MR. CAPPER'S BUNS
Forgetting in the excitement, all about teaching Skyrocket and Top to do
some tricks together, as Tip and Top did before Tip was lost, Teddy and
Janet ran across the street toward Mrs. Johnson, who was standing beside
the carriage in which was her baby. Near her was Trouble, but the little
fellow did not seem to be as excited as was Mrs. Johnson.
"Trouble," cried Janet, as she took hold of her little brother's arm,
"did you tease Ruth?" Ruth was the name of Mrs. Johnson's baby, and
though Trouble was, usually, a good little chap, he might have done
something to make a baby cry, Janet realized.
"I didn't do nuffin'!" declared Trouble.
"Oh, no, Trouble is all right!" said Mrs. Johnson. "It's a big, black
snake that has crawled into my baby's carriage. I put Ruth out here to
have her sleep, and I looked from the window every once in a while to see
that she was all right."
"And she was, for quite a while. But a moment ago, when I looked, I saw
Trouble near the carriage, and then I saw a big, ugly snake crawling over
Ruth's robe. Oh, where is it? Where's the snake, darling? Did the snake
bite you?" and Mrs. Johnson caught Ruth up from the carriage in her arms.
"I never knew a snake would crawl up into a baby carriage," said Teddy.
"I don't see any; do you, Jan?"
"No," answered his sister, "I don't!"
"There it is! Look!" cried Mrs. Johnson, pointing with one hand, while
she held Ruth close to her in her other arm. The baby had been rather
rudely awakened from her sleep, and she was just getting ready to cry.
Her lips were puckering up, and in another moment she would let out a
yell. Janet and Teddy knew this, for they had, often enough, watched
Trouble do the same thing when he was smaller.
"There's the snake!" exclaimed Mrs. Johnson, and, as she spoke and
pointed, the Curlytops saw something black crawl out from among the
folds of the robes in the baby carriage.
Ted had one glimpse of the head of the reptile, and then the boy cried:
"That isn't a snake! It's Slider, our pet alligator! How did he get
here?"
"A pet alligator?" cried Mrs. Johnson. "In my Ruth's carriage! How did it
get here?"
"I bringed it!" said Trouble, in the silence that followed.
"You what?" cried Janet.
"I bringed Slider ober to play wif Ruff!" said Trouble. "I play wif
Slider in barn, and den hims hoots get tired, so I bringed him over to
ride in de carriage wif Ruff."
"What does he mean?" asked Mrs. Johnson, crooning to "Ruff," as Trouble
called the baby, and making the little one quiet. For William was using
some of his "baby talk," which he often did when he was excited.
"He means that the alligator's feet got tired, I suppose," translated
Janet. "He says 'hoots' for 'feet.' He must mean that Slider got tired of
sliding down the board."
Mrs. Johnson looked from one Curlytop to the other, and then at Trouble.
A puzzled look was on her face.
"Really, children dear," she said, "_you_ may know what you are talking
about, but _I_ don't. What with hoots, Slider and a board I'm all mixed
up!"
"I bringed him--I bringed Slider," explained Trouble.
"Yes, we know you did that," said Teddy. "But you shouldn't have,
Trouble. It was wrong to take our pet out of the barn, and it was wrong
to put Slider in the baby carriage."
"Yes, we didn't know Trouble was going to do anything like this," said
Janet, apologizing for her little brother's misdeed. "But Ted and I were
talking about what tricks we'd get Skyrocket and Top to do, now that Tip
is gone. And we'd just got through watching Snuff do a new trick on top
of a football, so we didn't watch Trouble very much."
"How many pets you have!" exclaimed Mrs. Johnson. "I suppose those are
pets you have been talking about?" she asked.
"Ours and Uncle Toby's," answered Teddy. "We have more pets than we ever
had before, and we're going to give a circus. Will you come, Mrs.
Johnson?"
"An' bring Ruff!" invited Trouble.
There was a laugh at this.
"If you love Ruth you mustn't put Slider in her carriage any more,"
cautioned Janet, as she lifted the pet alligator out from among the
blankets. "Little babies don't like alligators."
"All wite. I like 'em," said Trouble, and then he ran back across the
street.
"We'll be going now," said Teddy to Mrs. Johnson. "We're sorry William
made trouble."
"Oh, he didn't mean to," said Ruth's mother. "He's a dear little fellow.
I must come over and see your pets. Ruth loves a pussy or a dog, but she
doesn't know much about alligators."
"We have a monkey, too," said Janet.
"And a parrot named Mr. Nip," added her brother.
"And white rats and mice! They're real cute!" exclaimed Janet.
"I don't believe I would like the mice!" said Mrs. Johnson.
"But ours are white," Janet explained. "That makes a big difference.
They're as nice as rabbits!"
"They wouldn't be for me," said Ruth's mother, with a laugh. "Good-bye,
Curlytops! Come over again, and bring a pussy or doggie with you."
Ted and Janet promised they would, and then they hurried back across the
street after Trouble. They wanted to make sure he would not get into any
more mischief with the pets.
Daddy Martin was told, that evening after supper, all that had happened
during the day, from the discovery that Slider and Snuff could do tricks,
to the finding of the pet alligator in baby Ruth's carriage.
"Well, it seems you had lots of excitement to-day," he said to his wife.
"Just a little," she agreed.
"But if Uncle Toby's pets are to make trouble I don't know that we can
keep them," Daddy Martin said.
Teddy and Janet looked at each other.
"Oh, we can't let them go now!" exclaimed Teddy.
"We're just getting to love them!" his sister added.
"And we haven't found out any tricks yet that the white mice can do,"
Teddy went on. "We haven't even named 'em!"
