CHAPTER IX
WHAT TROUBLE FOUND
Mrs. Martin almost dropped the egg she had in her hand, and Uncle Benlet fall to the floor a pan he was going to put on the stove in whichto boil some potatoes. Luckily, he had not yet put the water in it.
Daddy Martin came hurrying in from where he was getting ready to runthe automobile under a shed. He stooped down and looked closely atJanet.
“What did you say?” he asked. “Are you playing some game, Jan?”
“Oh, no, it isn’t a game!” exclaimed the little Curlytop girl. “Thewind blew, and it just blew Teddy away. He’s out in the middle of thelake now, I guess!”
“The lake! The wind! I see what she means!” cried Uncle Ben.
Out of the door, and out on the bungalow porch ran Uncle Ben, followedby Mr. and Mrs. Martin. Jan, still holding Trouble by the hand,followed more slowly.
“There he is!” cried Mr. Martin, pointing toward Silver Lake, which,just then, was glowing red from the setting sun. “Ted is out in aboat.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean,” added Janet. “Teddy got in a boat. Hewanted me to come, and Trouble, too, but I wouldn’t. But Teddy got ina boat, and the wind did blow him away, it did!”
“That’s what I thought the minute she spoke about the wind!” criedUncle Ben.
“Oh, Teddy!” cried Mrs. Martin. “Is it deep out there?” she asked herhusband.
“No, not very,” he answered. “The little tyke! I thought I told himnot to get into a boat alone,” he went on.
“Never mind about that, now!” cried Mrs. Martin. “How are we going toget him back?”
“Oh, I’ll do that easily,” said Uncle Ben. “I’ll row out and get him.I didn’t know he knew enough to hoist the sail on a boat,” he added.
“You can’t get him that way,” said Mr. Martin. “The wind is blowingharder now, and the boat is sailing faster, even if Ted doesn’t knowenough to fasten the sail in the right way. You can’t get him byrowing out to him, Uncle Ben.”
“Then how can we reach him?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“In a motor boat,” her husband answered. “There’s one over at the nextpier. We can row over there, start the motor boat, and soon bring backTeddy and the sailboat.”
Uncle Ben and Daddy Martin hurried down to where the rowboats weretied. Getting into one, they quickly sent it skimming over the waterto the next pier. They could row over much more quickly than theycould have walked around the shore.
Mrs. Martin, with Jan and Trouble standing beside her, eagerlywatched, now and then looking out to where the sailboat was driftingslowly down the lake.
Pretty soon she heard the sound:
“Chug! Chug! Chuggity-chug-chug!”
“They’ve started!” she exclaimed.
Janet, too, knew what that sound meant. It was the noise made by theengine of the motor boat. Soon the boat, which ran something like anautomobile, and did not have to be rowed nor need a sail blown by thewind, moved away from the dock, and, with Daddy Martin steering it,went out to bring Teddy back to shore.
A sailboat can go very fast in a swift breeze when the sail is rightlyhoisted, but even a fast sailboat is not as fast as a motor boat, andsoon Daddy Martin and Uncle Ben, in their craft, were coming closerand closer to the tiny ship in which Teddy was riding.
The little fellow had not meant to go sailing all alone in this way,and he was as much surprised as any one when the boat moved away fromthe dock. But he was a wise little chap, and when he found himselfgoing out, away from the dock and the shore, he very properly sat downon the bottom of the boat, out of the way of the swinging boom, andkept still. It was the best thing he could have done.
But when he saw the motor boat coming up behind him, and noticed hisfather and Uncle Ben in it, Teddy could keep still no longer.
“Daddy! Daddy!” he cried. “Take me out! Take me home!”
“Yes! Yes! We’re coming! We’ll take you home all right,” said hisfather.
“Sit down! Sit down!” shouted Uncle Ben. “Sit down, Ted, or the boomwill knock you overboard.”
Teddy did not know exactly what the “boom” was, but afterward helearned that it was the big stick on the bottom of the sail that swungfrom side to side. And if Ted had sat up too straight this stick waslikely to hit him. Teddy knew that to fall “overboard” meant to fallout of the boat. He had fallen “overboard” off the raft that day heplayed with Tom, and he had not forgotten.
So when Teddy heard Uncle Ben shouting to him to sit down the littleCurlytop boy did this at once. And it is a good thing he did, too, fora moment later the wind swung around the lower part of the sail, withthe big, heavy wooden boom, and Teddy would have been knocked into thelake by it if he had not been on the bottom of the boat.
“That’s the boy!” cried Uncle Ben, as he saw that Teddy had minded.“Now stay that way until we get you out.”
On chugged the motor boat, and soon it was alongside the sailboat.Uncle Ben gave a jump from the motor boat into the sailing craft, and,in an instant, had loosed the ropes that held up the sail. Down itcame, and, as the wind no longer had anything to blow on, the sailboatmoved more slowly. But, no matter how fast it moved, the motor boatwas beside it now, and Mr. Martin tied both craft together with arope.
“Why, Teddy! what made you go sailing all alone?” his father asked thelittle boy, as he took him into the motor boat. “Didn’t I tell you notto get into a boat unless your mother, Uncle Ben, or I were with you?”
“Yes, Daddy. But I—I—forgot!” confessed Teddy. “I won’t do it again!”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Mr. Martin. “And now how did you come tohaul up the sail? I’m sure there wasn’t any sail on this boat when wearrived at Silver Lake. How did you get the sail up, Teddy? You aren’tstrong enough to hoist it yourself.”
