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+Project Gutenberg's The Curlytops on Star Island, by Howard R. Garis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Curlytops on Star Island
+       or Camping out with Grandpa
+
+Author: Howard R. Garis
+
+Illustrator: Julia Greene
+
+Release Date: May 15, 2008 [EBook #25477]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Jacqueline Jeremy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    _The_ CURLYTOPS
+    ON STAR ISLAND
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: TED WADED OUT, AND BROUGHT HIS SISTER'S DOLL
+    TO SHORE. _Page_ 134]
+
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS
+    ON
+    STAR ISLAND
+
+    OR
+
+    _Camping out with Grandpa_
+
+    BY
+
+    HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+    AUTHOR OF "THE CURLYTOPS SERIES," "BEDTIME
+    STORIES," "UNCLE WIGGILY SERIES," ETC.
+
+    _Illustrations by
+    JULIA GREENE_
+
+    NEW YORK
+    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
+    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                             PAGE
+
+       I THE BLUE LIGHT                    1
+
+      II WHAT THE FARMER TOLD             14
+
+     III OFF TO STAR ISLAND               32
+
+      IV OVERBOARD                        42
+
+       V THE BAG OF SALT                  56
+
+      VI TED AND THE BEAR                 67
+
+     VII JAN SEES SOMETHING               78
+
+    VIII TROUBLE FALLS IN                 91
+
+      IX TED FINDS A CAVE                101
+
+       X THE GRAPEVINE SWING             111
+
+       XI TROUBLE MAKES A CAKE           123
+
+      XII THE CURLYTOPS GO SWIMMING      139
+
+     XIII JAN'S QUEER RIDE               157
+
+      XIV DIGGING FOR GOLD               164
+
+       XV THE BIG HOLE                   175
+
+      XVI A GLAD SURPRISE                188
+
+     XVII TROUBLE'S PLAYHOUSE            197
+
+    XVIII IN THE CAVE                    211
+
+      XIX THE BLUE LIGHT AGAIN           224
+
+       XX THE HAPPY TRAMP                236
+
+
+
+
+THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE BLUE LIGHT
+
+
+"Mother, make Ted stop!"
+
+"I'm not doing anything at all, Mother!"
+
+"Yes he is, too! Please call him in. He's hurting my doll."
+
+"Oh, Janet Martin, I am not!"
+
+"You are so, Theodore Baradale Martin; and you've just got to stop!"
+
+Janet, or Jan, as she was more often called, stood in front of her
+brother with flashing eyes and red cheeks.
+
+"Children! Children! What are you doing now?" asked their mother,
+appearing in the doorway of the big, white farmhouse, holding in her
+arms a small boy. "Please don't make so much noise. I've just gotten
+Baby William to sleep, and if he wakes up----"
+
+"Yes, don't wake up Trouble, Jan," added Theodore, or Ted, the shorter
+name being the one by which he was most often called. "If you do he'll
+want to come with us, and we can't make Nicknack race."
+
+"I wasn't waking him up, it was you!" exclaimed Jan. "He keeps pulling
+my doll's legs, Mother and----"
+
+"I only pulled 'em a little bit, just to see if they had any springs in
+'em. Jan said her doll was a circus lady and could jump on the back of a
+horse. I wanted to see if she had any springs in her legs."
+
+"Well, I'm _pretending_ she has, so there, Ted Martin! And if you don't
+stop----"
+
+"There now, please stop, both of you, and be nice," begged Mrs. Martin.
+"I thought, since you had your goat and wagon, you could play without
+having so much fuss. But, if you can't----"
+
+"Oh, we'll be good!" exclaimed Ted, running his hands through his
+tightly curling hair, but not taking any of the kinks out that way.
+"We'll be good. I won't tease Jan anymore."
+
+"You'd better not!" warned his sister, and, though she was a year
+younger than Ted, she did not seem at all afraid of him. "If you do
+I'll take my half of the goat away and you can't ride."
+
+"Pooh! Which is your half?" asked Ted.
+
+"The wagon. And if you don't have the wagon to hitch Nicknack to, how're
+you going to ride?"
+
+"Huh! I could ride on his back. Take your old wagon if you want to, but
+if you do----"
+
+"The-o-dore!" exclaimed his mother in a slow, warning voice, and when he
+heard his name spoken in that way, with each syllable pronounced
+separately, Ted knew it was time to haul down his quarreling colors and
+behave. He did it this time.
+
+"I--I'm sorry," he faltered. "I didn't mean that, Jan. I won't pull your
+doll's legs any more."
+
+"And I won't take the goat-wagon away. We'll both go for a ride in it."
+
+"That's the way to have a good time," said Mrs. Martin, with a smile.
+"Now don't make any more noise, for William is fussy. Run off and play
+now, but don't go too far."
+
+"We'll go for a ride," said Teddy. "Come on, Jan. You can let your doll
+make-believe drive the goat if you want to."
+
+"Thank you, Teddy. But I guess I'd better not. I'll pretend she's a Red
+Cross nurse and I'm taking her to the hospital to work."
+
+"Then we'll make-believe the goat-wagon is an ambulance!" exclaimed Ted.
+"And I'm the driver and I don't mind the big guns. Come on, that'll be
+fun!"
+
+Filled with the new idea, the two children hurried around the side of
+the farmhouse out toward the barn where Nicknack, their pet goat, was
+kept. Mrs. Martin smiled as she saw them go.
+
+"Well, there'll be quiet for a little while," she said, "and William can
+have his sleep."
+
+"What's the matter, Ruth?" asked an old gentleman coming up the walk
+just then. "Have the Curlytops been getting into mischief again?"
+
+"No. Teddy and Janet were just having one of their little quarrels. It's
+all over now. You look tired, Father."
+
+Grandpa Martin was Mrs. Martin's husband's father, but she loved him as
+though he were her own.
+
+"Yes, I am tired. I've been working pretty hard on the farm," said
+Grandpa Martin, "but I'm going to rest a bit now. Want me to take
+Trouble?" he asked as he saw the little boy in his mother's arms. Baby
+William was called Trouble because he got into so much of it.
+
+"No, thank you. He's asleep," said Mother Martin. "But I do wish you
+could find some way to keep Ted and Jan from disputing and quarreling so
+much."
+
+"Oh, they don't act half as bad as lots of children."
+
+"No, indeed! They're very good, I think," said Grandma Martin, coming to
+the door with a patch of flour on the end of her nose, for it was baking
+day, as you could easily have told had you come anywhere near the big
+kitchen of the white house on Cherry Farm.
+
+"They need to be kept busy all the while," said Grandpa Martin. "It's
+been a little slow for them here this vacation since we got in the hay
+and gathered the cherries. I think I'll have to find some new way for
+them to have fun."
+
+"I didn't know there was any new way," said Mother Martin with a laugh,
+as she carried Baby William into the bedroom and came back to sit on the
+porch with Grandpa and Grandma Martin.
+
+"Oh, yes, there are lots of new ways. I haven't begun to think of them
+yet," said Grandpa Martin. "I'm going to have a few weeks now with not
+very much to do until it's time to gather the fall crops, and I think
+I'll try to find some way of giving your Curlytops a good time. Yes,
+that's what I'll do. I'll keep the Curlytops so busy they won't have a
+chance to think of pulling dolls' legs or taking Nicknack, the goat,
+away from his wagon."
+
+"What are you planning to do, Father?" asked Grandma Martin of her
+husband.
+
+"Well, I promised to take them camping on Star Island you know."
+
+"What! Not those two little tots--not Ted and Jan?" cried Grandma
+Martin, looking up in surprise.
+
+"Yes, indeed, those same Curlytops!"
+
+It was easy to understand why Grandpa Martin, as well as nearly everyone
+else, called the two Martin children Curlytops. It was because their
+hair was so tightly curling to their heads. Once Grandma Martin lost her
+thimble in the hair of one of the children, and their locks were curled
+so nearly alike that she never could remember on whose head she found
+the needle-pusher.
+
+"Do you think it will be safe to take Ted and Jan camping?" asked Mother
+Martin.
+
+"Why, yes. There's no finer place in the country than Star Island. And
+if you go along----"
+
+"Am I to go?" asked Ted's mother.
+
+"Of course. And Trouble, too. It'll do you all good. I wish Dick could
+come, too," went on Grandpa Martin, speaking of Ted's father, who had
+gone from Cherry Farm for a few days to attend to some matters at a
+store he owned in the town of Cresco. "But Dick says he'll be too busy.
+So I guess the Curlytops will have to go camping with grandpa," added
+the farmer, smiling.
+
+"Well, I'm sure they couldn't have better fun than to go with you,"
+replied Mother Martin. "But I'm not sure that Baby William and I can
+go."
+
+"Oh, yes you can," said her father-in-law. "We'll talk about it again.
+But here come Ted and Jan now in the goat-cart. They seem to have
+something to ask you. We'll talk about the camp later."
+
+Teddy and Janet Martin, the two Curlytops, came riding up to the
+farmhouse in a small wagon drawn by a fine, big goat, that they had
+named Nicknack.
+
+"Please, Mother," begged Ted, "may we ride over to the Home and get
+Hal?"
+
+"We promised to take him for a ride," added Jan.
+
+"Yes, I suppose you may go," said Mother Martin. "But you must be
+careful, and be home in time for supper."
+
+"We will," promised Ted. "We'll go by the wood-road, and then we won't
+get run over by any automobiles. They don't come on that road."
+
+"All right. Now remember--don't stay too late."
+
+"No, we won't!" chorused the two children, and down the garden path and
+along the lane they went to a road that led through Grandpa Martin's
+wood-lot and so on to the Home for Crippled Children, which was about a
+mile from Cherry Farm.
+
+Among others at the Home was a lame boy named Hal Chester. That is, he
+had been lame when the Curlytops first met him early in the summer, but
+he was almost cured now, and walked with only a little limp. The Home
+had been built to cure lame children, and had helped many of them.
+
+Half-way to the big red building, which was like a hospital, the
+Curlytops met Hal, the very boy whom they had started out to see.
+
+"Hello, Hal!" cried Ted. "Get in and have a ride."
+
+"Thanks, I will. I was just coming over to see you, anyway. What are you
+two going to do?"
+
+"Nothing much," Ted answered, while Jan moved along the seat with her
+doll, to make room for Hal. "What're you going to do?"
+
+"Same as you."
+
+The three children laughed at that.
+
+"Let's ride along the river road," suggested Janet. "It'll be nice and
+shady there, and if my Red Cross doll is going to the war she'll like to
+be cool once in a while."
+
+"Is your doll a Red Cross nurse?" asked Hal. "If she is, where's her cap
+and the red cross on her arm?"
+
+"Oh, she just started to be a nurse a little while ago," Jan explained.
+"I haven't had time to make the red cross yet. But I will. Anyhow, let's
+go down by the river."
+
+"All right, we will," agreed Ted. "We'll see if we can get some sticks
+off the willow trees and make whistles," he added to Hal.
+
+"You can make better whistles in the spring, when the bark is softer,
+than you can now," said the lame boy, as the Curlytops often called
+him, though Hal was nearly cured.
+
+"Well, _maybe_ we can make some now," suggested Ted, and a little later
+the two boys were seated in the shade under the willow trees that grew
+on the bank of a small river which flowed into Clover Lake, not far from
+Cherry Farm. Nicknack, tied to a tree, nibbled the sweet, green grass,
+and Jan made a wreath of buttercups for her doll.
+
+After they had made some whistles, which did give out a little tooting
+sound, Ted and Hal found something else to do, and Jan saw, coming along
+the road, a girl named Mary Seaton with whom she often played. Jan
+called Mary to join her, and the two little girls had a good time
+together while Ted and Hal threw stones at some wooden boats they made
+and floated down the stream.
+
+"Oh, Ted, we must go home!" suddenly cried Jan. "It's getting dark!"
+
+The sun was beginning to set, but it would not really have been dark for
+some time, except that the western sky was filled with clouds that
+seemed to tell of a coming storm. So, really, it did appear as though
+night were at hand.
+
+"I guess we'd better go," Ted said, with a look at the dark clouds.
+"Come on, Hal. There's room for you, too, Mary, in the wagon."
+
+"Can Nicknack pull us all?" Mary asked.
+
+"I guess so. It's mostly down hill. Come on!"
+
+The four children got into the goat-wagon, and if Nicknack minded the
+bigger load he did not show it, but trotted off rather fast. Perhaps he
+knew he was going home to his stable where he would have some sweet hay
+and oats to eat, and that was what made him so glad to hurry along.
+
+The wagon was stopped near the Home long enough to let Hal get out, and
+a little later Mary was driven up to her gate. Then Ted and Jan, with
+the doll between them, drove on.
+
+"Oh, Ted!" exclaimed his sister, "mother'll scold. We oughtn't to have
+stayed so late. It's past supper time!"
+
+"We didn't mean to. Anyhow, I guess they'll give us something to eat.
+Grandma baked cookies to-day and there'll be some left."
+
+"I hope so," replied Jan with a sigh. "I'm hungry!"
+
+They drove on in silence a little farther, and then, as they came to the
+top of a hill and could look down toward Star Island in the middle of
+Clover Lake, Ted suddenly called:
+
+"Look, Jan!"
+
+"Where?" she asked.
+
+"Over there," and her brother pointed to the island. "Do you see that
+blue light?"
+
+"On the island, do you mean? Yes, I see it. Maybe somebody's there with
+a lantern."
+
+"Nobody lives on Star Island. Besides, who'd have a blue lantern?"
+
+Jan did not answer.
+
+It was now quite dark, and down in the lake, where there was a patch of
+black which was Star Island, could be seen a flickering blue glow, that
+seemed to stand still and then move about.
+
+"Maybe it's lightning bugs," suggested Jan.
+
+"Huh! Fireflies are sort of white," exclaimed Ted. "I never saw a light
+like that before."
+
+"Me, either, Ted! Hurry up home. Giddap, Nicknack!" and Jan threw at the
+goat a pine cone, one of several she had picked up and put in the wagon
+when they were taking a rest in the woods that afternoon.
+
+Nicknack gave a funny little wiggle to his tail, which the children
+could hardly see in the darkness, and then he trotted on faster. The
+Curlytops, looking back, had a last glimpse of the flickering blue light
+as they hurried toward Cherry Farm, and they were a little frightened.
+
+"What do you s'pose it is?" asked Jan.
+
+"I don't know," answered Ted. "We'll ask Grandpa. Go on, Nicknack!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHAT THE FARMER TOLD
+
+
+"Well, where in the world have you children been?"
+
+"Didn't you know we'd be worried about you?"
+
+"Did you get lost again?"
+
+Mother Martin, Grandpa Martin and Grandma Martin took turns asking these
+three questions as Ted and Jan drove up to the farmhouse in the darkness
+a little later.
+
+"You said you wouldn't stay late," went on Mother Martin, as the
+Curlytops got out of the goat-wagon.
+
+"We didn't mean to, Mother," said Ted.
+
+"Oh, but we're so scared!" exclaimed Jan, and as Grandma Martin put her
+arms about the little girl she felt Jan's heart beating faster than
+usual.
+
+"Why, what is the matter?" asked the old lady.
+
+"Me wants a wide wif Nicknack!" demanded Baby William, as he stood
+beside his mother in the doorway.
+
+"No, Trouble. Not now," answered Ted. "Nicknack is tired and has to have
+his supper. Is there any supper left for us?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Well, I guess we can find a cold potato, or something like it, for such
+tramps as you," laughed Grandpa Martin. "But where on earth have you
+been, and what kept you?"
+
+Then Ted put Nicknack in the barn. But when he came back he and Jan
+between them told of having stayed playing later than they meant to.
+
+"Well, you got home only just in time," said Mother Martin as she took
+the children to the dining-room for a late supper. "It's starting to
+rain now."
+
+And so it was, the big drops pelting down and splashing on the windows.
+
+"But what frightened you, Jan?" asked Grandma Martin.
+
+"It was a queer blue light on Star Island."
+
+"A light on Star Island!" exclaimed her grandfather. "Nonsense! Nobody
+stays on the island after dark unless it's a fisherman or two, and the
+fish aren't biting well enough now to make anyone stay late to try to
+catch them. You must have dreamed it--or made-believe."
+
+"No, we really saw it!" declared Ted. "It was a fliskering blue light."
+
+"Well, if there's any such thing there as a 'fliskering' blue light
+we'll soon find out what it is," said Grandpa Martin.
+
+"How?" asked Ted, his eyes wide open in wonder.
+
+"By going there to see what it is. I'm going to take you two Curlytops
+to camp on Star Island, and if there's anything queer there we'll see
+what it is."
+
+"Oh, are we really going to live on Star Island?" gasped Janet.
+
+"Camping out with grandpa! Oh, what fun!" cried Ted. "Do you mean it?"
+and he looked anxiously at the farmer, fearing there might be some joke
+about it.
+
+"Oh, I really mean it," said Grandpa Martin. "Though I hardly believe
+you saw a real light on the island. It must have been a firefly."
+
+"Lightning bugs aren't that color," declared Ted. "It was a blue light,
+almost like Fourth of July. But tell us about camping, Grandpa!"
+
+"Yes, please do," begged Jan.
+
+And while the children are eating their late supper, and Grandpa Martin
+is telling them his plans, I will stop just a little while to make my
+new readers better acquainted with the Curlytops and their friends.
+
+You have already met Theodore, or Teddy or Ted Martin, and his sister
+Janet, or Jan. With their mother, they were spending the long summer
+vacation on Cherry Farm, the country home of Grandpa Martin outside the
+town of Elmburg, near Clover Lake. Mr. Richard Martin, or Dick, as
+Grandpa Martin called him, owned a store in Cresco, where he lived with
+his family. Besides Ted and Jan there was Baby William, aged about three
+years. He was called Trouble, for the reason I have told you, though
+Mother Martin called him "Dear Trouble" to make up for the fun Ted and
+Jan sometimes poked at him.
+
+Then there was Nora Jones, the maid who helped Mrs. Martin with the
+cooking and housework. And I must not forget Skyrocket, a dog, nor
+Turnover, a cat. These did not help with the housework--though I
+suppose you might say they did, too, in a way, for they ate the scraps
+from the table and this helped to save work.
+
+In the first book of this series, called "The Curlytops at Cherry Farm,"
+I had the pleasure of telling you how Jan and Ted, with their father,
+mother and Nora went to grandpa's place in the country to spend the
+happy vacation days. On the farm, which was named after the number of
+cherry trees on it, the Curlytops found a stray goat which they were
+allowed to keep, and they got a wagon which Nicknack (the name they gave
+their new pet) drew with them in it.
+
+Having the goat made up for having to leave the dog and the cat at home,
+and Nicknack made lots of good times for Ted and Jan. In the book you
+may read of the worry the children carried because Grandpa Martin had
+lost money on account of a flood at his farm, and so could not help when
+there was a fair and collection for the Crippled Children's Home.
+
+But, most unexpectedly, the cherries helped when Mr. Sam Sander, the
+lollypop man, bought them from Grandpa Martin, and found a way of making
+them into candy. And when Ted and Jan and Trouble were lost in the
+woods once, the lollypop man----
+
+But I think you would rather read the story for yourself in the other
+book. I will just say that the Curlytops were still at Cherry Farm,
+though Father Martin had gone away for a little while. And now, having
+told you about the family, I'll go back where I left off, and we'll see
+what is happening.
+
+"Yes," said Grandpa Martin, "I think I will take you Curlytops to camp
+on Star Island. Camping will do you good. You'll learn lots in the woods
+there. And won't it be fun to live in a tent?"
+
+"Oh, won't it though!" cried Ted, and the shine in Jan's eyes and the
+glow on her red cheeks showed how happy she was.
+
+"But I'd like to know what that blue light was," said the little girl.
+
+"Oh, don't worry about that!" laughed Grandpa Martin. "I'll get that
+blue light and hang it in our tent for a lantern."
+
+I think I mentioned that Jan and Ted had such wonderful curling hair
+that even strangers, seeing them the first time, called them the
+"Curlytops." And Ted, who was aged seven years, with his sister just a
+year younger (their anniversaries coming on exactly the same day) did
+not in the least mind being called this. He and Jan rather liked it.
+
+"Let's don't go to bed yet," said Jan to her brother, as they finished
+supper and went from the dining-room into the sitting-room, where they
+were allowed to play and have good times if they did not get too rough.
+And they did not often do this.
+
+"All right. It _is_ early," Ted agreed. "But what can we do?"
+
+"Let's pretend we have a camp here," went on Jan.
+
+"Where?" asked Ted.
+
+"Right in the sitting-room," answered Jan. "We can make-believe the
+couch is a tent, and we can crawl under it and go to sleep."
+
+"I wants to go to sleeps there!" cried Trouble. "I wants to go to sleeps
+right now!"
+
+"Shall we take him back to mother?" asked Ted, looking at his sister.
+"If he's sleepy now he won't want to play."
+
+"I isn't too sleepy to play," objected Baby William. "I can go to sleeps
+under couch if you wants me to," he added.
+
+"Oh, that'll be real cute!" cried Janet. "Come on, Ted, let's do it! We
+can make-believe Trouble is our little dog, or something like that, to
+watch over our tent, and he can go to sleep----"
+
+"Huh! how's he going to _watch_ if he goes to _sleep_?" Ted demanded.
+
+"Oh, well, he can make-believe go to sleep or make-believe watch, either
+one," explained Janet.
+
+"Yes, I s'pose he could do that," agreed Teddy.
+
+Baby William opened his mouth wide and yawned.
+
+"I guess he'll do some _real_ sleeping," said Janet with a laugh. "Come
+on, Trouble, before you get your eyes so tight shut you can't open 'em
+again. Come on, we'll play camping!" and she led the way into the
+sitting room and over toward the big couch at one end.
+
+Many a good time the children had had in this room, and the old couch,
+pretty well battered and broken now, had been in turn a fort, a
+steamboat, railroad car, and an automobile. That was according to the
+particular make-believe game the children were playing. Now the old
+couch was to be a tent, and Jan and Ted moved some chairs, which would
+be part of the pretend-camp, up in front of it.
+
+"It'll be a lot of fun when we go camping for real," said Teddy, as he
+helped his sister spread one of Grandma Martin's old shawls over the
+backs of some chairs. This was to be a sort of second tent where they
+could make-believe cook their meals.
+
+"Yes, we'll have grand fun," agreed Jan. "No, you mustn't go to sleep up
+there, Trouble!" she called to the little fellow, for he had crawled up
+on top of the couch and had stretched himself out as though to take a
+nap.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"'Cause the tent part is under it," explained his sister. "That's the
+top of the tent where you are. You can't go to sleep on _top_ of a tent.
+You might fall off."
+
+"I can fall off now!" announced Trouble, as he suddenly thought of
+something. Then he gave a wiggle and rolled off the seat, bumping into
+Ted, who had stooped down to put a rug under the couch-tent.
+
+"Ouch!" cried Ted. "Look out what you're doing, Trouble! You bumped my
+head."
+
+"I--I bumped _my_ head!" exclaimed the little fellow, rubbing his
+tangled hair.
+
+"He didn't mean to," said Janet. "You mustn't roll off that way,
+Trouble. You might be hurt. Come now, go to sleep under the couch.
+That's inside the tent you know."
+
+She showed him where Ted had spread the rug, as far back under the couch
+as he could reach, and this looked to Trouble like a nice place.
+
+"I go to sleeps in there!" he said, and under the couch he crawled,
+growling and grunting.
+
+"What are you doing that for?" asked Ted, in some surprise.
+
+"I's a bear!" exclaimed Baby William. "I's a bad bear! Burr-r-r-r!" and
+he growled again.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't do that!" objected Janet. "We don't want any bears in
+our camp!"
+
+"Course we can have 'em!" cried Ted. "That'll be fun! We'll play Trouble
+is a bear 'stead of a dog, and I can hunt him. Only I ought to have
+something for a gun. I know! I'll get grandpa's Sunday cane!" and he
+started for the hall.
+
+"Oh, no. I don't want to play bear and hunting!" objected Janet.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"'Cause it's too--too--scary at night. Let's play something nice and
+quiet. Let Trouble be our watch dog, and we can be in camp and he can
+bark and scare something."
+
+"What'll he scare?" asked Ted.
+
+Meanwhile Baby William was crawling as far back under the couch as he
+could, growling away, though whether he was pretending to be a bear, a
+lion or only a dog no one knew but himself.
+
+"What do you want him to scare?" asked Ted of his sister.
+
+"Oh--oh--well, chickens, maybe!" she answered.
+
+"Pooh! Chickens aren't any fun!" cried Ted. "If Trouble is going to be a
+dog let him scare a wild bull, or something like that. Anyhow chickens
+don't come to camp."
+
+"Well, neither does wild bulls!" declared Janet.
+
+"Yes, they do!" cried Ted, and it seemed as if there would be so much
+talk that the children would never get to playing anything. "Don't you
+'member how daddy told us about going camping, and in the night a wild
+bull almost knocked down the tent."
+
+"Well, that was real, but this is only make-believe," said Janet. "Let
+Trouble scare the chickens."
+
+"All right," agreed Ted, who was nearly always kind to his sister. "Go
+on and growl, Trouble. You're a dog and you're going to scare the
+chickens out of camp."
+
+They waited a minute but Trouble did not growl.
+
+"Why don't you make a noise?" asked Janet.
+
+Trouble gave a grunt.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Ted.
+
+"I--I can't growl 'cause I'm all stuck under here," answered the voice
+of the little fellow, from far under the couch. "I can't wiggle!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried Janet.
+
+Teddy stooped and looked beneath the couch.
+
+"He's caught on some of the springs that stick down," he said. "I'll
+poke him out."
+
+He caught hold of Trouble's clothes and pulled the little fellow loose.
+But Trouble cried--perhaps because he was sleepy--and then his mother
+came and got him, leaving Teddy and Janet to play by themselves, which
+they did until they, too, began to feel sleepy.
+
+"You'll want to go to bed earlier than this when you go camping, my
+Curlytops," said Grandpa Martin, as the children came out of the
+sitting-room.
+
+"Are you really going to take them camping?" asked Mother Martin after
+Jan and Ted had gone upstairs to bed.
+
+"I really am. There are some tents in the barn. I own part of Star
+Island and there's no nicer place to camp. You'll come, too, and so will
+Dick when he comes back from Cresco. We'll take Nora along to do the
+cooking. Will you come, Mother?" and the Curlytops' grandfather looked
+at his gray-haired wife.
+
+"No, I'll stay on Cherry Farm and feed the hired men," she answered with
+a smile.
+
+"Why do they call it Star Island?" asked Ted's mother.
+
+"Well, once upon a time, a good many years ago," said Grandpa Martin, "a
+shooting star, or meteor, fell blazing on the island, and that's how it
+got its name."
+
+"Maybe it was a part of the star shining that the children saw
+to-night," said Grandma Martin. "Though I don't see how it could be,
+for it fell many years ago."
+
+"Maybe," agreed her husband.
+
+None of them knew what a queer part that fallen star was to have in the
+lives of those who were shortly to go camping on the island.
+
+Early the next morning after breakfast, Ted and Jan went out to the barn
+to get Nicknack to have a ride.
+
+"Where is you? I wants to come, too!" cried the voice of their little
+brother, as they were putting the harness on their goat.
+
+"Oh, there's Trouble," whispered Ted. "Shall we take him with us, Jan?"
+
+"Yes, this time. We're not going far. Grandma wants us to go to the
+store for some baking soda."
+
+"All right, we'll drive down," returned Ted. "Come on, Trouble!" he
+called.
+
+"I's tummin'," answered Baby William. "I's dot a tookie."
+
+"He means cookie," said Jan, laughing.
+
+"I know it," agreed Ted. "I wish he'd bring me one."
+
+"Me too!" exclaimed Janet.
+
+"I's dot a 'ot of tookies," went on Trouble, who did not always talk in
+such "baby fashion." When he tried to he could speak very well, but he
+did not often try.
+
+"Oh, he's got his whole apron _full_ of cookies!" cried Jan. "Where did
+you get them?" she asked, as her little brother came into the barn.
