teddy was piling some sticks up against the stump, to make it look more like a playhouse. but as he heard his sister call out about the lame, tame crow, the curlytop boy dropped the sticks and cried:
“where is he? show him to me and i’ll catch him and get the ten dollars. i’ll give you half! where is he, janet?”
“up there!” and his sister pointed amid the trees.
ted came and stood beside her until he could look up along her outstretched arm, hand and finger.
“what you playin’?” asked trouble, who had come back, tired of looking for pretty stones. “i wants play game!”
“this isn’t any game,” explained janet. “i’m showing teddy where mr. jenk’s crow is—the lame, tame crow. do you see him, ted?” she asked.
“yes, i see a crow,” he answered a moment later. “but how do you know he is mr. jenk’s?”
“because! look how he stands!” answered janet.
as she spoke the woodpecker tapped again.
tap! tap! tappity-tap-tap! rat-a-tat! went the hard bill of the woodpecker on the hollow limb of a tree. it was like a distant little drum.
and as surely as ted and janet looked, to say nothing of trouble peering up into the trees—as surely as the children looked, when the sound of the woodpecker’s bill echoed through the woods, the crow stood on one leg. at least it seemed so to the children.
“look! look!” cried janet. “he’s standing on one leg just like mr. jenk’s crow used to do!”
“and he has the other leg sticking out,” added ted. “janet, i believe this is the tame crow!” he exclaimed. “but how did it ever get away up here in the woods?”
“i don’t know,” answered his sister.
the woodpecker kept on tapping, for that was his way of getting something to eat—bugs[198] and worms that he pulled out of holes he drilled in the rotten wood of the tree. the woodpecker cared nothing about the crow.
and as the woodpecker tapped the crow still stood on one leg, with the other, as nearly as the children could see, stuck out to one side, stiff and straight.
“that surely is mr. jenk’s crow!” declared janet.
“if he’d only pop like a cork coming from a bottle we’d be certain,” said teddy. “then i’d get him.”
“how can you get him?” janet wanted to know.
“i’ll climb the tree!” cried teddy. “i can do it!”
he started toward the tree, but just then janet cried:
“look! i think he’s going to pop!” she meant that the crow might be going to imitate the pulling of a cork from a bottle. “he’s got his mouth open,” went on janet.
teddy, too, saw this, and he was beginning to make very sure that it was mr. jenk’s crow when suddenly, as the black bird had his mouth open, there sounded at some distance in the woods the cry of:
[199]“caw! caw! caw!”
it was another crow hoarsely calling, and as the noise came to the crow that was standing on one leg, he gave forth an answering:
“caw! caw! caw!”
“oh, dear!” cried janet as she heard this. “he was just going to pop the cork when that other crow hollered and made him holler. but i’m sure it was mr. jenk’s lame, tame crow, ted.”
“i think so, too. anyhow, i’ll go up the tree and get him!”
why teddy thought he could climb a tree and catch the crow i can’t tell you. certainly if the boy had been a bit older, or if he had stopped to think, he would have known that a bird that can fly and hop cannot be caught by some one climbing a tree after it.
and that’s just what happened to teddy. no sooner did he start to climb the tree than again the cawing sounded distantly in the woods. it was answered by the crow who was still standing on one leg. and then this black bird that the curlytops were watching suddenly put both claws down on the limb.
an instant later he spread out his wings[200] and soared away, flying off through the trees.
“oh, he’s gone!” sighed janet.
“maybe i can watch where he goes!” cried her brother.
he ran forward through the trees, but a crow can fly much faster than a small boy can run—or even a large boy for that matter—and soon the black bird was lost to sight.
“oh, well, maybe he’ll come back,” said janet, trying to comfort her brother.
“i hope he does,” said teddy. “i’d like to get that ten dollars. i’m sure it was mr. jenk’s crow.”
but when they told their father and mother about it mr. and mrs. martin only laughed.
