“No, don’t go near him, or you’ll get in the molasses, too,” warned Mr. Martin. “Stay where you are, Janet. I’ll lift Trouble out. Don’t cry, William,” he added kindly, as he saw tears rolling down the little fellow’s face. “You couldn’t help it—I suppose,” he went on. “That is, unless you opened the spigot of the molasses barrel.”
“I only—now—er—I—now—only opened it a little bit of a way,” sobbed Trouble. “I wanted to see—now—how fast it would run out and it runned out an’ I—I couldn’t shut it off! Oh, dear!”
“Hum! I must put a lock on my molasses barrels if you are going to be around the store,” said Mr. Martin. He had first reached over Trouble’s head and shut off the stream of sweet stuff which no longer dribbled out on the floor. Then Mr. Martin lifted Trouble from his sticky seat, having to pull rather hard to get the little fellow up from the floor.
“My, but you need a bath!” cried Daddy Martin, holding Trouble as far away from him as possible so the dripping molasses would not soil his own clothes. “I guess I’ll dip you in the lake,” he added, with a laugh.
“Oh, yes, give me a swim!” cried Trouble, thinking now only of this new fun.
“I believe I will,” said his father. “Your clothes will have to be soaked, anyhow, to get the molasses off, and I may as well soak you and them at the same time. It’s a warm day—just right for a bath.”
“Oh, may we go in, too?” begged Ted.
“No, I’d rather you wouldn’t now,” his father said.
“Anyhow, we’re going to play Pilgrims,” said Janet. “We’ll wait for you, Trouble,” she went on. “We’ll wait until you get cleaned up.”
Telling one of the clerks in the store to have the puddle of molasses mopped up and asking another man to look after things while he was gone, Mr. Martin took Trouble down to the lake, which was not far from the woodland store.