+
+"Drandma given 'em to me, an' she said you was to have some," announced
+the little boy, as he let the cookies slide out of his apron to a box
+that stood near the goat-wagon.
+
+Then Baby William began eating a cookie, and Jan and Ted did also, for
+they, too, were hungry, though it was not long after breakfast.
+
+"Goin' to wide?" asked Trouble, his mouth full of cookie.
+
+"Yes, we're going for a ride," answered Jan. "Oh, Ted, get a blanket or
+something to put over our laps. It's awful dusty on the road to-day,
+even if it did rain last night. It all dried up, I guess."
+
+"All right, I'll get a blanket from grandpa's carriage. And you'd better
+get a cushion for Trouble."
+
+"I will," said Janet, and her brother and sister left Baby William alone
+with the goat for a minute or two.
+
+When Jan came back with the cushion she went to get another cookie, but
+there were none.
+
+"Why Trouble Martin!" she cried, "did you eat them _all_?"
+
+"All what?"
+
+"All the cookies!"
+
+"I did eat one and Nicknack--he did eat the west. He was hungry, he was,
+and he did eat the west ob 'em. I feeded 'em to him. Nicknack was a
+hungry goat," said Trouble, smiling.
+
+"I should think he was hungry, to eat up all those cookies! I only had
+one!" cried Jan.
+
+"What! Did Nicknack get at the cookies?" cried Ted, coming back with a
+light lap robe.
+
+"Trouble gave them to him," explained Janet. "Oh dear! I was so hungry
+for another!"
+
+"I'll ask grandma for some," promised Ted, and he soon came back with
+his hands full of the round, brown molasses cookies.
+
+"Hello, Curlytops, what can I do for you to-day?" asked the storekeeper
+a little later, when the three children had driven up to his front door.
+"Do you want a barrel of sugar put in your wagon or a keg of salt
+mack'rel? I have both."
+
+"We want baking soda," answered Jan.
+
+"And you shall have the best I've got. Where are you going--off to look
+for the end of the rainbow and get the pot of gold at the end?" he asked
+jokingly.
+
+"No, we're not going far to-day," answered Ted.
+
+"Well, stop in when you're passing this way again," called out the
+storekeeper as Ted turned Nicknack around for the homeward trip. "I'm
+always glad to see you."
+
+"Maybe you won't see us now for quite a while," answered Jan proudly.
+
+"No? Why not? You're not going to leave Cherry Farm I hope."
+
+Ted stopped Nicknack that they might better explain.
+
+"We're going camping with grandpa on Star Island."
+
+"Where's that you're going?" asked a farmer who had just come out of the
+store after buying some groceries.
+
+"Camping on Star Island in Clover Lake," repeated Ted.
+
+"Huh! I wouldn't go there if I were you," said the farmer, shaking his
+head.
+
+"Why not?" asked Ted. "Is it because of the blue light?" and he looked
+at his sister to see if she remembered.
+
+"I don't know anything about a blue light," the farmer answered. "But if
+I were your grandfather I wouldn't take you there camping," and the man
+again shook his head.
+
+"Why not?" asked Janet, her eyes opening wide in surprise.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you why," went on the farmer. "I was over on Star
+Island fishing the other day, and I saw a couple of tramps, or maybe
+gypsies, there. I didn't like the looks of the men, and that's why I
+wouldn't go there camping if I were you or your grandpa," and the farmer
+shook his head again as he unhitched his team of horses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OFF TO STAR ISLAND
+
+
+"Oh Ted!" exclaimed Janet, as she drove home in the goat-wagon with her
+brother and Baby William, "do you s'pose we can't go camping with
+grandpa?"
+
+"Why can't we?" demanded Teddy.
+
+"'Cause of what that farmer said."
+
+"Oh, well, I guess grandpa won't be 'fraid of tramps on the island. It's
+part his, anyhow, and he can make 'em get off."
+
+"Yes, he could do that," agreed Janet, after thinking the matter over.
+"But if they were gypsies?"
+
+"Well, gypsies and tramps are the same. Grandpa can make the gypsies get
+off the island too."
+
+"They--they might take Trouble," faltered Jan in a low voice.
+
+"Who?" asked Ted.
+
+"The gypsies."
+
+"Who take me?" demanded Trouble himself. "Who take me, Jam?"
+
+Sometimes he called his sister Jam instead of Jan.
+
+"Who take me?" he asked, playfully poking his fingers in his sister's
+eyes.
+
+"Oh--nobody," she answered quickly, as she took him off her lap and put
+him behind her in the cart. She did not want to frighten her little
+brother. "Let's hurry home and tell grandpa," Jan said to Ted, and he
+nodded his curly head to show that he would do that.
+
+On trotted Nicknack, Trouble being now seated in the back of the wagon
+on a cushion, while Ted and Jan were in front.
+
+"Maybe it was tramps making a campfire that we saw last night," went on
+Jan after a pause, during which they came nearer to Cherry Farm.
+
+"A campfire blaze isn't blue," declared Ted.
+
+"Well, maybe this is a new kind."
+
+Ted shook his head until his curls waggled.
+
+"I don't b'lieve so," he said.
+
+"Bang! There, me shoot you!" suddenly cried Trouble, and Ted and Jan
+heard something fall with a thud on the ground behind them.
+
+"Whoa, there!" cried Ted to Nicknack. "What are you shootin', Trouble
+baby?" he asked, turning to look at his little brother.
+
+"Me shoot a bunny rabbit," was the answer.
+
+"Oh, there _is_ a little bunny!" cried Jan, pointing to a small, brown
+one that ran along under the bushes, and then came to a stop in front of
+the goat-wagon, pausing to look at the children.
+
+"Me shoot him," said Trouble, laughing gleefully.
+
+"What with?" asked Ted, a sudden thought coming into his mind.
+
+"Trouble frow store thing at bunny," said the little boy. "It bwoke an'
+all white stuff comed out!"
+
+"Oh, Trouble, did you throw grandma's soda at the bunny?" cried Jan.
+
+"Yes, I did," answered Baby William.
+
+"And it's all busted!" exclaimed Ted, as he saw the white powder
+scattered about on the woodland path. "We've got to go back to the store
+for some more. Oh, Trouble Martin!"
+
+"I's didn't hurt de bunny wabbit," said Trouble earnestly. "I's only
+make-be'ieve shoot him--bang!"
+
+"I know you didn't hurt the bunny," observed Jan. "But you've hurt
+grandma's soda. Is there any left, Ted?" she asked, as her brother got
+out of the wagon to pick up the broken package.
+
+"A little," he answered. "There's some in the bottom. I guess we'll go
+back to the store and get more. I want to ask that farmer again about
+the tramps on Star Island."
+
+"No, don't," begged Jan. "Let's take what soda we have to grandma. Maybe
+it'll be enough. Anyhow, if we did go back for more Trouble might throw
+that out, too, if he saw a rabbit."
+
+"That's so. I guess we'd better leave him when we go to the store next
+time. How'd he get the soda, anyhow?"
+
+"It must have jiggled out of my lap, where I was holding it, and then it
+fell in the bottom of the wagon and he got it. He didn't know any
+better."
+
+"No, I s'pose not. Well, maybe grandma can use this."
+
+Teddy carefully lifted up the broken package of baking soda, more than
+half of which had spilled when Trouble threw it at the little brown
+rabbit. Baby William may have thought the package of soda was a white
+stone, for it was wrapped in a white paper.
+
+"Well, I'm glad he didn't hit the little bunny, anyhow," said Jan.
+"Where is it?" and she looked for the rabbit.
+
+But the timid woodland creature had hopped away, probably to go to its
+burrow and tell a wonderful story, in rabbit language, about having seen
+some giants in a big wagon drawn by an elephant--for to a rabbit a goat
+must seem as large as a circus animal.
+
+"I guess Trouble can't hit much that he throws at," observed Ted, as he
+started Nicknack once more toward Cherry Farm.
+
+"He threw a hair brush at me once and hit me," declared Jan.
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Teddy. "Here, Trouble, if you want to throw
+things throw these," and he stopped to pick up some old acorns which he
+gave his little brother. "You can't hurt anyone with them."
+
+Trouble was delighted with his new playthings, and kept quiet the rest
+of the way home tossing the acorns out of the goat-wagon at the trees he
+passed.
+
+Grandma Martin said it did not matter about the broken box of soda, as
+there was enough left for her need; so Ted and Jan did not have to go
+back to the store.
+
+"But I'd like to ask that farmer more about the tramps on Star Island,"
+said Ted to his grandfather, when telling what the man had said at the
+grocery.
+
+"I'll see him and ask him," decided Grandpa Martin.
+
+It was two days after this--two days during which the Curlytops had much
+fun at Cherry Farm--that Grandpa Martin spoke at dinner one afternoon.
+
+"I saw Mr. Crittendon," he said, "and he told me that he had seen you
+Curlytops at the store and mentioned the tramps on Star Island."
+
+"Are they really there?" asked Jan eagerly.
+
+"Well, they might have been. But we won't let them bother us if we go
+camping. I'll make them clear out. Most of that island belongs to me,
+and the rest to friends of mine. They'll do as I say, and we'll clear
+out the tramps."
+
+"I hope you will, Grandpa," said Janet.
+
+"Did Mr. Crittendon say anything about the queer blue light Jan and Ted
+saw?" asked Grandma Martin.
+
+"No, he hadn't seen that."
+
+"Where did the tramps come from? And is he sure they weren't gypsies?"
+asked Jan's mother.
+
+"No, they weren't gypsies. We don't often see them around here. Oh, I
+imagine the tramps were the regular kind that go about the country in
+summer, begging their way. They might have found a boat and gone to the
+island to sleep, where no constable would trouble them.
+
+"But we're not afraid of tramps, are we, Curlytops?" he cried, as he
+caught Baby William up in his arms and set him on his broad shoulder.
+"We don't mind them, do we, Trouble?"
+
+"We frow water on 'em!" said Baby William, laughing with delight as his
+grandfather made-believe bite some "souse" off his ears.
+
+"That's what we will! No tramps for us on Star Island!"
+
+"When are we going?" asked Ted excitedly.
+
+"Yes, when?" echoed Jan.
+
+"In a few days now. I've got to get out the tents and other things.
+We'll go the first of the week I think."
+
+Ted and Jan could hardly wait for the time to come. They helped as much
+as they could when Grandpa Martin got the tents out of the barn, and
+they wanted to take so many of their toys and playthings along that
+there would have been no room in the boat for anything else if they had
+had their way.
+
+But Mother Martin thinned out their collection of treasures, allowing
+them to take only what she thought would give them the most pleasure.
+Boxes of food were packed, and a little stove made ready to take along,
+for although a campfire looks nice it is hard to cook over.
+
+Trouble got into all sorts of mischief, from almost falling out of the
+haymow once, to losing the bucket down the well by letting the chain
+unwind too fast. But a hired man caught him as he toppled off the hay in
+the barn, and Grandpa Martin got the bucket up from the well by tying
+the rake to a long pole and fishing deep down in the water.
+
+At last the day came when the Curlytops were to go camping on Star
+Island. The boat was loaded with the tents and other things, and two or
+three trips were to be made half-way across the lake, for the island
+was about in the middle. Nicknack and his wagon were to be taken over
+and a small stable made for him under a tree not far from the big tent.
+
+"All aboard!" cried Ted, as he and Jan took their places in the first
+boat. "All aboard!"
+
+"Isn't this fun!" laughed Janet, who was taking care of Trouble.
+
+"Dis fun," echoed the little chap.
+
+"I'm sure we'll have a nice time," said Mother Martin. "And your father
+will like it when he, too, can camp out with us."
+
+"I hope the tramps don't bother you," said Mr. Crittendon, who had come
+to help Grandpa Martin get his camping party ready.
+
+"Oh, we're not afraid of them!" cried Ted.
+
+"Well, be careful; that's all I've got to say," went on the farmer.
+"I'll let you have my gun, if you think you'll need it," he said to
+Grandpa Martin.
+
+"Nonsense! I won't need it, thank you. I'm not afraid of a few tramps.
+Besides I sent one of my men over to the island yesterday, and he
+couldn't find a sign of a vagrant. If any tramps were there they've
+gone."
+
+"Wa-all, maybe," said the farmer, with a shake of his head. "Good luck
+to you, anyhow!"
+
+"Thanks!" laughed Grandpa Martin.
+
+"All aboard!" called Ted once more.
+
+Then Sam, the hired man, and Grandpa Martin began to row the boat.
+
+The Curlytops were off for Star Island, to camp out with grandpa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+OVERBOARD
+
+
+"Trouble! sit still!" ordered Janet.
+
+"Yes, Trouble, you sit still!" called Mother Martin, as the Curlytops'
+grandfather and his man pulled on the oars that sent the boat out toward
+the middle of the lake. "Don't move about."
+
+"I wants to splash water."
+
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that! Splashing water isn't nice," said Baby
+William's mother.
+
+"'Ike drandpa does," Trouble went on, pointing to the oars which the
+farmer was moving to and fro. Now and then a little wave hit the broad
+blades and splashed little drops into the boat.
+
+"Trouble want do that!" declared the little fellow.
+
+"No, Trouble mustn't do that," said his mother. "Grandpa isn't splashing
+the water. He's rowing. Sit still and watch him."
+
+Baby William did sit still for a little while, but not for very long.
+His mother held to the loose part of his blue and white rompers so he
+would not get far away, but, after a bit, she rather forgot about him,
+in talking to Ted and Jan about what they were to do and not to do in
+camp.
+
+Suddenly grandpa, who had been rowing slowly toward Star Island, dropped
+his oars and cried:
+
+"Look out there, Trouble!"
+
+"Oh, what's the matter?" asked Mother Martin, looking around quickly.
+
+"Trouble nearly jumped out of the boat," explained Grandpa Martin. "I
+just grabbed him in time."
+
+And so he had, catching Baby William by the seat of his rompers and
+pulling him back on the seat from which he had quickly sprung up.
+
+"What were you trying to do?" asked Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Trouble want to catch fish," was the little fellow's answer.
+
+"Yes! I guess a fish would catch _you_ first!" laughed Ted.
+
+"I'll sit by him and hold him in," offered Janet, and she remained close
+to her small brother during the remainder of the trip across the lake.
+He did not again try to lean far over as he had done when his
+grandfather saw him and grabbed him.
+
+"Hurray!" cried Teddy, as he sprang ashore. "Now for the camp! Can I
+help put up the tents, Grandpa?"
+
+"Yes, when it's time. But first we must bring the rest of the things
+over. We'll finish that first and put up the tents afterward. We have
+two more boatloads to bring."
+
+"Then can't I help do that?"
+
+"Yes, you may do that," said Grandpa Martin with a smile.
+
+"Can't I come, too?" asked Janet. "I'm almost as strong as Teddy."
+
+"I think you'd better stay and help me look after Trouble," said Mrs.
+Martin. "Nora will be busy getting lunch ready for us, which we will eat
+before the tents are up."
+
+"Oh, then I can help at that!" cried Janet, who was eager to be busy.
+"Come on, Nora! Where are the things to eat, Mother? I'm hungry
+already!"
+
+"So'm I!" cried Ted. "Can't we eat before we go back for the other
+boatload, Grandpa?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so. You Curlytops can eat while Sam and I unload the boat.
+I'll call you Teddy, when I'm ready to go back."
+
+"All right, Grandpa."
+
+The tents were to be put up and camp made a little way up from the shore
+near the spot at which they had landed. Grandpa Martin took out of the
+boat the different things he had brought over, and stacked them up on
+shore. Parts of the tents were there, and things to cook with as well as
+food to eat. More things would be brought on the next two trips, when
+another of the hired men was to come over to help put up the tents and
+make camp.
+
+"Oh, I just know we'll have fun here, camping with grandpa!" laughed
+Jan, as she picked up her small brother who had slipped and fallen down
+a little hill, covered with brown pine needles.
+
+"Let's go and look for something," proposed Ted, when he had run about a
+bit and thrown stones in the lake, watching the water splash up and
+hundreds of rings chase each other toward shore.
+
+"What'll we look for?" asked Janet, as she took hold of Trouble's hand,
+so he would not slip down again.
+
+"Oh, anything we can find," went on Ted. "We'll have some fun while
+we're waiting for grandpa to get out the things to eat."
+
+"I want something to eat!" cried Trouble. "I's hungry!"
+
+"So'm I--a little bit," admitted Jan.
+
+"Maybe we could find a cookie--or something--before they get everything
+unpacked," suggested Teddy, and this was just what happened. Grandpa
+Martin had some cookies in a paper bag in his pocket. Grandma Martin had
+put them there, for she felt sure the children would get hungry before
+their regular lunch was ready on the island. And she knew how hungry it
+makes anyone, children especially, to start off on a picnic in the woods
+or across a lake.
+
+"There you are, Curlytops!" laughed Grandpa Martin, as he passed out the
+molasses and sugar cookies. "Now don't drop any of them on your toes!"
+
+"Why not?" Ted wanted to know.
+
+"Oh, because it might break them--I mean it might break your cookies,"
+and Grandpa Martin laughed again.
+
+"Come now, we'll go and look for things," proposed Ted, as he took a
+bite of his cookie, something which Jan and Trouble were also doing.
+
+"What'll we look for?" Jan asked again.
+
+"Oh, maybe we can find a cave or a den where a--where a fox lives," he
+said, rather stumbling over his words.
+
+At first Ted had been going to say that perhaps they would look for a
+bear's den, but then he happened to remember that even talk of a bear,
+though of course there were none on Star Island, might scare his little
+brother and Jan. So he said "fox" instead.
+
+"Is there a fox here?" Jan asked.
+
+"Maybe," said Ted. "Anyhow, let's go off and look."
+
+"Don't go too far!" called Grandpa Martin after them, as he started to
+unload the boat and get the camp in order. "And don't go too near the
+edge of the lake. I don't want you to fall in and have your mother blame
+me."
+
+"No, we won't!" promised Ted. "Come on," he called to his little brother
+and sister. "Oh, there you go again!" he cried, as he saw Trouble
+stumble and fall. "What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+"It's these pine needles. They're awfully slippery," answered Janet. "I
+nearly slipped down myself. Did you hurt yourself, Trouble?" she asked
+the little fellow.
+
+He did not answer directly, but first looked at the place where he had
+fallen. He could easily see it, because the pine needles were brushed to
+one side. Then Baby William tried to turn around and look at the back of
+his little bloomers.
+
+"No, I isn't hurted," he said.
+
+Janet and Ted laughed.
+
+"I guess maybe he thought he might have broken his leg or something,"
+remarked Teddy. "Now come on and don't fall any more, Trouble."
+
+But the little fellow was not quite ready to go on. He stooped over and
+looked at the ground where he had fallen.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Janet, who was waiting to lead him on,
+holding his hand so he would not fall.
+
+"Maybe he lost something," said Teddy. "Has he got any pockets in his
+bloomers, Jan?"
+
+"No, mother sewed 'em up so he wouldn't put his hands in 'em all the
+while--and his hands were so dirty they made his bloomers the same way.
+He hasn't any pockets."
+
+"Then he couldn't lose anything," decided Ted. He was always losing
+things from his pockets, so perhaps he ought to know about what he was
+talking. "What is it, Trouble?" he asked, for the little fellow was
+still stooping over and looking carefully at the ground near the spot
+where he had fallen.
+
+"I--I satted right down on him," said Trouble at last, as he picked up
+something from the earth. "I satted right down on him, but I didn't bust
+him," and he held out something on a little piece of wood.
+
+"What's he got?" asked Ted.
+
+"Oh, it's only an ant!" answered Janet. "I guess he saw a little ant
+crawling along, just before he fell, and he sat down on him. Did you
+think you'd hurt the little ant, Trouble?"
+
+"I satted on him, but I didn't hurt him," answered the little boy. "He
+can wiggle along nice--see!" and he showed the ant, crawling about on
+the piece of wood. Perhaps the little ant wondered how in the world it
+was ever going to get back to the ground again.
+
+"Put him down and come on," said Ted. "We want to find something before
+grandpa puts up the tent. Maybe we can find the den where the fox
+lives."
+
+Trouble carefully put the little ant back on the ground.
+
+"I satted on him, but I didn't hurted him," again said the little
+fellow, grunting as he stood up straight again. Janet took his hand and
+they followed Teddy off through the forest.
+
+It was very pleasant in the woods on Star Island. The sun was shining
+brightly and the waters of the lake sparkled in the sun. The children
+felt glad and happy that they had come camping with their grandpa, and
+they knew that the best fun was yet to happen.
+
+"Let's look around for holes now," said Teddy, after they had gone a
+little way down a woodland path.
+
+"What sort of holes?" asked Janet.
+
+"Holes where a fox lives," answered her brother. "If we could find a fox
+maybe we could tame it."
+
+"Wouldn't it bite?" the little girl asked.
+
+"Well, maybe a little bit at first, but not after it got tame," said
+Teddy. "Come on!"
+
+They walked a little way farther, and then Jan suddenly cried:
+
+"Oh, I see a hole!"
+
+She pointed to one beneath the roots of a big tree.
+
+"That's a fox den, I guess!" exclaimed Teddy. "We'll watch and see what
+comes out."
+
+The children hid in the bushes where they could look at the hole in the
+ground. For some time they waited, and then they began to get tired. The
+Curlytops were not used to keeping still.
+
+"I'm going to sneeze!" said Trouble suddenly, and sneeze he did. And
+just then a little brown animal bounced out from under a bush and ran
+into the hole.
+
+"Oh, it's a bunny rabbit!" cried Janet. "He lives in that hole! Come on,
+Ted, let's walk. We've found out what it was. It isn't a fox, it's a
+bunny! Let's go and find something else on the island. Maybe we can find
+a big cave."
+
+"And maybe we'll find out what that blue light was," cried Ted eagerly.
+
+"I guess I don't want to look for that," remarked Jan slowly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"'Cause don't you 'member what Hal said about there bein' ghosts on
+this island?" and Janet looked over her shoulder, though it was broad
+daylight.
+
+"Pooh!" laughed her brother. "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."
+
+"I don't--but----"
+
+"I'm not afraid!" declared Teddy. "And I'm going to look and see if I
+can't find the lost star that fell on the island."
+
+"Grandpa said it all burned up."
+
+"Well, maybe a little piece of it was left. Anyhow I'm going to look."
+
+So they looked, but they found nothing like the blue light, and then Ted
+said he was hungry and wanted to eat.
+
+Nora and Mrs. Martin had set out a little lunch for the children on top
+of a packing box, and the Curlytops and Trouble were soon enjoying the
+sandwiches and cake, while their grandfather and the hired man finished
+unloading the boat. In a little while Grandpa Martin called:
+
+"All aboard, Teddy, if you're going back with me!"
+
+"I'm coming!" was the answer. "I'm coming!"
+
+It did not take Grandpa Martin long to pull back to the mainland in the
+boat which was empty save for himself and Ted. The lake was smooth, a
+little wind making tiny waves that gently lapped the side of the boat.
+
+"I think we'd better bring Nicknack over this trip," said Grandpa
+Martin, when a second farm hand met him on shore and began to help load
+the boat for the second trip. "The sooner we get that goat over on the
+island the better I'll feel."
+
+"Why, you're not afraid of him, are you?" asked the hired man whose name
+was George.
+
+"No. But I don't know how easy it's going to be to ferry him over. He
+may start some of his tricks. So we won't put much in the boat this
+time. We'll leave plenty of room for the goat and the cart."
+
+"Oh, Nicknack will be good," declared Ted. "I know he will. Won't you,
+Nicknack?" and he put his arms around his pet. The goat had been driven
+down near the dock whence the boat started for Star Island.
+
+"Well, unharness him and we'll get him on board," said the farmer. "Then
+we'll see what happens next."
+
+Nicknack made no fuss at all about being unharnessed. His wagon was
+first wheeled on the boat, which was a large one and broad. Then Ted
+started Nicknack toward the craft.
+
+"Giddap!" cried Teddy to Nicknack. "We're going to camp on Star Island,
+and you can have lots of fun! Giddap!"
+
+Nicknack stood still on the dock for a few seconds, and he seemed to be
+sniffing the boat and the water in which it floated. Then with a little
+wiggle of his funny, short tail, he jumped down in near his wagon, and
+began eating some grass which Ted had pulled and placed there for him.
+
+"It's a sort of bait, like a piece of cheese in a mouse trap," remarked
+Ted, as he saw the goat nibbling. "Isn't he good, Grandpa?"
+
+"He's good now, Teddy; but whether he'll be good all the way over is
+something I can't say. I hope so."
+
+George put in the boat as much as could safely be carried, with the goat
+as a passenger, and then he and Grandpa Martin began rowing toward Star
+Island. At first everything went very well. Nicknack seemed a little
+frightened when the boat tipped and rocked, but Ted patted him and fed
+him more grass, which Nicknack liked very much.
+
+"I knew he'd be good!" Teddy said, when they were almost at the island,
+and could see Jan waving to them. "I knew he'd like the boat ride,
+Grandpa."
+
+"Yes, he seems to like it. Now if we----"
+
+But just then something happened.
+
+The wind suddenly blew rather hard, roughening the water and causing the
+boat to tip. Nicknack was jostled over against the wagon, and some water
+splashed on him.
+
+"Baa-a-a-a-a!" bleated the goat.
+
+Then, before anyone could stop him, he gave a leap over Teddy's head,
+and into the water splashed Nicknack.
+
+The goat had leaped overboard into the deepest part of Clover Lake!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BAG OF SALT
+
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Teddy. "Oh, there goes my nice goat! Catch him, Grandpa!
+Stop him!"
+
+Grandpa Martin stopped rowing and looked in surprise at the goat. So did
+the hired man.
+
+"Well, just look!" exclaimed George.
+
+"Oh, he'll be drowned! He'll be drowned!" wailed Teddy, tears coming
+into his eyes, for he loved Nicknack. "He'll be drowned!"
+
+Grandpa Martin rested his hands on the oars and looked into the water.
+Then he smiled.
+
+"I guess you'd have hard work drowning that goat," he said. "He's
+swimming like a fish!"
+
+"And right straight for Star Island!" added the hired man. "That's a
+smart goat all right! He knows where he wants to go, and the shortest
+way to get there!"
+
+Surely enough Nicknack was swimming toward the island. When he jumped
+out of the boat he floundered a little in the water, and splashed some
+on Teddy. Then he struck out, paddling as a dog does with his front
+feet. Nicknack turned himself about until he was headed toward the
+island, and then he swam straight toward it.
+
+"Oh, won't he drown, Grandpa?" asked Teddy.
+
+"I don't believe so, my boy! I guess Nicknack knows more than we thought
+he did. Maybe he didn't like the way we rowed, or he may have wanted a
+bath. Anyhow he jumped overboard, but he'll be all right."
+
+"See him go!" cried the hired man.
+
+Nicknack was swimming quite fast. Of course a goat is not as good a
+swimmer as is a duck or a fish, but Ted's pet did very well. On shore
+were Nora, Mrs. Martin, Janet, Trouble, and the farm hand who had gone
+over in the first boatload. They were watching the goat swimming toward
+them.
+
+"Did you throw him into the water, Teddy?" asked Janet, as soon as the
+boat was near enough so that talking could be heard.
+
+"He jumped in," Ted answered. "Isn't he a good swimmer?"
+
+"I should say so! Here, Nicknack! Come here!" Janet called.
+
+The goat, which had been headed toward a spot a little way down the
+island from where Janet and her mother stood, turned at the sound of the
+little girl's voice and came in her direction.
+
+"Oh, he knows me!" she cried in delight. "Now don't shake yourself the
+way Skyrocket does, and get me all wet!" she begged, as Nicknack
+scrambled out on shore, water dripping from his hairy coat.
+
+But the goat did not act like a dog, who gives himself a great shaking
+whenever he comes on shore after having been in the water. Nicknack just
+let it drip off him, and began to nibble some of the grass that grew on
+the island. He was making himself perfectly at home, it seemed.
+
+The goat-wagon and the other things were soon landed, and then Grandpa
+Martin and one of the hired men went back for the last load. When that
+came back and the things were piled up near the tents, the work of
+setting up the camp went on. There was much yet to be done.
