Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
OR
Camping out with Grandpa
BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of "The Curlytops Series," "Bedtime
Stories," "Uncle Wiggily Series," Etc.
Illustrations by
JULIA GREENE
NEW YORK
THE CURLYTOPS SERIES
By HOWARD R. GARIS
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM
Or, Vacation Days in the Country
THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
Or, Camping Out With Grandpa
THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN
Or, Grand Fun With Skates and Sleds
THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH
Or, Little Folks on Ponyback
1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE BLUE LIGHT
II WHAT THE FARMER TOLD
III OFF TO STAR ISLAND
IV OVERBOARD
V THE BAG OF SALT
VI TED AND THE BEAR
VII JAN SEES SOMETHING
VIII TROUBLE FALLS IN
IX TED FINDS A CAVE
X THE GRAPEVINE SWING
XI TROUBLE MAKES A CAKE
XII THE CURLYTOPS GO SWIMMING
XIII JAN'S QUEER RIDE XIV DIGGING FOR GOLD
XV THE BIG HOLE
XVI A GLAD SURPRISE
XVII TROUBLE'S PLAYHOUSE
XVIII IN THE CAVE
XIX THE BLUE LIGHT AGAIN
XX THE HAPPY TRAMP
CHAPTER I
THE BLUE LIGHT
"Mother, make Ted stop!"
"I'm not doing anything at all, Mother!"
"Yes he is, too! Please call him in. He's hurting my doll."
"Oh, Janet Martin, I am not!"
"You are so, Theodore Baradale Martin; and you've just got to stop!"
Janet, or Jan, as she was more often called, stood in front of her
brother with flashing eyes and red cheeks.
"Children! Children! What are you doing now?" asked their mother,
appearing in the doorway of the big, white farmhouse, holding in her
arms a small boy. "Please don't make so much noise. I've just gotten
Baby William to sleep, and if he wakes up--"
"Yes, don't wake up Trouble, Jan," added Theodore, or Ted, the shorter
name being the one by which he was most often called. "If you do he'll
want to come with us, and we can't make Nicknack race."
"I wasn't waking him up, it was you!" exclaimed Jan. "He keeps pulling
my doll's legs, Mother and--"
"I only pulled 'em a little bit, just to see if they had any springs
in 'em. Jan said her doll was a circus lady and could jump on the back
of a horse. I wanted to see if she had any springs in her legs."
"Well, I'm _pretending_ she has, so there, Ted Martin! And if you
don't stop--"
"There now, please stop, both of you, and be nice," begged Mrs.
Martin. "I thought, since you had your goat and wagon, you could play
without having so much fuss. But, if you can't--"
"Oh, we'll be good!" exclaimed Ted, running his hands through his
tightly curling hair, but not taking any of the kinks out that way.
"We'll be good, I won't tease Jan anymore."
"You'd better not!" warned his sister, and, though she was a year
younger than Ted, she did not seem at all afraid of him.
"If you do I'll take my half of the goat away and you can't ride."
"Pooh! Which is your half?" asked Ted.
"The wagon. And if you don't have the wagon to hitch Nicknack to,
how're you going to ride?"
"Huh! I could ride on his back. Take your old wagon if you want to,
but if you do---"
"The-o-dore!" exclaimed his mother in a slow, warning voice, and when
he heard his name spoken in that way, with each syllable pronounced
separately, Ted knew it was time to haul down his quarreling colors
and behave. He did it this time.
"I--I'm sorry," he faltered. "I didn't mean that, Jan. I won't pull
your doll's legs any more."
"And I won't take the goat-wagon away. We'll both go for a ride in
it."
"That's the way to have a good time," said Mrs. Martin, with a smile.
"Now don't make any more noise, for William is fussy. Run off and play
now, but don't go too far."
"We'll go for a ride," said Teddy. "Come on, Jan. You can let your
doll make-believe drive the goat if you want to."
"Thank you, Teddy. But I guess I'd better not. I'll pretend she's a
Red Cross nurse and I'm taking her to the hospital to work."
"Then we'll make-believe the goat-wagon is an ambulance!" exclaimed
Ted. "And I'm the driver and I don't mind the big guns. Come on,
that'll be fun!"
Filled with the new idea, the two children hurried around the side of
the farmhouse out toward the barn where Nicknack, their pet goat, was
kept. Mrs. Martin smiled as she saw them go.