“it couldn’t be the same crow that got away from our neighbor, mr. jenk,” mr. martin said. “i don’t believe it would fly up this far, though of course a crow that wasn’t lame could fly many miles.”
“but he stood on one leg, just like mr. jenk’s tame crow used to when we snapped our fingers, or made a tapping sound,” explained ted.
“yes, birds often stand on one leg,” said[201] his father. “and so do chickens. lots of times i’ve seen one of our roosters stand on one leg with the other drawn up under his feathers to keep warm.”
“well, maybe it wasn’t mr. jenk’s crow, but it looked like him and it acted like him,” decided janet.
however, there was no help for it. the crow, whatever crow it might be, had flown away and might never be seen again. the curlytops were a bit sad and disappointed for a while, but soon got over this feeling as there were so many things to do in the woods and so much fun to have in the lumber camp.
ted had gotten all over his scare of being lost in the woods and of being followed by the bobcat. in fact he wanted to start out to try to hunt the lynx.
“we could easy catch him,” he said to his father.
“i hardly think so,” said mr. martin, with a smile. “a lynx is almost as shy as a fox unless he is trailing some animal he isn’t afraid of.”
“but he followed me,” said teddy.
“well, it just wanted to see who you were,” said the boy’s father. “i don’t believe[202] the lynx would have jumped down on you to scratch or bite you. it was just curious.”
some of the lumbermen said the same thing, adding that not unless they were cornered would a bobcat attack a man. so ted was really not in as much danger as he had tried to think he was. still it was scary enough for the little chap.
work at the lumber camp went on from day to day. dozens of great trees were chopped down to be sawed up into boards. quite a pile of sawdust was mounting near the mill now, and the children loved to play in this. they would climb to a point near the top of the pile. then they would leap into it near the bottom and they could not get hurt because the sawdust was so soft.
however, it got into their shoes, so most of the time they played in the sawdust bare-footed. but it also got down inside their clothes and scratched them; so that every time they played in the sawdust pile they had to go in and take off their clothes, shaking them out to get rid of the ticklish, powdered wood particles. still they thought this was part of the fun.
once, when trouble climbed to a higher[203] point for the jumping off place than he had ever before been allowed to reach, and when he had jumped into the sawdust, ted and janet couldn’t find him.
“trouble! trouble! where are you?” cried janet, looking down the sawdust slope for a sight of her small brother.
there was no answer and not a sign of him.
“oh, ted!” called janet. “trouble’s gone!”
“he’s down in the sawdust!” ted answered. “he must have jumped into a hole and he’s covered up. we’ll have to dig him out!”
they did not wait to call or run for help, but, with their hands, began digging in the soft and fluffy pile. in a few seconds they had uncovered trouble’s head. he was all right, except that he was rather badly frightened. as teddy had explained, trouble had sunk down in a soft part of the sawdust pile, and more of the dust sliding down had covered him up.
“are you hurt, trouble?” asked janet.
“me ’ike it,” he answered, with a laugh. “i hab ’ots ob fun!”
back he climbed to jump off again, but[204] ted would not let him leap from so great a height.
“if we hadn’t been here you might have been buried in the sawdust all night,” warned teddy.
“it be nice an’ warm in there—nice as my bed!” declared trouble. and that is all concerning the danger they could impress on him.
the sawdust pile continued to be a place of much fun for the curlytops. sometimes they would start at the top and slide to the bottom of the big heap, getting their curly hair full of the dust, to the despair of their mother and lucy.
“but chilluns suah hab got to play!” chuckled the black maid, as she used the brush.
and play the curlytops did!
mr. martin did not want to spend too much time in the woods, as his own store, back at cresco, needed attention. but there was so much to do at mount major in order to get the lumber store well started and the men who were to be left in charge needed so much advice that the father of the curlytops had to remain longer than at first he had intended.
