TRYING TO EARN MONEY
The Curlytops were so surprised they did not know what to do. Even
Trouble just sat in Jan’s lap and stared at the funny fat man, who,
after he had finished the song, reached somewhere inside his wagon, and
pulled out a freshly-ironed white coat, like those worn by men in a
barber shop.
This coat the fat man put on, taking off the one he had been wearing,
which, Ted saw, had some black streaks on it, so that it was not
entirely clean.
“Oh, ho!” cried the fat man. “Now I am ready for waffles! So you won’t
sell me your goat, nor trade him for my coat? Well, maybe it is better
so, and I need my clean coat to wear as I bake the waffles. Oh, ho!”
“Do you s’pose he really wants our goat?” asked Jan in a whisper of her
brother.
“He can’t have him, if he does,” answered the Curlytop boy. “We won’t
sell Nicknack.”
“And we won’t trade him for a horse, either,” went on Jan. “A horse is
too big for us. A goat is just right.”
But the jolly fat man did not seem to want to take Nicknack away from
the Curlytops. He smiled at them, now that he had on his clean coat,
and then, going inside his wagon, he took the reins and turned his
horse around so that the children could see the side of the red and
little house-like wagon. They saw what seemed to be a tiny kitchen,
with shelves of dishes, and on a white oilcloth-covered table stood a
little gasolene stove.
The fat man mixed some batter in a pan, lighted a fire in the small
stove and then began to cook something. As smoke arose and a delicious,
sweet, brownish smell filled the air, the queer man began ringing a
bell.
“Oh, ho!” he cried, laughing. “Do you know what that means?”
“I knows! I knows!” cried Trouble before his brother or sister could
speak. “Dat’s din’-don’ bell, Pussy’s in de well!”
“Almost right, little chap!” laughed the man. “It is a ding-dong bell,
but it sings another song. Here it is,” and he sang:
“Ding dong bell,
Listen while I tell,
Down in the dingle-dell,
Hot waffles do I sell!”
And with that the man did something to the little stove on the white
table in front of him and, like the magician doing tricks, such as
taking a rabbit out of a hat, the man clapped out on a plate some hot
waffles, over which he sprinkled powdered sugar.
“Here you are!” he cried. “Hot waffles for a penny. Simple Simon’s pie!
Oh, my eye! Hot waffles high and dry! Want to buy?” and he leaned down
over the table in the side of the red wagon and looked smilingly at the
children in the goat cart as the store-keeper leans over his counter
to hear what the little girl says when her mother sends her to the
grocer’s for a yeast cake and she buys a pound of sugar instead.
“Want to buy some waffles?” asked the fat man.
“Are they really a penny?” asked Ted.
“That’s all--no more, no less. A penny apiece, ten cents a dozen.”
“We couldn’t eat a _dozen_,” said Jan, wide-eyed. “Anyhow mother
wouldn’t like us to. But we could buy one apiece.”
“Then please do,” begged the fat man. “I haven’t sold any since I left
the last town, and I’d like to make a start. Come, I’ll give you each
two for a penny, seeing you are my first customers. Here you are,” and
as nimble as a cat when she’s jumping over a fence to get away from the
dog, the fat man ran from his wagon, coming out of the little door in
the back, and stood bowing before the children with the plate of hot
waffles in his hand.
“Here you are,” he cried. “Two for a penny.”
“Let’s see,” said Ted slowly. “There’s three of us. Trouble can eat
two, I guess. Three times two is seven----”
“No, _six_,” corrected Jan, for she was better in number-work than was
her brother.
“Oh yes, six,” agreed Teddy. “Six waffles is three cents,” and from his
pocket he took three pennies which he gave to the fat man, who put six
waffles down on a piece of paper in Jan’s lap.
“There you are!” he cried. “You’re the little housekeeper, I guess. Now
I’ll have good luck--I’ve made my first sale!” and he laughed so that
he shook all over as if he were a jelly lollypop.
“Do you go around selling hot waffles like the man in our town?” asked
Jan, as she gave Trouble and Ted each one of the sugar-covered cakes.
“Well, I don’t know the man in your town, but I do go about selling
them here--also lollypops, popcorn balls, candy and other things.
Sometimes ice-cream when I’m in a city where I can sell it before it
melts. But in the country like this I sell mostly waffles.”
“And did you really want to take our goat?” asked Jan anxiously.
“No, my dear. I was only joking. I do love a goat, and I had one when
I was a boy. But I soon grew so fat that I had to pull him around in
the cart instead of his pulling me. That was too hard work for me, so I
waited until I could buy a horse.”