+
+Ted and Jan helped all they could in putting up the tents. So did Mother
+Martin and Nora, who was large and strong. She could pull on a rope
+about as well as a man, and there were many ropes that needed tightening
+and fastening around pegs driven into the ground so the tents would not
+blow over in the wind.
+
+Nicknack had been tied to a tree, near which, a little later, Ted and
+Jan were going to make him a little bower of leaves and branches. That
+was to be his stable until a better one could be built by Grandpa
+Martin--one that would keep Nicknack dry when it rained.
+
+At last the tents were up, one for sleeping, another for cooking, and a
+third where the Curlytops and the others would eat their meals. It was a
+fine camp that Grandpa Martin made, and he knew just how to do it right,
+even to digging little trenches, or ditches, around the tents so the
+water would run off when it stormed.
+
+"And now let's take a walk and see what we can find," suggested Ted to
+Janet, when Mother Martin said they might play about until supper was
+ready, for they had called the lunch they had eaten their dinner.
+
+"Don't go too far," cautioned Mother Martin.
+
+"Oh, we can't get lost on this island," said Ted. "All we'd have to do,
+if we were, would be to walk along the shore until we came to this
+camp."
+
+"I know that. But it wasn't so much about your getting lost that I was
+thinking," said Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Oh, you mean--the tramps?" half whispered Janet.
+
+"Well, I don't know whether there are any here or not," went on her
+mother. "But it's best to be careful until grandpa has had a chance to
+look about. Where is grandpa now?"
+
+"He's getting some water at the spring," Ted answered.
+
+There was a fine spring on Star Island, not far from the place where the
+tents had been set up, and Mr. Martin was now bringing pails of water
+from that and pouring them into a barrel which would hold so much that
+even Trouble would have plenty to drink no matter how thirsty he was.
+
+"Well, don't go too far away until either grandpa or I have a chance to
+go with you," added Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Me come, too," called Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister
+starting off.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" exclaimed Teddy.
+
+"No, you stay with mother," said Mrs. Martin. "I'll give you a nice
+drink of milk."
+
+"Don't want milk. I's had milk. Trouble want Ted an' Jan."
+
+"But you can't go with them, my dear. Come on, we'll go and throw stones
+into the lake and make-believe it's a great, big ocean!"
+
+Baby William pouted a little at first. He liked to have his own way. But
+when he saw what fun his mother was having tossing stones into the lake
+and making the water splash up, Trouble did the same, laughing at the
+fun he was having.
+
+"Dis a ocean, Momsey?" he asked as he set a little stick afloat, making
+believe it was a boat.
+
+"Well, we'll call it an ocean," Mrs. Martin answered. "But this water is
+fresh, and that in the ocean is very salty. Some day I'll take you and
+my two little Curlytops to the real ocean, and you can taste how salty
+the waves are. Now we'll throw some more stones."
+
+Meanwhile Ted and Jan started for a little walk down the path that went
+the whole length of Star Island.
+
+"Shall we take Nicknack?" asked Jan.
+
+"No, let's wait until he dries off after his bath," decided Teddy. "I
+don't like wet goats."
+
+"Why, Teddy Martin! Nicknack got dried out hours ago!"
+
+"Well, anyway, a goat isn't like a dog. We don't want a goat along when
+we are going out walking."
+
+So Nicknack was left to nibble the grass, while the Curlytops wandered
+on and on. Grandpa and the hired men, having finished putting up the
+tents, were getting the stove ready so Nora could get supper.
+
+"What are you looking for?" asked Jan when she noticed that her brother
+walked along as if searching for something. "Are you trying to see if
+any tramps or gypsies are here on the island?"
+
+"No. I was thinking maybe I could find that fallen star."
+
+"But didn't grandpa say it all melted up?"
+
+"Maybe a piece of it's left," went on Ted. This was the second time that
+he had spoken of the star that day. "If I can't find a chunk of it,
+maybe I can find the hole it made when it hit," he added. "I'd like to
+find that. Maybe it would be bigger than the one I dug when I thought I
+could go all the way through to China."
+
+"Yes. The time Skyrocket fell in!" laughed Jan. "'Member that, Teddy?"
+
+"I guess I do! Daddy had to go out in the night and bring him in. Come
+on, let's look for the hole the shooting star made."
+
+"All right."
+
+The two Curlytops walked on over the island, looking here and there for
+star-holes. They found a number of deep places, but after looking at
+them, and poking sticks down into them, Ted decided that none of them
+had ever held a shooting star.
+
+"Maybe bears made them," half whispered Jan.
+
+"There aren't any bears on this island!" Teddy declared.
+
+"I hope not," murmured his sister, as she looked over her shoulder and
+then kept close to her brother during the rest of the walk.
+
+Pretty soon the children heard their mother's voice calling them. They
+could hear very plainly, for the air was clear.
+
+"I guess supper is ready," said Janet.
+
+"I hope it is!" sighed Ted. "I'm awful hungry!"
+
+Supper was ready, smoking hot on the table in the dining-tent, when Ted
+and Jan reached the camp grandpa had made.
+
+"Oh, how good it smells!" cried Ted.
+
+"And how nice the white tents look under the green trees," added his
+sister. "I just love it here!"
+
+"It is the nicest place we have yet been for the summer vacation," said
+Mother Martin. "This and Cherry Farm are two lovely places."
+
+They sat down under the tent and began to eat. Nora had gotten up a fine
+supper, for a regular cook stove had been brought along, and it was
+almost like eating at Grandma Martin's table, only this was out of
+doors, for the sides of the tent were raised to let in the air and the
+rays of the setting sun.
+
+"What's the matter, Father?" asked Mrs. Martin, as she saw the
+children's grandfather pause after tasting the potatoes. "Is anything
+wrong?"
+
+"I think I'd like a little more salt on these."
+
+"Yes, they do need salting. Nora, bring the salt please."
+
+"There isn't any, except what I used when I was cooking--a little I had
+in a salt-shaker."
+
+"Oh, yes, there must be. I brought a whole bagful. I saw it when I
+unpacked some of the things. There was a sack of salt."
+
+"Well, it isn't here now," said Nora, as she looked among her kitchen
+things.
+
+"Has anyone seen the bag of salt?" asked Mrs. Martin.
+
+She looked at Ted and Jan, who shook their heads. Then Trouble's mother
+looked at him. He was busy with a piece of bread and jam. One could have
+told Trouble had been eating bread and jam just by looking at his mouth
+and face.
+
+"Did you see the salt, Trouble?" asked his mother.
+
+"Iss, I did," he answered, taking another bite.
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"In de water," he replied. "I puts it in de water."
+
+"You put the salt in the water? What water? Tell mother, Trouble."
+
+"I puts salt in de lake water to make him 'ike ocean. Trouble 'ike
+ocean. Come on, I show!" and, getting down out of his chair, he toddled
+toward a little cove near the camp. The others, following him, saw
+something white on the ground near the edge of the lake. Grandpa Martin
+touched it with his finger and tasted.
+
+"The little tyke did empty the whole bag of salt in the lake!" cried the
+farmer. "Fancy his trying to make it like the ocean! Ho! Ho!"
+
+"Oh, Trouble!" cried Mrs. Martin. "You wasted a whole bag of salt, and
+now grandpa hasn't any for his potatoes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+TED AND THE BEAR
+
+
+Baby William looked a little bit frightened and ashamed as his mother
+spoke to him in that way. He loved his grandfather, and of course he
+would not have done anything to make him feel bad if he had thought. But
+Trouble was a very little fellow, though his father often said he could
+get into as many kinds of mischief as could the larger Curlytops.
+
+"Oh dear! This is too bad!" went on Mrs. Martin. "Why did you do it,
+Trouble? What made you empty the bag of salt into the lake?"
+
+"Want to make ocean wif salt water," was the answer.
+
+"I suppose it's my fault, for telling him so much about the big sea and
+its salt water," said Trouble's mother. "He liked to hear me talk about
+the ocean, and I guess he must have been thinking about it more than I
+had any idea of.
+
+"He must have tasted the water of the lake, and found it wasn't salty,
+and then he thought that, to make an ocean and big waves out of a lake,
+all he had to do was to put in the salt. I'm sorry, Father."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," laughed Grandpa Martin. "I guess I can get along
+without any more salt."
+
+"Trouble sorry, too," said the little fellow, when he understood that he
+had done something wrong. "Me get salt water for you," and he started
+toward the place where he had emptied the bag into the water, carrying a
+spoon from the table.
+
+"No, Trouble! Come back!" ordered his mother. "I guess he wants to dip
+up some salt water for you," she said laughingly to the children's
+grandfather, "but he'd be more likely to fall in himself."
+
+She caught Trouble up in her arms and kissed him, and then Nora managed
+to find a little salt in the bottom of the shaker, so Grandpa Martin had
+some on his potatoes after all. But Trouble was told he must never again
+do anything like that.
+
+He promised, of course, but Jan said:
+
+"He'll do something else, just as bad."
+
+"I guess he will," laughed Teddy.
+
+Supper over, Mr. Martin took his two men over to the mainland. On his
+return they all gathered about a little campfire grandpa made in front
+of the sleeping tent. The cot beds had been set up, and a mosquito
+netting was hung at the "front door" of the white canvas house, though
+really there was no door, just two flaps of the tent that could be tied
+together. But the netting kept out the bugs. Fortunately there were no
+mosquitoes, though all sorts of moths, snapping bugs and other flying
+things came around whenever a lantern was lighted.
+
+"Tell us a story, Grandpa!" begged Janet, when they had finished talking
+about the many things that had happened during the first day in camp.
+
+"Tell us about the shooting star that fell on this island," begged
+Teddy.
+
+"Tell us about de twamps!" exclaimed Trouble, who ought to have been
+asleep, but who had begged to stay up a little longer than usual.
+
+"I don't know anything about the tramps," laughed grandpa, "and I don't
+believe there are any on the island, though it is a large one, and it
+will take two or three days for us to walk all about it.
+
+"As for the shooting star, which Teddy thinks about so much, I really
+didn't see it fall, and all I know is what the old men in the village
+have told me. It was many years ago."
+
+"And did you ever see the blue light?" asked Ted, thinking of what he
+and his sister had seen the night they were coming home from the little
+visit to Hal Chester.
+
+"No, I never did; though I'd like to, so I might know what it was."
+
+"Children, how is grandpa ever going to tell you a story if you keep
+asking him so many questions?" laughed Mrs. Martin.
+
+"All right--now we'll listen," promised Teddy, and Grandpa Martin told a
+tale of when he was a little boy, and lived further to the north and on
+the edge of a big wood where there were bears and other wild animals.
+His father was a good hunter, Grandpa Martin said, and often used to
+kill bears and wolves, for the country was wild, with never so much as
+one automobile in it.
+
+Grandpa finished his story of the olden days by telling of once when he
+was a small boy, coming home through the woods toward dark one evening
+and being chased by a bear. But he crawled into a hollow log where the
+bear could not get him, and later his father and some other hunters
+came, shot the bear and got the little boy safely out.
+
+"Whew!" whistled Teddy, when this was finished. "I'd like to have been
+there!"
+
+"In the log, hiding away from the bear?" asked his mother.
+
+"No, I--I guess not that," Ted answered. "I'd just like to have seen it
+up in a tree, where the bear couldn't get me."
+
+"Bears can climb trees," remarked Janet.
+
+"Well, I'd go up in a little tree too small for a bear," her brother
+answered.
+
+"I guess you'd all better go to your little beds!" laughed Mother
+Martin. "It's long past your sleepy time."
+
+And the Curlytops and Trouble were soon sound asleep.
+
+It must have been about the middle of the night--anyhow it was quite
+late--when Teddy, who was sleeping in his cot next to one of the side
+walls of the tent, was suddenly awakened by a noise outside, and
+something seemed to be trying to get through.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Teddy, quickly sitting up in bed, and wide awake all at
+once. "Oh, Mother! Something's after me! It's a bear! It's a bear!"
+
+"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "You'll waken William, and
+frighten him!"
+
+"But Mother! I'm sure it's a bear! He growled!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Jan, from her cot on the other side of the tent.
+
+"It's a bear!" cried Ted again.
+
+There did seem to be something going on outside the tent near Ted's
+side. There was a crackling in the bushes, and once something came
+pushing hard against the side of the white canvas house with force
+enough to make a bulge in it. Teddy jumped up from his cot and ran over
+to his mother, who was sitting up on her bed.
+
+"Oh, Mother! It's coming in!" cried Teddy.
+
+"Nonsense!" and Mrs. Martin laughed as she put her arms around her small
+son.
+
+"What is it?" asked Grandpa Martin from the curtained-off part of the
+tent where he slept.
+
+"It's a bear!" cried Janet.
+
+Just then, from outside came a loud:
+
+"Baa-a-a-a-a!"
+
+Teddy looked very much surprised. Then he smiled. Then he laughed and
+cried:
+
+"Why, it's our goat Nicknack!"
+
+"I guess that's what it is," added Grandpa Martin. "But he seems to be
+in trouble. I'll go outside and look."
+
+Taking a lantern with him, while Mrs. Martin and the children waited a
+bit anxiously, Grandpa Martin went to see what had happened. The
+Curlytops heard him laughing as they saw the flicker of his light
+through the white tent. Then they heard Nicknack bleating again. The
+goat seemed, to those inside, to be kicking about with his little black
+hoofs.
+
+"Whoa there, Nicknack!" called Grandpa Martin. "I'll soon get you
+loose!"
+
+There was more noise, more tramping in the bushes and then, after a
+while, Grandpa Martin came back.
+
+"What was it?" asked Ted and Jan in whispers, for their mother had
+begged them not to awaken Trouble, who was still sleeping peacefully.
+
+"It was your goat," was the answer. "He had got loose, and his horns
+were caught between two trees where he had tried to jump. He was held
+fast by his horns and he was kicking his heels up in the air, trying to
+get loose."
+
+"Did you get him out?" asked Jan.
+
+"Yes, I pried the trees apart and got his head loose. Then he was all
+right. I tied him good and tight in his stable, and I guess he won't
+bother us again to-night."
+
+"Then it wasn't a bear after all," remarked Jan, laughing at her
+brother.
+
+"No, indeed! There aren't any bears on this island," said her
+grandfather. "Go to sleep."
+
+Nothing else happened the rest of the night, and they all slept rather
+late the next morning, for they were tired from the work of the day
+before. The sun was shining over Clover Lake when Nora rang the
+breakfast bell, and Ted and Jan hurried with their dressing, for they
+were eager to be at their play.
+
+"What'll we do to-day?" asked Janet, as she tried to get a comb through
+her thick, curly hair.
+
+"We'll go for a ride with Nicknack," decided Ted, who was also having a
+hard time with his locks. "Oh, I wish I was a barber!" he cried, as the
+comb stuck in a bunch of curls.
+
+"Why?" asked his mother, who was giving Trouble his breakfast.
+
+"'Cause then I'd cut my own hair short, and I'd never have to comb it."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't want to see you without your curls," Mother Martin said.
+"Here, I'll help you as soon as I feed Trouble."
+
+Trouble could feed himself when his plate had been set in front of him,
+and while he was eating Mrs. Martin made her two Curlytops look better
+by the use of their combs.
+
+After breakfast the children ran to hitch Nicknack to the wagon. Grandpa
+Martin was going back in the rowboat to the mainland to get a few things
+that had been forgotten, and also another bag of salt.
+
+"And I'll hide it away from Trouble," said Nora with a laugh. "We don't
+want any more salty oceans around here."
+
+"Let's drive away before Trouble sees us," proposed Jan to her brother.
+"He'll want to come for a ride and we can't go very far if he comes
+along."
+
+"All right. Stoop down and walk behind the bushes. Then he can't see
+us."
+
+Jan and Ted managed to get away unseen, and were soon hitching their
+goat to the wagon. Trouble finished his breakfast and called to them,
+wanting to go with them wherever they went. But his mother knew the two
+Curlytops did not want Trouble with them every time, so Baby William had
+to play by himself about camp, while the two older children drove off on
+a path that led the long way of the island.
+
+"Maybe we'll have an adventure," suggested Jan, as she sat in the cart
+driving the goat, for she and her brother took turns at this fun.
+
+"Maybe we'll see some of the tramps," he added.
+
+"I don't want to," said Jan.
+
+"Well, maybe we'll see a bear."
+
+"I don't want that, either. I wish you wouldn't say such things, Teddy."
+
+"Well, what do you want to see?"
+
+"Oh, something nice--flowers or birds or maybe a fairy."
+
+"Huh! I guess there's no fairies on this island, either. Let's see if we
+can find an apple tree. I'd like an apple."
+
+"So would I. But we mustn't eat green ones."
+
+"Not if they're too green," agreed Teddy. "But a little green won't
+hurt."
+
+They drove on, Nicknack trotting along the path through the woods, now
+and then stopping to nibble at the leaves. At last the children came to
+a beautiful shady spot, where many ferns grew beneath the trees, and it
+was so cool that they stopped their goat, tied him to an old stump and
+sat down to eat some cookies their mother had given them. The Curlytops
+nearly always became hungry when they were out on their little trips.
+
+"Wouldn't it be funny," remarked Ted, after a bit, "if we should see a
+bear?"
+
+"The-o-dore Martin!" gasped Janet. "I wish you'd keep quiet! It makes me
+scared to hear you say that."
+
+"Well, I was only foolin'," and Teddy dropped a "g," a habit of which
+his mother was trying to break him. And he did not often forget.
+
+"If I saw a bear," began Janet, "I'd just scream and----"
+
+Suddenly she stopped because of a queer look she saw on her brother's
+face. Teddy dropped the cookie he had been about to bite, and, pointing
+toward a hollow log that lay not far off, said, in a hoarse whisper:
+
+"Look, Jan! It _is_ a bear!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JAN SEES SOMETHING
+
+
+For a moment after her brother had said this Janet did not speak. She,
+too, dropped the cookie she had just taken from the bag, and turned
+slowly around to see at what Teddy was pointing.
+
+She was just in time to see something furry and reddish-brown in color
+dart into the hollow log, which was open at both ends. Then Jan gave a
+scream.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ted, who was as much frightened by Janet's shrill voice
+as he was at what he had seen. "Oh, Jan! Don't!"
+
+"I--I couldn't help it," she answered. "I told you I'd scream if I saw a
+bear, and I _did_ see one. It is a bear, isn't it, Teddy?"
+
+"It is," he answered. "I saw it first. It's my bear!"
+
+"You can have it--every bit of it," said Jan, quickly getting up from
+the mossy rock on which she had been sitting. "I don't want any of it,
+not even the stubby tail. I like to own half of Nicknack with you, but I
+don't want half a bear."
+
+"Then I'll take all of it--it's my bear," went on Ted. "Where're you
+going, Jan?" he asked, as he saw his sister hurrying away.
+
+"I'm going home. I don't like it here. I'm going to make Nicknack run
+home with me."
+
+Teddy got up, too. He did not stop to pick up the cookie he had dropped.
+
+"I--I guess I'll go with you, Jan," he said. "I guess my bear will stay
+in the log until I come back."
+
+"Are you coming back?" asked Janet, as with trembling fingers she
+unfastened Nicknack's strap from around the stump to which he had been
+tied.
+
+"I'm going to get grandpa to come back with me and shoot the bear,"
+replied Ted. "I want his skin to make a rug. You know--like grandpa did
+with the bear his father shot."
+
+Jan did not say anything. She got into the cart and turned the goat
+about, ready to leave the place. She gave a look over her shoulder at
+the hollow log into which she and Ted had seen the furry, brown animal
+crawl. It did not seem to be coming out, and Jan was glad of that.
+
+"Giddap, Nicknack!" she called to the goat, and as the animal started
+off Ted jumped into the wagon from behind.
+
+"I wish I had a gun," he said.
+
+"You're too little," declared Jan. "Oh, Ted! what if he should chase us?
+Was it an awful big bear? I didn't dare look much."
+
+"It wasn't so very big."
+
+"Was it as big as Nicknack?"
+
+"Oh, bigger'n him--a lot."
+
+"Oh!" and again Jan looked back over her shoulder. "I hope he doesn't
+chase us," she added.
+
+"I'll fix him if he does!" threatened Ted. "I'll fix him!"
+
+"How? You haven't any gun, and maybe you couldn't shoot it if you had,
+lessen maybe it was your Christmas pop gun."
+
+"Pooh! Pop guns wouldn't be any good to shoot a bear! You've got to have
+real bullets. But I can fix this bear if he chases us," and Ted tried to
+look brave.
+
+"How?" asked Jan again. She felt safer now, for Nicknack was going fast,
+and the hollow log, into which the furry animal had crawled, was out of
+sight.
+
+"I'll make our goat buck the bear with his horns if he chases us, that's
+what I'll do!" declared Ted.
+
+"Oh, that would be good!" exclaimed Jan in delight. "Nicknack is brave
+and his horns are sharp. 'Member how he stuck 'em in the fence one day?"
+
+"Yes," answered Ted, "I do. And I'll get him to stick 'em in the bear if
+he comes too close. Giddap, Nicknack!" and Ted flicked the goat with the
+ends of the reins. I think he wanted the goat to go faster so there
+would be no danger of the bear's chasing after him and his sister.
+Perhaps Ted thought Nicknack might be afraid of the bear, even if the
+goat did have sharp horns.
+
+The Curlytops were greatly excited when they reached the camp. Trouble
+was playing out in front and Grandpa Martin had just landed in the boat.
+
+"What's that?" he cried, when he heard Ted's story. "A bear in a hollow
+log? Nonsense! There are no bears on Star Island."
+
+"But I saw it, and so did Janet. Didn't you, Jan?" cried Ted.
+
+"I saw something fuzzy with a big tail going inside the log," answered
+Teddy's sister.
+
+"Then it couldn't have been a bear," laughed Grandpa Martin. "For a bear
+has only a little short, stubby tail. I'll go to see what it is. I think
+I know, however."
+
+"What?" asked Mother Martin. "Don't go into any danger, Father."
+
+"I won't," promised the farmer. "But I won't tell you what I think the
+animal is until I see it. I may be mistaken."
+
+"Maybe it's a twamp," put in Trouble, who seemed to be thinking about
+them as much as Ted thought about the fallen star.
+
+"Tramps aren't animals," laughed Jan.
+
+"Furry animals, anyway," added Ted.
+
+"Well, you stay here and I'll go see what it was," went on grandpa, and
+he started off toward the hollow log with a big club. He was not gone
+very long, and when he came back he was laughing, as he had the night
+before when Nicknack gave them a scare.
+
+"Just as I thought!" cried the children's grandpa. "It was a big, red
+fox in the hollow log."
+
+"And not a bear?" asked Ted.
+
+"Not a bear, Curlytop! Only a fox that was more frightened by you than
+you were by him, I guess. I knew it couldn't be a bear."
+
+"How did you get it out of the log?" asked Jan.
+
+"Oh, I just tapped on the log with my club, and Mr. Fox must have
+thought it was somebody knocking at his front door. For out he ran,
+looked at me with his bright eyes, and then away he ran into the woods.
+So you Curlytops needn't be afraid. The fox won't hurt you."
+
+"I'm glad of that," said Jan. "Now let's go fishing, Ted."
+
+"All right," he agreed.
+
+"Can't you take Trouble with you?" asked his mother. "I want to help
+Nora and grandpa do a little work around the camp."
+
+"Yes, we'll take him," agreed Jan. "But you mustn't put any salt in the
+water, Trouble, and scare the fish."
+
+"I not do it. I tatch a fiss myself."
+
+They gave him a pole and a line without any hook on it so he could not
+scratch himself, and then Jan and Ted sat down under a shady tree, not
+far from camp, to try to catch some fish.
+
+They knew how, for their father had taught them, and soon Jan had landed
+a good-sized sunfish. A little later Ted caught a perch which had
+stripes on its sides, "like a zebra," as Jan said. After that Jan and
+Ted each caught two fish, and they soon had enough to cook.
+
+"What do you Curlytops want me to do with these?" asked Nora, as the two
+children came along, laughing and shouting, with the fish dangling from
+strings each of them carried.
+
+"Cook 'em, of course!" cried Teddy. "That's what we caught them for,
+Nora--to have you cook them."
+
+"But won't they bite me?" asked the cook, pretending to be afraid.
+
+"Oh, no! They can't!" explained Jan.
+
+"They bit on our hooks, and now they can't bite any more, but we can
+bite them," said Teddy.
+
+"Oh, would you bite the poor fish?" asked Nora.
+
+For a moment the Curlytops did not know what to answer. Then Teddy
+replied:
+
+"Oh, well, it can't hurt 'em to bite 'em after they're cooked, can it?"
+
+"No, I guess not," laughed Nora, "no more than it can hurt a baked
+potato. Well, run along and I'll get the fish ready for dinner, or
+whatever you call the next meal. I declare, I'm so mixed up with this
+camping business that I hardly know breakfast from supper. But run
+along, and I'll fry the fish for you, anyhow."
+
+"Let's go and take a walk," proposed Jan, when they had washed their
+hands in the tin basin that Mother Martin had set on a bench under a
+tree, with a towel and soap near by, for fish did leave such a funny
+smell on your hands, the little girl said.
+
+"Where'll we walk to?" asked Teddy.
+
+"Oh, let's go and look. Maybe we can find that cute little bunny we saw
+when we were looking for the den where the fox lived but didn't find
+him," proposed Jan.
+
+"All right," answered Teddy, and they set off.
+
+They had not gone very far before Teddy stopped near a bush and began to
+look about him.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked his sister.
+
+"Why, I saw a bird fly out of here," answered her brother, "and it
+seemed just as if it had a broken wing. It couldn't fly--hardly."
+
+"Where is it?" asked Jan eagerly. "Maybe if we take it to mother she can
+fix the wing. Once she mended a dog's broken leg, and he could walk
+'most as good as ever when he got well, only he limped a little."
+
+"But a dog can't fly," said Teddy.
+
+"I know it," agreed Jan. "But if mother can mend a broken leg, she can
+fix a broken wing, can't she?"
+
+"Maybe," admitted her brother. "Oh, there's the bird again, Jan! See how
+it flutters along!" and the little boy pointed to one that was dragging
+itself along over the ground as though its wings or legs were broken or
+hurt.
+
+"Come on!" cried Teddy. "Maybe we can catch the bird, Jan!"
+
+Brother and sister started after the little feathered songster, which
+was making a queer, chirping noise. Then Jan suddenly called:
+
+"Oh, here's another!"
+
+And, surely enough, there was a second bird acting almost as was the
+first--fluttering along, half hopping and half flying through the grass.
+
+"We'll get 'em both!" yelled Teddy, and he and Jan hurried along. But,
+somehow or other, as soon as they came almost to the place where they
+could reach out and touch one of the birds, which acted as though it
+could not go a bit farther, the little creature would manage to flutter
+on just beyond the eager hands of the children.
+
+"That's funny!" exclaimed Teddy. "I almost had one of 'em that time!"
+
+"So did I!" added Janet. "Now I'm sure I can get this one!" and she ran
+forward to grasp the fluttering bird, but it managed to hop along, just
+out of her reach.
+
+The one Ted was after did the same thing, and for some time the children
+hurried on after the birds. At last the two songsters, with little
+chirps and calls, suddenly flew high in the air and circled back through
+the woods.
+
+"Well, would you look at that!" cried Teddy, in surprise.
+
+"They can fly, after all!" gasped Janet. "What d'you s'pose made 'em
+pretend they couldn't?"
+
+"I--I guess they wanted to fool us," said her brother.
+
+And that really was it. The little birds had built a nest in a low bush,
+close to the ground where the children could easily have reached it if
+they had seen it. And they were very close to it, though their eyes had
+not spied it.
+
+But the birds had seen the Curlytops and, fearing that Jan and Ted might
+take out the eggs in the nest, the wise little birds had pretended to be
+willing to let the boy and girl catch them instead of robbing the nest.