"Well, there'll be quiet for a little while," she said, "and William
can have his sleep."
"What's the matter, Ruth!" asked an old gentleman coming up the walk
just then. "Have the Curlytops been getting into mischief again?"
"No. Teddy and Janet were just having one of their little quarrels.
It's all over now. You look tired, Father."
Grandpa Martin was Mrs. Martin's husband's father, but she loved him
as though he were her own.
"Yes, I am tired. I've been working pretty hard on the farm," said
Grandpa Martin, "but I'm going to rest a bit now. Want me to take
Trouble?" he asked as he saw the little boy in his mother's arms. Baby
William was called Trouble because he got into so much of it.
"No, thank you. He's asleep," said Mother Martin. "But I do wish you
could find some way to keep Ted and Jan from disputing and quarreling
so much."
"Oh, they don't act half as bad as lots of children."
"No, indeed! They're very good, I think," said Grandma Martin, coming
to the door with a patch of flour on the end of her nose, for it was
baking day, as you could easily have told had you come anywhere near
the big kitchen of the white house on Cherry Farm.
"They need to be kept busy all the while," said Grandpa Martin. "It's
been a little slow for them here this vacation since we got in the hay
and gathered the cherries. I think I'll have to find some new way for
them to have fun."
"I didn't know there was any new way," said Mother Martin with a
laugh, as she carried Baby William into the bedroom and came back to
sit on the porch with Grandpa and Grandma Martin.
"Oh, yes, there are lots of new ways. I haven't begun to think of them
yet," said Grandpa Martin. "I'm going to have a few weeks now with not
very much to do until it's time to gather the fall crops, and I think
I'll try to find some way of giving your Curlytops a good time. Yes,
that's what I'll do. I'll keep the Curlytops so busy they won't have a
chance to think of pulling dolls' legs or taking Nicknack, the goat,
away from his wagon."
"What are you planning to do, Father?" asked Grandma Martin of her
husband.
"Well, I promised to take them camping on Star Island you know."
"What! Not those two little tots--not Ted and Jan?" cried Grandma
Martin, looking up in surprise.
"Yes, indeed, those same Curlytops!"
It was easy to understand why Grandpa Martin, as well as nearly
everyone else, called the two Martin children Curlytops. It was
because their hair was so tightly curling to their heads. Once Grandma
Martin lost her thimble in the hair of one of the children, and their
locks were curled so nearly alike that she never could remember on
whose head she found the needle-pusher.
"Do you think it will be safe to take Ted and Jan camping?" asked
Mother Martin.
"Why, yes. There's no finer place in the country than Star Island. And
if you go along--"
"Am I to go?" asked Ted's mother.
"Of course. And Trouble, too. It'll do you all good. I wish Dick could
come, too," went on Grandpa Martin, speaking of Ted's father, who had
gone from Cherry Farm for a few days to attend to some matters at a
store he owned in the town of Cresco. "But Dick says he'll be too
busy. So I guess the Curlytops will have to go camping with grandpa,"
added the farmer, smiling.
"Well, I'm sure they couldn't have better fun than to go with you,"
replied Mother Martin. "But I'm not sure that Baby William and I can
go."
"Oh, yes you can," said her father-in-law. "We'll talk about it again.
But here come Ted and Jan now in the goat-cart. They seem to have
something to ask you. We'll talk about the camp later."
Teddy and Janet Martin, the two Curlytops, came riding up to the
farmhouse in a small wagon drawn by a fine, big goat, that they had
named Nicknack.
"Please, Mother," begged Ted, "may we ride over to the Home and get
Hal?"
"We promised to take him for a ride," added Jan.
"Yes, I suppose you may go," said Mother Martin. "But you must be
careful, and be home in time for supper."
"We will," promised Ted. "We'll go by the wood-road, and then we won't
get run over by any automobiles. They don't come on that road."
"All right. Now remember--don't stay too late."
"No, we won't!" chorused the two children, and down the garden path
and along the lane they went to a road that led through Grandpa
Martin's wood-lot and so on to the Home for Crippled Children, which
was about a mile from Cherry Farm.
Among others at the Home was a lame boy named Hal Chester. That is, he
had been lame when the Curlytops first met him early in the summer,
but he was almost cured now, and walked with only a little limp. The
Home had been built to cure lame children, and had helped many of
them.
