MRS. JOHNSON'S BABY
Teddy and Janet turned their attention from Slider, the pet alligator whose new trick they had just discovered, to Trouble, their little brother.
"What's that you say?" asked Teddy, putting the alligator back again on the box on which stood the tank of water.
"You ought to see Snuff," repeated the little fellow.
"What's he doing?" asked Janet.
"Oh, he's rollin' ober an' ober in yard," explained Trouble, so excited that he did not take time to talk as straight as usual. "He's rollin' funny!"
"Oh, maybe the poor cat has a fit!" exclaimed Janet. "That would be too bad, Ted! He couldn't be in our circus."
"I'll go see," offered Teddy. He had been among animals so long, and was so kind to them, and he liked them so much, that he was not afraid to try to help even a sick one. And a cat that has a fit is ill, and needs medicine. Sometimes Turnover became ill, and had to be doctored, and more than once Skyrocket, the dog, was in need of some simple home remedy.
So the first thought of Janet and Ted, when Trouble told them that Snuff, the cat they had brought from Uncle Toby's, was "rollin'"—their first thought, I say, was that Snuff had a fit.
"You stay here and watch Slider," said Ted to his sister, "and I'll go out into the yard and see what's the matter with the cat."
"I go, too," added Trouble. "I 'ike to see Snuff roll!"
"No, you had better stay here with me," suggested Janet, and she ran to the barn door to catch hold of her little brother before he could toddle after Teddy.
"I want to go! Lemme go!" cried Trouble, and he struggled to get away from Janet.
"No, you must stay with sister," said the little girl, as pleasantly as she could. "Look, I'll show you a new trick that Slider, our pet alligator, can do. Trouble like to see Slider do a trick?" she asked. "Come on, Trouble! See Slider do his sliding trick!"
Baby William was not proof against this attraction. He ceased trying to pull away from Janet and let her lead him back to the alligator's tank. There Janet took up the scaly, long-tailed creature, which was idly crawling around, and put him on top of the slanting board, as Teddy had been about to do when Trouble told about Snuff. Janet did not mind picking up Slider.
The Curlytops were not afraid of animals that many girls and boys do not like to handle. Janet and Teddy knew a great deal about snakes, and they knew that only two kinds that lived in their State were harmful. These were the rattlesnake and the copperhead. All other kinds, such as black snakes, milk snakes and garter snakes can never harm a person. Teddy and Janet knew this, and they had been taught by their father that these harmless snakes did a great deal of good by eating rats and mice that, otherwise, would spoil the farmers' grain.
So it was that Janet had learned to pick up even large black snakes, knowing they would not harm her, and once she and her brother had even tamed a good-sized black snake, so that it would let the children pick it up, and it would lie, coiled, in their lap.
Snakes can not be tamed, or made to do tricks like other animals, and the stories of "snake charmers" are mostly untrue. Some snakes may rise and sway when music is played, and the snakes that circus performers handle are just as harmless as the garden snakes you see. Some of the larger ones, however, are very powerful, and can twist themselves around a person or an animal strongly enough to kill. But the performers know how to handle snakes, using slow and gentle movements, so the reptiles do not mind it.
Thus it was that Janet had no fear of Slider, the pet alligator. She lifted him up, put him on top of the slanting board and, just as he had done before, Slider went sliding down.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Trouble in delight.
"Isn't that a good trick?" asked Janet, laughing with her little brother. "Aren't you glad you stayed with me."
"Yes, I is glad," declared Trouble. "Now Trouble make Slider slide."
"All right," agreed Janet.
Baby William was not much more afraid of animals, snakes included, than were Teddy and Janet. So his sister let him pick up Slider and give the alligator another coast down the board hill.
I am not saying that Slider would have done this trick himself, even after much practice. It was mostly an accident, I believe, his coasting down the board when he got to the slanting edge. The alligator just naturally crawled around and, reaching the edge, he fell over, and coasted down. Janet and Trouble put him close to the edge on purpose, so he would go down, knowing that it did not hurt the alligator in the least. I suppose a mud turtle would have done the same "trick."
Reptiles have a very small brain, and can not be taught to do tricks as can dogs, horses and cats, and the alligator, the turtle and the snake belong to the class known as reptiles. So though the children called what Slider did a "trick," it was more like an accident, though it was not a harmful one.
"Me make Slider slide," exclaimed Trouble, and, surely enough, when he had put Uncle Toby's scaly pet on the board, down the alligator slid.
Trouble and Janet were enjoying themselves in this fashion, and Janet was wondering what Teddy was doing, when that young member of the Curlytop family stuck his head in through the open barn door and called:
"Come on out and see Snuff!"
"Oh, has he a bad fit?" asked Janet.
"He hasn't got a fit at all!" answered Ted. "He's doing one of the best tricks you ever saw, and it will be dandy in our circus! Come and look at him!"
"Oh, I'm glad he hasn't a fit!" cried Janet. "Come on, Trouble!"
But now there was more trouble with Trouble, for he wanted to stay and play with Slider.
"Me see Slider slide more!" demanded the little fellow. And it was as hard for Janet to get him to come out of the barn now, as it had been to make him stay in before.
