THE BOX COMES BACK
Janet Martin was frightened--very much so, though not so much but what
she kept her wits about her and looked around the strange prison in
which she found herself.
At first, when the sliding door in the end of the box trap had fallen,
closing the only way out, it had been very dark. But in a few moments
Jan was able to look about her, and she noticed that near the top of
the box there were openings which let in light and air. The openings
were merely holes, not large enough for a cat or dog to get through, to
say nothing of a girl like Janet.
The box was about six feet wide, almost as long, and quite as high, so
there was plenty of room for Janet to stand up in it and walk about.
“It would make a nice play-house,” she thought to herself.
But she did not feel at all like playing now. All she wanted to do was
to get out of this box trap prison. So well had it been concealed in
the bushes back of the clump of ferns that Jan had not noticed it at
all until she had entered.
“I guess a wild animal would do the same thing,” thought Janet. “He’d
run right in here and be caught. I must have jiggled something that
made the door slide down. And I guess there’s been a wild animal in
here not long ago. It smells so.”
On the floor of the trap were dried leaves and grass; and the whole
place smelled like the inside of the animal tent at a circus, a queer,
wild smell which most of you know, I am sure.
“But if there was a wild animal in here, how did he get out?” thought
the little girl, who, now that her eyes were accustomed to the
semi-darkness, could see about her quite plainly. “If he got out, maybe
I can.”
She pushed against the sides of the box as hard as she could and she
pounded with her little fists, but the box seemed very solid. Then she
tried to raise the sliding door that had dropped shut behind her as
soon as she entered the trap. But though this door rattled and moved a
little in the grooves in which it slid up and down, Jan could not raise
it. It seemed to be fastened in place.
“Maybe the wild animal that was caught here didn’t get out,” thought
the little Curlytop girl. “Maybe Mr. Dawson had to come and let it out;
or maybe some of the movie people. I guess that was it--they caught a
moving picture animal in this trap, and now they’ve caught me and I
can’t get out!”
Janet cried a little as she thought of this. It would soon be dark, she
feared, and she did not want to stay in the trap all night.
“I know what I’ll do,” thought Janet, as she dried her tears, for she
knew crying did no good. “I’ll yell as loud as I can. I’ll call and
shout and somebody will hear me and come and let me out. Maybe Ted will
come, or that funny flip-flop man.”
Having thus made up her mind, Janet began to shout and call. Her voice
sounded strange and hollow in the box trap. She wondered how far it
would carry. She hoped they might hear her down at the farmhouse, but
she hardly thought this possible.
Then a new terror came to poor Janet. She began to think of the wild
animal that had been in the trap.
“Maybe it was a bear,” she whispered to herself. “And maybe he might
hear me yelling and come to see me. I wouldn’t like that. But, anyhow,
he couldn’t get in, since I can’t get out.”
For the first time Janet was glad the trap was firmly closed. True, she
couldn’t get out, but then, no wild animal could get in.
After Janet had called as loudly as she could for some time and no one
had answered, she began to feel tired. So she sat down in a corner of
the box trap, on the soft dried grass and leaves.
“Oh, dear! I wish some one would come and get me out!” she sighed.
It was about this time that Mrs. Martin began to inquire for Janet. The
little girl had told her mother about going to the “wood lot,” as Mr.
Dawson called it, to pick flowers.
“But it’s time she was back,” Mrs. Martin said to her husband. “It will
soon be evening.”
“I’ll go after her!” offered Ted, who had just come back from a distant
pasture, having been there with one of the hired men to salt the
sheep. Every so often lumps of coarse, rock salt were put in boxes in
the fields where the sheep roamed. Sheep, and most other animals, like
a bit of salt now and then. It keeps them healthy.
“All right, Teddy,” said his mother. “I wish you would go after Janet.
She’s probably all right, but she has forgotten it is getting late.
Very likely she has found more flowers than she expected and she wants
to get a big bouquet.”
“I come, too!” offered Trouble, as he saw his brother starting away.
“No, you stay here,” objected Mrs. Martin, with a laugh. “We don’t want
you getting lost.”
“I’ll soon be back,” Ted called to William.
The Curlytop lad well knew the path to the wood lot, for he and his
sister had trod it many times since coming to Dawson’s Farm. And now
running and now walking fast, Ted was soon on the edge of the clump of
trees. He looked about, but did not see any signs of his sister.
“Maybe she started back another way,” he told himself.
But he decided to give a good look around in the woods, and when he had
done so and had not yet caught a glimpse of Janet picking flowers, Ted
began to feel worried.
“Guess I’ll give a yell and see if she answers,” he said to himself. So
he called: “Janet! Janet! Oh, Jan! where are you?”
Ted paused for a reply, but none came.
Then he called again, and listened. About him he heard only the rustle
of the wind in the trees, the whisperings of the bushes, the tinkle of
a distant waterfall and the songs of birds.
“I wonder where she is?” thought the boy.
Taking a long breath, he gave the loudest shout of which he was
capable. It made him red in the face. Then he listened.
At last he heard an answer.
“Ted! Oh, Ted! Come and get me out! I’m in a trap!”
