Mr. Martin kept a store in Cresco, a town not a great way from New York, and he also owned property in other places. Cresco was a pretty village, and Ted and Jan thought it one of the nicest places in the world. Other nice places were Grandpa Martin’s farm at Elmburg near Clover Lake, Aunt Jo’s summer cottage at Mt. Hope on Ruby Lake and Uncle Frank’s ranch at Rockville, in the state of Montana.
The first book that tells about Janet, Ted, and their friends, is named “The Curlytops at Cherry Farm,” and in that I told you what fun they had at Grandpa Martin’s home, and how they helped sell cherries to the Lollypop Man.
In the next book, “The Curlytops on Star Island,” you may read of the fun the children had when they went camping.
In the third book there is a story of “The Curlytops Snowed In.” Many things happened to Jan, Ted and Trouble when the big snow storm came, and they thought they never had had so much fun in all their lives.
But that was before they went out West, and in the fourth book you have the story of “The Curlytops at Uncle Frank’s Ranch.” There the little folks rode ponyback and had a grand time.
They came back to Cresco after many adventures, and now it was summer again, and there was no school, for it was the long vacation. Ted and Janet wondered where they would spend it, for nearly always they went with their father and mother to some lake, or else up in the mountains, or perhaps to the seashore during the hot weather of July and August.
I have told you, in this book, how the Curlytops were playing the button game, and how, just before they went to bed, they went out to the woodshed to see if their dog Skyrocket was all right. Besides the dog, they had a cat named “Turnover,” who used to roll over in a sideways somersault when told to. The Curlytops had once had a goat named Nicknack, but the goat had been sold a few weeks before, so that now they had only the cat and the dog.
“But we haven’t got any dog if we can’t find Skyrocket,” said Ted, as he and Janet went out with their mother to the shed.
“Oh, we’ll find him all right,” said Mrs. Martin. “Perhaps he heard Turnover crying, and he jumped out of the window to see what the matter was with her. Skyrocket takes good care of Turnover, you know.”
“But Turnover is asleep in the sitting room,” said Ted. “She didn’t cry, so Skyrocket didn’t jump out to help her. And he never jumped out the window before.”