“Yes,” agreed Jan, “you did. Is that all you’re going to do?”
It really was not much fun for her to sit on the fence and watch her brother lead a calf around by a rope. The calf seemed quite tame after it was once caught, and did not try to get away.
“Maybe I could teach it to do tricks,” said her brother. “If I could we might have a circus and earn money for the Crippled Home. Say, Jan——”
“Oh, here comes grandpa!” suddenly called Janet, looking back across the field from her seat on the fence. “You’d better let that calf go!”
Ted thought so himself, and tried to get the rope off the little animal’s neck. But it was pulled tight, and as the calf kept jerking its head Ted did not find it easy to loosen the noose.
“Here, you help, Jan!” he begged. “I’ll lead the calf up to you while you sit on the fence, and you can hold him while I untie the rope.”
Jan was willing, and they both worked quickly, for they did not want Grandpa Martin to see that they had caught a calf. He might not like it, though really the little animal was not hurt, and hardly even scared—at least so the Curlytops thought.
“I can’t reach the rope if he keeps lifting his head up that way,” said Ted, after a bit. “Here, Jan, you hold the loose end, and I’ll climb up on the fence. Then I can reach down.”
Jan took the end of the rope and her brother scrambled up on the rail fence. He worked away at the knot around the calf’s neck, and Jan looked back to see how near Grandpa Martin was. The old gentleman had turned to one side, however, and did not seem to be coming to the pasture.
“There!” cried Ted. “I almost had it!”