Now remember--don't stay too late."

"No, we won't!" chorused the two children, and down the garden path and
along the lane they went to a road that led through Grandpa Martin's
wood-lot and so on to the Home for Crippled Children, which was about a
mile from Cherry Farm.

Among others at the Home was a lame boy named Hal Chester. That is, he
had been lame when the Curlytops first met him early in the summer, but
he was almost cured now, and walked with only a little limp. The Home
had been built to cure lame children, and had helped many of them.

Half-way to the big red building, which was like a hospital, the
Curlytops met Hal, the very boy whom they had started out to see.

"Hello, Hal!" cried Ted. "Get in and have a ride."

"Thanks, I will. I was just coming over to see you, anyway. What are you
two going to do?"

"Nothing much," Ted answered, while Jan moved along the seat with her
doll, to make room for Hal. "What're you going to do?"

"Same as you."

The three children laughed at that.

"Let's ride along the river road," suggested Janet. "It'll be nice and
shady there, and if my Red Cross doll is going to the war she'll like to
be cool once in a while."

"Is your doll a Red Cross nurse?" asked Hal. "If she is, where's her cap
and the red cross on her arm?"

"Oh, she just started to be a nurse a little while ago," Jan explained.
"I haven't had time to make the red cross yet. But I will. Anyhow, let's
go down by the river."

"All right, we will," agreed Ted. "We'll see if we can get some sticks
off the willow trees and make whistles," he added to Hal.

"You can make better whistles in the spring, when the bark is softer,
than you can now," said the lame boy, as the Curlytops often called
him, though Hal was nearly cured.

"Well, _maybe_ we can make some now," suggested Ted, and a little later
the two boys were seated in the shade under the willow trees that grew
on the bank of a small river which flowed into Clover Lake, not far from
Cherry Farm. Nicknack, tied to a tree, nibbled the sweet, green grass,
and Jan made a wreath of buttercups for her doll.

After they had made some whistles, which did give out a little tooting
sound, Ted and Hal found something else to do, and Jan saw, coming along
the road, a girl named Mary Seaton with whom she often played. Jan
called Mary to join her, and the two little girls had a good time
together while Ted and Hal threw stones at some wooden boats they made