CHAPTER III
PUSHING AND PULLING
For a moment or two Jan and Ted stood looking at Mrs. Ransom. Theyknew her very well, for she had kept her little store near their houseas long as they could remember. They often went there to buy candy orsmall toys.
“What’s the funny man doing?” asked Jan, forgetting, for a littlewhile, her sorrow over the loss of Skyrocket.
“Is he funny like a clown in a circus, and is he turning somersaults?”Ted wanted to know.
“Gracious goodness, no, child! Why should he do that?” asked Mrs.Ransom. “When I said he was funny, I meant he was acting in a queerway. He walked toward your house, fell down, got up again, and felldown once more. You’d better go and tell your father.”
“We will!” exclaimed Ted, starting for the house, followed by hissister.
“I’d go in and tell him myself,” said Mrs. Ransom, “but I must getback to my store. I left it all alone to run over and tell him aboutthe queer man. When I saw you two Curlytops I thought I’d tell you.Hurry in, now!”
“Oh, maybe he knows something about Skyrocket!” cried Jan, with newand sudden hope.
“Huh! How could he know Skyrocket?” asked Ted. “Come on, we’ll go andsee what he’s like.”
“Oh, aren’t you going to tell daddy first?” asked the little girl, asshe watched Mrs. Ransom hurry across a short-cut path through thegarden, and so back to her store.
“Let’s look at the man first, and see what he does funny,” suggestedTeddy. “Maybe he’s a clown, anyhow, and maybe Mrs. Ransom never sawone that wasn’t in a circus. Come on!”
Janet hung back for a second or two, and then followed Ted around thecorner of the house.
There, just as the storekeeper woman had said, was a strange man lyingon the lawn of the Curlytops’ home. He was not doing anything funnyjust then. Instead, he seemed very still and quiet.
“He isn’t a bit funny!” declared Janet.
“No, I don’t think he is,” said Teddy. “Maybe he got tired of beingfunny. I’ll go in and tell daddy.”
It did not take Mr. Martin long to hurry out to the front of the houseafter Ted and Jan had come in with the strange story of the “funnyman.” And Mr. Martin had no sooner bent over the man and rolled him toone side, to get a better look at his face, than he cried:
“Why, this poor man is sick! He needs a doctor! Ted, run in and tellmother to telephone for Dr. Whitney. Have her ask him to come rightover here. Jan, you skip back to the tool house and see if Patrick isthere. If he is, tell him I want him.”
“Yes, Daddy!” exclaimed Janet.
“Yes, Daddy!” echoed Ted, and together they hurried off, one into thehouse, the other to get Patrick, the kindly old Irishman who cut thegrass, made the garden, and did other work about the Martin home.
Janet found Patrick sharpening the lawnmower, ready for a day’s work.Laying that aside, he hurried to the front of the house, where Mr.Martin was bending over the stranger.
“Is he a tramp?” asked Patrick.
“No, indeed,” answered Mr. Martin. “He seems to be a poor man, but heis clean, and few tramps are that. And though some of his clothes areragged, they are clean, too. Help me carry him into the house,Patrick. I’ve sent for Dr. Whitney.”
And when Dr. Whitney came he said that the man, who had not opened hiseyes since he was carried in, was quite ill.
“But I think that if he has a good rest, a little medicine, and plentyto eat he will soon be better,” said the doctor. “Are you going tokeep him here, Mr. Martin, or shall I have him sent to the hospital?”
“Oh, keep him here, Daddy!” cried Teddy. “He looks like a good man,and maybe he knows where our Skyrocket is.”
“No, I hardly think that,” answered Mr. Martin. “But I believe I willlet him stay here, Dr. Whitney. My wife says she and Nora will lookafter him, and he will be better off than in the hospital, as long ashe is not very ill.”
“He is sick mostly because he hasn’t had enough to eat,” said thedoctor. “Feed him well, and he’ll soon be all right.”
The doctor went away, after leaving some medicine for the stranger.And stranger he was, since nobody at the Martin house knew him, andMrs. Ransom, who came over again, after she had found some one to stayin her store for a little while, said she had never seen him aroundCresco before.
“And I know ’most everybody in Cresco,” she added, as indeed she did,since many of the fathers and mothers, as well as the boys and girls,bought a good many things in her little shop.
As for the “funny man” himself, he could not tell who he was, for heseemed to be asleep from the time Mr. Martin and Patrick carried himin and put him to bed in a spare room. The man was not really asleep,as Jan and Ted learned later. It was his illness that made him keephis eyes closed, and would not let him talk or hear things that weresaid.
“Now you children run out to play,” said Mrs. Martin to Ted and Janet,after Dr. Whitney had left. “Take Trouble with you, and look afterhim. Nora and I are going to be busy with—well, with him,” and shenodded toward the room where the strange man lay so quietly.
“What’s his name?” asked Ted.
“I don’t know, my dear,” answered his mother. “When he wakes up he maytell us. Run out and play now.”
“We’ll go and see if we can’t find Skyrocket,” said Janet.
“Oh, yes! We’ve got to find him!” added Ted.
The children had hurried through their breakfast, and now with BabyWilliam, or Trouble, in their care, they started to search around theyard for the missing Skyrocket.
There were several buildings on the Martin place. There was thegarage, where Daddy Martin kept his automobile, there was the toolhouse, where Patrick kept the lawn mower, the hose he used forsprinkling the lawn, and such things. There was a hen house and thestable where Nicknack the goat used to live. Then, of course, therewas the woodshed, which was the home of Skyrocket. But alas! Skyrocketwas not in it now.
“Let’s look there just once more!” said Janet, as she and her twobrothers walked down the back steps toward the woodshed. “Maybe hecame back.”
