CHAPTER XI
TROUBLE IN THE AIR
Teddy Martin ran to the edge of the little bank over the top of which he had seen Janet’s head a moment before. The boy had his hands full of ferns, but he dropped these as he ran forward, calling:
“I’m coming, Jan! I’m coming! Wait for me!”
“I can’t get out!” Janet answered. “I’m stuck fast!
“And I’m going down farther all the while!” she called. “Oh, Oh! You must get me out, Teddy!”
“Yes, Janet! Yes, I’ll get you out!” cried Teddy. He flung himself face downward on the grassy bank below which Janet was caught in a trap of mud. It was soft mud, and did not, of course, hurt her, but it was so sticky that she was held fast.
“Can’t you pull your legs out, Janet, and walk over to me?” asked Teddy. “If you could get over here I could take hold of your hands and pull you the rest of the way out. Try to pull your legs loose!”
“I did try,” Janet answered. “I can pull one leg out, but then the other leg sticks down deeper in the mud. Then when I try to pull my first leg out, that’s stuck, too.”
“Can’t you pull both your legs out together?” asked Teddy, as he lay on the top of the grassy bank and looked down at his sister.
“Nope! I can’t pull both my legs out at once,” she answered. “’Cause if I did I’d fall down.”
“Well, then I guess I’ve got to come down and get you,” said Teddy, as he thought about the matter. “You stay there, Janet, and I’ll come down and pull you out. I’ll hold you so you can pull both your legs out at the same time.”
He started to get up, but his sister called to him.
“No, don’t come down here, Teddy!”
“Why not?” he asked, in surprise.
“’Cause if you do, you’ll be stuck, too, and then we’ll both be stuck in this sticky mud, and we can’t get out, and nobody will know we’re here, and nobody can take Trouble home, and——”
“That’s so—I forgot about Trouble,” said Teddy. “And that is pretty sticky mud, isn’t it, Jan?”
“It’s terribly sticky!” answered the little girl. “It’s just like that time when I sat down in the fly paper. I guess you better go and get mother or daddy or Uncle Ben. They can get me out.”
“Wait! Maybe I can do it myself!” said Teddy, after a bit. “If I had a rope I could throw it to you, and you could take hold of it and I could stand up here, where there isn’t any mud, and pull you out.”
“Yes, but you haven’t any rope,” said Janet.
Teddy thought some more.
“No, there isn’t any rope,” he said. “But if I could find a piece of wild grapevine, that would be as good as a rope. Don’t you ’member, when we went to Grandpa’s Cherry Farm, how we swung on a wild grapevine in the woods, just like a swing?”
“I ’member,” Janet answered. “Please go and get me a wild grapevine rope, Teddy, and pull me out. My shoes are all full of mud.”
“Yes, and there’s a lot on your legs, too,” her brother said. “Well, I’ll see if I can find a grapevine. If I can’t, I’ll get daddy or Uncle Ben—they’ll pull you out, anyhow.”
“Where’s Trouble?” asked Janet, as her brother stood up and started to walk away.
“That’s so—mustn’t forget him,” answered Teddy. “He was picking ferns when I heard you yell, but I don’t see him now.”
“Oh, you must find him!” cried Janet. “If he goes away by himself maybe he’ll fall into a mud hole too.”
“I’ll find Trouble first, and then I’ll go and get the grapevine and pull you out,” decided the little boy. Of course it might have been better if he had run at once and told his father or his mother what had happened to Janet. But Teddy liked to do things for himself, and if he could help his sister out of the bog he wanted to do it.
“Hi, Trouble! where are you?” cried Teddy as he looked toward the spot where he had left his little brother, picking ferns.
At first there was no answer, and, for a moment, Teddy feared that Baby William had wandered away and become lost, or perhaps had fallen into some swamp hole. But, in a few seconds, after he had called again, Teddy heard some baby laughter.
“Trouble, are you hiding away from me in the grass?” asked Teddy, for sometimes the little chap did this. “Are you hiding?” asked Teddy in louder tones.
“No, I’se playin’!” was the answer. “I got nudder turkle!”
“You have?” cried Teddy, running toward the spot from which Trouble’s voice sounded. “Say, you’re great on finding turtles! Yes, you have found one!” he went on, when he reached Baby William’s side. He saw the little boy sitting down in a grassy hollow, and near him, slowly crawling, was a mud turtle—much larger than the one Trouble had found that morning and put in Teddy’s cot.
“Oh, that’s dandy!” cried Ted. “We’ll keep ’em both, and maybe we can get up a show with ’em. Come on, Trouble. Jan’s stuck in the mud, and I’ve got to get her out. I’ve got to find a wild grapevine.”
“Jan in mud?” asked Trouble, looking up into Ted’s face.
