
"What you going to put on your ship, Ted?"
"Oh, swords and guns and gunpowder and soldiers. What you going to load on your ship, Jan?"
"Oranges and lemons and pineapples," answered the little girl, who was playing with her brother at sailing boats in the brook that ran back of the house. "And maybe I'll have gold and diamonds and chocolate cake on my ship, Teddy," went on Janet Martin.
"If you do I'll be a pirate and sink your ship! Oh, Jan, let's play that! I'll be a pirate!"
Teddy Martin jumped up so suddenly from the bank of the brook, where he was loading his ship with what he called "swords, guns and gunpowder," that he tipped the vessel over and the whole cargo was spilled into the water.
"Oh, look what you did!" cried Janet. "Your gunpowder will be all wet!"
"I'm not ready to play the pirate game yet," explained Teddy. "Anyhow, I can get more powder."
This would be easy enough, it seemed, as the children were only pretending that stones, pebbles and bits of sticks were the cargoes of their toy ships, and, as Teddy had said, he could easily get more stones. The brook was filled with them.
"Where are you going?" Janet called after her brother, as she saw him hurrying toward the house, which was out of sight behind the trees and bushes that grew on the edge of the brook.
"I'm going to get a black flag so I can be a pirate and sink your ship with gold, diamonds and chocolate cakes on!" answered Teddy over his shoulder as he ran on.
"I—I don't guess I want you to be a pirate," said Janet slowly, as she looked at her ship, on which the pebbles, stones and bits of wood were neatly arranged in piles. "I'm not going to play that game! I don't want you to be a pirate, Ted! It's too scary!"
But her brother was beyond the reach of her voice now, hurrying toward the house after his "black pirate flag." Janet shoved her ship out from the shore—her ship laden with diamonds, gold and chocolate cakes. Of course it was not a real ship. The Curlytops would not have had half as much fun with real ships as they were having with the pieces of boards which they were making believe were steamers and sailing vessels.
"I'll sail my ship away down to the end of the brook before Ted gets back to be a pirate," said Janet to herself, as, with a long stick, she directed the flat board which was piled high with brook-pebbles. "Then when he comes back he can't sink it."
Janet pushed her ship slowly at first, and then a little faster, moving it along by means of the stick while she stood on the bank. Then, hearing a noise in the bushes behind her, she thrust harder on the stick.
"I don't want Teddy to pirate my ship!" she thought. "I'll fool him! I'll sail it around the bend, and then I'll hide behind the big buttonball tree and he won't know where I've gone!"
In order to do this Janet wanted to make her ship go as fast as possible, so she shoved harder and harder on the stick. And then, all of a sudden, her ship upset.
With a splash the stones, pebbles and bits of wood went into the brook. The whole cargo was sunk and lost as surely as if Ted's pirate vessel had captured that of his sister. That is, everything sank but the ship itself and the cargo of little sticks, some of which Janet was pretending were chocolate cakes. Even at that, I suppose, the chocolate cakes would be wet and soggy. And soggy chocolate cake isn't good to eat. The best thing you can do with it is to make it into a pudding.
"Oh, Ted! look what you made me do," cried Janet sadly, as she saw the ship, which she had loaded with such care, capsized and cleared of its cargo. "It's all your fault!"
And then she started in surprise as a babyish voice replied:
"I 'idn't do nuffin! I 'ust comed! What's matter, Jan?"
"Oh, it's you, is it, Trouble?" asked the girl, as she turned and saw, instead of Teddy, her smaller brother William, more often called "Trouble," because he was in it so often.
"Yep! Me is here!" announced Trouble. Sometimes he talked more correctly than this, and his mother had told Janet and Teddy to try to cure him of his baby talk and the wrong use of words. But Ted and Jan thought it was "cute" to hear Trouble say queer things, so they did not mend his talk as often as they might.
"I thought you were Ted," went on Janet. "Did you see him? He went up to the house to get a flag."
