Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：Garis, Howard Roger

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Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch试读：

"Say, Jan, this isn't any fun!"

"What do you want to play then, Ted?"

Janet Martin looked at her brother, who was dressed in one of his father's coats and hats while across his nose was a pair of spectacles much too large for him. Janet, wearing one of her mother's skirts, was sitting in a chair holding a doll.

"Well, I'm tired of playing doctor, Jan, and giving your make-believe sick doll bread pills. I want to do something else," and Teddy began taking off the coat, which was so long for him that it dragged on the ground.

"Oh, I know what we can do that'll be lots of fun!" cried Janet, getting up from the chair so quickly that she forgot about her doll, which fell to the floor with a crash that might have broken her head.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Janet, as she had often heard her mother call when Baby William tumbled and hurt himself. "Oh, are you hurt?" and Janet clasped the doll in her arms, and hugged it as though it were a real child.

"Is she busted?" Ted demanded, but he did not ask as a real doctor might inquire. In fact, he had stopped playing doctor.

"No, she isn't hurt, I guess," Jan answered, feeling of her doll's head. "I forgot all about her being in my lap. Oh, aren't you going to play any more, Ted?" she asked as she saw her brother toss the big coat on a chair and take off the spectacles.

"No. I want to do something else. This is no fun!"

"Well, let's make-believe you're sick and I can be a Red Cross nurse, like some of those we saw in the drugstore window down the street, making bandages for the soldiers. You could be a soldier, Ted, and I could be the nurse, and I'd make some sugar pills for you, if you don't like the rolled-up bread ones you gave my doll."

Teddy Martin thought this over for a few seconds. He seemed to like it. And then he shook his head.

"No," he answered his sister, "I couldn't be a soldier."

"Why not?"

"'Cause I haven't got a gun and there isn't any tent."

"We could make a tent with a sheet off the bed like we do lots of times. Put it over a chair, you know."

"But I haven't a gun," Teddy went on. He knew that he and Janet could make a tent, for they had often done it before.

"Couldn't you take a broom for a gun?" Janet asked. "I'll get it from the kitchen."

"Pooh! What good is a broom for a gun? I want one that shoots! Anyhow I haven't a uniform, and a soldier can't go to war without a uniform or a sword or a gun. I'm not going to play that!"

Janet did not know what to say for a few seconds. Truly a soldier would not be much of one without a gun or a uniform, even if he was in a tent. But the little girl had not given up yet.

The day was a rainy one. There was no school, for it was Saturday, and staying in the house was no great fun. Janet wanted her brother to stay and play with her and she knew she must do something to make him. For a while he had been content to play that he was Dr. Thompson, come to give medicine to Jan's sick doll. But Teddy had become tired of this after paying half a dozen visits and leaving pills made by rolling bread crumbs together.

Teddy laid aside his father's old hat and scratched his head. That is he tried to, but his head was so covered with tightly twisted curls that the little boy's fingers were fairly entangled in them.

"Say!" he exclaimed, "I wish my hair didn't curl so much! It's too long. I'm going to ask mother if I can't have it cut."

"I wish I could have mine cut," sighed Janet. "Mine's worse to comb than yours is, Ted."

"Yes, I know. And it always curls more on a rainy day."

Both children had the same curly hair. It was really beautiful, but they did not quite appreciate it, even though many of their friends, and some persons who saw them for the first time, called them "Curlytops." Indeed the tops of their heads were very curly.

"Oh, I know how we can do it!" suddenly cried Janet, just happening to think of something.

"Do what?" asked her brother.

"Play the soldier game. You can pretend you were caught by the enemy and your gun and uniform were taken away. Then you can be hurt and I'll be the Red Cross nurse and take care of you in the tent. I'll get some real sugar for pills, too! Nora'll give me some. She's in the kitchen now making a cake."

"Maybe she'd give you a piece of cake, too," suggested Teddy.

