The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch Part 7

They all had some and they were eating the sweet stuff and having a good time, when they saw their father looking at them. There was a funny smile on his face, and near him stood the newsboy, also smiling.

"Trouble, did you open a box of candy the boy left in your seat?" asked Mr. Martin.

"Yes, he's got some candy," answered Jan. "He said the boy gave it to him."

"I didn't mean for him to _open_ it," the boy said. "I left it in his seat and I thought he'd ask his father if he could have it. But when I came to get it, why, it was gone."

"Oh, what a funny little Trouble!" laughed Mother Martin. "He thought the boy meant to give the candy to him, I guess. Well, Daddy, I think you'll have to pay for it."

And so Mr. Martin did. The candy was not a gift after all, but Trouble did not know that. However, it all came out right in the end.

They had been traveling two days, and now, toward evening of the second day, the Curlytops were talking together about what they would do when they got to Uncle Frank's ranch.

"I hope they have lots to eat there," sighed Ted, when he and Jan had gotten off the subject of Indians. "I'm hungry right now."

"So'm I," added his sister. "But they'll call us to supper pretty soon."

The children always eagerly waited for the colored waiter to come through the coaches rumbling out in his ba.s.s voice:

"First call fo' supper in de dinin'-car!"

Or he might say "dinner" or "breakfast," or make it the "last call,"

just as it happened. Now it was time for the first supper call, and in a little while the waiter came in.

"Eh? What's that? Time for supper _again_?" cried Daddy Martin, awakening from a nap.

Trouble stretched and yawned in his mother's arms.

"I's hungry!" he said.

"So'm I!" cried Ted and Jan together.

"Shall we have good things to eat on Uncle Frank's ranch?" asked Teddy, as they made ready to walk ahead to the dining-car.

"Of course!" his mother laughed. "Why are you worrying about that?"

"Oh, I just wanted to know," Teddy answered. "We had so many good things at Cherry Farm and when we were camping with grandpa that I want some out on the ranch."

"Well, I think we can trust to Uncle Frank," said Mr. Martin. "But if you get too hungry, Teddy, you can go out and la.s.so a beefsteak or catch a bear or deer and have him for breakfast."

"Is there bears out there, too?" asked Janet in a good deal of excitement. "Bears and Indians?"

"Well, there may be a few bears here and there," her father said with a smile, "but they won't hurt you if you don't hurt them. Now we'll go and see what they have for supper here."

To the dining-car they went, and as they pa.s.sed through one of the coaches on their way Teddy and Janet heard a woman say to her little girl:

"Look at those Curlytops, Ethel. Don't you wish you could have some of their curl put into your hair?"

It was evening and the sun was setting. As the train sped along the Curlytops could look through the windows off across the fields and woods through which they pa.s.sed.

"Isn't it just wonderful," said Mother Martin, "to think of sitting down to a nice meal which is being cooked for us while the train goes so fast? Imagine, children, how, years ago, the cowboys and hunters had to go on horses all the distance out West, and carry their food on their pony's back or in a wagon called a prairie schooner. How much easier and quicker and more comfortable it is to travel this way."

"I'd like to ride on a pony," said Teddy. "I wouldn't care how slow he went."

"I imagine you wouldn't like it when night came," said his mother, as she moved a plate so the waiter could set gla.s.ses of milk in front of the children. "You wouldn't like to sleep on the ground with only a blanket for a bed, would you?"

"'Deed I would!" declared Teddy. "I wish I had----"

Just then the train went around a curve, and, as it was traveling very fast, the milk which Teddy was raising to his mouth slopped and spilled down in his lap.

"Oh, Teddy!" cried his mother.

"I--I couldn't help it!" he exclaimed, as he wiped up as much of the milk as he could on a napkin with which the waiter hastened to him.

"No, we know it was the train," said Daddy Martin. "It wouldn't have happened if you had been traveling on ponyback, and had stopped to camp out for the night before you got your supper; would it, Ted?" he asked with a smile.

"No," said the little boy. "I wish we could camp out and hunt Indians!"

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed his mother. "Don't get such foolish notions in your head. Anyway there aren't any Indians to hunt on Uncle Frank's ranch, are there, d.i.c.k?" she asked her husband.

"Well, no, I guess not," he answered slowly. "There are some Indians on their own ranch, or government reservation, not far from where Uncle Frank has his horses and cattle, but I guess the Redmen never bother anyone."

"Can we go to see 'em?" asked Teddy.

"I guess so," said Mr. Martin.

"Me go, too! Me like engines," murmured Trouble, who had also spilled a little milk on himself.

"He thinks we're talking about _engines_--the kind that pull this train!" laughed Ted. "I don't believe he ever saw a real _Indian_."

"No, Indians do not walk the streets of Cresco," said Mrs. Martin. "But finish your suppers, children. Others are waiting to use the table and we must not keep them too long."

There were many travelers going West--not all as far as the Curlytops though--and as there was not room in the dining-car for all of them to sit down at once they had to take turns. That is why the waiter made one, two, and sometimes three calls for each meal, as he went through the different coaches.

Supper over, the Martins went back to their place in the coach in which they had ridden all day. They would soon go into the beds, or berths, as they are called, to sleep all night. In the morning they would be several hundred miles nearer Uncle Frank's ranch.

The electric lights were turned on, and then, for a while, Jan, Ted and the others sat and talked.

They talked about the fun they had had when at Cherry Farm, of the good times camping with grandpa and how they were snowed in, when they wondered what had become of the strange lame boy who had called at Mr.

Martin's store one day.

"I wish Hal Chester could come out West with us," said Teddy, as the porter came to tell them he would soon make up their beds. "He'd like to hunt Indians with me."

Hal was a boy who had been cured of lameness at a Home for Crippled Children, not far from Cherry Farm.

"I suppose you'll _dream_ of Indians," said Teddy's mother to him.

"You've _talked_ about them all day. But get ready for bed, now.

Traveling is tiresome for little folks."