“Oh, come on, Jan! Quit your fooling! I know a new game to play with the spinning wheels.”
“I play wif you!” offered Trouble, coming from a dark corner of the attic3, where he had become covered with cobwebs.
And then Jan broke out again in a wailing4 cry:
“Teddy! Teddy! I can’t get out! I’m locked in!”
This time Ted knew it was no joke. Jan’s voice showed that she was frightened and was crying.
The Curlytop boy looked all around the[98] attic. It had in it no closet where Janet might have gone in and closed the door after her, thus locking herself in. And if there was no closet where could she be? That is what Ted wanted to know.
Again came that wailing cry from Janet.
“Teddy! Teddy! Get me out!”
The Curlytop boy was very much puzzled and not a little frightened. Only a little while before Janet had been close beside him playing with the spinning wheels. Then, it seemed but a minute, Ted turned his back to make up some new game, and Janet had disappeared. Now she was locked in. But where?
“Janet! Janet! Where is you?” called Trouble.
That is what Ted should have asked. For right away came the answer.
“I’m in this big trunk, Teddy. The lid fell down and I can’t push it up and I can’t get out.”
“Oh! In a trunk!” yelled Ted. Now he understood. And this was why Janet’s voice sounded so muffled5 and far away. It came from inside a big trunk, of which there were three or four in the attic. It was as if she had been speaking from down in the cellar.
[99]Teddy did not stop to ask how Janet had gotten inside the trunk. There was time enough for that after he had gotten her out—if he could. He sprang away from the spinning wheels and hurried over to the big old-fashioned trunks.
“Are you in this one, Jan?” he asked, as he started to raise the lid of one.
“No, I’m in here,” came the answer.
Teddy sprang to the next trunk. Just as he was tugging6 on the lid, which seemed tightly fastened, Mrs. Martin came up the stairs.
Mrs. Martin saw what Teddy was about to do and she called to him:
“Teddy! Teddy! Don’t open that trunk. Mrs. Pitney won’t like it if you open her trunks. She was kind enough to let you play in the attic, but you mustn’t open trunks!”
“But I got to, Mother!” exclaimed Teddy.
“Why do you have to?”
“’Cause Janet’s inside!”
“Janet inside that trunk?” cried Mrs. Martin. “What sort of game is that you are playing? You shouldn’t have shut Janet up in a trunk.”
[100]“I didn’t, Mother!” Teddy answered. “She got in herself and——”
But this delay was too much for Janet. She could hear the talk between her mother and Teddy. She could also hear Trouble shuffling8 around the attic floor. And Janet called:
“Oh, let me out! Let me out! I’m smothering9!”
Mrs. Martin did not stop to ask any more questions. She fairly leaped across the floor and, catching10 hold of the trunk cover, tried to lift it up. But it would not come.
“It’s caught!” explained Teddy. “That’s why Jan couldn’t get it up.”
For a fearful moment or two Mrs. Martin feared that the trunk had locked with a spring catch. And she was alarmed lest there be no key to fit it, or that the key could not be found. In that case they would have to chop the trunk open to get Janet out.
But when Mrs. Martin looked at the lock of the trunk she saw that it was merely caught, and not fastened with a spring catch. In an instant she pulled the piece of brass11 forward and then, with Ted’s help, she raised the lid of the trunk.
There was Janet, all crumpled12 up, lying[101] on a pile of old-fashioned dresses. The little Curlytop girl’s face was very red, and it was dirty where she had cried and then rubbed her hands over her cheeks, her hands being soiled with dust from the old spinning wheels.
“Oh, Janet! Why did you hide in the trunk?” asked Mrs. Martin, helping13 her out. “You might have smothered14 in there!”
“I—I ’most did,” sobbed15 Janet.
“Did you put her in there, Teddy?” asked his mother.
“Oh, no,” he answered.
“I got in myself,” Janet hastened to say. “I opened the trunk to look at some of the dresses, for Mrs. Pitney said we might. And I leaned over to see those on the bottom, and I fell in. I slipped all the way in and then the lid fell down and I couldn’t get it up.”
“That was too bad,” said Mrs. Martin kindly16. “It’s lucky some one was up here with you or you might have been in the trunk a long time before you were let out. Old trunks like this sometimes fasten with a spring catch that is hard to open.”
“I’ll close this so Trouble won’t get in,” said Ted as he lowered the lid.
[102]“I no hide in any trunks,” the little fellow announced. “I got better place as that. Come see,” he added, tugging at his mother’s hand to lead her into the corner where he had been rummaging17.
“No, I don’t believe I want to go there. I’d get covered with cobwebs like you!” laughed Mrs. Martin. “But come, children. It’s time you were in bed. Put things back where you found them and we’ll go downstairs.”
The spinning wheels were set back against the beams under the sloping roof of the old-fashioned attic. Trouble wanted to take the string of sleigh bells down to bed with him, but this could not be allowed. Janet gave one last look at the trunk which had been her prison for a short time and went with her mother and Ted.
“Did you have fun?” asked Mrs. Pitney, as they entered the sitting room.
“Yes, they had fun and a sort of adventure,” answered Mrs. Martin, as she told about the trunk.
“Dear me! That might have been a sad accident,” said the farmer’s wife. “I never thought of your tumbling into any of those old trunks or I would have told you children[103] not to open them. Not that you could do any harm,” she added, “for the dresses are so old-fashioned that no one would think of wearing them, unless at some Hallowe’en party. But I’m glad you got safely out, Janet.”
“So’m I,” agreed the little girl.
Soon after this the Curlytops were in bed. There was no need of any
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