"Well, here we are, children!" called Uncle Toby, as he stopped the automobile near his "shack" as he often called it. "Now if you'll see that they get safely inside, Aunt Sallie, I'll soon be with you and we'll look after supper and get the beds ready."
"I not goin' to bed now!" cried Trouble. "I not goin' to bed now! I goin' to stay up an' see—an' see—Santa C'aus!" he burst out, after a moment of thought.
"Oh, you little tyke!" laughed Lola, catching him up in her arms. "Santa Claus won't be here for over a month."
"And you don't have to go to bed right away," added Janet.
Out of the auto piled the boys and girls, Skyrocket scrambling ahead of them to smell around and find out what sort of place this was that he had been brought to.
As Aunt Sallie, the Curlytops and their playmates went toward the front door of the cabin, the door was opened and a smiling man looked out.
"Hello, folks!" he called. "I've got it good and warm for you, though it isn't as cold as it was." He was the man Uncle Toby had engaged to start the fires and to have everything in readiness for the coming of the Curlytops.
"Well, we're glad to get here, Jim Nelson," said Aunt Sallie, for she knew the man.
Uncle Toby put the car in the barn and came in with some of the boxes and bundles that had been piled in the automobile—bundles of clothes and things for the children.
"Well, you got here all right, I see," remarked Jim Nelson. "Have any trouble on the way?"