TED MARTIN HIT THE GROUND WITH A HARD THUMP.
“Curlytops Touring Around” Page [137]

THE CURLYTOPS
TOURING AROUND

OR
The Missing Photograph Albums

BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of “The Curlytops at Cherry Farm,”
“The Curlytops in the Woods,” “The Curlytops
at Sunset Beach,” Etc.

Illustrations by
JULIA GREENE

NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

THE CURLYTOPS SERIES

By HOWARD R. GARIS

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM
Or, Vacation Days in the Country

THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
Or, Camping Out With Grandpa

THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN
Or, Grand Fun With Sleds and Skates

THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK’S RANCH
Or, Little Folks on Ponyback

THE CURLYTOPS AT SILVER LAKE
Or, On the Water With Uncle Ben

THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PETS
Or, Uncle Toby’s Strange Collection

THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PLAYMATES
Or, Jolly Times Through the Holidays

THE CURLYTOPS IN THE WOODS
Or, Fun in the Lumber Camp

THE CURLYTOPS AT SUNSET BEACH
Or, What Was Found in the Sand

THE CURLYTOPS TOURING AROUND
Or, The Missing Photograph Albums

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York

Copyright, 1925, by
Cupples & Leon Company

The Curlytops Touring Around

Printed in U. S. A.

CONTENTS

THE CURLYTOPS
TOURING AROUND

CHAPTER I
DOWN THE WELL

“Come on, Jan! Now will be a good time to try it!”

“All right, Ted. But are you sure it will be safe?”

“Course I am! Why, it’s a big rope and I’m not very heavy, Jan.”

“I know that. But s’posing I shouldn’t be able to pull you up again?”

“Well, I could get up by a ladder, I guess. Come on now before Trouble comes out to bother us. He’s in the house with mother and we have a good chance now.”

Two children, a boy and a girl, each with clustering curls on their heads, darted down a path, around the house, and ran toward the apple orchard at the rear.

Ted Martin’s hair was darker than that of his sister Janet, but the locks of each were so clustered on their heads that the children were more often called “Curlytops,” than their right name.

Now the curly tops of the brother and sister were bobbing about as they ran along, intent on having what they called “fun,” though, as you will soon see, it developed into mischief. But that, as Ted said afterward, wasn’t their fault.

“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.

“Course I’m going to do it!” he declared. “But I want to look and see if Patrick isn’t there. Patrick maybe wouldn’t let me do it.”

“That’s so,” agreed Janet. “And if Nora saw us, she maybe wouldn’t let us, either.”

“No,” said Ted, in a low voice. He looked carefully out from the fringe of the bush, but saw neither Patrick, who did odd jobs about the Martin place, nor Nora, the cook; so the coast was clear.

“Come on, Jan!” Ted whispered.

“Oh, I—I’m almost getting scairt!” whispered the little girl, as she and her brother neared the scene of their latest trick.

“Pooh! Silly! What’s to be scared of?” asked Ted. “Come on!”

Thus teased, Janet took her brother’s hand for a quick dash across the open space to the shelter of the orchard. Suddenly, when the children were halfway over the little space, they heard their names called:

“Ted! Jan! Where are you? Come here! Mother says you have to ’muse me! Come on!”

“It’s Trouble!” gasped Janet.

“And we’ve got to amuse him!” sighed Ted. “Oh, jinkity jinks!”

He kicked the sand at his feet peevishly.

“Come on! Let’s make believe we didn’t hear him. He hasn’t seen us and we can hide from him.”

Janet was about to agree to this, but Trouble was smarter than either of the older ones gave him credit for. He had run on after his first call, and now he stood where he could look full at Ted and Jan.

“I see you!” he laughed. “You playin’ hide-an’-find? Anyhow, mother says you have to ’muse me! Go on! ’Muse me!”

Mrs. Martin often, when she was tired of looking after William or when she had to do something else, would call to the other children:

“Come and amuse Trouble!”

Nearly always Jan or Ted would be glad to do this. But now they had something else they wanted to do.

“Too late!” sighed Ted. “We can’t skip away from him now.”

“No, if we did he’d tell mother,” agreed Janet. “Oh, I know what we can let him do! He can do it all alone, too, so we can go to the diamond mine!” she added.

