ted martin was not alone in his rush for the kitchen. he was followed by janet and trouble. only trouble did not get very far. for skyrocket, the dog, who had been asleep in a corner, roused up suddenly at the sound of ted’s hurrying steps and managed to get in trouble’s way.
the result was that trouble fell down. but, as he was a fat, chubby little chap, a fall did not harm him much. only this time he stepped on skyrocket’s paw and the dog howled.
“my! more excitement!” laughed mother martin, as she followed ted and janet, first stopping to pick up trouble and make sure he wasn’t hurt. mr. martin and neighbor jenk followed more slowly.
“where’s jim?” asked ted of lucy, the colored cook.
[42]“whar am who, chile?” asked lucy.
“where is jim, mr. jenk’s tame crow?” repeated ted.
“we heard him out here, making a noise like pulling a cork from a bottle,” added janet. “where did he go, lucy?”
“yo’ mean a jim crow was out heah makin’ believe pull corks from a bottle?” asked the cook.
“yes, it’s one of his tricks,” explained mr. jenk, though as he looked around the kitchen and saw no glistening black bird he began to wonder.
“dat wasn’t no crow pullin’ a cork!” said lucy, with a laugh that shook her fat sides.
“what was it then?” asked mr. martin.
“it was me! ah done pulled a cork from de vinegah bottle,” explained lucy, and she showed them a bottle of vinegar she had just opened. pulling the cork had caused a popping sound like that made by jim the pet crow.
“then he isn’t here,” said mr. jenk.
“no, sah. ah ain’t seen no crow,” answered lucy. “dat bird suah am too smart,” she went on. “he done hab de evil eye, he suah hab!”
“you mustn’t say such things, lucy,”[43] chided mrs. martin. “there isn’t any such thing as an evil eye.”
“well, mebby dey ain’t,” admitted the cook. “but ef dey was a evil eye, dat jim crow suah would hab it!”
“he’s smart, all right,” admitted mr. jenk. “well, as long as my crow isn’t here i may as well go back and look elsewhere for him. i hope i find him.”
“so do we,” echoed ted.
“if you see anything of him, either catch him or let me know,” begged the owner of jim. “i’ll give a reward of five dollars for him.”
“i’d like to earn all that money,” sighed ted, for he had visions of what he could buy with five dollars. “but we’re going away to mount major, to live in a lumber camp, and i guess we won’t see jim up there, mr. jenk.”
“no, i don’t suppose you will,” admitted the neighbor, with a sigh. “but if you do see him let me know. jim was a valuable crow! so you are going to mount major, are you?”
“yes,” replied the curlytops’ father, and told about the proposed trip.
mr. jenk went back home, and then the[44] curlytops talked of their coming outing in the woods. trouble found the pail and shovel with which he had been playing the day before and started for the garden.
“where are you going?” asked his mother.
“i go dig more worms,” he answered. “i got to have a lot of worms to fish with.”
“where are you going fishing?” ted wanted to know.
“i fish in lake up by daddy’s lumber camp,” was the reply. “daddy, he say there’s lake.”
“yes, there is,” said mrs. martin, in answer to looks from ted and janet. “there is also a river, i believe, down which logs are floated. but you’ll see all this when we go to mount major.”
“when are we going?” asked ted.
“and how?” janet wanted to know. “in the train?”
“i think we are going by auto the end of this week,” answered mrs. martin, for after the search for the crow mr. martin had gone back to his store to meet the fire insurance agents.
“oh, what fun we’ll have!” joyously cried janet.
[45]“the best times we ever knew!” agreed her curlytop brother.
“let’s go look for mr. jenk’s crow,” proposed janet, and out they ran to the fields and a little patch of woods not far from their home.
“where you go?” asked trouble, as he looked up from his digging to watch his brother and sister. “i come,” he added, not bothering to put in all the words.
“we’re going to look for jim,” said ted.
“i find him!” declared trouble, as if it were easy to locate a missing crow. though jim was lame in his legs, and could only hobble about, his wings were as strong as ever and he could fly many miles.
“yes, you’ll find him—not!” laughed ted. “you’ll find him as we found mother’s missing diamond.”
“oh, don’t talk about that!” pleaded janet, who felt very sad over the lost locket.
the search for the tame crow was no more successful than had been the one for the diamond locket. the children looked through the fields and in the little patch of woods, calling:
“jim! jim! jim!”
but there came no “caw! caw!” in answer,[46] nor did the curlytops hear the sound of popping corks.
“it’s too bad about mr. jenk’s crow,” said ted, after they had tramped about for some time with no success.
“maybe he flew off to go in some show,” suggested janet, with a laugh. “he likes to do his tricks and have us watch him.”
