XXI TROUBLE AND SKYROCKET 229

XXII A HAPPY REUNION 238

THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PLAYMATES

CHAPTER I

TROUBLE IN TROUBLE

"When do you s'pose it'll come, Teddy?"

"Oh, pretty soon now, I guess. We're all ready for it when it does
come," and Ted Martin glanced from where he sat over toward a slanting
hill made of several long boards nailed to some tall packing boxes. The
boxes were piled high at one end, and on top was a little platform,
reached by some steps made of smaller boxes.

"It's a good while coming though, isn't it, Ted?" asked his sister
Janet, looking up toward the sky.

"Yes, I wish it would hurry," said the boy, giving his cap a twist,
thereby making more of a tangle than ever the curly, golden hair that
had given him and Janet the nicknames of "Curlytops."

The two children walked around the wooden structure which they had
built, with the help of Tom and Lola Taylor, their playmates, after much
hard work in hammering, pounding, and the straightening of crooked
nails. Now and then Ted and Janet turned their faces to the gray clouds
which floated above them.

"I wish it would hurry!" murmured Janet.

"So do I!" exclaimed Ted.

There was a sudden chorus of shouts and laughter coming from around the
corner of the house, and another boy and girl rushed up the path.

"What you looking for, Ted?" asked Tom. "An airship?" for Ted's eyes
were again turned toward the clouds.

"Or maybe birds," added Lola, with a laugh. "Are you watching to see
some of the birds fly south, because it's soon going to be winter? Are
you, Ted?"

"Nope!" as the answer. "I'm looking to see when it's going to snow.
Mother said a snowstorm was coming, and I'm watching for the first
flakes. What's the good of a toboggan slide when there isn't any snow?"

"That's right," chimed in Tom Taylor. "Now we have this toboggan slide
made, we want some snow or else we can't ride down on it."

That is what the wooden structure in the yard of the Curlytops was--a
toboggan slide. Tom and Ted, with the help of some other boys and the
aid of a few jolly girls, who brought up boards and boxes (though they
couldn't drive the nails straight) had, after much hard work, built up a
sort of toboggan slide.

Now all that was needed was snow so they could ride down it on their
sleds, for none of the children had toboggans--those queer, low, flat
sleds, all of wood, with the round curved piece in front.