“What?” asked Ted, to whom the reference to a “diamond mine,” did not seem strange. That was part of the game they were going to play.

“I’ll get the sifter we were using when we played store, and I’ll let Trouble sift a lot of sand and tell him to pick out all the stones,” suggested the little girl. “That will keep him amused a long while.”

“Yes, I guess it will,” stated Ted.

“You playin’ hide-an’-find?” asked Trouble again. This was his name for the game of hide-and-seek.

“No, we aren’t playing that, Trouble dear,” said Jan, with more sweetness than usual in her voice. She wanted to be nice to her little brother so he would be satisfied to play by himself.

“You goin’ to ’muse me?” demanded the little fellow.

“Sure we are!” exclaimed Ted. “I’ll get the sifter,” he told Janet. “You keep him here a minute.”

“Come here and I’ll tell you a little story,” offered Janet.

“I’m comin’,” Trouble announced, as he toddled to his sister. She kept him amused until Ted came running back with the sieve which, a little while before, he and Janet had borrowed from Nora in the kitchen so they could use it in sifting sand, which they pretended was sugar in their play store.

Near the spot where Trouble had so unexpectedly found his brother and sister was some clean sand, and it was this that Janet had thought William could be induced to play with, while she and her brother went on with their own plans.

And, for once at least, Trouble did just what was wanted of him.

“See the nice sand, Trouble,” murmured Janet. “Look, you put it in this sifter and you jiggle it and all the nice little sand falls through. The big stones and little stones stay inside. Then you pick out all the stones and put them in a pile and you sift more sand. See!”

“Yep, I see,” murmured Trouble. “Let me shift sand.”

Janet gave him the sieve and filled it for him. He moved it to and fro and a little pile of fine sand grew in the shape of a pyramid. Trouble looked at the stones left in the sieve.

“What I do wif these?” he asked.

“Put ’em in a pile and then we’ll make believe they’re raisins and we’ll stick ’em in mud pies,” said Ted.

“Oh, I like to make mud pies!” cried Trouble, with shining eyes.

“Yes, but not now! Not now! After a while!” cried Janet quickly, for the little fellow seemed ready to drop the sieve. “What did you want to say that for?” she asked Ted, in a whisper. “You’ll spoil everything! Leave it to me!”

“Oh, all right,” mumbled Ted. “Go ahead! As soon as you can leave him alone come on over to the old well.”

“All right,” answered Janet. “Now, Trouble,” she went on, as she filled the sifter again, “shake this out and pick out all the stones. Put the big ones in a pile by themselves and the little ones in a pile by themselves.”

“Den we make mud pies,” laughed Trouble.

“I guess so—yes—maybe,” murmured Janet, who did not want to be too sure on this point. “Now you play here, Trouble, and don’t go away, will you?” she asked, as she prepared to follow Ted.

“Trouble stay here and shift sand,” gravely promised the little fellow. “But where you goin’, Jan?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, just over here a little way,” she answered. “I’ll soon be back. Now sift a lot of sand, Trouble, and pick out all the stones.”

“Aw right—I shift sand.”

He was having fun now, being “’mused” as his mother had told him he would be, and he did not much care what Ted or Janet did—at least for a while.

“Is he all right?” asked Ted, as his sister joined him under an apple tree where an old well had been dug.

“Yes, I guess he’ll stay there until we play diamond mine a while,” said Janet. “But are you sure it will be all right, Ted?”

“Sure I am. I’ll just step on the bucket and hold to the rope, and all you’ll have to do is to keep hold of the handle and let it unwind slowly. Then I’ll go down in the well and we’ll play it’s a diamond mine.”

“But how you going to get up again, Ted?” his sister asked.

“Why, you can wind up the handle just as you unwound it, can’t you? It’ll be like pulling up a bucket of water when there used to be water in the well. That’s how I’ll get up.”

“Oh, I see! All right.”

The Curlytops ran over toward the old well, which had not been used for a number of years, the water having seeped out of it, so that the well was dry. But the curbing, the windlass, the bucket, and the rope were still in place, and they had given Ted the idea for playing diamond mine. He had seen some pictures of miners going down a hole in the ground by means of a bucket and rope, and had got the idea that diamonds were thus secured.

