trouble grunted. then he grunted again. then he tried to get up from the floor where, as the lumberman said, the little fellow had sat down in a puddle of molasses.
but trouble found he couldn’t get up. his clothing stuck to the messy, sweet stuff and thus was held to the floor, almost as if it had been tacked there.
then trouble began to cry.
his father had run around the end of the counter to look behind it as soon as the lumberman spoke of the molasses. ted and janet followed their father. thus all of them saw the trouble poor trouble was in.
“oh, he is stuck!” cried ted, hardly able to keep from laughing.
“you poor dear!” murmured janet. “i’ll get you up!”
“no, don’t go near him, or you’ll get in[138] the molasses, too,” warned mr. martin. “stay where you are, janet. i’ll lift trouble out. don’t cry, william,” he added kindly, as he saw tears rolling down the little fellow’s face. “you couldn’t help it—i suppose,” he went on. “that is, unless you opened the spigot of the molasses barrel.”
“i only—now—er—i—now—only opened it a little bit of a way,” sobbed trouble. “i wanted to see—now—how fast it would run out and it runned out an’ i—i couldn’t shut it off! oh, dear!”
“hum! i must put a lock on my molasses barrels if you are going to be around the store,” said mr. martin. he had first reached over trouble’s head and shut off the stream of sweet stuff which no longer dribbled out on the floor. then mr. martin lifted trouble from his sticky seat, having to pull rather hard to get the little fellow up from the floor.
“my, but you need a bath!” cried daddy martin, holding trouble as far away from him as possible so the dripping molasses would not soil his own clothes. “i guess i’ll dip you in the lake,” he added, with a laugh.
[139]“oh, yes, give me a swim!” cried trouble, thinking now only of this new fun.
“i believe i will,” said his father. “your clothes will have to be soaked, anyhow, to get the molasses off, and i may as well soak you and them at the same time. it’s a warm day—just right for a bath.”
“oh, may we go in, too?” begged ted.
“no, i’d rather you wouldn’t now,” his father said.
“anyhow, we’re going to play pilgrims,” said janet. “we’ll wait for you, trouble,” she went on. “we’ll wait until you get cleaned up.”
telling one of the clerks in the store to have the puddle of molasses mopped up and asking another man to look after things while he was gone, mr. martin took trouble down to the lake, which was not far from the woodland store.
“what in the world are you going to do, dick?” cried mrs. martin, as, coming over from the bungalow, she saw her husband on his way to the lake with baby william.
“daddy goin’ put me in water!” cried trouble, now as much delighted as he had been frightened.
“what has happened?” asked his mother.
[140]“he sat in the molasses!” answered ted.
“and he opened the barrel and it all ran out on the floor,” added janet.
“oh, trouble!” sighed his mother.
“there didn’t much molasses run out,” corrected mr. martin. “only about a quart, i guess, for he couldn’t get the spigot all the way open.”
he told what had happened, and said he thought the best way was to wash trouble and his sticky clothes at the same time.
“yes, it is a good way,” agreed mrs. martin. “i’ll do it, though, dick. you go clean yourself off and get back to the store.”
“i guess i need a little scrubbing myself,” admitted mr. martin, with a laugh, as he looked at the spots of molasses that had dripped from trouble to his trousers. luckily they were an old pair that he had put on to do some rough work about the store, and he could easily change them.
“dis lots ob fun!” announced trouble, as his mother sat him down in the shallow water at the edge of the lake. “i go swimmin’ wif my clothes on! ho! ho!”
“yes, it’s fun for you,” said his mother. “but it makes a lot of work for lucy. she’ll have to wash and iron your clothes.[141] i don’t suppose there is much use in telling you not to do it again, for i don’t believe you will do that same thing again. but you’ll do something just as bad.”
and those of you who know trouble will, no doubt, agree with mrs. martin.
everything comes to an end at last, and so did the cleaning of trouble. dressed in dry garments, he went off with his brother and sister to the woods to play “pigwim,” as he called it.
the children had with them some packages of crackers and other good things to eat for their lunch, and they hoped to have a lot of fun. nor were they disappointed, for it was a lovely day to wander out among the trees of the forest.
the curlytops and their little brother played “pigwim” in the woods, pretending to be early pilgrim father settlers in fear of an attack by the indians. ted took the part of the indians and made believe attack the log cabin of trouble and janet. the log cabin was made by piling some twigs the lumbermen had left against an old stump. afterwards ted pretended to chase trouble and janet through the woods and they hid away from him.
[142]the children finally became tired of this game and started another. then it was “time to eat,” as trouble said, so they found a flat stump for a table and spread out on it the lunch their father had given them from the store.
“doesn’t it taste good?” asked ted of his sister.
“awful good,” she agreed.
“better’n it does at home,” added ted.
“i ’ike it, too,” declared trouble.
as i suppose you have all noticed, a picnic lunch, even if it is only crackers or bread and butter, tastes better than the finest meal served on plates with silver knives and forks and a spotless tablecloth.
suddenly, when the children were eating the last of their lunch, they heard a crackling in the bushes near them, and trouble cried:
“it’s a bear!”
but it was nothing of the sort. it was only a couple of the lumbermen breaking their way through the underbrush and slashing at it with their sharp axes.
“hello, kiddies!” greeted one of the men, with whom the curlytops had been friendly.[143] “you’d better run away from here now,” he went on.
“is a bear comin’?” asked trouble.
“oh, no,” laughed the man. “but we’re going to cut down some trees near here, and you might get hurt. better run home.”
“couldn’t we stay and watch you cut?” asked ted.
“yes, if you get in a safe place,” was the answer.