"Maybe," agreed Janet. "I'll go and ask her."

"Ask her for some chocolate," added Ted. "I guess, if I've got to be sick, I'd like chocolate pills 'stead of sugar."

"All right," said Janet, as she hurried downstairs from the playroom to the kitchen. In a little while she came back with a plate on which were two slices of chocolate cake, while on one edge of it were some crumbs of chocolate icing.

"I'll make pills of that after we eat the cake," Janet said. "You can pretend the cake made you sick if you want to, Ted."

"Pooh! who ever heard of a soldier getting sick on cake? Anyhow they don't have cake in the army—lessen they capture it from the enemy."

"Well, you can pretend you did that," said Janet. "Now I'll put my doll away," she went on, as she finished her piece of cake, "and we'll play the soldier game. I'll get some red cloth to make the cross."

Janet looked "sweet," as her mother said afterward, when she had wound a white cloth around her head, a red cross, rather ragged and crooked, being pinned on in front.

The tent was made by draping a sheet from the bed across two chairs, and under this shelter Teddy crawled. He stretched out on a blanket which Janet had spread on the floor to be the hospital cot.

"Now you must groan, Ted," she said, as she looked in a glass to see if her headpiece and cross were on straight.

"Groan? What for?"

"'Cause you've been hurt in the war, or else you're sick from the cake."

"Pooh! a little bit of cake like that wouldn't make me sick. You've got to give me a lot more if you want me to be real sick."

"Oh, Teddy Martin! I'm not going to play if you make fun like that all the while. You've got to groan and pretend you've been shot. Never mind about the cake."

"All right. I'll be shot then. But you've got to give me a lot of chocolate pills to make me get better."

"I'm not going to give 'em to you all at once, Ted Martin!"

"Well, maybe in two doses then. How many are there?"

"Oh, there's a lot. I'm going to take some myself."

"You are not!" and Teddy sat up so quickly that he hit the top of the sheet-tent with his head and made it slide from the chair.

"There! Look what you did!" cried Janet. "Now you've gone and spoiled everything!"

"Oh, well, I'll fix it," said Ted, rather sorry for what he had done. "But you can't eat my chocolate pills."

"I can so!"

"You cannot! Who ever heard of a nurse taking the medicine from a sick soldier?"

"Well, anyhow—well, wouldn't you give me some chocolate candy if you had some, and I hadn't?" asked Janet.

"Course I would, Jan. I'm not stingy!"

"Well, these pills are just like chocolate candy, and if I give 'em all to you——"

"Oh, well, then I'll let you eat some," agreed Ted. "But you wanted me to play this game of bein' a sick soldier, and if I'm sick I've got to have the medicine."

"Yes, I'll give you the most," Janet agreed. "Now you lie down and groan and I'll hear you out on the battlefield and come and save your life."

So, after Janet had fixed the sheet over him again, Teddy lay back on the blanket and groaned his very best.

"Oh, it sounds as real as anything!" exclaimed the little girl in delight. "Do it some more, Ted!"

Thereupon her brother groaned more loudly until Janet stopped him by dropping two or three chocolate pills into his opened mouth.

"Oh! Gurr-r-r-r! Ugh! Say, you 'most choked me!" spluttered Ted, as he sat up and chewed the chocolate.

"Oh, I didn't mean to," said Janet as she ate a pill or two herself. "Now you lie down and go to sleep, 'cause I've got a lot more sick soldiers to go to see."

"Don't give 'em any of my chocolate pills," cautioned Ted. "I need 'em all to make me get better."

"I'll only make-believe give them some," promised Janet.

She and her brother played this game for a while, and Teddy liked it—as long as the chocolate pills were given him. But when Janet had only a few left and Teddy was about to say he was tired of lying down, someone came into the playroom and a voice asked:

"What you doin'?"

"Playing soldier," answered Janet. "You mustn't drop your 'g' letters, Trouble. Mother doesn't like it."