The reason Ted and Janet had not, before this, played at the old well, was because they did not know it existed. It was on some land next to their house which Mr. Martin had recently bought. And, learning there was an old well on it, the children’s father had decided to do away with it, for it might be dangerous, even if there was no water in it, for it was about thirty feet deep.

The first step in doing away with the old well had been to have Patrick clear away the weeds around it. Then the curbing was to have been taken away and the well filled up. But when Patrick had cut down the weeds he was called to other tasks, and so the old well stood plainly revealed.

Ted and Janet had discovered it, and then into Ted’s mind had come the idea of going down into the dry well. He had tested the rope, with its bucket and windlass, and found that it worked.

“Now, Jan,” said her brother, when they were at the well, with no one near to stop their mischievous play, “I’ll climb up and stand on the bucket. You keep hold of the handle and let it unwind slowly. I don’t want to go down too fast, you know.”

“No, I guess you don’t,” agreed Jan.

“After I get down to the bottom I’ll make believe dig diamonds,” went on Ted. “Then you can twist the handle the other way and pull me up. After that I’ll let you go down.”

“I don’t want to go down!” said Jan quickly, after one look into the black depths of the well. “You can go. I don’t want to.”

“All right,” agreed Ted cheerfully. “I’ll go down twice. Now get ready.”

He climbed the well curbing and put one foot on the edge of the bucket, which was a little way below the top of the curbing, or elevated wooden rim about the well. The rope was wound around a wooden roller, or windlass, to the end of which a crank was made fast. And there was a ratchet catch to prevent the rope from unwinding and letting the bucket down into the well until such time as the person drawing was ready. This catch now prevented Ted from dropping down into the well.

The curly-haired little boy steadied himself on the edge of the bucket by holding to the rope above his head. He looked down into the well. It was deep and black, but there was no water in it, so Ted did not hesitate.

“All right, Jan! Let me down!” he called to his sister.

Already he was a little way down the shaft of the well, for the rope was partly unwound and the bucket perhaps two feet below the top of the curbing when Ted took his place.

Janet loosened the catch of the windlass and then, holding to the handle with all her strength, let it slowly revolve. It would have gotten out of control, and would have whirled around very fast, for Ted was much heavier than a bucket of water, only the affair was old, rusted and stiff. So, after all, Ted was quite safely lowered.

Down and down he went into the black depths of the old, dry well.

“It’s lots of fun, Jan!” he called up. “You’d better come down next time!”

“I don’t want to. You can,” answered his sister.

“Now I’m all the way down. I’m standing on the bottom!” called up Ted. “I’m going to dig for diamonds!”

Jan could see that there was no longer a strain on the rope. The handle turned freely. Suddenly it gave a little quiver, Jan saw the rope slip loose from around the windlass and then, as the end of it fell down the well, the little girl screamed:

“Oh, Ted! Ted! Oh, something dreadful happened!”

CHAPTER II
GOOD NEWS

Down in the dark depths of the old well, Ted Martin heard what his sister called in such frightened tones.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

A moment later he learned on his own account. For the bucket rope having slipped off the windlass, from which it had rotted away, tumbled down the well. It caught for a moment on a projecting stone, and then went down into the depths. It fell partly on top of Ted’s head as he stepped off the edge of the bucket on to the pile of dried sticks and leaves which had blown and tumbled into the well during the years it had not been in use.

“Oh, Teddy!” cried Janet. “The rope came loose and it fell down!”

“I know it did,” Ted answered. For the rope was coiled about him.

“Then how are you going to get up?” Janet wanted to know. “How are you going to get up out of the well when I can’t wind up the rope?”

To this Ted made answer:

“I don’t know, Jan. I guess I’m in a sort of pickle. But wait a minute. Don’t run away and leave me!”

Janet had no such idea. She wouldn’t desert Ted in trouble.

While the little fellow is down in the old, dry well, trying to think of a way to get out, and while Janet is also puzzling her head over the same matter, I will take just a moment to let my new readers know something about the Curlytops.

I have told you the reason for their nickname. They had been christened in this order: Theodore Baradale Martin, who was called Ted or Teddy, except when he had done something wrong, and then he heard his full name spoken. Next came Janet Louise Martin, which was shortened into Janet or Jan. She was just a year younger than Ted. Last of all was William Anthony Martin. He was “Trouble,” you know.

