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Title: Three little Trippertrots
        How they ran away and how they got back again

Author: Howard Roger Garis

Illustrator: Griselda M. McClure

Release date: February 27, 2025 [eBook #75474]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Graham & Matlack, 1912

Credits: Aaron Adrignola, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE LITTLE TRIPPERTROTS ***


[Illustration: THE FIREMAN RUSHED ABOUT LIKE ANYTHING]




  Three Little Trippertrots

  HOW THEY RAN AWAY AND HOW
  THEY GOT BACK AGAIN

  BY
  HOWARD R. GARIS

  AUTHOR OF “THREE LITTLE TRIPPERTROTS ON THEIR TRAVELS,”
  “THE BEDTIME STORIES,” “UNCLE WIGGILY’S
  ADVENTURES,” ETC.

  _ILLUSTRATED_

  NEW YORK
  GRAHAM & MATLACK
  PUBLISHERS




THE TRIPPERTROT STORIES

BY HOWARD R. GARIS

Quarto. Illustrated. Price, per volume, 60 cents, postpaid

  THREE LITTLE TRIPPERTROTS

    How They Ran Away and How They Got Back Again

  THREE LITTLE TRIPPERTROTS ON THEIR TRAVELS

    The Wonderful Things They Saw and the Wonderful Things They Did

  GRAHAM & MATLACK, Publishers, New York

  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
  GRAHAM & MATLACK

  _Three Little Trippertrots_




PUBLISHERS’ NOTE


The stories of the Three Little Trippertrots, though never before
published, have been told to thousands of children, in a way, probably,
that no tales have ever before been related. They were read _over the
telephone_, nightly, to thousands of little folks, by means of the
system operated by the N. J. Telephone Herald Company. The stories so
delighted the children that the author has yielded to the request to
issue them in book form.




CONTENTS


  ADVENTURE                                           PAGE

      I. THE TRIPPERTROTS ARE LOST                       1

     II. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE KIND POLICEMAN         7

    III. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE HAND-ORGAN MAN        15

     IV. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FUNNY HORSES          21

      V. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE OLD FISHERMAN         29

     VI. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FALSE-FACE MAN        35

    VII. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE OLD LADY       44

   VIII. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE OLD MAN        50

     IX. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FIREMAN               58

      X. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FUNNY BOY             64

     XI. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE PIEMAN                73

    XII. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE BANANA MAN            80

   XIII. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE DANCING BEARS         86

    XIV. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE PINK COW              92

     XV. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE TRAIN OF CARS        102

    XVI. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE TROLLEY CAR          106

   XVII. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LAME BIRD            113

  XVIII. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE NICE BIG DOG         122

    XIX. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE POOR LITTLE BOY      131

     XX. THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE GIRL          138




Three Little Trippertrots




ADVENTURE NUMBER ONE

THE TRIPPERTROTS ARE LOST


Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, there were two little
boys, and a little girl, who lived with their papa and mamma in a
house in a big city. One of the boys was named Tommy, and the other
was called Johnny, and the little girl’s name was Mary. Mary was seven
years old, Tommy was six, and Johnny was the youngest of all, being
only five years old. Now the children had a last name, which was the
funny one of Trippertrot. They were called this because they were
always tripping or trotting off somewhere or other.

One day, when Tommy and Johnny and Mary were at play in their house,
the telephone bell rang, and Suzette, the nursemaid, who had charge of
the children, ran to answer it.

“Who do you s’pose it is calling up?” asked Tommy of Johnny.

“I don’t know; maybe it’s the milkman,” answered Johnny.

“Milkmen don’t have time to talk on a telephone,” said Mary. “But I
know what let’s do, Johnny and Tommy. Now that Suzette isn’t here,
let’s go out for a walk. She won’t see us.”

“Oh, goody! Let’s do it!” cried Johnny and Tommy together, like twins,
you know, only they weren’t, of course. They jumped up very quickly,
and followed Mary out of the house.

Now, of course, that wasn’t just the right thing to do--to go away when
Suzette wasn’t looking. But the Trippertrots didn’t always do what was
right, any more than do some children whom I know--but, of course, I
don’t mean any of you. Anyhow, the Trippertrots ran away, and I’m going
to tell you what happened to them.

“Which way shall we go?” asked Tommy, when they stood outside on the
pavement.

“Let’s go off and see if we can find a fairy,” suggested Mary.

“No, don’t do that,” cried Johnny, “for we might meet a bad fairy,
and she might turn us into an automobile with a honk-honk horn, or an
elephant with a long nose, or something like that.”

“Well, if we’re going to take a walk, we’d better hurry,” said Mary.
“Suzette will soon be back from the telephone, and she’ll miss us, and
come looking for us, and then we’ll have to go in and have our faces
and hands washed. Hurry up!”

“I know what’s the best thing to do,” exclaimed Tommy. “We’ll go down
the street, where the toy store is, and get some things to play with.”

“But we haven’t any money,” said Johnny.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” Tommy replied. “I mean we can look
in the toy-store window and choose what things we’d like to have.”

“Oh, yes, that is fun!” agreed Johnny. “I heard a boy do that one day,
and he choosed a whole train of cars and an engine.”

“But did he get them?” asked Mary.

“No; but it was fun just the same. Come on.”

So down the street the Trippertrot children went, hand in hand,
hurrying as fast as they could, and looking back every now and then to
see if Suzette was following them. But she wasn’t.

And oh! what wonderful things those children saw as they ran along!
An automobile nearly banged into a trolley car, and a dog just missed
being run over by a peanut wagon, and he barked almost as loudly as a
lion can roar when he’s hungry for popcorn balls in the circus.

Then the Trippertrots saw a man selling red and green and yellow
balloons, and pink paper pin-wheels. And pretty soon they turned a
corner, and there was a lady wheeling two babies in the same carriage.
What do you think of that? They were twins, you know.

“Oh, aren’t they cute babies!” exclaimed Mary. “Let’s stop and look at
them, boys.”

“No, we haven’t time,” said Johnny. “We’ve got to hurry down to that
toy store, and choose things, or we won’t be back in time for tea, and
we’d be hungry if we missed that.”

So they hurried on faster and faster, still holding hands. They went
past one store, in the windows of which were lots and lots of cakes,
with pink and brown and white frosting on, and Johnny wanted to stop
there and choose one, but Tommy hurried him on.

Then they went around a corner where a Chinaman was ironing clothes
right in the window of his shop, and past another place where a man was
digging a big hole in the ground, and Mary nearly fell down in it, and
she was very much frightened, only her brothers pulled her away from it
just in time.

Then, all of a sudden, a big automobile whizzed past, just as the
Trippertrots were crossing the street, and a kind man called to the
children:

“Look out, little ones, or you’ll get run over!” Then they ran as fast
as they could run, and the man called after them: “Aren’t you children
lost?”

“No, indeed, thank you,” answered Tommy. “We’re going to the toy store
to choose presents.”

“All right,” said the man, and he went on his way, laughing.

A little while after that Tommy stubbed his toe and fell down. But do
you suppose he cried? No, sir! not a bit of it. Not a single tear,
though he wanted to very much.

“But if I cry, and get my eyes full of water,” he thought, “I might
not be able to see in the toy-shop window to choose things. So I’m not
going to cry.”

Then Mary and Johnny rubbed the sore place on Tommy’s leg, and Mary
kissed him, and the Trippertrots went on farther.

Then, just as the postman blew his whistle, they came to the toy
shop. Oh, I just wish you could have seen it! The window was full of
toy trains, and toy elephants who could wiggle their heads and their
trunks, and there were dolls, and steam engines, and rocking-horses,
and camels, and lions, and tigers--not real, you know, only
make-believe--so don’t get frightened. And then there was an airship,
with a thing in front that went around whizzy-izzy.

“Oh, I’m going to choose that airship!” cried Johnny, as soon as he saw
it.

“No, it’s Mary’s turn first,” said Tommy. “Ladies are always first, you
know.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I forgot,” admitted Johnny. “Go on, Mary, you
choose.”

“Well,” said Mary slowly, “I’ll take the doll with the pink dress and
the blue eyes.”

“Now I am going to take the airship!” cried Johnny eagerly.

“And I want the big elephant that wiggles his nose,” said Tommy. “Now
it’s your turn again, Mary.”

“I’ll take the little brass bed for my doll,” spoke the boys’ sister.

And so they went on. Well, those children just stood there, choosing
all the pretty toys in the store window, until there were hardly any
left. Only, you know, of course, that it was only make-believe, for
they didn’t really take the things away.

Mary had just picked out a lovely doll carriage, and Tommy was going to
take a small automobile with wheels that really went around, when, all
of a sudden, the lady who kept the toy store came out on the sidewalk,
and said:

“I am afraid you children had better run home. You have been standing
here for some time, and your mamma will worry about you, I’m sure. Run
along, now, and take this,” and she gave each of them a stick of nice
candy.

“Yes, I guess we had better go home,” said Tommy. “Which way do we go,
Johnny?”

“Why, don’t you know the way home, Tommy?” asked his brother.

“No. Don’t you?”

“Not a bit of it!” answered Johnny, surprised like. “I am all turned
around. Maybe Mary knows.”

“What!” exclaimed the little Trippertrot girl, “you boys don’t mean to
tell me you don’t know where our house is, do you?”

“I don’t know,” spoke Tommy.

“And I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Johnny.

“We don’t either of us know,” went on Tommy in a sad voice. “Do you
know, Mary?” and he began to eat his candy.

Mary shook her head. Then two tears came into her blue eyes. Then came
still more tears, until they rolled from her cheeks, and splashed down
on the sidewalk, like salty rain.

“Oh, dear!” she cried. “If none of us knows where our home is we’re
lost! We can’t ever find our house! What shall we do?”

And there was no one there to tell the children what to do, for the
toy-store lady had gone back into her shop and shut the door.

Then, all of a sudden, along came a big, kind-looking policeman, with a
blue coat covered with brass buttons. Tommy saw him first.

“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed Tommy. “Run! Run! Here comes a policeman after us!”

“Yes, and he may put us in jail!” said Johnny. “Run!” So he and Tommy
started to run, but Mary caught hold of them.

“Stop, you silly boys!” she cried. “Don’t be afraid. Mamma always said
that if ever we got lost we should go to a policeman right away. Now
the policeman is coming to us, and that is much better; so it’s all
right.”

Then the nice big man with the brass buttons on his coat came closer,
and Mary said to him:

“Please, Mr. Policeman, we’re the Trippertrot children, and we’re lost.
We don’t know where our house is. Will you please find it for us?”

“To be sure I will,” answered the policeman, with a jolly smile. “Come
along with me.”




ADVENTURE NUMBER TWO

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE KIND POLICEMAN


“Are you going to take us home right away, Mr. Policeman?” asked Mary,
as she and her brothers walked along beside the big man.

“Of course I am,” he answered kindly. “But you must first tell me where
your home is, and then I can go there by the shortest way. Where is
your home?”

“Why, don’t you know?” asked Johnny, and he stopped there in the street
and looked at a big automobile which was whizzing along close behind
a little fuzzy dog that was trying to get out of the way of the big
rubber wheels. “Don’t you know where our house is, Mr. Policeman?”
asked Johnny again.

“Well,” spoke the big officer with the blue clothes, and the brass
buttons down the front, like a whole lot of shiny eyes, “if you will
tell me which street your house is on, I think I can easily take you to
it.”

“Don’t--don’t you even know the _street_?” asked Johnny, and two tears
came into his eyes, one in each, and splashed down on the sidewalk.

“Why, can’t you tell me the street?” the policeman wanted to know.

Mary shook her little head. Johnny shook his little head. Tommy shook
his little head. Then they all shook their heads together, and they
said, all at once:

“We--don’t--know!”

“My! My!” exclaimed the policeman. “What am I going to do with three
lost children who don’t know where they live?”

“I thought policemans knew everything,” said Mary Trippertrot. “You
ought to know about our house.”

“I only wish I did,” replied the officer. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll
do. I’ll give you a nice ride in a wagon, and I’ll take you to a place
where there are a whole lot of policemen, and perhaps some of them may
know where you live.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Johnny. “Now we’ll be all right.”

“Yes, and I know where he’s going to take us,” said Tommy. “It’s to a
fire-engine house, ’cause I once saw a little lost boy in a fire-engine
house.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” said Mary. “He must be going to take us to a police
station. But I don’t care, for it’s nice there. Once, Sallie Jones was
lost, and she was taken to a police station, and the men there gave her
candy until her mamma came for her. I know, ’cause she told me.”

“Then I’m glad we’re lost,” said Tommy, “’cause the candy the toy-shop
lady gave us is all gone.” And that’s as true as I’m telling you, the
Trippertrots had eaten up all their candy.

“Come along, now, little ones,” said the kind policeman, “and I’ll
telephone for a wagon so that I can give you a ride.”

“Oh, if you’re going to telephone,” cried Mary, “you can telephone to
our house and tell mamma we’re coming home. I know where our house is
now! It’s where the telephone is. We have one, and to-day, when Suzette
went to answer it, we ran out. That’s how we got lost. All you have to
do, Mr. Policeman, is to go to the house where our telephone is, and
we’ll be home.”

[Illustration: _On the Pole Was a Blue Box._]

Mary looked up at the big officer, but he only shook his head.

“There are so many houses which have telephones in,” he said, “that I
could never find yours that way. But come on.”

So he led them down the street until pretty soon he came to a big fat
telephone pole that looked like an elephant’s leg in the circus. And
on the pole was a blue box, which opened just like the door of the
cupboard where mother keeps the bread and jam.

And inside the box were a whole lot of shiny things, and a bell rang,
like a telephone bell, and pretty soon the policeman was talking into
that box and telling some one away far off at the police station to
send a wagon for three little lost children.

So there they stood, the three Trippertrots and the kind policeman,
waiting for the wagon to come. And a whole lot of people gathered
around and looked at the children, and felt very sorry for them because
they were lost. But Mary and Johnny and Tommy weren’t a bit sorry. They
knew it would be all right, and that the policeman would take care of
them.

And then, all of a sudden, a dog came running up the street. He was a
nice, fuzzy, yellow dog, and he had a tail that he could wag. And what
do you think he did? Why, he crawled right in between the legs of a fat
man who was looking at the lost children, and then that dog went right
up close to Mary, and barked softly, just as if he was saying:

“Don’t you be worried now. I’m here, and I’ll take care of you.”

“Oh, look! See the dog!” exclaimed Tommy.

“Is he your dog?” asked the policeman.

“No,” answered Johnny, “but I guess we can have him if we wish. Maybe
he’s lost, too.”

“I believe he is!” cried Mary. “Look how tired he is! I think we shall
call him Fido, and he’ll be our dog; won’t you, Fido?”

Well, I just wish you could have seen the dog wag his tail at that! He
nearly wagged it off, he was so happy because Mary had called him Fido,
for that was really his name; and he was lost, but he didn’t care, now
that he had some children to love.

And then, while they were standing there, the three Trippertrots and
the dog and the kind policeman, along came the wagon to take the
children to the police station. And there was a fine, big brown horse
pulling the wagon.

“Now get in, little ones,” said the policeman kindly.

“You go first, Mary,” said Tommy politely. “Ladies are always first.”

“No, let Fido get in first,” suggested Johnny. “He is so tired, and he
can lie down in the wagon. Here, Fido, jump in!”

“But you can’t take that dog in the wagon,” said the policeman, his
face turning red.

“Why not?” asked Mary, and she patted Fido on the head, so that he
wagged his tail harder than ever.

“Because,” said the policeman, “we don’t like dogs in our wagons; and
besides, he isn’t your dog.”

“Of course he’s our dog!” cried Johnny. “He came to us, and he’s ours.
We’re going to keep him.”

“Of course,” added Tommy. “He’s lost, and we’re lost, so he belongs to
us.”

“And if we can’t have him we don’t want to ride in your wagon, Mr.
Policeman, though we like you very much,” said Mary. “Fido must come
with us. You want to come, don’t you, Fido?” And she patted the dog’s
head again.

Then what do you suppose that dog did? Why, he wagged his tail up and
down, instead of sideways, right up and down he wagged it, like a pump
handle.

“See!” cried Mary. “He’s saying ‘yes’ with his tail! He wants to come,
Mr. Policeman.”

