“I’m glad Trouble is in the house,” remarked Jan, as she hastened along beside her brother.
“So’m I,” answered Ted. “William is a good little boy, but when you want to do something he always wants to do something else.”
“Always,” agreed Janet, with a wise shake of her head.
From this you may know that “Trouble” was only the jolly nickname of the small brother of Ted and Janet. Mother Martin used to call him “Dear Trouble” when he upset a glass of milk on the table or shoved his plate to the floor. Daddy Martin used to speak of William as a “Bunch of Trouble” when he had to drop his paper and rush out, perhaps to pull the little fellow’s head loose from between the fence pickets, where, possibly, he had thrust it.
Ted and Janet called their little brother simply “Trouble” and let it go at that.
The two older children had been playing in the front yard of their home when Ted had suddenly thought of a trick he had been wanting to try for a long while. He had a strange idea in his head, and he needed the help of Janet to carry it out. Now seemed a good time.
It was the beginning of the long vacation from school, and though the Martin family expected to go away for the summer, plans had not yet been made.
So Jan and Ted were amusing themselves as best they could until, tiring of “playing store,” into Ted’s head had popped his big idea.
“Wait a minute now, Jan!” cautioned Ted, as they neared the back of the house and could look over toward the apple orchard. It wasn’t a very large orchard, but there were enough trees to call it by that name. Though, as yet, the season being early, only green apples were on the branches.
“What’s the matter—aren’t you going to do it?” Jan wanted to know, as her brother put out a hand and detained her behind a screening bush.