+
+Of course, Jan and Ted wouldn't have done such a thing as that! But the
+birds knew no differently. Not all birds act this way--pretending to be
+hurt, or that they can't fly--to get people to chase after them, and so
+keep far away from the little nests. But this particular kind of bird
+always does that.
+
+Some day, if you are in the woods or the fields, and see one bird--or
+two--acting in this queer way, as though it could not fly or walk, and
+as though it wanted you to hurry after it and try to catch it--if you
+see a bird acting that way you may be sure you are near its nest and
+eggs and this is the way the bird does to get you away.
+
+"Let's look for their nest," suggested Teddy, when the two birds had
+flown far away, back through the woods.
+
+"Oh, no," answered Jan. "We don't want to scare them. Maybe we can look
+at the nest of a bird that won't mind if we watch her feeding her
+little ones."
+
+And, a little later, they came to a bush in which was a robin's nest. In
+it were some tiny birds, and, by standing on their tiptoes, and bending
+the nest down a little way, the Curlytops could look in. The baby birds,
+which had only just begun to grow feathers, opened their mouths as wide
+as they could, thinking, I suppose, that Jan and Ted had worms or bugs
+for them.
+
+But the children did not have.
+
+"Your mother will soon be along to feed you," said Janet, and soon the
+mother bird did come flying back from the field. She seemed afraid at
+first, when she saw how close Jan and Ted were to her nest, but the
+children soon walked away, and then the robin fed her young.
+
+Ted and Jan had a nice walk through the woods and then they went back to
+camp.
+
+"We'll take Trouble for a walk, so mother won't have to look after him
+so much," said Janet. "Come, Trouble!"
+
+"Show me where the fox was," begged Baby William, and Ted and Jan turned
+their steps that way. But there was no sign of the big-tailed animal in
+the hollow log, though the children pounded on it as Grandpa Martin
+said he had done.
+
+Then they wandered on a little farther in the beautiful woods. Jan saw
+some flowers she wanted to gather, and leaving the path where Ted stood
+to take care of his little brother, she began picking a handful.
+
+Janet saw so many pretty blossoms that she went a little farther than
+she meant to, and, before she knew it, she had lost sight of her two
+brothers, though she could hear them talking.
+
+Suddenly, after crawling through some bushes, Jan found herself on
+another path. On the other side of it she saw some black-eyed Susans.
+
+"Oh, I must get some of them!" she cried.
+
+She darted across the path, and, as she was about to pick the flowers,
+she saw, standing behind a big tree, a man who had on very ragged
+clothes. He looked at Jan, who dropped her bouquet and gasped:
+
+"Oh! Oh, dear!"
+
+The ragged man looked at Janet and smiled. But Jan did not smile. One
+thought only was in her mind.
+
+"Here is one of the tramps!"
+
+[Illustration: "HERE IS ONE OF THE TRAMPS!"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TROUBLE FALLS IN
+
+
+Janet Martin thought it must have been all of five minutes that she
+stood staring at the ragged man and he at her, though, very likely, it
+was only a few seconds. A little while seems very long sometimes; for
+instance, waiting for a train, or for the day of the party to come.
+
+"Are you looking for anything?" the man asked of Janet after a while.
+
+"He doesn't speak like a tramp," thought the little girl, who had
+occasionally heard them asking Nora, at the back door at home, for
+something to eat. "I guess I'll answer him."
+
+So she replied:
+
+"I'm looking for flowers."
+
+"Well, there are some pretty ones here in the woods," went on the ragged
+man. "I saw some fine red ones a little while ago. If I had known I
+should meet you I would have picked them for you."
+
+"I wonder if he _can_ be a tramp," thought Janet. "Do tramps pick
+flowers, or want to pick them?"
+
+What she said was:
+
+"Thank you, but I think I have enough now."
+
+"Yes, you have a nice bouquet," went on the ragged man, still smiling.
+
+He was dressed like a tramp, that was certain. But, somehow or other,
+Janet did not feel as afraid as she expected she would be when she
+thought of meeting a tramp.
+
+"Do you live around here?" the man continued.
+
+"Yes, we're camping in a tent," Jan replied. "My grandfather owns part
+of this island and we're with him--my mother and my brothers. We like it
+here."
+
+"Yes, it's fine," said the ragged man, who Janet thought must be a
+tramp, even if he did not talk like most of them. "So you live in a
+tent? Does the professor stay here all the while?"
+
+"The professor?" repeated Janet, and she wondered what the long
+word meant. She was sure she had heard it before. Pretty soon she
+remembered. At school she had heard some of the teachers speak of
+the principal as "Professor."
+
+"My grandpa isn't a professor," explained Janet with a smile. "He's a
+farmer."
+
+"Well, some farmers are scientists. Maybe he is a scientist," went on
+the tramp. "I was wondering if some one else was on this island looking
+for the same thing I'm looking for. Can you tell me, little girl----?"
+
+But just then, from somewhere back in the woods, a voice called. The
+ragged man listened a moment, and then he cried:
+
+"All right! I'm coming!"
+
+Janet saw him stoop and pick up off the ground a canvas bag, through the
+opening of which she saw stones, such as might be picked up on the shore
+of the lake or almost anywhere on the island.
+
+"I hope I shall see you again, little girl," went on the tramp, as Janet
+called him afterward when telling the story. "And when I do, I hope I'll
+have some red flowers for you. Good-bye!"
+
+Janet was so surprised by the quick way in which the man ran off through
+the woods with his bag of stones that she did not answer or say
+good-bye. She just stood looking at the quivering bushes which closed up
+behind him and showed which way the man had gone. Janet could not see
+him any longer.
+
+A moment later she heard the bushes behind her crackling, and, turning
+quickly, she saw Ted and Trouble coming toward her.
+
+"What's the matter?" called her older brother. "Did you see another
+bear--I mean a fox?"
+
+"No. But I saw a tramp man," replied Janet. "Oh, but he was awful
+ragged!"
+
+"A tramp!" cried Ted. "Then we'd better get away from here. We'd better
+go and tell grandpa!"
+
+Janet thought the same thing, and, after telling Ted all that had
+happened and what she and the man had said, the Curlytops hurried back
+through the woods to the camp.
+
+"A ragged man on the island; is that it?" asked Grandpa Martin, when Jan
+told him what had happened. "It must be as Mr. Crittendon said, that
+there are tramps here. Though what they are doing I don't know. There
+isn't anything to eat here, except what we brought. And you haven't
+missed anything, have you, Nora? Has anybody been taking your strawberry
+shortcake or apple dumplings from the tent kitchen?"
+
+"No, Mr. Martin, they haven't," Nora answered.
+
+"Well, maybe it was a tramp and perhaps it wasn't," said Grandpa Martin.
+"Still it will be a good thing to have a look about the island. I don't
+want strange men roaming where they please, scaring the children."
+
+"Oh, he didn't scare me, except at first," Janet hastened to say. "He
+spoke real nice to me, but his clothes were old and awful ragged. He
+wanted to know if you were a professor."
+
+"Well, I guess I'm professor enough to drive away tramps that won't
+work, and only want to eat what other people get," returned the farmer.
+"I'll have a look around this island to-morrow, and drive away the
+tramps."
+
+"And until then, don't you Curlytops go far away. Stay where I can watch
+you," went on Mrs. Martin, shaking her finger at them, half in fun, but
+a great deal in earnest.
+
+"We'll stay near the tent," promised Jan.
+
+"I'm going to help grandpa hunt the tramps," declared Ted.
+
+"No, Curlytop, you'd better stay with your sister and mother," said the
+farmer. "I don't really believe there are any tramps here."
+
+"But I saw him!" insisted Janet.
+
+"I know you saw some one, Curly Girl," and grandpa smiled at her. "Of
+course there may be a strange man--maybe two, for you say you heard one
+call to the other. But they may have just stopped for a little while on
+this island. I'll have to ask them to go away, though, for we want to be
+by ourselves while camping. So, as there might be strangers around here
+who would not be pleasant, you'd better stay here, too, Teddy."
+
+"All right, I'll stay," Teddy promised, and he tried to be happy and
+contented about it, though he did want to go with his grandfather on the
+"tramp-hunt" as he called it. But, though Teddy was quite a good-sized
+boy for his age, there were some things that it was not wise for him to
+do. This was one of them.
+
+The next day Grandpa Martin, rowing over to the mainland, brought back
+with him one of his hired men. The two walked all over the island, only
+stopping for their lunch, and at night they had found no trace of
+anyone.
+
+"If tramps were here they have gone," said Grandpa Martin. "I can't
+think why that man who talked to Janet should speak of a professor,
+though."
+
+"It _is_ queer," said Mrs. Martin. "Never mind, I'm glad it is safe for
+the children to run about now. It has been hard work to keep them about
+the tents all this day."
+
+"I guess it has been," laughed Grandpa Martin. "Well, to-morrow they can
+run as much as they like."
+
+Ted and Janet had lots of fun, playing on the shores of Clover Lake.
+They took off their shoes and stockings, and went wading. Trouble did
+the same, splashing about in his bare feet until he saw a little
+crawfish, darting from one stone to another under water to hide away.
+
+"Trouble 'fraid of dem big water-bugs," he said, as he ran out on the
+grassy bank. "Don't want to wade any more," and Ted and Jan could not
+get him to come in again that day.
+
+By this time the camp was well settled. They had stored away in the
+cooking tent many good things to eat, and whenever they wanted anything
+more Grandpa Martin would row over to the store on the mainland for it.
+
+Daddy Martin wrote from Cresco, where he was looking after his store,
+that he would soon be back at Cherry Farm, and then he would come out to
+the camp and spend a week.
+
+The Curlytops played all the games they knew. They took long rides with
+Nicknack, and often Trouble went with them. But it was not all play.
+Mrs. Martin thought it wise for Ted and Jan to have some work to do; so,
+each day, she gave them little tasks. They had to bring a small pail of
+water from the spring, gather wood for the evening campfire, and also
+some for Nora to use when she made the fire in the cook-stove. For Nora
+was a good cook, and many a fine pie or cake came out of the oven.
+Sometimes Ted and Jan helped around the kitchen by drying the dishes or
+helping set the table or clear it off.
+
+One afternoon, when it was almost time to get supper, Mrs. Martin sent
+Ted to the spring for a pail of water. She wanted one so they could all
+have a fresh drink, as it was rather warm that day.
+
+"I'll go with you," offered Janet.
+
+"Me come too," added Trouble.
+
+"Yes, take him," said his mother to Janet. "He hasn't been out much
+to-day." So Trouble toddled off with his brother and sister.
+
+Ted filled the pail at the bubbling spring, which was a large one, out
+of sight of the tents of the camp. Then he heard a strange bird
+whistling in a tree overhead, and, setting down the pail, he ran to see
+what it was.
+
+"Oh, Jan," called her brother a moment later, "it's a big red and black
+bird. Awful pretty! Come and see him!"
+
+Jan ran to get a look at the scarlet tanager, as grandpa said later it
+was, and, without thinking, she left Trouble alone.
+
+Well, you can well imagine what Trouble did!
+
+For a long while--ever since he had been in camp, in fact--Baby William
+had wanted to dip a pail of water out of the spring. But of course he
+could not be allowed to do this, for he might fall in. Now, however, he
+saw his chance.
+
+"Trouble bring de water," he said, talking to himself while Teddy and
+Janet were looking at the pretty bird.
+
+The little fellow carefully emptied the pail his brother had filled.
+Then with it in his hand he went slowly toward the spring. He leaned
+over, but longer arms than his were needed to reach the pail down into
+the bubbling water.
+
+Trouble reached and stretched and reached again, and then----
+
+"Splash!"
+
+Baby William had fallen in!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TED FINDS A CAVE
+
+
+Janet and Ted returned from looking at the pretty scarlet bird just in
+time to see what happened to Trouble. They saw him fall into the spring.
+
+"Oh!" cried Janet, clasping her hands. "Oh, look!"
+
+"He'll be drowned!" yelled Ted, and then he ran as fast as he could
+toward the place where he had last seen his little brother, for Baby
+William was not in sight now. He was down in the water.
+
+Perhaps Trouble might not have come to any harm, more than to get wet
+through by the time Ted reached him. Perhaps the little fellow might not
+have been drowned. At any rate, no harm came to him, even though Jan and
+her brother did not get there in time to help.
+
+The two Curlytops, their fuzzy hair fluttering in the wind, were half
+way to the spring when they saw coming from the bushes a ragged man.
+
+"There he is!" cried Janet.
+
+"Who?" asked Ted.
+
+"The man who--talked to me--while I was picking flowers," and Jan's
+voice came in gasps, for she was getting out of breath from having run
+so hard. "There he is!" and she pointed.
+
+"That's the tramp!" cried Ted. "They _are_ on the island, only grandpa
+couldn't find 'em!"
+
+"Do you--do you s'pose he's goin' to take Trouble?" faltered Janet.
+
+Before Ted could answer, the Curlytops saw what the ragged man was going
+to do. They saw him stoop over the spring, reach down into it and lift
+something up. The "something" was Baby William, screaming and crying in
+fright, and dripping wet.
+
+The ragged man set Trouble down on a rock near the spring, and then,
+waving his hand to Ted and Jan, he cried:
+
+"He's all right--swallowed hardly any water. Take him home as soon as
+you can, though. I haven't time to stop--have to go to see the
+professor!"
+
+With that the man seemed to dive in between some high bushes, and the
+Curlytops could not see him any more. But Trouble was still sitting on
+the rock, the water from his clothes making a little puddle all around
+him, and he was crying hard, his tears running down his cheeks.
+
+"Oh, Trouble!" gasped Jan, putting her arms around him, all wet as he
+was.
+
+"Are you hurt?" asked Ted, looking carefully at his little brother.
+
+"I--I--I fal--falled in an'--an' I's all--all wetted!" wailed Trouble,
+his breath coming in gasps because of his crying, which he had partly
+stopped on seeing his brother and sister. "I falled in de spwing, I
+did!"
+
+"What made you?" asked Ted, while Jan tried to wring some of the water
+out of the little fellow's waist and rompers.
+
+"I wanted to get de pail full for mamma."
+
+"But I filled the pail, Trouble. You oughtn't to have touched it," said
+Teddy. He went to the spring and looked down in it. The pail was at the
+bottom of the little pool.
+
+"It's a good thing that tramp got him out," remarked Janet. "He must be
+a nice man, even if his clothes are ragged."
+
+"I guess so, too," agreed Ted. "But he said we must take Trouble home. I
+guess we'd better."
+
+"Yes," assented Jan. "But he isn't hurt."
+
+"He wasn't in very long," Ted said. "The man got him out awful
+quick--quicker than we could. You lead him home, Jan, and I'll get the
+pail out of the spring. It's sunk like a ship."
+
+"How're you going to get it?"
+
+"With a stick, I guess. You mustn't lean over the spring any more,
+Trouble."
+
+"No," promised Baby William.
+
+But the Curlytops could not be sure he would keep his promise. He might
+for a time, while he remembered what had happened to him.
+
+With a crooked stick Teddy managed to fish up the pail after two or
+three trials. Then, filling it with water from the spring, he carried it
+back to camp, while Jan led the wet and dripping Trouble.
+
+"Oh, my goodness! What's happened now?" asked Nora, as she saw the three
+children coming into camp. "Did you go in swimming with all your clothes
+on, Trouble?"
+
+"No. I falled into de spwing, I did!"
+
+"And the tramp got him out!" added Jan.
+
+Then she and Teddy, taking turns, told what had happened. Mrs. Martin
+scolded Trouble a little, to make him more careful the next time. Then
+Grandpa Martin said:
+
+"Well, there must be strangers on this island after all, though I could
+not find them. They must be hiding somewhere, and I'd like to know what
+for."
+
+"Maybe they're living in gypsy wagons," suggested Jan.
+
+"Or in a cave," added Ted. "They look as if they lived in a cave."
+
+"There isn't any cave on the island, as far as I know," his grandfather
+told Ted. "But I don't like those strange men roaming about our place
+here. They may not do any harm, but I don't like it. I'll have another
+look for them."
+
+"So will I," added Teddy, but he did not say this aloud. Teddy had made
+up his mind to do something. He was going to look for those men himself,
+either in a cave or a gypsy wagon. Ted wanted to find the ragged
+man--find all of them if more than one; and there seemed to be at least
+two, for the one who had pulled Teddy out of the spring had spoken of
+another--a "professor."
+
+"What's a professor?" asked Jan.
+
+"Oh, it's a man or a woman who has studied his lessons and teaches them
+to others," answered her mother. "One who knows a great deal about
+something, such as about the stars or about the world we live in.
+Professors find out many things and then tell others--young people
+generally--about them."
+
+"I'm going to be a professor," said Teddy.
+
+"Are you?" inquired his mother with a smile. "I hope you will get wise
+enough to be one."
+
+But Teddy did not speak all that was in his mind. If a professor was one
+who found out things, then the small boy decided he would be one long
+enough to find out about the tramps, and perhaps find the cave where
+they lived, and then he could tell Jan.
+
+When Trouble had been put into dry clothes and sent to sleep by his
+mother's singing, "Ding-dong bell, Pussy's in the well," Jan and Ted sat
+by themselves, talking over what had happened that day. Ted was making a
+small boat to sail on the lake, and Jan was mending her doll's dress,
+where a prickly briar bush had torn a little hole in it.
+
+Early the next morning Ted slipped away from his place at the breakfast
+table, and motioned to Jan to join him behind the sleeping tent. Ted
+held his finger over his lips to show his sister that he wanted her to
+keep very quiet.
+
+"What's the matter?" she whispered, when they were safe by themselves.
+"Did you see the tramp-man?"
+
+"No, but I'm going to find him!"
+
+"You are?" cried Janet, and her eyes opened wide with wonder and
+surprise.
+
+"Don't tell anybody," went on Ted. "We don't want Trouble to follow us.
+Come on off this way," and he pointed to a path that led through the
+bushes back of the tent.
+
+Trouble was busy just then, playing in the sand on the shore of Clover
+Lake, while Mrs. Martin and Nora were clearing away the breakfast
+things. Grandpa Martin was raking up around the tents, so no one saw the
+Curlytops slip away.
+
+"Which way are you going?" asked Jan of her brother.
+
+"Over to the spring."
+
+"What for? To get more water? Where's your pail?"
+
+"I don't have to get water yet," answered Ted. "I'm going to the spring
+to look to see if I can tell which way that tramp went. Don't you know
+how Indians do--look at the leaves and grass in the woods, and they can
+tell by the marks which way anybody went? Mother read us a story once
+like that."
+
+"I don't like Indians," remarked Jan somewhat shortly, half turning
+back.
+
+"Oh, there's no Indians!" exclaimed Ted impatiently. "I was only sayin'
+what they did. Come on!"
+
+So Jan followed her brother, though she was a little bit afraid.
+However, she saw nothing to frighten her, and it was nice in the woods.
+The wind was blowing through the trees, the birds were singing and it
+was cool and pleasant. The Curlytops soon came to the spring where
+Trouble had fallen in.
+
+"Now we must look all around," declared Teddy.
+
+"What for?" his sister demanded again.
+
+"To tell which way the tramp-man went. Then we can find his cave."
+
+"Maybe he lives in a wagon or a tent."
+
+"Then we'll find them. Come on, help look!"
+
+"I don't know how," confessed Janet.
+
+"Well, look for a place where the bushes are broken down and where you
+see footprints in the dirt. That's the way Indians tell. Mother read it
+out of a book to us."
+
+So Jan and Ted looked all around the spring, and at last Ted found a
+place where it seemed as if some one had run through in a hurry, for
+twigs were broken off the bushes, and, by looking down at the ground, he
+saw the marks of shoes in the dirt.
+
+Of course Ted could not tell who had made them, but he thought surely it
+must have been the tramp who had pulled Trouble from the spring. Ted was
+sure they were not the footprints of himself and his sister, for their
+own were much smaller.
+
+"Come on, Jan!" cried Teddy. "We'll find that tramp now or, anyway, the
+place where he hides."
+
+He pushed on through the bushes. There seemed to be a sort of path
+leading away from the spring, which was not the same path that Ted and
+Grandpa Martin took when they went from the camp to the water-hole to
+fill the pail each day.
+
+On and on went Ted, with Jan following. She was so excited now at the
+thought that perhaps they might find something, that she was not a bit
+frightened.
+
+"Wait a minute! Wait for me, Teddy!" she called, as her brother hurried
+on ahead of her.
+
+"Come on, Jan!" he called. "There's a good path here, and I guess I see
+something. Oh, look here! Oh, Jan! Oh! Oh!" suddenly cried Teddy. Then
+his voice seemed to fade away, as if he had all at once gone down the
+cellar, and Jan could hear him calling faintly.
+
+"Oh, Teddy! What's the matter? What's the matter?" she cried as she ran
+on through the bushes.
+
+"I've found the cave!" was his answer, so faint and far away that Jan
+could hardly hear. "I've found the cave. I fell right into it! Come
+on!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE GRAPEVINE SWING
+
+
+Wondering what had happened to her brother, Jan hurried on toward the
+place from which his voice came. It sounded more than ever as if he were
+down a cellar.
+
+"But there can't be any cellars in these woods," thought the little
+girl.
+
+"Where are you, Teddy?" she called after a bit. "I can't see you!"
+
+"Here I am, right behind you!" was the answer, and Jan, turning quickly,
+saw the head of her brother sticking up out of a hole in the ground.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Ted's sister. "Where's the rest of you? Where's your
+legs and your feet?"
+
+"Down in the hole," explained Teddy. "I'm in the cave. I fell in. That's
+how I found it."
+
+"Is it a real cave?" asked Janet.
+
+"It is. It goes away back under the ground, only I didn't go in 'cause
+it's so dark. I'm going to get a light and see what's there."
+
+"I'm not!" said Jan, very decidedly.
+
+"Well, then I'll get grandpa. Maybe this is the cave where the tramps
+live. Come and look where I am. You won't fall in."
+
+"How did you find it?" asked Janet, as she walked toward the hole, down
+in which Teddy was standing. It was a little way from the path the two
+Curlytops had walked along through the woods--the path leading from the
+spring.
+
+"I just fell in it, I told you," Ted answered. "I was walking along,
+and, all at once, I slipped down through the dried leaves. First I
+thought I was going down in a big hole, but it isn't over my head and a
+lot of leaves went down with me, so I didn't get jounced hardly at all."
+
+Jan went to the edge and looked down in the hole. It seemed to be a
+large one in between two big rocks, and Ted showed her where the hole
+slanted downward and went farther underground. It was dark there, and
+Jan made up her mind she would never go into it, even if Ted did.
+
+"You'd better come up," she said at last. "Maybe mother wouldn't like
+it. Besides, there might be snakes down in there."
+
+"Oh! I didn't think about them!" exclaimed Ted, and he tried to scramble
+up, but it was not so easy as he had hoped. He was a little excited,
+too, since Janet had spoken of snakes. Teddy did not like them, and they
+might be in among the leaves that had fallen down into the hole with
+him.
+
+"Can't you get up?" Jan asked, when her brother had slipped back two or
+three times.
+
+"Maybe I could if you'd let me take hold of your hand," suggested Teddy.
+
+"Then you'd pull me in, and we'd both be down there."
+
+Ted saw that this was so. He tried again to get out, but could not, for
+mixed with the leaves were many dry, brown pine needles from the trees
+growing overhead; and if you have ever been in the woods you know how
+slippery pine needles are when the ground is covered with them. Teddy
+slipped back again and again.
+
+"Oh, Ted! can't you _ever_ get up?" asked Janet, almost ready to cry.
+
+"Oh. I'll get out somehow," he said. Then dangling down from a tree
+behind his sister, he saw a long wild grapevine, which was almost like
+a piece of rope.
+
+"If I had hold of that I could pull myself out," Teddy said. "See if you
+can reach it to me, Jan."
+
+After two or three trials his sister did this. Then, holding to a loose
+end of the grapevine while the other end was twined fast round a tree,
+Teddy pulled himself out of the hole. Once on firm ground he made the
+loose end of the grapevine fast to a stone that lay near the edge of the
+hole.
+
+"What made you do that?" asked Janet.
+
+"So the next time I get down there I can pull myself out," Teddy
+answered.
+
+"Are you going down there again?" Jan queried.
+
+"Course I am!" declared Ted. "I didn't half look in the cave. It's a big
+place. I could see in only a little way, 'cause it was so dark. I'm
+goin' to tell grandpa and have him bring a lantern."
+
+Grandpa Martin was surprised when Ted and Jan told him what they had
+found in the woods.
+
+"I didn't suppose there was a cave on the island," said the farmer. "I
+must have a look at it."
+
+"And may I come? And will you take a lantern?" asked Teddy eagerly.
+
+"Well, yes, I guess so," said grandpa slowly.
+
+"Oh, Father, do you think it is safe?" asked Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Yes, I think so. I won't go very far in with the children. It may be
+only the den of a fox or some small animal, and not a real cave."
+
+"I think it's a big cave," declared Ted. "Come on, Grandpa."
+
+"Me come!" cried Trouble, as the two Curlytops set off with Grandpa
+Martin through the woods, toward the place where Teddy had fallen down
+with the pile of leaves. "Me come!"
+
+"No, you stay with me," laughed Mother Martin, catching him up in her
+arms. Trouble did not want to stay behind, not having been with his
+brother and sister of late as much as he wished. "We'll bake a
+patty-cake!" Mrs. Martin added, and then Trouble laughed, for he liked
+to help Nora bake. That is, he thought he helped. And at least he helped
+to eat what Nora took out of the oven.
+
+"Now show me where the cave is," said Grandpa Martin to Ted, as they
+neared the place. "But be careful not to fall into it again."
+
+"Oh, I've got a grapevine rope so I can pull myself out," said Jan's
+brother. "Here it is, over this way."
+
+Teddy Martin was an observing little fellow. He could find his way
+around in the woods very well, once he had been to a place, and he did
+not go wrong this time. He led his grandfather right to the entrance of
+the cave.
+
+And it proved to be a real cave. Grandpa Martin found this out when he
+jumped down into the place where Teddy had fallen, and when the lantern
+had been lighted and flashed into the dark hole.
+
+"Yes, it's a cave all right," the children's grandfather said. "And to
+think the many times I've been on this island I never found it! Well,
+I'll go in a little way."
+
+"Can't I come?" asked Ted, as he saw his grandfather start into the dark
+hole which spread out from the open place into which Ted had fallen.
+
+"I'm not coming," declared Janet, "and I don't want to stay here all
+alone."
+
+"You stay there with your sister, Curlytop," directed Mr. Martin. "If I
+find out it's all right and is safe, I'll come back and take you both in
+a little way."
+
+Grandpa Martin walked into the dark hole, his lantern flickering like a
+firefly at night. The Curlytops watched it until they could no longer
+see the gleam. Then they waited expectantly.
+
+"Maybe somethin'll grab grandpa," said Jan, after a bit.
+
+"What?" asked Ted.
+
+"A fox--or somethin'!"
+
+"Pooh, he isn't afraid of a fox!"
+
+"Well, a bear, maybe!"
+
+"There isn't any bears here, Janet Martin! I'm not afraid."
+
+Perhaps Ted said this because, just then, he saw his grandfather coming
+out of the cave. The farmer had not been gone very long.
+
+"Is it a cave?" called Ted.
+
+"A sure-enough one?" added his sister.
+
+"Yes, it's a sure-enough cave. But there's nothing in it."
+
+"No wild animals?" Jan demanded.
+
+"Not even a mouse, as far as I could see," laughed Mr. Martin. "But some
+one had been in the cave eating his lunch."
+
+"Maybe there was a picnic, Grandpa," suggested Ted.
+
+"No, I think only one or two persons were in the big hole," said his
+grandfather. "For it _is_ a big hole, larger than I thought it was. I
+could stand up straight once I was inside."
+
+"Take us in!" begged Ted.
+
+"Yes, I think it will be all right. Come along, Jan. I'll hold your
+hand, and there isn't anything of which to be afraid. Come on!"
+
+So Janet and Teddy went into the cave. By the light of grandpa's lantern
+they could see that it was a large place, a regular underground house--a
+cave just like those of which they had read in fairy stories.
