DOWN TO THE SEA
The cat, as she felt the ladder slipping, made a flying leap, and jumped
out of the way. She happened to jump toward Chief, and, as she did so,
she stretched out her claws and scratched the dog on his nose.
Chief howled in pain, as any other dog would have done, and then he sat
down on a pile of partly dried grass near the ladder, and howled more
loudly.
Janet and Trouble saw all this happen in a quick flash. As for Ted, he
was so frightened when he felt the ladder slipping that he did not see
much of what happened, though he heard Chief howl.
And down fell Teddy and the ladder! But because Patrick had cut the
grass that day and had raked a big heap of it near the shed, leaving it
just where Teddy had put up his ladder, the little boy fell on this soft
stuff instead of on the hard ground.
And so it happened, very luckily, that Teddy wasn’t hurt at all. The
ladder, in slipping down, bumped him slightly on the head, but not
enough to make him cry. He sat there, on top of the pile of grass,
looking very much surprised, gazing at Chief, who was rubbing his
scratched nose with one paw. The cat had vanished.
“Oh, wasn’t it funny!” laughed Trouble. “Wasn’t it funny! Oh, ho!”
“It might not have been if I hadn’t fallen on the grass,” said Teddy.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Janet.
“No, I guess I didn’t,” he slowly replied. Then he moved about and felt
of his legs and arms. “No, I’m all right. Did you sic Chief after the
cat?” he asked his sister.
“Course not!” declared Janet. “Trouble and I were feeding the ducks, and
along came the cat—it’s a strange one, I guess—and then along came
Chief, and he chased after the cat.”
“And Chief wouldn’t come back when I hollered to him,” said Trouble. “If
I had a peanut, maybe, like I had for the nellifunt, Chief would have
come back.”
“Are you going to play fireman now?” Janet wanted to know.
Teddy wasn’t quite sure whether to go on with his game or not. He had
been a bit shaken up by the fall.
“I’m going fishing!” he announced after a moment’s thought.
“Fishing?” Janet exclaimed. “Where?”
“Down in the brook. You can come if you like, and so can Trouble. We’ll
bend up a pin and make him a hook.”
“I’ll catch a fish!” cried Trouble, as he heard the news that he was to
join the party. “I’ll put a peanut on my hook and I’ll catch a nellifunt
fish.”
“Oh, all you think of is elephants!” laughed Janet, giving her little
brother a hug. “But, Ted,” she asked, “do you really think you can catch
a fish?”
“Sure, I can!” he said positively. “If we’re going down to the seashore
we’ll fish there, so we’d better practice here. Once I caught a fish in
the brook.”
This was true. Teddy had managed to trade off an old, broken knife to
Tom Taylor in exchange for a rusty fish hook and a tangle of line. Ted
untangled the line, fastened it to a pole he cut from the lilac bush,
dug up a worm, baited his hook and caught a little sunfish. Ever since
then, whenever other play failed, Ted announced that he was going
fishing. But, up to this time, he had never caught another thing.
However, he never gave up hope, nor did Janet, for she, too, wanted to
feel the thrill of a nibble on her hook. Ted, meanwhile, had traded off
a battered top for another rusty hook and tangle of line to Harry Kent,
and this second line he gave to Janet.
So they each had a pole and line, though the hooks were more rusty than
at first. They were not very sharp, either, for which Mrs. Martin was
glad, for she did not wish the Curlytops to get a hook caught in their
hands. However, she said little, for she knew that the best way to make
children careful is to let them do some things for themselves, after
warning them how to look out for danger.
So, a little later, the Curlytops and Trouble were on their way to the
brook which ran not far from the house. It was a pretty stream of water,
not very wide and not very deep, running now through a clump of willow
trees and again through bright, green meadows where cows cropped the
grass and drank from the pools.
Ted and Janet had real poles, lines and hooks, but all Trouble was
allowed to carry was a bent pin dangling on the end of a bit of cord
tied to a stick. However, this was all he wanted.
Ted had dug himself some worms. Janet, who could not bear to put the
wiggling things on her hook, had begged from Norah some scraps of meat
from the ice box.
