The Curlytops in the Woods; Or, Fun at the Lumber Camp

“Trouble! Trouble! Look out! You’re knocking over the piano!” Janet Martin called this to her little brother William, who, because of the mischief he so often got in, was nicknamed “Trouble.”

“Where’s piano I knock over?” asked Trouble, who was still small enough not to be expected to talk quite properly. “I didn’t was knock over any piano,” he added.

“There! You’ve knocked it over now!” cried Janet, with a wail of despair, as a small box, which Trouble kicked with his chubby foot, fell down the steps of the back porch. “You knocked over the piano.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Trouble soberly, as he watched his brother Ted bringing other boxes to pile on the porch where the children were playing house that pleasant summer afternoon. “Oh, my! I knock over piano,” went on William, still very grave and serious. “Zat’s funny piano,” he added. “It’s only a box!”

“Well, we’re pretending it’s a piano,” remarked Janet, as she picked the box up from the ground where it had tumbled after Trouble accidentally kicked it. “You have to pretend when you’re playing house,” she added.

“What’s Trouble done now?” asked Ted, as he put one of his boxes on the porch and the other down on the ground near the steps. “That’s the garage for our automobile,” he said, pointing to the box on the ground.

“Oh, that’ll be nice!” exclaimed Janet. “I didn’t know we were going to have an auto. This is a lovely playhouse!” she said, laughing.

Ted and Janet often played house in this way, setting up a sort of one-floor apartment on the back porch, with different rooms marked off by sticks laid on the floor of the porch. In each of these “rooms” were put different pieces of furniture. Most of the furniture was just boxes, or perhaps an old broken chair or two, or even some sticks and boards. But to the Curlytops the playhouse was very real. Only Trouble could not “pretend” as well as could his older brother and sister. Ted liked to play house with Janet, even if he was a boy.

“What’s that other box for?” asked Janet of Ted, when she had made Trouble sit down on a small, broken doll’s chair in what was the “kitchen” of the playhouse.

“That’s going to be the cupboard,” answered Ted. “And we can----”

“Old Mother Hubbard went to her dog’s cupboard!” sang Trouble.

“It wasn’t her dog’s cupboard, it was her own,” corrected Janet.

“Yes it was dog’s cupboard,” insisted Trouble. “’Cause she went there to get him a bone, but it was bare. Does it mean the bone didn’t have any clothes on?” asked Trouble of his brother.

“Of course not!” laughed Ted. “Bones don’t wear clothes. It means the cupboard was bare--it didn’t have even a bone in it for the dog.”

“Well, it was dog’s cupboard all right!” still insisted the little boy. “You goin’ have Mother Hubbard’s cupboard here?” he asked.

“No, this is going to be our own cupboard,” answered Ted, as he set up the other box he had carried out from the barn. “And we’ll have real things to eat to put in our cupboard, too,” he added.

“No! Not really?” cried Janet, with shining eyes.

“Really and truly,” insisted Teddy. “Look, mother said I could take these cookies,” and he pulled half a dozen or more from his pocket.

“Oh, we’ll have a lovely playhouse!” exclaimed Janet. “I’ll make believe I’m the cook, and you must go to work, Ted, and come home and I’ll have your supper ready and I’ll dress up as mother does when daddy comes home to supper.”

“All right,” agreed Ted. “Do you know where I work, Jan?”

“No,” she answered.

“I’m conductor on an airship!” laughed Teddy. “I’ll climb up in a tree and make believe that’s an airship.”

“This is more fun than we ever had before!” cried Janet. “Oh, Trouble, you mustn’t go in there!” she added, as she saw her small brother picking his way over the sticks that were laid down in squares to mark off the different rooms.

“Not go here?” questioned Trouble, pausing with one foot in one room, and the other in another apartment.

“No, you mustn’t go in there!” insisted Janet. “That’s the parlor and your feet are all dirty. You can’t go in the parlor with dirty shoes!”

“All right,” agreed Trouble. “Could I have cookie from pantry?” he asked, watching Ted set up the box and put in it some of the good things from the real kitchen.

“Yes, you can have a cookie when I get Ted’s dinner,” agreed Janet. “Now you go out and play in the yard, and when you hear the whistle blow that will mean Daddy Ted is coming home, and you must come in and eat with us.”

“Can I eat real--have some cookie?” asked Trouble.

“Yes, we’ll let you eat real,” laughed Janet. “But don’t knock over the piano again,” she begged, as she again set up the box that Trouble had sent toppling down the steps.

“I not knock over no more,” he promised.

“Here, you make believe you’re a miner digging for gold,” suggested Ted, giving his small brother a shovel and pointing to a soft place in the dirt of the yard. “And when I go ‘Toot! Toot!’ that means it’s the twelve o’clock whistle and you stop work.”

“An’ then we eat!” cried Trouble.

“Yes, then we eat,” agreed Ted. “Now I’m going to be a conductor in my airship,” he added, as he climbed into the branches of a tree near the back porch. Trouble began digging with his shovel in the soft dirt, and Janet arranged the different rooms of the playhouse to suit her own ideas, placing a bunch of leaves on the “piano” as an ornament.

“Janet! Janet! Oh, Jan!” suddenly cried Trouble, after a few minutes of digging.

“What’s the matter now?” asked his sister, as her small brother looked up from his digging. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, but I is not goin’ to be miner an’ dig for gold,” he declared.

“What are you going to be then?” Ted wanted to know.

“I be fisherman diggin’ for worms,” decided Trouble. “’At’s most fun ’cause I got a worm right now.”

“All right, be a fisherman and dig for worms,” agreed Janet. “Don’t let him spoil anything in the playhouse,” she called to Teddy up in the tree. “I’m going to ask mother something.”

“All right,” replied Ted. “Are you going after more cookies?”