+
+"And was there somebody here, really?" asked Ted eagerly.
+
+"Yes," answered his grandfather. "See. Here are bits of bread scattered
+about, and papers in which some one brought his lunch here."
+
+"Maybe it was the tramps," whispered Janet.
+
+"Maybe," agreed Mr. Martin. "I must have another look over the island."
+
+There was not much else in the cave that they could see with the one
+lantern. Grandpa Martin wanted to look about more, and back in the far
+corners, but he did not like to take the children along, and Jan held
+tightly to his hand as if she feared she would lose him.
+
+"I'll come here alone some other time, and see what I can find," thought
+Grandpa Martin to himself, as they came out.
+
+"I don't like it in there," said Jan, once they were again out in the
+sunshine. "I don't like caves."
+
+"I do," declared Ted. "When Hal Chester comes to visit me, as he said he
+would, he and I will look all through this cave."
+
+"Is Hal coming?" asked Jan, remembering the boy, once lame but now
+cured, who had played with them and told them about Princess Blue Eyes.
+
+"Yes, mother asked him to come and spend a week, and he said he would.
+We'll have some fun in the cave."
+
+"What do you suppose the big hole can be?" asked Mrs. Martin, when
+Grandpa Martin and the children reached camp after their visit to the
+strange place.
+
+"I don't know," he answered. "It doesn't seem to have been dug with
+picks and shovels. It's just a natural cave I guess, and some fishermen
+may have eaten their lunch there one day when it rained. But there is no
+one in it now."
+
+Ted and Jan talked much about the cave the rest of that day. They went
+for a ride in the wagon drawn by Nicknack, taking Trouble with them. On
+their way back Jan said:
+
+"Oh, I wish I had a swing."
+
+"It would be fun," agreed Ted. "Maybe I can make one."
+
+"You'll have to get a rope," said his sister. "Grandpa is going to row
+over in the boat to-morrow. Ask him to bring us one."
+
+"No, he don't need to bring us a rope," went on her brother.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"'Cause I can get a rope in the woods."
+
+"A rope in the woods? Oh, Teddy Martin, you can not! Ropes don't grow on
+trees."
+
+"The kind I mean does," answered Ted with a laugh. "Wait and I'll show
+you."
+
+When Nicknack had been put in the new stable which Grandpa Martin had
+built for him, Teddy, followed by Jan and Trouble, walked a little way
+into the woods. Ted carried with him a piece of old carpet.
+
+"What's that for?" his sister asked.
+
+"For a swing board," he answered.
+
+"But where's the swing rope?"
+
+"Here!" cried Ted suddenly. He pointed to a long wild grapevine, which
+hung dangling between two trees, around which it was twined. The vine
+was a very long one, and as thick around as the piece Teddy had used to
+pull himself out of the hole near the cave. It did seem like a regular
+swing.
+
+"Well--maybe," murmured Jan.
+
+"Now we can have some fun!" cried Ted. He folded the piece of carpet and
+laid it over the grapevine. Then he sat down, gave a push on the ground
+with his feet, and away he swung as nicely as though he was in a regular
+swing, made with a rope from the store.
+
+"Oh, how nice!" cried Janet. "Let me try it, Teddy."
+
+"Wait till I see if it's strong enough."
+
+He swung back and forward several more times and then let his sister try
+it. She, too, swayed to and fro in the grapevine swing, which was in a
+shady place in the woods. Then Trouble, who had seen what was going on,
+cried:
+
+"I want to swing, too! I want to swing!"
+
+"I'll take you on my lap," offered Janet, and this she did.
+
+"I'll push you," offered Teddy, and he gave his sister and his baby
+brother a long push in the grapevine swing.
+
+But, just as they were going nicely and Trouble was laughing in delight,
+there was a sudden cracking sound and Janet cried:
+
+"Oh, I'm falling! I'm falling! The swing is coming down!"
+
+And that is just what happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TROUBLE MAKES A CAKE
+
+
+With 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'll 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'll 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.
+
+[Illustration: THEN TROUBLE BEGAN TO MAKE A CAKE IN HIS HAT. _Page
+138_]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE CURLYTOPS GO SWIMMING
+
+
+"Trouble make a cake--Trouble make a nice cake for Jan an' Ted,"
+murmured Baby William to himself. Certainly he thought he was going to
+do that--make a nice cake--but it did not turn out just that way.
+
+Trouble's hat, being of felt, held water just as a dish or a basin would
+have done, but the little fellow had to hold it very carefully in his
+lap between his knees as he sat on the table, or he would have squeezed
+his hat and the water would have spilled out. But when Trouble really
+wanted to do anything he could be very careful. And he wanted, very much
+this time, to make that cake.
+
+So, when he had the water in his hat he began to dip up some flour from
+the bag with a large spoon.
+
+When the little fellow thought he had enough flour sifted into the
+water in his hat he began to stir it, just as he had seen Nora stir her
+cake batter. Around and around he stirred it, and then he found that his
+cake was much too wet. He had not enough flour in it, just as,
+sometimes, when he and Jan made mud pies, they did not have enough sand
+or dirt in the water to make the stuff for the pies as thick as they
+wanted it.
+
+So Trouble stirred in more flour. And then, just as you can easily
+guess, he made it too thick, and had to put in more water.
+
+By this time Trouble's small hat was almost full of flour and water, and
+some dough began to run over the edges, down on his little bare legs,
+and also on his rompers and on the table and even to the floor of the
+kitchen tent.
+
+Trouble did not like that. He wanted to get his cake mixed before Nora
+came back, so she could bake it in the oven for him. For he knew cakes
+must be baked to make them good to eat, and he really hoped, knowing no
+better, that his cake would be good enough to eat.
+
+"Trouble make a big cake," he said, as he slowly put a little more water
+into his hat, and stirred the dough some more. He splashed some of the
+flour and water on the end of his stubby nose, and wiped it off on the
+back of his hand. Then, as he kept on stirring, some more of the dough
+splashed on his cheeks, and he had to wipe that off. So that, by this
+time, Baby William had on his hands and face at least as much dough as
+there was in the spoon.
+
+But finally the little mischief-maker got the dough in his hat just
+about thick enough--not too much flour and not too much water in it.
+When this point was reached he knew that it was time to get ready for
+the baking part--putting the dough in the pans so it would go into the
+oven.
+
+Trouble wanted to do as much toward making his own cake as he could
+without asking Nora to help. So now he thought he could put the dough in
+the baking pans himself. But they were on the table beyond his reach. He
+must get up to reach them.
+
+So Trouble got up, and then----
+
+Well, you can just imagine what happened. He forgot that he was holding
+in his lap the hat full of dough and as soon as he stood up of course
+that slipped from his lap and the table and went splashing all over the
+floor.
+
+"Squee-squish-squash!" the hat full of dough dropped.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Trouble. "Oh!"
+
+His feet were covered with the white flour and water. Some splashed on
+Nora's chair near the table, some splashed on the table legs and more
+spread over the tent floor and ran in little streams toward the far
+edges. And, in the midst of it, like a little island in the middle of a
+lake of dough, was Trouble's new hat. Only now you could hardly tell
+which was the hat and which was the dough.
+
+"Trouble's cake all gone!" said the little fellow sadly, and just as he
+said that back came Nora. She gave one look inside her nice, clean
+tent-kitchen--at least it had been clean when she left it--and then she
+cried:
+
+"Oh, Trouble Martin! What _have_ you gone and done?"
+
+"Trouble make a cake but it spill," he said slowly, climbing down from
+the table.
+
+"Spill! I should say it did spill!" cried Nora. "Oh, what a sight you
+are! And what will your mother say!"
+
+"What is it now, Nora?" asked Mrs. Martin, who heard the noise in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Oh, it's Trouble, as you might guess. He's tried to make a cake.
+But--such a mess!"
+
+Mrs. Martin looked in. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time,
+but, as that is rather hard to do, she did neither. She just stood and
+looked at Trouble. He had picked up his hat, which still had a little of
+the paste in it, and this was now dripping down the front of his
+rompers.
+
+"Well, it's clean dirt, not like the time he was stuck in the mud of the
+brook at home, that's one consolation," said Nora at last. Nora had a
+good habit of trying to make the best of everything.
+
+"Yes, it's clean dirt and it will wash off," agreed Mother Martin. "But,
+oh, Trouble! You are _such_ a sight! And so is Nora's kitchen."
+
+"Oh, well, I don't mind cleaning up," said the good-natured maid. "Come
+on, Trouble, I'll let your mother wash you and then I'll finish the
+cake."
+
+"Make a cake for Trouble?" asked Baby William.
+
+"Yes, I guess I'll have to, since you couldn't make one for yourself,"
+laughed Nora. "Never mind, you'll be a man when you grow up and you
+won't have to mess around a kitchen. Here you are!" and she caught him
+up, all doughy as he was, and carried him to the big tent where his
+mother soon had him washed and in clean clothes.
+
+Then Nora cleaned up the kitchen and made some real cakes and cookies
+which Ted and Jan, as well as Trouble, ate a little later. The Curlytops
+laughed when told of Trouble's attempt to make a cake, and for a long
+time after that whenever they were telling any of their friends about
+the queer things their baby brother did, they always told first about
+the cake he made in his hat one day.
+
+"Oh, Ted, I know what let's do!" cried Janet one day, about a week after
+Trouble had played with the flour and water.
+
+"What?" asked her brother. "Go fishing?"
+
+"No, I don't like fishing. Anyhow we went fishing once, and I don't like
+to see the worms wiggle. Let's make a little play tent for ourselves in
+the woods."
+
+"We haven't any cloth."
+
+"We can make one of leaves and branches, just like the bower we made for
+Nicknack before grandpa put up the little board barn for him."
+
+"Yes, we can do that," agreed Ted. "It'll be fun. Come on."
+
+A little later the two Curlytops were cutting down branches from low
+trees, sticking the ends into the soft ground, and tying the leafy tops
+together with string. This made a sort of tent, and though there were
+holes in it, where the leaves did not quite come together, it made a
+shady place.
+
+Jan brought in her dolls, and Ted his sailboat and other toys, and there
+the two children played for some little time. Trouble was not with them.
+
+"But he'll be along pretty soon," remarked Janet, "and he'll want part
+of the tent for his. Is it big enough for three, Teddy?"
+
+"Well, we can make Trouble a little bower for himself right next door.
+He'll want to bring in a lot of old stones and mud pies anyhow, and we
+don't want them. We'll make a little bower for him when he comes along."
+
+So, waiting for their little brother to hunt them out, which he always
+did sooner or later if they went off to play without him, Ted and Jan
+had fun in the little leafy house they had made for themselves.
+
+They were having a good time, and were wondering if Grandpa Martin would
+ever find the queer ragged man or if they would see the strange blue
+light again, when Jan suddenly gave a scream.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Ted.
+
+"Something tickled the back of my neck," explained his sister. "Maybe
+it's a big worm, or a caterpillar! Look, Ted, will you?"
+
+Teddy turned to look, but, as he did so, he gave a cry of surprise.
+
+"It's a goat! It's our goat! It's Nicknack!" yelled Teddy. "He's stuck
+his head right through the bower and, oh, Jan! he's eating it!"
+
+And so Nicknack was. His head was half-way through the side of the
+tree-tent nearest Jan and the goat was chewing some of the green leaves.
+It was Nicknack's whiskers that had tickled Jan on the back of her neck.
+
+"Whoa there, Nicknack!" called Ted, as the goat from the outside pushed
+his way farther into the tent. "Whoa, there! You'll upset this place in
+a minute!"
+
+And so it seemed Nicknack would do, for he was hungrily eating the
+leaves of the branches from which Jan and Ted had made their playhouse.
+
+"How'd he get loose?" asked Jan.
+
+"I don't know," Ted answered. "I tied him good and tight by his rope. I
+wonder if----"
+
+Just then a voice called:
+
+"Wait for me, Nicknack! Wait for me!"
+
+"It's Trouble!" cried Jan and Ted together.
+
+Ted looked out through the hole the goat had eaten in the side of the
+bower, and saw Baby William toddling toward him.
+
+"Did you let Nicknack loose?" demanded Ted.
+
+"Ess, I did," answered Trouble. "I cutted his wope with a knife, I did.
+I wants a wide. Wait for me, Nicknack!"
+
+The goat was in no hurry to get away, for he liked to eat the green
+leaves, and Ted, coming out of the bower, which was almost ready to fall
+down now that the goat was half-way inside it, saw where the rope, fast
+around his pet's horns, had been cut.
+
+"You mustn't do that, Trouble," Ted said to his little brother. "You
+mustn't cut Nicknack's rope. He might run away into the lake."
+
+"Trouble wants a wide."
+
+"Well, we'll give you a ride," added Jan. "But did mother or Nora give
+you the knife to cut the rope?"
+
+"No. Trouble got knife offen table."
+
+"Oh, you must _never_ do that!" cried Jan. "You might fall on the sharp
+knife and cut yourself. Trouble was bad!"
+
+The little fellow had really taken a knife from the table, and had sawed
+away with it on Nicknack's rope until he had cut it through. Then
+Nicknack had wandered over to the green bower to get something to eat,
+and Trouble, dropping the knife, had followed.
+
+Mrs. Martin, to punish Baby William so he would remember not to take
+knives again, would not let him have a goat ride, and he cried very hard
+when Ted and Jan went off without him. But even little boys must learn
+not to do what is wrong, and Trouble was no different from any others.
+
+One afternoon, when the Curlytops had been wandering around the woods of
+the island, looking to see if any berries were yet ripe, they came back
+to camp rather tired and warm.
+
+"I know what would be nice for you," said Nora, who came to the flap
+doorway of the kitchen tent. "Yes, I know _two_ things that would be
+nice for you."
+
+"What?" asked Jan, fanning herself with her sunbonnet.
+
+"I hope it's something good to eat," sighed Teddy, as he sat down in the
+shade.
+
+"Part of it," answered Nora. "How would you like some cool
+lemonade--that is, when you are not so warm," she added quickly, for
+Teddy had jumped up on hearing this, and was about to make a rush for
+the kind cook. "You must always rest a bit, when you are so warm from
+running, walking or playing, before you take a cold drink of anything."
+
+"But have you any lemonade?" asked Janet, for she, too, was tired and
+thirsty.
+
+"I'll make some, and you may have it when you are not so heated," went
+on the cook. "And I'll get some sweet crackers for you."
+
+"That's nice," said Janet. "Are they the two things you were going to
+tell us to do, Nora?"
+
+"No, I'll count the lemonade and crackers as one," went on the cook with
+a smile. "The other thing I was going to tell you to do is to take
+Nicknack and have a ride. That will cool you off if you go in the
+shade."
+
+"Oh, so it will!" cried Ted. "We'll do it! And can we take the lemonade
+in a bottle, and the crackers in a bag, and put them in the goat-wagon?"
+
+"Do you mean to give the crackers and lemonade a ride, too?" asked
+Mother Martin, who came out of her tent just then.
+
+"No, but we can take them with us, and have a little picnic in the
+woods," explained Teddy. "We didn't find any berries, and so we didn't
+have any picnic."
+
+"All right, Nora, give them the lemonade and crackers to take with
+them," said Mrs. Martin, smiling at the Curlytops.
+
+"I'll go and make the cool drink now," said the cook.
+
+"And I'll get the crackers," said the children's mother.
+
+"And we'll go and get Nicknack and harness him to the cart," added Ted.
+
+He and Janet were soon on their way to the little leafy bower where the
+goat was kept, for it was so warm on Star Island that the goat did not
+stay more than half the time in the stable Grandpa Martin had made for
+him.
+
+"Here, Nicknack! where are you?" called Teddy, as he neared the bower.
+
+"Here, Nicknack!" called Janet.
+
+But the goat did not answer. Nearly always, when he was called to in
+that way, he did, giving a loud "Baa-a-a-a-a!" that could be heard a
+long way.
+
+"Oh, Nicknack isn't here!" cried Jan, when she saw the empty place.
+"Maybe he's run away, Ted."
+
+"He must be on the island somewhere," said the little boy. "He can't row
+a boat and get off, and he doesn't like to swim, I guess, though he did
+fall into the water once."
+
+"But where is he?" asked Janet.
+
+"We'll look," Teddy said.
+
+So the children peered about in the bushes, but not a sign of Nicknack
+could they see. They called and called, but the goat did not bleat back
+to them.
+
+"Oh, where can he be?" asked Janet, and her eyes filled with tears, for
+she loved the pet animal very much.
+
+"We'll look," said Teddy. "And if we can't find him we'll ask grandpa to
+help us look."
+
+They wandered about, but not going too far from the leafy bower, and,
+all at once, Ted cried:
+
+"Hark! I hear him!"
+
+"So do I!" added Janet. "Oh, where is he?"
+
+"Listen!" returned her brother.
+
+They both listened, hardly breathing, so as to make as little noise as
+possible. Once more they heard the cry of the goat:
+
+"Baa-a-a-a-a-a!" went Nicknack. "Baa-a-a-a!"
+
+"He's over this way!" cried Teddy, and he started to run to the left.
+
+"No, I think he's here," and Janet pointed to the right.
+
+"What's the matter, Curlytops?" asked Mrs. Martin, who came out just
+then to see what was keeping the children.
+
+"We can hear Nicknack, but we can't see him," answered Ted.
+
+Mrs. Martin listened to the goat's call.
+
+"I think he's down this path," she said, and she took one midway between
+those Ted and Janet would have taken. "Come along!" she called back to
+the two children. "We'll soon find Nicknack."
+
+"Here, Nicknack! Here, Nicknack!" called Ted.
+
+"Come on, we want you to give us a ride!" added Janet.
+
+But though the goat answered, as he nearly always did, his voice sounded
+afar off, and he did not come running to see his little friends.
+
+"Oh, I wonder if anything is the matter with him?" asked Ted.
+
+"We'll soon see," said Mrs. Martin.
+
+Just then the barking of a dog was heard.
+
+"Oh, I wonder if that's Skyrocket?" asked Janet.
+
+"No, we left our dog home," said Mrs. Martin. "That sounds like a
+strange dog, and he seems to be barking at Nicknack. Come on, children.
+We'll see what the matter is!"
+
+They hurried on, and, in a little while, they saw what had happened.
+Nicknack was caught in a thick bush by the rope around his horns. He had
+pulled the rope loose from his leafy bower, and it had dragged along
+after him as he wandered away. Then the end of the rope had become
+tangled in a thick bush and the goat could not pull it loose. He was
+held as tightly as if tied.
+
+In front of him, but far enough away so the goat could not butt him with
+his horns, which Nicknack tried to do, was a big, and not very
+nice-looking, dog. This dog was barking fiercely at Nicknack, and the
+goat could not make him go away.
+
+"Oh, Mother! don't let the dog hurt our goat!" begged Janet.
+
+"I'll drive him away," cried Ted, catching up a stone.
+
+"No, you had better let me do it," said Mrs. Martin. She picked up a
+stick and walked toward the dog, but he did not wait for her to get very
+close. With a last howl and a bark at Nicknack, the dog ran away, jumped
+into the lake and swam off toward shore. Then the rope was loosed and
+Nicknack, who was badly frightened, was led back by Ted and Jan and
+hitched to the wagon. He then gave them a fine ride. The dog was a stray
+one, which had swum over from the mainland, Grandpa Martin said.
+
+Ted and Janet took the lemonade and crackers with them in the goat-wagon
+and had a nice little picnic in the woods.
+
+"What can we do to-day?" asked Janet, as she and Teddy finished
+breakfast in the tent one morning, and, after playing about on the beach
+of the lake, wanted some other fun.
+
+"Let's go swimming!" cried Teddy.
+
+"And take Trouble with us," added his sister.
+
+In their bathing suits and with Nora on the bank to watch them, the
+children were soon splashing in the cool water. Ted could swim a little
+bit, and Jan was just learning.
+
+"Come on out where it's a little deeper," Ted urged his sister. "It
+isn't up to your knees here, and you can't swim in such shallow water."
+
+"I'm afraid to go out," she said.
+
+"Afraid of what?"
+
+"Big fish or a crab."
+
+"Pooh! those little crabs won't bite you, and when we splash around we
+scare away all the fish. They wouldn't bite you anyhow."
+
+"Maybe a water snake would."
+
+"No, it wouldn't," declared Ted. "Come on and see me swim."
+
+So Jan waded out a little way with him. Ted was just taking a few
+strokes, really swimming quite well for so small a boy, when, all at
+once, he heard a cry from his sister.
+
+"Oh, Ted! Ted!" she called. "Come on in, quick. A big fish is goin' to
+bite you!"
+
+Ted gave one look over his shoulder and saw something with a pointed
+nose, long whiskers and two bright eyes swimming toward him.
+
+"Oh!" yelled Ted, and he began running for shore as fast as he could
+splash through the water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JAN'S QUEER RIDE
+
+
+"What's the matter? What is it?" cried Nora from the bank where she was
+tossing bits of wood into the lake for Trouble to pretend they were
+little boats. "Have you got a cramp, Teddy boy?"
+
+"It's a--a big fish--or--somethin'," he panted, as he kept on running
+and splashing the water all about, which, after all, did not matter as
+he was in his bathing suit.
+
+"It's a shark after him!" cried Jan, who, by this time, was safe on
+shore, stopping on her way to grasp Trouble by the hand and lead him
+also to safety. "It's a shark!"
+
+She had heard her mother read of bathers in the ocean being sometimes
+frightened by sharks, or by big fish that looked like sharks.
+
+"Oh, a shark! Good land! We mustn't bathe here any more!" cried Nora.
+
+By this time Ted was in such shallow water that it was not much above
+his ankles. He could see the bottom, and he hoped no very big fish could
+swim in so little water. So he thought it would be safe to stop and look
+back.
+
+"Oh, it's coming some more!" cried Jan, from where she stood on the bank
+with Nora and Trouble. "Look, Ted! It's coming."
+
+The animal, fish, or whatever it was, indeed seemed to be coming
+straight for the shore near the place where the Curlytops were playing.
+Ted, Jan and Nora could see the sharp nose and the bright eyes more
+plainly now. As for Trouble, he did not know what it was all about, and
+he wanted to go back in the water to wade, which was as near swimming as
+he ever came.
+
+Then the strange creature turned and suddenly made for a small rock,
+which stood out of the water a little way from the sandy beach. It
+climbed out on the rock, while the children and Nora watched eagerly,
+and then Ted gave a laugh.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, "it's nothing but a big muskrat!"
+
+"A muskrat?" echoed Jan.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And see, he has a mussel, or fresh-water clam," said Nora. "Look at
+him crack the shell."
+
+And this is what the muskrat was really doing. It had been swimming in
+the lake--for muskrats are good swimmers--when it had found a
+fresh-water mussel, which is like a clam except that it has a longer
+shell that is black instead of white. Muskrats like mussels, but they
+cannot eat them in water.
+
+They have to bring them up on shore, or to a flat rock or stump that
+sticks up out of water, where they can crack the shell and eat the
+mussel inside.
+
+"If I'd a known what it was I wouldn't 'a' been scared," said Ted, who
+felt a little ashamed of himself for hurrying toward shore. "You
+frightened me yelling so, Jan."
+
+"Well, I didn't want to see you get bit by a shark, Teddy. First I
+thought it was a shark."
+
+"Well, sharks live in the ocean, where the water is salty," declared
+Ted.
+
+"Anyhow maybe a muskrat bites," went on Janet.
+
+"Well, maybe," agreed Ted. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't stay
+there when he came swimming in," for the big rat passed right over the
+place where Ted had been about to swim. "I'm glad you yelled, Janet."
+
+"So'm I. I'm not going in swimming here any more."
+
+"Oh, he won't come back," Ted said. "Come on!"
+
+But Janet would not go, and as it was no fun for Ted to splash in the
+water all alone he stayed near shore and went wading with Trouble and
+his sister.
+
+This was fun, and the Curlytops had a good time, while Nora, now that
+she knew there was no danger from sharks, sat in the shade and mended
+holes in the children's stockings.
+
+"I wish we had a boat," said Ted after a while.
+
+"Why, we have," answered Jan.
+
+"Yes, I know, the big rowboat. But that's too heavy for me and you--I
+mean you and me," and Ted quickly corrected himself, for he knew it was
+polite always to name oneself last. "But I want a little boat that we
+can paddle around in."
+
+Jan thought for a moment and then cried:
+
+"Oh, I know the very thing!"
+
+"What?" asked Ted eagerly.
+
+"One of the boxes grandpa brought the things in from the store. They're
+long, and we can make box-boats of them. There's two of 'em!"
+
+"That's what we can!" cried Teddy, as he thought of the boxes his sister
+meant. Groceries from the store had been sent to the camp in them. The
+boxes were strong, and long; big enough for Jan or Ted to sit down in
+them and reach over the sides to paddle, not being too high.
+
+Mother Martin said they might take the boxes and make of them the
+play-boats they wanted, and, in great delight, Ted and his sister ran to
+get their new playthings.
+
+Grandpa Martin pulled out all the nails that might scratch the children,
+and he also fastened strips of wood over the largest cracks in the
+boxes.
+
+"That will keep out some of the water, but not all," he said. "Your
+box-boats won't float very long. They'll sink as soon as enough water
+runs in through the other cracks."
+
+"Oh, well, we'll paddle in them in shallow water," promised Ted. "And
+sinking won't hurt, 'cause we've got on our bathing suits. Come on,
+Jan!"
+
+Trouble wanted to sail in the new boats, also, but they were not large
+enough for two. Besides Mrs. Martin did not want the baby to be in the
+water too much. So she carried him away, Trouble crying and screaming to
+be allowed to stay, while Jan and Ted got ready for their first trip.
+They pretended the boats were ocean steamers and that the cove in the
+lake, near grandpa's camp, was the big ocean.
+
+They had pieces of wood which their grandfather had whittled out for
+them to use as paddles, and, as Ted said, they could sit down in the
+bottoms of the box-boats and never mind how much water came in, for they
+still had on their bathing suits.
+
+"All aboard!" called Teddy, as he got into his boat.
+
+"I'm coming," answered Janet, pushing off from shore.
+
+"Oh, I can really paddle!" cried Ted in delight, as he found that his
+box floated with him in it and he could send it along by using the board
+for a paddle, as one does in a canoe. "Isn't this great, Janet?"
+
+"Oh, it's lots of fun!"
+
+"I'm glad you thought of it. I never would," went on Ted. He was a good
+brother, for, whenever his sister did anything unusual like this he
+always gave her credit for it.
+
+Around and around in the little cove paddled the Curlytops, having fun
+in their box-boats.
+
+"I'm going to let the wind blow me," said Jan, after a bit. "I'm tired
+of paddling."
+
+"There isn't any wind," Ted remarked.
+
+"Well, what makes me go along, then!" asked his sister. "Look, I'm
+moving and I'm not paddling at all!"
+
+She surely was. In her boat she was sailing right across the little
+cove, and, as Ted had said, there was not enough wind to blow a feather,
+to say nothing of a heavy box with a little girl in it.
+
+"Isn't it queer!" exclaimed Janet. "What makes me go this way, Ted? You
+aren't sailing."
+
+Ted's boat was not moving now, for he had stopped paddling.
+
+Still Jan's craft moved on slowly but surely through the water. Then Ted
+saw a funny thing and gave a cry of surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+DIGGING FOR GOLD
+
+
+"What's the matter?" called Jan. Her boat was now quite a little
+distance away from her brother's. "Do you see anything, Teddy?"
+
+"I see you are being towed, Janet."
+
+"Being what?"
+
+"Towed--pulled along, you know, just like the mules pull the canal
+boats."
+
+Once the Curlytops had visited a cousin who lived in the country near a
+canal, and they had seen the mules and horses walking along the canal
+towpath pulling the big boats by a long rope.
+
+"Who's towing me, Ted?" asked Jan, trying to look over the side of her
+box. But, as she did so it tipped to one side and she was afraid it
+would upset, so she quickly sat down again.
+
+"I don't know what it is," her brother answered. "But something has
+hold of the rope that's fast to the front part of your box, and it's as
+tight as anything--the rope is. Something in the water is pulling you
+along."