“Oh, my! Then I suppose he’ll have to go,” said the officer, with a
laugh, and everybody in the crowd laughed also. “Get in, Fido; and you,
too, children,” the policeman went on.

So they all got in the wagon, the Trippertrots and the dog and the
policeman, and away they went. Tommy had hold of Fido’s left ear, and
Johnny had hold of his right ear, and Mary had her hand on the dog’s
head, and every once in a while Fido would put his cold nose in the
policeman’s hand, to show that he liked him, and then the policeman
would jump as if a mosquito had bitten him, for he wasn’t thinking
about the dog. But Fido didn’t mind, and he thumped his tail down on
the floor of the wagon until it sounded like a baby’s rattle-box.

Pretty soon they were almost at the police station, and the policeman
was wondering how he could find out where the lost Trippertrots lived,
when, all of a sudden, Fido saw a pussy cat running along the sidewalk.
And then, before you could look at a picture in a story book, out Fido
jumped from the wagon to chase after the cat.

Fido didn’t want to catch her, you understand. Oh, no; he just wanted
to see if he could run as fast as the pussy was running. So that’s why
he jumped out of the wagon.

“Oh, my! There goes our dog!” cried Tommy.

“Yes, Fido is running away!” exclaimed Johnny sorrowfully.

“Oh, we must get him, or he’ll be lost again!” cried Mary. “Stop the
wagon, please, Mr. Policeman, and we’ll get Fido back again. Come here,
Fido!” she called.

Well, the policeman wasn’t going to stop the wagon, but just then a
trolley car got in the way of it, and the driver had to stop, whether
he wanted to or not. And that was just the chance the Trippertrots
wanted.

First, Mary jumped out of the wagon, and then Tommy jumped out, and
then Johnny jumped out.

“Come back! Come back!” cried the policeman. “You’ll be lost again, and
I’ll have to find you.”

“We’re--going--to--get--our--Fido!” panted Mary.

And then, before the big, kind policeman could get out of the wagon,
those three children had hurried around a corner of the street and
were racing after Fido, and Fido was racing after the pussy cat, and
there was such a crowd of people that the policeman couldn’t see the
children, even when he put on his glasses.

“My! My!” he exclaimed. “They will be lost again!”




ADVENTURE NUMBER THREE

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE HAND-ORGAN MAN


“Oh, do you s’pose we’ll ever catch that dog?” asked Mary Trippertrot
of her two brothers, as they raced along after Fido, and Fido was
chasing after the cat.

“Of course we will,” answered Tommy.

“And maybe we’ll get the pussy cat, too,” said Johnny, who couldn’t run
so very fast, as his legs were rather short.

“But we don’t want the cat,” spoke Mary. “For you see, she and Fido
aren’t very well acquainted yet, and they might not like each other.
I think we’ll just catch Fido, and then we’ll all go home and get
something for him to eat. I’m sure he must be hungry. I know I am.”

“But we don’t know where our home is,” panted Johnny, as he tripped
along beside Tommy.

“Why, you silly boy, we can go back to the policeman in the wagon,
and he’ll find our home for us,” went on Mary. “Come on, now. We are
catching up to Fido.”

So on the Trippertrot children tripped and trotted as fast as they
could. And, all of a sudden, Mary slipped, and she would have fallen
down, only Johnny caught her. And then Tommy was running so fast that
he ran right into a lady who was carrying a basket full of loaves of
bread, and the bread all bounced out on the sidewalk.

“Oh, dear! Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried the lady. “Now see what you have
done!”

“We are very sorry,” said Tommy politely. “But you see we are lost,
and our dog Fido is lost, too, only we know where he is, and we’re
chasing after him, and he’s chasing after a cat, and that’s how I
happened to run into you. But we’ll help you pick up the bread, though
Fido may get so far ahead of us that we can’t find him.”

“Oh, my! What a lot of things to happen to three little children!” said
the lady kindly. “Never mind about the bread. I can pick it up myself.
You run on after your Fido, bless your hearts!”

So she began to pick up the bread herself, and a man helped her, and
the Trippertrots ran on. And about a minute after that Johnny stubbed
his toe, but he didn’t even cry half a tear, for he was a brave little
fellow.

And then they hurried on again, and they could just see Fido’s wagging
tail now, and it was going around in a circle like a merry-go-round,
because, you see, he was so excited.

“There he is!” cried Mary. “Hurry up, and we’ll have him in a minute!”

“Look! Look!” cried Tommy. “The cat has run up a tree, and now Fido
can’t get her, so he’ll have to stop running, and we can catch up to
him.”

And would you ever believe it? That cat did run up a tree, and she sat
down on a branch, and Fido, he sat down on the ground at the foot of
the tree, for dogs can’t climb, you know.

“Oh, you naughty Fido!” exclaimed Mary, as she came up to him. “Why
did you run away?” And Mary had to sit down on the ground, too, so she
could get her breath. And then up came Tommy and Johnny, and they also
had to sit down, so there they all sat, the three Trippertrots and the
dog, at the foot of the tree, and the pussy cat about ten feet up the
tree, sitting on a branch.

“Why did you run away?” asked Tommy, taking hold of Fido’s left ear.

“Bow! wow! wow!” answered the doggie, which meant that he didn’t know.
Then he wagged his tail sideways on the ground, and he made so much
dust that Mary had to sneeze.

And Johnny sneezed, and Tommy sneezed, and then Fido sneezed, to keep
them company. And the pussy cat up the tree, she didn’t want to be left
out, so she sneezed, also, and in that way they all sneezed.

Then the three Trippertrots laughed, and the cat heard them, and the
pussy knew that anybody who laughs real jolly like will never harm any
animals, so the cat thought she would come down out of the tree.

And she did. And what do you suppose Fido did? Why, he just barked
politely, as if he were saying, “Pleased to meet you!” And he wagged
his tail, real friendly like, and he put his cold nose on the pussy
cat’s cold nose, and that’s the way they shook hands.

“Now they’re friends,” said Tommy. “I don’t see why we can’t keep them
both, Mary.”

“Perhaps we can,” said his sister, “as long as they don’t quarrel.
Come, Fido, we must go back to the kind policeman now. Come, Pussy. I
wonder what your name is?”

“Me-ow, me-ew!” cried the pussy.

“What did she say?” asked Tommy.

“I guess she said ‘How d’ do?’ But anyhow let’s call her Ivy Vine,
because she can climb a tree so well. Come, Ivy Vine.”

So Fido got up, and so did the three Trippertrots, from where they had
been sitting on the ground, and Ivy Vine, the pussy, got up also, and
they all started down the street together.

“Do you know which way to go to get to the policeman’s wagon?” asked
Tommy.

“No. Don’t you?” asked Johnny.

Tommy shook his head.

“Then we’re lost again,” said Mary, “for I don’t know either. Oh, how
many things are happening to us to-day! I wonder if we will ever get
home again?”

They looked all around, but they couldn’t see any street that looked
like the one they lived on, and there was no house in sight like
theirs, and they didn’t know what to do. And then, all of a sudden,
they heard some nice music. And it was a hand-organ playing, and it
played a tune called “Always be happy and never be sad, Always be
joyful and jolly and glad.”

“Oh, I hope that hand-organ man has a monkey!” cried Mary.

And just then, surely enough, around the corner came the hand-organ
man, and he was playing the jolly tune, and perched up on his organ was
a cute little monkey, with a red cap and a blue coat.

“Oh, isn’t this lovely!” said Tommy.

“I don’t mind being lost now,” spoke Johnny.

Then the hand-organ man came up to where the children were standing,
with Fido and the pussy cat. And at first the monkey acted as if he
wanted to run away from the dog, but Fido wagged his tail so very
friendly like that the monkey stayed. And then the children noticed
that the hand-organ man looked sick, and he could hardly grind out the
music.

“What is the matter, Mr. Hand-Organ Man?” asked Mary.

“Oh, I am very tired and lonesome,” said the man. “I have walked about
all day, and played all the tunes in my hand-organ, but no one gave
me any pennies. Not even when Fuzzo, my monkey, climbed up to the
second-story windows and took off his cap. Oh, dear, I haven’t any
money to buy my supper with!”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Tommy. “Maybe we can help you.”

“Let’s try,” said Mary.

“Yes,” said Johnny. “We can go around with you, and sing while you
grind the organ, and we’ll take Ivy Vine and Fido with us, and perhaps
when the people see all the animals together they may give you pennies.”

“Oh, it would be very kind if you would do that,” said the hand-organ
man. So he began to play a jolly little tune, and the children sang,
and the monkey danced up on top of the organ, and Fido stood on his
hind legs, and Ivy Vine, the cat, turned somersaults.

Well, you ought to have seen the crowd of people stop and look on.
Everybody laughed, and thought the children were very cute, and they
liked the animals, too. Then Fuzzo, the monkey, took off his red cap
and held it out, and the people put a lot of pennies in it.

“Fine! Fine!” cried the hand-organ man as he heard the pennies rattling
in Fuzzo’s cap. “Now I can buy some supper.” And more pennies came
rattling in, until the cap could not hold them all, and Fuzzo had to
put some of them in his pocket.

Well, the Trippertrot children were having a good time, and in spite of
being lost they were very happy, because they were helping some one,
and the organ man was playing another tune, and Mary was just getting
ready to sing a song all alone, when a great big automobile dashed up
to the sidewalk, and the man who was in it cried:

“Why, bless my soul! If there aren’t the Trippertrots, nearly two
miles from home! I must take them back at once. How did you get here,
children?” he called.

“Oh, there’s Mr. Johnson in his auto!” exclaimed Mary. “We are lost,
Mr. Johnson. Will you please take us home?” For you see the man in the
automobile happened to live next door to the Trippertrots, and he knew
them.

“Of course I’ll take you home,” he said kindly. “Get in.”

“Oh, but we must take Fido and Ivy Vine, and Fuzzo and the hand-organ
man,” said Tommy. “Fido is our lost dog, and Ivy Vine is our lost cat,
and Fuzzo is the monkey. We don’t know the man’s name, but he isn’t
lost, neither is Fuzzo, but they are very hungry, and we are going to
take them to our house for supper.”

“What! Take you and those animals and the hand-organ man in my auto?”
cried Mr. Johnson, in astonishment.

“Yes, and the hand-organ, too,” said Mary. “Then the man can play tunes
on the way, and you won’t have to blow your horn. Get in, Fido. Get
in, Ivy Vine. Get in, Fuzzo. And you, too, Tommy and Johnny, and Mr.
Hand-Organ Man.”

Mr. Johnson laughed, and then he thought the best thing to do would be
to take the Trippertrots and everybody and everything that they wanted
along with him in the auto.

So they all piled into the car, and away they went; and, surely enough,
the hand-organ man played tunes all the way along, and the people in
the street laughed when they saw the automobile with its queer load.
But the Trippertrots didn’t care, and soon they were right in front of
their own house.




ADVENTURE NUMBER FOUR

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FUNNY HORSES


When Mrs. Trippertrot looked out of her window and saw her three
children, and Mr. Johnson, the man who owned the automobile, and Fido
the dog, and Ivy Vine the cat, and Fuzzo the monkey--to say nothing of
the hand-organ man--when she saw all of them in front of her house she
didn’t know what to think.

“Oh, my dear children!” she cried. “I have been looking everywhere for
you! Where have you been?”

“We have been lost, mamma,” said Mary.

“And we had a most lovely time!” exclaimed Johnny, laughing.

“And we’ve got a dog and a cat, and a monkey!” added Tommy.

“Oh, dear!” cried their mamma. “I’ve been telephoning all over for you.
I didn’t know what to do, and I have just sent for your papa.”

“That’s too bad,” said Tommy. “Really, we didn’t want to worry you,
mamma. But if papa hurries home, he can have supper with the hand-organ
man.”

“Have supper with the hand-organ man!” cried Mrs. Trippertrot. “What in
the world do you mean?”

“This is the hand-organ man,” said Mary, and she pointed to the man who
owned Fuzzo the monkey. “He’s very hungry, and we helped him get some
pennies. Mr. Johnson found us, didn’t you, Mr. Johnson?”

“I certainly did,” he said, and then he looked to see if he had to pump
any more wind into his big automobile tires.

“But a policeman found us first,” said Johnny.

“Only we jumped out of the wagon to go after Fido, for he was chasing a
cat,” explained Tommy. “Here is the cat, mamma. Her name is Ivy Vine,
because she can climb a tree so good.”

“Bless us!” said Mrs. Trippertrot. “I shall never understand all this.
Oh, I hope you children never run away again. I am ever so much obliged
to you, Mr. Johnson, for bringing them home. But what shall I do with a
monkey and a dog and a cat and a hand-organ man?”

“Well,” said Mr. Johnson, “I think I would give the hand-organ man
and his monkey something to eat, and send them away. Then I’d let the
children keep the dog and cat for a while.”

“Oh, we’re going to keep them forever,” said Mary, “and the monkey,
too; can’t we, mother?”

“Oh, please don’t ask me!” cried Mrs. Trippertrot. “Yes, you may keep
anything, as long as you don’t run away again. Oh! I have been so
worried about you!”

“I am very sorry, but I can’t stay here,” said the hand-organ man. “I
must go home, for I am going to teach Fuzzo, my monkey, a new trick of
standing on his head, and then perhaps we may get many more pennies.
I thank your children very much for what they did for me.” And then,
making a low bow to Mrs. Trippertrot, and to Mr. Johnson, he climbed
down out of the auto and took his hand-organ and monkey and started
away with them.

“Don’t you want some supper?” asked Tommy quickly.

“No, I thank you,” said the man. “Since you were so kind as to help me
get some pennies, I can buy enough for Fuzzo and myself to eat. So
I’ll say good-by.” And then the hand-organ man hurried away.

Soon Tommy and Mary and Johnny got out of the auto, and kissed their
mamma, and they went into the house, after thanking Mr. Johnson for
bringing them home, and Fido and Ivy Vine went in with them.

“I don’t know what your papa will say about keeping those animals,”
said Mrs. Trippertrot, “but he will soon be home, and we can ask him.”

“Oh, he’ll let us keep them,” said Mary.

“Sure, for he loves dogs,” spoke Johnny.

“And cats, too!” cried Tommy, for just then Ivy Vine was purring away
like a sewing machine, and washing her fur, in front of the open fire
in the library.

Pretty soon Mr. Trippertrot came home, and when he heard about what his
children had done, and how they had been lost, and how they had brought
home a cat and a dog and a monkey, to say nothing of a hand-organ man,
he didn’t know what to say.

“But I suppose they may keep the dog and cat,” he said. “They will be
good pets for them. But I hope you never run away again, children.”

Of course Mary and Tommy and Johnny promised, but you just wait and see
what happened. It was quite an adventure.

One afternoon, about three days later, the three Trippertrot children
were up in the playroom, having a soldier game. Tommy was the general,
and he had a sword; and Johnny was a soldier, with a make-believe
wooden gun; and Mary was a nurse, to take care of the soldiers when
they were ill.

“Oh, I just wish we had horses!” cried Johnny suddenly. “Then we could
take a long ride.”

“That _would_ be fun,” said Tommy.

“Could I ride, too?” asked Mary.

“If we could find you a horse,” spoke Johnny.

“Well, we have your old hobby-horse,” said Mary to Tommy, “and down in
the laundry is a clothes-horse. I could have that.”

“But what could I have?” asked Johnny.

“Oh, I know!” cried Mary. “A sawhorse! The very thing!”

“Do you mean a horse that is all sawed up into sawdust?” asked Johnny,
trying to stand on his head.

“No, indeed,” replied his sister. “A sawhorse is something a carpenter
uses on which to saw out boards. It has a back and four legs, just
like a real horse. Oh, I know what we’ll do! We’ll get the sawhorse
and the clothes-horse and the rocking-horse all out on the lawn, and
we’ll put empty thread spools under them for wheels, and we can really
make-believe truly ride.”

“Great!” cried Tommy.

“Wonderful!” said Johnny.

“They are funny horses,” said Mary, “but we can have some fun, and, who
knows? perhaps we may ride to fairyland on them. Come on, boys, we’ll
get them ready.”

So they took the rocking-horse out of the playroom and carried it out
on the lawn. Then they brought the clothes-horse up from the laundry.

