THE HAPPY TRAMP
Grandpa Martin stood looking down at the queer, burning rock. The blue
fire was flaming up brighter now, and it made a strange light on the
faces of the Curlytops and Hal as they gathered about. The sky was
cloudy and it was getting dark.
"Oh, what is it? What is it?" asked Ted and Jan.
"It smells just like old-fashioned sulphur matches that my grandmother
used to light," said Nora, who had come out, having seen the queer
light from the cook-tent.
"And it _is_ sulphur that is burning," said Grandpa Martin. "That rock
has sulphur in it, not gold, Hal. And it is the sulphur that is
burning with the blue fire."
"But what makes it?" asked the children.
Grandpa Martin did not answer for a few seconds. He stood again
looking down at the flaming blue rock. Mrs. Martin, who had started to
put Trouble to bed early, came out and looked.
"It's like something I once saw in the theater," said the maid. "I
don't like it--that blue light. It reminds me of the time our house
was struck by lightning--that sulphur smell."
"It is the same smell," said Mr. Martin. "Curlytops, I think you have
found something very queer in this blue rock. I don't know just what
it is, but we'll find out. See, the stone is burning like a lump of
coal now, but with a blue flame instead of red."
"Just like the night we saw the blue fire on the island before we came
camping here." said Ted. "Is it the same thing, Grandpa?"
"I don't know. Perhaps it is. Where did you get the blue rocks?'
"Over in the woods," answered Hal. "There's a great big one there. As
big as this tent."
"Is there?" some one suddenly asked. "Then please show me where it is!
Oh, can it be that at last I have found what I have been looking for
so long?"
The Curlytops and the others turned at the sound of this new and
strange voice. A man seemed to spring out of the bushes back of the
tent. By the light of the blue fire Ted and Jan saw that his clothes
were ragged and torn in many places.
"Oh! Oh!" gasped Jan. "That's the tramp!"
"Well, I guess maybe I do look like a tramp, all ragged and dirty as I
am," laughed the man, and his voice sounded pleasant. "But I am not a
regular tramp. I am Mr. Weston--Alfred Weston," he went on, speaking
to Grandpa Martin. "I haven't a card with me, but when I get washed
and dressed and shaved I'll look more like what I am. Excuse me for
intruding this way, but I could not keep from speaking when I heard
what you were talking about."
"Then aren't you a tramp?" asked Ted.
"No, though I have been _tramping_ all over this island looking for
the very blue rock you children seem to have found. I wear my oldest
clothes, just as my friend Professor Anderson does, for we have been
going through briar bushes, into caves and mud holes and our clothes
are a sad sight. But we are not tramps."
"Is there someone with you?" asked Grandpa Martin, looking over the
man's head toward the bushes, out of which he had come.
"There was another. Anderson is his name. But he has gone to the
village, and I was on my way to row across the lake to join him when I
happened to pass by your tent, saw the blue light, and heard what your
children said. Do you really know where there is a big blue rock like
this little one that is on fire?" he asked as he pointed to the
flaming blue light.
"Yes, we found a big one," said Hal.
"If you will show me where it is you will get a lot of money," said
Mr. Weston. "That is, if you will sell me the meteor," he went on to
Grandpa Martin. "I understand you own part of this island," he added.
"About half of it, yes. But are you looking for a meteor?"
"Yes, for a meteor, or fallen star, and the blue rock your children
found is part of it. We have been looking for it a long time, my
friend and myself, and we had about given up. Now we may get it. Will
you sell me the fallen star?" he asked.
"I'll see about it," promised Mr. Martin with a smile. "Perhaps you
will come into our tent and tell us about it. Are you--well, I was
going to say the tramp--but are you the man we saw before, wandering
about our camp?"
"I presume I am. I don't mind being called a tramp, for I certainly
look like one. However, now that the fallen star is found I don't need
to be so ragged."
"Are you the ragged man that pulled Trouble out of the spring?" asked
Ted, as they watched the blue light die away.
"I did pull a little boy out of the spring," answered Mr. Weston,
"though I didn't know his name was Trouble."
"That's only his pet name," laughed Grandpa Martin. "But come and sit
down and tell us your story. The children have been wondering a long
while what the blue light meant, and who the ragged man was. And, to-
day, they've been trying to find what became of the blue rocks that
Trouble made into a playhouse."
"I took those rocks, I'm sorry to say," answered the ragged man. "I'm
sorry to have spoiled Trouble's playhouse. I wanted those pieces of
rock, for I thought perhaps they were all I would ever be able to get
of the fallen star."
"Was the blue rock really once a star?" asked Hal.
"Well, yes, a part of one, or at least part of a meteor, or shooting
star, as they are called. Now I'll tell you all that happened, and I'm
sorry if I have frightened you. My friend and I didn't mean to.