Mr. Richard Martin, the father of Trouble and the Curlytops, was the owner of a large, general store in Cresco, in one of our eastern states. In the first book of this series, called “The Curlytops at Cherry Farm,” I related how the children went to visit Grandpa Martin on his wonderful farm, and I told you what happened after they reached there. During other vacation seasons the children traveled to Star Island, they were snowed in, visited Uncle Frank’s ranch, and camped on Silver Lake with Uncle Ben. The children had some queer pets, as you may learn by reading another book, and they had many playmates with whom they had jolly times. After a trip to the woods, the children found something in the sand, as told in the book just before this, called “The Curlytops at Sunset Beach.”

After the summer at the shore the Martin family returned to Cresco. Through the long winter Janet and Ted played in the snow. Then came spring. Now it was summer again and the long vacation had arrived.

“And it means a lot of work, too,” sighed Mrs. Martin, on the last day of school. “I’m sure I don’t know what the children will do with so much time on their hands!”

But this did not worry Ted, Janet or Trouble. They knew they could have fun, and one of the ways hit on by Ted and his sister was to play “diamond mine,” as we find them doing at the old well when this story opens.

“Do you think you can get out, Ted?” his sister called anxiously down into the depths of the dark well.

“I don’t know,” was Ted’s answer. “But don’t go away. I’m going to try to climb up, Jan.”

“How you going to climb up?” the little girl wanted to know.

“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.

“Teddy in the well!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin. “Is he——”

“There isn’t any water in it,” Janet hastened to add, and then Mrs. Martin herself remembered that her husband had told her that same fact. So she asked more calmly:

“How did Teddy get down in the well?” She hurried forward, keeping a tight hold of Trouble’s hand, so he wouldn’t slip into the black depths.

“We were playing diamond mine,” Janet began to explain, when Ted, at the bottom of the well, heard his mother’s voice and cried:

“I’m all right! I can get up if you can fasten the rope to the windlass, or lower a ladder to me!”

“Oh, Teddy! Why did you ever go down there?” cried Mrs. Martin, as she leaned over the curbing and looked down. “You shouldn’t have done such a thing!”

“I didn’t mean to get stuck down here, Mother!” the boy answered. He could look up and see his mother quite plainly, for she was in the sunlight. But she could hardly see him at the bottom of the well.

“The rope slipped off,” explained Janet.

“If we had a cowboy here he could lasso Teddy up,” said Trouble, with a laugh.

“Yes, but we haven’t any cowboy,” said Mrs. Martin. “Jan, you run and tell Patrick to come here. Tell him to bring a ladder. I hope we have one long enough. Hurry, Jan!”

Now that her mother was on the scene, Janet felt sure that Teddy would soon be out of the well. As she hastened back toward the house, she saw Patrick working in the garden.

“Please take a long ladder to the old well so Teddy can get out, Patrick,” she begged. “Hurry!”

“What’s that, Jan?” asked the man of all work.

When the little girl had explained, Patrick ran off toward the barn, chuckling to himself and saying:

“They call the little one ‘Trouble,’ but I’m not sure but what it would be a good name for the other two. Sure, they’re into twice as much mischief as William! It’s a good thing the well is dry!”

Patrick was on his way to the well, carrying a long ladder, which, he told Janet, would surely reach the bottom, and the little girl was following him when she saw her father coming around the house by a side path.

It was not usual for Mr. Martin to come home from his store in the middle of the afternoon. When he did, something extraordinary nearly always happened, and this time Janet thought he had heard about Teddy. So she said:

“He’s all right now, Daddy! We’ll soon have him out!”

“Who’s all right? Who’s going to be out soon?” asked Mr. Martin, much puzzled. “And what are you going to do with that ladder, Patrick?”

“Sure an’ I’m going to get Teddy out of the old well.”

“Out of the old well?” cried Mr. Martin. “Do you mean to tell me Ted has fallen down there?”

“He didn’t perzackly fall in,” said Janet. “I let him down by the rope, but the rope slipped off and he’s down there. He couldn’t climb out, so mother told Patrick to bring the ladder.”

“Oh, well, if your mother’s there I guess matters will soon be all right,” said Mr. Martin, breathing more easily. “Why did you children go to that well? We must fill it up at once, Patrick.”

