“No—we didn’t,” and Ted spoke slowly. “We forgot.”
“Then please go to look for him,” went on Mrs. Martin. “I saw him playing in the yard near the hammock, but he may have crawled through the hedge. I’ll come after you as soon as I answer the telephone which is ringing. Hurry, and find William!”
“We will!” answered Ted. “Come on, Jan!”
Jan and Ted hurried around to the rear yard of their house to look for Trouble. That, really, was what Baby William was called more often than anything else. Daddy Martin called him a “bunch of trouble,” while Mother Martin always put “dear” before the name. To Ted and Jan their little brother was just plain “Trouble” for he seemed to get into so much mischief.
“Where do you s’pose he is now?” asked Jan, as she looked here and there in the yard.
“Maybe he’s in the chicken coop,” replied Ted. “He hid there once and came out all covered with feathers, like a rooster.”
But Trouble was not there. Though an old hen that flew cackling off her nest probably thought the two children made trouble enough for her, getting her all in a flutter just when she wanted to lay an egg.
“Look in the toolhouse,” suggested Ted, when he and his sister had searched in several places without finding their little brother.
Together the two children started toward a small building where the hoe, rake, shovel and other garden tools were kept. This was one of the places where Trouble best liked to come when he could toddle off by himself.
But Trouble was not in the toolhouse. Ted and his sister stood looking about the yard and garden. They were wondering where next to search, and they were wishing their mother would come out to help them, when they heard a sudden laugh. The sound came from the little brook that ran at the lower end of the garden.