JANET’S FLOWERS
At first Ted was not quite sure whether he was fully awake or whether
he was still dreaming. But when he took a second look at his little
brother Trouble, standing beside the cot bed, Ted began to feel pretty
sure he was no longer sleeping.
“’Ook what Trouble found!” went on the little fellow, laughing
joyously. “Hims is ’ike a big stone, but hims isn’t a stone. Hims is
a’ive, hims is!”
Ted looked at the funny, half-round, black object Trouble held. If
Ted’s eyes had been more widely opened, and if he had not been so
suddenly awakened from his sleep, he might have known what it was Baby
William had found so early in the morning.
The night had been rather warm, and, to be cooler, Teddy had left his
feet and legs uncovered. One bare leg was outside the covers on the
cot now, and the first thing Teddy knew he felt something cold and
clammy crawling over his leg, and then something scratched him.
“Oh! Ouch!” cried Teddy, sitting up in bed. “What have you there,
Trouble? Did you put a snake on me?”
“Hims no snake!” laughed Baby William. “’Ook at him.”
Then Teddy rubbed his eyes so he could see better, and he saw what it
was Trouble had brought in. It was crawling about on the bed
now—sliding on and off Ted’s bare leg, and the little Curlytop boy saw
what made the scratchy feeling.
“It’s a mud turtle!” cried Teddy. “Oh, where’d you get him, Trouble?”
“Trouble find mud turkle in woods, down by lake,” was the answer.
“Trouble bring turkle in to Ted. Nice turkle!”
“Yes, he’s nice all right,” agreed Ted, with a laugh. “But I don’t
want him in my bed. Take him out, Trouble, and I’ll get dressed. It’s
morning!” cried Ted, as he saw the sun shining into the bungalow.
“Trouble give turkle to Jan,” murmured the little chap as he reached
for the crawling creature. “Jan ’ike a turkle, too!”
“No, don’t put it in Janet’s bed!” advised Teddy.
“All wite,” assented Trouble. “Me give him Unk Ben!”
“No, don’t do that, either!” cried Teddy, catching his little brother,
just as Baby William was about to toddle into the room where Mr.
Wilson slept. “Take the turtle outside, Trouble. I’ll come out pretty
soon and we’ll have some fun. Don’t let him run away.”
“All wite,” agreed Trouble, and out he went with the queer creature.
“What’s going on out there?” called Mrs. Martin from her room.
“Trouble, where are you?” she asked, looking over to the crib where
Baby William had been put to sleep the night before. Mrs. Martin saw
that the crib was empty, and she guessed what had happened. Trouble
had awakened early, and had slipped out without waiting to be dressed.
“What are you doing?” his mother called.
“Oh, he’s all right,” answered Teddy, who was dressing himself now.
“He went down to the lake, found a mud turtle and put it in my bed. He
woke me up. The turtle crawled on my bare leg, and I thought at first
it was a snake. Trouble wanted to put the turtle in Jan’s bed and then
in Uncle Ben’s, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“That’s right!” said his father. “Trouble, put the turtle down and
come in here!”
“Yes,” answered Trouble, and he did what he was told at once, as he
nearly always did when his father spoke.
In a little while the two Curlytops were dressed, as was the rest of
the family, and soon they were sitting down to the breakfast table.
“Where’s the turtle, Trouble?” asked Jan, as she got up from the
table. “I want to see it, but I don’t want it in bed with me.”
Trouble looked around on the floor.
“Turkle gone!” he said, not seeing his new pet.
“Gone!” cried Ted. “Why, I told you to watch him, Trouble. We could
’a’ had a lot of fun with that turtle, and now you let him get away!”
“Did you put him anywhere, Trouble?” asked Janet.
“Ess, me put him somewhere,” answered Baby William, still stooping
down and looking around the floor.
“Well, where’d you put him?” asked Ted.
Trouble shook his head.
“Me fordet!” he said simply.
That was often the way with Trouble. He would sometimes put his toys,
or one of Janet’s dolls, maybe, away and forget where he had left it.
“I guess he put the turtle down on the floor when I called him to
breakfast,” said Mrs. Martin, “and the turtle crawled off. Never mind,
there’ll be plenty else to play with.”
“And maybe we can find another turtle,” said Ted. “Come on, Jan, we’ll
look.”
“I have something else I want to do now,” answered the little girl.
“All right. Then I’ll go on a turtle hunt,” decided Ted. “Come on,
Trouble. Show me where you found the one that got away.”
“Don’t go too far, and keep out of the boats!” called Mrs. Martin to
her two little boys, as they walked away, hand in hand.
There was quite a lot of work to do about the bungalow to get it in
order for the summer visit, and soon Mrs. Martin, her husband, and
Uncle Ben were busy. Trouble and Ted were in plain sight down on the
shore of the lake, looking for turtles, so their mother was not
worried about them. Janet was on the porch, taking some of her toys
from the box in which they had been packed, and Uncle Ben was getting
ready to fix the rudder of the motor boat. The rudder was under water,
and Uncle Ben said he would put on a pair of rubber boots to wade out
and see what was wrong with the steering gear.