“Yes, sir. I was going to do it this afternoon. But they got ahead of me, the Curlytops did.”

Mr. Martin hurried on with Patrick, helping him carry the ladder, while Janet followed. Mrs. Martin and Trouble were still standing at the well curbing, and when Mrs. Martin saw her husband she, too, thought he had come home because of what had happened to Ted.

Then, as she knew he could not have heard of it at the store, she said to Mr. Martin:

“Is anything wrong? Why did you come home at this time of day?”

“Everything is all right,” replied Mr. Martin, with a smile. “I came home to tell you some good news. But first we must get Teddy out of the well.”

Mr. Martin leaned over and looked down into the depths. Ted saw his father and called to him:

“I’m all right!”

“I’m glad of it,” was the answer. “We’re going to lower the ladder down to you so you can climb up. Stand to one side so it won’t hit you.”

And as her father and Patrick lowered the ladder into the well, Janet wondered what good news it was that had brought Mr. Martin home in the middle of the afternoon.

CHAPTER III
THE CARDWELL ALBUMS

Ted Martin was in no danger in the dry well. His father and mother knew this as soon as they had looked down at him. There was not a drop of water in the well, and the sides were well walled up so they wouldn’t cave in.

“Don’t ever do anything like this again, Theodore!” his father said quite sternly to the little chap, as the ladder was being put into place.

“No, sir,” answered Teddy.

“We didn’t mean to do it,” said Janet.

“I know you didn’t,” her mother admitted. “But just think what would have happened if there had been water in the well?”

“I wouldn’t have gone down if there had been water in,” Teddy called up, for he could hear what was being said.

“Well, I’m glad you have that much sense,” his father told him. “Now, Patrick, you hold the upper end of the ladder steady and I’ll put this end down in.”

Slowly the ladder was lowered into the well, Teddy crowding back against the stones as he stood on the leafy bottom, so as to be out of the way. At last the ladder was in place.

“Now can you climb up, Ted?” called his father.

“Sure I can climb up,” was the answer, and a little later the head of the Curlytop lad appeared above the curbing. There were leaves and dirt and cobwebs in Teddy’s hair, but he didn’t mind that. “I brought the end of the rope up with me,” he said, showing it to his father. “You can fasten it to the windlass if you want to.”

“I don’t want to,” declared Mr. Martin. “And, just so you and Janet won’t be tempted to play diamond mine again, we’ll drop this old rope back to the bottom of the well. And you must start at once, Patrick, to fill it up.”

“Yes, sir, I will,” was the answer.

Mr. Martin took the end of the rope from Ted and let it drop back into the black depths where it fell on the bucket, already on the bottom.

Then the ladder was pulled up, and as Mr. Martin walked back toward the house with his wife and children Patrick got a shovel and began tossing dirt and rocks into the well, to fill it up level.

“There’ll be no more Curlytops down in you!” said the man, as he labored away. The wooden curbing was torn loose and the windlass broken. It was the end of the old well.

“But, anyhow, I got down it all right,” declared Ted, as he looked back and saw Patrick filling up the hole.

“Yes, but you might not have gotten out so easily if we hadn’t come to help you,” suggested Mrs. Martin.

“I guess that’s right,” agreed Ted. “I tried to climb out, but it was hard work.”

“He was like ‘ding-dong bell, pussy in the well,’ wasn’t he, Mother?” laughed Trouble, as he stumbled along beside his father.

“Yes, and daddy was Big Johnnie Stout who got Teddy out!” added Janet. “But what’s the good news?” she asked. “You said you had good news, Daddy.”

“It’s about our summer vacation,” replied Mr. Martin. “You know, my dear,” he went on, turning to his wife, “we haven’t been able to make any plans for the vacation, because I didn’t know how matters were going at the store. Well, I have just found out that I can get away next week, and be gone for a month, so I hurried home to let you know. We shall have a fine vacation this season!”

“Where are we going?” asked Ted, brushing some of the well dirt from his clothes.

“To the seashore?” asked Janet.

“No, we aren’t going any special place,” her father replied.

“Oh, I thought you said we were going to have a fine vacation!” objected Ted.

