"I wants to go to sleeps there!" cried Trouble. "I wants to go to sleeps right now!"
"Shall we take him back to mother?" asked Ted, looking at his sister.
"If he"s sleepy now he won"t want to play."
"I isn"t too sleepy to play," objected Baby William. "I can go to sleeps under couch if you wants me to," he added.
"Oh, that"ll be real cute!" cried Janet. "Come on, Ted, let"s do it! We can make-believe Trouble is our little dog, or something like that, to watch over our tent, and he can go to sleep----"
"Huh! how"s he going to _watch_ if he goes to _sleep_?" Ted demanded.
"Oh, well, he can make-believe go to sleep or make-believe watch, either one," explained Janet.
"Yes, I s"pose he could do that," agreed Teddy.
Baby William opened his mouth wide and yawned.
"I guess he"ll do some _real_ sleeping," said Janet with a laugh. "Come on, Trouble, before you get your eyes so tight shut you can"t open "em again. Come on, we"ll play camping!" and she led the way into the sitting room and over toward the big couch at one end.
Many a good time the children had had in this room, and the old couch, pretty well battered and broken now, had been in turn a fort, a steamboat, railroad car, and an automobile. That was according to the particular make-believe game the children were playing. Now the old couch was to be a tent, and Jan and Ted moved some chairs, which would be part of the pretend-camp, up in front of it.
"It"ll be a lot of fun when we go camping for real," said Teddy, as he helped his sister spread one of Grandma Martin"s old shawls over the backs of some chairs. This was to be a sort of second tent where they could make-believe cook their meals.
"Yes, we"ll have grand fun," agreed Jan. "No, you mustn"t go to sleep up there, Trouble!" she called to the little fellow, for he had crawled up on top of the couch and had stretched himself out as though to take a nap.
"Why?" he asked.
""Cause the tent part is under it," explained his sister. "That"s the top of the tent where you are. You can"t go to sleep on _top_ of a tent.
You might fall off."
"I can fall off now!" announced Trouble, as he suddenly thought of something. Then he gave a wiggle and rolled off the seat, b.u.mping into Ted, who had stooped down to put a rug under the couch-tent.
"Ouch!" cried Ted. "Look out what you"re doing, Trouble! You b.u.mped my head."
"I--I b.u.mped _my_ head!" exclaimed the little fellow, rubbing his tangled hair.
"He didn"t mean to," said Janet. "You mustn"t roll off that way, Trouble. You might be hurt. Come now, go to sleep under the couch.
That"s inside the tent you know."
She showed him where Ted had spread the rug, as far back under the couch as he could reach, and this looked to Trouble like a nice place.
"I go to sleeps in there!" he said, and under the couch he crawled, growling and grunting.
"What are you doing that for?" asked Ted, in some surprise.
"I"s a bear!" exclaimed Baby William. "I"s a bad bear! Burr-r-r-r!" and he growled again.
"Oh, you mustn"t do that!" objected Janet. "We don"t want any bears in our camp!"
"Course we can have "em!" cried Ted. "That"ll be fun! We"ll play Trouble is a bear "stead of a dog, and I can hunt him. Only I ought to have something for a gun. I know! I"ll get grandpa"s Sunday cane!" and he started for the hall.
"Oh, no. I don"t want to play bear and hunting!" objected Janet.
"Why not?"
""Cause it"s too--too--scary at night. Let"s play something nice and quiet. Let Trouble be our watch dog, and we can be in camp and he can bark and scare something."
"What"ll he scare?" asked Ted.
Meanwhile Baby William was crawling as far back under the couch as he could, growling away, though whether he was pretending to be a bear, a lion or only a dog no one knew but himself.
"What do you want him to scare?" asked Ted of his sister.
"Oh--oh--well, chickens, maybe!" she answered.
"Pooh! Chickens aren"t any fun!" cried Ted. "If Trouble is going to be a dog let him scare a wild bull, or something like that. Anyhow chickens don"t come to camp."
"Well, neither does wild bulls!" declared Janet.
"Yes, they do!" cried Ted, and it seemed as if there would be so much talk that the children would never get to playing anything. "Don"t you "member how daddy told us about going camping, and in the night a wild bull almost knocked down the tent."
"Well, that was real, but this is only make-believe," said Janet. "Let Trouble scare the chickens."
"All right," agreed Ted, who was nearly always kind to his sister. "Go on and growl, Trouble. You"re a dog and you"re going to scare the chickens out of camp."
They waited a minute but Trouble did not growl.
"Why don"t you make a noise?" asked Janet.
Trouble gave a grunt.
"What"s the matter?" asked Ted.
"I--I can"t growl "cause I"m all stuck under here," answered the voice of the little fellow, from far under the couch. "I can"t wiggle!"
"Oh, dear!" cried Janet.
Teddy stooped and looked beneath the couch.
"He"s caught on some of the springs that stick down," he said. "I"ll poke him out."
He caught hold of Trouble"s clothes and pulled the little fellow loose.
But Trouble cried--perhaps because he was sleepy--and then his mother came and got him, leaving Teddy and Janet to play by themselves, which they did until they, too, began to feel sleepy.
"You"ll want to go to bed earlier than this when you go camping, my Curlytops," said Grandpa Martin, as the children came out of the sitting-room.
"Are you really going to take them camping?" asked Mother Martin after Jan and Ted had gone upstairs to bed.
"I really am. There are some tents in the barn. I own part of Star Island and there"s no nicer place to camp. You"ll come, too, and so will d.i.c.k when he comes back from Cresco. We"ll take Nora along to do the cooking. Will you come, Mother?" and the Curlytops" grandfather looked at his gray-haired wife.