“The fish will bite on them just the same as on worms,” said Janet.
“We’ll fish in the shade under the willow trees,” decided Ted. “The
water’s deeper there, and you can get bigger fish in deep water.”
“We must look out that Trouble doesn’t fall in,” Janet said.
“I’ll watch him,” offered Ted.
It was pleasant in the shade of the drooping willow trees, at the foot
of which the brook ran silent and rather deep. Ted pointed out a place
on the sloping bank where his sister and brother could sit and cast in.
Janet baited Trouble’s bent pin hook with a bit of meat and then her
own. Ted put on a wiggling worm.
For a few minutes after they had cast in, the children kept silence.
That was part of the fishing game—not to make any more noise than you
could help. Whether or not fish can hear under water, I don’t know; but
I remember, when I was a boy, I always tried to be quiet when I was
after fish.
Suddenly Janet, who was sitting near Trouble, looked across at Ted and
exclaimed:
“I got a nibble!”
“Keep still!” whispered Ted. “Do you want to scare all the fish away? If
you have a bite, pull in!”
Cautiously Janet raised her pole, lifting the line from the water.
“You’ve got to pull quicker and harder than that if you want to catch a
fish!” declared Ted. “Say, you have a big bite!” he added, as he saw his
sister’s line swishing through the water and the end of her pole
bending. “I didn’t think you’d get such a big bite on a piece of meat!
Pull in! Pull in!”
Janet pulled. But whatever it was on the end of her line under water,
also pulled. Janet leaned over in her excitement. Her line was given a
sudden jerk and, the next moment, into the water fell poor Janet with a
great splash!
“Oh! Oh!” cried Trouble, and he began to sob.
Teddy acted quickly. Dropping his pole, he leaped in after his sister
and raised her up from the water. Though the brook was deeper here than
at any other point, it was not more than up to the waist of the
Curlytops, and Janet was soon out of danger.
She and Ted stood up, dripping wet, and gasping for breath, but not
otherwise harmed.
“Oh! Oh, is you drowned?” cried Trouble, from the bank.
“N-n-no! I—I’m all right!” gasped Janet. “Don’t cry, Trouble!”
“And don’t you fall in!” added Ted, with a laugh. “Two is enough in one
day. Say, we’re soaked!” he cried in dismay, for he had gone in deeper
than he had supposed, and so had Janet.
“Well, it’s a nice hot day and we’ll soon dry,” remarked his sister, as
they waded to the bank. “It’s like going in bathing at the seashore,”
she added.
“Say, we’ll have fun down there all right!” Teddy said. “Oh, but look at
your pole!” he cried. “The fish is still on the hook and it’s taking
your pole away! I’ll get it!”
Making sure that Janet was all right, Ted let go of her and made a dive
for the pole.
“Say, you have got a big one!” he shouted. “No wonder it pulled you in!
Come and help me, Jan! I can’t get him up!”
Forgetting all about their accident and the fact that they were wet from
head to foot, the Curlytops pulled on Janet’s pole. The creature that
had hold of the hook pulled also, but the children proved the stronger,
and at last hauled out on shore—
A big mud turtle!
“Oh, look what was on my hook!” cried Janet.
“A turtle!” gasped Ted. “Say, that’s bigger than a fish!”
“But it isn’t any good,” Janet said. “You can’t eat a mud turtle.”
“Maybe we can,” said Teddy. “We’ll take him home and maybe Norah will
know how to cook him.”
“I want to see turkle!” cried Trouble.
“You stay back there!” ordered Ted to his little brother. “If you don’t,
you’ll fall in. I’ll bring the turtle up so you can see it.”
“Look out it doesn’t bite you,” warned Janet. “Maybe it’s a snapper!
Look out, Ted!”
However, Ted was to get into no danger. For as he made a dash for the
turtle the creature let go the hook and scrambled down the bank and into
the water with a plopping splash.
“Oh, there he goes!” cried Janet, in disappointment.
“I guess he was only holding to the hook with his teeth,” said Ted, “and
he could let go when he wanted to. But I almost had him.”
The children caught nothing more that day. They did not have so much as
a nibble, and Ted was quite disappointed.
