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 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.