The Curlytops and Their Pets | Page 3

my ship full of chocolate cakes."
"Oh, I must be a pirate! Here's the black flag and I must be a pirate!"
shouted Teddy. "Whoop! I'm a pirate! I'm a pirate!"
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoop!" yelled Trouble, trying to make as much noise as
his brother.
"You sound more like an Indian than you do a pirate," said Janet, as she
began to pile more pebbles on the board that was her ship.
"Well, Indians and pirates are 'most the same," declared Teddy. "Wait
till you see my ship, with swords and guns and powder! It will blow
your ship out of the water, and I'll have a black flag on it and
everything! Whoop!"
"I'm not going to play if you upset my ship, now there!" and Janet
pouted her lips and ceased loading pebbles aboard her craft.
Teddy, who was cutting a flagstaff with his knife, stopped to look at
her. If Janet was going to act this way, and not send out her ship, there
was no use in being a pirate. What fun could even a make-believe
pirate have if there were no ships to sink?
Teddy thought of this, and then he said:

"All right, Jan, I won't be a pirate if you don't want me to. But I'll have
a black flag, anyhow, and maybe I'll be a pirate some other time. Let's
have a race with our ships--see which one gets to the water-wheel
first."
"Yes, I'll do that," agreed Janet.
At the lower end of the brook she and Teddy had built a little dam, and
where the water flowed over the top, like a tiny Niagara Falls, Teddy
had fastened a wooden paddle wheel which turned as the water flowed
on it.
"Me want a s'ip!" wailed Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister
getting their vessels ready for the race.
"Can't you give him a piece of board for his ship, Ted?" asked Janet. "If
we don't he'll get in our way and spoil the race."
"Here, Trouble, take this," and Teddy paused long enough in his work
of loading pebbles on his ship to toss his little brother a small chip he
picked up off the shore.
"Hu! I want bigger s'ip 'n' him!" declared Trouble, with a grunt. Then
he arose and toddled off through the bushes. Teddy and Janet were so
busy getting their own vessels ready for the coming race that they paid
no more attention to their small brother. And Trouble was going to get
into trouble--you may be sure of that.
"Don't put too many stones on your ship, Jan," called Ted to his sister,
as he saw that she was piling on the pebbles.
"Why not?" she asked.
"'Cause you'll make it so heavy that it won't sail fast. Course I want to
beat you," Ted went on, "but I want to beat you fair."
"Oh, thank you," Janet answered. "But these aren't stones I'm loading
on my ship this time."

"What are they?" asked Ted.
"Feathers," his sister answered. "I'm making believe the stones are
feathers, and I'm going to sell them to make pillows for dolls. My ship
won't be too heavy!"
"Hu!" grunted Ted, as he placed the pebbles carefully on the middle of
his ship, so it would not turn over. "Stones are heavy, whether you
make believe they're feathers or not. Don't put too many on, I'm telling
you!"
"All right, I won't," agreed Janet.
The boy and the girl went on with their game, and they were almost
ready to start their ships off on the race when there was a racket in the
bushes back of them. It was a bumping, banging sound that Ted and
Janet heard, then followed the bark of a dog.
"That's Skyrocket!" said Ted.
A moment later came a voice, calling:
"Whoa-up! Don't go so fas'! You is spillin' me!"
"That's Trouble!" declared Janet.
They were both right. A moment later there burst through the bushes
the little boy and the dog. The dog was Skyrocket, and he was made
fast to a box which he was dragging along by a rope tied around his
neck. Trouble was holding to the rear of the box, and in his eagerness
to pull it along Skyrocket was also dragging Trouble, "spillin'" him, in
fact--that is, pulling Trouble off his feet every now and then.
"Why, William! what are you doing?" asked Janet. Trouble was hardly
ever called by his right name of William unless he had done something
wrong.
"Were you trying to have Skyrocket ride you in that box?" asked Teddy.
"If you were, he can't. Sky can't pull you in that box unless it has

wheels on it. Then it's a wagon."
"Don't want wagon--dis my s'ip!" announced the little fellow, as he
began