TED AND THE BEAR
Baby William looked a little bit frightened and ashamed as his mother
spoke to him in that way. He loved his grandfather, and of course he
would not have done anything to make him feel bad if he had thought. But
Trouble was a very little fellow, though his father often said he could
get into as many kinds of mischief as could the larger Curlytops.
"Oh dear! This is too bad!" went on Mrs. Martin. "Why did you do it,
Trouble? What made you empty the bag of salt into the lake?"
"Want to make ocean wif salt water," was the answer.
"I suppose it's my fault, for telling him so much about the big sea and
its salt water," said Trouble's mother. "He liked to hear me talk about
the ocean, and I guess he must have been thinking about it more than I
had any idea of.
"He must have tasted the water of the lake, and found it wasn't salty,
and then he thought that, to make an ocean and big waves out of a lake,
all he had to do was to put in the salt. I'm sorry, Father."
"Oh, that's all right," laughed Grandpa Martin. "I guess I can get along
without any more salt."
"Trouble sorry, too," said the little fellow, when he understood that he
had done something wrong. "Me get salt water for you," and he started
toward the place where he had emptied the bag into the water, carrying a
spoon from the table.
"No, Trouble! Come back!" ordered his mother. "I guess he wants to dip
up some salt water for you," she said laughingly to the children's
grandfather, "but he'd be more likely to fall in himself."
She caught Trouble up in her arms and kissed him, and then Nora managed
to find a little salt in the bottom of the shaker, so Grandpa Martin had
some on his potatoes after all. But Trouble was told he must never again
do anything like that.
He promised, of course, but Jan said:
"He'll do something else, just as bad."
"I guess he will," laughed Teddy.
Supper over, Mr. Martin took his two men over to the mainland. On his
return they all gathered about a little campfire grandpa made in front
of the sleeping tent. The cot beds had been set up, and a mosquito
netting was hung at the "front door" of the white canvas house, though
really there was no door, just two flaps of the tent that could be tied
together. But the netting kept out the bugs. Fortunately there were no
mosquitoes, though all sorts of moths, snapping bugs and other flying
things came around whenever a lantern was lighted.
"Tell us a story, Grandpa!" begged Janet, when they had finished talking
about the many things that had happened during the first day in camp.
"Tell us about the shooting star that fell on this island," begged
Teddy.
"Tell us about de twamps!" exclaimed Trouble, who ought to have been
asleep, but who had begged to stay up a little longer than usual.
"I don't know anything about the tramps," laughed grandpa, "and I don't
believe there are any on the island, though it is a large one, and it
will take two or three days for us to walk all about it.
"As for the shooting star, which Teddy thinks about so much, I really
didn't see it fall, and all I know is what the old men in the village
have told me. It was many years ago."
"And did you ever see the blue light?" asked Ted, thinking of what he
and his sister had seen the night they were coming home from the little
visit to Hal Chester.
"No, I never did; though I'd like to, so I might know what it was."
"Children, how is grandpa ever going to tell you a story if you keep
asking him so many questions?" laughed Mrs. Martin.
"All right--now we'll listen," promised Teddy, and Grandpa Martin told a
tale of when he was a little boy, and lived further to the north and on
the edge of a big wood where there were bears and other wild animals.
His father was a good hunter, Grandpa Martin said, and often used to
kill bears and wolves, for the country was wild, with never so much as
one automobile in it.
Grandpa finished his story of the olden days by telling of once when he
was a small boy, coming home through the woods toward dark one evening
and being chased by a bear. But he crawled into a hollow log where the
bear could not get him, and later his father and some other hunters
came, shot the bear and got the little boy safely out.
"Whew!" whistled Teddy, when this was finished. "I'd like to have been
there!"
"In the log, hiding away from the bear?" asked his mother.
"No, I--I guess not that," Ted answered. "I'd just like to have seen it
up in a tree, where the bear couldn't get me."
"Bears can climb trees," remarked Janet.
"Well, I'd go up in a little tree too small for a bear," her brother
answered.
"I guess you'd all better go to your little beds!" laughed Mother
Martin. "It's long past your sleepy time."
And the Curlytops and Trouble were soon sound asleep.
It must have been about the middle of the night--anyhow it was quite
late--when Teddy, who was sleeping in his cot next to one of the side
walls of the tent, was suddenly awakened by a noise outside, and
something seemed to be trying to get through.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Teddy, quickly sitting up in bed, and wide awake all at
once. "Oh, Mother! Something's after me! It's a bear! It's a bear!"
"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "You'll waken William, and
frighten him!"
"But Mother! I'm sure it's a bear! He growled!"
"What is it?" asked Jan, from her cot on the other side of the tent.
"It's a bear!" cried Ted again.
There did seem to be something going on outside the tent near Ted's
side. There was a crackling in the bushes, and once something came
pushing hard against the side of the white canvas house with force
enough to make a bulge in it. Teddy jumped up from his cot and ran over
to his mother, who was sitting up on her bed.
"Oh, Mother! It's coming in!" cried Teddy.