"I want some chocolate," announced the little boy, whose real name was William Martin, but who was more often called Trouble—because he got in so much of it, you know.

"There's only one pill left. Can I give it to him, Ted?" asked Janet.

"Yes, Janet. I've had enough. Anyhow, I know something else to play now. It's lots of fun!"

"What?" asked Janet eagerly. It was still raining hard and she wanted her brother to stay in the house with her.

"We'll play horse," went on Ted. "I'll be a bucking bronco like those Uncle Frank told us about on his ranch. We'll make a place with chairs where they keep the cow ponies and the broncos. I forget what Uncle Frank called it."

"I know," said Janet. "It's cor—corral."

"Corral!" exclaimed Ted. "That's it! We'll make a corral of some chairs and I'll be a bucking bronco. That's a horse that won't let anybody ride on its back," the little boy explained.

"I wants a wide!" said Baby William.

"Well, maybe I'll give you a ride after I get tired of bucking," said Teddy, thinking about it.

They made a ring of chairs on the playroom floor, and in this corral Teddy crept around on his hands and knees, pretending to be a wild Western pony. Janet tried to catch him and the children had much fun, Trouble screaming and laughing in delight.

At last Teddy allowed himself to be caught, for it was hard work crawling around as he did, and rearing up in the air every now and then.

"Give me a wide!" pleaded Trouble.

"Yes, I'll ride him on my back," offered Teddy, and his baby brother was put up there by Janet.

"Now don't go too fast with him, pony," she said.

"Yes, I wants to wide fast, like we does with Nicknack," declared Baby William. Nicknack was the Curlytops' pet goat.

"All right, I'll give you a fast ride," promised Teddy.

He began crawling about the room with Trouble on his back. The baby pretended to drive his "horse" by a string which Ted held in his mouth like reins.

"Go out in de hall—I wants a big wide," directed Trouble.

"All right," assented Teddy. Out into the hall he went and then forgetting, perhaps, that he had his baby brother on his back, Teddy began to buck—that is flop up and down.

"Oh—oh! 'top!" begged Trouble.

"I can't! I'm a Wild-West pony," explained Ted, bucking harder than ever.

He hunched himself forward on his hands and knees, and before he knew it he was at the head of the stairs. Then, just how no one could say, Trouble gave a yell, toppled off Teddy's back and the next instant went rolling down the flight, bump, bump, bumping at every step.CHAPTER IINICKNACK AND TROUBLE

"Oh, Teddy!" screamed Janet. "Oh, Trouble!"

Teddy did not answer at once. Indeed he had hard work not to tumble down the stairs himself after his little brother. Ted clung to the banister, though, and managed to save himself.

"Oh, he'll be hurt—terrible!" cried Janet, and she tried to get past her older brother to run downstairs after Trouble.

But Mrs. Martin, who was in the dining-room talking to Nora Jones, the maid, heard the noise and ran out into the hall.

"Oh, children!" she cried. "Teddy—Janet—what's all that noise?"

"It's Trouble, Mother!" announced Teddy. "I was playing bucking bronco and——"

"Trouble fell downstairs!" screamed Janet.

While everyone was thus calling out at once, Baby William came flopping head over heels, and partly sidewise, down the padded steps, landing right at his mother's feet, sitting up as straight as though in his high-chair.

"Oh, darling!" cried Mrs. Martin, catching the little fellow up in her arms, "are you hurt?"

Trouble was too much frightened to scream or cry. He had his mouth open but no sound came from it. He was just like the picture of a sobbing baby.

"Oh, Nora!" cried Mrs. Martin, as she hurried into the dining-room with her little boy in her arms. "Trouble fell downstairs! Get ready to telephone for his father and the doctor in case he's badly hurt," and then she and the maid began looking over Baby William to find out just what was the matter with him, while Ted and Janet, much frightened and very quiet, stood around waiting.