It was Janet’s voice, beyond a doubt, but such a strange voice--and
faint and far away. Ted remembered once when his sister had been shut
in the preserve closet down the cellar at home in Cresco. Her voice
then had sounded just as it did now.
“But there isn’t any cellar here,” thought Ted. Once more he called:
“Where are you? I can’t see you!”
“I’m shut up in a box trap!” answered Janet. “It’s by a big clump of
ferns down in a little hollow.”
Ted at that moment was standing on the edge of the gully into which
Janet had run to get the red flowers. And, looking down, Ted saw where
the ferns had been broken and bent to one side as his sister pushed
through them. He also saw the top of the box hidden among the bushes.
“All right! I’m coming, Jan!” cried Ted, as he scrambled down the steep
sides.
Janet had been roused from a half slumber by the call of her brother’s
voice and had answered him. Thus he had found her.
But when he stood in front of the box trap, Ted was a bit puzzled as to
how Janet had gotten in and how he was going to get her out.
“How does this thing work?” he called to his sister, through the wooden
sides. “How’d you get in?”
“I ran in when the door was open. I ran in before I knew what it was,”
answered Janet. “Then the door dropped shut. I guess I must have
jiggled something.”
“I guess you did,” answered Ted. “Now I wonder if I can get this door
open! I’ve got to pry it up with a long stick if I can find one.”
Luckily, the Curlytop lad discovered just what was needed--a long tree
branch, sharp on one end, like a wedge. This wedge he put under the
edge of the sliding door and pried it up. As the door raised a little,
Ted, holding it in that position with one hand on the long stick, while
Janet helped from the inside, thrust a stone beneath the door. There
was a crack wide enough for Janet to thrust out her hand.
“But I can’t crawl out through that crack,” she said.
“I know it,” answered her brother. “I’ll lift it up higher.”
This he did, a foot or so at a time, putting more stones and finally
upright sticks beneath the wooden slide, until it was raised high
enough for Janet to crawl out.
“Oh, I’m so glad you came!” she cried to her brother.
“So’m I,” he said. “But what made you go in there?”
“I didn’t know it was a trap,” explained the little girl. “I saw some
red flowers and I ran to pick them and before I knew it I was in the
box, and I must have jiggled something for the door fell shut behind
me and I couldn’t get out.”
“I guess it’s a wild animal trap, all right,” Ted remarked. “It smells
so,” and he sniffed the air.
“Do you think they catch bears here?” asked Janet.
“Maybe,” assented Ted.
“Then let’s run home,” suggested his sister, for it was now getting
dusk in the woods, though it was lighter out in the open.
Ted took out the sticks and stones from beneath the door, letting it
drop into place again.
“So nobody else will be caught,” he explained.
Then he and his sister hurried back to the farmhouse.
“Say, now, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Mr. Birch, the movie director,
when he heard what had happened. “We did have some wild animals in that
box, but they were foxes, not bears. And we didn’t trap the foxes--we
just held them in that box so we could let them run out when we wanted
to take moving pictures of them.
“We hid the box in the bushes so it wouldn’t show in the picture, and
the door was pulled up by a long rope. After we filmed the foxes some
of the men must have left the door open, taking off the ropes. So it
was turned into a regular trap, though we didn’t intend it as such.
“The door thus left propped up, when Janet went in she must have
‘jiggled’ it, as she says, so it dropped into place. I’m mighty sorry
about it, little girl!”
“Oh, I don’t mind, as long as I got out before dark,” laughed Jan. “But
I was scared for a little while.”
“I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again,” declared the director. “We
have no further use for the box, since we have made the fox films, so
I’ll have it taken away.”
A few days later most of the pictures intended to be filmed at Dawson’s
Farm had been taken, and the company prepared to move on to the next
location. Already some of the cowboys and other men and women connected
with the company had left.
One last scene taken was where Mr. Tizzy, the funny flip-flop man,
pretended to be a cowboy, riding a horse to lasso a pig. It was a
lively affair. The animal used was not the savage boar that had nearly
hurt Trouble, but a more gentle pig.
The Curlytops and their father and mother, as well as the Dawson
household, laughed until the tears ran out of their eyes at the funny
antics of Mr. Tizzy and the no less funny actions of the pig.
At last the flip-flop man lassoed the squealing pig, which, however,
dragged the man off his horse and pulled him around the lot. And of
all this the clicking cameras took many pictures which, later, made
thousands of persons laugh.
It was this same afternoon that an express package came for Mr. Martin.
It was a wooden box well wrapped in paper.
“What is it, Daddy? Oh, what is it?” cried Janet, dancing up and down
in excitement.
“Oh, let him look first, Jan,” admonished Teddy.
“Ah, the album box has come back!” said the father of the Curlytops.
“Now I won’t have to tell Mr. Cardwell it is missing. We can take it on
the tour with us.”
He tore open one end of the paper wrapping, disclosing the red, shining
wooden box.
“No need to take off all the paper,” he said. “It is well packed
and I’ll leave it so and put it in the car. We’ll travel on again
to-morrow, Curlytops!”
Ted and Janet were glad of this, though they liked it at the farm. But
children are always glad of a change, I suppose.
So Mr. Martin put the wrapped box in his car. If he had only taken off
all the paper and had looked more closely inside, there would have been
a different ending to this story.