AN AUTOMOBILE RIDE
Mrs. Martin dropped the letter from Uncle Toby. It fluttered to the ground as she hastened down the bank of the brook in which Trouble was sailing away, aboard the small box he had brought to play with as his "s'ip."
"William! William Anthony Martin! Come right back here!" called Mrs. Martin. "Come back!"
Poor William would have been glad enough to do this, but he could not. He had stepped into the box, shoved it out from shore with a pole as he had seen Janet poling her tiny ship along, and then the current of the stream had carried poor Trouble away. He was floating down the brook, which was quite deep in some places.
"Oh, Trouble! Trouble! What shall I do?" cried his mother.
"I'll run up to the house and get the rake, and we can hook it on the edge of his box and pull him out!" shouted Janet.
"I'll get him myself!" called Ted, and, not thinking that he had on his shoes and stockings, into the water he dashed, following after the floating box in which Trouble was riding. As for the little fellow himself, he had been overjoyed, at first, when he found that he was afloat. But as the water came leaking through the cracks in the box Trouble became frightened.
"Oh, Momsie! Come an' det me! Come an' det me!" he wailed.
"Mother's coming!" called Mrs. Martin, as she caught up a long stick and, running along the edge of the brook, tried to reach out and hook it over the side of the box-ship in which William was sailing away.
And while the mother, brother and sister of the little chap are going to his rescue, I will take just a moment or two and tell you something about the Martin children, and why they are called the "Curlytops."
The reason for the odd, pretty name is not hard to find. It was in their hair—they had the cutest, curliest curly hair that ever grew on the heads of any children anywhere in the world. So it is no wonder they were called "Curlytops."
Some of you were introduced to them in the first book of this series, "The Curlytops at Cherry Farm," which told of their adventures in the country.
After that they had more adventures on "Star Island," where they went camping with Grandpa. The fun on the island was wonderful, even more wonderful were their adventures when they were "Snowed In" and when the Curlytops went to Uncle Frank's ranch, and rode on ponyback. Ted, Janet and Trouble thought they had never seen such good times in all their lives. They helped solve a strange mystery, too.
The book just before this one that you are reading is named "The Curlytops at Silver Lake," and in that you may learn what Ted, Janet and Trouble did when they went on the water with Uncle Ben, and how they helped capture some bad men.
The summer had been filled with adventures, and there were some good times in the winter that followed. Now it was summer again, and the Curlytops were ready for more fun.
Mr. Richard Martin was the father of the Curlytops. He was a storekeeper in the city of Cresco, in one of our eastern states. There were just three of the Curlytops, Theodore Baradale, Janet and William Anthony Martin. But Theodore was nearly always called Ted or Teddy, Janet's name was shortened to Jan and William answered to the call of Trouble as often as to any other.
In addition to the children there was Skyrocket, the dog, and Turnover, the cat. The cat was called that name because she had a trick of lying down and rolling over when she wanted something to eat. There had also been Nicknack, a goat, and Clipclap, a pony, but these had been sent away for a time, and the dog and cat were the only pets the children had at present. But they were soon going to have more, as I will tell you presently.
It was a warm, pleasant, sunny day when Ted and Jan went down to the brook to play that pieces of boards were their "ships." Then Trouble had joined them, and, just after the mail carrier left the strange letter from Uncle Toby, Trouble had, as usual, gotten into trouble.
Janet and Teddy were not quite certain who Uncle Toby might be. They had heard of him, once or twice, as a distant relative of their father or their mother, but they had not seen him in a number of years. They only dimly remembered him as an old man who lived in a city about fifty miles from Cresco, but they had not visited him in some time.
Just now the plight of Trouble so filled the minds of Ted and Jan that they had no thought for Uncle Toby or his strange letter. Nor did Mrs. Martin give any heed to the missive she had dropped.
"Be careful, Teddy!" she called, as she saw her older son splashing his way through the water. "Don't fall!"
"I—I won't, Mother! Not if—if I—I can help——"
But just as Teddy got that far he stumbled on a round stone in the brook, and down he went with a splash!
