The Curlytops at Cherry Farm

“Stop, Nicknack! Whoa, there! Whoa!” cried Ted, running after the goat that was now leaping along, his little, short, stubby tail bobbing up and down the way the corks did on the fishing lines.

“Oh, Ted! Do stop him!” begged Jan.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” answered her brother. He ran as fast as he could, and his sister started to follow, but she felt the drag of Trouble, whose hand she still held, and she knew she could never catch the goat.

Ted could not do it either, and he knew this before he had run far, for Nicknack was going very fast.

“He is really running away!” cried Hal. “It’s too bad. If it wasn’t for my foot——”

“Oh, don’t worry about catching him,” said Ted, coming to a stop and laughing. “I guess it won’t hurt him to run, and the wagon is pretty strong. He’s going in a straight line now, and won’t tip it over.”

“But he’s our goat—and he’s gone!” wailed Janet. “Oh, dear!”

“He won’t go farther than to Cherry Farm,” was Ted’s next remark. “He knows there aren’t any bees there. Some one will take care of him. But we’ll have to walk back. That’s the worst of it.”

“That isn’t so bad,” came from Hal cheerfully. Ted had been worried about the lame boy for fear he could not take the mile-long walk back to the Home. “I can manage all right.”

“Are you sure you can?” asked Jan.

“Oh, sure. It will be fun. We’ll go slow on account of your baby brother.”

“Yes, we’ll have to. Trouble isn’t very fond of walking, though he is pretty good sometimes. My, but Nicknack did run!”

“Guess you would, too, if you were a goat and a bee bit you,” put in Ted.

“Mother will wonder what’s become of us when she sees him,” murmured Jan, trying to look for their horned pet. But he was out of sight down the tree-shaded road by this time.

“That’s right,” agreed Ted. “We’d better go right on back to Cherry Farm to let her see we’re all right.”

“Me want more tookies first!” exclaimed Trouble.

“Yes, we might as well eat a little,” agreed Ted.

Nora, as she often did, had put up a little lunch for the children. So they sat under the cherry trees and ate, getting water from a little spring not far away. Ted thought they might find some ripe cherries on the trees, but they were all still so green that they did not taste good.

“And now let’s start for home,” proposed Janet. “Come on.”

“All right,” agreed Ted.

But they had walked only a little way when Trouble lived up to his name and suddenly sat down on the grass.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jan. “Get up and walk along. I’d carry you, only I’m not big enough. Come on!” and she pulled him by the hand.

“I’se tired,” Trouble declared. “Don’t want to walk—want ride. Go bring Nicknack an’ give Trouble ride in wagon.”

“But we can’t get Nicknack. He’s gone home!” Jan explained.

“Well, den you go git him an’ me wait here,” and Baby William squirmed around in the grass until he had made a sort of little nest where he sat.

“No, no! You must come on!” ordered his sister.

“Trouble tan’t tum. Trouble goin’ s’eep!” and he closed his eyes and made believe he was taking a nap.

“Oh, what shall I do?” asked Jan of the two boys. “Oh, dear!”

“Let me see what I can do,” said Ted, and going up to his baby brother he whispered in his ear:

“Trouble, if you walk home I’ll ask daddy to buy you a lollypop when we go to the village.”

“When will we goes to village?”

“This afternoon.”

“Want to go now!” declared Baby William closing his eyes again, to show that he was going to sleep and stay where he was unless he could have his own way.

“But we have to walk to get to the village,” said Teddy. “And you must walk with us.”

“Don’t want walk—want ride!”

“Oh, see the pretty flowers down there!” called Jan, pointing to some yellow buttercups a little farther along. “If I can get him started to picking flowers he’ll walk on without knowing it,” she whispered to her brother and Hal. “Come and get the flowers,” she begged.

“Don’t want f’owers,” murmured Trouble, and his voice sounded as though he were really going to sleep now.

“Oh, if he does go to sleep,” said Janet, “we’ll never get him home until he wakes up; and then what will mother say?”

“Maybe I can make something so we can get him home,” said Hal.

“Do you mean without making him walk?” asked Ted.

“Yes. Wait and I’ll see what I can do,” and the lame boy started for a patch of woods near the cherry grove.

“What are you going to do?” called Ted. “Can’t I help?”

“Well, yes—maybe. I’m going to cut down two long branches first.”

“Well, I’ve got a knife and I’ll help cut,” offered Ted, and he hurried on after Hal, leaving Jan, rather worried and anxious, beside Baby William, who was still curled up in the little grass nest he had made.

“Here, you cut this branch, and I’ll take the one over there,” and Hal pointed to the two he meant.

“How are you going to make a wagon out of ’em, and where will you get the wheels?” Ted questioned.

“I didn’t say I was going to make a wagon,” replied the lame boy with a laugh. “At least it isn’t a wagon with wheels. It’s the kind the Indians used to make—two long poles with a seat between——”

“Oh, I know what you mean!” exclaimed Ted. “I saw ’em once when the Wild West show came to our town. The Indians fastened two poles, one on each side of a pony and he dragged them along, the other ends dragging on the ground.”

“That’s it!” said Hal. “I thought we could drag Trouble home that way.”

“We can! It’ll be great!” exclaimed Ted, as he began to cut at the branch Hal had pointed out while the lame boy hacked off another for himself.

When Hal had done this he went over and helped Teddy with his branch. Then the two boys fastened the poles together with pieces of wild grapevine, and made a sort of seat with a blanket and a cushion that had fallen out of the goat wagon when Nicknack nearly upset it.