“Hello! Something is wrong here!” exclaimed Uncle Ben, as he put his
left foot in one of the pair of boots that Daddy Martin brought out of
a closet for him.
“Something wrong? Aren’t they big enough for you?” asked Mr. Martin.
“One is, but the other doesn’t seem to be,” answered the man who had
once been a sailor. “There’s something in this boot. I can’t get it
on!”
He had his foot half way in, but now he pulled it out and thrust in
his hand. As he did this Uncle Ben gave a laugh.
“I’ve found Trouble’s lost turtle,” he called.
“Where was it?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“In this rubber boot,” answered Uncle Ben. “Trouble must have dropped
the turtle in the boot, and then he forgot about it. Here it is!”
He drew forth his hand and there, surely enough, out came the turtle
in it.
“No wonder I couldn’t get my foot in!” laughed Uncle Ben. “The turtle
took up all the room.”
“Put it in a box so it can’t get away,” said Daddy Martin. “The
children can play with it. They won’t hurt it, and the turtle isn’t
the snapping kind, so it won’t bite them.”
The queer pet Trouble had found was put in a wooden box, high enough
on the sides to keep the creature from crawling out. Then Uncle Ben
put on the other rubber boot and fixed the motor boat.
Meanwhile Trouble and Teddy, walking up and down the shore of the
lake, were looking for more turtles. They did not see any, but they
found plenty of other things to make them happy. There were frogs, and
there were little fishes swimming close to shore in the shallow water.
But every time the boys tried to catch a fish or a frog they missed.
The fishes gave little flips of their tails and swam away, and the
frogs hopped into deeper water.
There were other little swimming creatures, however—tiny black
tadpoles, that, some day, would turn into frogs. And by scooping up
water in their cupped hands Ted and Trouble caught some of the
“taddies.”
“Let’s put ’em in a can and watch ’em turn into frogs,” suggested Ted.
“That’ll be fun, won’t it, Trouble?”
“Um—yes,” agreed the smaller boy.
Ted found an old tomato can, filled it with water, and then he and his
brother caught more tadpoles. Soon they had a dozen swimming around in
the water of the can.
“Now we’ll sit down and watch ’em turn into frogs,” said Ted, as he
carried the can over to a shady place.
Uncle Ben had told him that the tadpoles, though they had a tail at
first, lost it after a while, and then grew two feet, and then, later,
had four feet and legs, and finally were frogs.
For some little time Ted and Trouble sat and looked into the can of
wiggling tadpoles. Then, as no change took place and as not a single
frog hopped out, Ted exclaimed:
“Oh, I guess they won’t change while we watch ’em. Let’s go away now,
an’ when we come back they’ll be frogs.”
“All wite,” agreed Trouble. They did not know that it takes many days
for a tadpole to change into a frog.
“Come on, let’s go get a cookie, and then we’ll see what Jan’s doing,”
suggested Ted, as he led his brother toward the bungalow. “Maybe
she’ll come with us an’ have some fun now. Maybe Uncle Ben will take
us out in a boat. Shall we do that, Trouble?”
“All wite—’ess!” was the answer.
Janet was tired of her unpacking, and after each of the children had
been given a sugar cookie by Mrs. Martin, they started out again to
look for something to do. There were many ways of having fun at Silver
Lake, even though the picnic season had not started yet.
When it did, and when the merry-go-round and the shoot-the-chutes were
going, there would be more ways of having fun.
“Don’t go too far off, children!” called Mrs. Martin to the Curlytops
and Trouble. “Uncle Ben is going to take you for a boat ride before
dinner.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun!” cried Ted.
“We’re just going a little way,” added Janet.
The three strolled toward the lake, down the winding path. Janet saw,
in a clump of trees, some pretty blue flowers.
“Oh, I know what I’m going to do!” she cried. “I’m going to pick a
bouquet for mother to put on the table. It looks so pretty! I’ll get
some flowers!”
“I’ll pick some green ferns to go with the bouquet,” added Ted, as he
saw a clump near the blue flowers. “Come on, Trouble, you help me pick
the ferns.”
Janet started toward the clump of blue flowers. She did not know that
the posies grew on the edge of a hole that was filled with water and
very sticky mud. As the grass grew tall near the edge of the hole
Janet could not see it.
Up to the pretty blossoms she ran, and she reached her hands out to
pick some. Ted, who was watching her, suddenly saw his sister go out
of sight. He knew she had fallen down, but he did not know just how it
had happened.
“Janet! Janet!” he cried. “What’s the matter?”
“Ted!” she answered. “Oh, Teddy, I fell in! Come and get me out!”