The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch; Or, Little Folks on Ponyback

"Say, Jan, this isn't any fun!"

"What do you want to play then, Ted?"

Janet Martin looked at her brother, who was dressed in one of his father's coats and hats while across his nose was a pair of spectacles much too large for him. Janet, wearing one of her mother's skirts, was sitting in a chair holding a doll.

"Well, I'm tired of playing doctor, Jan, and giving your make-believe sick doll bread pills. I want to do something else," and Teddy began taking off the coat, which was so long for him that it dragged on the ground.

"Oh, I know what we can do that'll be lots of fun!" cried Janet, getting up from the chair so quickly that she forgot about her doll, which fell to the floor with a crash that might have broken her head.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Janet, as she had often heard her mother call when Baby William tumbled and hurt himself. "Oh, are you hurt?" and Janet clasped the doll in her arms, and hugged it as though it were a real child.

"Is she busted?" Ted demanded, but he did not ask as a real doctor might inquire. In fact, he had stopped playing doctor.

"No, she isn't hurt, I guess," Jan answered, feeling of her doll's head. "I forgot all about her being in my lap. Oh, aren't you going to play any more, Ted?" she asked as she saw her brother toss the big coat on a chair and take off the spectacles.

"No. I want to do something else. This is no fun!"

"Well, let's make-believe you're sick and I can be a Red Cross nurse, like some of those we saw in the drugstore window down the street, making bandages for the soldiers. You could be a soldier, Ted, and I could be the nurse, and I'd make some sugar pills for you, if you don't like the rolled-up bread ones you gave my doll."

Teddy Martin thought this over for a few seconds. He seemed to like it. And then he shook his head.

"No," he answered his sister, "I couldn't be a soldier."

"Why not?"

"'Cause I haven't got a gun and there isn't any tent."

"We could make a tent with a sheet off the bed like we do lots of times. Put it over a chair, you know."

"But I haven't a gun," Teddy went on. He knew that he and Janet could make a tent, for they had often done it before.

"Couldn't you take a broom for a gun?" Janet asked. "I'll get it from the kitchen."

"Pooh! What good is a broom for a gun? I want one that shoots! Anyhow I haven't a uniform, and a soldier can't go to war without a uniform or a sword or a gun. I'm not going to play that!"

Janet did not know what to say for a few seconds. Truly a soldier would not be much of one without a gun or a uniform, even if he was in a tent. But the little girl had not given up yet.

The day was a rainy one. There was no school, for it was Saturday, and staying in the house was no great fun. Janet wanted her brother to stay and play with her and she knew she must do something to make him. For a while he had been content to play that he was Dr. Thompson, come to give medicine to Jan's sick doll. But Teddy had become tired of this after paying half a dozen visits and leaving pills made by rolling bread crumbs together.

Teddy laid aside his father's old hat and scratched his head. That is he tried to, but his head was so covered with tightly twisted curls that the little boy's fingers were fairly entangled in them.

"Say!" he exclaimed, "I wish my hair didn't curl so much! It's too long. I'm going to ask mother if I can't have it cut."

"I wish I could have mine cut," sighed Janet. "Mine's worse to comb than yours is, Ted."

"Yes, I know. And it always curls more on a rainy day."

Both children had the same curly hair. It was really beautiful, but they did not quite appreciate it, even though many of their friends, and some persons who saw them for the first time, called them "Curlytops." Indeed the tops of their heads were very curly.

"Oh, I know how we can do it!" suddenly cried Janet, just happening to think of something.

"Do what?" asked her brother.

"Play the soldier game. You can pretend you were caught by the enemy and your gun and uniform were taken away. Then you can be hurt and I'll be the Red Cross nurse and take care of you in the tent. I'll get some real sugar for pills, too! Nora'll give me some. She's in the kitchen now making a cake."

"Maybe she'd give you a piece of cake, too," suggested Teddy.

"Maybe," agreed Janet. "I'll go and ask her."

"Ask her for some chocolate," added Ted. "I guess, if I've got to be sick, I'd like chocolate pills 'stead of sugar."

"All right," said Janet, as she hurried downstairs from the playroom to the kitchen. In a little while she came back with a plate on which were two slices of chocolate cake, while on one edge of it were some crumbs of chocolate icing.

"I'll make pills of that after we eat the cake," Janet said. "You can pretend the cake made you sick if you want to, Ted."

"Pooh! who ever heard of a soldier getting sick on cake? Anyhow they don't have cake in the army-lessen they capture it from the enemy."

"Well, you can pretend you did that," said Janet. "Now I'll put my doll away," she went on, as she finished her piece of cake, "and well play the soldier game. I'll get some red cloth to make the cross."

Janet looked "sweet," as her mother said afterward, when she had wound a white cloth around her head, a red cross, rather ragged and crooked, being pinned on in front.

The tent was made by draping a sheet from the bed across two chairs, and under this shelter Teddy crawled. He stretched out on a blanket which Janet had spread on the floor to be the hospital cot.

"Now you must groan, Ted," she said, as she looked in a glass to see if her headpiece and cross were on straight.