“Could you ride your horse in your wagon?” asked Ted.
“No, I’m afraid not. I’ve too much in my cart. I sleep in it. Come and
look.”
Tying Nicknack near a fence, where he could nibble the sweet grass, Jan
and Ted, taking Trouble by the hands, went to look at the fat man’s
wagon. They finished eating the waffles as they looked at it. The wagon
within was like a little house. There was a bed built on one side, and
a table with books and papers on it. Then there was a little kitchen,
where the fat man cooked waffles, and other things that he ate himself.
“You see I’d get sort of tired of waffles, seeing so many of them,” he
explained. “I only eat ’em when I can’t sell ’em.”
Then he told the Curlytops how he drove about from town to town in the
country, sometimes going to cities, where he sold waffles and other
things. His name, he said, was Sam Sander, and he had been selling
waffles and candy about the country for seven years.
“Well, I must be traveling on,” he said after a while, when the
Curlytops had finished looking at his wagon, inside and outside.
“I’m going to town to sell waffles. Here’s a little waffle for your
goat,” and he tossed a broken one to Nicknack, who ate it and cried:
“Baa-a-a-a!” as if in thanks.
“Isn’t he nice!” exclaimed Jan when smiling Sam Sander had driven away
with his white horse and red wagon. “I like him!”
“So do I,” agreed Ted.
“More cake?” asked Trouble, looking up with his face quite smeared with
the waffles he had eaten.
“No more cakes now,” answered Jan with a laugh. “But those were good,”
she said to her brother. “I’d like some more myself.”
“We’ll buy some to-morrow if we can find him,” returned Ted. “If he’s
going to be in town we may see him. We can ride over in our goat wagon.”
“Yes,” agreed Jan. “I’m glad Mr. Sander didn’t take Nicknack even in
fun, though.”
“Huh, I wouldn’t let him!” cried Ted. “Say!” he went on, “don’t you
wish we could ride around like that and sell things?”
“It would be nice,” agreed his sister. “And, oh say, Ted! we could earn
money that way for the Home, where Hal lives.”
Her eyes sparkled and she clapped her hands. Janet thought of more
things than Ted could keep track of sometimes.
“Wouldn’t that be lovely?” she cried, her eyes sparkling.
“It would be. But we’d have to have a big wagon, and Nicknack couldn’t
pull it,” said Ted.
“I wish there was some way we could earn money and give it to the
Home,” went on Janet. “Baking chocolate cakes doesn’t seem much.”
“Grandpa’d give ’em money if he had it,” went on Ted.
“Yes; but he hasn’t it. He could give ’em cherries, ’cause he has more
than he can sell,” said Janet. “But I guess cherries wouldn’t be much
good for the Home. Oh dear, if we were only grown-up we could help.”
Ted did not answer right away. He was thinking very hard as he drove
the goat down the shady road. Then, all at once, he cried:
“Janet, I know what we can do!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean to earn money. I know how we can do it!”
“How?”
“Give goat rides. Don’t you know how once, when we went to New York,
in Central Park we saw boys giving rides in goat wagons for five cents
apiece--I mean the rides five cents apiece, not the wagons.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, we could give rides to the boys and girls here, charge ’em
money and give all we got to the Home. Maybe it wouldn’t be much, but
it would be some.”
“Oh, Ted! that’s just lovely!” cried Janet. “We’ll do it! Oh, how nice
it will be! Let’s make a sign and put it on Nicknack.”
“How’re you going to put a sign on the goat--paint him?”
“No. We’ll get mother to make one on cloth, and we can pin the cloth to
his harness, and let it hang over his side like a blanket.”
“Say, that’s great!” cried Ted. “We’ll do it!”
When the Curlytops told their mother and father what they wanted to
do--give goat rides to earn money--everyone said it was all right.
Mother Martin made a muslin sign, and with some black paint found in
grandpa’s barn Daddy Martin painted the words. They read:
GOAT RIDES
UP AND DOWN THE ROAD
5 CENTS
MONEY FOR THE CRIPPLED HOME
“There!” cried Ted, as he looked at the sign hanging on either side of
Nicknack, “that ought to earn some money. Come on now, Jan, we’ll go
out and see what we can do.”
“Oh but _we_ can’t ride if we’re going to take passengers!”
“No. But we can ride until someone wants to get in, and then we can get
out. I’ll walk alongside the wagon and drive Nicknack, and you can be
the conductor and collect the money.”
“All right. And if only one or two want to ride at once we can get in
too, for there’s room.”
“All right! But come on! Now we can earn money for Hal’s home!”