"Well, I suppose if the neighbors don't complain I shouldn't," admitted
Mr. Martin. "But with the monkey scaring Mrs. Blake, and the alligator
scaring Mrs. Johnson----"
"They weren't very _much_ scared," interrupted Ted. "Please let us keep
Uncle Toby's pets! We want to give a circus."
"We'll see," said Mr. Martin. "I hope nothing more will happen, though,
to annoy the neighbors."
"We'll watch our pets so they won't get out," promised Ted and Janet.
The next few days were spent by the Curlytops in getting better
acquainted with the animals that had been brought from Uncle Toby's. They
liked their new pets more and more the more they saw of them. Of course
they wished they could get Tip back, but that trick dog seemed to have
vanished.
Daddy Martin put an advertisement in the paper, and offered a reward to
whoever would bring Tip back, but there were no answers--at least none
that amounted to anything. It is true that several men and boys came with
strange dogs they thought answered the description of the missing Tip,
but none of the animals was the pet so much wanted.
Nor was anything heard of the missing youth "Shorty." He seemed to have
disappeared with the poodle, and the police said they believed Shorty
knew where Tip was, and had, perhaps, taken him away in order to sell
him.
"Well, of course we have enough animals without Tip to give a show," said
Teddy. "But I'd love to get Tip back. And I guess Top is lonesome without
him."
"I guess so, too," added Janet.
But if Top was lonesome he showed no signs of it after one or two days.
He made friends with Skyrocket, as Snuff did with Turnover, and the dogs
and cats lived happily together.
But alas for the hopes of Mr. Martin that his neighbors would not again
be troubled by the pets of the Curlytops. It was about a week after the
animals had been brought from Uncle Toby's house that, as Mr. Martin was
coming home from the store rather early one afternoon, he saw a crowd in
front of the bakeshop of Mr. Capper, just around the corner from the home
of the Curlytops.
"I hope that isn't a fire in Mr. Capper's bakery," thought Daddy Martin,
for more than once hot grease had boiled over in the bakeshop and caused
slight fires.
As Mr. Martin approached Mr. Capper's store he heard loud laughter from
the crowd of men and boys in front of the show window.
"It can't be a fire, or they wouldn't laugh," said the father of the
Curlytops. "I wonder what it is?"
He hastened on, and as he came within view of the bakery window he
uttered an exclamation of surprise. For there, among the buns, eating
them and playing among the other cakes, were several large white rats and
mice.
"Look at that one big one stand up on his hind legs and nibble a bun just
like a squirrel!" said a man watching the antics of the white rats and
mice among Mr. Capper's buns. If this man had only known it, squirrels
and rats belong to the same family, that called "rodents," only a
squirrel has a much larger tail than a rat or a mouse.
"I wonder what in the world Mr. Capper lets those white rats stay in his
bakeshop window for?" thought Mr. Martin, as he ran up. "They are not
harmful, of course, but people will not like to eat bakery stuff after
rats and mice, even if they are white, have run around them. It's a poor
advertisement."
At that moment the baker himself, who had been out in his oven-room, came
running into the shop. He gave one look at his window, saw the white rats
and mice playing around in and nibbling his choice buns, and then the
baker cried:
"Oh, who did this? Who played this trick on me and spoiled my buns? Who
let those mice in there?"
"Didn't you do it yourself?" asked Mr. Martin, who knew the baker very
well, having traded with him for a number of years.
"Let those mice in my window? Never!" cried Mr. Capper. "Why should I do
a thing like that?"
"I thought maybe it was for an advertisement--to attract customers to
your store," said Mr. Martin. "Though I thought it was rather funny."
"It is too funny!" cried the baker. "All my buns are spoiled, and I just
baked them. As for customers--I have a crowd, yes, but they will not buy
what the mice have nibbled.
"Whose mice are they? Whose white rats are they? I ask you that!" cried
the baker, who was much excited. "A little while ago two boys come in to
buy cookies. I wait on them, and I go back to my oven. Then the next I
know I see a crowd and I come out to find--these!"
He pointed to the white rats and mice that were having a fine time among
the buns in the bakeshop window.
"You say two boys were here a little while ago?" asked Mr. Martin, and he
began to have a suspicion of what had happened.
"Two boys," replied the baker. "They have a box with them--Ha! here is
the box now. It is the cage that the mice got out of!" he cried, pointing
to a box with a wire front on the floor of the store, in a corner.
"Uncle Toby's box!" exclaimed Mr. Martin, in a low voice.
"What's that?" cried the baker. "You know these white rats and mice, Mr.
Martin?"
"I'm afraid I do," said the father of the Curlytops. "My children got
some new pets from an uncle of mine--Uncle Toby. Among the pets were
white mice and rats. That is the box we brought them in from Pocono. But
how did the box get here?"
"Some boys brought it in, I am telling you," the baker answered. "Two
boys."
"Did you know them? Was one my son Teddy?" asked Mr. Martin.
"I do not know--I forgot to look I was in such a hurry, for my bread was
almost burning in my oven. I run to the store quick, as I am all alone
now; I wait on the boys, they want cookies; and I run back to my oven.
Now I come--the rats--the mice!" and Mr. Capper, who was a Frenchman,
raised his hands in the air over his head in despair.
"I wonder if Ted could have done this?" mused Mr. Martin.
And then he heard Teddy's voice calling:
"Come on, Jim! Here they are! We left the rats here, and--Oh, I say!
Look! They got out of the cage, and look what they're doing to the buns!"
A moment later Teddy Martin came pushing his way through the crowd now in
the bakery.