AT THE FARM
While the young Curlytops did not think much about the missing albums,
they could see that their father was worried because he had not got
them back from Mr. Portnay. And anything that worried their father and
mother also worried Ted and Janet.
For they could see that Mr. Martin was bothered by the failure to meet
the moving picture actor and get back from him the box his man had
taken by mistake, thinking it contained false hair, false beards and
make-up paint.
“What are you going to do?” Mrs. Martin asked her husband.
“I hardly know,” was his answer.
“Can’t you telephone or telegraph on ahead to Cub Mountain and ask him
to wait for us, or to leave the box of albums where we can get it when
we arrive there to-morrow?” Mrs. Martin asked.
“I might do that if I knew where to send a telegram or where to
telephone to Mr. Portnay,” answered her husband. “That’s what I should
have done here--sent a telegram to that actor at this hotel. He would
have received it and have left the box here for me. But I didn’t think
of that; so he has gone on, taking my box with him. Very likely, he
doesn’t even know he has it; he is so busy making this picture.”
“You say you can’t reach him at Cub Mountain?” Mrs. Martin inquired.
“No, the people at this hotel say Cub Mountain is only a small
settlement, and that there isn’t even a hotel there. If the moving
picture company doesn’t set up a camp, Mr. Portnay will probably
stop with some friends or in a private boarding house. There may be
telephones in some houses or cabins at Cub Mountain, but there is no
telegraph station there. The only thing to do will be to go on there.”
“Now?” asked Ted, who was getting hungry and who looked at the Midvale
hotel with longing eyes.
“Oh, no, we won’t go on now,” replied his father. “We’ll stay here for
the night and travel on to Cub Mountain in the morning. The roads
aren’t any too good. I want to travel them by daylight. Well, you may
as well get out and come in,” he told his wife and children.
While Mrs. Martin was signing her name to the hotel register, she
listened to her husband talking to the clerk about the moving picture
actor.
“Yes, he was here,” the clerk said; “he and a number of his company.
But the crowd stayed only to eat and then went on. I heard one of them
say they had a lot of scenes to take at Cub Mountain, and they wanted
to start the work early in the morning.”
“Did you see Mr. Portnay have a reddish brown box, about so large?”
inquired Mr. Martin, showing the size of the little chest containing
the albums.
“No, he didn’t bring in any baggage,” was the answer.
“Then it’s probably still in his car,” said the Curlytops’ father. “I
hope I can get it back to-morrow.”
They went up to their rooms, Ted and his father having one, with two
beds in it, while Mrs. Martin took Janet and Trouble in with her.
“Better get ready to eat, children,” suggested their father, as he
noticed Ted and Janet looking from the windows out across the country,
for Midvale was on the side of a hill from which a good view could be
had.
Mrs. Martin washed Trouble, and put clean clothes on him from the
supply carried in the valises, and thus he was first ready to go down
to the dining room. When neither his father nor his mother noticed him
he wandered out into the hall.
Mr. and Mrs. Martin were ready to go down, and so were Ted and Janet,
when Trouble’s mother looked around for him.
“Where’s William?” she asked.
“I saw him go out into the hall,” answered Ted. “I’ll get him.”
As he opened the door to go into the hall, the others following, they
heard the tinkle of broken glass, and then, directly afterward, a bell
began to ring.
Instantly, throughout the hotel, which was not a very large one, there
was a great commotion. The elevator shot up to the floor where the
Martin family stood and the colored boy in the cage cried:
“Come on! Git in! Ah’ll take yo’ all down ’fore de place burns!”
“Before the place burns? What do you mean?” asked Mr. Martin. “The
hotel isn’t burning!”
“Yes, ’tis!” cried the colored elevator lad, his eyes big with fright.
“Doan yo’ all hear de ’larm!”
“I do hear a bell ringing!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin.
There was more commotion in the hotel, and several guests began running
from their rooms, carrying bags and clothing. It began to look as if
there was a fire, but there was no appearance of flames, nor could Mrs.
Martin smell smoke.
Then Ted exclaimed:
“It was Trouble! He sent in a false alarm! Trouble pulled the fire
alarm! Look!”
He pointed to the little fellow who was climbing down from a chair in
the hall. The chair was some distance down the corridor, and near a
small red box fast to the wall.
In a moment Mr. Martin understood. He had seen these fire signal
stations in various places about the hotel. In front of a small iron
box was a sheet of glass, and hanging down from the box by a chain was
a little iron hammer. Directions on the box said to break the glass
with the hammer and pull down the hook inside, which could only be
reached when the glass was smashed.
“Trouble smashed the glass and pulled the hook!” cried Ted.
“I heard some glass break,” added Janet.
Mr. Martin ran down the hall to the small boy, who stood near the
chair. On the carpet were pieces of shattered glass.
“Trouble, did you do this?” cried his father.
“I--now--I jist hit the glass a little wif de hammer and it did break,”
confessed William. “Den I pulled on de button hook!”
“Well, you did more than that!” exclaimed his father, with a grim
laugh. “You sent in the alarm when you pulled the hook. There’s no
danger, my friends!” he called to the guests who were crowding out into
the corridor. “There’s no fire. It was a false alarm! I shall have to
punish my little boy for breaking the glass and sending in a false
alarm.”
