The Curlytops at Silver Lake; Or, On the Water with Uncle Ben

The sick man smiled at the children and at Mr. and Mrs. Martin. When he smiled he had a very pleasant face—in fact, he had a very pleasant face at all times, now that he was getting well and strong.

“I’m glad to know I look like some one in this family, which has been so kind to me,” he said. “But I’m sorry to say I’m not your Uncle Ben, my dear little Curlytop!”

Ted was surprised to hear the man use the pet name, but then that was not strange, as many persons, seeing Ted and Jan for the first time, called them “Curlytops,” for that name seemed just to fit them.

“Aren’t you anybody’s Uncle Ben?” asked Janet softly. “You look exactly as if you ought to be somebody’s Uncle Ben.”

The man, sitting up in the easy chair laughed, and his laugh was a pleasant one and caused the children to like him more than ever.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose I am some one’s Uncle Ben. My name, which I have not had a chance to tell you,” he went on, “is Benjamin Wilson,” and he looked at Mr. and Mrs. Martin. “Some years ago my sister, who lived in New York, had two children, and of course I was Uncle Ben to them. But they both died, and now I am not Uncle Ben to any one.”

Just then Baby William, who was always an impulsive little chap, broke away from Jan, who was holding him, and ran to the strange man—no, I must not call him a stranger any longer. I must use his name—Mr. Wilson. Trouble climbed up into the lap of Mr. Wilson, and clasped his baby fingers in the man’s brown beard.

“I ’ikes you!” he lisped.

“Do you? Well, I’m glad of that. And I like you!” laughed Mr. Wilson.

“Say!” cried Teddy, struck with a new thought, “couldn’t you be our Uncle Ben?”

Mr. Wilson looked at Mr. and Mrs. Martin.

“If you don’t mind, the children could call you that,” said the mother of the Curlytops. “The Uncle Ben they speak of, whose picture is in our photograph album, is my uncle, but they always claim him as their own. He does look a great deal like you. His name is Benjamin Thompson, and he lives in Florida. We don’t see him very often, but the children like to look at his picture.”

“He looks just like you,” declared Jan. “Can’t we call you Uncle Ben?”

Mr. Wilson did not answer for a moment. Then, looking at Mr. and Mrs. Martin, he said:

“You have been so kind to me that I must tell you my story. After that, if the children want to, they may call me Uncle Ben. But it will be only for a little while, as I hope soon to be able to travel on.”

Mr. Wilson’s story was quite a long one, and I will not put it all down here. Enough to say that he had worked as a sailor for a number of years, until he lost his health. Then he had to get something else to do. But he did not get better, his relatives all died or he lost track of them, and at last he could not work hard enough, any longer, to make a good living.

“So I turned into what is often called a tramp,” he said. “I went from place to place, trying to get a little work here and there. A doctor told me that if I could live out of doors for six months I would get well and strong again. But the only kind of life out of doors is that on a farm or being a sailor, and I am not strong enough to plow and do farm work, and cannot get on a ship. So I don’t know what to do.

“I wandered to Cresco, thinking perhaps I might get work here. I didn’t have very much to eat, and when I reached your house I was weak and I just couldn’t go any further. Everything seemed to be going around and around, and I—I fell down, I guess.”

“Yes, you did,” said Teddy, who, like Jan, was eagerly listening to this story. “You fell down, and Miss Ransom told us you were acting funny, and we told mother, and——”

“Yes, and you brought me in and have been very kind to me ever since,” said Mr. Wilson. “But I cannot stay here. I must travel on and see if I can’t get work out of doors. Then I could get well and strong again.”

“And now may we call you Uncle Ben?” asked Jan, when the man had brought his story to a close.

“Of course you may, children!” exclaimed their mother. “If he was Uncle Ben once he is Uncle Ben still, and though he isn’t the same Uncle Ben you know down in Florida, I think it will be nice to call him that, since it really is his name.”

“Were you a sailor long, Uncle Ben?” asked Ted, now that this point was settled.

“Yes, I was a sailor for several years,” was the answer. “I sailed to many queer places, and once I was shipwrecked. Then I was taken ill and found a sailor’s life too hard for me. I liked it, though, for I like to be near the water and around boats. All sailors do.”

“Miss Ransom’s brother was a sailor,” said Janet. “And he went off on a ship and maybe he was shipwrecked, and she didn’t ever see him again, and he left her a funny box that nobody except two or three could open, but the burglars took the box and did you see them, I mean the burglars, Uncle Ben?” she asked, all out of breath.

“My, that’s a lot of talk for a little girl!” exclaimed Mr. Wilson, with a laugh. “And who is this Mrs. Ransom at whose house the burglars called?”

By turns they explained to him what had happened and how the little store had been robbed.