"Oh, he'll be drowned!" screamed Janet, who was following her mother along the bank of the brook, while Trouble was out in the middle in his leaking, packing-box ship that Skyrocket had pulled to the stream for him. The dog, who had found the stick which Teddy threw, had rushed back, and was now barking as loudly as he could.
But the water was not deep enough to drown Teddy. It, however, made him very wet. Up he rose, dripping all over, and gasping for breath.
Mrs. Martin paused only long enough to look back and see that Teddy was all right, and then hurried along, trying to pull toward her, with the long stick, the floating box and her little son.
"Det me out! Det me out! I is all wet—I is!" cried Trouble. "My hoots is all wet!" Sometimes the letter "f" bothered him, and he put an "h" in its place, as saying "hoots" for "foots." Of course neither word was right, but who minded a thing like that when poor Trouble was in such a plight?
"I'll get him!" cried Teddy, as he caught his breath. Then he wiped some of the water from his face, and dashed on down the brook. But by this time the packing box, in which Trouble was taking more of a ride than he had counted on, was some distance down the brook. However, Mrs. Martin was keeping alongside of it, though it was beyond even the reach of her long stick.
"If we were on the other side you could reach him and pull him to shore, Mother!" called Janet.
"Oh, I must get over on the other side—but the brook is deep here!" said Mrs. Martin. She was going to forget that, however, and splash in, when the box, by some twist of the current, suddenly floated near the bank along which she was running.
"Grab it—quick!" cried Janet.
"Let me get it—I'm coming!" shouted Teddy, and, indeed, he was splashing his way down the brook, but some distance behind his little brother.
"Oh, det me out! My hoots is awful wet!" wailed the small chap in the packing-box boat.
And just then Mrs. Martin was able to reach out her stick, hook one end of it over the edge of the box and pull it to shore.
"You poor little fellow! Was mother's Trouble frightened to pieces?" murmured Mrs. Martin as she lifted her youngest out of the box, and, never minding his wet feet, hugged him tightly. The packing box drifted off downstream, Skyrocket racing after it and barking as though it was the best joke in the world. "Were you frightened, William?" murmured his mother.
Trouble looked at her, and then at the floating box.
"I had a nice wide, but my hoots is all wet," he announced.
"I should say they were!" laughed Janet, feeling them. "They're soaking wet! But you're all right now, Trouble!"
"And I'm wet, too," said Teddy, coming along just then.
Together they walked back along the edge of the brook, Skyrocket following when he found that no one was going to help him play with the empty box, which floated ashore near the dam Teddy had made.
As she passed the place where she had dropped Uncle Toby's letter Mrs. Martin picked up the fluttering paper.
"I nearly forgot all about this," she said. "Your father will want to know about it. I never heard anything so strange in all my life."
"What is it?" asked Teddy.
"I'll tell you when you have dry clothes on, and we can sit down and talk it over," his mother promised.
And when Trouble, smiling and happy, with a picture book in his hands and dry shoes and stockings on his feet, was safe in a chair, and when Janet and Teddy sat near her, Mrs. Martin read the letter again.
"It is from Uncle Toby Bardeen of Pocono," said the mother of the Curlytops. "At least he is your father's uncle, but that doesn't matter. He is an old bachelor, and lives with a distant relative, a Mrs. Watson, in an old, rambling house."
"Does he want us to come there for the summer vacation?" asked Janet. It was time, so she and Ted thought to begin thinking of the summer fun.
"No, Uncle Toby doesn't say that," went on Mother Martin, as she glanced over the pages of the letter. "What he wants is for your father to go and take charge of everything that is in the old house—everything, that is, except the housekeeper, Mrs. Watson. She is going off by herself, Uncle Toby says."
"Is Uncle Toby—is he—dead, that he wants daddy to take everything in his house?" asked Janet.
"Course not! How could he be dead and write this letter?" asked Ted.
"Well, maybe he wrote it before he died," Janet suggested.
"No, Uncle Toby isn't dead, I'm glad to say," remarked Mrs. Martin. "But he is going away on a long voyage for his health, he writes, and he wants daddy to come and take charge of everything in the old mansion."