“Oh, don’t punish him!” murmured a lady, who in running from her room
had caught up a canary bird in a cage and a pair of old slippers. She
hardly knew what she was doing in the excitement.
“No, he didn’t mean to do it,” said a man. Trouble, by this time, knew
he had done something dreadful, and was crying behind his mother’s
skirts.
Luckily, the alarm Trouble caused to be sent in was only a private one,
just in the hotel itself. It did not bring the Midvale fire department
out, for word went to the clerk downstairs that there was no danger and
he did not call out the engines or hook and ladder apparatus.
So, after all, little harm was done, except to cause some excitement
and fright among the hotel guests. But this soon passed, and when the
Martins went to the dining room a little later, every one looked at
Trouble as a guest of some importance.
“But don’t ever do it again!” his mother warned him.
“No’m, I won’t,” he promised.
The broken glass was swept up by one of the chambermaids, and a new
sheet put in front of the hook in the fire alarm box.
That evening after dinner Mr. Martin took his family to the moving
picture theater near the hotel. You can imagine how surprised they
were when one of the pictures proved to have been made by Mr. Portnay’s
company, and he himself took a large part in it.
There, on the screen, the children saw the very man they had watched
act in the green meadow that morning. Ned Weldon, the cowboy actor with
whom the children had talked, was in it, too. Of course these were not
the scenes they had watched being filmed, for that picture was far from
being finished. But it was very exciting to see the people they had so
recently watched.
“I wish Portnay were here in person instead of only in the movies,”
remarked Mr. Martin, as they left the theater. “I’d ask him for those
rare albums. But I suppose we shall have to wait until we meet him at
Cub Mountain.”
The next morning, after a quiet night, the Curlytops resumed their
tour, and made a safe trip to Cub Mountain, on which was a small
country settlement. The scenery was just wild enough to be the right
background for moving pictures.
“Where are you going to inquire about Mr. Portnay?” asked Mrs. Martin,
as her husband stopped his car on what appeared to be the only, as
well as the main, street of the village.
“Right here in the post-office,” he answered, for it was in front of
the post-office that they had stopped. “They’ll know here about the
moving picture people, I guess.”
But again Mr. Martin was doomed to disappointment. For when he inquired
of the postmaster that official said:
“Yes, there was a company of movie people here. But that was early this
morning--about three hours ago, I reckon.”
“Have they left?” asked Mr. Martin, wishing he had made an earlier
start.
“Yes, they went on to the Dawson Farm. They’re going to film some
scenes there, so I heard ’em say.”
“Where is the Dawson Farm?” asked Mr. Martin.
“About ten miles from here. Keep straight on and you can’t miss it.
It’s a big place--old-fashioned white farmhouse, red barns, and all
that. Just the thing for movies, I reckon.”
“Thank you, I’ll go there,” said Mr. Martin, and when he rejoined his
family he said to his wife:
“This Portnay actor keeps me on the jump. I wish he’d stay in one
place long enough for me to get back those albums.”
“You’ll very likely catch him at the farm,” said Mrs. Martin. “But
perhaps it would be as well to telephone from here and say you are
coming.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” the Curlytops’ father said.
He went back into the post-office, where he had noticed a telephone on
the wall. But when he asked if he could use it to send a message to the
Dawson Farm the postmaster smiled and said:
“Well, you’re welcome to use it as far as I’m concerned, but you can’t
get Dawson’s Farm on that machine.”
“Haven’t they a telephone?” Mr. Martin wanted to know.
“Oh, yes, they have a ’phone. But this one here is out of order and it
won’t work. I’ve sent for a feller to fix it, but he hasn’t come.”
“Is there another telephone here?” asked Mr. Martin.
“No, this is the only one, and this is out of order. I’m sorry!”
“I’m sorry, too,” Mr. Martin answered. “I’d like to get a message
through to Dawson’s Farm, so Mr. Portnay won’t again leave and take my
box with him.”
However, there was nothing to do but to hurry on to the farm as fast as
they could go. The postmaster explained that the place was a real farm,
not one for moving picture purposes, though scenes were frequently
filmed there, as many farm animals were ready to be photographed as a
background for the actors and actresses.
“It’s just like a game, isn’t it, Daddy?” said Teddy.
“Like hide-and-seek,” added Janet, giggling.
“Maybe,” agreed Mr. Martin. “But I don’t like playing the game very
much.”
Down off Cub Mountain drove Mr. Martin with his auto load of family,
and after rather a bumpy trip over rough roads he turned onto a firm,
smooth highway and soon they read a sign which said it was but one mile
to Dawson’s Farm.
“There it is!” cried Ted, a few minutes later, as they made a turn in
the road. Before them lay the big farm and buildings spoken of by the
Cub Mountain postmaster. And, as the Martins drew nearer, Janet cried:
“I see the movie people! There they are!”
She pointed to a number of persons, some on horses and others on foot,
who were, undoubtedly, some of the same ones they had watched in the
green meadow.
“Now I’ll get those albums back,” said Mr. Martin.