But no Skyrocket was to be seen. There was a bone he had been gnawingthe night before, and there was the nice, soft carpet Teddy had givenhim for a bed. But the pet dog was gone.
“Let’s look out in Nicknack’s stable again,” went on Janet.
So they did, and in other places, but no Skyrocket was to be found.
“I guess we’ll have to put a piece in the paper about him,” went onJan, as she and the two boys sat down to rest after running about theyard, looking in all sorts of places.
“A piece in the paper—what do you mean?” asked Ted.
“I mean a—a tizerment,” declared Janet. “You know—a piece like the oneMrs. Ransom put in when she lost her pocketbook. She got it back, too.Somebody found it and brought it back. Maybe somebody has found ourSkyrocket, and they’d give him back if they knew we wanted him. Let’sget daddy to put a piece in the paper.”
“Yes, we could do that,” agreed Ted, after thinking the matter over.“We’ll tell him when he comes home to dinner. But now let’s look outin the auto stable again, Jan. We didn’t look there very good. MaybeSkyrocket is hiding in there.”
“Me want wide in auto!” decided Trouble, as his brother and sister ledhim down the path once more.
“No, dear! Daddy has the auto down at his store,” explained Janet.“Trouble can’t ride now.”
“Oh!” said the little fellow. “Wide to-mollow?” he asked.
“Yes, maybe you can have a ride to-morrow,” said Ted. “And say, Jan!”he cried, “what about Silver Lake? We almost forgot! Maybe we’ll gothere to-morrow!”
“Oh, maybe we shall!” cried Janet, with shining, eager eyes.
“Me go, too?” asked Trouble.
“Oh, yes, you’ll have to come, too!” sighed Janet. “I do hope youdon’t fall in too much!” she said.
“Come on!” called Teddy to her. �
�Let’s go and look in the garageagain. We didn’t look there very good.”
The garage had once been a stable, but no horse was kept in it now,since Mr. Martin had an automobile. There was, however, an oldcarriage, and several other things, such as a wheelbarrow, old boards,shutters, broken doors and the like, that Patrick had stored away.
“There’s lots of places for Skyrocket to hide!” said Ted, as he andJanet entered the garage. “Here, Sky! Sky!” he called, and he whistledfor the pet dog, giving him the pet name of “Sky.”
But there was no answer. Skyrocket must have been far away, his littleowners knew, not to answer their call. Ted and Janet forgot BabyWilliam for a few moments while they searched all about the garage fortheir pet dog.
“I guess he isn’t here,” said Janet, with a sigh, after a while.
“No,” agreed Teddy. “We’ll have to put a piece in the paper. Maybehe——”
Teddy suddenly stopped speaking, for both he and Janet heard a funnylittle squeal.
“There he is!” cried Ted.
“That’s Skyrocket!” added Jan, clapping her hands. “He’s caught fastsomewhere and can’t get out.”
They both stood still, listening for the cry to sound once more. Itdid, but in a different way. For besides the squeal came a call of:
“Ted! Jan! Oh! Oh! I tan’t det out! I caught fast! Oh, tum an’ detme!”
“It’s Trouble!” shouted Janet.
“Where is he?” cried Ted.
They looked around. They had let go of the hands of their littlebrother while searching in the back part of the garage among the oddsand ends for Skyrocket. They had forgotten about Baby William for atime, and now they could not see where he was.
“Where are you, Trouble? Where are you?” cried Ted.
“I—I’se stuck!” was the answer.
“Yes, dear! But where are you?” asked Janet.
“In de horsie wagon!”
“Oh, he’s playing in the old carriage!” exclaimed Ted, for Troublealways called that the “horsie wagon.”
It did not take Jan and her older brother long to reach the placewhere Trouble was. But instead of seeing him upon the seat of thebattered old carriage, where he sometimes climbed to play he wasdriving a horse, they saw him caught in between the spokes of one ofthe wheels.
“Oh, Trouble!” cried Janet.
“Oh, Trouble!” shouted Teddy.
And well might they say this, for Trouble was indeed in trouble. Hishead was stuck between two spokes, and he could not get it out eitherway.
“Come on!” he cried to his brother and sister. “Help me det out!”
“Of course we’ll help you, dear!” said Janet. “But how did you getcaught that way?”
“I was playin’ peek-a-boo wif a chicken.”
“Peek-a-boo with a chicken?” echoed Ted.
“Yeppie! He chicken, he comed in de auto house, an’ he looked at mefroo de horsie wagon wheel, an’ I looked at him, an’ I did stick myhead froo de spokes, I did, an’ I did holler ‘peek-a-boo!’ an’ den Itouldn’t det out!”
“Well, I should say you couldn’t!” cried Janet. “Take hold of him,Teddy, and push him out.”
“We can’t push him out, we’ve got to pull him!” decided Teddy; afterlooking at the way his baby brother was caught.
“No, he’s got to be pushed!” insisted Janet.
“Pulled!” cried Teddy.
“Oh, det me out! Det me out!” wailed Trouble.
Janet took hold of his legs, and Teddy took hold of his head. But asJanet pushed and Teddy pushed also, instead of pulling, which he hadsaid was the right way, poor Baby William stayed just where he was,with his head caught between two carriage spokes.
“Oh, dear, we’ll never get him out!” said Janet. “What’ll we do, Ted?”
“We’ve got to try again,” decided Ted. “We’ll both push, and thenwe’ll both pull.”
“All right,” agreed Janet.
Whether it was that Ted and Jan pushed or pulled at the wrong time, orwhether it was that they were so excited they didn’t know what theywere doing, I can’t say, but Trouble was still held fast, and withtears in his eyes he looked up from his queer position and cried:
“Det me out! Det me out!”
The Curlytops at Silver Lake; Or, On the Water with Uncle Ben Page 3