“No, I didn’t do it,” admitted Teddy. “A man did it for me.”
“A man? What man?” Mr. Martin asked, and he looked in surprise atUncle Ben.
“I didn’t do it, that’s sure,” said Mr. Wilson. “And I didn’t see anystrange man around the dock.”
“Nor I,” said Mr. Martin. “Are you sure, Teddy, that a man hoisted thesail for you?”
“Well, I didn’t ask him to,” went on the little boy. “I was playingaround with Jan and Trouble. You were up in the bungalow—you and UncleBen and mother.”
“Yes, I know that part,” said Mr. Martin. “Go on. Tell me who put upthe sail for you. He shouldn’t have done it, whoever it was.”
“They didn’t do it for _me_, zactly,” went on Teddy. “I was playing,and I said to Jan, ‘let’s get in a boat’ and she said, ‘no,’ and Iwent down to get in and I saw a man then putting up the sail.”
“Did the man say anything?” asked Uncle Ben.
“He looked at me kind of funny,” replied Teddy. “An’ then he said:‘What? You here? Then I’ve got to run!’”
“The man was surprised, was he, Ted?” asked his father.
“Yes, he was terrible s’prised, I guess,” answered the little chap.
“Did he run away?” asked Uncle Ben.
“Yes, he ran away as soon as he saw me. But he left the sail up on theboat, and I thought maybe daddy sent him to put it up for me, and Igot into the boat, and the wind blew, and it did blow me away, itdid.”
“Yes, Janet told us that part!” said his father. “It’s lucky she sawyou before you were blown clear across the lake. I can’t understandwhat man it was, though, who hoisted the sail,” said Mr. Martin.
“Have you any man working for you around the boats?” asked Uncle Ben.
“Not yet, though I’m going to hire a man and a boy to help you,”answered the father of the Curlytops. “This man must have been astranger, though why he should hoist the sail on one of my boats andthen run at the sight of Teddy is more than I can make out.”
“Maybe he has been using the sailboat while you were at home inCresco,” suggested Uncle Ben. “He didn’t hear us come, and he camedown
to the dock to take a ride as he had been used to doing. Then hesaw Teddy. He thought he might be caught, so he ran away.”
“I guess that’s how it was,” agreed Mr. Martin. “But I’d like to knowwho the man was. What did he look like, Teddy, boy?”
“Oh, he—he was—he was just a—man!”
“I know,” replied his father. “But was he a man like Uncle Ben or likeme?”
Teddy looked first at his father, then at Uncle Ben.
“He was like both of you,” he said. “That’s the kind of man he was.”
“We can’t tell very much from that,” said Mr. Wilson, with a smile.
“No, but we must be on the watch,” said Mr. Martin. “I don’t wantstrange men hoisting the sails on my boats. They might sail off in oneand not come back.”
“Maybe it was a burglar!” exclaimed Teddy. “I guess he looked like aburglar—only I never saw one.”
“No, I presume you never did,” agreed his father. “But we must getback to shore, or your mother will be worried more than she is now.Though she can see that you are all right, I suppose. Anyhow I’ll makesure.”
Mr. Martin stood up in the motor boat and held Teddy high in his arms,so that Mrs. Martin, on shore, could see that the little boy was safe.Teddy’s mother waved her handkerchief, to let her husband know thatshe had seen and understood.
Then the motor boat was started again, and back to the dock it went,towing the sailing craft.
“Oh, Teddy, what made you do it!” cried his mother as she clasped himin her arms.
“He won’t do it again!” declared Mr. Martin, after he had explainedhow it happened.
“But it was very curious!” said Mrs. Martin. “I don’t like it.”
“I wants to go in sailboat!” cried Trouble, as they all walked up fromthe lake to the bungalow.
“Now let’s settle this once and for all,” said Mr. Martin solemnly.“None of you children is to get into a boat unless one of us is withyou—don’t forget!”
He shook his finger at the two Curlytops and at Trouble. They knewwhat this meant, and each one promised.
“Come to supper!” called Uncle Ben a little later, and they sat downto the table which had been set under the tent in front of thebungalow.
Never was there a jollier meal. Then came a delightful time of sittingunder the trees in the cool of the evening, until Mrs. Martin said ina low voice:
“Well, Trouble has gone to by-low land in my arms, and I think it mustbe time for Ted and Jan to see what they are going to dream about.They’ve had a long day of it.”
“That’s right!” agreed Uncle Ben. “Come, Curlytops—tumble in! as weused to say on shipboard when we went to bed.”
There were a number of beds in the bungalow, and soon the Curlytops,as well as Trouble, were asleep.
Teddy was having a queer dream, about sailing in a boat with his dogSkyrocket perched up on top of the mast, when suddenly the littleCurlytop lad was awakened by hearing Trouble calling to him. Tedopened his eyes to see his little brother, in his baggy pyjamas,standing beside the cot bed where Teddy slept. Trouble lifted upsomething round and black and shiny and toppled it over into Ted’scot.
“’Ook what Trouble found!” cried the little fellow. “Trouble det himdown by de ’ake, and bringed him in. He’s nice, but he not as nice asSkywocket! He don’t bark, but he stick out hims head an’ pull it ina’den! ’Ook what Trouble found!”
The Curlytops at Silver Lake; Or, On the Water with Uncle Ben Page 9
