The Curlytops on Star Island Part 9

Then, before anyone could stop him, he gave a leap over Teddy's head, and into the water splashed Nicknack.

The goat had leaped overboard into the deepest part of Clover Lake!

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 fis.h.!.+"

"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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e after having been in the water. Nicknack just let it drip off him, and began to nibble some of the gra.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e 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!"