"Flag," returned Trouble, in a questioning voice. "Goin' to be soldiers an' have a 'rade?" He meant parade, of course.
"No, we aren't going to have a parade now, Trouble," said Janet. "Ted went to get a black flag to be a pirate, so he could sink my ship that was loaded with diamonds, gold and chocolate cakes."
"I want chocolate cake—two pieces!" demanded Trouble, who had ears only for the last words of his sister.
"There wasn't any chocolate cake—really, dear," explained the little girl, as she ruffled up her curly hair. "Ted and I were just pretending. He is going to have a pirate ship. I didn't want him to get mine, so I was shoving it hard down the brook, but I made it go too fast and it upset. Now I've got to load my ship all over again."
"I want s'ip!" demanded William, as Jan began to guide her empty vessel back to shore by means of the long stick. "Trouble have a s'ip?" he asked.
"Yes, you may have a ship, and play with us," Janet said, and as she was looking about for a board which might serve her little brother to play with, she heard someone coming through the bushes.
"I guess this is Ted," thought Janet. "Anyhow he can't sink my ship now. I did it myself."
It was her older brother, and he now came bursting through the shrubbery that lined the bank of the brook, holding in his hands a piece of black cloth.
"I got the pirate flag!" cried Teddy. "Whoop-la! Now I'm going to sink your ship! Why, what happened?" he asked, as he saw that Janet's craft was empty. "Did Trouble upset it?"
"No, I did it myself," Janet answered. "But I didn't mean to. I was trying to hide it from you, 'cause I don't want you to be a pirate and upset my ship full of chocolate cakes."
"Oh, I must be a pirate! Here's the black flag and I must be a pirate!" shouted Teddy. "Whoop! I'm a pirate! I'm a pirate!"
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoop!" yelled Trouble, trying to make as much noise as his brother.
"You sound more like an Indian than you do a pirate," said Janet, as she began to pile more pebbles on the board that was her ship.
"Well, Indians and pirates are 'most the same," declared Teddy. "Wait till you see my ship, with swords and guns and powder! It will blow your ship out of the water, and I'll have a black flag on it and everything! Whoop!"
"I'm not going to play if you upset my ship, now there!" and Janet pouted her lips and ceased loading pebbles aboard her craft.
Teddy, who was cutting a flagstaff with his knife, stopped to look at her. If Janet was going to act this way, and not send out her ship, there was no use in being a pirate. What fun could even a make-believe pirate have if there were no ships to sink?
Teddy thought of this, and then he said:
"All right, Jan, I won't be a pirate if you don't want me to. But I'll have a black flag, anyhow, and maybe I'll be a pirate some other time. Let's have a race with our ships—see which one gets to the water-wheel first."
"Yes, I'll do that," agreed Janet.
At the lower end of the brook she and Teddy had built a little dam, and where the water flowed over the top, like a tiny Niagara Falls, Teddy had fastened a wooden paddle wheel which turned as the water flowed on it.
"Me want a s'ip!" wailed Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister getting their vessels ready for the race.
"Can't you give him a piece of board for his ship, Ted?" asked Janet. "If we don't he'll get in our way and spoil the race."
"Here, Trouble, take this," and Teddy paused long enough in his work of loading pebbles on his ship to toss his little brother a small chip he picked up off the shore.
"Hu! I want bigger s'ip 'n' him!" declared Trouble, with a grunt. Then he arose and toddled off through the bushes. Teddy and Janet were so busy getting their own vessels ready for the coming race that they paid no more attention to their small brother. And Trouble was going to get into trouble—you may be sure of that.
"Don't put too many stones on your ship, Jan," called Ted to his sister, as he saw that she was piling on the pebbles.
"Why not?" she asked.
"'Cause you'll make it so heavy that it won't sail fast. Course I want to beat you," Ted went on, "but I want to beat you fair."
"Oh, thank you," Janet answered. "But these aren't stones I'm loading on my ship this time."