The clothes-horse, you know, is the horse on which the washlady
hangs the clothes to dry in front of the fire. And then those funny
Trippertrot children went next door, where a man was building a new
house, and one of the carpenters let them take a sawhorse. So they had
three horses, you see.

[Illustration: _“Trot Along, Clothes-Horse!” Cried Mary._]

Mary took a board and put it across the clothes-horse, so she could sit
on it to ride. But Tommy and Johnny didn’t need any boards for their
horses. Tommy had the sawhorse, and Johnny the rocking-horse. Then
they fastened some big, empty thread spools on the bottom of the legs
of their horses, and they were all ready to ride off after some new
adventures.

They took their funny horses to the top of a little hill on the smooth
grassy lawn, so they would start to roll down easily. Then they all got
up on the horses’ backs.

“Giddap!” cried Tommy.

“Gee-up!” cried Johnny.

“Trot along, clothes-horse!” cried Mary.

And then, would you believe it? those funny horses began to roll down
the long, grassy hill. Faster and faster they went on the spools,
rolling along, bumpity-bump.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mary. “Why, my horse is going!”

“And so is mine!” said Johnny.

“Of course!” cried Tommy. “Horses always go.”

Faster and faster went the funny horses. The children were hanging to
them tightly, so as not to fall off.

“Oh, isn’t this great!” said Mary. “I wonder where they will take us?”

“To fairyland, of course,” said Johnny.

By this time the funny horses, carrying the Trippertrot children, were
at the bottom of the lawn. They were galloping along quite fast, when,
all of a sudden, Mary cried:

“Oh, look! The brook! The brook!”

Right ahead of them was a little stream of water, and it was quite wet
water, too, let me tell you.

“Oh! If we fall in that, we’ll be drowned!” said Johnny, shivering.

“Stop the horses! Stop them!” cried Tommy.

So they all pulled on the pieces of string which they had tied on the
rocking-horse, and on the sawhorse, and on the clothes-horse, for
driving reins. But, would you believe it? those funny horses never
stopped at all.

Along they went on the empty spool-wheels, until they were right at the
edge of the brook; and then, instead of stopping to get a drink, the
way real horses would have done, those strange horses just tumbled into
the water. Right in they tumbled, Trippertrot children and all.

“Oh!” screamed Mary, as she felt the water coming up over her toes.

“Oh, me!” cried Johnny, as he felt the water on his nose.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Tommy, as some water splashed up on his knees.
“We’ll be drowned!”

But I’m not going to let anything like that happen to our Trippertrots.
No, indeed. I’m going to save them. Just listen.

All of a sudden, when the three children were in the water--all of a
sudden, I say--the clothes-horse and the sawhorse and the rocking-horse
sort of floated close to each other, and all at once they made
themselves into a nice raft, that was just as good as a sailboat.

“Climb up, and we’ll have a ride in the brook!” cried Johnny, when he
saw that the funny wooden horses would hold them all, and not let them
sink.

So the three children climbed up on the funny boat, that was made
from the funny horses, and they sat there a little while until they
were nice and warm and dry again, and then the sawhorse and the
clothes-horse and the rocking-horse just swam toward shore as fast as
they could, and so the children were saved, just as I told you they
would be.

And then--well, if you want to know what happened after that, will you
please turn to the next page, and then you can read all about it.




ADVENTURE NUMBER FIVE

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE OLD FISHERMAN


All of a sudden, as the Trippertrot children were riding along on
their funny horses, which had just galloped up out of the water to the
dry land--all of a sudden, I say--Mary happened to look behind her,
and there was Ivy Vine, the cat, running after them as fast as she
could run, and her tail was sticking straight up in the air, like a
clothes-post.

“Oh, look!” cried Mary. “Ivy Vine is coming, and she may get lost!”

“So might we get lost, if we go far enough,” answered Johnny. “We’d
better wait for Ivy Vine, and she can show us the way home.”

“That’s right,” added Tommy. “We were lost once, and I don’t want it to
happen again.”

“Oh, that was nothing,” said Mary. “I think it was fun to be lost.
Remember the good time we had.”

“Oh, look over there!” suddenly called Johnny. “There comes Fido, our
dog! Now, surely we can’t get lost with him along. I say, let’s get off
our horses and take a walk. My horse is tired, anyhow.”

“And so is mine,” said Mary. “Maybe if we walk along real slowly we’ll
have an adventure.”

Then, pretty soon, up came Ivy Vine, the cat, and Fido, the dog, and,
leaving their three funny horses in the grass, the Trippertrots and the
dog and the cat started off. They walked along and along, and pretty
soon they came to a little hill.

“Let’s go up this hill, and see what’s on top,” said Tommy.

“Yes. Maybe a nice fairy lives there,” spoke Johnny.

“No, don’t go up,” objected Mary. “We might fall down on the other
side.”

“That’s so,” agreed Johnny. “I don’t want to fall down, because I’ve
got on a new pair of stockings, and mamma doesn’t want me to get any
holes in them.”

“Oh, you are too fussy,” spoke Tommy. “Why, we don’t have to fall down
the other side. And besides, if we do start to slip, we can grab hold
of Ivy Vine’s tail, and she can stick her sharp claws down in the grass
on the hill, and we won’t slide any more.”

“That’s so. I never thought of that,” said Mary. “We’ll go up. Come on,
Ivy Vine, I’m going to hold you, so if I happen to slip you can save
me.”

“And Johnny and I will take Fido,” said Tommy. “His toenails aren’t as
sharp as Ivy Vine’s, but he’ll do, I guess.”

So up the hill they went, slowly and carefully, with the dog and the
cat, and they kept a close watch on every side, but they didn’t see any
fairies, though in one place they saw growing some toadstools, that
fairies use for umbrellas when it rains.

Then, presently, the Trippertrots were at the top of the hill, and
it was a nice, flat, smooth place, all covered with grass; and they
couldn’t have fallen off if they had tried with all their might; no,
indeed!

And then, all of a sudden, Mary happened to look behind a tree that
was growing on top of the hill, and she saw a nice old man sitting in
a chair, on the edge of a little lake of water. Oh, he was a very old
man, and he had such a nice, pleasant face, though you couldn’t see
very much of it because he had so many whiskers. He had whiskers all
over him, almost like Santa Claus.

“Look!” whispered Mary to her brothers. “I wonder who he is, and what
he is doing?”

“I know what he’s doing,” said Johnny.

“What?” asked Tommy.

“He’s a fisherman,” answered Johnny. “Can’t you see his pole and line?”

“Oh, of course,” spoke Mary. “But I wonder what he is catching?”

“Let’s go up and ask him,” suggested Tommy.

“No, we mustn’t do that,” objected Johnny. “Fishermen never like to be
bothered when they’re catching fish.”

“But maybe he hasn’t caught any yet,” said Mary, “and, of course, then
he wouldn’t mind. We can go up to him, and we’ll tell him that as soon
as he begins to catch any fish we’ll run away, and not bother him.”

“I guess that will do,” said Johnny. “Come on.”

So the three Trippertrot children walked softly up to the old
fisherman, and when he saw them coming he waved his hand to them, not
the hand that held the fishpole, you understand, but his other one, and
he smiled in a very kind way, and said:

“Come right along, children. I heard what you said, and you won’t annoy
me a bit. I like children.”

“Thank you,” said Mary politely. “But if you catch any fish we’ll go
right away and not bother you.”

“Oh, but I never catch any fish,” said the old man, with a jolly laugh.
“I’ve fished for years and years, right here, and never a fish have I
caught.”

“That’s funny,” said Johnny. “We live near here, and I don’t remember
ever seeing you before.”

“Ha! Perhaps that is because you never happened to look when I was
sitting here,” said the man. “But you say you live around here?”

“Yes--yes--I--er--I guess so,” said Mary slowly.

“Can’t you be sure?” asked the old fisherman.

“No, sir,” answered Tommy. “You see, it’s this way. We are the
Trippertrots, and we’re always getting lost. We start out somewhere,
as we did to-day on our funny horses, and we don’t seem to go very far
at all, but all of a sudden we’re lost. So we never know whether we’re
near home or not.”

“I guess it’s that way now,” said Mary. “I don’t seem to remember this
place at all,” and she looked all around. “It isn’t a bit like what I
thought it was, and we didn’t seem to come so very far; and anyhow, we
only started out from home a short while ago. But we’re lost, sure.”

“Never mind,” said Tommy. “Fido or Ivy Vine will show us the way home;
or, if they can’t, perhaps this gentleman will.”

“To be sure,” said the fisherman, pulling up his line and looking at
it, and then the children saw that instead of a regular sharp fish-hook
he had a big hammock-hook on the end of his line.

“That’s a funny hook,” said Johnny.

“Isn’t it?” agreed the old fisherman, with a jolly laugh. “But I like
it.”

“Maybe that’s why you never catch any fish,” said Tommy.

“I believe you’re right,” agreed the old man, with another jolly laugh.
“I never thought of it in that way before, but I believe that’s the
reason.”

“But if you don’t catch fish, what do you catch?” asked Mary, who was
very curious.

“Oh, lots and lots of things!” exclaimed the fisherman. “It would take
me a long time to tell you, for they are such funny things. The best
way for me to do would be to show you what I catch. Now look at me
carefully, and see what I pull up this time on my hammock-hook.”

So the old fisherman carefully lowered his hook and line into the
little lake. Then he leaned back in his chair, and the Trippertrots
stood around him. The old man closed his eyes.

“Ha! I have something!” he suddenly cried, and, quickly pulling up his
line, there, dangling on the hammock-hook, was a pair of rubber boots.

“That’s funny,” said Mary.

“Oh, that’s nothing at all,” said the old fisherman. “Just you wait and
see what happens next. I catch very funny things.”

So he put in his line again, just like Jack Horner put his thumb in
the pie. Then the old fisherman pulled it out again--pulled out the
line, you know, not Jack Horner’s thumb--and this time, dangling on the
hammock-hook, was a nice rubber coat, such as children wear to school
on rainy days.

“That’s strange,” said Tommy.

“Not at all,” said the old fisherman. “See what my next catch will be.”
And what do you suppose it was? Why, when he pulled up his line the
next time there was a big umbrella on the hook!

“There! What did I tell you?” exclaimed the fisherman.

And then, all of a sudden, before the Trippertrots could say
anything--all of a sudden, I say--it began to rain. How it did pour!
The drops splashed down all over, and made the grass quite wet.

“Oh! Whatever shall we do?” cried Mary.

“Quick!” cried the old fisherman. “Tommy, you put on the rubber boots
and the rubber coat, and Johnny, you take the umbrella, and hold it
over you and Mary. It’s big enough for two children. Lively now, and
then run as fast as you can.”

“Where shall we run?” asked Tommy, as he put on the rubber boots.

“Run anywhere,” answered the old fisherman. “Anywhere. It doesn’t
matter, as long as you get in out of the rain. Run! Run! I’ll run,
too!” And catching up his chair in one hand, and his fishpole in the
other, he ran as fast as he could after the children.

“Oh, I just know we’ll be lost again!” cried Mary sorrowfully.

“Never mind,” said Tommy. “This is jolly fun!”

“It certainly is,” agreed Johnny. “Maybe we’ll have another adventure.
Come on, Ivy Vine and Fido.”

So on they ran, the Trippertrots and the old fisherman and the dog and
cat; on and on through the rain, which kept coming down harder and
harder, until pretty soon they saw a little house in the woods.

“Who lives there?” asked Mary.

“The false-face man,” said the old fisherman. “Come on. We’ll go in
there out of the wet.”

So they started for the house of the false-face man, and they wondered
what would happen when they got there.




ADVENTURE NUMBER SIX

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FALSE-FACE MAN


“Oh, my! It’s raining harder than ever!” cried Mary Trippertrot, as she
and her brothers and the old fisherman ran along. “Can’t you please
hold that umbrella over me better than that, Johnny? I’m getting all
wet.”

“Never mind,” spoke the kind old fisherman, and he held the chair
upside down over his head, so his whiskers wouldn’t get full of water.
“Never mind. We’ll soon be in the false-face man’s house, and we can
get good and dry.”

“Do you think he is at home?” asked Tommy.

“Who? The false-face man?” inquired the old fisherman. “Of course he’s
at home. He’s never anywhere else. He never goes out, you know. Why,
who would make all the false-faces if he went away? He just can’t spare
the time, you see.”

“Oh, it must be dreadful to have to stay in the house all the while!”
said Mary. “I wouldn’t like it a bit.”

“Well,” said the fisherman, as he tried to run in between the big
rain-drops so he wouldn’t get hit by them, “there is one good thing
about staying home all the while--you never get lost.”

“That’s so,” agreed Tommy. “But we’d better hurry. My boots are full of
water, and my feet are wet.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed the fisherman. “I forgot about the
water in the boots. I wonder how it got in?”

“Why, you fished them up out of the lake,” said Johnny, “and I think
it must have gotten in over the tops that way. They were down under
water, you know.”

“To be sure,” said the old fisherman. “The next time I catch rubber
boots I’m going to have the tops covered over with shingles so the
water won’t get in. But I see the false-face man waving to us, and that
means he’s at home, and he wants us to hurry in. Run a little faster,
children.”

So the Trippertrots ran faster, and so did Ivy Vine, the cat, for she
didn’t like the wet very much; and neither did Fido, the dog; but they
didn’t say anything about it. And the old fisherman ran, also.

Mary and Tommy and Johnny looked toward the little house to see what
kind of a person the false-face man was. He was standing in the
doorway. And he was quite a jolly sort of a man, if you will kindly
take my word for it. He had on an apron all covered with spots of
paint, and his arms, on which the sleeves were rolled up almost to the
shoulders, had paint on them also. The children could see him quite
plainly now, for all of a sudden the sky cleared up, though the ground
was still very wet.

“Leave the umbrella, chair, coat and rubber boots here,” said the old
fisherman. “We won’t need them, as it has stopped raining.”

So they put them down in the grass and hurried on.

And oh, so many, many pretty colors as the children saw! There were
red spots on the false-face man, and green spots of paint, and pink
spots, and black spots, and yellow, and brown, and purple, and gold,
and silver, and even some chimney-colored spots. It was just as if a
rainbow had splattered over him.

“Why is he all spotted up that way?” asked Mary, as she and Johnny
splashed into a puddle and out again.

“Because he paints the false-faces,” said the old fisherman. “He
paints them all sorts of colors, and, of course, some of the paint
splashes on him. But bless you! he doesn’t mind it in the least; not in
the least, I do assure you.”

“Does he make _all_ the false-faces?” asked Tommy, as he stepped along.

“Everyone,” answered the old fisherman. “All those faces you see in the
store windows for Hallowe’en. Wait. I’ll have him tell you about it.”

So they ran on, and now they were right at the front door of the
house of the false-face man, and they could see that he was even more
jolly-looking than they had at first thought.

“Don’t you make all the false-faces?” the old fisherman asked him,
as he pointed to some of them hanging on the house. “Please tell the
children all about it.”

“To be sure I will,” said the false-face man, with a jolly laugh. “I
have just finished making a whole lot of false-faces for the children
all over this country, and for some out in a city called Orange; but
I think that must be a funny place. I wonder why they didn’t call it
Lemon?”

“Because, if you please,” said Mary, “I think it was because lemons are
sour.”

“Ha! I never thought of that!” exclaimed the false-face man. “No doubt
you are right. But come in. Don’t mind the paint. It won’t come off,
for it’s dry by this time.”

“I wish _we_ were dry,” said old fisherman, as he twisted his whiskers
around to squeeze the water out of them. “_We_ are very wet, even if
the paint isn’t.”

“Well, come in, and you may sit by the fire,” said the false-face man.
“I’m very glad to see you.”

“And will you really tell us about making the false-faces, if you
please?” asked Tommy politely.

“To be sure I will,” was the answer. “Do you mind if I sing it?” and
the false-face man looked at the children, and then at Ivy Vine, who
was trying to get her fur dry with her red tongue.

“No. I think they would like very much to hear you sing,” spoke the old
fisherman.

“Do you think the dog or cat would mind?” went on the false-face man.
“Some dogs don’t like music.”

“Oh, I don’t believe they would mind your singing,” said Tommy, and
the false-face man and the old fisherman began to laugh, though the
Trippertrots didn’t know why.

