“Well, there’s a lot of stones sticking out on the sides. They’re like steps, and maybe I can get up on them.”
Ted tried; but though a man or an older boy might have managed to hoist himself out of the well in this way, it was beyond the strength of the Curlytop lad. He got up a little way but slipped back to the soft bed of dried leaves at the bottom of the well.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Jan anxiously, as she heard her brother grunt as he slipped back.
“No, I didn’t hurt myself,” he answered. “But I jiggled myself a little.”
Ted’s use of the word “jiggled” reminded Jan that she had left Trouble “jiggling” the sieve at the pile of sand. She wondered if her little brother was all right, but she did not want to leave Ted in order to make sure.
However, she did not need to do this for just as Ted called up to her that he was going to try to toss up the rope, so she could fasten it to the windlass, Janet saw her little brother coming along a path that she and Ted had trampled through the weeds.
“Oh, now I is found you!” remarked Trouble, with a smile on his cute, dirty little face. “I is found you! Here is Jan, Mother!” he called more loudly. “I is found her!”
“Is mother looking for us?” asked Janet.
“Yes, Jan,” answered the voice of Mrs. Martin herself. “I told you and Teddy to amuse William, and I find him all alone sifting sand. Not but what he was having fun, but I thought you would stay with him. I asked him where you went and he pointed off this way. Why, what are you doing at the old well?” went on the mother who, having followed Trouble along the weed-grown path, now saw Janet standing near the curbing and windlass. “What are you doing there?” she repeated.
“Teddy—now—Teddy—he’s down there!” gasped Jan, pointing.