Читать книгу The Curlytops in a Summer Camp - Howard R Garis - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Teddy Martin gave one look back over his shoulder to make sure that Janet and Trouble were safely out of the way, and then, turning to the man, asked:

“Is the window much broken?”

“Broken? I should say it was!” and the man seemed very angry. “There’s hardly a piece of it left as big as your hand. It was a careless thing to do!”

“I—I guess it was,” faltered Teddy.

“That window will have to be paid for, too!” went on the man, still speaking crossly. It seemed to be his window, or at least it was in his new store that it was broken. “Yes, it’s got to be paid for!” he went on.

“Oh, yes,” agreed Teddy. “Will it cost much?”

“Cost much? I should say it would! That window glass cost twenty-five dollars!”

Teddy’s heart sank lower and lower. This was worse than he had counted on. Twenty-five dollars! That was a lot of money. Sometimes, when he and the other boys had played ball too near a house, windows had been broken, but these panes of glass cost only about a dollar. Once, though, one had cost a dollar and a half. But Teddy and the other boys had made this sum up by “chipping in” among themselves.

Twenty-five dollars, however, was a different matter!

“Yes, it was a very careless piece of tom-foolery!” went on the man, who seemed crosser than ever.

“I’m sure I’m very sorry about it,” faltered Teddy.

“You’re no sorrier than I am!” snapped the man. “It will delay the opening of my new store until I can send and get another large pane of glass.”

“I’ll go with you now if you say so,” said Teddy, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “Or you can take me down to my father’s store and get the money and then I’ll save up all I can and pay him back. Do you want to arrest me now?”

“Arrest you?” exclaimed the man, with a puzzled look on his face. “I’m no policeman. And why should I want to arrest you, anyhow?”

“Why, for breaking your window,” answered Teddy.

“Breaking my window? How did you break my window?” and the man, more surprised than ever, looked at Teddy.

“With that auto tire,” explained the small boy. “Patrick let me take it, and I took it to the top of the hill and I was showing Janet and Trouble how I could ride down in it. Only I bounced out and the tire went into Dr. Thomby’s drug store and upset a jar of cough syrup, I guess, and then it ran out of the front door and broke your window. I’m awfully sorry!”

Teddy was so out of breath with this long speech, and his legs felt so weak from running and his heart was beating so fast because of all that had happened, that he sat down on the curb and looked up at the man. Then the man smiled, and did not seem half as cross as before, as he leaned against a lamp-post and said:

“Well, my boy, I like your nerve. You’re a brave little chap. But I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about. Who is Trouble? I’m having trouble enough, goodness knows, but I don’t know anybody of that name.”

“He’s my little brother William,” Teddy explained.

“Oh, I see!”

“And Janet’s my sister.”

“Well, that’s news to me.”

“And Patrick works for us and he gave me an old shoe off my father’s auto and I rolled downhill in it—I mean in the old shoe and—”

“Oh, was that your auto tire that rolled down the street?” the man wanted to know.

“Yes. It was my tire that broke your window,” Teddy explained.

“What’s that? Your tire broke my window? Nonsense! Nothing of the sort!” and at these words a sense of joy filled Teddy’s heart. “My show window was broken by a couple of the workmen skylarking with a long piece of wood,” explained the man. “One of them poked it right through the glass. Your auto tire came bouncing along just at that moment, but it didn’t have anything more to do with the breaking of the window than the man in the moon.”

“It didn’t?” eagerly cried Teddy, with shining eyes.

“Not a bit! No! I wondered where that auto shoe came from, and I thought some boys must have been playing with it, for it’s no good on a car any more, being too worn. But it didn’t break my glass.”

“Oh, I’m glad of that!” Teddy exclaimed.

“So am I,” said the man, with a smile. “No, it was two of my workmen who broke my window by skylarking, and they will pay for it. But it’s queer it happened just as your tire came rolling along and made you think the rubber shoe bounced up and did it. I’m glad, for your sake, it didn’t.”

“So’m I,” Teddy murmured.

“Well, you run along home and tell your father I said you are a brave little chap. Munson is my name, Jake Munson. I’m going to start a sporting goods store in the building where the window just got broken. Come in and see me when I get it fixed up. What’s your name?”

“Curlytop Martin,” Teddy answered.

“Curly—Oh, I see! On account of your hair!” and Mr. Munson laughed.

“My sister’s hair is like mine,” Teddy went on. “But Trouble’s is—”

“Is his name really Trouble?” interrupted Mr. Munson.

“No, it’s William; but we all call him Trouble,” and Teddy was smiling now.

“I see. Well, Curlytop Martin, I know your father slightly, and he knows me. So you run along home and tell him you didn’t break any windows with your auto tire.”

“It broke something else, though,” and Teddy’s voice was sorrowful as he recalled it.

“What did it break?” Mr. Munson wanted to know.

“Dr. Thomby’s jar of cough medicine. At least, it looked like cough medicine,” and Teddy explained the happening in the drug store.

“Well, that’s too bad, of course,” agreed Mr. Munson, when he heard about it. “I guess your tire did that all right, though it didn’t smash my window. But I know Doc Thomby, and as I’m on my way to go and order a new pane of glass I’ll just stop in and see him to say a good word for you.”

“Oh, will you?” exclaimed Teddy eagerly. “I’ll pay for his broken jar, of course, or my father will, and for the spilled medicine and maybe I’ll have to get him a new suit of clothes.”

“A new suit of clothes!” cried Mr. Munson. “What in the world for?”

