THE CURLYTOPS
IN THE WOODS
CHAPTER I
PLAYING HOUSE
“Trouble! Trouble! Look out! You’re knocking over the piano!” Janet Martin called this to her little brother William, who, because of the mischief he so often got in, was nicknamed “Trouble.”
“Where’s piano I knock over?” asked Trouble, who was still small enough not to be expected to talk quite properly. “I didn’t was knock over any piano,” he added.
“There! You’ve knocked it over now!” cried Janet, with a wail of despair, as a small box, which Trouble kicked with his chubby foot, fell down the steps of the back porch. “You knocked over the piano.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Trouble soberly, as he watched his brother Ted bringing other boxes to pile on the porch where the children were playing house that pleasant summer afternoon. “Oh, my! I knock over piano,” went on William, still very grave and serious. “Zat’s funny piano,” he added. “It’s only a box!”
“Well, we’re pretending it’s a piano,” remarked Janet, as she picked the box up from the ground where it had tumbled after Trouble accidentally kicked it. “You have to pretend when you’re playing house,” she added.
“What’s Trouble done now?” asked Ted, as he put one of his boxes on the porch and the other down on the ground near the steps. “That’s the garage for our automobile,” he said, pointing to the box on the ground.
“Oh, that’ll be nice!” exclaimed Janet. “I didn’t know we were going to have an auto. This is a lovely playhouse!” she said, laughing.
Ted and Janet often played house in this way, setting up a sort of one-floor apartment on the back porch, with different rooms marked off by sticks laid on the floor of the porch. In each of these “rooms” were put different pieces of furniture. Most of the furniture was just boxes, or perhaps an old broken chair or two, or even some sticks and boards. But to the Curlytops the playhouse was very real. Only Trouble could not “pretend” as well as could his older brother and sister. Ted liked to play house with Janet, even if he was a boy.