The Curlytops and Their Pets | Page 6

his wet feet, hugged him tightly. The packing box drifted off downstream, Skyrocket racing after it and barking as though it was the best joke in the world. "Were you frightened, William?" murmured his mother.
Trouble looked at her, and then at the floating box.
"I had a nice wide, but my hoots is all wet," he announced.
"I should say they were!" laughed Janet, feeling them. "They're soaking wet! But you're all right now, Trouble!"
"And I'm wet, too," said Teddy, coming along just then.
Together they walked back along the edge of the brook, Skyrocket following when he found that no one was going to help him play with the empty box, which floated ashore near the dam Teddy had made.
As she passed the place where she had dropped Uncle Toby's letter Mrs. Martin picked up the fluttering paper.
"I nearly forgot all about this," she said. "Your father will want to know about it. I never heard anything so strange in all my life."
"What is it?" asked Teddy.
"I'll tell you when you have dry clothes on, and we can sit down and talk it over," his mother promised.
And when Trouble, smiling and happy, with a picture book in his hands and dry shoes and stockings on his feet, was safe in a chair, and when Janet and Teddy sat near her, Mrs. Martin read the letter again.
"It is from Uncle Toby Bardeen of Pocono," said the mother of the Curlytops. "At least he is your father's uncle, but that doesn't matter. He is an old bachelor, and lives with a distant relative, a Mrs. Watson, in an old, rambling house."
"Does he want us to come there for the summer vacation?" asked Janet. It was time, so she and Ted thought, to begin thinking of the summer fun.
"No, Uncle Toby doesn't say that," went on Mother Martin, as she glanced over the pages of the letter. "What he wants is for your father to go and take charge of everything that is in the old house--everything, that is, except the housekeeper, Mrs. Watson. She is going off by herself, Uncle Toby says."
"Is Uncle Toby--is he--dead, that he wants daddy to take everything in his house?" asked Janet.
"Course not! How could he be dead and write this letter?" asked Ted.
"Well, maybe he wrote it before he died," Janet suggested.
"No, Uncle Toby isn't dead, I'm glad to say," remarked Mrs. Martin. "But he is going away on a long voyage for his health, he writes, and he wants daddy to come and take charge of everything in the old mansion."
"Do you s'pose there's a gun there I could have?" asked Teddy hopefully.
"I'd like an old-fashioned spinning wheel," said Janet. "Is there one of those, Mother?"
"I wants suffin' to eat!" announced Trouble suddenly, but whether he thought it was to be had at Uncle Toby's house or not, it is hard to say.
Teddy and Janet laughed, and Trouble looked at them with wondering eyes.
"You shall have something to eat, love!" his mother murmured. "I guess your voyage in the packing-box ship made you hungry."
"Do you s'pose Uncle Toby would have a gun?" asked Ted again.
"If there is one in his house you can't have it, my dear," objected Mrs. Martin.
"But I could have the spinning wheel, couldn't I?" asked Janet.
"Yes, I suppose so. But maybe there isn't one," her mother answered.
"If there is we can play steamboat!" cried Ted, getting quickly over his disappointment about a possible gun. "A spinning wheel is just the thing to steer a make-believe steamer with!"
"You're not going to have my spinning wheel for your old steamboat!" declared Janet.
"Hush, children!" their mother warned them. "I haven't the least idea what is in Uncle Toby's house, that he should be so mysterious about it, and be in such a hurry for your father to come and take charge."
"Is Uncle Toby mysterious?" asked Janet.
"Well, yes. He says he hopes the collection will not be too much for us to manage," went on Mrs. Martin, with another look at the letter.
"A collection of what?" Ted wanted to know.
"That's just it--Uncle Toby doesn't say," his mother replied. "We shall have to wait until your father makes the trip to Pocono."
"Oh, may we go?" begged the two Curlytops at once.
"We'll see!" was the way in which Mrs. Martin put them off. "I wish your father were here so we could talk over this queer letter from Uncle Toby."
"I wis'--I wis' I had suffin' t' eat!" put in Trouble wistfully.
"And so you shall have, darling!" exclaimed his mother. "It is nearly time for lunch, and daddy will soon be here. Then we'll see what he says."
And what Mr. Martin said after, at the lunch table, he had read Uncle Toby's letter was:
"Hum!"
"What do you think of it?" asked his wife.
"I think it's as queer as he is," said