The Curlytops on Star Island/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE BAG OF SALT
"Oh! Oh!" cried Teddy. "Oh, there goes my nice goat! Catch him, Grandpa! Stop him!"
Grandpa Martin stopped rowing and looked in surprise at the goat. So did the hired man.
"Well, just look!" exclaimed George.
"Oh, he'll be drowned! He'll be drowned!" wailed Teddy, tears coming into his eyes, for he loved Nicknack. "He'll be drowned!"
Grandpa Martin rested his hands on the oars and looked into the water. Then he smiled.
"I guess you'd have hard work drowning that goat," he said. "He's swimming like a fish!"
"And right straight for Star Island!" added the hired man. "That's a smart goat all right! He knows where he wants to go, and the shortest way to get there!"
Surely enough Nicknack was swimming toward the island. When he jumped out of the boat he floundered a little in the water, and splashed some on Teddy. Then he struck out, paddling as a dog does with his front feet. Nicknack turned himself about until he was headed toward the island, and then he swam straight toward it.
"Oh, won't he drown, Grandpa?" asked Teddy.
"I don 't believe so, my boy! I guess Nicknack knows more than we thought he did. Maybe he didn't like the way we rowed, or he may have wanted a bath. Anyhow he jumped overboard, but he'll be all right."
"See him go!" cried the hired man.
Nicknack was swimming quite fast. Of course a goat is not as good a swimmer as is a duck or a fish, but Ted's pet did very well. On shore were Nora, Mrs. Martin, Janet, Trouble, and the farm hand who had gone over in the first boatload. They were watching the goat swimming toward them.
"Did you throw him into the water, Teddy?" asked Janet, as soon as the boat was near enough so that talking could be heard.
"He jumped in," Ted answered. "Isn't he a good swimmer?"
"I should say so! Here, Nicknack! Come here!" Janet called.
The goat, which had been headed toward a spot a little way down the island from where Janet and her mother stood, turned at the sound of the little girl's voice and came in her direction.
"Oh, he knows me!" she cried in delight. "Now don't shake yourself the way Skyrocket does, and get me all wet!" she begged, as Nicknack scrambled out on shore, water dripping from his hairy coat.
But the goat did not act like a dog, who gives himself a great shaking whenever he comes on shore after having been in the water. Nicknack just let it drip off him, and began to nibble some of the grass that grew on the island. He was making himself perfectly at home, it seemed.
The goat-wagon and the other things were soon landed, and then Grandpa Martin and one of the hired men went back for the last load. When that came back and the things were piled up near the tents, the work of setting up the camp went on. There was much yet to be done.
Ted and Jan helped all they could in putting up the tents. So did Mother Martin and Nora, who was large and strong. She could pull on a rope about as well as a man, and there were many ropes that needed tightening and fastening around pegs driven into the ground so the tents would not blow over in the wind.
Nicknack had been tied to a tree, near which, a little later, Ted and Jan were going to make him a little bower of leaves and branches. That was to be his stable until a better one could be built by Grandpa Martin—one that would keep Nicknack dry when it rained.
At last the tents were up, one for sleeping, another for cooking, and a third where the Curlytops and the others would eat their meals. It was a fine camp that Grandpa Martin made, and he knew just how to do it right, even to digging little trenches, or ditches, around the tents so the water would run off when it stormed.
"And now let's take a walk and see what we can find," suggested Ted to Janet, when Mother Martin said they might play about until supper was ready, for they had called the lunch they had eaten their dinner.
"Don't go too far," cautioned Mother Martin.
"Oh, we can't get lost on this island," said Ted. "All we'd have to do, if we were, would be to walk along the shore until we came to this camp."
"I know that. But it wasn't so much about your getting lost that I was thinking," said Mrs. Martin.
"Oh, you mean—the tramps?" half whispered Janet.
"Well, I don't know whether there are any here or not," went on her mother. "But it's best to be careful until grandpa has had a chance to look about. Where is grandpa now?"
"He's getting some water at the spring," Ted answered.
There was a fine spring on Star Island, not far from the place where the tents had been set up, and Mr. Martin was now bringing pails of water from that and pouring them into a barrel which would hold so much that even Trouble would have plenty to drink no matter how thirsty he was.
"Well, don't go too far away until either grandpa or I have a chance to go with you," added Mrs. Martin.
"Me come, too," called Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister starting off.
"Oh, Mother!" exclaimed Teddy.
"No, you stay with mother," said Mrs. Martin. "I'll give you a nice drink of milk."
"Don't want milk. I's had milk. Trouble want Ted an' Jan."
"But you can't go with them, my dear. Come on, we'll go and throw stones into the lake and make-believe it's a great, big ocean!"