“So I did, and so we are. But we aren’t going to any special place. What do you say to touring around—going from place to place in our auto, and perhaps taking a trip in a motor boat? How would my Curlytops like that?” and Mr. Martin ruffled first the hair of Janet and then that of Teddy.

“I think that will be lots of fun!” cried Janet.

“Do you mean touring around in our car and sleeping in it and camping out and all that?” asked Ted.

“Well, something like that,” agreed Mr. Martin. “Of course we can’t exactly sleep in our auto, as it isn’t a Gypsy wagon. But we can take along a tent that can be fastened to the auto, and we can sleep in that if we wish. Or we can put up at hotels along the way. It will be partly a camping trip.”

“Oh, that’ll be dandy fun!” cried Ted. “When can we start?”

“Next week. But in the meanwhile don’t go climbing into any more wells,” urged his father.

“No, sir, I won’t!” the Curlytop boy promised. “Oh, hurray for touring around! Hurray for touring around!” he cried, turning a somersault on the grass.

“’Ray! ’Ray!” echoed Trouble, trying to do as he saw his brother do. But Trouble toppled over to one side, laughing as he fell.

“We’ll have lovely fun!” confided Janet to her mother. “I think daddy is just wonderful, don’t you, Mother?”

“He is, indeed, quite wonderful,” agreed Mrs. Martin, with a smile.

From then on, as you can imagine, there were busy times in the home of the Curlytops. Once it was decided that they would spend part of the summer vacation touring around, going to no particular place, but stopping wherever they felt like it, many preparations had to be made.

Mr. Martin owned a big touring car, and he bought a camping outfit and tent to go with it. The tent could be fastened to one side of the car, and cots put beneath the canvas covering.

“The children can sleep in the car, when it rains too hard,” decided Mrs. Martin.

“And can we cook, and eat and everything like that out of doors?” Janet wanted to know.

“Of course we have to cook!” declared Ted. “I’m going to make the campfires,” he declared.

“We’ll see about that,” Mr. Martin said. “Very likely we’ll take along an alcohol stove. That’s more certain for cooking than wet wood. But we can have a campfire once in a while.”

Ted and Janet told their many boy and girl chums about the coming touring trip, and all the lads and lassies wished they were as lucky as were the Curlytops.

It was one evening, about four days after Ted had gone down into the well which was now filled up, that, as the Curlytops and the others of the family were talking about the coming trip, a ring sounded at the front door.

“I wonder who that can be?” said Mrs. Martin.

“Well, it’s pretty hard to guess,” her husband answered, with a laugh. “But we’ll soon see, for Nora is opening the door.”

In came Mr. James Cardwell, an elderly neighbor who lived two or three houses down the street. Under his arm Mr. Cardwell carried two large books, which, a second look told Janet and Ted, were old-fashioned photograph albums.

“Good evening, Mr. Cardwell,” said Mr. Martin. “Have a chair.”

“Thanks, but I didn’t come to stay long,” said Mr. Cardwell, as he put his albums down on the table. “I came to ask you to do me a favor.”

“Did you want our pictures to put in your album, Mr. Cardwell?” asked Ted, for he and Janet had had their photographs taken the week before.

“Thank you, little man, but these albums are filled,” was the answer. “I’d like to get your pictures, though, for another album I have at home. What I came over for,” he went on, “is to see if you would take these albums to my brother Reuben in Bentville, Mr. Martin. I hear you are going on a long auto tour, and that you will pass through Bentville. Is that right?”

“Yes, we planned to make Bentville one of our stops,” said Mr. Martin, naming a town about three hundred miles away.

“That’s my old home,” said Mr. Cardwell. “There is going to be a reunion of the Cardwell families there in the fall. We have it every year. All the Cardwells for miles around come to this reunion.

“Now in this album are a lot of pictures of Cardwells that are dead and gone—dead and gone,” and the old man’s voice trembled. “Some of their relatives would like to look at these pictures. I thought it would be a good plan to have them at the reunion.”

“Very nice, I should say,” remarked Mrs. Martin.

“That’s what I thought. Well, I want to send my albums on ahead, before I start, which won’t be until fall. I want to send them to my brother, Reuben Cardwell of Bentville. The albums have been in the family many years. I’d hate to see them lost, or have anything happen to them. I’m afraid to send them by mail or express. But I thought, as long as you’re going to tour out that way, you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Martin, leaving these albums with my brother.”

