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 lL:e 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