+
+On each of the box-boats the Curlytops had fastened a piece of
+clothes-line their mother had given them. This line was to tie fast
+their boats to an overhanging tree branch, near the shore of the cove,
+when they were done playing.
+
+And, as Ted had said, the rope fast to the end of Jan's box was
+stretched out tightly in front, the end being down under water.
+
+"Oh, maybe it's the big muskrat that has hold of my rope and is giving
+me a ride," cried Janet. "It's fun!"
+
+"No, I don't guess it's a rat," answered Teddy. "A muskrat wouldn't do
+that. Oh, I see what it is!" he cried suddenly. "I see it!"
+
+"What?" asked Janet.
+
+Again she got up and tried to look over the side of the box, but once
+more it tipped as though going to turn over and she sat down.
+
+By this time both her box and Ted's was half full of water, and so went
+only very slowly along the little cove. The weight of the water that
+had leaked in through the cracks and the weight of the Curlytops
+themselves made the boxes float low in the lake.
+
+"Can you see what's pulling me?" asked Janet.
+
+"Yes," answered Teddy, "I can. It's a great big mud turtle!"
+
+"A mud turtle!" cried Janet.
+
+"I guess he's scared, too," said her brother, "for he's swimmin' all
+around as fast as anything!"
+
+"Where is he?" asked Janet.
+
+"Right in front of your boat. I guess your rope got caught around one of
+his legs, or on his shell, and he can't get it loose. He must have been
+swimming along and run into the rope. Or maybe he's got it in his
+mouth."
+
+"If he had he could let go," answered Janet. "Oh, I see him!" she cried.
+She had stood up in her box and was looking over the front. The box had
+now sunk so low in the water that it was on the bottom of the little
+cove and no longer was the turtle towing it along.
+
+The turtle, finding that it could no longer swim, had come to the top
+of the water and was splashing about, trying to get loose. Jan could see
+it plainly now, as Ted had seen it before from his boat, which was still
+floating along, as not so much water had leaked in as had seeped into
+his sister's.
+
+"Oh, isn't it a big one!" cried Jan. "It's a big turtle."
+
+"It surely is!" assented Ted. "He could bite hard if he got hold of
+you."
+
+"Is he biting my rope?" Janet asked.
+
+"No, it's round one of his front legs," replied Ted. "There! he's got it
+loose!"
+
+"There he goes!" shrieked Jan.
+
+By this time the mud turtle, which was a very large one, had struggled
+and squirmed about so hard in the water that he had shaken loose the
+knot in the end of Jan's rope. The knot had been caught under its left
+front leg and when the turtle swam or crawled along on the bottom, the
+rope had been held tightly in place, and so the box was pulled along.
+
+But when Jan's boat sank and went aground, the turtle could not pull it
+any farther, and had to back up, just as Nicknack the goat sometimes
+backed up his cart. This made the rope slack, or loose, and then the
+creature could shake the knot of the rope out from under its leg.
+
+"There it goes!" cried Ted, as the turtle swam away. "Oh, what a
+whopper! It's bigger than the big muskrat!"
+
+"Your muskrat didn't give you a ride Ted, and my turtle gave me a fine
+one," said Jan. "But I can't sail my boat any more."
+
+"Well, we'll have to empty out some of the water. Then it will float
+again and you can get in it."
+
+"I'm not going to let the rope drag in the water any more," decided
+Janet, after Ted had helped her tip her box over so the water would run
+out. "I don't really want any more rides like that. The next turtle
+might go out into the lake. I want to paddle."
+
+"I wish a big whale would come along and tow me," laughed Ted. "I
+wouldn't let him go loose."
+
+"He _might_ pull you all across the lake," Janet said.
+
+"I'd like that. Come on, we'll have a race."
+
+"All right, Ted."
+
+The Curlytops began paddling their box-boats about the cove once more.
+Ted won the race, being older and stronger than Janet, but she did very
+well.
+
+Then after some more fun sailing about in their floating boxes the
+children were called by their mother, who said they had been in the
+water long enough. Besides dinner was ready, and they were hungry for
+the good things Nora had made.
+
+"And didn't you find any of them, Father?" asked Mrs. Martin as the
+farmer pushed back his chair, when the meal was over.
+
+"No, I didn't see a sign of them, and I looked all over the cave, too.
+Some persons have been sleeping in there, for I found a pile of old bags
+they had used for a bed, but I didn't find anyone."
+
+"Find who?" Ted inquired.
+
+"The tramps, or the ragged man you and Jan saw," answered his
+grandfather. "I have been looking about the island, but I could not find
+any of the ragged men, for I think there was more than one. So I guess
+they've gone, and we needn't think anything more about them."
+
+"Did you see the blue light?" asked Ted.
+
+"No, I didn't see that, either. I guess it wouldn't show in the daytime.
+But don't worry. Just have all the fun you can in camp. We can't stay
+here very much longer."
+
+"Oh, do we have to go home?" cried the Curlytops, sorrowfully.
+
+"Well, we can't stay here much longer," said Mother Martin. "In another
+month the weather will be too cold for living in a tent. Besides daddy
+will want us back, and grandpa has to gather in his farm crops for the
+winter. So have fun while you can."
+
+"Isn't daddy coming here?" asked Jan.
+
+"Yes, he'll be here next week to stay several days with us. Then he has
+to go back to the store."
+
+The Curlytops had great fun when Daddy Martin came. They showed him all
+over the island--the cave, the place where Nicknack nearly ate up the
+bower-tent, the place where Ted saw the muskrat, and they even wanted
+him to go riding in the box-boats.
+
+"Oh, I'm afraid I'm too big!" laughed Daddy Martin. "Besides, I'd be
+afraid if a mud turtle pulled me along."
+
+"Oh, Daddy Martin! you would not!" laughed Janet.
+
+And so the happy days went by, until Mr. Martin had to leave Star Island
+to go back to his business. He promised to pay another visit, though,
+before the camp was ended.
+
+Several times, before and after Daddy Martin's visit, Ted and Jan talked
+about the queer ragged man they had seen, and about the blue light and
+the cave.
+
+"I wonder if we'll ever find out what it all means," said Jan. "It's
+like a story-book, isn't it, Ted?"
+
+"A little, yes. But grandpa says not to be scared so I'm not."
+
+"I'm not, either. But what do you s'pose that ragged man is looking for,
+and who is the professor?"
+
+Teddy did not know, and said so. Then, when he and Jan got back to the
+tent, having been out with Trouble for a ride in the goat-cart, they
+found good news awaiting them.
+
+"Here is a letter from Hal Chester, the little boy who used to be lame,"
+said Mrs. Martin, for grandpa had come in, bringing the mail from the
+mainland post-office.
+
+"Oh, can he come to pay us a visit?" asked Ted. His mother had allowed
+him to invite Hal.
+
+"Yes, that's what he is going to do," went on Mrs. Martin. "His doctor
+says he is much better, and can walk with hardly a limp now, and the
+trip here will do him good. So to-morrow Grandpa Martin is going to
+bring him to Star Island."
+
+"Oh, goody!" cried Ted and Jan, jumping up and down and clapping their
+hands. Trouble did the same thing, though he did not know exactly what
+for.
+
+"We'll have fun with Hal!" cried Ted. "Maybe he'll help us find the
+tramp-man. Hal's smart--he can make kites and lots of things."
+
+The next day Hal Chester came to visit the camp on Star Island.
+
+"Say, this is a dandy place!" he exclaimed as he looked about at the
+tents and at the boat floating in the little cove. "I'll just love it
+here!"
+
+"It's awful nice," agreed Jan.
+
+"And there's a mystery here, too," added Ted.
+
+"What do you mean?" Hal demanded. "What's a mystery?"
+
+"Oh, it's something queer," went on Ted. "Something you can't tell what
+it is. This mystery is a tramp."
+
+"A tramp?"
+
+"Yes. Jan saw him when she was picking flowers, and he pulled Trouble
+out of the spring afterward. And there's a cave here where maybe he
+sleeps, 'cause there's some bags for beds in it. He's looking for
+something on this island, that tramp-man is," declared Ted.
+
+"Looking for something?" repeated Hal, quite puzzled.
+
+"Yes. He goes all around, and we saw him picking up some stones. Didn't
+we, Jan?"
+
+"Yes, we did."
+
+"Picking up stones," repeated Hal slowly. Then he sprang up from where
+he was sitting under a tree with the Curlytop children.
+
+"I know what he's looking for!" Hal cried.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Gold!" and Hal's voice changed to a whisper. "That tramp knows there's
+gold on this island, and he's trying to dig it up so you won't know it.
+He's after gold--that's what he is!"
+
+"Oh!" gasped Jan, her eyes shining brightly.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ted. "Can't we stop him? This is grandpa's island. He
+mustn't take grandpa's gold."
+
+"There's only one way to stop him," said Hal quickly.
+
+"How?" demanded Ted and Janet in the same breath.
+
+"We'll have to dig for the gold ourselves! Come on, let's get some
+shovels and we'll start right away. It must be up near the cave. Come
+on! We'll dig for the gold ourselves!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE BIG HOLE
+
+
+Hal Chester was very much in earnest. His eyes shone and he could not
+keep still. He fairly danced around Janet and Ted.
+
+"Do you really think that tramp-man was looking for gold?" asked Ted.
+
+"'Deed I do," declared Hal. "What else was he after?"
+
+Neither Ted nor Janet could answer that.
+
+"But how will we know where it is?" asked Janet. "We don't know where
+there's any gold, and mother won't want us to go near that tramp-man."
+
+"And I don't want to, either," answered Hal. "But we can dig down till
+we find the gold, can't we?"
+
+"If we knowed--I mean if we knew where to dig," agreed Ted, after
+thinking about it. "But digging for gold isn't like digging for
+angle-worms to go fishing. You can dig them anywhere. But you've got to
+have a gold mine to dig for gold."
+
+"Well, we'll start a mine," decided Hal. "That's what the miners do out
+West. I read about it in a book at the Home when I was crippled and
+couldn't walk much. The miners just start to dig, and if they don't find
+gold in one place they dig in another. That's what we'll do. We'll dig
+till we find the gold, then well have a gold mine."
+
+"Oh, yes, let's do it!" cried Jan. "I'd love to have some gold to make a
+pair of bracelets for my doll."
+
+"Pooh!" scoffed Ted, "if we get gold we aren't going to waste it on
+doll's bracelets! Are we, Hal?"
+
+"Well, if Jan helps us dig she can have her share of the gold. That's
+what miners always do. They divide up the gold and each one takes his
+share. Of course Jan can do what she likes with hers."
+
+"There, see, Mr. Smarty!" cried Jan to her brother. "I'll make my gold
+into doll's bracelets."
+
+"Maybe you won't get any," objected Ted.
+
+"Well, I'll help you dig, anyhow. I helped grandpa dig trenches around
+the tents so the rain water would run off, and I can help dig a gold
+mine. I know where the shovels are."
+
+"Good!" cried Hal.
+
+"We don't want any girls in this gold mine!" objected Ted, as his sister
+hurried off to where Grandpa Martin kept the shovels, hoes and other
+garden tools he used about the camp.
+
+Usually Ted did not mind what game his sister played with him, but since
+Hal had spoken of gold the little Curlytop boy had acted differently.
+
+"We don't want girls in the gold mine," repeated Ted.
+
+"Course we do!" laughed Hal. "Jan's a strong digger, and I can't do very
+much, as my foot that used to be lame isn't all well yet. It used to be
+almost as strong as the other, but now it isn't. So you and Jan will
+have to do most of the digging, though I can shovel away the dirt.
+Anyhow they always have girls or women in gold camps, you know."
+
+"They do?" cried Ted.
+
+"Of course! They do the cooking where there aren't any Chinamen. Mostly
+Chinamen do the cooking in gold camps, but we haven't any, so we'll
+have to have a girl. She can be Jan."
+
+"There's a Chinaman who washes shirts and collars in our town," remarked
+Ted. "Maybe we could get him to cook for us."
+
+"No! What's the use when we've got Jan? Anyhow it'll be only
+make-believe cooking, and I don't guess that shirt-Chinaman would want
+to come here just for that. Anyhow we'd have to pay him and we haven't
+any money."
+
+"We'll get some out of the gold mine," Ted answered.
+
+"Well, maybe we won't find any gold for a week or so."
+
+"Does it take as long as that?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Sometimes longer. And that Chinaman would want to be paid for
+his cooking every week, or every night maybe. We won't have to pay Jan."
+
+"That's so. Well, then I guess she can come. But we can get my mother or
+Nora to make us sandwiches and we won't have to cook much of anything."
+
+"That's what I thought, Teddy. But we can let Jan set the table and
+things like that when she isn't digging. She'll help a lot."
+
+"Yes, she's almost as strong as I am," agreed Ted. "Hurry up, Jan!" he
+called. "Got those shovels yet?"
+
+"Yes, but I can't carry 'em all. You must help. Come on!"
+
+Jan was walking back toward the boys, dragging two heavy shovels. Seeing
+this, Hal hurried to help her and Ted followed. They got another shovel
+and a hoe and with these they started off toward the cave, about which
+Ted had told Hal.
+
+"That'll be the place where the gold is," decided the visitor. "The
+tramps must have been looking for it there. We'll start our gold mine
+right near the cave."
+
+"What about something to eat?" asked Ted, pausing as they started up the
+path that led to the hole out of which the cave opened.
+
+"That's so. We ought to have something. I'm getting hungry now,"
+remarked Jan, though it was not long since they had had a meal.
+
+"So'm I," announced Ted.
+
+"Better not stop to go back for anything to eat now," decided Hal. "Your
+mother or grandma might make us stay in camp. Did you tell them we were
+going to dig for gold, Jan?"
+
+"No. I didn't see any of them when I got the shovels."
+
+"Well then, we'll go on up to the cave. One of us can come back later
+and get something to eat. They call it 'grub' in the books."
+
+"Call what grub?" Ted asked.
+
+"Stuff the miners eat. We'll send Jan back for the grub after we start
+the gold mine. You're going to be the cook," Hal informed Ted's sister.
+
+"I am not!" she cried, dropping her shovel. "I'm going to be a gold
+miner just like you two. If I can't be that I won't play, and I'll take
+my shovel right back! So there now!"
+
+"Oh, you can be a gold miner too," Hal made haste to say. "But we've got
+to have a cook--they always do in a gold camp."
+
+"Well, I'll be a cook when I'm not digging gold," agreed Jan. "But I
+want to get enough for my doll's bracelets."
+
+"That's all right," agreed Hal. It would not do to have Jan leave them
+right at the start.
+
+If Mrs. Martin or grandpa saw the children starting out with hoe and
+shovels they probably thought the Curlytops were only going to dig fish
+worms, as they often did. Grandpa Martin was very fond of fishing, but
+he did not like to dig the bait. But Trouble was fretful that day, and
+his mother had to take care of him, so she did not pay much attention to
+Jan or Ted, feeling sure they would come to no harm.
+
+So on the three children hurried toward the hole into which Ted had
+fallen just before they found the queer cave.
+
+"This is just the place for a gold mine!" cried Hal when he looked at
+the ground around the big hole. "I guess some one must have started a
+mine here once before."
+
+"It does look so," agreed Ted.
+
+"Let's go into the cave," proposed the visitor.
+
+"No, grandpa told us we must never go in without him," objected Jan.
+"It's all right to stay outside here and dig, but we mustn't go inside.
+The tramps might be in there."
+
+"That's right," chimed in Ted. "Well stay outside."
+
+Hal was not very anxious, himself, to go into the dark hole, so they
+looked at the place where Ted had fallen through the loose leaves and
+talked about whether it would be better to start to make that hole
+larger or begin a new one. The children decided the last would be the
+best thing to do.
+
+"We'll start a new mine of our own," said Hal. "I guess maybe somebody
+dug there and couldn't find any gold. So we'll start a new mine."
+
+This suited the Curlytops and they soon began making the dirt fly with
+shovels and hoe, digging a hole that was large enough for all three of
+them to stand in. Hal said they didn't want to start by making too small
+a mine.
+
+"If we've got to divide it into three parts we want each one's part big
+enough to see," he said, and Ted and Jan agreed to this.
+
+The ground was of sand and very easy to dig. There were no big rocks,
+only a few small stones, and of course this was just what the children
+liked. So that in about half an hour they had really dug quite a deep
+hole. It was almost as easy digging as it is in the sand at the
+seashore, and if any of you have been there you know how soon, even if
+you use only a big clam shell for a shovel, you can make a hole deep
+enough for you and your playmates to stand up in.
+
+"Do you see any gold yet?" asked Jan of the two boys, when they had dug
+down so that only the top parts of their bodies were out of the big
+hole.
+
+"No, not yet. But we'll come to it pretty soon," Hal said.
+
+"Say, how're we going to get up when the hole gets too deep?" asked Ted.
+"We ought to have a ladder or something."
+
+"There's a ladder in camp," answered Jan. "Grandpa had it when he put up
+our real rope swing. Don't you remember, Ted?"
+
+"Yes, that's right. We'd better get it if we're going any deeper, Hal,"
+he added.
+
+"Course we're going deeper. Gold mines are real deep. I guess the ladder
+would be a good thing."
+
+"Then we'll go for it. Jan, you can come and get us something to eat,
+too. I'm awful hungry."
+
+"So'm I," said Hal.
+
+While Jan was in the tent-kitchen begging Nora for some cookies and
+sandwiches, Ted and Hal carried the small ladder, which was not very
+heavy, up to the big hole they had started. By putting one end of the
+ladder down inside, allowing it to slant up to the top of the hole, the
+children could easily get down in and climb up.
+
+After they had eaten the things Jan got from Nora, they began digging
+again. The hole was soon so deep that the dirt which was shoveled and
+hoed away from the bottom and sides could no longer be tossed out by Ted
+and Jan.
+
+"We've got to get a pail and hoist up the dirt," decided Hal. "That's
+what they do in gold mines. One of us must stay at the bottom and dig
+the dirt and fill the pail, and the other pull it up by a rope."
+
+"We'll take turns," said Teddy.
+
+"And I want to help, too!" cried Jan, so the boys agreed to let her,
+especially as they had seen that she could dig and toss dirt almost as
+well as they could. They found an old pail and part of a clothes-line
+for the rope, and the work at the "gold mine," as they called it, went
+on more merrily than before.
+
+By this time the hole was really quite deep--so deep that Hal Chester
+could not see over the rim when he stood up straight on the bottom, and
+only by using the ladder could the children get down and up.
+
+"We ought to find gold pretty soon now," said Hal, as he climbed up to
+let Ted take a turn at going down in the hole and digging.
+
+Just then from the camp they heard the sound of the supper bell.
+
+"Come on!" called Ted, not waiting to go down into the big hole. "We can
+dig some more after supper and to-morrow. I'm hungry!"
+
+"So'm I," agreed Hal.
+
+Leaving their shovels and the hoe on the pile of dirt, the children
+hastened down to the tent where Nora had supper waiting for them, and it
+had a most delicious smell.
+
+"Where have you children been?" asked Mrs. Martin.
+
+"Oh, havin' fun," answered Ted.
+
+"Don't forget your 'g,' Curlytop," warned his mother with a laugh. "Are
+you hungry, Hal?"
+
+"Indeed I am! This island is a good place for getting hungry."
+
+"And this is a good place to be stopped from getting hungry," laughed
+Grandpa Martin, as he pulled his chair up to the well-filled table near
+which Nora stood ready to serve the meal.
+
+The Curlytops and Hal had just a little idea that the grown folks would
+not like their plan of digging a gold mine, so nothing was said about
+it. Hal, Ted and Jan looked at one another when their plates were
+emptied, and then all three of them started once more back toward the
+big hole.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Mother Martin.
+
+"We----" began Jan, then stopped.
+
+"Oh, we--we're playing a game," answered Ted. It was a sort of game.
+
+"Can't you take Trouble with you? You haven't looked after him to-day,"
+went on Mrs. Martin, "and I want to help Nora. Take Trouble with you."
+
+"All right," agreed Ted, though he thought perhaps Baby William might be
+in the way at the gold mine.
+
+"Where is he?" asked Jan.
+
+They looked around for the little fellow. He was not in sight.
+
+"He got down from the table and was playing over there on the path a
+while ago," said Grandpa Martin, and he pointed toward the path that led
+to the gold mine. But Trouble was not in sight now.
+
+"He must have wandered off into the woods," said his mother. "I've kept
+him close by me all day, and he didn't like it. Trouble! William!" she
+called aloud. "Where are you?"
+
+Ted and Jan looked at one another. Hal seemed startled. The same thought
+came to all three of them:
+
+"Suppose Trouble had fallen down the big hole at the gold mine?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A GLAD SURPRISE
+
+
+Janet, Ted and Hal started to run.
+
+"Where are you going?" called Mrs. Martin after them. "Wait for
+Trouble!"
+
+"We're going to find him," answered Janet.
+
+"Maybe he fell down the big hole we dug for a gold mine," added Ted.
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Mrs. Martin.
+
+"What have you Curlytops been up to now?" asked Grandpa Martin.
+
+"We dug a big hole to find the gold the tramps are looking for on this
+island," explained Hal, who walked on slowly, following Mrs. Martin, who
+had run after Ted and Janet. "Maybe the little boy fell into it."
+
+"Where did you dig the big hole?" asked grandpa, and he, too, began to
+be afraid that something had happened.
+
+"Up near what Ted calls the cave. It's got a ladder in it, our gold mine
+hole has, and maybe Trouble could climb out on that."
+
+"If it's a hole deep enough for a ladder, I'm afraid he couldn't," said
+Grandpa Martin. "You children must have dug a pretty big hole."
+
+"We wanted to find the gold," explained Hal.
+
+"What gold?"
+
+"The gold the tramps are looking for here on Star Island. Ted told me
+about them, and I suppose they were after gold. We want to find it
+first."
+
+"There isn't any gold here, and you mustn't dig holes so deep that
+Trouble--or anyone else--would wander off and fall into them," said Mr.
+Martin. "However, I presume it will be all right. But we must hurry
+there and find out what has happened."
+
+He and Hal hastened on, following Mrs. Martin and the Curlytops, who
+were now out of sight around a turn in the path that led to the big
+hole. Hal was rather frightened, for he knew it was his idea, more than
+the plans of Jan and Ted, that had caused the "gold mine" to be dug.
+
+On and on, along the path and up the hill hurried grandpa and Mrs.
+Martin and the children. They called aloud for Trouble, but he did not
+answer. At least they could not hear him if he did. He must have gone
+quietly away from the table when no one noticed him. He had had his
+supper before the Curlytops and Hal came from their digging.
+
+"There's the pile of dirt," called back Ted, who was running on ahead.
+He pointed to the mound of yellow sand that he, Hal and Jan had dug out
+of the hole.
+
+"And some one is there, digging!" cried Jan. "Oh, maybe it's Trouble!"
+
+"I only hope he hasn't fallen in and hurt himself!" murmured Mrs.
+Martin.
+
+By this time Grandpa Martin and Hal had caught up to the others. They
+could all see some one making the dirt fly on top of the yellow mound of
+sand at one side of the big hole.
+
+As Ted came nearer he saw a man on top of the dirt, using a shovel. The
+man was digging quickly, and at first Teddy thought it was one of the
+tramps. But a second look showed him he was wrong. And then came a glad
+surprise, for the man called:
+
+"I'll have him out in a minute. He isn't under very deep!"
+
+"Why it's the lollypop man!" cried Jan.
+
+And so it was, Mr. Sander, the jolly, fat man who sold waffles and
+lollypops.
+
+"Is Trouble in the hole? Are you digging him out?" gasped Mrs. Martin,
+and she felt as though she were going to faint, she said afterward.
+
+"No! Trouble isn't here--I mean he isn't in the hole!" cried Mr. Sander.
+"It's your goat, Nicknack, who's buried under the sand. But his nose is
+sticking out so he won't smother, and I'll soon have him all the way
+out."
+
+"But where is Trouble?" cried Baby William's mother.
+
+"There he is, safe and sound, tied to a tree so he can't get in the way
+of the dirt I'm shoveling out. I didn't want to throw sand in his eyes!"
+cried the lollypop man. "Trouble is all right!"
+
+And so the little fellow was, though he had been crying, perhaps from
+fright, and his face was tear-streaked and dirty. But he was safe.
+
+With a glad cry his mother loosed the rope by which Mr. Sander had
+carefully tied Trouble to a near-by tree and gathered him up in her
+arms.
+
+Meanwhile Grandpa Martin caught up one of the shovels and began to help
+the lollypop man dig in the sand. The Curlytops and Hal saw what had
+happened. A lot of the dirt they had shoveled out had slid back into the
+big hole, almost filling it. And caught under this dirt was Nicknack,
+their goat. Only the black tip of his nose stuck out, and it is a good
+thing this much of him was uncovered, or he might have smothered under
+the sand.
+
+"How did it happen?" asked Ted.
+
+"There must have been a cave-in at our gold mine," said Hal.
+
+"But how did Nicknack get here?" Ted went on.
+
+"I guess Trouble must have untied him and brought him here," suggested
+Janet.
+
+Then they all watched while Grandpa Martin and the lollypop man dug out
+the goat.
+
+"Baa-a-a-a-a!" bleated Nicknack as he scrambled out after most of the
+sand had been shoveled off his back. "Baa-a-a-a!"
+
+"My! I guess he's glad to get out!" cried Ted.
+
+"I guess so!" agreed the lollypop man. "I got here just as the dirt
+caved in on him, and I began to dig as soon as I tied Trouble out of the
+way so he'd be safe."
+
+"But how did you come to be here?" asked Grandpa Martin.
+
+"And how did our goat get here?" asked Janet.
+
+"I saw Trouble leading him along by the strap on his horns," explained
+Mr. Sander. "I guess he must have taken him out of his stable when you
+folks weren't looking. Trouble led the goat up on top of the pile of
+sand near the hole. I called to him to be careful.
+
+"Just as I did so the sand slid down and I saw the goat go down into the
+hole. Baby William fell down, but he didn't slide in with the dirt. Then
+I ran and picked him up, and I tied him to the tree with a piece of rope
+I found fast to a pail. I thought that was the best way to keep him out
+of danger while I dug out the goat."
+
+"I guess it was," said Grandpa Martin.
+
+"Poor Trouble cried when I tied him fast, but I knew crying wouldn't
+hurt him, and falling under a lot of sand might. I dug as fast as I
+could, for I knew how you Curlytops loved your goat. He's all right, I
+guess."
+
+And Nicknack was none the worse for having been buried under the sliding
+sand. As they learned afterward Trouble had slipped off to have some fun
+by himself with the pet animal. Baby William had, somehow, found his way
+to the "gold mine," and pretending the pile of sand was a mountain had
+led Nicknack up it. Then had come the slide down into the big hole which
+Hal and the Curlytops had dug. If it had not been for Mr. Sander
+appearing when he did, poor Nicknack might have died.
+
+"But, Trouble. You must never, never, never go away again alone with
+Nicknack!" warned Mother Martin. "Never! Do you hear?"
+
+"Me won't!" promised the little fellow.
+
+"And you children mustn't dig any more deep holes," said Grandpa Martin.
+"There isn't any gold on this island, so don't look for it."
+
+"But what are the tramps looking for?" Ted asked.
+
+"I can't tell you. But, no matter about that, don't dig any more deep
+holes. They're dangerous!"
+
+"We won't!" promised the Curlytops and Hal.
+
+"How did you come to pay a visit to Star Island, Mr. Sander?" asked the
+children's mother.
+
+"Well, I'm stopping for the night on the main shore just across from
+here," was the answer, "so, having had my supper and having made my bed
+in my red wagon, I thought I'd come over and pay you a visit. I heard
+you were camping here, so I borrowed a boat and rowed over. I walked
+along this path, and I happened to see Trouble and the goat. Then I knew
+I had found the right place, but I did not imagine I'd have to come to
+the rescue of my friend Nicknack," and with a laugh he patted the shaggy
+coat of the animal, that rubbed up against the kind lollypop man.