And while Mrs. Martin is looking over Trouble it will be a good chance for me to tell those of you who meet the Curlytops for the first time in this book something about them, and what has happened to them in the other volumes of this series.

The first book is named "The Curlytops at Cherry Farm," and in that I had the pleasure of telling you about Ted and Janet and Trouble Martin and their father and mother, when they went to Grandpa Martin's place, called Cherry Farm, which was near the village of Elmburg, not far from Clover Lake.

There the children found a goat, which they named Nicknack, and they kept him as a pet. When hitched to a wagon he gave them many nice rides. There were many cherry trees on Grandpa Martin's farm, and when some of the other crops failed the cherries were a great help, especially when the Lollypop Man turned them into "Chewing Cherry Candy."

After a good time on the farm the children had more fun when, as told in the second book, named "The Curlytops on Star Island," they went camping with grandpa. On Star Island in Clover Lake they saw a strange blue light which greatly puzzled them, and it was some time before they knew what caused it.

The summer and fall passed and Ted and Janet went home to Cresco, where they lived, to spend the winter. What happened then is told in the third volume, called "The Curlytops Snowed In." The big storm was so severe that no one could get out and even Nicknack was lost wandering about in the big drifts.

The Curlytops had a good time, even if they were snowed in. Now spring had come again, and the children were ready for something else. But I must tell you a little bit about the family, as well as about what happened.

You have already met Ted, Jan and Trouble. Ted's real name was Theodore, but his mother seldom called him that unless she was quite serious about something he had done that was wrong. So he was more often spoken to as Ted or Teddy, and his sister Janet was called Jan. Though oftener still they were called the "Curlytops," or, if one was speaking to one or the other he would say "Curlytop." That was because both Teddy and Janet had such very, very curly hair.

Ted's and Jan's birthdays came on the same day, but they had been born a year apart, Teddy being about seven years old and his sister a year younger. Trouble was aged about three years.

I have spoken of the curly hair of Teddy and Janet. Unless you had seen it you would never have believed hair could be so curly! It was no wonder that even strangers called the children "Curlytops."

Sometimes, when Mother Martin was combing the hair of the children, the comb would get tangled and she would have to pull a little to get it loose. That is one reason Ted never liked to have his hair combed. Janet's was a little longer than his, but just as curly.

Trouble's real name, as I have mentioned, was William. His father sometimes called him "A bunch of trouble," and his mother spoke of him as "Dear Trouble," while Jan and Ted called him just "Trouble."

Mr. Martin, whose name was Richard, shortened to Dick by his wife (whose name was Ruth) owned a store in Cresco, which is in one of our Eastern states.

Nora Jones, a cheerful, helpful maid-of-all-work had been in the Martin family a long while, and dearly loved the children, who were very fond of her. The Martins had many relatives besides the children's grandfather and grandmother, but I will only mention two now. They were Aunt Josephine Miller, called Aunt Jo, who lived at Clayton and who had a summer bungalow at Mt. Hope, near Ruby Lake. She was a sister of Mrs. Martin's. Uncle Frank Barton owned a large ranch near Rockville, Montana. He was Mr. Martin's uncle, but Ted and Janet also called him their uncle.

Now that you have met the chief members of the family, and know a little of what has happened to them in the past you may be interested to go back to see what the matter is with Trouble.

His mother turned him over and over in her arms, feeling of him here and there. Trouble had closed his mouth by this time, having changed his mind about crying. Instead he was very still and quiet.

"Trouble, does it hurt you anywhere?" his mother asked him anxiously.

"No," he said. "Not hurt any place. I wants to wide on Teddy's back some more."

"The little tyke!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin with a sigh of relief. "I don't believe he is hurt a bit."

"The stairs are real soft since we put the new carpet on them," remarked Nora.

