THE HAND-ORGAN MAN
The Curlytops cuddled down in their beds. Janet said afterward that she pulled the clothes over her ears. Teddy did the same at first, and then he began to think. And his first thought was that someone besides those who had a right to be there, were in his mother's kitchen. And of course the next thought that came to Teddy was:
"Burglars!"
Somehow or other he happened to hit on just exactly the very thing that was happening downstairs.
"Jan! Janet!" hoarsely whispered Teddy, thrusting his head out from under the sheet he had pulled over himself.
But Janet did not answer.
From down in the kitchen, however, the little Curlytop boy could plainly hear the parrot saying:
"I'm a crack-crack-cracker!"
"I'll hit him a crack if he doesn't keep quiet!" said a harsh voice. "Do you hear anyone coming, Bill?"
"No," replied another voice, which, Teddy thought, must belong to the man called Bill.
"They're burglars trying to get our parrot!" quickly thought Teddy. "I'm not going to let them have Mr. Nip. If they take him away he can't be in our circus. Course he can't do tricks like Skyrocket and Top, but he's nice to look at. The burglars shan't get Mr. Nip!"
Teddy slipped out of bed and went, as softly as he could, to the room where his father and mother slept. They were sound in slumber, which is the reason neither of them heard the parrot talking and screeching. Besides, the rooms of Teddy and Janet were nearer the kitchen.
"Daddy! Mother! Wake up!" whispered Teddy.
The sound of his parents' heavy breathing was the only answer the little boy received.
"Daddy! Mother!" he called again. "Wake up! There's a burglar downstairs, and he's trying to take Mr. Nip!"
There was silence for a moment, and then Teddy reached over and gently pulled his mother by her hand, which was hanging down outside the bed.
"What is it? What's the matter?" suddenly asked Mrs. Martin. In another instant she had pulled the cord attached to an electric light over her bed, and the room was bright in a moment. Then Mr. Martin awakened, and both parents looked at the little Curlytop boy.
"What's the matter, Ted? Walking in your sleep?" asked his father. For sometimes Teddy did do that.
In answer the little fellow put his finger to his lips to make his father and mother understand that he wanted them to keep quiet.
"It's burglars—two of 'em!" whispered Teddy. "One is named Bill, but I don't know the other one's name. They've come to get Mr. Nip."
"What's that—our parrot? Nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Martin. "You have been dreaming, Teddy, my boy. Go back to bed."
But just then, from down in the kitchen, came the voice of the parrot shrieking:
"I'm a crack-crack-cracker! Police, Fire! Burglars!"
Then came a banging, clashing sound, and a man's voice cried:
"There! See if that will keep you quiet!"
An instant later there was a sound as if the parrot's cage had been knocked over, or had tumbled over, and Mr. Nip cried:
"Help! Help! Help!"
Out of bed jumped Mr. Martin, going toward the closet where he kept his revolver.
"It is burglars!" he whispered.
"Oh, you mustn't go down! They might shoot you! Go to the window and call the police!" begged Mrs. Martin, clinging to her husband.
Mr. Martin did both. He went to the window and fired a shot from his revolver up into the air. My! what a loud noise it made, and it set Skyrocket and Top to barking out in the barn. Perhaps the monkey chattered also, but he could not be heard. However, Mr. Nip's shrill shrieking seemed to resound all over the neighborhood.
There was a moon, and as he looked from his bedroom window Mr. Martin, by its light, saw two men running out of the side gate.
"There go the burglars!" he cried, and again he fired a shot. This made the strange men run all the faster, and by this time Trouble had awakened and was crying.
"Janet, you come in and stay with Trouble," called Mrs. Martin "I'll get dressed, and then, when the police come, we must see what the burglars have taken! Oh, what a dreadful night! I hope they haven't stolen much!"
"And I hope they didn't take Mr. Nip," echoed Teddy.
"I don't believe they carried away much of anything," Mr. Martin remarked, as he slipped on his bath robe. "I didn't see them carry much as they ran."
By this time Janet had gone in to Trouble, comforting him, stopping his frightened sobs, and telling him a little story. And then several neighbors, roused by Mr. Martin's shooting, came in, and a little later the police arrived.
An examination was made in the kitchen, and it was found that the burglars had broken open a window and had thus come into the house. But no sooner had they entered than Mr. Nip roused up and began to talk. And it was his talk and his loud voice that had awakened Janet and Teddy.
The burglars, fearing the parrot would awaken someone, had tried to silence him by throwing something over the cage. But the bird, who was always more excited when strangers were around, kept on screeching and yelling. Then one of the burglars, in his anger, must have thrown something at the parrot's cage, knocking it over, and this was one of the crashes heard upstairs.
"Poor Mr. Nip!" said Teddy, when he was allowed to come down with his father and mother. The parrot's cage was set upright again, no damage having been done.
The excitement seemed to have made Mr. Nip feel better, for he showed no signs of illness as he cried again and again:
"Police! Fire! Burglars! I'm a crack-crack-cracker!"
"You're a good polly!" declared Mrs. Martin. "You saved our house from being robbed!"
And there is no question but what Mr. Nip had done that. Bringing the sick parrot into the kitchen had been the means of scaring away the burglars. No thieves will stay in a house at night if they hear someone moving around, or hear voices, and these bad men may have thought at first that Mr. Nip was some real person, calling for the police.
