TED FINDS A CAVE
Janet and Ted returned from looking at the pretty scarlet bird just in
time to see what happened to Trouble. They saw him fall into the spring.
"Oh!" cried Janet, clasping her hands. "Oh, look!"
"He'll be drowned!" yelled Ted, and then he ran as fast as he could
toward the place where he had last seen his little brother, for Baby
William was not in sight now. He was down in the water.
Perhaps Trouble might not have come to any harm, more than to get wet
through by the time Ted reached him. Perhaps the little fellow might not
have been drowned. At any rate, no harm came to him, even though Jan and
her brother did not get there in time to help.
The two Curlytops, their fuzzy hair fluttering in the wind, were half
way to the spring when they saw coming from the bushes a ragged man.
"There he is!" cried Janet.
"Who?" asked Ted.
"The man who--talked to me--while I was picking flowers," and Jan's
voice came in gasps, for she was getting out of breath from having run
so hard. "There he is!" and she pointed.
"That's the tramp!" cried Ted. "They _are_ on the island, only grandpa
couldn't find 'em!"
"Do you--do you s'pose he's goin' to take Trouble?" faltered Janet.
Before Ted could answer, the Curlytops saw what the ragged man was going
to do. They saw him stoop over the spring, reach down into it and lift
something up. The "something" was Baby William, screaming and crying in
fright, and dripping wet.
The ragged man set Trouble down on a rock near the spring, and then,
waving his hand to Ted and Jan, he cried:
"He's all right--swallowed hardly any water. Take him home as soon as
you can, though. I haven't time to stop--have to go to see the
professor!"
With that the man seemed to dive in between some high bushes, and the
Curlytops could not see him any more. But Trouble was still sitting on
the rock, the water from his clothes making a little puddle all around
him, and he was crying hard, his tears running down his cheeks.
"Oh, Trouble!" gasped Jan, putting her arms around him, all wet as he
was.
"Are you hurt?" asked Ted, looking carefully at his little brother.
"I--I--I fal--falled in an'--an' I's all--all wetted!" wailed Trouble,
his breath coming in gasps because of his crying, which he had partly
stopped on seeing his brother and sister. "I falled in de spwing, I
did!"
"What made you?" asked Ted, while Jan tried to wring some of the water
out of the little fellow's waist and rompers.
"I wanted to get de pail full for mamma."
"But I filled the pail, Trouble. You oughtn't to have touched it," said
Teddy. He went to the spring and looked down in it. The pail was at the
bottom of the little pool.
"It's a good thing that tramp got him out," remarked Janet. "He must be
a nice man, even if his clothes are ragged."
"I guess so, too," agreed Ted. "But he said we must take Trouble home. I
guess we'd better."
"Yes," assented Jan. "But he isn't hurt."
"He wasn't in very long," Ted said. "The man got him out awful
quick--quicker than we could. You lead him home, Jan, and I'll get the
pail out of the spring. It's sunk like a ship."
"How're you going to get it?"
"With a stick, I guess. You mustn't lean over the spring any more,
Trouble."
"No," promised Baby William.
But the Curlytops could not be sure he would keep his promise. He might
for a time, while he remembered what had happened to him.
With a crooked stick Teddy managed to fish up the pail after two or
three trials. Then, filling it with water from the spring, he carried it
back to camp, while Jan led the wet and dripping Trouble.
"Oh, my goodness! What's happened now?" asked Nora, as she saw the three
children coming into camp. "Did you go in swimming with all your clothes
on, Trouble?"
"No. I falled into de spwing, I did!"
"And the tramp got him out!" added Jan.
Then she and Teddy, taking turns, told what had happened. Mrs. Martin
scolded Trouble a little, to make him more careful the next time. Then
Grandpa Martin said:
"Well, there must be strangers on this island after all, though I could
not find them. They must be hiding somewhere, and I'd like to know what
for."
"Maybe they're living in gypsy wagons," suggested Jan.
"Or in a cave," added Ted. "They look as if they lived in a cave."
"There isn't any cave on the island, as far as I know," his grandfather
told Ted. "But I don't like those strange men roaming about our place
here. They may not do any harm, but I don't like it. I'll have another
look for them."
"So will I," added Teddy, but he did not say this aloud. Teddy had made
up his mind to do something. He was going to look for those men himself,
either in a cave or a gypsy wagon. Ted wanted to find the ragged
man--find all of them if more than one; and there seemed to be at least
two, for the one who had pulled Teddy out of the spring had spoken of
another--a "professor."