"They are well padded," agreed Mrs. Martin. "I guess that's what kept him from getting hurt. It was like rolling down a feather bed. But he might have got his arm or leg twisted under him and have broken a bone. How did he happen to fall."

"We were playing Red Cross nurse," began Janet, "and Ted was a soldier in a tent and——"

"But how could William fall downstairs if you were playing that sort of game?" asked her mother.

"Oh, we weren't playing it then," put in Ted. "We'd changed to another game. I was a wild Western bronco, like those on Uncle Frank's ranch, and I was giving Trouble a ride on my back. I gave a jump when I was near the stairs, and I guess he must have slipped off."

"There isn't any guessing about it—he did slip off," said Mrs. Martin with a smile, as she put Trouble in a chair, having made sure he was not hurt, and that there was no need of telephoning for his father or the doctor. "You must be more careful, Teddy. You might have hurt your little brother."

"Yes'm," Teddy answered. "I won't do it again."

"But we want to play something," put in Janet. "It's no fun being in the house all day."

"I know it isn't. But I think the rain is going to stop pretty soon. If you get your rain-coats and rubbers you may go out for a little while."

"Me go too?" begged Trouble.

"Yes, you may go too," agreed his mother. "You'll all sleep better if you get some fresh air; and it's warm, even if it has been raining."

"Maybe we can take Nicknack and have a ride!" exclaimed Teddy.

"If it stops raining," said his mother.

Ted, Jan and Trouble ran up and down in front of the house while the rain fell softly and the big drops dripped from the trees. Then the clouds broke away, the sun came out, the rain stopped and with shouts and laughter the children ran to the barn next to which, in a little stable of his own, Nicknack, the goat, was kept.

"Come on out, Nicknack!" cried Janet. "You're going to give us a ride!"

And Nicknack did, being hitched to the goat-cart in which there was room and to spare for Janet, Ted and Trouble. Up and down the street in front of their home the Martin children drove their pet goat.

"Whee, this is fun!" cried Ted, as he made Nicknack run downhill with the wagon.

"Oh, Teddy Martin, don't go so fast!" begged Janet.

"I like to go fast!" answered her brother. "I'm going to play Wild West. This is the stage coach and pretty soon the Indians will shoot at us!"

"Teddy Martin! if you're going to do that I'm not going to play!" stormed Janet. "You'll make Trouble fall out and get hurt. Come on, Trouble! Let us get out!" she cried. Nicknack was going quite fast down the hill.

"Wait till we get to the bottom," shouted Ted. "G'lang there, pony!" he cried to the goat.

"Let me out!" screamed Janet. "I want to get out."

At the foot of the hill Teddy stopped the goat and Janet, taking Trouble with her, got out and walked back to the house.

"What's the matter now?" asked Mrs. Martin from the porch where she had come out to get a little fresh air.

"Ted's playing Wild West in the goat-wagon," explained Janet.

"Oh, Ted! Don't be so rough!" begged his mother of her little son, who drove up just then.

"Oh, I'm only playing Indians and stage coach," he said. "You've got to go fast when the Indians are after you!" and away he rode.

"He's awful mean!" declared Janet.

"I don't know what's come over Ted of late," said Mrs. Martin to her husband, who came up the side street just then from his store.

"What's he been doing?" asked Mr. Martin.

"Oh, he's been pretending he was a bucking bronco, like those Uncle Frank has on his ranch, and he tossed Trouble downstairs. But the baby didn't get hurt, fortunately. Now Ted's playing Wild West stagecoach with Nicknack and Janet got frightened and wouldn't ride."

"Hum, I see," said Ted's father slowly. "Our boy is getting older, I guess. He needs rougher play. Well, I think I've just the very thing to suit him, and perhaps Janet and all of us."

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Martin, as her husband drew a letter from his pocket.

"This is an invitation from Uncle Frank for all of us to come out to his ranch in Montana for the summer," was the answer. "We have been talking of going, you know, and now is a good chance. I can

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