“Yes, she’s away down in a deep mud hole. We’ve got to pull her out.”
Carrying the turtle in one hand, with the other Teddy led Trouble to the edge of the grassy bank, where the little fellow could look down and see his sister stuck in the mud.
“Oh! Too bad!” said Trouble, in a gentle voice, as he saw the plight of poor Janet.
“Yes, it is too bad,” agreed the little girl. “I didn’t see the mud hole when I went to get the blue flowers.”
She still held a bouquet of them in her hand.
“Now you stay here with Janet, Trouble, and I’ll go and get a grapevine for a rope,” said Teddy. “Sit right here and don’t go away.”
“I won’t,” promised Baby William. “I give turtle grass for hims to eat breakshust!”
“Yes, you can feed the turtle his breakfast,” agreed Janet. “And don’t be too long, Teddy,” she begged. “’Cause I think I’m sinking farther in all the while.”
“I’ll come right back,” he promised, as he ran toward the tangled woodland where he thought some grapevines might grow. And Teddy was lucky enough to find some, so that, in a little while, he came back with one trailing after him.
“Now I’ll pull you out, Janet!” he cried. “This is as good as a rope.”
He stripped the leaves and little branches from the long, thin vine, which is really a rope of the woods, and then, holding one end, Ted tossed the other to his sister, who was standing below him in the bog. She caught it with one hand, holding the blue flowers in the other.
“Hold fast now, I’m going to pull!” cried Teddy. “I’ll pull and you wiggle your feet, and then they’ll come loose out of the mud and you can walk over where it’s hard ground.”
Well, Teddy, pulled and Janet tried to keep hold of her end of the grapevine rope, but as Teddy was stronger than she was, and as he was pulling with two hands, while she was holding with only one, and as the mud was very sticky, you can imagine what happened.
Teddy pulled the grapevine away from his sister, and she nearly fell over backward into the muddy puddle just behind her.
“You must take hold with both hands!” cried Teddy, as he, too, almost toppled over. “Take hold with both hands, and I’ll pull with both hands, and I’ll get you out.”
“I’ve got only one hand,” declared Janet. “I must hold on to my flowers.”
“Oh, let the flowers go!” ordered Teddy.
“No, I want ’em!” insisted Janet.
“Then I can’t pull you out,” was Teddy’s reply.
Janet thought this over for a moment, and then she said:
“Well, I can throw my flowers to you up there on the bank. You can give ’em to Trouble to keep, and then I can take hold with both hands.”
“Yes, you can do that!” agreed Teddy. “Go ahead! Throw me your flowers. I’ll give ’em to Trouble.”
“But don’t let the mud turtle eat ’em!” pleaded Janet, as she tossed the pretty bouquet to her brother. The gathering of the blue flowers had gotten Janet into a lot of trouble.
“My turkle eats grass—hims don’t like flowers!” said Baby William, as Ted laid the blossoms down on the ground beside his little brother.
Janet now had both hands free, and she took a good hold of the grapevine rope. Teddy braced his feet in the grass, and began to pull. Janet pulled also, lifting her feet out of the sticky mud, and, with a queer, sucking sound as she lifted her legs, first the right and then the left, she soon found herself free of the bog. She stepped out on firm ground, and was soon upon the bank with Ted and Trouble.
“Oh, what an awful lot of mud!” cried Teddy, as he looked at his sister’s feet. And well might he say that, for she was covered with muck up to her waist.
“I guess I better wade out in the lake, with my shoes and stockings on, and wash off,” said Janet. “I can’t get any wetter, but I can get a little cleaner.”
“I guess you can,” decided Teddy.
He and Trouble (who carried the flowers, while his brother held the turtle) walked to the shore of the lake where the water was shallow. There Janet waded in and splashed around. Of course she got very wet—and with her clothes, shoes and stockings on, too!—but the mud was washed off.
“Where have you children been, and what have you been doing?” cried Mrs. Martin, when the Curlytops and Trouble walked up to the bungalow Sunnyside a little later.
“I’ve been picking a bouquet for you, Mother,” answered Janet, and she held out the blue flowers. “Aren’t they pretty?”
“Yes, my dear, they are very nice, and thank you for them. But did you have to wade in the lake up to your waist after them?”
“Oh, no. I fell in the mud and then I had to wash off,” explained Janet.
“And I found annuver mud turkle!” cried Trouble.
Then the children told their mother what had happened.
After dinner, when Janet had been washed again and dried and had had clean clothes put on her, Uncle Ben took the three children out on the lake in a little motor boat. It was great fun for them to go riding about the silvery water, the engine of the boat making a chugging sound which Trouble liked very much.
Silver Lake was so large that Uncle Ben did not have time to take the children all around it.
“Some day,” he said, “we’ll put up a lunch and go on a regular voyage all around the shores in the big motor boat.”