“there’s no telling where he is,” decided ted. “i guess we may as well go back home. if we’re going to camp out in the woods i have lots of things i want to take along.”
“so have i,” decided janet. “i don’t know which of my dolls to take.”
“take ’em all,” suggested ted.
“theodore martin! as if i could take a dozen dolls!” cried janet.
“a dozen? have you a dozen dolls?” asked her brother, in surprise.
“course i have! and i know some girls that have ’most two dozen,” said janet.
“whew!” whistled ted. “two dozen dolls! that’s terrible!”
“’tisn’t any such thing!” declared janet. “how many marbles have you, ted martin?”
“oh, i guess maybe i have a hundred. but marbles are different, and——”
[47]“how many tops have you, ted martin?”
“well, maybe, now, about ten or eleven. but——”
“how many boats have you, ted martin?”
“oh, about nine, but——”
“well, don’t talk to me about a dozen dolls!” cried janet. “you boys are just as bad as we girls that way.”
“maybe we are,” replied ted, with a laugh. “hello, where’s trouble?” he asked suddenly, looking around and not seeing his small brother.
“he was here a moment ago,” said janet, and her voice grew a little anxious.
“i know he was,” said ted. “but he isn’t here now. oh, trouble!” he called loudly.
there was no answer.
“maybe he’s lost,” suggested janet.
“he can’t be lost very long or very far,” ted assured her. “for he was right here not more than two minutes ago and he couldn’t go far in that time.”
“call again,” suggested janet, and ted raised his voice in a loud shout.
“trouble! william! trouble!”
[48]thus ted called, but as he and his sister listened there was no answer.
“he must have wandered off somewhere when we didn’t notice,” suggested janet. “we’d better hurry back home and get mother and skyrocket. skyrocket can smell which way trouble went and find him.”
“yes, i guess we’d better do that,” agreed ted. “i never saw such a boy as he is for doing things!”
just as ted and janet were about to hurry home and tell their mother the news, they heard a noise in the underbrush at the edge of the woods. the figure of a boy was dimly seen, and janet cried:
“there he is!”
but when the boy came out of the bushes it was not trouble. it was henry simpson, a playmate of trouble’s, though somewhat older.
“oh, henry, have you seen trouble?” asked ted.
“yes, i saw him,” said henry, who was not much of a talker. you had to ask a separate question for everything you wanted henry to tell you.
“you saw trouble! where is he?” cried janet.
[49]“over there,” and henry pointed to a little gully in the woods where, during the spring rains, a stream flowed.
“what’s he doing there?” asked janet, while ted started on a run for the place pointed out by henry.
“he’s chasin’ a squirrel,” added the other boy.
“chasing a squirrel?” cried janet. “why, he never can catch a squirrel, and he oughtn’t to try. he might get hurt. why didn’t you tell him he couldn’t catch a squirrel, henry?”
“i did tell him,” and henry grinned.
“what did he say?” asked janet, as she followed ted across the path toward the gully.
“he told me to go home an’ not bother him, ’cause he was goin’ to catch a squirrel an’ have the squirrel find the lost crow,” said henry. this was quite a long sentence for him, and having gotten it out he turned around and walked off.
“where you going?” asked janet.
“home,” was all henry answered.
and home he went.
but ted and janet hurried on to the little gully, or valley, in the woods. there was no[50] water flowing in it now and the place was quite dry. as the curlytops reached the edge of it, they heard, down below them, some one pushing through the dried bushes.
“trouble! trouble!” cried ted. “are you there?”
“yes, i here,” was the reply. “don’t scare my squirrel!”
“your squirrel!” exclaimed janet. “have you caught one?”
“i get him pretty soon,” trouble called back. “i almost got him twice, but he skips!”
“squirrels are great skippers,” laughed ted.
they went down a little farther into the gully and there saw trouble. he was walking slowly along, holding out his hand in which he held a nut. and not far from him, skipping from limb to limb of a tree, was a large gray squirrel.
“are you trying to catch that squirrel, trouble?” asked ted.
“no,” was the answer. “i want feed him an’ make him show me where jim crow is.”
“you’d better go down there and get trouble,” janet advised her brother.
“i will,” he said.
[51]“and maybe you might see jim,” added the little curlytop girl.
“i’ll look,” offered ted. “though if there was a crow here i guess he’d be cawing.”
however, there was no sight of the glistening black bird, and ted made his way down the side of the gully. trouble was on the very bottom, where the stream ran whenever there was any water, but the course was now dry. and because he was down in the gully, trouble had not heard his brother and sister calling to him.
“come back, trouble! let the squirrel go!” called ted.
“i give him this nut!” insisted the little fellow. “he is a good squirrel an’——”
but trouble did not finish that sentence.
the next moment, to the surprise of ted and janet, their little brother fell down and vanished from sight.