“It happened the same day you came to our house, Uncle Ben,” said Teddy. “And Tom Taylor and I were thinking maybe we could catch the robbers if Constable Juke didn’t. So—maybe—did you see any of ’em as you came along—tramping on the road, you know?”

Uncle Ben shook his head.

“If I saw the robbers I didn’t know them,” he answered. “I was too weak and sick to notice anything. All I wanted was to get to a place where I could lie down and rest, and then have something to eat, perhaps. And I found such a place, thanks to you,” he added with a grateful look at Mr. and Mrs. Martin.

“Well, now, children, you have heard and talked enough, I think,” said Mrs. Martin to Ted and Jan, who were crowded as close as they could get to their new friend. “Come, Trouble!” and she held out her hands.

“Trouble! Is that his name?” asked Mr. Wilson.

“It’s his pet name,” answered Mr. Martin. “Though he does get into trouble now and then. But we must let you rest. Please stay here as long as you like, and you must not go until we have had another talk. I may be able to find out-of-doors work for you that will not be as hard as farming or as work on shipboard.”

“I wish you could!” said Uncle Ben eagerly. “I want to work. I don’t like being a tramp. And I want to be a real Uncle Ben to these Curlytops!” and he smiled at Ted and Jan.

“I ’ikes you!” said Trouble again. “You be my Unk Ben, too?”

“If you want me to, I will,” was the smiling answer.

“Yes—me wants!” said Trouble, as if that settled it. And not until then did he slip down out of the comfortable lap.

“It’s nice to have an Uncle Ben, isn’t it?” asked Ted of Janet after they had left the room.

“Awful nice,” she replied. “I hope he’ll stay with us forever.”

“And I hope Tom and I can catch the burglars and get back Miss Ransom’s queer box,” said Teddy. “Maybe she’ll give us a reward.”

“I’d rather get back Skyrocket than the box,” said Janet. “But course I want Miss Ransom to get her box too. But I want Skyrocket most of all!”

“Oh, so do I!” exclaimed her brother. “Oh, Jan!” he cried. “I just thought of it! Maybe the burglars took our dog!”

“Maybe they did!” agreed Jan.

“I’m going to tell Constable Juke!” decided Ted.

But just then his mother called to ask him to bring in some chips to boil the teakettle, and it was not until some time later that the little boy had a chance to go to the constable about the lost dog. For Skyrocket continued to be lost. Though Ted and Janet hunted all over town for him, and their boy and girl friends did the same, Skyrocket was not to be found, nor did he come back to his sleeping box in the woodshed.

Though Ted and Janet felt very bad about their loss, so many other things happened at the same time that they did not grieve as otherwise they might have done. They had something else to think about.

“Mother, has daddy said any more about where we are going for our vacation?” asked Janet one day.

“Yes; what about Silver Lake?” inquired Teddy.

“Oh, we haven’t forgotten about vacation—or Silver Lake, either,” said Mrs. Martin with a smile. “I think daddy will have something to tell you this evening. Now, Jan, will you run over to Mrs. Kent’s, and ask her if she can let me have the spool of strong, black thread. I want to mend some of Uncle Ben’s clothes. Mrs. Ransom was out of it and Mrs. Kent said she had some she would let me have.”

“I’ll go!” exclaimed Jan. “Will Uncle Ben come out and play with us to-day?”

“Well, perhaps to-morrow,” her mother answered. “Dr. Whitney said he must not go too fast all at once. He may take a walk with you to-morrow or next day.”

“Goody!” cried Janet.

“That’ll be fun!” exclaimed Ted.

The more the Curlytops saw of Uncle Ben the more they liked him. And Mr. and Mrs. Martin, too, were growing fond of the stranger who had fallen almost at their very door. He proved to be a good man, and Mr. Martin was sure he was one who could be trusted. He was slowly getting better, and could walk around the house now and go out into the yard and sit in the shade. But he had not been able, yet, to play with Ted and Jan, who wanted some one pretty lively to enter into their games.

“You look after Trouble while Janet goes for the thread for me,” said Mrs. Martin to Teddy.

“All right, Mother,” was the answer. “Come on, Trouble. We’ll go down to the brook and I’ll show you my water wheel. It splashes around like anything!”

Janet soon reached Mrs. Kent’s house and told what was wanted. Mrs. Kent was busy churning. Into a blue tub, shaped like a barrel, she had poured some sour cream. Inside the barrel was a round piece of wood, called a “dasher,” and fastened to this was a long stick, like a broom handle. Mrs. Kent made the handle go up and down, and this splashed the dasher in the sour cream, and churned it into butter.

She had just taken off the cover, to look in to see how near the butter was to “coming” when Jan arrived.

“Sit down here, my dear, while I get the thread for you,” said Mrs. Kent. “I won’t be but a moment.”