“Well, then, here goes for the song,” said the false-face man after
a while. “It’s not a very good one, as I made it up myself, but
it’s the best I can do. And I’ll sing it to the tune of Hum-dum-dum
diddle-iddle-um.”

Then he sang this song:

  “I am the false-est facer man
    That ever you have seen.
  I make false-faces colored red,
    And also colored green.
  I make an elephant’s false-face,
    And then I go and make
  A false-face for a mooley-cow
    Who’s eating jelly cake.

  “I’ll make false-faces for you all,
    If you will kindly wait;
  I’ll make one for the soup dish,
    And for the butter plate.
  And then we’ll have a party,
    The funniest ever seen,
  For we’ll all have false-faces
    To wear on Hallowe’en.”

“I think that is a very nice song,” said Mary, when the false-face man
had finished.

“Thank you,” replied the false-face man, making a low bow.

“Oh, goody!” cried Tommy. “When is Hallowe’en?”

“To-night,” answered the old fisherman.

“And will you really make false-faces for all of us?” inquired Johnny.

“To be sure I will,” said the false-face man, “and I’ll make one for
Ivy Vine, and for Fido the dog. Then we’ll have a party, just as I sung
about.”

“Oh, but I forgot!” exclaimed Mary. “We can’t stay to any Hallowe’en
party.”

“Why not?” asked Tommy.

“Because we’re lost,” said his sister. “We must try to find our way
back home, or mamma and papa will be alarmed about us.”

“That’s so,” said the two boys.

“Oh, don’t worry,” spoke the false-face man. “I think I can find your
home for you after a while, and it is early yet.”

That made the children feel better, and they thought they might stay
just a little while longer; anyway, until they got their false-faces.

“Now, what kind of faces do you want?” asked the man, who was all
covered with paint spots.

“I want an Indian’s!” exclaimed Tommy.

“You shall have it,” said the false-face man.

“And I want one like Little Jack Horner, who sat in the corner,” said
Johnny.

“You shall have it,” said the false-face man, with a jolly laugh, “and
you may sit in the corner of my shop here, and perhaps we can find a
Christmas pie so you can put in your thumb and pull out a plum.”

“Oh, that will be jolly!” exclaimed Tommy.

“And now what kind of a false-face do you want, Mary?” asked the old
fisherman.

“Oh, I think I would like one of Old Mother Hubbard who went to the
cupboard,” said the little Trippertrot girl.

“And you may have that,” promised the false-face man. “And I have a
cupboard, and you have the dog, so if we can find a bone the cupboard
won’t be bare.”

Then he gave the children their false-faces, and he found a bone for
Fido, who barked three times, to say thank you; and there was some milk
for Ivy Vine. Then the children put on their false-faces, and there was
one for Fido. He was dressed up like a monkey; and as for Ivy Vine, she
had a false-face like a wax doll, and she was very cute-looking.

And the false-face man didn’t need any false-face himself, as he was
all covered over with paint, anyhow. And whom do you suppose the old
fisherman dressed up like? Why, who else but Santa Claus, and he wore
his own whiskers. Then they had a party, and Johnny put his thumb in a
pie and pulled out a whole bag full of sugar plums. Oh, they were just
having the grandest time, when, all of a sudden, there came a knock on
the door!

“Ha! I wonder who that can be?” asked the false-face man.

“I’ll look,” said the old fisherman.

So he looked, and who should be there but the Trippertrots’ nursemaid,
Suzette.

“Oh, children!” exclaimed Suzette, when she saw them. “You must come
home at once! I have been looking everywhere for you! Your mamma is
much worried. Come home at once!”

“We didn’t mean to run away,” said Mary, “but the sawhorse and the
clothes-horse and the rocking-horse got going so fast that we couldn’t
stop them. So we got lost.”

[Illustration: _Old Mother Hubbard._]

“But we’re not lost now, any more!” exclaimed Tommy, as the nursemaid
walked into the house.

“And here is a little present for Suzette,” spoke the false-face man,
as he gave her a face that looked like a Chinese lady, with a pigtail
down her back.

And then, when the children had said good-by to their two friends,
the fisherman and the false-face man, they started home with Suzette,
taking Ivy Vine and Fido with them, and also their false-faces.

But they hadn’t been home very long before they ran away again, and
then they had another adventure.




ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE OLD LADY


One day Mrs. Trippertrot called to her three children.

“Now, children,” she said, “I am going out for a little while, and I
do hope you will not trot off anywhere this time. You don’t know how
worried I am when you run off, as you have done several times lately.”

“We’re sorry, mamma,” said Tommy.

“And we don’t ever really mean to trot off,” said Mary Trippertrot.

“It--it just seems to happen,” spoke Johnny Trippertrot. “Our legs run
off with us before we know it.”

“Well, try and not let them run off with you to-day,” said their mamma.
“I will leave Suzette in charge of you.”

“We’ll try to be good, mamma,” said Mary politely.

“But, oh! we did have such fun the other day when we rode off on the
funny horses!” exclaimed Tommy.

“Yes, when we met the false-face man and the old fisherman,” added
Johnny.

“Oh, I know what let’s do!” cried Mary. “We’ll get out our false-faces
and play it’s Hallowe’en again.”

“That will be nice, I think,” said their mamma, “and it ought to keep
you in the house. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

So off she went, downtown shopping, I guess, and the children got out
their funny false-faces, and played some games. They were having a
good time, when, all at once, they heard some one out in the street
crying.

“I wonder who that is?” said Johnny.

“Let’s go look,” suggested Tommy.

“No, you had better not,” said Suzette the maid. “For it might be a
funny monkey, and then you would want to go off after it, and you would
be lost again. You had better stay here and play at having a surprise
party.”

Well, the children didn’t want to do that, but they knew they must
mind Suzette, for she was in charge of them. But just then something
happened. The delivery wagon came from the big downtown store, and
Suzette had to go down to the side door to take in some things for the
children’s mamma. Then Mary and Tommy and Johnny heard the crying noise
out in the street again, and Mary said:

“I don’t believe it would do any harm to take just one peep, to see who
is crying.”

“Me, either,” spoke Tommy.

“Then let’s do it,” said Johnny, and they did. They went to the front
window and looked out. And this is what the children saw:

There was a tiny little girl walking along, and she had fallen down,
and her knee had been cut on a sharp stone, and that’s why she was
crying.

“Oh, see the poor thing!” cried Mary.

“We ought to help her,” said Johnny.

“Then let’s do it,” suggested Tommy. “Suzette or mamma wouldn’t care
if we helped somebody in trouble. Mamma would want us to, I’m sure.
Besides, mamma isn’t here now, and neither is Suzette.” For you see,
the nursemaid was still talking to the delivery boy. He had forgotten
to bring a spool of thread that Mrs. Trippertrot needed, and Suzette
was asking about it.

“We’ll go down to the little girl,” said Mary. “We can’t get lost in
front of our own house.”

So down they went, and I just want you to listen, and see what happened
after that. It just goes to show that you never, never can tell what is
going to happen in this world.

“What is the matter, little girl?” asked Mary, after she had wiped the
child’s tears away with her handkerchief.

“Oh! Boo-hoo! I’m lost!” cried the little girl. “I went to the store
for a stick of candy, but I came back the wrong way, and I’m lost.”

“Where is the stick of candy?” asked Tommy.

“I ate it all up,” said the little lost girl. “Look! You can’t see it.”
And she opened her mouth so the Trippertrots could see away down her
throat, and believe me, there wasn’t a bit of candy to be seen!

“Yes, it’s all gone,” said Johnny sorrowfully, when he got through
looking.

“Say, do you know what I think we ought to do?” spoke Tommy suddenly.

“What?” asked Mary and Johnny.

“We ought to take this little lost girl home. We’d want some one to
take us home if we were lost, and I don’t believe mamma or Suzette
would mind.”

“I don’t, either,” said Mary.

“Then let’s do it,” said Tommy. “Do you know which street you live on?”
he asked of the little girl.

“Oh, yes. It’s a street with trees on it,” said the child, and now she
stopped crying. “Please take me to it.”

“There are lots of streets with trees on,” said Tommy, “but we’ll try
to find the right one for you. Come on.”

And so that’s how the Trippertrots started tripping and trotting off
again, and at the beginning they didn’t really mean to do so at all.
But you see how some very funny things happen sometimes.

Along they walked, all four children together, hand in hand, looking
for the house where the little lost girl lived. Ivy Vine, the cat,
didn’t come along this time, nor did Fido, the dog. For Ivy Vine was
washing her face with her red tongue, and Fido was gnawing a bone.

“What is your name, little girl?” asked Mary, when they had gone a
short distance down the street.

“My name is Jack,” she answered.

“Why, that is not a girl’s name, it’s a boy’s!” said Tommy in surprise.

“I know it,” said the little lost girl, “and I _want_ to be a boy, so I
choosed a boy’s name. My mamma lets me, and when I grow up I’m going to
ride a horse and play football.”

The Trippertrot children laughed at that, and they thought the little
girl who wanted to be a boy was very nice. But still they couldn’t seem
to find her home. They looked all over for her house, and every time
they came to a street with trees on it they asked her if it was there
she lived, but she said:

“No, none of these houses are my papa’s house. I guess we’ll have to go
on a little farther.”

So they went on a little farther, but still they couldn’t seem to find
the place, and the little girl said:

“Oh, dear! I guess I’m lost still, aren’t I?” And she took a tighter
hold of Mary Trippertrot’s hand.

“I guess you are,” answered Mary.

“And I guess _we_ are, too,” said Tommy.

“Well, that’s just what I was afraid would happen,” said Johnny. “Here
we are lost again, and we promised mamma we wouldn’t go out of the
house.”

“Oh, but we really didn’t _mean_ to,” said Mary; “and besides, she’ll
forgive us when she knows we tried to do a kindness.”

“Yes, I guess so,” said Tommy, “but what are we going to do? I don’t
know which way to go.”

Neither did any of the others, and Mary was just looking around, hoping
she could find a nice policeman, when, all at once, the door of a
house, in front of which they were standing, opened, and a kind little
old lady looked out.

“Oh, you poor, dear, little lost children!” she exclaimed. “Come right
in here, and let me love you.”

“How did you know we were lost?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, I was once a little girl myself,” said the nice little old lady,
and, though her hair was white, her eyes were as bright as the snapping
fire on a cold night. “So I know when children are lost,” she added.

So the little lost girl and the Trippertrots, who were also lost now,
went into the house of the little old lady. She brought out some nice
low chairs for them to sit on, and she gave them some picture books
to look at, and then what do you think she did? Why, she went out and
got them some bowls of milk from a mooley-cow--the milk was from the
cow, you know, not the bowls--and she brought some bread; and say! I
just wish I had some of that bread and milk myself! Oh, it was very
good! But I can’t have any, because the Trippertrots and the lost girl
finished it all up, down to the last drop, and they ate some sugar
cookies, too.

“My, I’m sure I don’t know what to do with you children,” said the
little old lady, shaking her white head at them, after they had
finished eating. “I wish I knew where your home was.”

“Send for a policeman,” said Mary.

“What! A policeman? Why, you’re not bad, are you?” cried the little old
lady.

“Oh, no! But policemans most always know where we live,” said Johnny.
“We’re the Trippertrots, and we’re always getting lost.”

“Yes, send for a policeman,” said Tommy.

“I believe I will,” spoke the little old lady. “I’ll go for one myself;
but I’ll have to leave you here all alone, as no one lives with me. But
I know you’ll be all right, and you can look at the pictures and listen
to the cat purring.”

And sure enough, there was a big gray cat sleeping on the rug in the
middle of the floor, and it was purring just like a sewing machine
because it was so happy. The cat was happy, not the sewing machine, you
know. And the cat purred, not the rug, you see.

Then the little old lady put on her bonnet and shawl, and went out for
a policeman who might find the homes of the lost Trippertrots and the
lost girl.

“I like it here very much,” said Mary, as she rubbed the cat’s back.

“So do I,” said the little lost girl. “It is almost as nice as my home.”

Tommy and Johnny liked it, too, and they were just looking at some
picture books, and wishing they had more bread and milk, when, all at
once, there came a knock at the door.

“I guess that is the policeman, come to take us home,” said Mary, with
a happy laugh.

“Maybe it’s my papa,” suggested the little lost girl named Jack. And
then the door opened, and there stood a funny little man, making low
bows to the children, and saying:

“Oh, I’m so glad I found you. Come with me.”




ADVENTURE NUMBER EIGHT

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE OLD MAN


For a few seconds after he had opened the door and spoken to the
Trippertrot children, the queer little old man didn’t say anything
more. He just stood there, bowing all the while, just like the pendulum
of the clock, only he went up and down, and the pendulum in the clock
goes sideways, you see.

“Well, are you coming along, children?” said the nice little old man,
after a while, and he stopped bowing.

“Do you think we ought to go?” asked Mary of her two brothers.

“Well,” began Tommy, “the little old lady has gone for a policeman to
take us home, and maybe we ought to wait until she comes back.”

“Oh, I think I can take you home as well as a policeman could,” said
the little old man, and he came into the room, and tickled the pussy
cat under the chin, and made the cat purr louder than ever.

“Do you know where we live?” asked Mary.

“No, but I can find out,” said the little old man. “I will look in the
telephone book, or in the directory book, or something, and find your
house for you. And if I can’t find _your_ house I will take you to
_mine_, and you can have some fun.”

“That will be nice,” said Johnny.

“How did you know we were here?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, I saw you come in,” replied the little old man. “I was out in the
street, and I saw you. Then I saw the little old lady go away----”

“Yes, she went for a policeman for us,” said Tommy.

“Well, I was afraid she was going to run away and leave you all alone,”
said the little old man, “and as I like children very much I thought
I’d come and take care of you. So here I am, and if you come with me
before the policeman gets here we’ll have a little fun with him. Maybe
he’ll think you have flown up the chimney, as Santa Claus does.”

“Oh, fine!” cried Tommy.

And just then, all of a sudden, the little lost girl began to cry.

“Why, whatever in the world is the matter?” asked the little old man.

“Boo-hoo! I--I thought you were my papa,” said the little lost girl,
and she let some salty tears fall down on the cat’s back. “I thought
you were my papa, and you aren’t at all.”

Then she cried a lot more, boo-hoo! and boo-hoo!--like that, you
know--and the little old man went up to her, and he put his arms around
her, and he wiped away her tears, and he said:

“Now--now--never mind. It’s all right. I’m going to take you to your
papa right away. Don’t cry.” And his voice was so gentle, and he seemed
such a nice man, that the little lost girl didn’t cry a single tear
more. And it’s a good thing, because the pussy cat was getting all wet
from them, and cats don’t like water, you know, especially salty tear
water.

“Come on, now; hurry up,” cried the little old man. “We must hurry
away from here, or the little old lady will be back with the policeman
before we know it. Come along.”

“But we can’t go without thanking her for being so kind to us,” said
Mary.

“That’s so,” said the little man. “Wait. I’ll write her a nice
letter.” So he did that, and told the little old lady how thankful the
Trippertrots and the little lost girl were for what she had done for
them, and he put the letter down in front of the pussy cat, where the
little old lady would see it when she got back. And the pussy put its
paw down on the letter, so it wouldn’t blow away, and then it went to
sleep--I mean the cat went to sleep, not the letter, you understand, of
course.

“Now we are all ready,” said the little old man, and then he went out
of the front door, and led the children down the street.

A little while after that, when the little old man and the children had
turned around a corner, along came the little old lady and the kind
policeman. They went into the house, and the lady looked all around for
the children.

“Why, my goodness sakes alive!” she cried. “They’re gone!”

“Gone, eh?” asked the policeman. “What were their names?”

“The Trippertrots,” said the little old lady.

“Oh, ho!” laughed the policeman. “Then you don’t need to worry. They
are sure to be all right. They are always getting lost, but they will
get safely home again. Don’t worry.”

So the little old lady didn’t worry very much, and the policeman went
away, and then the lady found the thankful letter where the cat was
sleeping on it.

“Oh, if the little old man has the children they are all right,” said
the little old lady, and then she gave the cat some milk.

But now I must tell you what happened to the Trippertrots and the
little lost girl. They walked along the street with the nice, kind old
man until pretty soon they came to a place like a park, with beautiful
trees in it, and little brooks flowing over stones, and in the brooks
were goldfishes and some silver-fishes, too, and they were wiggling
their tails, and swimming about, looking for something to eat.

