“Oh, I can make a harness. There’s lots of old straps in the barn.”
“But what about a bit? And reins? Haven’t you got to have an iron bit for Nicknack’s mouth, like grandpa has for his horses?”
“I think I can put a strap around his nose, with reins on each side of it. I saw a camel harnessed that way in the circus,” answered Ted. “I don’t like to put a bit in a goat’s mouth.”
Ted had been told by his grandfather that a goat’s mouth is not hard like a horse’s.
“Maybe a strap would be better,” agreed Jan.
And while Trouble sat in the rebuilt wagon and pretended to drive Nicknack with a string tied to the goat’s horns, Jan and her brother patched together a sort of harness. Grandpa and Daddy Martin helped them some, but the children could easily tell that something was wrong at Cherry Farm. Never before, in all their visits, had they seen the faces of Grandpa Martin and Grandma Martin so sad, and the two men did not talk and laugh as they used to do.
But the Curlytops did not think long about this sadness, for they were too eager to have fun; though they would have done anything in the world, if they could, to help their own dear daddy and their mother, and, of course, grandpa and grandma.
“Just wait until the cherries are ripe,” said Ted, as he put the finishing touches to the harness. “Then we’ll help pick them and cart them to market. As soon as we hitch up Nicknack we’ll go over to the cherry grove and see how big the green ones are.”
The goat seemed very willing to be hitched to the queer wagon Jan and Ted had made from odds and ends. True, it might not be like the smart cart and real harness he was used to, but Nicknack was a good goat, and he did not mind pretending that this queer rig was just the finest ever made. At least he might have made-believe, if goats ever do such things, of which I am not quite sure.
“All aboard now!” called Ted one afternoon, when the wagon and harness were ready. “All aboard!”