"Groan? What for?"

"'Cause you've Been hurt in the war, or else you're sick from the cake."

"Pooh! a little bit of cake like that wouldn't make me sick. You've got to give me a lot more if you want me to be real sick."

"Oh, Teddy Martin! I'm not going to play if you make fun like that all the while. You've got to groan and pretend you've been shot. Never mind about the cake."

"All right. I'll be shot then. But you've got to give me a lot of chocolate pills to make me get better."

"I'm not going to give 'em to you all at once, Ted Martin!"

"Well, maybe in two doses then. How many are there?"

"Oh, there's a lot. I'm going to take some myself."

"You are not!" and Teddy sat up so quickly that he hit the top of the sheet-tent with his head and made it slide from the chair.

"There! Look what you did!" cried Janet. "Now you've gone and spoiled everything!"

"Oh, well, I'll fix it," said Ted, rather sorry for what he had done. "But you can't eat my chocolate pills."

"I can so!"

"You cannot! Who ever heard of a nurse taking the medicine from a sick soldier?"

"Well, anyhow-well, wouldn't you give me some chocolate candy if you had some, and I hadn't?" asked Janet.

"Course I would, Jan. I'm not stingy!"

"Well, these pills are just like chocolate candy, and if I give 'em all to you-"

"Oh, well, then I'll let you eat some," agreed Ted. "But you wanted me to play this game of bein' a sick soldier, and if I'm sick I've got to have the medicine."

"Yes, I'll give you the most," Janet agreed. "Now you lie down and groan and I'll hear you out on the battlefield and come and save your life."

So, after Janet had fixed the sheet over him again, Teddy lay back on the blanket and groaned his very best.

"Oh, it sounds as real as anything!" exclaimed the little girl in delight. "Do it some more, Ted!"

Thereupon her brother groaned more loudly until Janet stopped him by dropping two or three chocolate pills into his opened mouth.

"Oh! Gurr-r-r-r! Ugh! Say, you 'most choked me!" spluttered Ted, as he sat up and chewed the chocolate.

"Oh, I didn't mean to," said Janet as she ate a pill or two herself. "Now you lie down and go to sleep, 'cause I've got a lot more sick soldiers to go to see."

"Don't give 'em any of my chocolate pills," cautioned Ted. "I need 'em all to make me get better."

"I'll only make-believe give them some," promised Janet.

She and her brother played this game for a while, and Teddy liked it-as long as the chocolate pills were given him. But when Janet had only a few left and Teddy was about to say he was tired of lying down, someone came into the playroom and a voice asked:

"What you doin'?"

"Playing soldier," answered Janet. "You mustn't drop your 'g' letters, Trouble. Mother doesn't like it."

"I want some chocolate," announced the little boy, whose real name was William Martin, but who was more often called Trouble-because he got in so much of it, you know.

"There's only one pill left. Can I give it to him, Ted?" asked Janet.

"Yes, Janet. I've had enough. Anyhow, I know something else to play now. It's lots of fun!"

"What?" asked Janet eagerly. It was still raining hard and she wanted her brother to stay in the house with her.

"We'll play horse," went on Ted. "I'll be a bucking bronco like those Uncle Frank told us about on his ranch. We'll make a place with chairs where they keep the cow ponies and the broncos. I forget what Uncle Frank called it."

"I know," said Janet. "It's cor-corral."

"Corral!" exclaimed Ted. "That's it! We'll make a corral of some chairs and I'll be a bucking bronco. That's a horse that won't let anybody ride on its back," the little boy explained.

"I wants a wide!" said Baby William.

"Well, maybe I'll give you a ride after I get tired of bucking," said Teddy, thinking about it.

They made a ring of chairs on the playroom floor, and in this corral Teddy crept around on his hands and knees, pretending to be a wild Western pony. Janet tried to catch him and the children had much fun, Trouble screaming and laughing in delight.

At last Teddy allowed himself to be caught, for it was hard work crawling around as he did, and rearing up in the air every now and then.

"Give me a wide!" pleaded Trouble.

"Yes, I'll ride him on my back," offered Teddy, and his baby brother was put up there by Janet.

"Now don't go too fast with him, pony," she said.

"Yes, I wants to wide fast, like we does with Nicknack," declared Baby William. Nicknack was the Curlytops' pet goat.

"All right, I'll give you a fast ride," promised Teddy.

He began crawling about the room with Trouble on his back. The baby pretended to drive his "horse" by a string which Ted held in his mouth like reins.

"Go out in de hall-I wants a big wide," directed Trouble.

"All right," assented Teddy. Out into the hall he went and then forgetting, perhaps, that he had his baby brother on his back, Teddy began to buck-that is flop up and down.

"Oh-oh! 'top!" begged Trouble.

"I can't! I'm a Wild-West pony," explained Ted, bucking harder than ever.

He hunched himself forward on his hands and knees, and before he knew it he was at the head of the stairs. Then, just how no one could say, Trouble gave a yell, toppled off Teddy's back and the next instant went rolling down the flight, bump, bump, bumping at every step.