“Oh, what a lovely place!” cried Mary.

“Yes. What is it?” asked Johnny.

“I’d like to go in there,” spoke Tommy.

“You may,” said the little old man. “This is a garden, and a playground
for boys and girls. You may do just as you like, as long as you are
kind and good and pleasant. And I know you will be that way. So come on
in, and have some fun; and when you are through playing I’ll find where
you live, and take you home.”

“And me, too?” asked the little lost girl named Jack.

“Yes; you also,” answered the little old man.

So the children went into the beautiful garden. Oh! I wish you could
have seen it! And perhaps some day I will be allowed to come around and
take you all there in a fairy automobile with big fat rubber tires. But
not just yet.

Now, in this garden were many swings and hammocks, and shady trees
under which to rest, and there were little hills all covered with
grass, down which the children could roll over and over, and never get
hurt, any more than if they rolled on a feather bed.

And there were also piles of sand in big boxes, and there the
Trippertrots and the little lost girl had lots of fun. They made sand
gardens and sand houses and castles, wherein lived beautiful knights
and princes and their ladies, and then there was a place where a whole
lot of soldiers could parade and shoot off their make-believe guns.

And the flower gardens! Oh, I wish you could have seen them. Even
though it was almost winter, the flowers were in blossom, for the
little old man knew how to make them bloom in cold weather. And the
children were allowed to pick as many flowers as they wanted, only they
thought they looked prettier on their stems, so they didn’t take many.

Well, the Trippertrots were playing away, and having lots of fun. Tommy
was in the swing, and Johnny pushed him up so high that Tommy nearly
hit the top of a tree. And then something happened. Mary was building a
nice sand house for a dollie to live in, when the house fell down and
covered her legs all up. Covered Mary’s legs, I mean, not the doll’s.
Mary couldn’t see her legs, and she thought they might have dropped off.

“Oh, dear!” she cried.

“What is the matter?” called Tommy.

“My poor little legs!” said Mary, trying to pull them out from under
the sand.

“Oh, they’re all right,” spoke Johnny, and then he took a piece of
board and he dug the sand off Mary’s legs, and she was all right again,
and she made a big sand bridge for boats to go under.

Soon out from his house in the beautiful garden came running the funny
little man. He was waving his arms all around his head, like a windmill
in a storm.

“Oh, I have found where you live! I have found where you live!” he
cried, in his jolly voice.

“Where who lives, us or that little girl named Jack?” asked Tommy.

“I know where Jack lives,” said the little old man. “I called up on the
telephone and found out. Her papa is coming for her in a minute.”

“Oh, goodie!” cried the little girl, jumping up and down.

[Illustration: _The Trippertrots Were Playing Away, and Having Lots of
Fun._]

“But what about us?” asked Mary Trippertrot.

“I’ll find where you live very soon,” said the little old man. And just
then the little lost girl’s papa came for her, and took her home, after
he had thanked the Trippertrots and the little old man for being so
kind to her.

And then, all of a sudden, when the little old man was calling up on
the telephone, trying to find where the Trippertrots lived--all of a
sudden, I say--along came Suzette, the nursemaid, looking for them.

“Oh, you children!” she cried, when she saw them in the garden. “I
thought I would never find you. Come home at once. Why did you run
away?”

“We went to help a little lost girl, and we got lost ourselves,” said
Mary; “but we didn’t mean to, did we, boys?”

“No,” answered Tommy and Johnny together. Then Suzette thanked the
little old man, and she took the children home, and oh! how glad their
mamma was to see them! And they said they would never trot away again.
But you just wait and see what happens.




ADVENTURE NUMBER NINE

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FIREMAN


A few days after the Trippertrot children got home, following their
adventure with the little old man, their mamma said to them:

“Now, children, I am going over to see your Aunt Mary Jane, and I want
you to stay in the house until I get back. It is rather chilly out of
doors, and it looks as if it might rain. So stay in, play with your
toys, or look at your picture books, but don’t go out.”

“Can’t we go out at all, mamma?” asked Mary Trippertrot, as she looked
in a glass to see if her hair ribbon was on straight.

“No,” said her mother, as she looked in the glass to see if her hat was
on straight.

“Not even if the house should tumble down on us?” asked Tommy
Trippertrot.

“Well, if something most extraordinary like that happens, you _may_ run
out,” said Mrs. Trippertrot, trying not to laugh.

“Of course,” spoke Johnny, “we wouldn’t want to be all squashed up,
like pancakes.”

“Oh, I just love pancakes--the kind you eat, I mean!” exclaimed Mary.
“May we have some, mamma?”

“Perhaps. I’ll see about it when I get back. Now good-by,” she said to
them, “and be good children, and don’t go out unless you really have
to.”

[Illustration: HE BEGAN TO PLAY A JOLLY LITTLE TUNE]

So they promised, and they all crowded to the window of the big front
room to wave their hands to their mamma as she went down the steps.

Then they began to play with their toys, and to look at picture books,
until pretty soon Mary said:

“Oh, dear! This isn’t any fun!”

“No, indeed,” agreed Tommy.

“I--I almost wish we could run away again, and get lost,” said Johnny
boldly.

“Oh-o-o-o-o-o!” exclaimed Mary. “You wouldn’t really go tripping and
trotting off again, would you?”

“I would, if something happened,” said Johnny, and he tried to make
all of his toy soldiers stand up in a line, but they fell over and
bumped their noses on the carpet, and one soldier lost his sword. Then
the children played circus for a while, and Tommy was a make-believe
elephant, who lived in a cave under the big chair, until all at once
Mary said:

“I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to ask Suzette to build a nice
fire in the open grate. Then we can sit and watch the flames go up the
chimney, and we can make-believe we see pictures in them.”

“Oh, that will be fine!” cried Tommy and Johnny.

So Suzette came in, and built a fine, big fire on the large open brick
hearth. And dear me! how the flames did roar up the chimney! for
Suzette put on a great deal of wood. It burned and it blazed, and then,
all of a sudden, the front doorbell rang.

“There’s mamma come back!” cried Mary, as she ran to open the door.
Tommy and Johnny followed her, but instead of Mrs. Trippertrot being
there, it was a fireman, in his nice blue uniform, with silver buttons
on the coat, and he was wiping his feet on the mat.

“Quick!” he cried, for firemen always have to be quick, you know.
“Quick! Let me in! The chimney is on fire, and I must put it out!”

“Put out which, the fire or the chimney?” asked Tommy, who was often a
funny sort of a little fellow.

“Put the fire out, of course,” cried the fireman. “Ha! I thought so!”
he exclaimed, when he had rushed into the front room and had seen the
big blaze in the fireplace. “There is too much wood on there. Quick,
get me a lot of salt!”

So Mary ran to the kitchen to get the salt, for Suzette had gone
upstairs, to make the beds, I guess, and the nursemaid didn’t even
know the fireman was in the house. Back Mary came running with a whole
bowlful of salt.

“Oh, please, Mr. Fireman,” said Tommy, “before you put out the fire,
mayn’t we just run out on the sidewalk and see it spouting up out of
the chimney top? Mayn’t we, please? We’ve never seen a chimney on fire.”

“Mamma said we weren’t to go out,” spoke Mary.

“But this is a most extra-extra-extraordinary occasion,” said Tommy.
“It isn’t exactly like the house falling down, but if the fire in the
chimney burns long enough it may fall down, mightn’t it, Mr. Fireman?”

“Oh, yes,” he answered, and he got ready to throw salt on the fire, for
that puts out a blaze in the chimney, you know. Yes, really it does.
I’m not fooling a bit, honestly.

“Oh, may we go out?” asked Mary this time, and the fireman said they
might, and that he’d wait a minute before he threw the salt on the
flames. So out the Trippertrots ran, and sure enough, there was a lot
of fire coming out of the top of their chimney. You see, the soot--that
is, the black stuff inside--had caught fire from the big blaze Suzette
had made on the hearth.

Then, all of a sudden, as the children stood on the sidewalk, the fire
went out, for the fireman threw on the salt.

“Now we must run in,” said Mary. “It’s chilly here, and the fire’s out,
anyhow, so there’s nothing more to see. Come on, boys.”

In the children ran, and the fireman was getting ready to go out, for
he had finished his work. He said he happened to be passing along the
street, when he saw the chimney on fire, and then he hurried in.

“But now the fire is out, and so I am going out, too,” said the
fireman; and out he went, as quickly as you can stub your toe on a
stone in the road.

“Now there isn’t any nice warm blaze on the hearth,” said Mary, after a
while. “What shall we play now? We can’t look at pictures in the fire.”

“Oh, I just thought of something!” cried Tommy.

“What?” asked Johnny.

“We forgot to thank that fireman,” went on Tommy, “and that’s very
impolite. He did us a great favor in putting out the chimney fire, and
now I’m going to run after him and thank him.”

“So am I,” said Johnny.

“Oh, but mamma wouldn’t like us to go out; you know she wouldn’t,” said
Mary quickly.

“She wouldn’t like us not to thank the fireman, either,” spoke Johnny.
“I guess this is one of those most extra-extra-extraordinary occasions
she spoke of, like the house falling down, so I’m going.”

Then he put on his hat and coat, and Tommy did the same.

“Well, if you two are going, I’m not going to stay here alone,” said
Mary. “I’ll come also.”

Well, Suzette wasn’t there to stop them, and in another minute away
the Trippertrot children were tripping and trotting again. They just
couldn’t seem to stay home, could they?

They looked up the street, but they couldn’t see the kind fireman. Then
they looked down the street, but they couldn’t see him there, either.

“I know what we’ll do,” said Tommy. “We’ll walk along until we come to
the fire-house where he lives, and then we’ll thank him.”

So, hand in hand, they went down the street, looking for the
fire-house. Pretty soon they met a man.

“Can you please tell us where to find the fireman?” asked Tommy
politely.

“Why, is your house on fire?” asked the man quickly.

“No, but the chimney was, and the kind fireman put it out, but we
forgot to thank him, and now we’re looking for him,” said Mary.

“Oh, well, the fire-house is just around the corner, and down the
street a little way,” said the man. “But don’t get lost,” and he smiled
at them.

“I guess he knows we’re the Trippertrots,” spoke Johnny. “But we won’t
get lost this time.”

Pretty soon they were at the fire-house where the firemen live, and
where they keep the fire-engine and the horses. There were some firemen
in front of the place, so Tommy went up to them and said:

“If you please, we want to thank the kind fireman who put out the blaze
in our chimney, because we forgot it when he was at our house. But I
don’t see him here,” the little Trippertrot boy went on, as he looked
among all the firemen, and couldn’t pick out the special one he wanted.

“Oh, yes,” said the captain of the firemen, “that was George. He
telephoned to me that he had put out a chimney fire on his way home to
dinner. You see, he hasn’t yet come back,” the captain said to the
children, “but if you would like to stay here a while he will soon
come, and you can thank him.”

“Shall we stay?” asked Mary of her brothers.

“Yes,” said Johnny and Tommy quickly, but they didn’t look at Mary, for
they were looking through the doorway at the shining fire-engine and
the big brass bell on the wall.

“But maybe we’ll get lost, and mamma wouldn’t like us to stay here,”
went on Mary.

“Oh, we can’t get lost in a fire-house,” said Tommy, and he wished the
horses would run out, so he could see them.

“Besides, I guess the firemen know where our house is,” said Johnny.
“You do, don’t you?” he asked of the captain. “It’s a house with a red
chimney on it.”

“I guess I can find it,” answered the captain, with a laugh, and all
the men laughed, too. Then the children went inside the fire-house, and
all of a sudden a big bell began to ring.

Ding! Dong! Cling! Clang!

Those firemen rushed about like anything, and the captain grabbed
up the children and set them on a table, and the horses ran out and
hitched themselves to the shining engine. Then men and horses ran out
with the engine, and there the Trippertrots were--left all alone in the
fire-house.




ADVENTURE NUMBER TEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE FUNNY BOY


“Why, where in the world do you s’pose all the horses and the men went
to?” asked Mary Trippertrot, as she looked at her two brothers, who,
like herself, were on top of the table where the fireman captain had
set them. “Where did they go in such a hurry?”

“To a fire, of course,” answered Tommy. “Whenever the bell rings there
is a fire, and the horses and the men have to take the engine to it.”

“Does the engine want to see the fire?” asked Johnny.

“No. It wants to squirt water on it and put it out,” replied his
brother.

“Do the firemen have to go to a fire even at night?” asked Mary.

“Of course,” replied Tommy.

“Then I should think they’d take out the bell after supper, or fix
it so it couldn’t ring, and make them go to fires,” went on Mary. “I
shouldn’t like to go out in the dark. Why, some nights it rains or
snows!”

“Oh, ho! That doesn’t make any difference to a fireman,” said Tommy.
“Firemans is always brave; aren’t they, Johnny?”

“Of course,” replied Johnny. “And some one makes the bell ring in the
fire-house, so they will know where the fire is, and go to put it out,
same as the one put out the fire in our chimney.”

“That’s so,” spoke Mary. “I wonder when he is coming back? He missed
going to this fire.”

“Oh, he’ll be along pretty soon,” said Tommy. “We’ll just wait here.
The bell may ring some more, and besides, I haven’t seen half the
things. I guess we can get down off the table now.”

“But do you think we ought to stay?” asked Mary, who wasn’t exactly
sure that they were doing right.

“Of course we must stay,” said Johnny. “Why, we haven’t thanked the
fireman yet for doing us that favor, and mamma wouldn’t want us to come
home until we had done it.”

“That’s right,” added Tommy. “Why, don’t you remember once Mrs. Smith
gave me a piece of cake, and I forgot to thank her, and came home, and
mamma sent me back to tell Mrs. Smith I was much obliged? And I’m real
glad I went back, for she gave me a second piece of cake. Oh, yes, we
must always be polite in this world.”

“Yes; and now let’s look at all the shiny things,” suggested Johnny.

So he and his brother and sister went all around inside the fire-engine
house. Pretty soon the fireman came in who had put out the chimney fire
in the Trippertrot home.

“Why, bless me!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Everybody has gone to
another fire, and I must go, too!” And he was about to run out on the
street again, to find where the fire was, when Mary said:

“Oh, but if you please, couldn’t you first wait until we thank you, and
then can’t you take us home? For I’m afraid we’ll get lost if we go by
ourselves. We’re always getting lost, you know. But we forgot to thank
you, so we came here to do it.”

“Bless me! That was kind of you,” said the fireman. “But I really
haven’t time to stay, for I must go and help the captain and the men
put out this other fire. I really can’t stay.” And once more he was
about to run off.

“Quick! Thank him, Johnny and Tommy!”

“We thank you!” said Tommy and Johnny together, making two low bows.

“And so do I thank you for not letting our chimney burn up,” said Mary,
making her nicest bow.

“Well, you’re welcome, I’m sure,” replied the fireman. “But really,
now, I must hurry away.”

“Oh, I just know we’ll be lost!” cried Mary.

“Hold on! Wait a minute!” exclaimed the fireman. “I have an idea.
Here!” he called to a funny-looking boy who just then came into the
fire-house. “Jiggily, will you please take these children home, so
they won’t get lost? I put out a chimney fire in their house to-day,
and they came here to thank me. You take them home. You know where the
Trippertrot house is, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said the funny boy. “I can take them home, all right, and
I’ll be glad to do it.”

“Then I can go to this other fire,” said the fireman, and away he ran,
like Tom-Tom the piper’s son, waving his hand to the children as he
hurried along the street.

“Come on, little ones!” called the funny boy. “I’ll see you safely
home.”

“Is your name Jiggily?” asked Mary, and she didn’t quite know whether
she liked the funny boy or not, for he was very funny-looking.

He had on a funny suit, partly green and partly yellow, and his nose
was stubby and short and turned up at the end, as if it was always
trying to fly up to the stars; but the boy looked kind, and he was
always laughing or smiling.

“Yes, my name is Jiggily,” he said to Mary, as they all walked out of
the fire-engine house.

“Haven’t you any other name?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, yes, of course,” answered the funny boy. “My other name is Jig; so
you see my whole name is Jiggily Jig.”

“How did you get that name?” inquired Johnny.

“Why, they call me that because I can dance a jig,” said the funny boy.
“Would you like to see me?”

