"Now, now, children!" chided their mother. "That isn't nice. What are you disputing about now?"
"Jan says her forgetter's better'n mine!" cried Ted.
"And it is," insisted Janet. "I can forget lots easier than Ted."
"Well, forgetting isn't a very good thing to do," said Mr. Martin. "Remembering is better."
"Oh, that's what I meant!" said Jan. "I thought it was a forgetter. Anyhow mine's better'n Ted's!"
"Now don't start that again," warned Mother Martin, playfully shaking her finger at the two children. "Be nice now. Amuse yourselves in some quiet way. It will soon be time to go to bed. You must be tired. Be nice now."
"Come on, let's go for a walk," proposed Jan again, and Ted, now that the forget-memory dispute was over, was willing to be friendly and kind and go with his sister.
So while Trouble climbed up into his mother's lap, and the older folks were talking among themselves, the two Curlytops, not being noticed by the others, slipped off the porch and walked toward the ranch buildings, out near the corrals, or the fenced-in places, where the horses were kept.
There were too many horses to keep them all penned in, or fenced around, just as there are too many cattle on a cattle ranch. But the cowboys who do not want their horses which they ride to get too far away put them in a corral. This is just as good as a barn, except in cold weather.
"There's lots of things to see here," said Teddy, as he and his sister walked along.