TROUBLE’S DANGER
“This is a dandy place!” exclaimed Ted, as his father guided the
auto into a lane that led from the main road up to the group of farm
buildings.
“Indeed it is,” agreed Mrs. Martin. “I should like to spend part of our
vacation here, if they would let us.”
“Look at the cows! Look at the cows!” cried Trouble, pointing to a herd
of fine animals in a distant pasture.
“And what a lot of horses, too,” added Janet.
Mr. Martin, however, was most interested in the company of moving
picture players clustered around one of the buildings. He was looking
for a sight of Harry Portnay who, by mistake, had taken the box of the
Cardwell albums.
As the auto came to a slow stop not far from the group of movie folk
who were being filmed in some scene, a man on a horse rode up to the
car.
“How do you do, Mr. Martin!” he said.
“Oh, it’s Mr. Weldon!” exclaimed the father of the Curlytops, as he
recognized the movie cowboy actor who had first given the information
about Mr. Portnay’s man taking the album box by mistake.
“Yes, I’m here again,” was the answer. “I just got my costume on.
They’re going to shoot me and some of the other boys pretty soon.”
“Shoot you!” cried Ted, in surprise.
“Oh, I forgot--you youngsters don’t know all the movie terms,” laughed
Mr. Weldon. “I mean they’re going to aim the moving picture cameras at
us and ‘shoot’ us that way--not with guns!”
“Oh!” murmured Ted, laughing with the actor. “Well, I’m glad they
aren’t going to shoot you with guns.”
“They shoot nellifunts with guns!” broke in Trouble. “But if I had a
nellifunt I wouldn’t let ’em shoot him. And we saw a monkey, we did!”
“My, that’s a fine thing to see!” chuckled Mr. Weldon. “But I suppose
you saw Mr. Portnay and got back your box of valuable hot cross buns,
didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t hot cross buns!” laughed Janet, for this actor had a jolly
way about him. “It was _albums_--albums for pictures, you know.”
“Ah, yes, so it was! Albums!” said Mr. Weldon, with a smile. “I was
just joking, you know. But I suppose you got them back?” he said to Mr.
Martin.
“No, I didn’t,” was the answer. “That’s why I came on here after them.
I missed Mr. Portnay in Midvale.”
“That’s too bad,” returned the actor. “You’re out of luck again.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Mrs. Martin.
“Why, I mean Mr. Portnay isn’t here.”
“Not here!” echoed Jan’s father. “Why, I thought this was his moving
picture company and that he’d surely be here. The postmaster at Cub
Mountain told me he had come on here.”
“Some of us did after the scenes there were taken,” explained the actor
cowboy. “But Mr. Portnay didn’t. He isn’t in these pictures that are
going to be taken at the farm. Or, at least, he doesn’t come in until
later. So, while this is his company, or the company of which he is the
star, he isn’t needed just now; so he went back to New York. He left
just a little while ago to take the train.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin. “It seems we are never going to catch
up with that man.”
“It is rather unfortunate,” said her husband. “But perhaps he left my
box here,” he went on to Mr. Weldon. “He wouldn’t take that back to New
York with him.”
“No, he wouldn’t if he knew what it was,” admitted the movie actor.
“But he leaves all such matters to his helper, Jim Lewis. And Jim
probably packed your box with the other baggage belonging to Mr.
Portnay and shipped it to New York.”
“Is there any one here I could ask if the box has been left?” inquired
Mr. Martin.
“Oh, yes; our director, Tony Birch. He’d know if any one would,” said
Mr. Weldon. “There he is over by the chicken houses. They’re going to
take a picture of Miss Marcell feeding the hens, I believe.”
“Is Miss Marcell the young lady who jumped into the river?” asked Mrs.
Martin.
“Yes, the same one. She’s our leading lady as Mr. Portnay is our
leading man.”
“You stay here with the children, my dear,” said Mr. Martin to his
wife, “and I’ll go and ask Mr. Birch if he knows anything of my box of
albums that Mr. Portnay took. I’ll be right back.”
The Curlytops watched their father cross a field and approach a group
of movie folk who were being filmed in some scene that had to do with
the fowls, of which there were a large number on the Dawson Farm. From
where they sat in the auto the Curlytops and their mother could see and
hear something of what went on. Trouble had gotten down out of the car
and was playing with a little puppy at one side, so he was accounted
for for the time being.
As Mr. Martin approached the scene at the chicken houses he could see
Miss Marcell tossing grain to the hens and roosters. In front of her,
and to one side of a movie camera, was a man with a megaphone in his
hands. Through this he called directions to the actress as the man at
the camera ground the crank.
“Not so fast! Not so fast!” cried Tony Birch, for it was the director
who was managing matters. “Don’t throw the chickens corn so fast, Miss
Marcell! You’ll make them have indigestion. Do it slowly, as if you
were a girl on a farm.”
“All right,” was the smiling answer, and she began to scatter fewer
grains.
“Oh, you’ll have to give them more than that or they’ll think you’re
stingy!” exclaimed the director. “There--that’s better. Shoot!” he
called to the camera man, and the latter, who had ceased grinding out
the film while the actress was being corrected, began again.
When the scene was over Mr. Martin asked the director:
“Did Mr. Portnay leave behind him a red box belonging to me? He took it
by mistake yesterday when you were at Cresco.”
The director thought for a moment and answered:
“No, I am sorry to say he didn’t. Mr. Portnay had to leave in a hurry
to get back to New York to arrange some matters, and I suppose he
didn’t think of your box.”
“It may be that he doesn’t even know he has it,” explained Mr. Martin.