“Indeed we would,” spoke all the Trippertrot children together, and
then and there that funny boy did a funny little dance in front of the
fire-engine house. And a little black poodle dog that was running past
in the street saw him, and would you ever believe it, if I didn’t tell
you? but that dog tried to dance just as Jiggily Jig was doing.

But, bless you, all of a sudden the doggie slipped on a piece of banana
skin, and he almost fell down. He would have, too, only Jiggily Jig
caught him by the tail and stood him on his feet again--on the dog’s
feet, you understand, not those of Jiggily Jig--which shows you that
you must never, never throw banana skins on the sidewalk, as they are
very slippery.

“Oh, that was a very nice dance,” said Mary, who went to dancing school
sometimes.

“Can you do anything else?” asked Tommy, and he wished the funny boy
would come and live with them.

“Yes, I can whistle on my fingers,” said Jiggily Jig. So he put his
fingers in between his lips, just as if he was going to eat a piece of
pie, only, of course, he didn’t really have any pie, or cake, either,
and then the funny boy whistled as loudly as an automobile horn can
toot.

“Oh, my!” cried Mary, and she had to put her hands over her ears,
because Jiggily Jig whistled so loudly.

“My, that was fine!” cried Johnny and Tommy, who wished they could
whistle that way.

“Can you do anything else?” asked Johnny.

“Yes. I can stand on my head and wiggle my feet in the air,” answered
Jiggily Jig; and before anybody could stop him, even if they had wanted
to, which, of course, they didn’t, that funny boy was standing on his
head in front of the engine-house, and he was waving his feet in the
air, as easily as a baby can wiggle its pink toes.

“Oh, that’s great!” cried Tommy and Johnny together.

“Yes; I’m going to try it,” said Johnny.

“No! You mustn’t!” exclaimed his sister. “You might slip, and get
dirty.”

“Yes, and you might slip and also get hurt,” said Jiggily Jig. “The
best place to try that trick, until you learn how, is safely at home,
in the middle of the bed. Then, if you fall, you won’t get hurt.”

“I’m going to do it as soon as I get home,” said Johnny.

“Do you know any more tricks?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, my gracious goodness me sakes alive!” cried Mary, shaking her
finger at her brothers and the funny boy. “Please don’t show them any
more tricks, or we’ll never get home to-day. Can’t you take us home
now, Jiggily Jig?”

“Oh, yes,” answered the funny boy. “I forgot where we were going. Come
along, little ones.”

So along the street they went, the Trippertrots and Jiggily Jig. But
they couldn’t go very fast, because every once in a while Jiggily Jig
would have to stop and dance, and, of course, he couldn’t walk then.
And sometimes he would whistle on his fingers, and all the dogs in all
the streets for half a mile around would think he was whistling at
them, and they’d come running up, wagging their tails; and, of course,
when there were a whole lot of dogs around them the children couldn’t
walk at all.

[Illustration: _Jiggily Jig Would Stand on His Head._]

And then, again, Jiggily Jig would stand on his head, and that would
make a crowd of people come around; and then, too, the Trippertrots
couldn’t walk on through the crowd.

“Oh, we’ll never get home, at this rate!” said Mary, and she felt a
little bit like crying, for she thought her mamma would be in the house
by this time, and would worry because her little children weren’t home.

“Yes, we will soon be there,” said Jiggily Jig, as he looked around
to see if he could locate the Trippertrot house. But he couldn’t yet
discover where it was.

“I think it must be around the next corner,” said the funny boy at
last. “Come on. We will soon be there.”

Well, they turned the corner, but still the Trippertrot home wasn’t
in sight, and even Tommy and Johnny were beginning to be worried now,
when, all of a sudden, they saw coming toward them a man pushing a
little wagon on two wheels, and on the wagon were a lot of pies; and
behind the man was another queer-looking boy, almost like Jiggily Jig.

“Oh! Who is that?” cried Mary.

“Why, the man pushing the wagon is a pieman,” said Jiggily Jig.

“And who is the boy?” asked Johnny.

“Why, that is Simple Simon,” answered Jiggily Jig. “You know he used
to be in Mother Goose’s book. ‘Simple Simon met a pieman going to the
fair. Said Simple Simon to the pieman, let me taste your ware.’ That’s
who the boy is.”

“Oh, how glad I am to meet them!” cried Mary.

“And is the pieman going to a fair or circus?” asked Johnny.

“No, he is just coming back, because the circus is over!” exclaimed
Simple Simon. “But he’s got lots of pies left. Hey, Jiggily Jig!”
called Simple Simon to the funny boy. “Let’s see who can turn the most
somersaults.”

And then those two funny boys began turning somersaults down the
street, going over and over, faster and faster, and getting farther and
farther away from the Trippertrots.

“Oh, he’s gone--Jiggily Jig is gone, and we’ll never get home!” cried
Mary.

“Never mind,” said the kind pieman, “I think I can take you home. Come
with me.”




ADVENTURE NUMBER ELEVEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE PIEMAN


The Trippertrot children stood on the sidewalk, looking after Jiggily
Jig, the funny boy, and Simple Simon, turning somersaults. Then the
Trippertrot children looked at the pieman.

“Whatever shall we do?” asked Mary. “Oh, I wish we had never left the
house when mamma told us not to! What shall we do?”

“Go with the pieman, of course,” answered Johnny.

“Yes, and maybe he’ll give us each a pie, and mamma or Suzette could
pay him when he gets to our house. I’m very hungry,” spoke Tommy.

“So am I,” said Johnny.

“And I guess I am also,” added Mary.

“Why, bless your hearts!” exclaimed the kind pieman. “Hungry, eh? That
will never do! I can’t bear to see hungry children. Step right up to
the pie wagon, and help yourselves. I have apple pie, peach pie, lemon
pie, cocoanut pie, orange pie, cranberry pie, and even sawdust pie, but
I wouldn’t like to give you any of that last. Sawdust pie is very hard
to eat.”

“Who does eat sawdust pie?” asked Mary, wondering what it looked like.

“Oh, sawdust pie is for sawdust dolls,” said the pieman. “I make it
especially for them. That’s really the only thing they can eat. But
what kind would you children like--lemon, peach, custard----”

“Oh, I just love custard pie!” interrupted Johnny, smacking his lips.

“So do I!” cried Tommy.

“And mamma says it’s very good for us,” added Mary.

“Only--only,” spoke Tommy slowly, “we haven’t any money to pay you with
just now, Mr. Pieman.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter in the least,” spoke the kind pieman, winking
both his eyes, one after the other.

“But when Simple Simon wanted to taste of your pies you made him show
you first his penny,” said Johnny.

“And he didn’t have any,” added Mary.

“Oh, but _that_ was Simple Simon,” said the pieman, with a laugh. “He’s
different, Simon is. Why, he’d eat every pie on my wagon if I didn’t
make him show me his penny every now and then. And sometimes he loses
it, and then he can’t have any pie for a week. But I don’t want any
money from you Trippertrot children.”

“What kind of pie does Simple Simon like best?” asked Tommy, as he
went close up to the pie wagon, and saw that there were several large
custard pies on it.

“Oh, he’ll eat almost any kind,” replied the pieman, “but most
especially he likes a Christmas pie, the kind I always make for little
Jack Horner, who sits in a corner. Yes, Simon is very fond of Christmas
pies, with sugar plums in them.”

“Do you make pies for Jack Horner?” asked Johnny.

“To be sure,” answered the pieman, “else he wouldn’t have any to stick
his thumb in. But come, now, choose your custard pie, and after you eat
it we’ll travel on and see if you can find your home.”

“Why, don’t you know where it is?” asked Mary.

“No,” answered the pieman. “I thought you did.”

“Oh, there we go again!” cried Tommy. “We’re lost once more! Jiggily
Jig knew where our house was, but he’s gone off!”

“Yes, he’s gone off, sure enough,” agreed the pieman, and he looked
down the street, but he couldn’t see either Jiggily Jig or Simple Simon.

“I thought perhaps Jiggily Jig would have told you where our house was
before he began turning those somersaults,” said Mary.

“Bless you, no, he didn’t,” answered the pieman. “But you never can
depend on Jiggily Jig. He’s too fond of doing funny tricks. But don’t
worry. I dare say I can manage to find your house. So come along, eat
your pie, and be happy.”

Then he cut a nice, fresh custard pie for them, and gave them each a
piece. Oh, it was most delicious! Which means very nice, you know. Yes,
that pie was certainly good, and I wish I could give you all some, if
you were allowed to eat it, but I’m not--I mean I’m not allowed to give
you any, because there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

“Well, now, if you’re all ready, we’ll start off,” said the kind
pieman, when the Trippertrot children had finished eating. “We will go
up one street and down another, and perhaps after a while we may come
to your home.”

“I’m afraid we won’t,” answered Mary. “We always do seem to have such
bad luck in losing our home. I’m sure we never mean to run off, but
something always seems to happen.”

“This time it was a fire,” said Johnny.

“And the other time it was a little lost girl, crying in the street,”
spoke Tommy.

“Well, never mind,” said the pieman. “I’ll sing a little song as we go
along, and people will come to the doors or windows of their houses to
see what I have to sell, and some of the people may see you children,
and know you. Then they can tell me where to take you home.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Mary, dancing up and down, almost like Jiggily Jig
did.

“Lots and lots of people know us,” said Johnny. “I’m sure that would be
a very good plan.”

“Then we’ll do it,” spoke the pieman. “Now let me see, what song shall
I sing? Oh, I know one.” And then he sang this song:

  “I am a jolly pieman,
    My pies are nice and sweet;
  They’re made of many different things
    For boys and girls to eat.
  If you would kindly try them,
    I think you’d like them, too,
  Because there is a special pie
    Made specially for you.

  “There’s lemon, peach and apple,
    And cocoanut and plum,
  And custard pie and orange,
    And also chewing-gum.
  But, best of all, is Christmas,
    A pie you all may eat,
  The kind Jack Horner had when he
    Sat in his corner seat.”

Well, no sooner had the kind pieman finished his song than all the
people along the street began opening their doors and windows, and
putting their heads out.

“Ho! Ho!” cried some boys and girls who were just home from school. “We
would like some pies.”

“Then come and get them,” said the pieman, and the boys and girls, and
lots of ladies, also, came around the pieman’s wagon, and bought his
pies.

Then, when he was wrapping up the pies, or taking in the money, or
making change, the pieman would say:

“Do any of you boys or girls, or ladies know where these children live?”

“Why, don’t they know where they live themselves?” asked one lady.

“Oh, no,” answered the pieman. “These are the three little
Trippertrots, and they are always getting lost. I am looking for their
house as I go along selling pies.”

But no one seemed to know where Mary or Johnny or Tommy lived. Lots and
lots of boys and girls and ladies and men came out to buy pies, and
they looked at the children, but none knew where they lived.

“Maybe some big giant has moved our house away,” said Tommy, “and
that’s why we can’t find it.”

“Oh, of course not!” exclaimed Mary. “Giants don’t live around here.”

“Well, I wish they did,” said Johnny quickly.

“Why?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, then we could ask one of them to take us up on his shoulder, and
he could walk about two of his steps and he would be right at our
house, and we’d be home,” went on Johnny. “But I s’pose that can’t
happen. We’ll have to trip and trot along until the pieman finds our
house.”

So along through the streets they went, the pieman singing his little
song, and selling pies, and asking all the people he met if they knew
where the Trippertrots lived.

But no one did, and Mary and Tommy and Johnny were beginning to think
they would never find their papa or mamma, or Suzette, the nursemaid,
again.

And then, all of a sudden, as the pieman was pushing his cart down a
little street where there were lots of trees, and many small houses
with red chimneys on them sticking up through the roof--all of a
sudden, I say--out ran a little girl, holding a dollie in her arms.

“Oh, Mr. Pieman!” cried the little girl. “I have been waiting such a
long time for you!”

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the kind pieman.

“Oh, Sallie, my doll, is very ill,” said the little girl, “and I want
some sawdust pie for her.”

“I have just one left,” said the pieman. “Here it is, and I hope she
will soon be better.” Then he wrapped up the sawdust pie for the little
girl’s doll, and he asked her--asked the little girl, I mean--if she
knew where the Trippertrots lived. “For I can’t seem to find their
home,” said the kind pieman, blinking both his eyes at once.

“No, I don’t know, where they live,” said the little girl, as she
looked carefully at Mary, Johnny and Tommy.

“Oh, dear!” cried Mary. “I’m so tired walking about, looking for our
home.”

“So am I!” exclaimed Johnny and Tommy.

“Then I know the very thing to do,” said the little girl, as she looked
in the paper to see if her sawdust pie was all right. “Here comes the
banana man, and he has quite a large wagon which he pushes about on its
two wheels. Let him take you on his wagon, and ride you through the
streets, and perhaps you may find your home that way.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Mary.

“It will be fun to ride in the banana wagon,” said Johnny, jumping up
and down.

“Yes, and I think he can take us home,” spoke Tommy.

And just then along came the banana man, and he said he would be very
glad to help the Trippertrots get home. So the pieman said good-by to
them, and gave them each a little custard pie, and then he went off to
find Simple Simon and Jiggly Jig.

“Jump on my wagon,” said the banana man, and the Trippertrot children
did so, as there was lots of room. Up they hopped, and away they went
along the street, looking for their house, and wondering how long it
would be before they found the place.




ADVENTURE NUMBER TWELVE

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE BANANA MAN


“It’s almost as nice to ride on a banana wagon as it is on a load of
hay,” said Mary. “This is just lovely, I think.”

“So do I,” agreed Tommy. “And there really _is_ hay on this wagon, so
it’s almost like a straw ride.”

“Oh, yes, I always put the bananas on soft hay, so they won’t break
open when the wagon goes over rough stones,” said the banana man. “But
hold tight, now, as I am going very fast.” And so he did, and the
children were bounced about, and up and down a bit, but then the hay
was so soft that they didn’t get hurt in the least.

“Do you know where our house is?” asked Johnny, after a bit.

“No, but I think I can find it,” answered the banana man. “I know where
lots and lots of houses are, and I’m sure one of them must be yours.
I’ll go along through the street, and you can look at all the houses
you see, and pretty soon you’ll see the right one.”

“Oh, but we have been away from home a long time,” said Tommy. “Ever
since early this morning, when we went after the kind fireman to thank
him. And we’ve been lost from then on.”

“And maybe some one has painted our house a different color,” spoke
Johnny, “so we won’t know it even when we see it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” spoke the banana man. “They
couldn’t have painted your house since morning, and it isn’t night yet.”

“The false-face man could,” said Mary. “He is a very fast painter, but
then I know he would make funny faces on our house, if he _did_ paint
it, so we would know it anyhow.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said the banana man. “But lie down, now, and rest
yourselves, and I will wheel you up first one street and then down the
other, and soon you may be home.”

So he did that, and lots and lots of persons stopped to look at the
funny sight of three lost children sitting on the hay in a two-wheeled
banana wagon.

“Do you happen to know where they live?” the banana man would ask the
different people who crowded around his wagon.

“No,” said every one, and the men and women shook their heads.

“Do you know any of these people?” the banana man then asked of the
Trippertrot children. But neither Mary nor Johnny nor Tommy knew any of
them.

“Then we will have to go along a little farther,” said the banana man;
and so he went up some streets that were hilly, and down some that were
smooth, and along some that were very rough with cobblestones, and all
the while he kept wheeling the children in his wagon, or cart, if you’d
rather call it that.

And once the wagon went over a stick of wood, and tipped to one side,
and Mary nearly fell out. She would have, only Tommy grabbed her just
in time, and held her on the hay.

And a little later there was a dog chasing a cat, and the cat ran so
fast to get away from the dog that the pussy jumped right up in the
wagon, into Mary’s lap.

“Oh, you poor, dear little pussy!” cried Mary, as she rubbed the cat’s
fur, and tried to make its tail smaller, for it was all swelled up on
account of the dog, you know.

“That cat looks like our cat, Ivy Vine,” said Tommy, when the banana
man had driven away the dog.

“Oh, yes, I just wish Ivy Vine was here now,” said Mary.

“And I wish Fido was here,” spoke Johnny. “He is kind to cats.”

“Yes, if we could only find Ivy and Fido, they would show us the way
home.” And Mary sighed a little, and a salty tear fell out of her left
eye.