Half-way to the big red building, which was like a hospital, the
Curlytops met Hal, the very boy whom they had started out to see.
"Hello, Hal!" cried Ted. "Get in and have a ride."
"Thanks, I will. I was just coming over to see you, anyway. What are
you two going to do?"
"Nothing much," Ted answered, while Jan moved along the seat with her
doll, to make room for Hal. "What're you going to do?"
"Same as you."
The three children laughed at that. "Let's ride along the river road,"
suggested Janet. "It'll be nice and shady there, and if my Red Cross
doll is going to the war she'll like to be cool once in a while."
"Is your doll a Red Cross nurse?" asked Hal. "If she is, where's her
cap and the red cross on her arm?"
"Oh, she just started to be a nurse a little while ago," Jan
explained. "I haven't had time to make the red cross yet. But I will.
Anyhow, let's go down by the river."
"All right, we will," agreed Ted. "We'll see if we can get some sticks
off the willow trees and make whistles," he added to Hal.
"You can make better whistles in the spring, when the bark is softer,
than you can now," said the lame boy, as the Curlytops often called
him, though Hal was nearly cured.
"Well, _maybe_ we can make some now," suggested Ted, and a little
later the two boys were seated in the shade under the willow trees
that grew on the bank of a small river which flowed into Clover Lake,
not far from Cherry Farm. Nicknack, tied to a tree, nibbled the sweet,
green grass, and Jan made a wreath of buttercups for her doll.
After they had made some whistles, which did give out a little tooting
sound, Ted and Hal found something else to do, and Jan saw, coming
along the road, a girl named Mary Seaton with whom she often played.
Jan called Mary to join her, and the two little girls had a good time
together while Ted and Hal threw stones at some wooden boats they made
and floated down the stream.
"Oh, Ted, we must go home!" suddenly cried Jan. "It's getting dark!"
The sun was beginning to set, but it would not really have been dark
for some time, except that the western sky was filled with clouds that
seemed to tell of a coming storm. So, really, it did appear as though
night were at hand.
"I guess we'd better go," Ted said, with a look at the dark clouds.
"Come on, Hal. There's room for you, too, Mary, in the wagon."
"Can Nicknack pull us all?" Mary asked.
"I guess so. It's mostly down hill. Come on!"
The four children got into the goat-wagon, and if Nicknack minded the
bigger load he did not show it, but trotted off rather fast. Perhaps
he knew he was going home to his stable where he would have some sweet
hay and oats to eat, and that was what made him so glad to hurry
along.
The wagon was stopped near the Home long enough to let Hal get out,
and a little later Mary was driven up to her gate. Then Ted and Jan,
with the doll between them, drove on.
"Oh, Ted!" exclaimed his sister, "mother'll scold. We oughtn't to have
stayed so late. It's past supper time!"
"We didn't mean to. Anyhow, I guess they'll give us something to eat.
Grandma baked cookies to-day and there'll be some left."
"I hope so," replied Jan with a sigh. "I'm hungry!"
They drove on in silence a little farther, and then, as they came to
the top of a hill and could look down toward Star Island in the middle
of Clover Lake, Ted suddenly called:
"Look, Jan!"
"Where?" she asked.
"Over there," and her brother pointed to the island. "Do you see that
blue light?"
"On the island, do you mean? Yes, I see it. Maybe somebody's there
with a lantern."
"Nobody lives on Star Island. Besides, who'd have a blue lantern?"
Jan did not answer.
It was now quite dark, and down in the lake, where there was a patch
of black which was Star Island, could be seen a flickering blue glow,
that seemed to stand still and then move about.
"Maybe it's lightning bugs," suggested Jan.
"Huh! Fireflies are sort of white," exclaimed Ted. "I never saw a
light like that before."
"Me, either, Ted! Hurry up home. Giddap, Nicknack!" and Jan threw at
the goat a pine cone, one of several she had picked up and put in the
wagon when they were taking a rest in the woods that afternoon.
Nicknack gave a funny little wiggle to his tail, which the children
could hardly see in the darkness, and then he trotted on faster. The
Curlytops, looking back, had a last glimpse of the flickering blue
light as they hurried toward Cherry Farm, and they were a little
frightened.
"What do you s'pose it is?" asked Jan.
"I don't know," answered Ted. "We'll ask Grandpa. Go on, Nicknack!"