"Do you s'pose there's a gun there I could have?" asked Teddy hopefully.
"I'd like an old-fashioned spinning wheel," said Janet. "Is there one of those, Mother?"
"I wants suffin' to eat!" announced Trouble suddenly, but whether he thought it was to be had at Uncle Toby's house or not, it is hard to say.
Teddy and Janet laughed, and Trouble looked at them with wondering eyes.
"You shall have something to eat, love!" his mother murmured. "I guess your voyage in the packing-box ship made you hungry."
"Do you s'pose Uncle Toby would have a gun?" asked Ted again.
"If there is one in his house you can't have it, my dear," objected Mrs. Martin.
"But I could have the spinning wheel, couldn't I?" asked Janet.
"Yes, I suppose so. But maybe there isn't one," her mother answered.
"If there is we can play steamboat!" cried Ted, getting quickly over his disappointment about a possible gun. "A spinning wheel is just the thing to steer a make-believe steamer with!"
"You're not going to have my spinning wheel for your old steamboat!" declared Janet.
"Hush, children!" their mother warned them. "I haven't the least idea what is in Uncle Toby's house, that he should be so mysterious about it, and be in such a hurry for your father to come and take charge."
"Is Uncle Toby mysterious?" asked Janet.
"Well, yes. He says he hopes the collection will not be too much for us to manage," went on Mrs. Martin, with another look at the letter.
"A collection of what?" Ted wanted to know.
"That's just it—Uncle Toby doesn't say," his mother replied. "We shall have to wait until your father makes the trip to Pocono."
"Oh, may we go?" begged the two Curlytops at once.
"We'll see!" was the way in which Mrs. Martin put them off. "I wish your father were here so we could talk over this queer letter from Uncle Toby."
"I wis'—I wis' I had suffin' t' eat!" put in Trouble wistfully.
"And so you shall have, darling!" exclaimed his mother. "It is nearly time for lunch, and daddy will soon be here. Then we'll see what he says."
And what Mr. Martin said after, at the lunch table, he had read Uncle Toby's letter was:
"Hum!"
"What do you think of it?" asked his wife.
"I think it's as queer as he is," said the father of the Curlytops, smiling. "Uncle Toby is a dear old man, but very queer. So he wants me to come and take charge of his 'collection,' does he? It's strange that he doesn't say what his collection is."
"Maybe it's postage stamps," suggested Ted. Once he had started to make a collection like that but he had given it up.
"And maybe it's a collection of—money!" said Janet.
"That would be very fine!" laughed her father. "But though Uncle Toby is well off, I hardly think he has a collection of money lying around his old mansion. However, I suppose I must go and see what it is the queer fellow wants me to take charge of for him."
"May we go?" chorused Ted and Janet again.
"Oh, I suppose so," agreed their father, and this was better than the "I'll see," of their mother.
"Me tum too!" declared Trouble. He never wanted to be left behind.
"We'll all take an auto trip over to Pocono to-morrow and see what Uncle Toby has," decided Mr. Martin.
Accordingly, the next day, Mr. Martin left his manager in charge of the store, and, in the comfortable family automobile, the Curlytops and their father, mother and Trouble—not forgetting Skyrocket, the dog—started off.
It was just as fine a day as the previous one, when Trouble had sailed down the brook. The grass was green, the birds sang, and the wind blew gently in the trees.
"Oh, it's summer, and there's no school and well have lots of fun!" sang Janet.
"Maybe we'll have fun with what we find at Uncle Toby's house," suggested Ted.
And neither of the Curlytops realized how much fun nor what strange adventures were in store for them.
The automobile started down a rather steep hill, and Mrs. Martin, who was on the front seat with her husband, looked back to see that the three children were safe.
"Hold on to Trouble!" she told Janet. "He might bounce out. The road is very rough!"
"Yes, it isn't very safe, either," murmured Mr. Martin. "I hope nothing happens."
Hardly had he spoken than there was a loud bang close behind him. He jammed on the brakes and cried:
"Tire's burst! Hold tight—everybody!"
Then the automobile slid over to one side of the road and Janet cried:
"Oh, Trouble! Trouble!"