"Some time ago," went on Mr. Weston, "we heard about Star Island--this
place that was so named because it was said a big meteor had landed
here many years back. Professor Anderson and I decided to come here
and see if we could find it for the museum which is connected with the
college in which Anderson teaches.
"For we knew that, though most meteors are burned up as they shoot
through the air before they strike the earth, yet some come down in
big chunks, and we wanted such a one if we could get it. So we hunted
for it all over this island. We saw you, but you were never very near.
Sometimes we stayed in the cave at night, but usually went back to the
mainland. All the while we were hunting for the blue rocks, for that
is the color of this particular meteor.
"A few nights before you folks came here to camp, when we were digging
in the ground hoping to find what we wanted, our shovel must have
struck a piece of the meteor, for there was a flash of blue fire that
burned for quite a while."
"We saw it," cried Ted, "and we didn't know what it was!"
"Teddy and me--we saw it!" added Jan.
"Well, that was all of the meteor we could find for some time," went
on Mr. Weston. "And as that burned up--was consumed--we didn't have
any. Then, the other night through the bushes we happened to come upon
some blue stones, and I took them away.
"Then my friend and I hunted again to find the big piece of the fallen
star, but we could not come across it. I was about to give up, but now
we are all right. I am so glad! Can you take me to the big blue rock?"
"We will to-morrow," answered Hal. "It's too dark to find it now."
"You had better stay in our camp until morning," was Grandpa Martin's
kindly invitation, and Mr. Weston did so.
"This meteor is a good bit like a sulphur match," said Mr. Weston.
"When anything hard, like iron or steel, strikes it, blue fire starts
and burns up the rock. The big piece will be very valuable.
"But we'll have to be careful not to set it ablaze. We picked up a lot
of different rocks on the island, hoping some of them might be pieces
of the meteor. But none was. Once I saw your little girl picking
flowers, as I was gathering rocks. I guess she thought I was a tramp.
Did I scare you?" he asked Janet.
"A little," she answered with a smile. "Sometimes we stayed in a cave
we found on the island," went on Mr. Weston. "I thought once the
meteor might be there, but it was not."
The next day Ted, Janet and Hal, followed by all the others in camp,
even down to Trouble, whose mother carried him, went to the place
where the big blue rock was buried in the side of the hill. As soon as
he had looked at it Mr. Weston said it was the very meteor for which
he and Professor Anderson had been looking so long. They seemed to
have missed coming to the hill.
The museum directors bought the fallen star from Grandpa Martin, on
whose part of the island it had fallen many years before, and so the
owner of Cherry Farm had as much money as before the flood spoiled so
many of his crops.
Thus the story of the fallen star, after which the island was named,
was true, you see, though it had happened so many years ago that most
folk had forgotten about it.
A few days after Mr. Weston had been led to the queer blue rock, he
and Professor Anderson, no longer dressed like tramps, brought some
men to the island and the big rock was carefully dug out with wooden
shovels, as the wood was soft and could not strike sparks and make
blue fire.
"For a time," said Mr. Weston to Grandpa Martin, after the meteor had
been taken to the mainland in a big boat, "I thought you were a
scientist."
"Me--a scientist!" laughed the children's grandfather.
"Yes. I thought maybe you had heard about the fallen star and had come
here and were trying to find it, too."
"No, I haven't any use for fallen stars," said Mr. Martin. "I had
heard the story about one being on this island, but I never quite
believed it. I just came here to give the children a good time
camping."
"Well, I think they had it--every one of them," laughed Mr. Weston, as
he looked at the brown Curlytops, who were tanned like Indians.
"Oh, we've had the loveliest time in the world!" cried Jan, as she
held her grandfather's hand. "We're going to stay here a long while
yet. Aren't we, Grandpa?"
"Well, I'm afraid not much longer," said Grandpa Martin. "The days are
getting shorter and the nights longer. It will soon be too cold to
live in a tent on Star Island."
"Oh, Grandpa!" And Jan looked sad.
"But we want to have fun!" cried Ted.
"Oh, I guess you'll have fun," said his mother. "You always do every
winter."
And the children did. In the next volume of this series, to be called
"The Curlytops Snowed In; or, Grand Fun with Skates and Sleds," you
may read about the good times they had when they went back home.
"Come on, Jan, we'll have a last ride with Nicknack!" called Ted to
his sister about a week after the meteor had been dug up. In a few
days the Curlytops were to leave their camp on Star Island. Hal
Chester had gone back to his home, promising to visit his friends
again some day.
"I'm coming!" cried Jan.
"Me, too!" added Trouble. "I wants a wide!"
Into the goat cart they piled and off started Nicknack, waggling his
funny, stubby tail, for he enjoyed the children as much as they did
him.
"Hurray!" yelled Ted. "Isn't this fun?" and he cracked the whip in the
air.
"Hurray!" yelled Jan and Trouble.
"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated Nicknack. That was his way of cheering.
And so we will leave the Curlytops and say good-bye.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Curlytops on Star Island, by Howard R. Garis