At any rate the burglars ran away, not getting anything that they came to steal. And it was all due to Mr. Nip.
"He'll sure be in our circus now," said Teddy, as he made ready to go back to bed again, the neighbors and police having left. "Everybody will want to see a parrot that drove away two burglars, won't they, Daddy?"
"They probably will, Teddy boy," his father replied. "Well, one of Uncle Toby's pets has more than paid for his board bill by to-night's work."
"Aren't you glad we got 'em?" asked Teddy.
"Yes, I guess I am," his father answered, laughing.
"Say! I wish I'd been over to your house last night," exclaimed Jimmy Norton to Teddy, when the story of the attempt to rob was being talked over among the children.
"Well, I was wishing I was somewhere else," said Janet. "Oh, but I was scared!"
"I was at first, but I knew I had to tell my mother or my father," remarked Teddy. "So I got out of bed."
"Teddy was brave," declared Janet.
"Oh, that wasn't anything," the little Curlytop boy said modestly. "I wasn't as brave as Mr. Nip. He called the burglars names!"
"Everybody will be glad to come to the circus to see him," said Harry Kent, who was going to help with the show.
"We'll put Mr. Nip in a special cage, and put a sign on so people will know he's the parrot that scared the burglars," suggested fat Jackie Turton.
In fact, Mr. Nip became quite celebrated. For there was an account in the newspaper of the attempted burglary at the Martin house, and the part the parrot had played was well told, so that all over Cresco Mr. Nip was talked about.
"It's a good advertisement for our circus, isn't it, Daddy?" asked Teddy, for the paper mentioned that the Curlytops had a number of pets they were getting ready to place on exhibition in a show.
"Yes," said Mr. Martin, "it is."
"What are you going to do with the money you get from your circus—if you get any?" asked Mrs. Martin of the Curlytops one day about a week after the burglars had gotten in. By this time Mr. Nip was quite well again, and could go back to the barn to be with the monkey, the alligator and the white mice and the rats.
"Oh, we'll get some money," declared Teddy. "But I don't know what we'll do with it. Maybe we'll buy more pets."
"Oh, I hope not!" laughed his mother. "You have enough now."
As the days passed the Curlytops and their friends worked with Uncle Toby's animals, teaching them several new tricks. More than once Teddy and Janet wished they had Tip, the missing dog, as he had performed so well with Top. But no word had come about him, and it was felt he was gone forever.
"Skyrocket is good," Teddy told his boy chums, "but he isn't as good a trick dog as Tip and Top were when they did their tricks together."
"Maybe we can teach Jack, the monkey, some new tricks," suggested Harry Kent.
"Oh, yes, Jack must learn a lot of tricks," agreed Teddy. "We'll start on him now, I guess, as about the only tricks Snuff can do are to roll around on the football and jump through a paper hoop."
That last trick was a new one, and really had not been intended for Snuff. One day Teddy and Janet were getting some paper-covered hoops ready for Skyrocket or Top to jump through, as the dogs seemed to like that trick. Snuff and Turnover were playing together near by, and when Turnover chased Snuff, the Persian cat leaped right through a paper hoop.
"Oh, if we could only make him do that for the circus!" Janet cried. "It would be great!"
"We'll try," Teddy had said. And, after many trials, they did succeed in getting Snuff to leap through a paper hoop. It was a fine trick.
But now the Curlytops planned to teach Jack, their monkey, some tricks in addition to a few that he had learned from Uncle Toby or the sailor. So Jack was brought out from his cage and given a banana, fruit of which he was very fond.
"What trick shall we teach him?" asked Janet.
"I think a jumping trick would be good," Teddy answered. "I'll go and get some boxes, and we'll make a high thing, like a tower, of them. We'll get Jack up on top, and have him jump down. That will be great, won't it?"
"Fine," agreed Janet. "I'll help you get the boxes."
The Curlytops left their monkey sitting on a bench in the yard while they went back into the barn after the boxes. Jack was peacefully eating his banana when Teddy and Janet left him. But when the children came out with the boxes, it having taken longer to find them than they had thought, Jack was not to be seen.
"Oh, Jack is gone!" cried Janet, looking around.
"Maybe he's up in a tree," suggested Teddy. "Here, Jack! Jack!" he called.
But there was no chattering answer, and the monkey was not to be found. He had not gone back into the barn, where the other pets were, and Trouble, who was playing in the back yard, said Jack had not passed him.
"Where can he be?" asked Janet. She and Teddy were beginning to worry, when Mrs. Johnson, into whose baby carriage Slider had once been put by Baby William, called from across the street:
"Are you looking for your dog, children?"
"No'm. For our monkey," answered Teddy.
"Oh, maybe the hand-organ man has him," said Mrs. Johnson. "I saw an Italian with an organ go into your yard a little while ago."
"Did he have a monkey with him?" asked Teddy.
"I don't much believe that he did. I saw the man go in, but I didn't notice a monkey. But I remember now that when the organ man came out, he had a monkey with him. Maybe it was yours."
"I'm sure it was!" cried Janet. "Oh, Ted! The hand-organ man has taken Jack! He took Jack when we were in the barn!"
"I didn't hear any hand-organ music," Teddy said.
"Course he wouldn't play when he came to get Jack!" exclaimed Jan, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, Ted, go for the police! The hand-organ man has taken our monkey! Oh dear!"