"What are they?" asked Ted.
"Feathers," his sister answered. "I'm making believe the stones are feathers, and I'm going to sell them to make pillows for dolls. My ship won't be too heavy!"
"Hu!" grunted Ted, as he placed the pebbles carefully on the middle of his ship, so it would not turn over. "Stones are heavy, whether you make believe they're feathers or not. Don't put too many on, I'm telling you!"
"All right, I won't," agreed Janet.
The boy and the girl went on with their game, and they were almost ready to start their ships off on the race when there was a racket in the bushes back of them. It was a bumping, banging sound that Ted and Janet heard, then followed the bark of a dog.
"That's Skyrocket!" said Ted.
A moment later came a voice, calling:
"Whoa-up! Don't go so fas'! You is spillin' me!"
"That's Trouble!" declared Janet.
They were both right. A moment later there burst through the bushes the little boy and the dog. The dog was Skyrocket, and he was made fast to a box which he was dragging along by a rope tied around his neck. Trouble was holding to the rear of the box, and in his eagerness to pull it along Skyrocket was also dragging Trouble, "spillin'" him, in fact—that is, pulling Trouble off his feet every now and then.
"Why, William! what are you doing?" asked Janet. Trouble was hardly ever called by his right name of William unless he had done something wrong.
"Were you trying to have Skyrocket ride you in that box?" asked Teddy. "If you were, he can't. Sky can't pull you in that box unless it has wheels on it. Then it's a wagon."
"Don't want wagon—dis my s'ip!" announced the little fellow, as he began to loosen the rope from the dog's neck. But as soon as Trouble started to do this, Skyrocket, who loved the children, began to lick William's face with a red tongue.
"'Top it! 'Top it!" commanded Trouble, but Skyrocket only licked the more.
"Oh, Ted, unfasten Sky, or he'll eat Trouble up!" laughed Janet.
"Are you going to sail that big box for your ship, Trouble?" asked Ted, as he loosed the dog.
"Yep! Dis box my s'ip," announced the small boy. "I sail it!"
"Well, don't sail it near ours or you'll upset our ships—yours is so much larger, dear," begged Janet.
"I be ca'eful!" Trouble promised. "I find this big box for my s'ip in kitchen, an' Sky drag it here for me!"
"Yes, Skyrocket is a good dog," said Ted. "Hi there! Don't wag your tail so near my ship, or you'll upset her before I beat Jan in the race!" shouted Teddy, as the dog, in his joy at being with the Curlytops, nearly spoiled their plans for having fun.
"Here! Go chase that!" cried Ted, tossing a stick far down the brook. And as Skyrocket splashed into the water after it, a loud whistle was heard across the field on the other side of the brook.
"There's the postman!" called Janet.
"Yes, he's coming here, and he's got a letter in his hand," announced Teddy. "He's taking the short cut."
Sometimes the mail carrier came across the lots near the Martin home, as he was doing on this occasion. The Curlytops ceased the loading of their ships long enough to run and meet the carrier.
"There's a letter for your mother," the postman said, as he handed the missive to Ted. "Don't drop it in the brook."
"I won't," promised the boy. "I wonder who the letter is from?" he went on, as the postman continued over the lots to his next stopping place, blowing his whistle on the way.
"Any mail, children?" called a voice.
"There's mother, now!" said Janet.
"Yes, here's a letter," called Ted. His mother had walked down to the brook from the house, along the back path, to see what her Curlytops and Trouble were doing.
Mrs. Martin opened and read the letter as Ted and Janet went back to their play, and as she turned the pages she gave an exclamation of wonder.
"What is it?" asked Ted, looking up as he placed the last pebble on his ship.
"This is a letter from your Uncle Toby," said Mrs. Martin, "and there is strange news in it. I wonder what it means? This is very queer!"
She started to read the letter again, but at that moment Janet cried:
"Oh, look at Trouble! Just look at him! He's sailing away down the brook! Oh, he'll be drowned!"