"Nonsense!" and Mrs. Martin laughed as she put her arms around her small
son.
"What is it?" asked Grandpa Martin from the curtained-off part of the
tent where he slept.
"It's a bear!" cried Janet.
Just then, from outside came a loud:
"Baa-a-a-a-a!"
Teddy looked very much surprised. Then he smiled. Then he laughed and
cried:
"Why, it's our goat Nicknack!"
"I guess that's what it is," added Grandpa Martin. "But he seems to be
in trouble. I'll go outside and look."
Taking a lantern with him, while Mrs. Martin and the children waited a
bit anxiously, Grandpa Martin went to see what had happened. The
Curlytops heard him laughing as they saw the flicker of his light
through the white tent. Then they heard Nicknack bleating again. The
goat seemed, to those inside, to be kicking about with his little black
hoofs.
"Whoa there, Nicknack!" called Grandpa Martin. "I'll soon get you
loose!"
There was more noise, more tramping in the bushes and then, after a
while, Grandpa Martin came back.
"What was it?" asked Ted and Jan in whispers, for their mother had
begged them not to awaken Trouble, who was still sleeping peacefully.
"It was your goat," was the answer. "He had got loose, and his horns
were caught between two trees where he had tried to jump. He was held
fast by his horns and he was kicking his heels up in the air, trying to
get loose."
"Did you get him out?" asked Jan.
"Yes, I pried the trees apart and got his head loose. Then he was all
right. I tied him good and tight in his stable, and I guess he won't
bother us again to-night."
"Then it wasn't a bear after all," remarked Jan, laughing at her
brother.
"No, indeed! There aren't any bears on this island," said her
grandfather. "Go to sleep."
Nothing else happened the rest of the night, and they all slept rather
late the next morning, for they were tired from the work of the day
before. The sun was shining over Clover Lake when Nora rang the
breakfast bell, and Ted and Jan hurried with their dressing, for they
were eager to be at their play.
"What'll we do to-day?" asked Janet, as she tried to get a comb through
her thick, curly hair.
"We'll go for a ride with Nicknack," decided Ted, who was also having a
hard time with his locks. "Oh, I wish I was a barber!" he cried, as the
comb stuck in a bunch of curls.
"Why?" asked his mother, who was giving Trouble his breakfast.
"'Cause then I'd cut my own hair short, and I'd never have to comb it."
"Oh, I wouldn't want to see you without your curls," Mother Martin said.
"Here, I'll help you as soon as I feed Trouble."
Trouble could feed himself when his plate had been set in front of him,
and while he was eating Mrs. Martin made her two Curlytops look better
by the use of their combs.
After breakfast the children ran to hitch Nicknack to the wagon. Grandpa
Martin was going back in the rowboat to the mainland to get a few things
that had been forgotten, and also another bag of salt.
"And I'll hide it away from Trouble," said Nora with a laugh. "We don't
want any more salty oceans around here."
"Let's drive away before Trouble sees us," proposed Jan to her brother.
"He'll want to come for a ride and we can't go very far if he comes
along."
"All right. Stoop down and walk behind the bushes. Then he can't see
us."
Jan and Ted managed to get away unseen, and were soon hitching their
goat to the wagon. Trouble finished his breakfast and called to them,
wanting to go with them wherever they went. But his mother knew the two
Curlytops did not want Trouble with them every time, so Baby William had
to play by himself about camp, while the two older children drove off on
a path that led the long way of the island.
"Maybe we'll have an adventure," suggested Jan, as she sat in the cart
driving the goat, for she and her brother took turns at this fun.
"Maybe we'll see some of the tramps," he added.
"I don't want to," said Jan.
"Well, maybe we'll see a bear."
"I don't want that, either. I wish you wouldn't say such things, Teddy."
"Well, what do you want to see?"
"Oh, something nice--flowers or birds or maybe a fairy."
"Huh! I guess there's no fairies on this island, either. Let's see if we
can find an apple tree. I'd like an apple."
"So would I. But we mustn't eat green ones."
"Not if they're too green," agreed Teddy. "But a little green won't
hurt."
They drove on, Nicknack trotting along the path through the woods, now
and then stopping to nibble at the leaves. At last the children came to
a beautiful shady spot, where many ferns grew beneath the trees, and it
was so cool that they stopped their goat, tied him to an old stump and
sat down to eat some cookies their mother had given them. The Curlytops
nearly always became hungry when they were out on their little trips.
"Wouldn't it be funny," remarked Ted, after a bit, "if we should see a
bear?"
"The-o-dore Martin!" gasped Janet. "I wish you'd keep quiet! It makes me
scared to hear you say that."
"Well, I was only foolin'," and Teddy dropped a "g," a habit of which
his mother was trying to break him. And he did not often forget.
"If I saw a bear," began Janet, "I'd just scream and----"
Suddenly she stopped because of a queer look she saw on her brother's
face. Teddy dropped the cookie he had been about to bite, and, pointing
toward a hollow log that lay not far off, said, in a hoarse whisper:
"Look, Jan! It _is_ a bear!"