“That’ll be fun!” exclaimed Ted.
The more the Curlytops saw of Uncle Ben the more they liked him. And Mr. and Mrs. Martin, too, were growing fond of the stranger who had fallen almost at their very door. He proved to be a good man, and Mr. Martin was sure he was one who could be trusted. He was slowly getting better, and could walk around the house now and go out into the yard and sit in the shade. But he had not been able, yet, to play with Ted and Jan, who wanted some one pretty lively to enter into their games.
“You look after Trouble while Janet goes for the thread for me,” said Mrs. Martin to Teddy.
“All right, Mother,” was the answer. “Come on, Trouble. We’ll go down to the brook and I’ll show you my water wheel. It splashes around like anything!”
Janet soon reached Mrs. Kent’s house and told what was wanted. Mrs. Kent was busy churning. Into a blue tub, shaped like a barrel, she had poured some sour cream. Inside the barrel was a round piece of wood, called a “dasher,” and fastened to this was a long stick, like a broom handle. Mrs. Kent made the handle go up and down, and this splashed the dasher in the sour cream, and churned it into butter.
She had just taken off the cover, to look in to see how near the butter was to “coming” when Jan arrived.
“Sit down here, my dear, while I get the thread for you,” said Mrs. Kent. “I won’t be but a moment.”
Janet sat down. Then she thought she would look down in the churn, to see if there were any little round balls of yellow butter yet. Her mother often churned, and Jan knew all about it.
Over the edge of the churn leaned the little girl. Then she gave a sudden cry and hurried back to her chair. She had hardly sat down in it before Mrs. Kent came back with the spool of thread.
“There you are, Jan,” she said. “And how is every one over at your house? I hear you have a new visitor.”