"What's a professor?" asked Jan.
"Oh, it's a man or a woman who has studied his lessons and teaches them
to others," answered her mother. "One who knows a great deal about
something, such as about the stars or about the world we live in.
Professors find out many things and then tell others--young people
generally--about them."
"I'm going to be a professor," said Teddy.
"Are you?" inquired his mother with a smile. "I hope you will get wise
enough to be one."
But Teddy did not speak all that was in his mind. If a professor was one
who found out things, then the small boy decided he would be one long
enough to find out about the tramps, and perhaps find the cave where
they lived, and then he could tell Jan.
When Trouble had been put into dry clothes and sent to sleep by his
mother's singing, "Ding-dong bell, Pussy's in the well," Jan and Ted sat
by themselves, talking over what had happened that day. Ted was making a
small boat to sail on the lake, and Jan was mending her doll's dress,
where a prickly briar bush had torn a little hole in it.
Early the next morning Ted slipped away from his place at the breakfast
table, and motioned to Jan to join him behind the sleeping tent. Ted
held his finger over his lips to show his sister that he wanted her to
keep very quiet.
"What's the matter?" she whispered, when they were safe by themselves.
"Did you see the tramp-man?"
"No, but I'm going to find him!"
"You are?" cried Janet, and her eyes opened wide with wonder and
surprise.
"Don't tell anybody," went on Ted. "We don't want Trouble to follow us.
Come on off this way," and he pointed to a path that led through the
bushes back of the tent.
Trouble was busy just then, playing in the sand on the shore of Clover
Lake, while Mrs. Martin and Nora were clearing away the breakfast
things. Grandpa Martin was raking up around the tents, so no one saw the
Curlytops slip away.
"Which way are you going?" asked Jan of her brother.
"Over to the spring."
"What for? To get more water? Where's your pail?"
"I don't have to get water yet," answered Ted. "I'm going to the spring
to look to see if I can tell which way that tramp went. Don't you know
how Indians do--look at the leaves and grass in the woods, and they can
tell by the marks which way anybody went? Mother read us a story once
like that."
"I don't like Indians," remarked Jan somewhat shortly, half turning
back.
"Oh, there's no Indians!" exclaimed Ted impatiently. "I was only sayin'
what they did. Come on!"
So Jan followed her brother, though she was a little bit afraid.
However, she saw nothing to frighten her, and it was nice in the woods.
The wind was blowing through the trees, the birds were singing and it
was cool and pleasant. The Curlytops soon came to the spring where
Trouble had fallen in.
"Now we must look all around," declared Teddy.
"What for?" his sister demanded again.
"To tell which way the tramp-man went. Then we can find his cave."
"Maybe he lives in a wagon or a tent."
"Then we'll find them. Come on, help look!"
"I don't know how," confessed Janet.
"Well, look for a place where the bushes are broken down and where you
see footprints in the dirt. That's the way Indians tell. Mother read it
out of a book to us."
So Jan and Ted looked all around the spring, and at last Ted found a
place where it seemed as if some one had run through in a hurry, for
twigs were broken off the bushes, and, by looking down at the ground, he
saw the marks of shoes in the dirt.
Of course Ted could not tell who had made them, but he thought surely it
must have been the tramp who had pulled Trouble from the spring. Ted was
sure they were not the footprints of himself and his sister, for their
own were much smaller.
"Come on, Jan!" cried Teddy. "We'll find that tramp now or, anyway, the
place where he hides."
He pushed on through the bushes. There seemed to be a sort of path
leading away from the spring, which was not the same path that Ted and
Grandpa Martin took when they went from the camp to the water-hole to
fill the pail each day.
On and on went Ted, with Jan following. She was so excited now at the
thought that perhaps they might find something, that she was not a bit
frightened.
"Wait a minute! Wait for me, Teddy!" she called, as her brother hurried
on ahead of her.
"Come on, Jan!" he called. "There's a good path here, and I guess I see
something. Oh, look here! Oh, Jan! Oh! Oh!" suddenly cried Teddy. Then
his voice seemed to fade away, as if he had all at once gone down the
cellar, and Jan could hear him calling faintly.
"Oh, Teddy! What's the matter? What's the matter?" she cried as she ran
on through the bushes.
"I've found the cave!" was his answer, so faint and far away that Jan
could hardly hear. "I've found the cave. I fell right into it! Come
on!"