"Oh, come on and see Snuff do his funny trick!" she begged, and finally Trouble came away from the alligator.
"And it sure is a funny trick!" laughed Ted, who had waited for his little brother and Janet to come out. "Just you see!"
When the two Curlytops and Trouble hurried around the corner of the barn, Teddy pointed to Snuff, the new, big cat that had been brought from Uncle Toby's house.
Snuff was on top of a large leather ball, and it was rolling around the yard, with him on top of it, just as a clown in the circus stands upright on a large, painted ball, and rolls himself around the ring. This ball was a football that Teddy had owned for some time. The outside was leather, and inside was a rubber bladder that could be blown up. It was a round ball, of the kind used in "Association" games, and not for "Rugby," which most of the football elevens play in this country. The "Rugby" ball is shaped like a watermelon, but the other is more like a muskmelon, and it was on this latter kind of a ball that Snuff was rolling around the yard, just like a circus clown.
"Was this what Trouble meant when he said Snuff was rolling?" asked Janet.
"Yes," answered Teddy. "I'm glad Uncle Toby's cat didn't have a fit. Now we can make him do this trick in our animal circus."
"Oh, it's a lovely trick," declared Janet. "I wonder how he learned it?"
"Maybe Uncle Toby or the lady who owned him first taught Snuff to roll on top of a football," Ted answered, while the yellowish brown cat kept on stepping lightly this way and that, making the ball turn over and over. "I guess Trouble left the ball out here in the yard. He was playing with it last. Then Snuff must have come out, and when he saw the ball he remembered that he knew how to do a trick on it. And he got up and did it without anyone telling him."
"Maybe he won't do it any more," suggested Janet.
"We can soon see," Teddy said. "Here, Snuff!" he called to the big, friendly cat. "Come over here," and Teddy whistled as he did for Turnover. Snuff came as he was called, almost as a dog might do, and Turnover, also hearing the whistle by which Teddy summoned him to meals, came running around the corner of the barn.
"No, we haven't anything for you to eat now, pussies," said Ted, with a laugh. "But I'll give you something in a little while if Snuff does the football trick again."
After petting the two cats, and scratching them under their ears, which they seemed to like very much. Teddy held Snuff in his arms, and told Janet to take up the football.
"We'll put it down in front of Snuff and see if he gets up on it," suggested Teddy. And when this was done the big cat from Uncle Toby's jumped out of Ted's arms, and leaped on top of the football, rolling it over and over just like a clown in a circus.
"Oh, it is a trick—a real trick!" cried Janet. "Wouldn't it be great if we could dress Snuff up in a little suit like a clown?"
"Maybe we can," said Teddy. "But it will be hard, as cats don't like to have fixin's on 'em as much as dogs do. I wonder who taught Snuff that trick? I guess it must have been Uncle Toby."
And, some time afterward, the Curlytops learned that it was their father's queer, animal-loving uncle who had taught Snuff to roll around on a football.
"I'm terrible glad Uncle Toby left us his collection, aren't you?" asked Janet of her brother, when Snuff had grown tired of doing his trick, and both cats were being fed.
"Yes," agreed Teddy, "I am. First I thought it might be a collection of stamps or coins. But I'm glad it was pets."
The Curlytops were going to have a great deal of fun with their pets, they were sure of that.
"If we only had Tip back," sighed Janet, as she and Teddy sat watching the cats eat, talking, meanwhile, about the circus they were going to have with all their animals.
"Yes, it's too bad one of Uncle Toby's dogs is gone," agreed Teddy. "Of course we can do some tricks with Top, but it would be better with the two of them."
"I wonder if he jumped out of the auto and ran away, if someone picked him up off the seat, or if that man Shorty knows where he is?"
"That's what I wonder, too," replied Teddy. "And I wonder if we shall ever get Tip back?"
But many strange things were to happen to the Curlytops and their pets before this came about.
Teddy and Janet were so busy talking about the circus they were to get up with their animals that, for a time, they did not watch Trouble. That little chap wandered back to the barn, for he had been much interested in watching the alligator do his trick.
"Me make Slider slide some more," said Trouble, talking to himself, as he had a habit of doing. Into the barn he toddled. The alligator was swimming around in his small tank of water, but, being a tame and pet reptile, he came out when Trouble stood near the cage.
Unafraid of animals, as were Teddy and Janet, baby William picked Slider up and put him on the slanting board.
Down went the alligator as nicely as you please!
It was about half an hour after this that Teddy and Janet decided they would try to teach their dog Skyrocket some tricks to do with Top.
"Let's bring 'em both out here in the yard together," suggested Ted. "You get Skyrocket, Jan, and I'll hunt Top."
"All right," agreed his sister.
But before they had gone far, looking for the two dogs, they heard a cry of alarm from Mrs. Johnson, one of the neighbors across the street.
"Oh, my baby! My baby!" cried Mrs. Johnson, as she ran down off the porch toward a mosquito-netting covered carriage in the front yard. "A big snake is going to sting my baby! Oh, Trouble! what shall I do?"
"Ha! is Trouble over there?" asked Ted of Janet.
"Yes, and something else, too, I guess," was the answer.
And Mrs. Johnson called again:
"Oh, a big snake is in the carriage with my baby!"