Baby William pouted a little at first. He liked to have his own way. But when he saw what fun his mother was having tossing stones into the lake and making the water splash up, Trouble did the same, laughing at the fun he was having.
"Dis a ocean, Momsey?" he asked as he set a little stick afloat, making believe it was a boat.
"Well, we'll call it an ocean," Mrs. Martin answered. "But this water is fresh, and that in the ocean is very salty. Some day I'll take you and my two little Curlytops to the real ocean, and you can taste how salty the waves are. Now we'll throw some more stones."
Meanwhile Ted and Jan started for a little walk down the path that went the whole length of Star Island.
"Shall we take Nicknack?" asked Jan.
"No, let's wait until he dries off after his bath," decided Teddy. "I don't like wet goats."
"Why, Teddy Martin! Nicknack got dried out hours ago!"
"Well, anyway, a goat isn't like a dog. We don't want a goat along when we are going out walking."
So Nicknack was left to nibble the grass, while the Curlytops wandered on and on. Grandpa and the hired men, having finished putting up the tents, were getting the stove ready so Nora could get supper.
"What are you looking for?" asked Jan when she noticed that her brother walked along as if searching for something. "Are you trying to see if any tramps or gypsies are here on the island?"
"No. I was thinking maybe I could find that fallen star."
"But didn't grandpa say it all melted up?"
"Maybe a piece of it's left," went on Ted. This was the second time that he had spoken of the star that day. "If I can't find a chunk of it, maybe I can find the hole it made when it hit," he added. "I'd like to find that. Maybe it would be bigger than the one I dug when I thought I could go all the way through to China."
"Yes. The time Skyrocket fell in!" laughed Jan. "'Member that, Teddy?"
"I guess I do! Daddy had to go out in the night and bring him in. Come on, let's look for the hole the shooting star made."
"All right."
The two Curlytops walked on over the island, looking here and there for star-holes. They found a number of deep places, but after looking at them, and poking sticks down into them, Ted decided that none of them Had ever held a shooting star.
"Maybe bears made them," half whispered Jan.
"There aren't any bears on this island!" Teddy declared.
"I hope not," murmured his sister, as she looked over her shoulder and then kept close to her brother during the rest of the walk.
Pretty soon the children heard their mother's voice calling them. They could hear very plainly, for the air was clear.
"I guess supper is ready," said Janet.
"I hope it is!" sighed Ted. "I'm awful hungry!"
Supper was ready, smoking hot on the table in the dining-tent, when Ted and Jan reached the camp grandpa had made.
"Oh, how good it smells!" cried Ted.
"And how nice the white tents look under the green trees," added his sister. "I just love it here!"
"It is the nicest place we have yet been for the summer vacation," said Mother Martin. "This and Cherry Farm are two lovely places."
They sat down under the tent and began to eat. Nora had gotten up a fine supper, for a regular cook stove had been brought along, and it was almost like eating at Grandma Martin's table, only this was out of doors, for the sides of the tent were raised to let in the air and the rays of the setting sun.
"What's the matter, Father?" asked Mrs. Martin, as she saw the children's grandfather pause after tasting the potatoes. "Is anything wrong?"
"I think I'd like a little more salt on these."
"Yes, they do need salting. Nora, bring the salt please."
"There isn't any, except what I used when I was cooking—a little I had in a salt-shaker."
"Oh, yes, there must be. I brought a whole bagful. I saw it when I unpacked some of the things. There was a sack of salt."
"Well, it isn't here now," said Nora, as she looked among her kitchen things.
"Has anyone seen the bag of salt?" asked Mrs. Martin.
She looked at Ted and Jan, who shook their heads. Then Trouble's mother looked at him. He was busy with a piece of bread and jam. One could have told Trouble had been eating bread and jam just by looking at his mouth and face.
"Did you see the salt, Trouble?" asked his mother.
"Iss, I did," he answered, taking another bite.
"Where is it?"
"In de water," he replied. "I puts it in de water."
"You put the salt in the water? What water? Tell mother, Trouble."
"I puts salt in de lake water to make him 'ike ocean. Trouble 'ike ocean. Come on, I show!" and, getting down out of his chair, he toddled toward a little cove near the camp. The others, following him, saw something white on the ground near the edge of the lake. Grandpa Martin touched it with his finger and tasted.
"The little tyke did empty the whole bag of salt in the lake!" cried the farmer. "Fancy his trying to make it like the ocean! Ho! Ho!"
"Oh, Trouble!" cried Mrs. Martin. "You wasted a whole bag of salt, and now grandpa hasn't any for his potatoes!"