The Curlytops and Their Playmates Part 23

"Yes, go ahead. Run about as much as you please, but don't get hurt.

There isn't any fancy furniture here to break."

This was true, for everything in the cabin at Crystal Lake was heavy and strongly made to stand rough handling. So the children could do no harm racing about the cabin.

Soon a merry game was in progress, even Trouble taking part, though he could hardly be said to play it right. His idea was to hide and keep on yelling for some one to come and find him, his voice easily telling where he was. The only thing to be done in his case was to pretend not to know where he was, even if one saw him. This always made Trouble scream with delight, and he would say, over and over again:

"You couldn't find me, could you?"

And of course they always said they couldn't, though they could if they had wished.

So the game went on, Trouble taking his part in it. Finally came the turn of Mary to "blind," and as she covered her face and began to count slowly, the others tiptoed into the different rooms to hide. The cabin was built on the bungalow style, with a number of rooms on the first floor, and there were many fine hiding places.

Janet went into a room at the far end of the cabin, a room that no one, so far during the evening, had entered. It was where Uncle Toby was going to sleep.

"No one will find me here," thought Janet, as she crouched down behind a chair near one of the windows. She looked through the gla.s.s, and dimly saw the dark forest all around the cabin. "No one will think of coming here," said Janet to herself.

She cuddled herself into as small a nook as possible down behind the chair, in a place where she could look out through the other rooms and could see the lamplight and firelight in the big living apartment.

It was in this living apartment that Mary was counting with her eyes shut and soon she would call: "Ready or not I'm coming!" Then she would walk around and try to find the hiding ones.

"But she won't find me," thought Janet, "and I can get in home free."

From the distance Janet heard Mary say she was coming, and then suddenly the little girl was startled by a tapping on the window just back of the chair behind which she was hiding.

At first Janet thought it was the brushing of some tree branch against the gla.s.s that had made the tapping sound. But when it came again, several times, and very regular, the little girl knew some hand must be doing it.

"Maybe Tom or Ted has gone outside and is trying to scare me," thought Janet. "I'll take a peep and see."

Slowly she raised herself up from her crouching position behind the chair. And then the tapping sound on the gla.s.s came again. Janet looked out and gave a scream as, looking in through the window, she saw the face of a man on which the moon faintly shone.

CHAPTER XV

ON THE SLIPPERY HILL

Janet Martin had only a glimpse of the face of the man looking in through the window at her after he had tapped on the gla.s.s. As soon as he saw some one peering out at him, and as soon as he heard Janet scream--as he must have heard--the man sprang away.

He was soon lost to sight in the woods around the cabin. The moon shone faintly--had it not been for this Jan would never have seen the man's face--but it was not bright enough in the forest to see him after he leaped away from the cabin.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" screamed Janet. Her voice rang out in the empty room and was heard by Uncle Toby, Aunt Sallie and the children playing hide and go seek.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" asked Uncle Toby, who was putting wood in the fireplace.

"Oh, it's a man! A man!" cried Janet, running out from Uncle Toby's bedroom into the living apartment where they were now all gathered. "A man looked in the window at me and he tapped on the gla.s.s!"

"Who was he?" asked Uncle Toby, grasping a heavy stick of wood. Tom, Ted and Harry at once began to think they had better take some sticks, too, in case there might be a fight. "Was it Jim Nelson?" went on Uncle Toby.

"Sometimes he taps on my window when he comes around by the side path."

"I--I couldn't see who it was--except that he was a man," stammered Janet. "As soon as he saw me looking at him he ran away."

"Jim Nelson wouldn't do that unless he was playing a trick," decided Uncle Toby. "And Jim isn't that kind of a man. He wouldn't scare children. I must see who this is!"

"Maybe he's the tramp we saw over at the place where you got the pail of water this afternoon," said Ted.

"Maybe," agreed Uncle Toby. "Well, if he's a poor man and in trouble I'm sorry for him. But he hasn't any right to come sneaking around my cabin, tapping on the window. I'll see about this!"

Uncle Toby went outside, and the boys followed. Trouble wanted to go with Ted, but Janet held back her little brother.

In the moonlight, which was brighter now, as the clouds had blown away, Uncle Toby made a trip around the cabin, taking Skyrocket with him, while the boys, each with a chunk of wood as a weapon, followed Mr.

Bardeen.

Uncle Toby called loudly to know who was in the woods, and the dog barked, but no man answered.

"I can't find any one," Uncle Toby announced, coming back into the cabin with the boys. "It's too dark to see if there are any strange footprints in the snow, and I don't believe we could tell by them anyhow, as Jim Nelson and some of his friends have been tramping around here the last few days, bringing in wood and things. Are you sure you saw a man at the window, Janet?"

"Sure, Uncle Toby. And I heard him tapping on the gla.s.s, too."

"Well, I don't believe he meant any harm. Maybe he was the tramp we saw at the lonely cabin, or it may have been another. He may have wanted shelter for the night, and something to eat. But when he heard you scream it must have frightened him off, as he may have had an idea he'd be scolded for frightening a little girl. Anyhow, no harm is done, and there will be no danger. Go on with your game."

However, the children were too excited over what had happened to do this. Janet was trembling, and the others wanted her to tell over again just what had happened. And as Janet told and retold it she became less frightened, until finally she was laughing as though it had been a joke.

"But if I'd 'a' got that man I'd 'a' hit him with a stick of wood!"

threatened Ted.

"So would I!" declared Tom and Harry.

"Perhaps it's just as well you didn't find him then," said Uncle Toby, with a laugh.

After the children had gone to bed--and Uncle Toby said the look of them all tucked in made him think of a boarding school--he and Aunt Sallie sat up a bit longer.

"Do you really think Janet saw a man?" asked Aunt Sallie. "And if so, who was he?"

"That's more than I can tell," Uncle Toby answered. "Janet isn't the kind of girl to imagine things. I believe it was a man. Probably the same fellow we saw running away from the lonely cabin. To-morrow I'll take Jim Nelson and some of the men and we'll have a look around. I don't want rough and strange men roaming these woods when I have a lot of children out here for the holidays."

"I should say not!" exclaimed Aunt Sallie. "I wouldn't like it myself!

And maybe he's the man who's been taking things."

"Maybe," agreed Uncle Toby.

However, there were no more alarms nor any trouble that night, and after a few minutes of lying awake Janet went to sleep as soundly as the other children. They slept rather late the next morning, for they were tired with the travel of the day before, and when Jan and Lola came down to the kitchen they found Aunt Sallie getting breakfast.

"Oh, we said we'd get up and help!" exclaimed Jan. For she had promised her mother, on leaving home to visit Uncle Toby and Aunt Sallie, that she would help with the housework.

"And I used to get breakfast all alone," said Mary. "That is after mother was sick," and she could not keep back a few tears, though she turned her head away so the other girls would not see them.

"Never mind, my dear," said Aunt Sallie, with a laugh. "I didn't want you to get up early. Uncle Toby told me to let you girls and the boys sleep."