“i’ll put them where they won’t get hit,” said the other man.
accordingly the curlytops and trouble were led to a secure place between some big rocks and tall trees, and there they could have a good view of the chopping work. even if some branches should fall near them, the rocks and trees would keep the toppling wood off.
then began the chopping of a giant of the forest. first one and then the other of the big lumbermen would send his axe biting deep into the wood of the tree they had marked to chop down.
chip! chop! chip! chop! sounded the axes, ringing out in the woods. silently the children watched.
[144]“she’s going to fall!” suddenly cried ted.
he had seen the top of the tree begin to quiver and shake, and he had learned to know that this meant the center had been chopped through.
“stand clear!” rang out the cry of the lumbermen, to warn anyone who might chance to be coming and who did not know what was going on.
there was a moment of silence and then the great trunk crashed to the ground, breaking in its fall many smaller trees and the bushes.
“when i grow up i’m going to cut trees down,” declared ted.
“i’d rather plant them and see them grow,” said janet.
“well, if they didn’t cut trees down we wouldn’t have any houses to live in,” teddy remarked.
“i s’pose so,” agreed his sister. “but it’s kind of sad to see a big tree that took years and years to grow chopped down in a few minutes.”
in the days that followed the curlytops had wonderfully good times in the woods. they watched the men chop down trees, they[145] saw the big logs floated down the lake or river to the mill, or else saw them skidded along through the forest to be sawed up into planks.
the sawmill itself was a place of great delight, and the children spent more time there than anywhere else. but they were told to be very careful, and were not allowed to go close to the giant saw unless their father or mother or one of the men went with them.
one day, when trouble was not feeling very well—though his illness was only a childish complaint that would soon pass—ted and janet started for the woods together.
“where are you going?” their mother asked them as they started off.
“oh, no place special,” answered ted. “i thought maybe i could catch a crow.”
“catch a crow? what for?” she asked.
“if i could catch one maybe i could tame it and teach it tricks,” replied the boy. “and then i could sell it to mr. jenk in place of his lame, tame crow that flew away.”
“he’d pay us a lot of money,” added[146] janet, who had been talked into this plan by her eager brother.
“i guess you’ll have a lot of trouble catching a crow,” laughed their mother. “and even if you do get one, you could never tame it. now don’t get into danger,” she added, as they walked off through the trees.
“we’ll be careful,” they promised.
and they really meant to. it only goes to show that you never can tell what will happen in the woods.
at first ted had an idea that it would be easy to catch a crow. he had made a sort of trap from a box that could be turned upside down and held raised at one end with a stick. to the stick was fastened a string. ted thought it was a fine trap.
“i’ll raise the box,” he explained to janet, “and i’ll put some corn under it. crows like corn. i’ll be hiding off in the bushes with the end of the string in my hand. then when a crow goes under the box to get the corn, i’ll pull the string and down will come the box.”
“i see!” cried janet. “and the crow will be under it.”
“yes,” agreed ted, “the crow will be[147] under it and we can take him out and tame him.”
but it was not as easy as it sounded. in the first place crows seemed very scarce that day. and it was not until the curlytops had tramped over a mile that they heard the distant cawing of one.
“i guess we’ve got to the right place,” whispered ted, as he heard the “caw! caw!”
“yes, set the trap now,” agreed janet.
accordingly the box was propped up on the stick and ted, with the end of the string in his hand, hid off behind a distant bush with janet, where they could watch the scattered corn under the box.
but though the cawing of the crows sounded nearer, none came to the trap, and after a long wait the curlytops thought they had better try a new place. they did, but all they caught in their trap was a hoptoad, and this they soon let go.
“well, maybe we’ll catch a crow some other day,” said ted.
“maybe,” agreed his sister.
they wandered on through the pleasant woods, and soon ted cried:
“look, there goes a fox!”
“where?” cried janet.
[148]“in that hollow log,” and ted pointed to one on the ground—an old giant of a fallen tree which had rotted from the inside until it was quite hollow, like a pipe. “i’m going in and catch that fox,” decided ted. “i’d rather catch a fox, any day, than a crow.”
“yes, it’s bigger,” said janet.
neither of them stopped to think that it might be dangerous for a small boy to crawl into a hollow log after a fox. for though a fox is rather a cowardly creature, slinking around only at night to catch hens out of the coop, still a fox has sharp teeth, and, cornered in a hollow log, one would make a savage fight to get away.
“i’ll crawl in and get him,” said ted, as he and his sister reached the hollow log. “you stand at the other end,” he directed janet, “and if he comes out there, grab him!”
“won’t he bite?” asked janet.
“oh, no!” declared ted. and that was all he knew about it!
“maybe you’d better poke a long stick in and drive him out that way,” suggested janet. “it’s better’n crawling in.”
ted thought of this for a moment.
“i’ll try it,” he agreed.
[149]he thrust the longest pole he could find into the hollow log, but no fox ran out the other end into the waiting hands of janet.
“i guess i can’t quite reach him,” decided ted. “i’ll crawl in after him.”
he took off his coat to make the crawling easier, and started in at one end of the hollow log. janet, as directed, was at the other end to be ready in case the fox ran out.
teddy’s head disappeared from sight inside the log. then his body wiggled in and lastly his legs vanished. all that stuck out were his two feet, and from her end of the log janet saw these waving up and down and from side to side. but they did not disappear. they remained outside the log.
“why don’t you crawl all the way in, ted?” asked his sister.
“i—i—can’t,” came the muffled answer.
“you can’t? why not?”
“’cause i’m stuck! i’m stuck! oh, janet, i’m stuck in the log and i can’t get out!” wailed teddy.