“His man Jim Lewis took it by mistake for a make-up box.”
“Oh, I see. Um--yes. Well, I tell you the best thing to do. Mr. Portnay
will join us here in about a week. He’ll be in New York during that
time. I can give you his address and you can write or telegraph and ask
him to be sure and bring your box back with you.”
“Thank you. But won’t he return for a week?” asked Mr. Martin.
“No. We have a number of scenes to film here at the farm, and we are
going to stay for a week. They are scenes in which Mr. Portnay has no
part, so he isn’t needed here. But when he comes back he can bring your
box.”
“I suppose that is the best I can do,” said Mr. Martin, a bit
disappointed. “But I am touring around with my family. I didn’t count
on staying here a week.”
“It’s a good place to stay,” urged Mr. Birch, with a smile. “We movie
people have engaged board here, and there is room for more. Why don’t
you stay with your family? You’ll see some interesting sights. We’re
going to film a big part of the picture here. And Dawson’s Farm is a
good place for a vacation.”
“So my wife said,” remarked Mr. Martin. “Well, I’ll talk to her about
it. The only way to get back those albums seems to be to get in touch
with Mr. Portnay personally, and I can best do that by staying here.
The children ought to like it,” he murmured, as he looked over the big,
pleasant farm.
“Why, certainly! By all means, stay!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin, when told
of the situation. “We don’t have to travel on until we get ready.”
“No,” agreed her husband. “And I certainly must get those albums back
or there will be trouble in the Cardwell family. Well, I guess the best
thing to do is to stay.”
“Oh, goodie!” cried Janet, when she heard this.
“Hurray!” shouted Ted.
“Will they be any nellifunts?” asked Trouble.
“No. But there are lots of other animals,” his mother said. “But will
they keep us here?” she asked her husband. “It’s a delightful place,
but with all these movie folk here, will there be room for us?”
“Mr. Birch said so. But we can soon make sure of it,” said the father
of the Curlytops.
Mr. Dawson, who owned and ran the big farm, was a jolly kind of man.
He was proud of his place, and one reason he consented to let the
movie people take scenes of it was so that other persons, all over the
country, would see what a fine farm his was.
“They’re going to show a picture of me, too,” said Mr. Dawson to Mr.
Martin. “And the name ‘Dawson’s Farm’ is to go in some of the titles.
We farmers ought to make the world proud of us, and by showing movies
of a big farm like this city folks will think more of the man who tills
the soil.”
“I agree with you,” said Mr. Martin. “But what about keeping us here?”
“Plenty of room! Plenty!” laughed Mr. Dawson heartily. “And you say you
have two children?”
“Three,” answered their father.
“Three! So much the better! I love children! Bring ’em in! My wife will
want to see them! She loves children, too!”
So it was settled that the Martin family was to remain at Dawson’s
Farm until Mr. Portnay came from New York, or else shipped back the
box of albums. Mr. Dawson kept quite an establishment, having a number
of hired men and servants, and he took the Curlytops and their family
right into his own house. The movie people “camped” out by themselves
in a separate building. They would do their own cooking and look after
themselves. But the Martins would eat with the Dawson family.
“Oh, what a lot of fun we can have here!” cried Jan, after she and her
brothers had put on “old clothes” and were romping about. Mr. Martin
had gone to write a letter to Mr. Portnay which that actor would
receive in New York. Mrs. Martin was talking to Mrs. Dawson, who was a
kind, motherly soul with no children of her own.
“I know just how you feel, losing that album with those little girls’
pictures in it,” she said. “It’s worse than if it was your own,
belonging to some one else that way.”
“Yes, that’s what Mr. Martin thinks,” said his wife. “Well, we hope
we’ll get it back.”
“I hope so, too. Now I want the children to have a good time. Let them
do just as they please.”
“Well, I can’t quite do that,” replied Mrs. Martin, with a smile.
“Though they’ll pretty nearly do that, anyhow,” she added.
If she could have seen Janet and Ted then she would have had reason to
add to this, for the Curlytops were climbing an apple tree, where Ted
had seen some fruit that looked nearly ripe.
“I’ll climb up and shake some down to you, Jan,” he had said.
“You needn’t, thank you,” laughed Janet. “I can climb a tree as well as
you can!”
“You can not!” declared her brother.
“I can so! I’ll show you!”
Toward the tree ran the Curlytops, and while they were climbing it
Trouble was doing something else. He had wandered off by himself,
though Mrs. Martin had told Jan and Ted to look after him. Going down
a path that led away from the orchard, he came to a field in which was
pastured an old boar, a savage pig with long, curving tusks--teeth that
stuck out like the tusks of an elephant.
The sight of these tusks, small as they were, made Trouble think the
boar might be a small animal of the kind he was so interested in.
“Oh, it’s a little nellifunt! It’s a little nellifunt!” cried Trouble.
“I’m going in an’ give him a peanut!” for he had asked his mother to
buy him some nuts just before reaching Dawson’s Farm and he had a few
of the goobers left. “I give you peanut, little nellifunt!” cried
Trouble, as he crawled in between two strands of the prickly wire
fence. His waist caught and was torn a little, but he didn’t mind that.
The boar gave a grunt as he saw Trouble enter the field. The boar
wasn’t used to this. He didn’t very often have company, especially
small boys. And the boar was savage--he didn’t like company of any
kind! The only things he was afraid of were dogs and a man with a sharp
pitchfork or a big stick.
So, as soon as Trouble crawled through the fence, the savage boar, with
loud grunts, made a rush for the little fellow.