CHAPTER XXIV
TROUBLE’S PUSSY
Mr. Martin, hearing what his wife said, gave a quick look ahead across the stormy lake. Then, seeing no other boats in his course, he fastened the steering wheel, so the Pine Tree would keep on in a straight line, and down into the cabin he hurried. He saw just what the others had seen—the pile of valises and also the wooden box with the cover opened.
“It surely is the wrong box!” said the father of the Curlytops. He noticed a collection of wigs, false beards and mustaches, together with a number of tubes of colored paint such as actors use whether in the movies or on the stage.
“Where are Mr. Cardwell’s albums?” Ted asked.
“I suppose they are back in New York in Mr. Portnay’s studio,” said his father.
“Unless he has discovered his mistake by this time,” suggested Mrs. Martin, “and has sent the right box on to us at the lumber camp.”
“He wouldn’t know we were at the lumber camp,” said her husband. “We only stopped there by accident.”
“But Mr. Portnay knows that his company was there, making films,” went on Mrs. Martin. “And he might think that they could tell where we were. I say, let’s go back to the lumber camp and see if the right box isn’t there.”
Mr. Martin thought this over a moment or two, while the Curlytops and Trouble looked out of small windows, or portholes, in the cabin, noting how rough the lake was growing. The storm was getting worse, and the wind was howling loudly.
“There has been a mix-up and mistake about this box of albums from the start,” said Mr. Martin. “I don’t see how Mr. Portnay could make a mistake a second time and send us his paints and false wigs in place of the old books.”
“The boxes look exactly alike,” said Mrs. Martin. “I guess these movie people are so busy thinking about the parts they are going to play that they don’t pay any attention to much else. Or perhaps Mr. Portnay’s man may have caused the mix-up.”
“Well, it’s a mix-up all right,” her husband said. “And I think your advice, to go back to the lumber camp, is the best thing we can do. As you say, that movie man may come there or send the box there. We’ll go back.”
“I’d like to be out of this storm,” went on Mrs. Martin. “It is getting much worse.”
“Yes,” agreed her husband, “it is. I think I can turn back, though, with safety if I use care.”
“But if we have the movie man’s things that he puts on his face to make him look different in pictures, how can he act?” asked Ted.
“I guess he can easily get another make-up box,” replied his father. “But it is impossible for us to get other Cardwell albums, and the pictures of the twins, now dead, and the young boy lost at sea. We simply must get back the right box. So I’ll go up and turn the boat around. Better hold fast, everybody, for it will be rougher going the other way.”
“I’ll come up on deck and help you steer,” offered Ted.
“No, Son, you’d better stay below with your mother, and help straighten up the cabin,” suggested his father. “Pick up the valises and wrap up that wrong box. Mr. Portnay will want it back, I think.”
The Curlytops helped their mother set things to rights, and then, indeed, they had to hold on, for the Pine Tree pitched and tossed in the storm, much as might her namesake in a forest with a big wind blowing.
Once it almost seemed that the boat was going to turn over, so far did she tilt to one side. It began to rain, too, and Mr. Martin, up on deck, had to put on his rubber coat. But he was a good sailor, and knew how to manage the boat.
In the afternoon, following a hasty meal on cold victuals, for Mrs. Martin did not want to light the stove in the storm, the boat seemed to ride easier.
“I guess it’s going to clear off,” said Janet.
But it was not that. Mr. Martin was near shore now, and under the lee of a big hill, which kept off some of the wind.
When evening came the touring Curlytops and their family were back where they had started from—the place where the river ran out of the lake.
“We’ll tie up here for the night, and when morning comes we’ll navigate down the river,” said Mr. Martin. “We’ll get to the lumber camp more quickly than we came away from it, for we shall be going downstream instead of against the current.”
“Suppose the movie people are gone—what then?” asked Ted.
“Well, the men in the lumber camp will know where they went,” answered his father. “We’ll find them sooner or later, and get back the right box of albums.”
It was still raining hard, but the wind did not blow so fiercely in the sheltered place where the Pine Tree was anchored. Jan was glad of this, for she did not like rough weather.
It was in the middle of the night, when the storm seemed to have quieted down a bit, that Trouble awakened his mother by calling to her. Mrs. Martin was ever on the alert for the calls of her children in the night, and she had formed a habit of answering them when but half awake herself. Usually it was only a drink that William wanted.
But this time, when Mrs. Martin became aware that he was calling to her from his little bunk in the sleeping cabin, she did not hear him ask for water.
“Mommie! Mommie!” murmured the little fellow.
“Yes, dear, what is it?” asked his mother sleepily.
“Why don’t you let the pussy in?” asked Trouble.
“What pussy, Trouble?” she asked, not yet quite awake. “There isn’t any pussy here. You must be dreaming. Go to sleep again.”
“Yes they is a pussy!” insisted the little fellow, sitting up in his berth. His mother could see him in the dim little electric light. “They is a pussy and she’s mewing and she wants to come in out of the rain. Bring her in, Mommie.”
Mrs. Martin thought Trouble was imagining all this, or that it was part of a dream. Often he had dreams and went right on with them when he awoke.
“I’ll get you a drink, and then you can go back to sleep again,” his mother said, as she got up.
“Pussy wants a drink, too,” declared Trouble. “She wants a drink of milk. There! Didn’t you hear her mew?”
There came a lull in the storm and, to her surprise, Mrs. Martin heard, through a porthole opened for ventilation on the leeward side of the boat, the mewing of a cat.
“Why, Trouble!” she exclaimed, “there is a pussy out in the rain. The poor thing!”
“It’s my pussy!” declared the little fellow. “Bring her in!”