“I should say you did!” said his mother. “It’s a mercy you didn’t fall. Don’t ever do such a thing again, Ted and Jan.”
“No’m. We won’t!” they promised.
“Anyhow, if he did fall, or the rope broke, he wouldn’t have hurt himself much,” said Teddy, after thinking the matter over. “The ground is all sawdust here, and he’d fall on that. Besides we didn’t pull him up very high. Did we, Jan?”
“No, not high at all,” she agreed.
“And I tied the rope around his stomach good and tight so it wouldn’t slip,” went on Teddy. “I tied the rope the way you showed me, Uncle Ben.”
“Well, I am not going to show you how to tie any more knots if you use a rope on your little brother,” said Mr. Wilson.
Teddy thought that over, and decided he wanted to know more about ropes and knots, and as, moreover, their father and mother said the Curlytops must not do it again, that was the first and last time Baby William was ever hauled up on an ice rope by his brother and sister. But the Curlytops did plenty of other queer things, as you shall hear.
Supper over that night, they all went for a sail with Daddy Martin. Silver Lake was getting to be quite a lively place now. The merry-go-round was being put up, after having been stored in a barn all winter, the shoot-the-chutes were being painted and made ready for the picnic crowds, and the other places to have fun would soon be open. The picnic grounds, as I have told you, were a little distance from Sunnyside Bungalow, but it was easy to reach them in a boat, or by walking around the shore of Silver Lake.
Mr. Martin had his boats all in readiness to be hired out now, and a few persons had come to get them, being waited on by Uncle Ben, who was in charge. Uncle Ben had told Mr. Martin it would be a good idea to put up a little candy and soda-water stand on the pier, so those who went out in boats could buy something to eat and something to drink. So this had been done, and the Curlytops were quite delighted. For, of course, they could have all the soda-water and ice-cream they wanted without paying a cent—as their father owned the stand. Mrs. Martin did not let the children have more than was good for them, though.
Every day the Curlytops had fun at Silver Lake, and the fun did not always end at night, for Uncle Ben or Daddy Martin would take them out on the water either in a sailboat a rowboat or in the motor launch.