The Curlytops at Silver Lake

"Mother, make Trouble stop!"

"What is he doing now, Janet?" asked Mrs. Martin, looking up from her sewing and across the table to where her three children were playing a button game.

"Oh, he's doing everything!" said Teddy, shaking a finger at his funny little brother, who was smiling and holding something in his tightly closed fist. "He's got some of my buttons, and he--"

"Yes, and he knocked a lot of my buttons down on the floor," added Janet. "And he--"

"I must have all de wed buttons!" interrupted Trouble himself. "Wed buttons all mine-I goin' to put 'em on a stwing!" and the little boy, whose name was William, but who was more often called "Trouble," made a grab for another red button which he saw in a pile in front of his sister Janet.

"Don't take that!" cried Janet. "Ma-I mean Mother-please make him stop!" and she tried to push Trouble's hand away.

"Wed buttons all mine!" cried Trouble, just a trace of tears coming into his eyes.

"No, Trouble," said Ted, more gently. "Let sister have the red buttons. We're playing a game with them. I'll let you take all the white buttons!"

"I want wed buttons!" wailed Trouble, and as he still tried to get a handful of them from Janet, and as Janet was doing her best to stop William from doing this, there was a little scramble at the table. Trouble's hand slipped, the buttons slid across the smooth oak boards and fell with a clatter to the floor.

"There! Now look what you did, Trouble Martin!" cried Janet, as she leaned back in her chair. "All the nice buttons are on the floor!"

Trouble seemed much surprised by what he had done. He opened his fat little fist, and out rolled more buttons, some of which rattled to the floor.

"Oh, Mother, he's spoiling all our game!" said Janet. "Please make him stop!"

"I'll pick up the buttons," said Teddy, with a sigh. "I guess this is about fifty times I've done it to-night."

"Oh, hardly as many as that, I think," said his mother, with a smile, as she thrust her needle into the cloth she was sewing. "You must not exaggerate, Teddy."

"What's zaggerate, Mother?" asked Janet. "Is that a new game you can play with buttons?"

"No, dear," answered Mrs. Martin, as she laid aside her sewing and looked at the clock. "To exaggerate means to tell what isn't exactly so so as to make anything seem bigger than it is. Now I don't really believe you have picked the buttons off the floor more than five times to-night, have you, Teddy?" she asked.

"Well, maybe it was-maybe it was-six!" replied the curly-headed little lad.

"And you said fifty!" laughed his mother. "That's exaggeration-making a thing too big, Teddy, my boy!"

"Mrs. Henderson that lives across the street is zaggerated, isn't she, Mother?" asked Janet, as Teddy was busy picking up the buttons Trouble had knocked to the floor.

"Mrs. Henderson exaggerated? Why, Jan, what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Martin.

"I mean she's awful big-fat, you know," explained the little girl. "She's zaggerated all right, isn't she?"

"Oh, it doesn't mean that at all!" said Mrs. Martin, trying not to laugh. "And you mustn't say 'awful' when you mean only 'very much,' Janet. That's exaggeration, too. But, Trouble, I think it's time for you to go to bed. I'll take him upstairs," she said to the two older children, "and then you can play your game a little longer without any one to bother you. Come, Trouble, dear!"

"Ho! Don't want to go to bed! I want wed buttons!" and the little boy tried to reach over the table to where Ted had placed a pile of buttons of different colors.

"Ho, William! Come with mother," said Mrs. Martin quietly. When she used any of the children's real names-such as William, Theodore or Janet, instead of Trouble, Ted or Jan, the little folks knew Mrs. Martin was in earnest and that it was useless to beg further. Trouble heard his right name spoken and he gave a long sigh. Bedtime had come after a long, happy day.

"Could I have one more wed button?" he asked wistfully.

"No more," answered his mother.

"All wite. Den I go to bed!"

He slipped down from his chair, as Ted began putting the buttons from his mother's mending bag into two piles, so that he and Janet might go on with the game.

"Give sister a kiss!" begged Janet of Trouble.

He held back a moment, as if he had not quite forgiven her for not letting him have all the fun he wanted, and then he held up his chubby face.

"That's a good boy!" said Janet as she kissed him. "I'll let you have a lot of red buttons in the morning."

"Night-night!" called Trouble to Ted, as the older boy began counting out the buttons.

"Night-night," echoed Ted, as he wiggled his fingers in a funny fashion at Trouble.

As Mrs. Martin took William up to bed, Ted and Janet started their game over again. It was a simple little game. They spread out on the table all the buttons from mother's bag. Then they divided them into two piles, each taking one.

Janet would then take a button from her pile and hold it in her hand with her fingers closed over it so Teddy could not see it.

"Guess what color it is!" Jan would say to Ted.

"Black," he might answer, or perhaps he would say red, blue, or white-whatever he thought it might be. If he guessed the right color Janet had to give Ted five buttons of the color he had guessed. If he said the wrong color he had to give Janet seven buttons of any color she wanted.

If Ted guessed right, then it was his turn to take a button and make Janet guess the color of it. But if he guessed wrong it was his sister's turn again. And so they played the game, taking turns this way, until they were tired, or until one of them had all the buttons on the table.

It was this game they had been playing when Trouble, or Baby William, made the trouble by wanting all the "wed" buttons.

They played the little game for some time, having lots of fun, and Ted had just taken a number of buttons from Jan when their mother came softly down the stairs.