+
+"Well, come back to the tent and visit a while," was Grandpa Martin's
+invitation. "We're ever so much obliged to you."
+
+"What does all this mean about tramps and a gold mine?" asked Mr.
+Sander. "If there's gold to be had in an easier way than by selling hot
+waffles from a red wagon with a white horse to pull it, I'd like to know
+about it," he added with a jolly laugh.
+
+"Oh, ho! Oh, ho!" he cried. "Hot waffles do I sell. Hot waffles I love
+well!"
+
+"Did you bring any with you?" asked Ted eagerly.
+
+"Indeed I did, my little Curlytop. They may not be hot now, but maybe
+your mother can warm them on the stove," and picking up a package he had
+laid down near the tree to which he had tied Trouble, the lollypop man
+gave it to Mrs. Martin with a low bow.
+
+"Waffles for the Curlytops," he said laughing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+TROUBLE'S PLAYHOUSE
+
+
+Safe once more in their camp, the children ate the waffles which Nora
+made nice and crisp again over the fire. Trouble was comforted and made
+happy by two of the sugar-covered cakes, and then everyone told his or
+her share in what had just happened.
+
+"So you think there are gold-hunting tramps here?" asked the lollypop
+man, just before he got ready to go back to the mainland where he had
+left his red wagon and white horse.
+
+"Well, there are ragged men here--tramps I suppose you could call them,"
+answered Grandpa Martin. "But I don't know anything about gold. That's
+one of Hal's ideas."
+
+"I couldn't think of anything else they'd be looking for," explained
+Ted's friend. "Don't you think it might be gold, Mr. Martin?"
+
+"Hardly--on this island. Anyhow we haven't seen the ragged men lately,
+so they may have gone. Perhaps they were only stray fishermen. We would
+like to thank one for having pulled Trouble out of the spring, only we
+haven't had the chance."
+
+"No. He ran away without stopping for thanks," said Baby William's
+mother. "He must be a kind man, even if he is a tramp."
+
+After a little more talk while they were seated about the campfire
+Grandpa Martin built in front of the tents, during which time the
+lollypop man told of his travels since he had helped sell the cherries
+for the chewing candy, Mr. Sander rowed back to the main shore to sleep
+in his red wagon, which was like a little house on wheels.
+
+"Come again!" invited Mrs. Martin.
+
+"I will when any more goats fall into gold mines," he promised with a
+laugh.
+
+The next day Grandpa Martin filled up the hole Ted, Jan and Hal had dug,
+thus making sure that neither Trouble nor anyone else, not even Nicknack
+the goat, would again fall down into it. For when the sand slid into the
+"gold mine," carrying the goat with it, the hole was not altogether
+filled. Then Grandpa Martin brought away the hoe and shovels, and told
+the children they must play at some other game.
+
+"Where are you going now?" called Mrs. Martin to the two Curlytops, as
+they started away from camp one morning. Hal stayed in the tent, as he
+was tired.
+
+"Oh, we're just going for a walk," answered Teddy.
+
+"We want to have some fun," added his sister.
+
+"Well, don't go digging any more gold mines," warned Grandpa Martin,
+with a laugh. "All the fun of camping will be spoiled if you get into
+that sort of trouble again."
+
+"We won't," promised Janet, and Teddy nodded his head to show that he,
+too, would at least try to be good.
+
+It was not that the Curlytops were bad--that is, any worse than perhaps
+you children are sometimes, or, perhaps, some boys or girls you know of.
+They were just playful and full of life, and wanted to be doing
+something all the while.
+
+"Do you want to take Trouble with you?" asked Mrs. Martin, as Ted and
+Janet started away from camp, and down a woodland path.
+
+"Yes, we'll take him," said Janet. "Come on, little brother," she went
+on. "Come with sister and have some fun."
+
+"Only I can't play in de dirt 'cause I got on a clean apron," said Baby
+William.
+
+"No, we won't let you play in the dirt," Teddy remarked. "But don't fall
+down, either. That's where he gets so dirty," Teddy told his mother.
+"He's always falling down, Trouble is."
+
+"It--it's so--s'ippery in de woods!" said the little fellow.
+
+"So it is--on the pine needles," laughed Grandpa Martin, who was going
+to the mainland in the boat. But this time he did not want to take the
+children with him. "It is slippery in the woods, Trouble, my boy. But
+keep tight hold of Jan's hand, and maybe you won't fall down."
+
+"Me will," said Trouble, but he did not mean that he would fall down. He
+meant he would keep tight hold of Jan's hand. Then he started off by her
+side, with Ted walking on ahead, ready for anything he might see that
+would make fun for him and his sister.
+
+Through the woods they wandered, now and then stopping to gather some
+pretty flowers, on graceful, green ferns, and again waiting to listen to
+the song of some wild bird, which flitted about from branch to branch,
+but which seemed always to keep out of sight amid the leaves of the
+forest trees.
+
+"Oh, isn't it just lovely here!" said Janet, as they came to a little
+grassy dell, around which the trees grew in a sort of circle, or magic,
+fairy ring. "It's just like in a picture book, Teddy!"
+
+"Yes, it is," agreed her brother.
+
+"I don't see any pisshures," complained Trouble.
+
+"No, there aren't _real_ pictures here," explained Janet; "only
+make-believe ones. But you can sit down on the grass and roll, Trouble.
+The grass is so clean I guess it won't make your apron dirty. Roll on
+the grass."
+
+Trouble liked nothing better than this, and he was soon sitting on the
+soft, green grass, pulling bits and tossing them in the air like a
+shower. The grass was soft and thick, and did not soil his clean clothes
+at all.
+
+"Exceptin' maybe a little stain," explained Janet to Teddy; "and Nora
+can get that out in the wash."
+
+After they had sat in the shade for a while, in the green, grassy place,
+Ted and Janet wandered off among the trees, leaving Trouble by himself.
+But they were not going far.
+
+"He'll be all right for a little while," said Teddy, "and maybe we can
+find some sassafras or wintergreen."
+
+"But we mustn't eat anything we find in the woods, lessen we show it to
+grandpa or mother," returned Janet.
+
+"No, that's so," agreed her brother. They had been told, as all children
+should be who live near the woods or fields, never to eat any strange
+berries or plants unless some older person tells them it is all right to
+do so.
+
+But Teddy and Janet could easily tell sassafras and wintergreen by the
+pleasant smell of the leaves. They did not find any, however. They found
+a bird's empty nest, though, with broken egg shells in it, showing that
+the little birds had been hatched out and had flown away.
+
+All at once, as the Curlytops were wondering what else they could do,
+they heard Trouble calling, and his voice sounded very strange.
+
+"Oh, what has happened to him now?" cried Janet.
+
+"We'd better go to see!" exclaimed Teddy.
+
+They ran back to where they had left their little brother. All they
+could see of him was his back and legs. He did not seem to have any
+head.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" gasped Janet. "Where is Trouble's head?"
+
+Ted did not know, and said so, and then the little fellow cried:
+
+"Tum an' det me out! Tum an' det me out!"
+
+Then Janet saw what had happened. Trouble had thrust his head between
+the crotch, or the Y-shaped part, of a tree, and had become so tightly
+wedged that he could not get out.
+
+"Oh, what shall we do?" cried Janet.
+
+"I'll show you," answered Teddy. "You can help me." Then he pushed on
+the little boy's head, and Janet pulled, and he was soon free again, a
+little scratched about the neck, and frightened, but not hurt.
+
+"You must never do such a thing again," said Mrs. Martin, when the
+children reached camp and told her what had happened.
+
+"No, we won't do it any more," promised Trouble, feeling of his neck,
+where he had thrust it between the parts of the tree.
+
+"And you mustn't go off again, and leave him by himself," said their
+mother to the Curlytops. "There is no telling what he'll do."
+
+"That's right," said Grandpa Martin with a laugh. "You may go away,
+leaving Trouble standing on his feet, but when you come back he's
+standing on his head. Oh, you're a great bunch of trouble!" and he
+caught the little fellow up in his arms and kissed him.
+
+For several days Teddy and Janet and Hal had many good times on Star
+Island. Then they wanted something new for amusement.
+
+"Let's make a trap and catch something," said Ted, after he and Jan had
+spoken of several ways of having fun.
+
+"How can you make a trap?" Hal asked.
+
+"I'll show you," offered Ted. "You just take a box, turn it upside down,
+and raise one end by putting a stick under it. Then you tie a string to
+the stick, and when you pull the string the stick is yanked out and the
+box falls down and you catch something."
+
+"What do you catch?" Hal asked.
+
+"Oh, birds, or an animal--maybe a fox or a muskrat--whatever goes under
+the box when it's raised up."
+
+"But what makes them go under?" Hal inquired.
+
+"To get something to eat. You see you put some bait under the box--some
+crumbs for birds or pieces of meat for a fox or a muskrat. Then you hide
+in the bushes, with the end of the string in your hand and when you see
+anything right under the box you pull it and catch 'em!"
+
+"Oh, but doesn't it hurt them?" asked Hal, who had a very kind heart.
+
+"Maybe it might, Ted," put in Jan.
+
+"No. It doesn't hurt 'em a bit," declared Ted. "They just stay under the
+box, you know, like in a cage."
+
+"I wouldn't like to catch a bird," said Hal softly. "You see the birds
+are friends of Princess Blue Eyes. She wouldn't like to have them
+caught."
+
+"Oh, well, we could let them go again," Ted decided, after a little
+thought.
+
+"Does Princess Blue Eyes like foxes and muskrats too?" Jan asked softly.
+
+"I guess she likes everything--birds, animals and flowers. Anyway I
+make-believe she does," and Hal smiled. "Of course she's only a
+pretend-person, but I like to think she's real. I like to dream of her."
+
+"I would, too," said Janet softly. "We mustn't catch any birds, Ted, nor
+animals, either."
+
+"Not if we let them go right off quick?" Ted asked.
+
+"No," and Janet shook her head. "It might scare 'em you know. And the
+box might fall on their legs, or their wings, if it's a bird, and hurt
+them."
+
+"Well, then, we won't do it!" decided Ted. "I wouldn't want to hurt
+anything, and I wouldn't want to make your friend, Princess Blue Eyes,
+feel bad," he added to Hal. He remembered the story Hal had told about
+the make-believe Princess, when they sat in the green meadow studded
+with yellow buttercups and white daisies.
+
+"Let's play store!" suggested Jan. "There's lots of pretty stones and
+shells on the shore, and we can use them for money."
+
+"What'll we sell?" asked Hal.
+
+"Oh, we can sell other stones--big ones--for bread, and sand for sugar
+and leaves for cookies and things like that," Janet proposed.
+
+"I wish we had something real to eat, and then we could sell that and it
+would be some good," remarked Ted. "I'm going to ask Nora."
+
+"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Jan. "Come on, Hal. We'll get the store
+ready and Ted can go in and ask Nora for some real cookies and maybe a
+piece of cake."
+
+Nora, good-natured as she always was, gave Ted a nice lot of broken
+cookies, some crackers and some lumps of sugar so the children could
+play store and really eat the things they sold. Hal gathered some mussel
+shells and colored stones on the shore of the lake, and these were
+money.
+
+The store counter was made by putting a board across two boxes and they
+took turns being the storekeeper. Trouble wanted to play, too. But he
+only wanted to buy bits of molasses cookies, and he ate the pieces as
+fast as he got them, without pretending to go out of the store to take
+them home.
+
+"Me buy more tookie!" he would say, swallowing the last crumb and
+hurrying up to the board counter with another "penny," which was a
+shell or a stone.
+
+"You mustn't eat them up so fast, Trouble," said Janet. "Else we won't
+have any left to play store with."
+
+"Oh, well, we can get more from Nora," said Ted. "And the cookies taste
+awful good."
+
+They played store until there were no more good things left to eat and
+Nora would not hand out any others from her boxes and pans in the
+kitchen tent. Then the Curlytops and Hal got in the rowboat and paddled
+about in the shallow cove.
+
+Trouble did not go with them, his mother saying he must have a little
+sleep so he would not be so cross in the afternoon. And when Jan, her
+brother and Hal came up from the lake they found the little fellow
+making what he called a "playhouse."
+
+"Oh, what funny stones Trouble has!" cried Ted as he saw them. "They're
+blue."
+
+"They're pretty," decided Janet. "Where'd you get them, Trouble?"
+
+"Over dere," and he pointed to a spot some distance from the camp.
+
+"He found them himself and brought them here in his apron," said Mrs.
+Martin. "He's been piling them up into what I called a castle, but he
+says it's a playhouse. He's been very good playing with the blue
+stones."
+
+"Let's get some too, and see who can build the biggest castle!" cried
+Janet. "Show us where you got them, Trouble."
+
+But when Baby William toddled to the place where he had picked up the
+blue stones there were no more. He had gathered them all, it seemed, and
+now would not let his brother or sister take any from his pile.
+
+However they found other stones which did as well, though they were not
+blue in color, and soon the Curlytops and Hal, as well as Trouble, were
+making a little house of stones.
+
+"This is more fun than playing store!" cried Janet, as she made a little
+round tower as part of her castle.
+
+"Are you making a palace for Princess Blue Eyes, Hal?" asked Ted.
+
+"Yes," he answered, for his stone castle was rather a large one. "But I
+can't be sure she'll like it. She doesn't want to stay in one place very
+long. She's like a firefly--always dancing about."
+
+And so they pretended and played, having a very good time, while Mother
+Martin watched them and smiled. The children were having great fun
+camping with grandpa.
+
+The castles finished--Trouble's being the prettiest because of the blue
+stones, though not as large or fancy as the others--the Curlytops, Hal
+and Baby William went on a little picnic in the woods that afternoon,
+taking Nicknack with them. Or rather, the goat took them, for he pulled
+them in the cart along the forest path.
+
+When Jan, Hal and Ted were eating breakfast the next morning they heard
+a cry from Trouble, who had toddled out of the tent as soon as he had
+finished his meal.
+
+"Oh, what has happened to him now?" exclaimed Mother Martin. "Run and
+see, Jan, dear, that's a good girl!"
+
+Janet found her little brother at the place where they had made the
+castles the night before. Trouble's eyes were filled with tears.
+
+"My p'ayhouse all gone!" he cried. "Trouble's house all goned away!"
+
+It was true. Not a trace of his playhouse was left! In the night someone
+or something had taken the blue stones away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+IN THE CAVE
+
+
+Trouble felt very bad about his playhouse of blue stones which had been
+taken away. He was only a little fellow, and when he had gone to so much
+work, building up what looked like a fairy castle, he surely thought he
+would find it where he left it at night to have it to play with the next
+morning. But it was gone.
+
+"All goned," sobbed Trouble.
+
+"Isn't it funny, though?" said Teddy. "Mine is all right, and so is
+yours, Jan, and Hal's, too. They just spoiled Trouble's."
+
+"Maybe it was Nicknack," suggested Jan. "He might have got loose in the
+night and knocked it down. But he didn't mean to I guess, for he's a
+good goat."
+
+"It couldn't have been Nicknack," declared Hal.
+
+"Why not?" asked Ted. "Didn't he fall down into the big hole when
+Trouble led him to it?"
+
+"Yes, but Nicknack is there in his stable. He isn't loose at all, and
+he'd have to be loose to come here and knock over Trouble's playhouse.
+The goat is tied fast just where he was last night."
+
+So Nicknack was; and Grandpa Martin, who was the first one up in the
+camp that morning, said the goat was lying quietly down in his stable
+when he went to give him a drink of water. So it couldn't have been
+Nicknack.
+
+"Anyhow, Trouble's blue-stone castle wasn't just knocked down," went on
+Hal, "it's gone--every stone is gone. Somebody took 'em!"
+
+Jan and Ted noticed this for the first time. When Trouble had called out
+that his playhouse was gone they had thought he meant it was just
+knocked over. But, instead, it was gone completely. Not a blue stone was
+left.
+
+And, strangely enough, none of the other three castles was touched. Hal
+had built quite a large one, but not a stone had been taken from it.
+
+"Where my p'ayhouse?" asked Trouble, looking all about. "I want my
+p'ayhouse."
+
+"We'll find it for you," promised Jan, though she did not know how she
+was going to do it. Perhaps Hal could think of a way. Hal was older than
+Jan and Ted.
+
+"What's the matter, Curlytops?" asked Mother Martin as she came out of
+the tent. "Has anything happened? Why is Trouble crying? Did he get
+hurt?"
+
+"No, but someone took away his nice blue stone castle," explained Jan,
+and she and the others took turns telling what had happened.
+
+"It is queer," said Grandpa Martin, when he came up and heard what had
+taken place. "I wonder if any of those----"
+
+Then he stopped talking and looked at the children's mother in a queer
+way. She nodded her head, glanced down at the Curlytops and Hal, and put
+her finger across her lips as your teacher does in school when she wants
+someone to stop whispering.
+
+Hal saw what Mrs. Martin did, but neither Jan nor Ted noticed, for they
+were running around looking for any of the blue stones that might have
+been scattered from Trouble's playhouse.
+
+"Never mind," said Mother Martin. "I'll find you something else to play
+with, Trouble. You shall have a nice ride with Nicknack. You'll take
+him, won't you, Jan and Ted?"
+
+"Yes," they answered.
+
+"I want my p'ayhouse!" sobbed Baby William, and for a time he made a
+fuss about his missing blue stones.
+
+"I guess I know what happened to them," said Hal in a whisper to Jan and
+Ted when their mother had taken Trouble into the tent to find something
+with which to amuse him.
+
+"What?" asked Ted in a whisper.
+
+"The tramps!" exclaimed Hal, looking over his shoulder to make sure no
+one but his two little friends heard him. "That's what your grandfather
+was going to say the time he stopped so quick. Your mother didn't want
+him to speak of them. But I'm sure the tramps took the blue stones from
+Trouble's castle."
+
+"What would they do with 'em?" Ted demanded.
+
+"There's gold in 'em!" whispered Hal, more excited than ever now.
+"There's gold in those blue stones, and the tramps know it. That's what
+they've been looking for, and when Trouble had 'em all in a nice pile
+made into a playhouse, the tramps came along in the night and took 'em
+away."
+
+"Oh, do you s'pose it could happen that way, really?" asked Jan, her
+eyes big with wonder.
+
+"Course it could!" said Hal, growing more excited all the while. "I
+remember now, gold doesn't always look yellow when you find it, the way
+it does in a watch or a ring. Sometimes gold is inside stones and they
+have to melt 'em in the fire to get the gold out. My nurse at the
+Crippled Home read me about it. And there was gold in the blue stones.
+That's why the tramps came and got 'em--I mean _them_," and he corrected
+himself. "They told me not to say 'em,'" he added with a smile.
+
+"Do you really think the blue stones had gold in 'em--them?" asked Ted.
+
+"Yes, I do! Else why would the tramps want them? They came last night
+and took Trouble's castle--every stone, and now they've hid the gold
+away."
+
+"Where?" asked Jan, as excited as the boys.
+
+"I think it must be up in the cave," went on Hal. "If we could only go
+there and look we could find it too. Let's go."
+
+"Maybe mother wouldn't let us," suggested Ted.
+
+"We don't have to tell her," said Jan.
+
+"I don't mean to do anything bad, nor have you," went on Hal. "But
+wouldn't it be great if we could go up to the cave, without anybody
+knowing it, and get the gold? Then your mother would be glad, and your
+grandpa, too."
+
+"Maybe they would--if there was gold in the blue stones," agreed Ted.
+
+"We could pretend there was," said Janet. "Wouldn't that be fun? But I
+don't want to go into that dark cave 'cept maybe grandpa goes, too, with
+a light."
+
+"You wouldn't be afraid with us, would you?" asked Hal.
+
+"Hal and I would be with you," added Ted.
+
+"Well, maybe I wouldn't be afraid if you took hold of my hands. But it's
+dark there--awful dark."
+
+"I've got one of those little electric lights," Hal said. "My father
+sent it to me for my birthday when I was in the Home, and I didn't use
+it hardly at all, 'cause I wasn't up nights. It flashes bright. I
+brought it with me when I came to visit you, and I can get it and take
+it to the cave with us."
+
+"That'll be fun!" cried Ted. "Let's go, Jan!" he pleaded.
+
+"Well, maybe I will. But hadn't we better ask mother?"
+
+"Maybe she'd say we couldn't," suggested her brother, speaking very
+slowly. "We'll tell her when we come back."
+
+Of course this was not just the right thing to do, especially after Ted
+and his sister had been told not to go to the cave alone. But they
+forgot all about that when Hal spoke about gold being in the blue
+stones. Ted and Jan thought it would be wonderful if they could get some
+gold for their mother and grandfather, who was not as rich as he had
+been, even if he did sell a lot of cherries.
+
+"We can't take Trouble along," said Jan, as she saw her little brother
+coming out of the tent. "We've got to leave him here."
+
+"Yes," agreed Hal. "But we don't need to go right away. We can play with
+him awhile. You and Ted take care of Trouble and I'll go to get my
+flashlight. I put it under my pillow last night."
+
+"And I'll get something to eat from Nora," added Ted. "We'll
+make-believe we're going on a little picnic in the woods."
+
+"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Jan. She was not afraid to think of the dark
+cave now.
+
+"Trouble want p'ayhouse!" cried Baby William, as he toddled up to his
+sister. "Want b'ue stones."
+
+"I can't get you the blue stones--not now," said Janet. "But I guess
+Teddy will let you knock down his playhouse and build up another one.
+And you can knock down my playhouse, too. Come on, Trouble!"
+
+Knocking over the playhouses of stone which his brother and sister had
+built the night before seemed such great fun to the little boy, and he
+had such a good time doing this and, with Jan's help, making another and
+larger house of his own, that he forgot all about his blue stones.
+
+Ted and Hal did not forget them, though, and the more they thought of
+the queer way they had been taken away in the night, the more they felt
+sure that the stones must have gold in them, or, at least, something
+that the tramps wanted badly enough to come and take it.
+
+And that it was the tramps, or some man, or men, who had taken the blue
+stones, Hal and Ted felt certain.
+
+"For no dog or other animal could carry away every stone," said Hal.
+"Anyhow a dog wouldn't want them, nor a fox either. It was the tramps
+all right."
+
+"Maybe they wouldn't like us to go to the cave and get the stones back,"
+suggested Ted.
+
+"Well, the tramps can't have the blue stones," said Hal, shaking his
+head. "We found 'em, and they're Trouble's. But he's so little he don't
+want any gold, so we'll give it to your grandfather and grandmother."
+
+"Don't you want any?" asked Ted.
+
+"No. My father's got lots of money. I just want to find some gold for
+you. I got my light from under my pillow," and Hal showed it to Ted.
+They were out behind the sleeping tent talking, and Ted had his pockets
+full of cookies and little cakes he had begged from Nora.
+
+"Though what in the world the child is going to do with them all, is
+more than I can guess," laughed the maid. "But I s'pose the children are
+always hungry."
+
+Ted and Hal were now ready to go to the cave. They looked around the
+corner of the tent and saw Janet still playing with Trouble. He had
+gotten over crying for his blue stones, and was now busy making a
+playhouse of the rocks and pebbles his brother and sister had used.
+
+"Come on, Janet! We're going!" called Ted in a loud whisper, as his
+sister looked at him. He also made motions with his hands to show that
+he and Hal were ready to start for the cave.
+
+Janet saw that her little brother was too busy playing to need her to
+stay with him--at least for a time. Still she could not leave him alone
+without calling her mother or Nora to watch what he did.
+
+Very quietly, while Baby William was trying to make one stone stay on
+top of another in one side of the castle he was making, Janet stepped up
+to the flap of the tent, inside which her mother was sitting sewing.
+
+"I'm going with Ted and Hal into the woods," said the little girl. "Will
+you watch Trouble, Mother?"
+
+"Yes, Janet. But be careful, and don't go too far."
+
+Janet did not answer but hurried away. Of course she did not do just
+right, for she knew her mother would not want her to go to the cave, nor
+would Mrs. Martin have let Ted and Hal go had she known it. But the
+Curlytops and Hal were very desirous of finding the blue stones and of
+seeing if there was any gold in them, and they did not stop to think of
+what was right and what was wrong.
+
+"Hurry up now!" exclaimed Hal as he went on ahead up the path that led
+from behind the tents to the queer cave. "We want to get there before
+anybody knows it."
+
+"What'll we do if the tramps are there?" asked Ted.
+
+"They won't be there," said Hal, though how he could tell that he did
+not say.
+
+"I've got a little hatchet and we can cut down some clubs," said Ted. He
+had brought with him a little Boy Scout hatchet, with a covering over
+the sharp blade. His grandfather had given it to Ted, but had told him
+never to take it out alone. But Ted did, and this was another wrong
+thing.
+
+I'm afraid if I speak of all the wrong things the Curlytops did that day
+I'd never finish with this story. But it wasn't often they did so many
+acts they ought not to have done.
+
+On they hurried through the woods, the boys hurrying ahead of Janet. She
+did her best to keep up with them, but her legs were shorter than Ted's
+or Hal's and it was hard work for the little girl.
+
+"Oh, wait for me!" she called at last. "I'm awful tired."
+
+"Hurry up!" begged Ted. "We want to get the blue stones before the
+tramps take 'em away!"
+
+"Are they going to?" asked Janet, sitting down on a stone to rest, after
+she had caught up to the boys.
+
+"Well, they might," answered Hal. "We've got to hurry."
+
+They went on again, walking a little more slowly this time, and when
+they came to a muddy puddle in the middle of the woodland path, Ted
+tried to jump over it. But he slipped on the edge and one leg, from his
+foot to above his knee, got very wet and muddy.
+
+"Oh, wow!" he cried. "Now I've got to stop and clean this off."
+
+He began to wipe off the worst of the mud on bunches of grass, while
+Janet sat down on a log near by.
+
+"I'm sorry you fell in the mud, Teddy," she said, "but I'm glad I can
+rest, for I'm awful tired. You go so fast!"
+
+[Illustration: HAL WALKED BOLDLY INTO THE DARK CAVE. _Page 224_]
+
+"Come on, hurry up!" called Hal, as Ted still brushed away with the
+bunch of grass. "Let it dry and it will come off easier."
+
+"I guess it will," agreed Ted, looking at his muddy stocking. "It won't
+come off this way."
+
+However, the accident had given his sister a little chance to rest, and
+now Janet was able to keep up with the boys. Pretty soon they were near
+the hole into which Ted had fallen, and out of which the cave opened.
+
+"Now be careful!" whispered Hal, as he got out his flashlight. "Maybe
+the tramps are there!"
+
+"I've got my hatchet!" exclaimed Ted.
+
+"I'm not going in if the tramps are there," declared Janet.
+
+"We'll look first, and see," offered Hal.
+
+"But I don't want to stay here alone!" objected Janet, as her brother
+and Hal slid down into the hole and looked into the black opening of the
+cave.
+
+"We won't go very far," promised Ted. "We'll be back in a minute. Don't
+be afraid."
+
+Then he and Hal went into the cave, while Jan, half wanting to cry,
+waited outside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE BLUE LIGHT AGAIN
+
+
+Flashing his light about, Hal walked boldly into the dark cave. Ted
+followed, just a little bit afraid, though he did not want to say so.
+
+"Don't go too far," begged Janet's brother. "Jan'll be afraid if we
+leave her alone."
+
+"I won't go far," promised Hal. "I just want to see if there're any
+tramps in here."
+
+"Listen an' maybe you can hear them talking," suggested Ted.
+
+Hal, though larger and older than Ted, was not quite brave enough to go
+very far into the dark cave, even if he did have his light with him. So,
+after taking a few steps, he stopped and listened. So did Ted.
+
+They could hear nothing but the voice of Janet calling to them from
+outside.
+
+"Ted! Hal!" cried the little girl. "Where are you? I'm going back to
+camp!"
+
+"We're coming!" answered Ted. "Come on back and get her," he added to
+his chum. "Then we'll look for the blue rocks."
+
+"I guess we can't find them unless they're right around here," returned
+Hal, as he moved his light about in a circle.
+
+"Why not?" asked Ted.
+
+"Because this cave is so dark, and my flashlamp doesn't give much light.