“Now you can ride home, Trouble!” cried Jan, when she saw what her brother and his friend had made. “See the lovely wagon!”

“Dat’s nice!” said Trouble, after looking at it from all sides. “Me ’ike it. Me ride!” and he climbed onto the seat.

“Now giddap, hosses!” he cried.

Hal and Ted turned themselves into “horses,” and each one took an end of a pole over his shoulder. The other ends dragged on the ground, just as the Indians let their funny carts drag. Jan walked beside her little brother, to see that he did not fall off.

“It’s almost as good as the goat wagon,” she said. “But isn’t it hard to pull, Ted?”

“Oh, no. Not very. Anyhow it’s mostly down hill home, and we’ll soon be there.”

“Can you stand it, Hal?” Jan asked the lame boy.

“Course. I’m strong!”

In a way he was stronger than Ted, for he was several years older. Between them they managed to drag Baby William down to the road and along that toward the farmhouse. Before they reached it they saw Grandpa Martin driving rapidly to meet them in the big wagon. Mother Martin was with him.

“Oh, children!” she cried. “What happened? We were so frightened when we saw the goat wagon come back without you! What happened?”

“Bee stung Nicknack and he runned away,” explained Ted. “But we’re all right now. Had to make this new kind of baby carriage for Trouble. He wouldn’t walk. Hal thought of making it.”

“Oh, what a time you must have had! It was very good of you, Hal, to think of it,” said Mrs. Martin. “Trouble, you can’t go with your brother and sister again if you are such a bother.”

“Oh, he was all right. We didn’t mind riding him home,” laughed Hal. “It was fun.”

“Is our goat all right?” Ted asked.

“Yes. But he came in pretty well tired out from his run,” explained Grandpa Martin. “When I saw him I was afraid he had upset the wagon and hurt you, so we started out to pick you up.”

But everybody was happy now, and no one was hurt, and soon, riding in grandpa’s wagon, they were all safe at the farmhouse, telling the rest of the family all that had happened.

At first the Curlytops were afraid their goat might be made ill from having been stung by a bee.

“Maybe we’d better get a doctor for him,” said Jan.

“Oh, no!” laughed her father. “Nicknack will be all right.”

And so he was, being as kind and gentle as ever when the children went out to see him. They wanted to hitch him up again and drive Hal over to the Home, but Grandpa Martin said he would take the lame boy back in the big wagon. This was done, the children going along for the sake of the drive.

Haying time came a few days later, and Grandpa Martin and his men were busy drawing in the sweet-smelling loads, and storing in the big barn the dried grass that the horses would eat when winter came to cover the green fields with white snow.

“Can’t we go out to the field and ride in on a load of hay?” asked Jan.

“Yes! Come along!” cried her grandfather, so she and Ted got in the big rick wagon that went to the field empty to be hauled back with such a big, towering load on it.

The Curlytops played about in the field while the hired men were piling the wagon high with hay. The horse-rake, with which the dried grass was pulled into long rows, to be made into cocks, or little hills, later, made a nice place for Ted and Jan to play. They took turns sitting on the high iron seat and making believe they were driving a horse.

“Guess you’ll have to get down off that hay-rake now, Curlytop,” called Grandpa Martin to Ted after a while.

“Why?” the little boy asked.

“Because, The-o-dore,” and Grandpa Martin’s eyes twinkled as he used the long name which Ted’s mother called him only on very special occasions, “we’re going to hitch the horse to it and rake up the loose hay about the field. You see a lot gets scattered when we’re loading the wagon,” he explained, “and we must rake it up to save it. It isn’t right to waste hay, or anything else that is food for real folks or animals. So hop down.”

Ted jumped down to go over where his sister was sitting in the shade of the big rick wagon, she having become tired of being out in the sun with Ted.

One of the men hitched a horse to the rake and drove about the field, collecting the loose hay. The rake had two big wheels to it, with a high seat in the middle. Behind the seat were some curved prongs of iron, like the teeth of your garden rake, only more than fifty times larger. They were made large to pile up a lot of hay at once.

When there was a big bunch of hay, held in a lump by the curved teeth of the rake, the man driving pulled a handle, the teeth rose up in the air over the pile of hay and left it to be gathered up and pitched on the wagon. Then the man dropped the teeth and they gathered up more wisps of the dried grass.

“I wish I could do that,” said Ted, as, sitting beside Jan, he watched the hay-rake moving about the field.

“The-o-dore Martin! Don’t you dare!” cried Jan.

“Dare what?”

“Get on that hay-rake.”

“Well, maybe I won’t. But, just the same, I wish you wouldn’t call me The-o-dore. It sounds as if I’d done something.”

“All right, I won’t,” laughed Jan. “I’ll call you Curlytop.”

“All right,” and Teddy was satisfied.

But he kept on looking at the funny way the big curved teeth of the hay-rake tilted themselves up every time the man driving it pulled the handle, and more than once Ted said to himself:

“I wish I could do that.”

And finally, when the man got down off the seat to go to the brook to get a drink of water, and while Jan was trying to make a doll by wadding up a wisp of hay and dressing it in a green leaf, Teddy walked quietly off by himself and did what he ought not to have done. He climbed up on the seat of the hay-rake, and took the reins of the horse in his hands.

“I just want to see how it feels,” thought Teddy.

And then, to his surprise, something happened. The horse began walking quickly down the field, pulling the rake after him, and with it a big pile of hay caught in the curved teeth.

“Oh! Whoa! Whoa there! Whoa!” cried the frightened Teddy.

But the horse kept on going with the rake.