“Never mind,” said the banana man. “I think we will soon be there.” But
he talked in a tired voice, for his legs were very weary with tramping
around all day, selling bananas, and then giving the lost children a
ride up and down so many streets, looking for their home. Still he
wouldn’t give up.

Pretty soon they came to where a man was selling hot, roasted
chestnuts, and also some cold, boiled ones. And the banana man knew the
chestnut man, and bought some nuts from him and gave them to the lost
Trippertrots, for they were hungry again, those three children were.

“Oh, it doesn’t seem as if we were ever going to be at home again!”
said Mary, after a while, when she had eaten some of the roasted
chestnuts.

“No, indeed,” spoke Johnny, as he ate some boiled ones.

“I’m never going to run away again,” said Tommy, “not even if the
chimney does get on fire.”

“Or even if the house falls down,” added Mary. And then they put their
arms around one another and sat there on the banana wagon, and wished
they were home.

And the banana man did the best he could. He looked at all the houses,
and he asked lots of people where the Trippertrots lived, but none
knew.

“I guess you will have to look for the kind policeman again,” suggested
Tommy. “He can find our house for us.”

“Or else Mr. Johnson, who took us home in his automobile, the other
time when we were lost,” added Johnny. “He might help us.”

“Perhaps I had better look for a policeman,” said the banana man,
for he was now very tired, because it was like pushing three baby
carriages, made into one, to push the Trippertrots about on the banana
wagon.

So he looked all over for a policeman, but he couldn’t see any. I guess
they were all down at the big fire, where all the firemen had gone. And
the banana man couldn’t even see the pieman or Simple Simon, nor even
Jiggily Jig.

“Oh! Whatever shall we do?” cried Mary.

“I don’t know,” answered Johnny. “Do you, Tommy?”

“No, I don’t know, either,” replied Tommy Trippertrot.

But just then they turned around the corner of the street, and they
heard some music playing, and there was a hand-organ man, with a monkey!

“Oh, goody!” cried Mary. “There is the hand-organ man who once rode
with us in the automobile, and he will know where we live.”

“No, I am sorry to say I don’t know where you live,” answered the
hand-organ man, when they had asked him. “You see, I am a new man here,
and not the one you thought I was. I just bought this organ and the
monkey from the man who rode with you in the auto. The monkey may know
where you live, but I don’t.”

“Then let’s ask the monkey,” suggested Tommy.

So they asked the monkey. But, bless you! the monkey couldn’t talk, you
know, and all he did was to take off his cap and make a low bow, as if
he was asking for pennies.

“That’s of no use,” said Tommy hopelessly.

“No,” agreed Mary. “We’ll never get home that way.”

Well, the three little Trippertrots didn’t know what to do, and they
were almost ready to cry, when, all at once, Johnny gave a loud shout.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mary. “Are you hurt?”

“No! But look!” cried Johnny. “There comes Ivy Vine, our cat!”

“And there comes Fido, our dog!” exclaimed Tommy, and he pointed to
the dog and cat coming down the street together like twins, only, of
course, they weren’t twins--dogs and cats can’t be twins, you know.

“Oh, now we will find our way home,” said Mary. “Ivy and Fido will lead
us. We can’t be far from our house.”

“I am glad of it,” said the banana man, who was more tired than ever.

“Here, Fido! Fido!” called Tommy.

“Come, Ivy! Ivy!” cried Mary.

The dog and the cat came running up to the children, and they were very
glad to see them. I mean the children were glad to see Fido and Ivy
Vine, and Ivy Vine and Fido were glad to see the children. So they were
all glad, even the banana man.

“Now show us the way home, Fido!” called Tommy, and, somehow or other,
Fido understood, for he wagged his tail so hard that it almost dropped
off, and Ivy Vine wagged her tail, and then they trotted on ahead of
the banana wagon. They looked back every now and then, to see if the
wagon was coming.

“Just follow them, and we’ll soon be at our home,” said Mary. And the
banana man did so, riding the children on his cart, and a little later,
just as they went around a corner, there was the Trippertrots’ house!

“Oh, we’re home! We’re home!” cried Mary joyfully.

“And how glad we are!” cried Tommy and Johnny, and they all hugged each
other. Fido capered about, barking as loudly as he could; and then out
ran Suzette and Mr. Trippertrot and Mrs. Trippertrot.

“Oh, you children!” cried their mamma. “Lost again, I suppose!”

“Yes’m,” answered Mary.

“And we were looking all over for you,” said their papa.

“But Fido and Ivy Vine and the banana man brought us home,” explained
Tommy, “and we had some wonderful adventures since we went to thank the
fireman.”

“Well, please don’t ever have any more,” said their mamma.

“No’m, we won’t,” answered Mary.

Then they all went into the house and had supper, and Mr. Trippertrot
thanked the banana man very kindly, and gave him some money.

“I don’t want any more adventures very soon,” said Tommy.

But my goodness sakes alive and the mustard spoon! It wasn’t any time
at all before those three little Trippertrots had something more happen
to them.




ADVENTURE NUMBER THIRTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE DANCING BEARS


The three little Trippertrots were in the house one day, looking out
of the window. Suzette, the nursemaid, was in the next room, trying
to mend a hole that Mary had torn in her red dress. I mean that Mary
had torn a hole in her own dress, not in Suzette’s, you understand, of
course. And the way it happened was this:

They were playing soldiers, the Trippertrot children were, Tommy and
Johnny and Mary, and Tommy had a make-believe gun. It was really the
poker from the stove, but it looked something like a gun.

And they were having a great battle, making believe shoot off the
poker-gun bang-bang, you know, when, all of a sudden, Mary ran past
Tommy, and the poker caught in her dress, and tore a hole in the cloth.

“Oh, I’m afraid you can’t play soldiers any more,” said Mrs.
Trippertrot. “It’s too rough a game. Please play something gentle, that
doesn’t make so much noise.”

So Mary and Tommy and Johnny played a guessing game; that is, they
tried to guess how many people were in the trolley cars that passed the
window, or how many letters the postman had in his bag, or how fast the
butcher boy could run when a pussy cat chased him, and all guessing
games like that. So that’s the reason, as I told you at first, why the
Trippertrots were looking out of the window of their house.

“Oh, I’m tired of this,” said Tommy at last.

“And so am I,” said Mary.

“What can we do?” asked Johnny.

“Oh, let’s make-believe we’re lost again,” suggested Mary. “We can
pretend that the parlor is away off downtown, and that the dining-room
is another city, and the kitchen can be a cave where a fairy lives, and
upstairs--I wonder what upstairs can be?”

“That will be a mountain, of course,” said Tommy. “The stairs are high,
and so are mountains; and I’m going to climb one, and get lost on the
top, and build a campfire, and sleep there all night.”

“Pooh! You sleep upstairs all night, anyhow,” said Johnny. “Our beds
are there.”

“Oh, but this is only a make-believe mountain,” said Tommy. “Come on!
All ready to play this game! We’ll see who will be the first one to get
lost.”

Well, the Trippertrots played that game a long time, and then Suzette
had Mary’s dress mended, and the nursemaid went to answer the back
doorbell, for the butcher boy was there with some meat for supper.

Now in about a minute you will see where the dancing bears appear in
this story. I’m almost up to that part, so watch closely.

When Suzette was at the back door, Mrs. Trippertrot happened to think
there was no bread in the house for dinner.

“I know what I will do,” said the children’s mamma. “I will just run
next door to Mrs. Johnson’s, and borrow a loaf. Now don’t you children
go outside while I’m gone!” she called to Tommy and Mary and Johnny.

“Not even in case of something most extra-extra-extraordinary
happening?” asked Johnny.

“Oh, I suppose if it’s something most extraordinary you may go out for
a minute,” answered Mrs. Trippertrot, “but don’t you dare to get lost.”

So they promised that they wouldn’t, and then they went back to play
the game of looking out of the windows, and Mary said:

“Oh, I wish something most extra-extraordinary would come along!”

“So do I!” exclaimed Tommy.

“And there it is!” suddenly cried Johnny. “If that isn’t extraordinary,
I’d like to know what is!”

And sure enough, down the street came a man with three dancing bears.
There was a little bear and a middle-sized bear and a big bear, just as
in the story book. And the man had a horn, on which he played jolly,
funny little tunes.

“Oh, I hope the bears dance where we can see them,” said Mary, and
Tommy and Johnny said the same thing; and really it was just as if the
dancing-bear man heard the Trippertrot children, for, sure enough, he
stopped in front of their house, and began to blow a tune on his horn.

  “Hum tum-tum tiddle di de um,
    Hum tum-tum tiddle day;
  Dum-dum-dum fiddle faddle de um,
    Ho tum-tum skiddle ray.”

And with that, those bears stood up on their hind legs, and began to
dance around almost as well as you or I could do it. I’m sure you would
have been very glad to see them, for they were such nice bears.

The big bear took big steps when he danced, and the middle-sized bear
took middle-sized steps, and, of course, the little bear had to take
little steps, for that was all the kind of steps that were left, but
they suited him exactly.

“Oh! Aren’t they fine!” cried Mary.

“Yes. I wish we had one,” said Johnny.

“Oh, I don’t!” exclaimed his sister. “He might scratch us, not meaning
to, you know, but accidentally. I don’t want a bear in the house.”

“I think it would be fun,” said Tommy. “We could play we were hunters
on a mountain, and make-believe shoot the bear, only, of course, we
wouldn’t _really_ do it.”

“Oh, look! Look!” suddenly cried Mary. “One bear is climbing a
telegraph pole!” And, sure enough, the middle-sized bear was doing
that, while the man played more tunes on his horn.

“Oh, look there!” cried Johnny. “The big bear is standing on his head!”
And, just as true as I’m telling you, he was.

“See! See!” exclaimed Tommy. “The little bear is turning somersaults
just like Simple Simon and Jiggily Jig did! Isn’t it great!”

Well, the man made the dancing bears do many more tricks, and then he
held out his hat for money, for that was how he made his living. And
Suzette gave the children some money to give to the bearman.

Then the man made a bow, to show that he was thankful, and the bears
made bows, too, to show they were thankful, for if the man hadn’t
gotten any money the bears wouldn’t have had much for supper. Then they
started off up the street to dance some more.

“Oh, I’m sorry they’re gone!” said Mary, and her brothers were, also;
and they were just wondering what else they could do to have fun, when,
all of a sudden, Tommy cried:

“Look! Look! The little bear has run away from the man, and is coming
back here!”

“Yes, and I guess the man doesn’t know it, or he would come back after
him,” said Johnny. “I think we ought to go out and catch the little
bear for the man.”

“Oh, don’t you do it!” cried Mary, shivering.

“Why, he’s tame, and won’t hurt me,” said Tommy. “Besides, we would be
doing the man a kindness.”

“But mamma doesn’t want us to go out of the house,” said Mary, for she
could now see the bear quite plainly, as he was right in front of the
house again, and he was so kind and gentle-looking, and he seemed to
smile so at the children, that they just loved him.

“I’m going out and catch him for the man, and give him something to
eat,” said Tommy.

“Who? The man or the bear?” asked Johnny.

“The little bear. See! He has a chain on his neck, and we can lead him
by that. Come on.”

“Oh, dear! Well, I s’pose I’ll have to go, too,” said Mary. “This is
one of those most extra-extraordinary occasions, I guess. But I do hope
we’re not lost again.”

“Hurry up!” called Johnny. “We can catch the bear, take him to the man,
and soon be in the house again.”

Well, would you ever believe it if I didn’t tell you? That little bear
just stood still when the Trippertrot children came up to him, and
he almost seemed to smile, you know the way bears do, by opening his
mouth, and then he made a low bow.

“Oh, I almost believe he could talk, if he wanted to, he is so cute,”
said Mary.

“Come along, little bear,” spoke Tommy.

“Yes, we’re going to take you back to the man,” said Johnny. “He
doesn’t know you’re lost, I guess.”

[Illustration: DOWN THE STREET CAME A MAN WITH THREE BEARS]

Well, the bear growled a little bit, but that was only his way of
saying “Thank you!” And then he stood still while Johnny took hold of
the chain around his neck--I mean the chain around the bear’s neck,
not Johnny’s, for Johnny didn’t have any chain on his neck. And Tommy
also took hold of the bear’s chain, and so did Mary, just the littlest,
tiny tip end, you know.

“Now we’re all ready,” said Johnny. “Come along, little bear, and we’ll
soon have you back to your master.”

So the three little Trippertrots marched down the street, leading the
tame little bear, and they expected any minute to find the man with the
horn. But they couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Oh, we must find him soon,” said Mary.

“Yes,” said Johnny. “We can’t take the bear back home with us.”

“And if we let him go by himself he’ll get lost,” spoke Tommy. “Let’s
go on a little farther.”

So they went on a little farther with the animal, but they couldn’t
find the man who owned the bear, and they couldn’t hear his tooting
horn. And then, as they turned around a corner, Mary suddenly said:

“There! I knew it!”

“Knew what?” asked Johnny.

“I knew we were lost again,” said Mary. “I’ve never seen this street
before. We are certainly lost again.”

“Oh! What will mamma say?” asked Tommy.

“And lost with a little dancing bear to take care of,” added Mary.

“Well, if we’re lost, the bear is lost, too, and that’s all there is
about it,” spoke Johnny cheerfully. “Maybe we can find our way back.
Let’s try.”

So they walked down another street, looking for the way back home, or
for the man who owned the little bear.




ADVENTURE NUMBER FOURTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE PINK COW


“We don’t seem to be getting anywhere very fast,” said Tommy
Trippertrot, after he and his sister and his brother and the little
tame dancing bear had walked up and down several streets.

“No, indeed,” agreed Mary.

“Are you sure we’re lost again?” asked Johnny.

“I certainly am,” replied his sister. “We must have come farther than
we thought we did. All the streets are strange, and all the houses,
too, and I don’t see a single person that I know. Oh, dear! Isn’t it
too bad?”

“Never mind!” exclaimed Johnny, putting his arms around Mary to hug
her. “I’ll take care of you.”

“And so will I,” added Tommy.

“Wuff! Wuff!” growled the bear in his gentle voice, and that was his
way of saying that he, too, would take care of Mary. And he put one
fuzzy paw around her neck, and squeezed her the least bit; not enough
to hurt her, you understand. Oh, of course not.

“Well, what had we better do?” asked Johnny.

“We’ll ask the first person we meet if they know where we live,” said
Mary. “It’s funny, but we never can seem to remember. I guess we ought
to have a stamp and an address on us, just as letters do, and then the
postman could always take us home.”

“I think that _would_ be a good idea,” said Tommy. “But it’s too late
to do that now, and I don’t see any people we can ask,” and he looked
up and down the street, but no one was in sight.

“Oh, I tell you what let’s do!” exclaimed Johnny. “We’ll let the bear
go wherever he wants to, and maybe he’ll take us home, the way Fido and
Ivy once did.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Tommy. “We’ll do it.”

So they let go of the chain that was around the bear’s neck, and Mary
said to him:

“Now go ahead, little bear, and take us home.”

“Oh, bears can’t understand our talk,” said Tommy.

“Why, Fido understands me!” said Mary. “When I speak pleasantly to him
he wags his tail, so I’m sure he understands; and if _he_ can, why
can’t bears?”

“Oh, well, maybe he does,” admitted Johnny. “Let’s see what he’ll do.”

The little bear didn’t do anything at first. He just stood there on his
hind legs, looking all around, and sort of sniffing the air. I guess he
was trying to see if he could smell his supper cooking anywhere. Then,
all at once, he started to run across the street.

“Come on!” cried Johnny. “I guess that’s the way home! We’ll follow the
bear!”

So they ran after the shaggy little creature, who kept right on going,
looking over his shoulder every now and then, just as if he was telling
the children to follow him. And they did. But where in the world do you
suppose he led them?

You’d never guess, I’m afraid, so I’m going to tell you. It was right
up to a bakery shop window, that was filled with all sorts of nice
cakes and cookies and pies. Yes, just as true as I’m telling you,
that’s what the bear did. He came to a stop right in front of the
window, and then he looked up at the children, and sort of whined,
just as Fido, their dog, did when he was hungry.

“Oh, I know what he wants!” cried Mary.

“What is it?” asked both her brothers at once.