“Because he sat down in the cough syrup,” answered Teddy.

“Ha! Ha! Sat down in the cough syrup, did he? Ha! Ha!”

“And when he saw the auto tire coming in his back door he jumped up and the tire ran right between his legs,” went on the boy.

“It did? Ha! Ha! I wish I’d been there to see it!” chuckled Mr. Munson, who seemed to have gotten all over being cross about the broken window. “Ha! Ha! That’s a pretty good joke on Doc Thomby! Ho! Ho!”

Teddy couldn’t quite see the joke himself, but he smiled because Mr. Munson was laughing.

“Come along with me,” went on the sporting goods dealer. “I guess I can fix this up for you with Doc Thomby. He’s a good friend of mine. So he sat in his own cough medicine? Ha! Ha! Well, maybe it’ll do as much good on the outside as it would have done inside. Come along!”

“Shall I get my auto tire?” asked Teddy, for he could see where it leaned against one side of the building around which was gathered a crowd looking at the broken window.

“You can get it if you like,” agreed Mr. Munson. “But maybe you’d better let it alone. If it did all you tell me, spilled you, upset Doc Thomby, and caused you such a scare, maybe it’s better where it is.”

“I guess so,” Teddy assented. “I can get another, anyhow. And I’d better hurry and tell Janet I’m not arrested.”

“Yes, I guess so,” said Mr. Munson, with a smile.

He and Teddy walked back to the drug store. By this time the gentle old doctor had gotten up from the puddle of syrup and was beginning to mop it off the floor. He looked up as Teddy and Mr. Munson entered.

“Hello, Doc!” greeted the sporting goods dealer. “Heard you tried to ride an auto tire just now! Ha! Ha!”

“Auto tire!” sniffed the druggist. “So that’s really what it was! I thought it was a wildcat bursting in on me.”

“It was my tire,” put in Teddy gently. “And I’m awfully sorry—”

“Now you leave this to me,” said Mr. Munson, with a smile. Then he talked to Dr. Thomby in a low voice, now and then breaking into a chuckle. Teddy heard his name mentioned once or twice and caught the words about “arrest” and “broken window,” and then Dr. Thomby himself laughed.

“Sure, that will be all right!” Teddy heard the druggist say, and then Mr. Munson went on:

“It’s all right, Curlytop. You won’t have to pay for any broken jar or spilled medicine or a new suit of clothes.”

“Won’t my father, either?”

“No, not at all—of course not!” broke in Dr. Thomby. “It was an accident. You couldn’t help it and you didn’t mean to do it. It wasn’t cough syrup, anyhow. It was just some brown sugar syrup I was going to mix into cough medicine, and it didn’t cost much. The jar was of little value, and this suit is an old one.”

He glanced down at his trousers from which he had sponged most of the sticky stuff.

“So just run along home and forget about it,” he told Teddy. “I’ll forgive you. But don’t try to ride downhill in auto tires again.”

“I won’t,” promised the small boy. And then, with eager thanks to the druggist and Mr. Munson, Teddy ran as fast he could toward his own house.

When within sight of the gate he saw his father and mother, followed by Janet and William, coming toward him. There was a queer look on his mother’s face, and on his father’s as well, and Janet seemed to have been crying.

“Well, Teddy,” remarked his father with a smile, as he greeted his son, “I see they let you out of jail.”

“They didn’t arrest me at all!” Ted burst out joyfully. “Oh, Jan, it wasn’t the auto tire that broke the window. It was two men skylarking and—”

“What’s skylarking?” asked Trouble. “Can I have some?”

But no one paid any attention to him.

“So you didn’t break any window, after all, son?” Mr. Martin asked.

“No, Daddy. And I’m glad I didn’t, because it was a big one. My tire only bumped up alongside the building just as the men broke the window with the stick of wood.”

“It sounded just like the tire did it,” murmured Janet.

“I sure thought it did,” said her brother.

“But what about Dr. Thomby?” asked Mrs. Martin. “Janet says the tire ran through his shop and upset a jar of cough medicine.”

“It was just brown sugar syrup,” Teddy explained. “Mr. Munson—it was his window that got broken—went with me and he and Dr. Thomby laughed and everything is all right. I don’t have to pay anything.”

“And won’t you be arrested?” Janet wanted to know.

“No; it’s all right now!” chuckled Teddy.

“Oh, I’m so glad!”

“So’m I!” he murmured.

“Well, everything seems to be coming out well,” said Mr. Martin, with a smile. “I had just got home,” he went on, “when Janet came running in with this doleful tale about Teddy going to be arrested, and so I hurried out to see about it.”

“It was very surprising,” said Mrs. Martin, “and I wondered—”

She was interrupted by Teddy who, pointing at his father’s head, began laughing heartily.

“Look! Look!” exclaimed the boy. “Look at the feather in daddy’s hair! Oh, how funny it is!”

“Feather in my hair?” said Mr. Martin, putting his hand up to his head. And there, sure enough, was a long red, green and blue feather.

“I never noticed that before!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin.

“It’s just like the kind Indians wear!” went on Teddy, while Trouble and Janet joined in the laughter. “How’d you get that feather, Daddy?” Teddy asked.

Mr. Martin looked at it, turned it slowly over, and said:

“There’s quite a story connected with that feather. Come back to the house and I’ll tell you about it.”

Very much wondering, the Curlytops and William followed their father and mother up the front path.

What, they were asking themselves, could be the story of the red, blue and green feather sticking in Mr. Martin’s hair?