“I shall be glad to do that,” replied the Curlytops’ father. “If you think you can trust me with them,” he added.

“Of course I’ll trust you,” said Mr. Cardwell. “Though we think so much of these albums in our family that I wouldn’t trust every one. I don’t know what would happen if they got lost or were destroyed. See, here are pictures of my dear little twin girls, who died when they were ten years old. They’re the only pictures we have of them—Mary and Alice.”

He turned the heavy pages and showed pictures of two pretty girls, with long, curling hair. The pictures were of a bygone time, old-fashioned and rather strange to the Curlytops. But they could see that Mr. Cardwell thought a great deal of them and of the albums.

“And here is another picture we prize highly,” said the elderly neighbor. “It’s a picture of my brother’s boy Tom. He was only eighteen,” and he turned to the photograph of a fine-looking lad.

“Did he die, too?” asked Mrs. Martin softly.

“Yes—at least, we suppose so,” said Mr. Cardwell gently. “He went away to be a sailor. His ship was sunk and we never heard anything more from him. I suppose the poor young fellow died at sea. This is the only picture of him, and I know how badly my brother would feel if it were lost. So will you take charge of these old family albums, Mr. Martin, and deliver them in Bentville?”

“Yes, I’ll be very careful of them,” promised Mr. Martin. “I know what it means to lose such things.”

“Didn’t they ever find the boy who was lost at sea?” asked Ted, to whom this little story appealed greatly.

“No, Ted, we never heard a word from him,” sighed Mr. Cardwell. “I suppose the sea has him. He is as much lost as my dear little twin girls are,” and he turned back to the pictures of the children.

“I have a small chest, or box, down at the store, Mr. Cardwell,” said Mr. Martin, as the caller was about to leave. “I’ll put your albums in that chest so they will be safe.”

“Thank you. Tell my brother, when you see him, why I sent them to him this way—I didn’t like to trust the mails or the express, and I won’t be out to Bentville myself until fall.”

“I’ll tell him,” was the promise.

Ted and Janet were looking at the queer, heavy covers of the old books and wondering what games the pictured children used to play when they were on earth, when suddenly from outside came a number of sounds.

There was the sound of the clanging of bells, the blowing of whistles and the shouting of men and boys.

“It’s a fire! A fire down the street!” cried Ted, as he raced to the door. “Oh, Mr. Cardwell, I guess your house is on fire!”

CHAPTER IV
A BIG CROWD

Nothing causes quite so much excitement as does a fire. And when the fire is on your own street, and near your house, and perhaps in the home of some one you know—why, then there is excitement enough to cause even the grown-ups to move about quickly.

And this is just what happened when Ted Martin called out:

“I guess your house is on fire, Mr. Cardwell!”

Mr. and Mrs. Martin, as well as their visitor who had brought the two old photograph albums with him, ran to the door. And you may be sure that Janet was there ahead of them, for she had heard what her brother shouted. William, also, was right there, making his way in and out among chairs until he finally pushed through between Ted’s legs as that lad stood on the porch.

“I’m goin’ to fire!” cried the little fellow.

“No, Trouble! You stay here!” commanded Ted, catching hold of him just in time.

“It is a fire, surely enough,” declared Mrs. Martin, when she had looked down the street.

“And it’s near my house, if it isn’t in it!” exclaimed Mr. Cardwell. “Excuse me!” he said hastily, as he pushed his way between Ted and Janet on the steps. “But I’d better get down there!”

“I’ll come and help,” offered Mr. Martin.

“May I come?” asked Ted.

“No, Son, you stay with your mother,” directed his father.

As the two men hurried out of the front gate, joining the throng that was running toward the scene of the fire, Mrs. Martin took Trouble by one hand and Janet by the other and said:

“We’ll just walk down a little way to see what’s going on. Come along, Ted.”

Much pleased that he did not have to stay away altogether from the fire, the Curlytop lad followed his mother and the others. The engines were already on hand, and it was their puffing and tooting of whistles that had made some of the noise.

“It isn’t Mr. Cardwell’s house, though,” said Mrs. Martin, when she and the Curlytops, with Trouble, had gone far enough down the street to see just where the fire was. “It’s next door to him.”

