“Got to have cookie first so I can eat,” said William. “Passjars eats all time!” And not until Janet gave him a cookie would he get on the make-believe steamboat.
Teddy made noises like steam puffing out. He turned slowly at first the big wheel, and the one on the flax spinner began to go around and around. Faster and faster it went, while Janet turned an old peck measure she had found for the steering wheel.
Trouble did not pay much attention to anything except eating his cookie. He sat in the chair, which was his “cabin,” picking up even the crumbs that fell. He seemed to be very hungry.
“Toot! Toot!” suddenly called Ted.
“Dis for me to get off?” asked William.
“No, that’s the whistle for me and Janet to eat our cookies,” Teddy answered. “Don’t you s’pose we get hungry same as you?”
“All right,” calmly agreed Trouble. “I eat again, too,” and he pulled a second cookie from his pocket. “I eat when whistle blows,” he announced.
“Don’t bother him—let him eat when he wants to,” whispered Janet to Ted.
After a while Trouble became tired of sitting in a chair, even if he could eat cookies whenever he wished, and he decided he did not want to play steamboat any more. Teddy wouldn’t let him spin either of the wheels for fear he might break them.
But the Curlytops played together, and finally Janet got Ted to let her be “engineer.”