Janet sat down. Then she thought she would look down in the churn, to see if there were any little round balls of yellow butter yet. Her mother often churned, and Jan knew all about it.

Over the edge of the churn leaned the little girl. Then she gave a sudden cry and hurried back to her chair. She had hardly sat down in it before Mrs. Kent came back with the spool of thread.

“There you are, Jan,” she said. “And how is every one over at your house? I hear you have a new visitor.”

“Yes’m, only he’s going to be our Uncle Ben now,” answered the little girl. “He’s getting better, and we’re all well. And say, Mrs. Kent, when you get through churning will you please give me back my rubber doll?”

“Give you back your rubber doll! Gracious me, child! what do you mean? I haven’t your rubber doll!”

“Yes, you have,” insisted Jan, with a funny little smile.

“Why, no, dear, I haven’t.”

“You can’t see her,” said Janet. “She’s in the butter.”

“In the butter!”

“I—I just dropped her in the churn,” explained the little girl. “You left the cover off, and I looked in to see if the butter had come, and my rubber doll slipped, and now she—now she’s in the churn!”

Mrs. Kent quickly lifted off the cover, which Janet had put partly back on, and as she did so she cried:

“There she is! Oh, Janet!”

“Oh, it won’t hurt her,” said Janet easily. “She’s a rubber doll, you know, and water or milk, or even butter, won’t hurt her. You can give her back to me after you make the butter.”

“Oh, but Janet dear! To drop a—a rubber doll in my clean cream! And—and——”

“Oh, my doll was awful clean,” explained Janet. “I washed her nice just before I came over, really I did.”

“Well, that makes it better,” said Mrs. Kent with a smile. “Wait and I’ll fish her out for you, Janet. I guess my butter won’t be spoiled after all. It’s a good thing your doll is rubber.”

“That’s what I thought after she fell in,” Janet said. “It won’t hurt her a bit. And a lady once told my mamma that buttermilk was good for freckles. Only my doll hasn’t any.”

The doll was “fished” out of the churn, wiped off and given back to Janet, who tucked her under one arm and then hurried home with the spool of thread.

The Curlytops waited eagerly for their father to come home that night, for they wanted to ask him about Silver Lake.

“Yes,” he told them, after supper, when Janet and Ted had climbed on his knees and Trouble was seated in Uncle Ben’s lap, “we will spend our vacation at Silver Lake. I think you will like it there.”

“Shall we have a tent?” asked Ted.

“And a boat?” asked Jan.

“An’—an’—a drum?” Trouble wanted to know. “I wants a drum!”

“I don’t know about the drum!” said his father with a laugh, “but we’ll have a tent, and also a bungalow. We’ll eat in the tent when it doesn’t rain. We’ll also have a boat, for Silver Lake is a fine place for them. And there will be lots of other things so you children can have a good time. But now you must get to bed. We will start for Silver Lake to-morrow.”

And you can well believe that when to-morrow came the Curlytops were up bright and early. Such packing and getting ready as there was! But Daddy and Mother Martin, with the help of Patrick and Nora, managed to get things in shape finally. The automobile was brought around to the door. Turnover, the cat, had been shut up in a little crate, for she, also, was to be taken to Silver Lake.

“If we only had Skyrocket!” sighed Jan.

“Maybe he’ll find out where we are and come to us,” said Ted hopefully.

Trouble stood on the porch, holding Uncle Ben’s hand.

At the sight of the man with the brown beard, whom they had learned to like very much, Ted and Jan had a new thought.

“Oh, isn’t Uncle Ben coming with us?” cried the Curlytops.

“Yes, of course he is,” said Mr. Martin. “I forgot to tell you about him. Uncle Ben is coming with us, and will stay all summer at Silver Lake. He is to have charge of the boats there, for I own quite a number, and also a pavilion and a soda-water stand. Uncle Ben will have charge of them. It will be just the place for him, Dr. Whitney says, and will make him get well.”

“I’m sure it will,” said Uncle Ben himself. “I can’t tell you how much I thank you, Mr. Martin. And I am delighted to spend the summer with the Curlytops at Silver Lake. Come on now, Trouble, we’ll get aboard the auto.”

“All aboard for Silver Lake!” cried Ted gaily.

They started off, the whole family and Uncle Ben. Then, just as they reached a turn in the road, they heard a voice shouting:

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!”

Mr. Martin stopped the car.

“It’s Constable Juke!” said Mrs. Martin, looking around. “He is waving at us. I guess he wants to speak to us.”

“Oh, maybe he’s found the burglars and got back Miss Ransom’s queer box!” exclaimed Ted.

“And maybe he’s found Skyrocket!” echoed Jan.

Hurrying along the road, while the Curlytops waited for him in the automobile, came Constable Juke. What could he want?