“I wouldn’t want a fire next door to me,” sighed Janet.

“I would!” cried Ted. “You could see it fine!”

“A fire is a terrible thing,” said Mrs. Martin. “We shouldn’t want one anywhere near us.”

“Oh, no, of course not! I don’t exactly want one,” admitted Ted. “But if one has got to come I wish it would be near our house, but not in it, so I could see it good.”

“This isn’t a very big fire,” observed Janet, when they had watched for a few minutes. “I guess it’s out now.”

“I hope so,” said her mother.

And such proved to be the case, for in a little while the firemen who had rushed into the home of Mr. Blakeson, next door to the residence of Mr. Cardwell, came out with a long, thin hose. It was the hose from the chemical engine, and not the big water hose.

“It was only a fire in the chimney,” said Mr. Martin, as he came walking back with Mr. Cardwell. “No damage done, but the folks were pretty well frightened. They put it out with chemicals.”

“How could a chimney be on fire?” Jan wanted to know. “A chimney is brick, and bricks can’t burn.”

“It isn’t the bricks that burn,” her father explained. “But when a chimney has been used a number of years it gets coated, or lined on the bricks inside, with soot. Soot contains oils and other things that burn. Finally, some day, a hot fire sets the soot inside the chimney on fire, and it burns fiercely. And if it burned long enough it would make the bricks so hot that they would set fire to the roof or the wooden parts of the house near them. That’s why a chimney fire is dangerous, even though the bricks themselves can’t burn.”

“Did they put salt on the fire?” asked Mrs. Martin.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Ted. “I’ve heard of putting salt on the tail of a wild bird to tame it, but I didn’t know you put salt on a fire.”

“Yes, you do, sometimes,” stated Mr. Martin. “Salt is said to put out chimney fires. Some sort of chemical is released when salt is heated, and this smothers the fire in the chimney. But the firemen put this fire out, and without any damage being done.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Mrs. Martin, as they went back to the house.

“And I’m glad the fire wasn’t in my house,” remarked Mr. Cardwell. “If it had been, and if those albums had burned, with those pictures of my children and my brother’s boy—pictures we never could get again—my wife and I would have felt very sad. My wife thinks a great deal of those albums. I’ve been planning for a long time to send them out to my brother, but we never dared trust them to any one before. I hope you will take good care of them, Mr. Martin.”

“Oh, I surely will, Mr. Cardwell,” replied the father of the Curlytops.

That night, when the children were in bed and Mr. and Mrs. Martin were quietly talking over their plans for the coming tour around the country, Mrs. Martin said:

“I almost wish you didn’t have to bother with those two big albums of pictures, Dick!”

“Why?” asked her husband.

“Oh, just suppose something happens to them?”

“Nothing will happen to them. I’ll pack them in that small chest I have down at the store, and we’ll put it in the back of the auto. When we reach Bentville I’ll give the albums to Mr. Cardwell’s brother. That will end the matter.”

“I shall be glad when it is ended,” said Mrs. Martin, as she carefully carried the precious old books of pictures upstairs with her.

“What are you going to do with them, my dear?” asked her husband, as he noticed what she was doing.

“I thought I’d have them handy so I could pick them up and run out with them in case our house caught fire during the night.”

“Oh, nonsense!” laughed Mr. Martin. “Nothing is going to happen!”

But it did. Not that night, nor the next night, but before very long, as you shall read.

Ted and Janet, with Trouble also, were very busy the next day, going over their toys and playthings to pick out the things they wanted to take on the tour with them. Jan had a number of dolls, a ball, some books, a few things she thought her dolls might need and even a carriage. Ted had picked out some books, his top, a pair of roller skates and a bow and arrows.

“Why, children, you can’t take all those things!” laughed their mother. “There wouldn’t be room in the auto, for one thing, and, besides, you will have no time to play with your toys. We shall be traveling most of the day, and at night you’ll want to sleep. Don’t take any of those things.”

After some talk Ted and Janet agreed to limit the toys they would take with them. Janet picked out the doll she liked best and one book, and Ted took a ball and a book. As for Trouble——

Well, by the time Mrs. Martin had settled on what the two older children could take, she had forgotten about Trouble. Then, all of a sudden, she remembered him.

“Where is William?” she asked.