“Well, anyhow, we had fun,” he said, as, an hour or so later, they
walked slowly toward the house. The sun and the warm wind had nearly
dried him and Janet. But one could easily tell they had fallen in, and
Mrs. Martin guessed it without being told, though of course the
Curlytops related what had happened.
It was not the first time they had fallen into the brook.
“You must be more careful,” said Mrs. Martin. “We are soon going to the
seashore, you know, and if you fall into the ocean it will not be so
easy to get out as it is from the brook.”
“We’ll be careful,” promised the Curlytops, and they really meant to be.
But of course accidents will happen.
A few evenings after this Mr. and Mrs. Martin called on Mr. and Mrs.
Keller, where the old gentleman and his wife were visiting relatives in
Cresco. The Curlytops and Trouble stayed at home.
“When are you going to Sunset Beach?” asked Mrs. Keller.
“The first of next week,” answered Mrs. Martin.
“We leave to-morrow,” Mr. Keller said. “This is the first long vacation
I have had in a number of years.”
“Are you in business in Pocono, where Mr. Bardeen lives?” asked Mr.
Martin.
“Yes, I am a sort of secretary for Amos Narr.”
“The millionaire?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“Yes, he is a very wealthy man,” said Mr. Keller.
“And very odd and peculiar,” added Mrs. Keller. “Sometimes I think he is
very cross and ugly.”
“Oh, no, my dear,” objected her husband. “Mr. Narr, though, is very
particular about his business. He wants everything done just so and
right, and he will not take any excuses for mistakes. He is a hard man
to work for, but he is not what you could call ugly.”
“He gets cross, doesn’t he?” asked Mrs. Keller.
“Yes, sometimes he gets very cross. I don’t like to work for him; but
when you get to be as old as I am,” Mr. Keller said, with a sigh, “you
have to work wherever you can. You can’t pick and choose.”
“No, I suppose not,” Mr. Martin said. “Well, we shall see you at Sunset
Beach,” he added, as he and his wife made ready to leave. “And I hope
there are no ‘nellifunts’ there,” he concluded, with a laugh.
“If there are, Trouble will be sure to find them!” said Mrs. Martin.
“And I shall be glad to have Mr. Keller there to rescue him.”
“It’s Trouble’s turn to rescue me,” laughed the old gentleman, and
neither he nor any of the others dreamed how nearly true this was going
to be.
The next day Mr. and Mrs. Keller left Cresco for Sunset Beach, and the
Martins promised to look them up later, when they arrived.
“Oh, I can hardly wait for the time to come!” exclaimed Janet, counting
off the days on her fingers.
“We’ll have dandy times down at Sunset Beach!” said Teddy.
At last the day came when they were to go down to the sea. They went by
train, for it was rather long for an auto trip, though one of Mr.
Martin’s men was to drive the car down so it could be used during the
summer.
The train journey, though rather tiresome, was over at last. Mrs. Martin
said she never knew Trouble could drink as much water as he did. He
seemed to want some one to go to the cooler and bring him a paper cup of
the liquid about every five minutes.
“Well, it is a very hot day, and water is good for him,” said Mr.
Martin. “I’m glad we could come to the shore this summer. I think we are
in for a long, hot spell of weather.”
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the train, after
stopping at Oceanside City, swung around a curve and at last the station
of Sunset Beach was in view. The resort was called Sunset Beach because
it was on the eastern side of a big bay, and when the sun went down in
the west, its rays flooded the beach with golden light.
“I’m going in swimming!” yelled Ted, almost as soon as he was out of the
train.
“I’m going in wading!” said Janet. “Oh, I can smell the ocean now!” and
she took a long breath.
“Are you sure you have all your bundles and things?” asked Mr. Martin,
when the train was about to pull out of the station after they had
gotten off.
Just then Mrs. Martin gave a cry of alarm.
“What’s the matter?” asked her husband.
“Trouble!” she answered. “He must have gone back on the train again
after I lifted him off. Trouble is on the train!” The train began to
move slowly. “Stop it!” screamed the mother of Trouble. “Stop it! Stop
the train!”