“Shall we get shipwrecked?” asked Ted eagerly.
“I hope not!” laughed Uncle Ben. “I was shipwrecked once, and that was enough. But now we are going to stop here. I have to get some rowboats your father has bought.”
He steered the motor craft up to a little pier about a mile from Sunnyside. To this pier a number of small boats were tied. After some talk with a man Uncle Ben tied to the back of the boat in which the Curlytops sat five of the rowboats, strung out one after the other, like beads on a string.
“Are we going to take ’em home?” asked Janet.
“Yes,” answered Uncle Ben. “Your father needs more boats to hire out at his dock near the picnic grounds, and he bought these. I am going to paint them red, like all his boats.”
“May I help paint?” Teddy asked.
“Me too?” cried Janet.
“Well, I’ll see about it,” promised Uncle Ben. “I’m afraid you would get more paint on your hands and faces than you would on the boats. But maybe I’ll let you paint a little with a small brush.”
“That’ll be fun!” cried both children. “Do let us!”
Off they started once more, hauling the rowboats after them in a long line back of the motor craft. Trouble wanted to climb back into the nearest rowboat, but they would not let him, of course.
Uncle Ben was steering the big boat, and pulling the smaller ones, in toward the Sunnyside dock when suddenly something jumped from the water with a splatter of drops and seemed to leap over the rowboat nearest the motor boat. Then the shining object fell back into the lake again with a splash.
“What was that?” cried Ted.
“Did somebody throw something?” Janet asked.
“Maybe it was a turtle,” said Trouble.
“That was a fish that jumped out of the water and clean over the rowboat,” said Uncle Ben. “Fish sometimes leap out of the water that way when they want to catch a bug or a fly that is just above them. But I did not know there were such large fish in Silver Lake. I must bring a hook, line, and pole the next time I come out.”
“I’m going to fish, too!” declared Teddy.
“So’m I!” added Janet.
“Yes, we’ll get up a fishing party!” agreed Uncle Ben. “Maybe we can catch enough for a meal.”
The rowboats were tied up at Daddy Martin’s dock, and for the next few days Uncle Ben was busy painting them. Teddy and Janet were both allowed to use a small brush, and really they did quite well, for they were careful.
The only thing that happened was that once, when Trouble came close to watch him, Teddy splattered some red paint on the face of Trouble’s beloved rag doll.
“Oh, Teddy Martin! ’ook what you did!” cried Trouble. “I’m goin’ to tell mozzer! My doll’s all wed!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Teddy said, sorry enough about what had happened. “Anyhow it makes his cheeks look nice and red.” Trouble hadn’t thought of this.
“It does make him ’ook pittier,” he agreed. “I’m glad ’oo did it, Teddy.”
The Curlytops had lots of fun at Silver Lake. Gradually the bungalow was put in order, and Nora came to cook and help with the work. Then Mrs. Martin could take long walks in the woods with the children, and they often went out on the lake with Uncle Ben, having many good times on the silvery water.
It was just before supper one evening, and Ted and Janet had come in from sailing with Uncle Ben. Trouble had not gone, as he was asleep, but now he had awakened, and he was freshly washed and dressed.
“Take Trouble for a little walk down the path, Ted and Jan,” their mother said. “But don’t go far away, for supper will soon be ready.”
“All right,” they answered, and soon the two Curlytops were leading their little brother by the hand.
“Let’s go down to the ice-house,” proposed Teddy. “They’re taking cakes of ice out now and we can watch.”
The ice-house was one partly owned by Mr. Martin. In the winter, when Silver Lake was frozen, men cut big chunks of ice from it, and packed it away in sawdust in a small house, not far from shore. In the summer the ice was taken out and used to make ice-cream and to cool soda=water.
“OH, TEDDY MARTIN! ’OOK WHAT YOU DID!” CRIED TROUBLE.
The cakes of ice were so large and heavy that they were lifted from the house and lowered to the ground outside by a rope and pulley. The pulley was up near the roof of the house, and the rope dangled to the ground. The ice was hoisted up just as you may have seen a piano hoisted up to the second or third story of a house. The Curlytops used to like to watch the men lift the ice out by the rope and pulley.
“Oh, they’re all done!” exclaimed Janet, much disappointed, when she and her two brothers reached the ice-house. “They’re all done, and they’re gone!”
“But they’ve left the rope where we can reach it,” said Teddy. “Oh, Jan, I know what we can do!” he cried.
“What?” she asked.
“We can make believe Trouble is a cake of ice, and hoist him up by the rope,” went on Ted. “Come on—let’s do it. Trouble, do you want a ride in the air?”
“Oh, ’ess! Me want wide in air!” said the little fellow eagerly.
“All right! Then you’re going to have one!” laughed Ted.