[205]however, ted, janet and trouble did not mind, as they thought there was no finer place in all the world than the woods where they were camping. and as the children liked it and as it was doing them good to be out in the woods and the fresh air, mrs. martin was willing to stay.
mr. martin had nothing to do with the cutting of the trees and the floating of them to the mill to be cut up into lumber. but he owned some shares in the company, which is the reason he took such an interest in the store. he wanted to see it do well.
so the curlytops remained in the woods, and it began to look as though the whole summer would be spent there.
“i think it’s the best vacation we ever had,” said ted.
“so do i,” agreed his sister.
“certainly the children never looked better,” declared mrs. martin. “i’m glad we came.”
there were so many things to watch in the lumber business that the children never found time hanging heavy on their hands if they did not care to play. they could visit the mill, watch great trees being chopped down, they could see the men making up[206] rafts in the river or the lake and they could see the sawed boards being carted off to be shipped on railroad trains.
“i like best to see the logs go down the chute into the river,” said ted to his sister, when they were talking about the different sights around camp. “let’s go over there now,” he suggested.
“are you sure you won’t get lost?” asked janet. for it was in going to this chute before that ted wandered off and got lost in the woods.
“oh, i know the way now,” he said. “come on!”
the curlytops started, but trouble called after them:
“i ’ants to go!”
“shall we take him or hide?” asked ted. often when they did not want william to tag after them, the brother and sister would hide. after trouble had tearfully searched for them, not finding them, he would go to his mother to be comforted. in this way ted and janet would find a chance to slip off where they wanted to go.
“oh, let’s take him along—don’t hide from him,” said janet, who had a soft spot in her heart for trouble.
[207]“come on then,” invited ted.
soon the three children were wandering through the woods on the way to the lumber chute. the path was plain now, being much worn by constant use, and they could not get lost. so their mother was not worried about their trip, only warning them to be careful of trouble.
“we will,” promised janet.
well, of course she meant to be, and so did ted. but you never could tell what trouble would do.
when the children reached the place they found that the men were away. the choppers had gone farther back in the woods to cut down more trees, having sent down the chute all that were near it.
that is, all the logs had been sent down but one, and this had stuck in the chute near the top, being balanced like a teeter-totter, or seesaw, on the very edge of the chute.
the log was perfectly balanced at the middle, half of it hanging down the chute and the other half extending over the end where the men stood to start the logs on their trip to the river, a hundred feet or more below.
before ted or janet could stop him,[208] trouble had climbed up on the chute and had gotten astride the log. then he found that it moved up and down, like a seesaw.
“trouble hab fine ride!” he said.
he wiggled himself until he actually had the log moving up and down, with him on it. a moment later the log might have become unbalanced and have gone down the chute, taking trouble with it to the river below. ted saw the danger at once, and in an instant sprang and pulled his little brother from the log.
“trouble, you shouldn’t do that!” he cried.
“i want wide!” protested the little fellow.
“yes, you’d have one ride too many if you rolled down the chute into the river with the log,” said ted.
“hi there! keep away from that chute!” shouted some of the men, coming back just then with teams that had hauled more logs to be slid down. “keep away!”
“i am,” ted answered. “i was just taking trouble away!”
and, for his own good, so he would not again do anything so dangerous, the men scolded trouble and made him cry. then he promised not to climb up on the chute again.
[209]it was better to have trouble crying unhurt than to have him crying after an accident. ted and janet knew this.
for a time they watched the men rolling the logs into the chute and saw them go pitching to the river far below. then, having had enough of this fun, the curlytops and trouble wandered back through the forest to the bungalow.
as they neared it they saw some clouds of smoke floating over the trees.
“must be running the sawmill engine extra fast,” said ted.
“don’t you smell something burning?” asked janet.
ted sniffed the air and shook his head to say that he smelled nothing.
“well, i do!” cried janet. she ran on a little farther, and then she saw what it was.
“ted! ted!” she shouted. “the big sawdust pile is on fire!”
