“My wed ball down there!” said Trouble. “Me want wed ball!”
“All right. Mother will see if she can get it for you,” promised Mrs. Martin with a smile. “But first I want to hear the growl.”
“Just poke a stick down, or your hand, and you’ll hear it,” said Tom.
“I think I’d better put a stick down first,” answered Mrs. Martin. “If there is some animal there—and there seems to be from what you boys say—he might bite me. A stick will be safer.”
And when she thrust down the same stick that Tom and Ted had used, surely enough there sounded first a growl and then a queer little barking noise.
“Oh, is it Skyrocket?” cried Janet.
“No, I think not,” answered her mother. “It doesn’t sound at all like our little dog. But there’s some animal there, that’s sure, and I don’t believe that it is quite as harmless as a squirrel or a rabbit. I’ll tell you what we’ll do.”
“What?” cried the four larger children in a chorus.
“We’ll wait until Uncle Ben comes,” was the answer. “He knows a lot about the woods and about animals.”
“Uncle Ben get my wed ball?” asked Trouble.