THE TIPTOE BROTHERS AND THE SLIDE RAFT
Gran’ma and Gran’pa saw the Tiptoe Brothers throw their arms around each
other’s necks in their joy at meeting, but they walked in a wide circle
around the spot where Jingles the Magician was dancing in his efforts to
free himself from the wire.
“I should have been sooner,” said the Dancing Master to Gran’pa and
Gran’ma, “but just as I started to leave the Cottage-Cave I saw a Flying
Boat coming across the country, and I knew from your story that the
wicked Jingles must be in it.”
“What did he do?” asked the children.
“He left his Flying Boat out in front of the Cottage-Cave and came
inside, and while he was snooping around I slipped out the back way,
went round the Cottage-Cave, and touched a match to his Flying Boat! He
will have to walk from now on!” And the Dancing Master did a graceful
little dance step and snapped his fingers.
“Oh dear!” Gran’ma cried as she sat down hard upon the grass.
“Whatever is the matter?” the Tiptoe Brothers cried, as Gran’pa helped
Gran’ma to her feet.
“It was our Flying Boat!” replied Gran’pa quietly, “and the only way we
had of ever getting back home to the Earth!”
The Dancing Master was crestfallen. “I am always putting my foot into
it!” he exclaimed.
“Please do not worry,” said Gran’ma, seeing how sorry the Dancing Master
felt. “You did just what you thought was best!”
“Indeed I did!” answered the Dancing Master. “But that does not bring
back the Flying Boat.”
“What do you intend doing with the wicked Magician?” asked Gran’pa.
“Nothing!” replied the Chief of Detectives. “He is very well off where
he is, and he will never be able to do any mischief as long as he holds
on to the wire, or,” he added with a sly wink at the Soft-Voiced Cow,
“until the wire lets go of him!”
“I feel sorry for him!” said Janey.
“Well you need not, Sis!” Johnny cried. “Look at me and you will see
about how you look! And it is all the wicked Jingles’ fault!”
“Why, what in the world is the matter?” asked the Dancing Master,
noticing for the first time that Janey and Johnny had grown so much
taller.
“We caught hold of the wire!” replied Johnny.
“And it made you grow so much taller?” cried the Dancing Master in
astonishment.
“Have they grown taller?” asked the Chief of Detectives.
“Certainly!” the Dancing Master answered. “They were only children and
were no taller than myself when they left me three hours ago!”
Without saying a word, the Chief of Detectives motioned to the children
and the others to follow him, and going to the counter he took a small
case from under the counter, and from it a tiny bellows.
He then blew a puff of powder over the children and in a short time they
had resumed their normal size.
Then, putting the case in his pocket, the Chief of Detectives said it
would be best for them to try and reach the City of Nite as soon as
possible.
“We shall have the old Witch to contend with when we reach there,” he
reminded the others, “and perhaps even now the Princess is under the
power of the wicked creature!”
“Let us hasten!” cried Gran’pa.
The road now led down the mountain side. A short distance from the Chief
of Detectives’ hut it wound through a deep forest, which made the
traveling cool and comfortable.
At last they came to a section of the forest where all the trees were of
pine. Here there was a thick carpet of pine needles that had dropped
from the boughs for years.
They were smooth, soft and slippery.
“Let’s get a board and slide down the mountain on the pine needles!”
said Gran’pa, noticing that there was a clear space beneath the trees,
which slanted straight down the mountain side.
“There are no boards about!” said Gran’ma.
“I’ll run back to the hut up the mountain and get some!” the Chief of
Detectives volunteered, and away he started.
“Wait there for me!” he called as he disappeared up the path.
The party sat down to wait the return of the Chief of Detectives.
“It was funny the electric wire did not affect the Soft-Voiced Cow!”
mused Johnny. “It surely made Janey and me grow like weeds!”
“I’ll ask my brother about it when he returns!” replied the Dancing
Master.
It was not long before they heard the Chief of Detectives singing a
yodel song, and soon he came into view over the rocks, carrying a pile
of boards, a hammer, some nails and a long piece of rope.
As Gran’pa was an expert carpenter he offered to fix the sliding boards.
[Illustration: Down, down, the Slide Raft sped, until it was going so
fast that its occupants could not talk. (page 125)]
“Let’s build one big sled!” he suggested, “and then we can all be
together.”
“A good idea!” agreed the Tiptoe Brothers.
So Gran’pa hammered the boards together and tied them in such a manner
that soon he had a fine looking Slide Raft.
“We should have a rudder to guide it with,” Gran’pa said as he stood and
studied his work, “for who knows but that the mountain may take a few
sudden turns farther down!”
So Gran’pa with his jack knife sawed away at a small tree until he had
cut it down, and with the help of the rope and some small pieces of
boards he made a rudder.
They all sat down on the Slide Raft, and with everybody pushing and
shoving the Slide Raft started down the mountain side, gaining momentum
as it went over the slippery needles.
The Soft-Voiced Cow sat in the center of the Slide Raft and the others
about her. Gran’pa stood at the rudder to guide the Slide Raft should
they come to a sudden turn.
It was well that Gran’pa had thought of the rudder, for when they had
slid down the mountain for about a mile, and the Slide Raft was speeding
along at a terrific pace, they came to where the open space beneath the
trees turned sharply to the right.
Gran’pa swung the rudder round as hard as he could and turned the Slide
Raft just in time to escape the trees at the side.
Down, down, the Slide Raft sped, until it was going so fast that its
occupants could not talk. The wind whistled past them like a gale, and
if it had not been for the weight of the Soft-Voiced Cow they would have
been swept from the Slide Raft by the force of the wind.