"Is Trouble asleep?" asked Janet.

"Yes. And it will soon be time for you two Curlytops to go upstairs too," said Mrs. Martin, as she took up her sewing again. "Even if it is vacation time, I can't have my Curlytops staying up too late."

One needed to take only one look at Ted and Janet Martin to know why they were called "Curlytops." It was because their heads were covered with pretty tight little curls of a golden color.

"We'll play three more times," said Ted. "I'll have all Jan's buttons by then."

"It's my turn to win, now!" laughed his sister.

They traded more buttons, first one and then the other guessing right, and finally, with another look at the clock, Mrs. Martin said:

"Come now, Curlytops! Off to bed with you!"

"Can't we stay up until daddy comes home?" asked Ted.

Mrs. Martin shook her head without looking up.

"Please!" begged Jan. "You know he said he might tell us where we were going to stay this summer. He said so when we were eating supper."

"Yes, I know he did," said Mrs. Martin. "But daddy is late to-night. He may not be home for an hour yet, and I can't have you staying up until then. You can find out in the morning, if he knows then, where we shall spend the summer vacation."

Ted and Jan looked at one another. They were about to make one last appeal to be allowed to stay up, but a glance at their mother showed them that she would not give in to them.

"Do you think we'll go to a nice place this vacation?" asked Janet.

"Oh, yes, I think so," answered Mrs. Martin.

"A place where there's water, and where we can go in swimming, and have a boat and go camping and-and all that?" asked Ted eagerly.

"Oh, dear me!" laughed Mrs. Martin, "I might just as well let you stay up playing the button game, as to let you ask me so many questions.

"Now run along to bed, both of you! As soon as daddy has made up his mind where we'll go for the summer vacation we'll tell you. Maybe you'll hear in the morning. But go to bed now, like good children!"

There was no staying up after that. But Teddy suddenly thought of something.

"Oh, Mother!" he cried, "may Jan and I just go and look to see if Skyrocket is all right? I put a new piece of carpet in his box to-day for him to sleep on, and I want to see if he likes it!"

"Oh, yes, please! I want to see, too!" begged Janet eagerly.

"Well, you may take just one look at Skyrocket," agreed Mrs. Martin, "and then come straight in and go to bed!"

"Yes'm; we will!" promised Ted. "Come on, Jan!"

Skyrocket was their dog; a dear, curly, black fellow, and all three children loved him. While Skyrocket, I am sure, felt that nowhere in the world were there such delightful children as the Curlytops and little Trouble. Skyrocket slept in a box in the woodshed, just outside the kitchen door.

Out to the shed hurried Ted and Jan. It was a little after eight o'clock, and just getting dark.

"Do you think Skyrocket will like his new carpet?" asked Jan, as Ted opened the door.

"I guess so. I knocked all the dust out so he wouldn't sneeze. Carpet dust makes you sneeze, you know. It made me sneeze when I was knocking it out of Skyrocket's carpet."

Together the Curlytops opened the woodshed door. At first they could see nothing, because it was rather dark inside. There was only one window, and when the children had stood still for a moment or two they could see this window, and also the pile of wood and other things in the shed.

"Are you all right, Skyrocket?" asked Ted.

"Don't you like your new carpet bed?" asked Janet.

There was no answer. Of course the Curlytops did not expect their dog to answer in words, but whenever they spoke to him he always either barked softly, whined or thumped his tail on the floor. That was all the answer they expected.

But this time there was neither bark, whine nor thump of tail. All was quiet within the woodshed.

"Hi, Skyrocket! Are you all right?" asked Teddy, speaking louder.

"Maybe he's asleep," suggested Jan.

"If he is he'd wake up when I called him," returned Ted. "Dogs don't mind being woke up. Sometimes they sleep with one eye open anyhow. I'll call him again. Hi, Skyrocket!" he exclaimed. "Skyrocket, are you all right?"

There was no bark, no whine, no thumping of tail.

"Maybe he likes his new bed so much he doesn't want to wake up," said Janet.

Teddy paused a moment to think this over.

"Maybe," he said. "But I wish he'd come out and see us. I'm going in to see if he's all right," he added.

Together the Curlytops stepped within the woodshed. They could see quite well now, from the faint light that came in through the window, and they looked over to where Skyrocket's sleeping box was, in a corner.

Stooping down over the box, Ted put in his hand. He expected to feel the soft, fluffy back of Skyrocket. But, instead, his hand only met the carpet which the little boy had folded and put in the box that afternoon to make a soft bed for his pet.

"Is he all right?" asked Janet.

"He-he isn't here at all!" exclaimed Ted.

"He isn't here! You mean Skyrocket isn't here?" cried Jan.

"Not in his box," added her brother. "You can come and feel for yourself."

Janet did so. She faced Teddy in the half-darkness of the woodshed.

"He-he isn't in his bed," she whispered. "But maybe he's hiding from us under the wood. He does, sometimes."

"If Skyrocket was here he'd be jumping all over us now," said Teddy in a strangely quiet voice, and Janet knew her brother was right.

They could not go near their pet without having him leap all about them, and sometimes climb half over them, in his joy at seeing them. Now there was no Skyrocket in the woodshed.

"He-he's gone!" said Teddy, and his voice trembled. "Skyrocket is gone, Janet."

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed the little girl. "Let's go and tell mother!"