+We could hardly see the stones if they were here."
+
+"Then how are we going to get 'em?" Ted demanded.
+
+"I guess we'll have to bring a big lantern. Maybe we ought to bring your
+grandfather along."
+
+"I guess we had better," agreed Ted. "But we can look a little bit when
+we're here. Let's go for Janet. She's crying."
+
+Janet was crying by this time, not liking to be left alone outside while
+the boys were in the cave. They ran back to her and her tears were soon
+dried.
+
+"Will you come in a little way with us?" asked her brother. "There isn't
+anything to be afraid of. Is there, Hal?"
+
+"No, not a thing. We won't go in very far, Jan. And maybe you can see
+the blue stones. We couldn't, but sometimes girls' eyes are better than
+boys. Come on!"
+
+So with Hal holding a hand on one side, and Ted on the other, Janet went
+slowly into the cave with her brother and his chum. Hal flashed his
+light, and by its gleam the Curlytops could see that the cave was large,
+larger even than it had seemed when they were in it with their
+grandfather.
+
+"Look on the floor for the rocks," suggested Hal. "That's where the
+tramp-man would put 'em if he brought 'em here."
+
+But they did not see the blue rocks, nor any others. The floor of the
+cave seemed to be of stone or hard clay, and there was nothing on it.
+They did not go in far enough to see the sacks which Grandpa Martin said
+someone had used for a bed, nor did the children see the bread and other
+bits of food which might have meant that someone had had a picnic in the
+cave.
+
+"I guess the rocks aren't here," said Hal, in disappointed tones as
+Janet said she wanted to turn back, for she did not like it in the cave.
+"Or else maybe they're away at the far end."
+
+"I'm not going there!" exclaimed Ted.
+
+"No, I guess we won't go," agreed Hal. "We'll go and tell your
+grandfather and have him come with a big lantern."
+
+"Hark! What's that?" suddenly called Jan, taking a tighter hold of her
+brother's hand.
+
+From the back part of the cave came a noise. It was as though a rock had
+fallen--probably it had--from the roof of the cavern.
+
+"Someone's throwing stones at us!" cried Ted.
+
+"Who? Who? Who?" a voice seemed to ask.
+
+"Oh, dear! We don't know who it was!" cried Janet. "Come on out of here!
+I'm afraid!"
+
+"That was only an owl," said Hal with a laugh. "Owls live in dark caves
+in the daytime and when it's dark they hoot and call 'who!' I've heard
+'em lots of times around the Home."
+
+"There isn't any cave at the Home," objected Ted, who was as frightened
+as Janet was.
+
+"No, but there were owls in the trees. I heard 'em lots of times. But
+we'll go out. I guess maybe that was a loose stone that fell down and
+made the first noise. But we don't want any to fall on our heads. Come
+on!" called Hal.
+
+Together he and Ted led Janet back to the mouth of the cave, where they
+could see the sunshine. And even Hal, who was not so frightened as the
+Curlytops had been, was glad to get out.
+
+"It's too bad we couldn't find the blue gold-stones," he said. "But
+maybe the tramps didn't hide them there, anyhow. We'll look around some
+more."
+
+"Let's eat," suggested Ted. "I'm hungry, and I've got a lot of cookies
+in my pockets."
+
+So they sat down on a stone in a shady place not far from the cave and
+ate the things Nora had given Ted. They then got a drink from a bubbling
+spring not far away, and pretended they were on a picnic.
+
+Ted's muddy stocking had dried by this time, and he and Jan, using
+sticks, scraped most of the dirt off.
+
+"Now we'd better be going home," Jan suggested after a bit. "There isn't
+any fun here."
+
+"Yes, we might as well go," agreed Hal. "And I'll tell you what let's
+do!"
+
+"What?" demanded Ted.
+
+"Let's look in the place where Trouble found those blue stones and see
+if we can find any more."
+
+"Oh, yes, let's!" cried Janet. She was happy again, now that she was out
+in the bright sunshine.
+
+The children remembered where Baby William had found the pretty rocks
+from which he had made his castle, but when they reached the place not a
+one was to be had, though they searched all about.
+
+"I guess Trouble took them all," said Janet. "I remember now, I helped
+him look for more and we couldn't find any."
+
+"Well, maybe there'll be some more somewhere else," suggested Hal
+hopefully. "Let's look."
+
+So they looked, wandering about in the woods not far from camp, until
+they heard Nora ringing the bell for dinner.
+
+"Well, where have you children been?" asked Mrs. Martin as they came
+trooping up to the tent, tired, hungry and dirty.
+
+"Oh, we've been looking for gold," explained Ted, but he did not say
+they had visited the cave, where they had been told not to go.
+
+"You didn't dig any more deep holes, did you?" asked his grandfather.
+
+"No, sir," answered Ted.
+
+After dinner Ted asked Hal why he didn't speak of having Grandpa Martin
+go to the cave with the big lantern.
+
+"I thought you were going to do that," he said to Hal.
+
+"Well, I was. But maybe we can find some more of the blue stones for
+ourselves. We'll look around before we ask your grandpa to help."
+
+Janet wanted to stay around camp and play with her dolls that afternoon,
+and she took care of Trouble.
+
+"Then we'll go for a goat ride," said Ted. "Come on, Hal."
+
+The two boys hitched Nicknack to the wagon, and set off down the island.
+
+"We'll look for some more blue rocks," suggested Hal, and Ted was
+willing.
+
+On and on the two boys rode, now stopping to look at some pretty flower,
+again waiting to hear the finish of some bird's song. They looked on
+both sides of the woodland path for some of the blue rocks, but, though
+they saw some of other colors, there were none like those they wanted.
+
+"Whoa there, where are you going now?" Ted suddenly called to Nicknack,
+and the little boy pulled on the reins by which he guided the goat--or
+"steered" it, as he sometimes called it.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Hal.
+
+"Nicknack wants to go over that way and I want him to go straight
+ahead," answered Ted.
+
+"Maybe he sees some of those blue rocks the way he wants to go,"
+suggested Hal.
+
+"Oh, I don't guess so," replied his chum. "I guess he just wants to get
+some new kind of grass to eat. Whoa, Nicknack, I tell you!" and Teddy
+pulled as hard as he could on the reins, without hurting his goat, for
+he never wanted to do that.
+
+But the goat would not go straight down the island path. He kept pulling
+off to one side, and at last Ted cried:
+
+"Here, Hal, you take hold of the lines and pull with me. Maybe we can
+steer him around then."
+
+"Can we pull real hard--I mean will the lines break?" asked Hal.
+
+"Oh, no, they're good and strong," answered Ted.
+
+So he and his chum both pulled on the one rein--the one to get
+Nicknack's head pointed straight down the path instead of off to one
+side, but it did no good. The goat knew what he wanted to do, and he was
+going to do it.
+
+"Look out!" suddenly cried Teddy. "We're going to tip over!"
+
+The next minute the front wheels of the wagon ran up on a little pile of
+dirt at one side of the path, and the cart gently tilted to one side and
+then went over with a rattle and a bang.
+
+"There!" laughed Hal, as he rolled out on some soft grass. "We are over,
+Ted."
+
+"I knew we were going," said Teddy as he, too, laughed and got up. "Whoa
+there, Nicknack!" he shouted, for the goat was still going on, dragging
+the overturned wagon after him.
+
+But Nicknack did not stop until he reached a little bush, on which were
+some green leaves that he seemed to like very much, for he began to chew
+them.
+
+"That's what he wanted all the while," said Teddy.
+
+"Well, let him eat all he wants, and then he won't be hungry any more
+and he'll pull us where we want to go," advised Hal.
+
+They did this, after setting the cart up on its wheels. When Nicknack
+turned away from the bush, and looked at the two waiting boys, Ted said:
+
+"Well, I guess we can go on now."
+
+"Yes," added Hal, "and I hope well find those blue rocks. But I don't
+believe we're ever going to."
+
+At last, however, when it was getting rather late in the afternoon and
+Ted had said it was time to go back, Hal, who was driving the goat
+through a part of the woods they never before had visited, pointed to a
+big stone buried in the side of a hill and cried:
+
+"Look! Isn't that rock blue, Ted?"
+
+"It does look kind of blue, yes."
+
+"Then it's just what we're looking for. See, there's lots of little blue
+rocks, too. Let's take some back to camp. Maybe they're the same kind
+Trouble had, and there may be gold in 'em! Come on."
+
+They piled the rocks, which were certainly somewhat blue in color, into
+the wagon, and started back with them.
+
+"We found 'em! We found 'em!" they called as they came within sight of
+the tents. "We got the blue rocks!"
+
+"Well, they're pretty, certainly," said Grandpa Martin, as he picked up
+one from the wagon, "but they're no better than any other rocks around
+here, as far as I can see."
+
+"They've got gold in 'em, Hal says," Ted stated.
+
+"Gold? Oh, no, Curlytop!" laughed his grandfather. "I've told you there
+is no gold on this island."
+
+"There's _something_ in the blue rocks," declared Hal. "Feel how heavy
+they are--lots heavier than any other stones around here."
+
+"Yes, they are," agreed Grandpa Martin, as he weighed one of the stones
+in his hand. "There might be some iron in them, but not gold. Look out!"
+he suddenly called as the stone slipped from his hand. "Look out for
+your toes!"
+
+Laughing, the Curlytops and Hal jumped back. The blue stone which
+Grandpa Martin dropped, struck on the edge of the shovel which was out
+in front of the tent. As the rock hit the steel tool with a clang,
+something queer happened.
+
+At once the rock began to burn with a curious blue flame, and a
+yellowish smoke curled up.
+
+"Oh, the rock's on fire!" cried Janet. "The rock's on fire!"
+
+"Yes, and look!" added Ted. "It's burning blue, just like the light we
+saw on the island one night."
+
+"And how queer it smells!" exclaimed Hal.
+
+"Sulphur!" ejaculated Grandpa Martin.
+
+He and the children looked at the queer blue fire that seemed to come
+from inside the rock. What could it mean?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE HAPPY TRAMP
+
+
+Grandpa Martin stood looking down at the queer, burning rock. The blue
+fire was flaming up brighter now, and it made a strange light on the
+faces of the Curlytops and Hal as they gathered about. The sky was
+cloudy and it was getting dark.
+
+"Oh, what is it? What is it?" asked Ted and Jan.
+
+"It smells just like old-fashioned sulphur matches that my grandmother
+used to light," said Nora, who had come out, having seen the queer light
+from the cook-tent.
+
+"And it _is_ sulphur that is burning," said Grandpa Martin. "That rock
+has sulphur in it, not gold, Hal. And it is the sulphur that is burning
+with the blue fire."
+
+"But what makes it?" asked the children.
+
+Grandpa Martin did not answer for a few seconds. He stood again looking
+down at the flaming blue rock. Mrs. Martin, who had started to put
+Trouble to bed early, came out and looked.
+
+"It's like something I once saw in the theater," said the maid. "I don't
+like it--that blue light. It reminds me of the time our house was struck
+by lightning--that sulphur smell."
+
+"It is the same smell," said Mr. Martin. "Curlytops, I think you have
+found something very queer in this blue rock. I don't know just what it
+is, but we'll find out. See, the stone is burning like a lump of coal
+now, but with a blue flame instead of red."
+
+"Just like the night we saw the blue fire on the island before we came
+camping here," said Ted. "Is it the same thing, Grandpa?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps it is. Where did you get the blue rocks?"
+
+"Over in the woods," answered Hal. "There's a great big one there. As
+big as this tent."
+
+"Is there?" some one suddenly asked. "Then please show me where it is!
+Oh, can it be that at last I have found what I have been looking for so
+long?"
+
+The Curlytops and the others turned at the sound of this new and strange
+voice. A man seemed to spring out of the bushes back of the tent. By
+the light of the blue fire Ted and Jan saw that his clothes were ragged
+and torn in many places.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" gasped Jan. "That's the tramp!"
+
+"Well, I guess maybe I do look like a tramp, all ragged and dirty as I
+am," laughed the man, and his voice sounded pleasant. "But I am not a
+regular tramp. I am Mr. Weston--Alfred Weston," he went on, speaking to
+Grandpa Martin. "I haven't a card with me, but when I get washed and
+dressed and shaved I'll look more like what I am. Excuse me for
+intruding this way, but I could not keep from speaking when I heard what
+you were talking about."
+
+"Then aren't you a tramp?" asked Ted.
+
+"No, though I have been _tramping_ all over this island looking for the
+very blue rock you children seem to have found. I wear my oldest
+clothes, just as my friend Professor Anderson does, for we have been
+going through briar bushes, into caves and mud holes and our clothes are
+a sad sight. But we are not tramps."
+
+"Is there someone with you?" asked Grandpa Martin, looking over the
+man's head toward the bushes, out of which he had come.
+
+"There was another. Anderson is his name. But he has gone to the
+village, and I was on my way to row across the lake to join him when I
+happened to pass by your tent, saw the blue light, and heard what your
+children said. Do you really know where there is a big blue rock like
+this little one that is on fire?" he asked as he pointed to the flaming
+blue light.
+
+"Yes, we found a big one," said Hal.
+
+"If you will show me where it is you will get a lot of money," said Mr.
+Weston. "That is, if you will sell me the meteor," he went on to Grandpa
+Martin. "I understand you own part of this island," he added.
+
+"About half of it, yes. But are you looking for a meteor?"
+
+"Yes, for a meteor, or fallen star, and the blue rock your children
+found is part of it. We have been looking for it a long time, my friend
+and myself, and we had about given up. Now we may get it. Will you sell
+me the fallen star?" he asked.
+
+"I'll see about it," promised Mr. Martin with a smile. "Perhaps you will
+come into our tent and tell us about it. Are you--well, I was going to
+say the tramp--but are you the man we saw before, wandering about our
+camp?"
+
+"I presume I am. I don't mind being called a tramp, for I certainly look
+like one. However, now that the fallen star is found I don't need to be
+so ragged."
+
+"Are you the ragged man that pulled Trouble out of the spring?" asked
+Ted, as they watched the blue light die away.
+
+"I did pull a little boy out of the spring," answered Mr. Weston,
+"though I didn't know his name was Trouble."
+
+"That's only his pet name," laughed Grandpa Martin. "But come and sit
+down and tell us your story. The children have been wondering a long
+while what the blue light meant, and who the ragged man was. And,
+to-day, they've been trying to find what became of the blue rocks that
+Trouble made into a playhouse."
+
+"I took those rocks, I'm sorry to say," answered the ragged man. "I'm
+sorry to have spoiled Trouble's playhouse. I wanted those pieces of
+rock, for I thought perhaps they were all I would ever be able to get of
+the fallen star."
+
+"Was the blue rock really once a star?" asked Hal.
+
+"Well, yes, a part of one, or at least part of a meteor, or shooting
+star, as they are called. Now I'll tell you all that happened, and I'm
+sorry if I have frightened you. My friend and I didn't mean to.
+
+"Some time ago," went on Mr. Weston, "we heard about Star Island--this
+place that was so named because it was said a big meteor had landed here
+many years back. Professor Anderson and I decided to come here and see
+if we could find it for the museum which is connected with the college
+in which Anderson teaches.
+
+"For we knew that, though most meteors are burned up as they shoot
+through the air before they strike the earth, yet some come down in big
+chunks, and we wanted such a one if we could get it. So we hunted for it
+all over this island. We saw you, but you were never very near.
+Sometimes we stayed in the cave at night, but usually went back to the
+mainland. All the while we were hunting for the blue rocks, for that is
+the color of this particular meteor.
+
+"A few nights before you folks came here to camp, when we were digging
+in the ground hoping to find what we wanted, our shovel must have
+struck a piece of the meteor, for there was a flash of blue fire that
+burned for quite a while."
+
+"We saw it," cried Ted, "and we didn't know what it was!"
+
+"Teddy and me--we saw it!" added Jan.
+
+"Well, that was all of the meteor we could find for some time," went on
+Mr. Weston. "And as that burned up--was consumed--we didn't have any.
+Then, the other night through the bushes we happened to come upon some
+blue stones, and I took them away.
+
+"Then my friend and I hunted again to find the big piece of the fallen
+star, but we could not come across it. I was about to give up, but now
+we are all right. I am so glad! Can you take me to the big blue rock?"
+
+"We will to-morrow," answered Hal. "It's too dark to find it now."
+
+"You had better stay in our camp until morning," was Grandpa Martin's
+kindly invitation, and Mr. Weston did so.
+
+"This meteor is a good bit like a sulphur match," said Mr. Weston. "When
+anything hard, like iron or steel, strikes it, blue fire starts and
+burns up the rock. The big piece will be very valuable.
+
+"But we'll have to be careful not to set it ablaze. We picked up a lot
+of different rocks on the island, hoping some of them might be pieces of
+the meteor. But none was. Once I saw your little girl picking flowers,
+as I was gathering rocks. I guess she thought I was a tramp. Did I scare
+you?" he asked Janet.
+
+"A little," she answered with a smile.
+
+"Sometimes we stayed in a cave we found on the island," went on Mr.
+Weston. "I thought once the meteor might be there, but it was not."
+
+The next day Ted, Janet and Hal, followed by all the others in camp,
+even down to Trouble, whose mother carried him, went to the place where
+the big blue rock was buried in the side of the hill. As soon as he had
+looked at it Mr. Weston said it was the very meteor for which he and
+Professor Anderson had been looking so long. They seemed to have missed
+coming to the hill.
+
+The museum directors bought the fallen star from Grandpa Martin, on
+whose part of the island it had fallen many years before, and so the
+owner of Cherry Farm had as much money as before the flood spoiled so
+many of his crops.
+
+Thus the story of the fallen star, after which the island was named, was
+true, you see, though it had happened so many years ago that most folk
+had forgotten about it.
+
+A few days after Mr. Weston had been led to the queer blue rock, he and
+Professor Anderson, no longer dressed like tramps, brought some men to
+the island and the big rock was carefully dug out with wooden shovels,
+as the wood was soft and could not strike sparks and make blue fire.
+
+"For a time," said Mr. Weston to Grandpa Martin, after the meteor had
+been taken to the mainland in a big boat, "I thought you were a
+scientist."
+
+"Me--a scientist!" laughed the children's grandfather.
+
+"Yes. I thought maybe you had heard about the fallen star and had come
+here and were trying to find it, too."
+
+"No, I haven't any use for fallen stars," said Mr. Martin. "I had heard
+the story about one being on this island, but I never quite believed it.
+I just came here to give the children a good time camping."
+
+"Well, I think they had it--every one of them," laughed Mr. Weston, as
+he looked at the brown Curlytops, who were tanned like Indians.
+
+"Oh, we've had the loveliest time in the world!" cried Jan, as she held
+her grandfather's hand. "We're going to stay here a long while yet.
+Aren't we, Grandpa?"
+
+"Well, I'm afraid not much longer," said Grandpa Martin. "The days are
+getting shorter and the nights longer. It will soon be too cold to live
+in a tent on Star Island."
+
+"Oh, Grandpa!" And Jan looked sad.
+
+"But we want to have fun!" cried Ted.
+
+"Oh, I guess you'll have fun," said his mother. "You always do every
+winter."
+
+And the children did. In the next volume of this series, to be called
+"The Curlytops Snowed In; or, Grand Fun with Skates and Sleds," you may
+read about the good times they had when they went back home.
+
+"Come on, Jan, we'll have a last ride with Nicknack!" called Ted to his
+sister about a week after the meteor had been dug up. In a few days the
+Curlytops were to leave their camp on Star Island. Hal Chester had gone
+back to his home, promising to visit his friends again some day.
+
+"I'm coming!" cried Jan.
+
+"Me, too!" added Trouble. "I wants a wide!"
+
+Into the goat cart they piled and off started Nicknack, waggling his
+funny, stubby tail, for he enjoyed the children as much as they did him.
+
+"Hurray!" yelled Ted. "Isn't this fun?" and he cracked the whip in the
+air.
+
+"Hurray!" yelled Jan and Trouble.
+
+"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated Nicknack. That was his way of cheering.
+
+And so we will leave the Curlytops and say good-bye.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS SERIES
+
+    BY HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+    Author of the famous "Bedtime Animal Stories"
+
+    _12mo. Cloth. Beautifully Illustrated. Jacket in full color.
+    Price per volume, .80 cents, net_
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    Splendid stories for the little girls and boys, told by one who
+    is a past master in the art of entertaining young people.
+
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM
+    _or Vacation Days in the Country_
+
+    A tale of happy vacation days on a farm. The Curlytops have many
+    exciting adventures.
+
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
+    _or Camping out with Grandpa_
+
+    The Curlytops were delighted when grandpa took them to camp on
+    Star Island. There they had great fun and also helped to solve
+    a real mystery.
+
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN
+    _or Grand Fun with Skates and Sleds_
+
+    Winter was a jolly time for the Curlytops, with their skates and
+    sleds, but when later they were snowed in they found many new
+    ways to enjoy themselves.
+
+
+    THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH
+    _or Little Folks on Pony Back_
+
+    Out West on their uncle's ranch they have a wonderful time among
+    the cowboys and on pony back.
+
+
+
+
+    THE RUBY AND RUTHY SERIES
+
+    BY MINNIE E. PAULL
+
+    _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price per volume, .80 cents, postpaid._
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    _Four bright and entertaining stories told in Mrs. Paull's
+    happiest manner are among the best stories ever written for
+    young girls, and cannot fail to interest any between the
+    ages of eight and fifteen years._
+
+
+    RUBY AND RUTHY
+
+    Ruby and Ruthie were not old enough to go to school, but they
+    certainly were lively enough to have many exciting adventures,
+    that taught many useful lessons needed to be learned by little
+    girls.
+
+
+    RUBY'S UPS AND DOWNS
+
+    There were troubles enough for a dozen grown-ups, but Ruby got
+    ahead of them all, and, in spite of them, became a favorite in
+    the lively times at school.
+
+
+    RUBY AT SCHOOL
+
+    Ruby had many surprises when she went to the impossible place
+    she heard called a boarding school, but every experience helped
+    to make her a stronger-minded girl.
+
+
+    RUBY'S VACATION
+
+    This volume shows how a little girl improves by having varieties
+    of experience both happy and unhappy, provided she thinks, and
+    is able to use her good sense. Ruby lives and learns.
+
+
+
+
+    THE DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES
+
+    BY ROY ROCKWOOD
+
+    Author of the "Speedwell Boys Series" and the "Great Marvel
+    Series."
+
+    12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, _.80_ cents, postpaid.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    Never was there a more clever young aviator than Dave Dashaway.
+    All up-to-date lads will surely wish to read about him.
+
+
+    DAVE DASHAWAY THE YOUNG AVIATOR
+    _or In the Clouds for Fame and Fortune_
+
+    This initial volume tells how the hero ran away from his miserly
+    guardian, fell in with a successful airman, and became a young
+    aviator of note.
+
+
+    DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS HYDROPLANE
+    _or Daring Adventures Over the Great Lakes_
+
+    Showing how Dave continued his career as a birdman and had many
+    adventures over the Great Lakes, and how he foiled the plans of
+    some Canadian smugglers.
+
+
+    DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS GIANT AIRSHIP
+    _or A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic_
+
+    How the giant airship was constructed and how the daring young
+    aviator and his friends made the hazardous journey through the
+    clouds from the new world to the old, is told in a way to hold
+    the reader spellbound.
+
+
+    DAVE DASHAWAY AROUND THE WORLD
+    _or A Young Yankee Aviator Among Many Nations_
+
+    An absorbing tale of a great air flight around the world, of
+    adventures in Alaska, Siberia and elsewhere. A true to life
+    picture of what may be accomplished in the near future.
+
+
+    DAVE DASHAWAY: AIR CHAMPION
+    _or Wizard Work in the Clouds_
+
+    Dave makes several daring trips, and then enters a contest for
+    a big prize. An aviation tale thrilling in the extreme.
+
+
+
+
+    THE TOM FAIRFIELD SERIES
+
+    BY ALLEN CHAPMAN
+
+    Author of the "Fred Fenton Athletic Series," "The Boys of Pluck
+    Series," and "The Darewell Chums Series."
+
+    12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, _.80_ cents, postpaid.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    Tom Fairfield is a typical American lad, full of life and
+    energy, a boy who believes in doing things. To know Tom is to
+    love him.
+
+
+    TOM FAIRFIELD'S SCHOOLDAYS
+    _or The Chums of Elmwood Hall_
+
+    Tells of how Tom started for school, of the mystery surrounding
+    one of the Hall seniors, and of how the hero went to the rescue.
+    The first book in a line that is bound to become decidedly
+    popular.
+
+
+    TOM FAIRFIELD AT SEA
+    _or The Wreck of the Silver Star_
+
+    Tom's parents had gone to Australia and then been cast away
+    somewhere in the Pacific. Tom set out to find them and was
+    himself cast away. A thrilling picture of the perils of the
+    deep.
+
+
+    TOM FAIRFIELD IN CAMP
+    _or The Secret of the Old Mill_
+
+    The boys decided to go camping, and located near an old mill. A
+    wild man resided there and he made it decidedly lively for Tom
+    and his chums. The secret of the old mill adds to the interest
+    of the volume.
+
+
+    TOM FAIRFIELD'S PLUCK AND LUCK
+    _or Working to Clear His Name_
+
+    While Tom was back at school some of his enemies tried to
+    get him into trouble. Something unusual occurred and Tom
+    was suspected of a crime. How he set to work to clear his
+    name is told in a manner to interest all young readers.
+
+
+    TOM FAIRFIELD'S HUNTING TRIP
+    _or Lost in the Wilderness_
+
+    Tom was only a schoolboy, but he loved to use a shotgun or a
+    rifle. In this volume we meet him on a hunting trip full of
+    outdoor life and good times around the campfire.
+
+
+
+
+    THE BOYS' OUTING LIBRARY
+
+    _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full color. Price per
+    volume, .80 cents, postpaid._
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+
+    THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES
+    BY CAPT. JAMES CARSON
+
+    The Saddle Boys of the Rockies
+    The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon
+    The Saddle Boys on the Plains
+    The Saddle Boys at Circle Ranch
+    The Saddle Boys on Mexican Trails
+
+
+    THE DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES
+    BY ROY ROCKWOOD
+
+    Dave Dashaway the Young Aviator
+    Dave Dashaway and His Hydroplane
+    Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship
+    Dave Dashaway Around the World
+    Dave Dashaway: Air Champion
+
+
+    THE SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES
+    BY ROY ROCKWOOD
+
+    The Speedwell Boys on Motorcycles
+    The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing Auto
+    The Speedwell Boys and Their Power Launch
+    The Speedwell Boys in a Submarine
+    The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer
+
+
+    THE TOM FAIRFIELD SERIES
+    BY ALLEN CHAPMAN
+
+    Tom Fairfield's School Days
+    Tom Fairfield at Sea
+    Tom Fairfield in Camp
+    Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck
+    Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip
+
+
+    THE FRED FENTON ATHLETIC SERIES
+    BY ALLEN CHAPMAN
+
+    Fred Fenton the Pitcher
+    Fred Fenton in the Line
+    Fred Fenton on the Crew
+    Fred Fenton on the Track
+    Fred Fenton: Marathon Runner
+
+
+
+
+    THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
+
+    BY ALICE B. EMERSON
+
+    _12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, .80 cents, postpaid._
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+
+    Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly
+    uncle. Her adventures and travels make stories that will hold
+    the interest of every reader.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
+    _or Jasper Parloe's Secret_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
+    _or Solving the Campus Mystery_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
+    _or Lost in the Backwoods_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
+    _or Nita, the Girl Castaway_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
+    _or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
+    _or The Old Hunter's Treasure Box_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
+    _or What Became of the Raby Orphans_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
+    _or The Missing Pearl Necklace_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
+    _or Helping the Dormitory Fund_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
+    _or Great Days in the Land of Cotton_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
+    _or The Missing Examination Papers_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
+    _or College Girls in the Land of Gold_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
+    _or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
+    _or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier_
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
+    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Curlytops on Star Island, by Howard R. Garis
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25477.txt or 25477.zip *****
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+
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+
+
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