Just as they were nearing the bottom of the mountain the ground took a
dip. Down this the frail Slide Raft shot suddenly, and up the other
side.
Gran’ma and Janey screamed as the Slide Raft left the ground at the top
of the little mound and plunged straight down for a hundred feet or
more.
As good fortune had it, the path of the Slide Raft seemed to have been
made for just such tobogganing. At the bottom of the fearful drop the
ground fell away in a graceful curve, so, after hitting the ground at
the bottom of the mountain, the Slide Raft went about five hundred feet
out across a small pond at the edge of the pine forest, skipping across
the water like a skipper rock thrown by a boy, and came to rest a short
distance from the opposite bank.
As the Slide Raft stopped, the Soft-Voiced Cow fell over on her side and
closed her eyes.
Gran’pa jumped from the raft and pulled it into shore, while the Tiptoe
Brothers filled their hats with water which they dashed over the head of
the Soft-Voiced Cow.
“She has fainted!” Gran’ma said.
“Let’s get her ashore!” Johnny cried. “Everybody take hold!”
It took a lot of pulling and tugging, but finally they got the
Soft-Voiced Cow up the bank and pulled grass for a pillow.
“I wish I had my smelling salts!” cried Gran’ma.
The water did not seem to help the Soft-Voiced Cow, and she rolled her
eyes in an alarming manner.
“She may start kicking any minute!” Gran’pa warned. “Don’t get too close
to her heels! I had a cow that acted the same way once!”
Sure enough, the Soft-Voiced Cow did begin kicking, and as they drew
away from her she turned her head towards Gran’ma with a pathetic look
in her eyes.
“I’m going to hold her head!” cried Gran’ma, forgetting in her anxiety
that her friend was only a Cow.
Gran’ma’s soft hand smoothed the Soft-Voiced Cow’s forehead, and the
Cow, seeming to feel Gran’ma’s affection, placed one of her front feet
on Gran’ma’s lap. Gran’ma sat holding the Cow’s foot and smoothing her
brow, meanwhile talking to her in a gentle, soothing manner.
The others, who stood by watching, had to brush the tears from their
eyes.
“Why not puff your magic powder on her?” Janey cried to the Chief of
Detectives.
“It will only cure magic!” cried that good little man as he took the
tiny bellows from his pocket.
Johnny jumped forward and blew a generous puff upon the Soft-Voiced
Cow’s head.
The Soft-Voiced Cow seemed to shrink in size and turned a different
color.
“Now, Mister! You _HAVE_ done it!” Janey cried as she stamped her foot
at Johnny.
Johnny stood as if frozen, watching the Soft-Voiced Cow.
“She’s got a HAND!” Gran’ma cried excitedly. “Two of them!”
As the others drew closer they saw that their friend, the Soft-Voiced
Cow, was turning into a woman.
The Tiptoe Brothers uttered glad cries, and the Dancing Master threw his
arms about the woman.
“My wife!” he cried as he kissed her.
“It’s Jenny!” cried the Chief of Detectives, turning a radiant face to
Gran’pa.
“There! You see?” Johnny said, as he and Janey turned their backs on the
reunited pair. “If the magic wire could not make the Soft-Voiced Cow
grow taller it was because she already had been magicked. So I
remembered that the powder cured magic, and there you are!
[Illustration]
“Johnny, you’re a dear!” Janey answered, as she gave him a great hug.
“You always know just what to do, all the time!”
“Ah, shucks!” Johnny replied. “I did it without much thinking!”
“Well, you did it, anyway!” his sister insisted. “To think she was a
lady all this time and we did not know it!”
“She was a very ladylike Cow, at least!” said Johnny.
Mr. and Mrs. Tiptoe came up to Johnny and Janey and thanked them for
what they had done.
“It was Johnny!” said Janey, generously, as the pretty lady kissed her.
“It was Janey who suggested it!” said Johnny as he bashfully received
Mrs. Tiptoe’s reward.
The happy little Dancing Master told his wife all that had happened
since the Princess and she had disappeared, and that now the Princess
was safe at home.
“At least, I hope she is,” he added. “She left us and flew off for the
City of Nite in the Magic Umbrella. Now tell us of your strange
adventure!”
“There is not much to tell,” Mrs. Tiptoe said, as the happy party walked
over the fields. “When you left me in the rooms of the Witch she was
hiding behind a door all the time, and just as you left she pushed me
into the Magic Umbrella and jumped in with me. We flew out of the
window.
“As you now know, it does not take the Magic Umbrella long to get where
you wish it to go, or at least it did not take us long to get to where
it settled to the ground. I could scarcely stand when we got there. The
wicked creature struck me with her cane and said a strange rhyme, and I
did not know a thing until I awakened with my head in Gran’ma’s lap.”
“How does it come that you are here, too?” she asked of the Chief of
Detectives.
“I started to tell Gran’ma and Gran’pa up on the mountain a while ago,”
he replied, “but I got off the subject. Now I will tell the story,
strange as it may seem.”
“Here comes the Magic Umbrella!” cried Gran’ma, as she pointed to a
speck in the air.
“It’s the Princess!” cried the Detective. “No, it isn’t, either,” he
added as the Magic Umbrella drew closer.
It proved to be the General of the Guard, and when he had embraced the
Tiptoe Brothers and Mrs. Tiptoe he was introduced to the rest of the
party.
“The Princess is quite safe!” he exclaimed, as all started to ask after
her, “and she has sent me to try and find you and bring you to the
Castle.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Gran’ma, Janey and Mrs. Tiptoe rode in the Magic Umbrella
and the men rode underneath. (page 131)]