“He wants some cakes,” said Mary. “He is hungry, poor little fellow.
That’s why he led us over to this bakery. I’m going to see if the
bakery man will give us some cakes or buns for our little bear.”

“I wish he’d give us some for ourselves,” spoke Johnny. “I’m hungry
myself.”

“So am I!” exclaimed Tommy.

“Well, let’s go in,” suggested Mary.

“Oh, not all at once,” objected Johnny. “For if we did, and left the
bear all alone outside here, he might run away. I’ll stay here with
him, Tommy, and you and Mary can go in and ask the bakery man for some
cake.”

“All right,” agreed Tommy, and into the bakery shop he and his sister
went, leaving Johnny to take care of the baby bear.

“Well, little ones, what can I do for you to-day?” asked the baker-man
of Mary and Tommy, as he came out of the back room, wiping some flour
off the end of his nose. “Will you have bread or pie?”

“Neither, if you please, sir,” answered Mary, “but we have a little
bear, and----”

“Good gracious sakes alive and some ground cinnamon!” cried the
baker-man. “You don’t mean to tell me you have a real live bear in
here? Take him out at once, I beg of you!”

“Oh, no, he isn’t in here,” said Tommy. “He’s outside, with my brother
Johnny. But anyhow, he’s tame and gentle, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly,
not if one were to light on his nose and tickle him. He’d just blow him
off.”

[Illustration: _Johnny Brought in the Bear._]

“Oh, he is a very kind bear,” went on Mary.

“I am very glad to hear that,” spoke the baker-man. “But what do you
want me to do--buy him?”

“Oh, no,” answered Tommy. “You see, he is lost, and we are lost, and he
came over here to look at your cakes because he was hungry, and we are
hungry, too. But you needn’t mind us, unless you have some cakes you
don’t want, and----”

But then Tommy had to stop to catch his breath, which had nearly gotten
away from him, and Mary said:

“Oh, you had better let me finish. What we want, Mr. Baker-man, is some
cake for our little bear. At least he isn’t really ours, but he belongs
to the man who plays tunes on the funny little horn, and he is lost.”

“Who is lost, the man or the bear?” asked the baker, with a jolly laugh.

“Both, I guess,” said Tommy, who had his breath by this time. “But have
you any cakes?”

“Oh, yes, plenty of them,” said the kind baker. “I will give you some,
and the bear some, and----”

“But we have no money,” said Mary quickly, “and we are lost--we’re
always getting lost,” she said.

“No matter about the money,” went on the baker. “I will give you as
many cakes as the bear needs, and some for yourself. Bring in the bear.”

So Johnny brought in the bear, and the baker cried out as soon as he
saw the shaggy little fellow:

“Why, I know that bear! He belongs to a nice Italian in the next
street. You had better leave him with me, and I will see that he gets
home safely. But first he must have some cakes. Come here, Bruno!”
called the baker to the bear, and the little tame bear came right over
to him, and ate a chocolate cake out of his hand.

“You see, he knows me,” said the baker. “I will see that he gets safely
home.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mary. “I wish that some one knew _us_, and would
see that _we_ got home. It’s dreadful to be lost all the while, but we
can’t seem to help it.”

“Never mind,” said the baker kindly. “Here, eat some cakes, and then we
will see what is to be done. Perhaps I can think of a way to get you
home.”

Well, you would never believe it if I didn’t tell you, I suppose, but
this is just how it happened. All of a sudden into the baker shop
walked a man, and he had a string in his hand.

“What are you leading by that string? Another bear?” asked the
baker-man.

“No. I am leading my pink cow,” said the man.

“A pink cow!” exclaimed the baker. “I never heard of a pink cow!”

“Well, I have one,” said the man. “You can look for yourself, if you
don’t believe me.”

So they all looked out on the sidewalk--that is, all but the little
bear, and he was too busy eating cakes to look--and there, sure enough,
was a nice pink cow, and the man was leading her by a yellow string
around her neck.

“How did she get pink?” asked the baker-man.

“She went to the circus once,” said the other man, “and she drank a
pailful of pink lemonade, in mistake for water, so she has been pink
ever since. But it doesn’t hurt her any, and she gives as good milk as
ever.”

“What are you going to do with her?” asked the baker-man.

“Why, I am going to sell her to a man named Mr. Jones,” said the
cowman. “He lives a few streets away, and he has always wanted a pink
cow. So I am taking mine to him.”

“Oh! I wonder if that’s the Mr. Jones who lives two doors from us?”
cried Mary.

“What might your names be?” asked the pink-cow man quickly.

“The Trippertrots!” cried Tommy and Johnny and Mary, all at the same
time.

“Then that’s the Mr. Jones, all right,” said the pink-cow man. “He said
he lived next door to a family of Trippertrot children, who were always
getting lost----”

“And we’re lost now!” interrupted Mary.

“But you can take us home!” cried Johnny.

“To be sure I can,” answered the man. “I’ll take you home on my way to
leave my pink cow at Mr. Jones’s house. Come along, children.”

So they said good-by to the little bear, who was still eating buns, and
then to the baker, who gave the Trippertrots some cakes to take home;
and then the children started out with the man and the pink cow to go
home to their house.

“Oh, how thankful I am that we’re not lost any more!” exclaimed Mary,
as they walked along, with the pink cow following behind, and switching
her tail to keep the flies away.

“Yes; and wasn’t it lucky that the baker-man knew what to do with the
bear?” said Johnny.

“It certainly was,” spoke Tommy.

“You will soon be home now,” said the pink-cow man, and they kept on up
the street, and in a little while they were safely at the Trippertrot
house.

Just as the three children got in front of their house they saw their
papa and mamma, and Suzette, the nursemaid, looking at them out of the
parlor windows.

“Oh, there are our dear children!” cried Mrs. Trippertrot.

“I wonder where they have been this time?” asked Mr. Trippertrot.

“There is no telling,” replied his wife. “They do seem to go to the
strangest places. And look what they have with them! A pink cow, of all
things!”

“Oh, I hope they are not going to bring that pink cow in here!”
exclaimed Suzette, the nursemaid. “There is no place to put it!”

“Oh, dear! I wonder what those children will do next?” asked Mrs.
Trippertrot. But there was no one there to answer her, for Mr.
Trippertrot ran out to get Mary and Tommy and Johnny, and Suzette ran
out to help him, and so Mrs. Trippertrot thought she would run out
herself.

“Oh, mamma!” cried Mary. “We had the grandest time!”

“And we took the little bear home,” said Johnny.

“And the baker-man gave us some cakes, but we ate them all up,” spoke
Tommy.

“Oh, you children!” cried their mamma.

“And what about the pink cow?” asked Mr. Trippertrot. “I do hope you
haven’t brought that home with you!”

“Oh, no,” said the man who owned the cow. “I am taking my cow to Mr.
Jones, who lives two doors from you. He wants her, and as I was coming
this way, I brought your children with me.”

“That was very kind of you,” said Mr. Trippertrot, “and I hope they
don’t trip and trot off again. Come in, now, children, and tell your
mother and me all about where you were this time.”

“And we can tell you why the cow is pink,” said Tommy. “She ate some
pink ice cream once--strawberry, I guess it was----”

“No, she drank pink lemonade,” corrected Mary.

“Oh, yes, that’s it,” agreed Tommy, “and so she’s been pink ever since.”

So the three little Trippertrots went into their house, and the man
took the pink cow to where Mr. Jones lived, and everybody was happy for
a while, just as you all are, I hope.




ADVENTURE NUMBER FIFTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE TRAIN OF CARS


It was shortly after the Trippertrot children got home, after finding
the little lost bear, that, one afternoon, when they were all looking
out of the window of their house, their mamma said:

“Now, children, I am going across the street to see a lady, and I don’t
want you to stir out of the playroom until I come back.”

“May we go out when you do come back, mamma?” asked Mary.

“I’ll see,” returned Mrs. Trippertrot. “At any rate, you are to stay
here until I come back.”

“Can’t we even go out if we see the little lost bear again?” asked
Tommy.

“No, indeed,” answered his mamma. “Not on any account.”

Well, the Trippertrots didn’t like to stay in very much, but they were
good little people, and they did just as they were told, unless, of
course, they happened to forget, or unless a very extra-extraordinary
thing happened.

“Oh, I wish we had some game to play,” sighed Mary.

“I know!” exclaimed Johnny, “let’s play another choosing game. I’ll let
you have first choice, Mary, of whatever comes along the street. Then
Tommy can have his choice, and then it will be my turn.”

“All right!” cried Tommy and Mary, so they began to play. And when
Mary saw an automobile coming alone she chose that--not really to have
for her very own, you understand, but just to make-believe. Then it was
Tommy’s turn, and he picked out a nice horse and wagon. But when it
came Johnny’s turn, all there was left was a man pushing a wheelbarrow,
so Johnny took that.

“Oh, that’s not a bit nice to choose,” said Mary, as she wrinkled up
her nose. “You may have part of my automobile, if you like, Johnny.”

“And he can have part of my horse and wagon,” said Tommy.

“All right, then I’ll take the horse, and we’ll all go riding,” quickly
cried Johnny. But, of course, this was only make-believe, you know.

And then, all of a sudden, Mary happened to look down the street, and
she cried out:

“Oh, look! There is the pink cow running away from the stable where Mr.
Jones put her.”

“Sure enough, so she is!” exclaimed Tommy.

“We must go after her,” declared Johnny.

“No, mamma said we weren’t to leave the house,” said Mary.

“Oh, but she said we weren’t to go if a bear came along,” insisted
Johnny. “This is a cow, not a bear, and, besides, she’s pink.”

“And besides,” added Tommy, “Mr. Jones wouldn’t want to lose that cow,
as it must have cost a whole lot of money. I think we ought to chase
after her and bring her back.”

“So do I,” added Johnny, and then the two boys, catching up their hats
and coats, ran out of the house.

“Well, I’m not going to stay here all alone,” said Mary. “I guess mamma
would want us to catch the pink cow, as long as it isn’t a little tame
bear. Wait, boys, I’m coming,” she called.

And there those three little Trippertrots were running away again, and
without in the least meaning to. But it just shows you what will happen
sometimes; doesn’t it?

The pink cow was slowly walking down the street, chewing her gum--I beg
your pardon, I mean her cud--and the Trippertrot children were chasing
after her.

“Hold on!” cried Tommy to the cow.

“Yes, wait a minute,” called Johnny.

“Oh, don’t talk to her,” said Mary. “Cows can’t understand our talk.
Just catch hold of the string around her neck, and then we can lead her
back to Mr. Jones.”

“But there isn’t any string on her neck,” said Tommy.

“Then, of course, you can’t do it,” spoke Mary. “Never mind, I guess
she will soon get tired, and then we can catch her.”

But that pink cow didn’t seem to get tired, and all at once she ran
down a street where there weren’t any houses, and she kept on until she
was out in a big field, and the children were chasing after her, but
they couldn’t catch her.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a loud whistling noise. At first
the children thought it was a giant, but it wasn’t, it was only the
choo-choo engine in front of a train of cars that just then came
puffing along. And as soon as the cow saw the engine, with the smoke
shooting up out of the black chimney, and when she heard the loud
whistle, that pink cow just kicked up her heels and jumped so high that
it looked if she jumped over the moon.

At least I think she jumped over the moon, for the children couldn’t
see her any more, though maybe the cow was only hiding behind the
bushes until the train got past. Anyhow, she wasn’t in sight.

“She’s gone!” exclaimed Mary.

“There’s no use chasing after her any more, then,” said Tommy.

“Yes, we had better hurry home, and tell Mr. Jones that his cow has run
away, so he can run after her,” spoke Johnny.

Well, those Trippertrots started to go back home, but, would you
believe it, they couldn’t find the way. They looked everywhere, but
they couldn’t find the right path that led back to their house.

“Oh, we’re lost again!” exclaimed Mary.

“Yes, I guess we are,” said Tommy, sorrowfully.

“And what are we to do?” asked Johnny. “This is a queer place to be
lost in--out in the fields.”

Just then the train with the choo-choo engine on in front came to a
stop. A man with a blue coat, all covered with shiny brass buttons,
jumped off the first car.

“All aboard!” he called, waving his arms around his head. “Everybody
get on! All aboard, everybody! No time to wait! Get on the train!”

“Who is he?” asked Mary of her brothers in a whisper.

“He’s the conductor,” said Tommy.

“And I guess he’s talking to us,” spoke Johnny. “He wants us to get on.”

“Of course,” said Mary. “I never thought of it. Papa has sent the train
to take us home. Get on board.”

“Ladies first,” said the conductor, politely, and he helped Mary up the
steps, and then he helped Johnny and Tommy, for they were too little to
get up by themselves.

“All aboard!” called the conductor again, and then the engine gave a
loud toot, and off the train started.




ADVENTURE NUMBER SIXTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS IN A TROLLEY CAR


“Oh, this is fine!” cried Tommy, after they had ridden some distance.

“It’s the best yet,” said Johnny. “I like this kind of running away!”

“But we’re not running away,” said Mary. “We only ran after the pink
cow belonging to Mr. Jones, and now the train is taking us home.”

“I hope we get in before mamma comes back from her call across the
street,” said Johnny. “She told us not to go out.”

“Oh, but she only said not to go out after a little tame dancing bear,
as we once did,” said Tommy. “This time we went out after the pink cow.”

“Well, I hope it will be all right,” spoke Mary. “Oh! look out of the
windows, boys, and see all the pretty fields and trees and--and----”

“And telegraph poles,” added Tommy. “My, what a lot of them.”

“And look! There is the pink cow!” suddenly cried Johnny, and, sure
enough, the pink animal was running along beside the train in a green
field. But pretty soon the train got going so fast that the cow was
left behind.

“I hope she gets back home all right,” said Tommy; and Mary and Johnny
hoped the same thing.

Well, the train kept going faster and faster, and the children were
looking out of the windows, having a good time, when the conductor,
with his blue coat all covered with brass buttons, came in.

“Where do you children want to go?” he asked.

“Home,” said Mary.

“Home,” said Johnny.

“Home,” said Tommy.

“Ha, so you _all_ want to go home,” exclaimed the conductor, with a
jolly laugh. “Well, where might your home be?”

“Why, don’t you know?” asked Mary in surprise.

“No, I am sorry to say I don’t!” answered the conductor.

“He--doesn’t--know--where--we--live!” exclaimed Tommy and Johnny
together, slowly.

“Why, I thought papa sent this train to take us home,” went on Mary.

“Well, it may take you to your home, if you tell me where your home
is,” went on the conductor. “Let me see your tickets, and I can tell
where you want to go.”

“But we haven’t any tickets,” spoke Mary.

“No tickets!” cried the conductor. “Then why did you take this train?”

“We didn’t take it,” replied Mary slowly. “It took us, and it’s taking
us now. But if it doesn’t take us home I don’t want to stay on it.”

“Me either,” said Tommy and Johnny, as they started to leave their
seats.

“Wait a moment!” called the conductor. “Why did you get into this
railroad car?”

“Because you told us to,” answered Mary. “We were chasing after the
pink cow, that belongs to Mr. Jones, but she got away from us, and then
your train came along, and you told us to get on board, and we did. It
isn’t our fault.”

“Well, well! This is quite a puzzle,” said the conductor, shaking his
head, and scratching his nose with his ticket puncher. “And so you
haven’t any tickets at all, eh?”

“Wait!” cried Tommy, with his jolly little laugh, “I think I have a
ticket.” He looked in all his pockets, and as he had a number of things
in them, it took him some time to find his ticket. There were balls of
cord, an old knife, some wheels from an alarm clock, and a piece of
chewing-gum. Then there was a red stone and a broken lead-pencil, and
when Tommy had all these articles out on the seat the conductor said:

“Oh, I am afraid you have no ticket.”

“Oh, yes, I have, just wait a minute, please,” said Tommy. And then
he pulled out a little tin can that he used to take with him when he
went fishing, and inside of that was a piece of paper. “There is our
ticket!” cried Tommy, with another jolly laugh. “It’s a ticket I made
for a magic-lantern show that I had, and it cost two pins to come in to
it. Now we can go home, can’t we, Mr. Conductor?”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried the conductor, again scratching his nose
with his ticket puncher, “that isn’t the kind of a ticket I meant at
all. ‘A ticket to a magic-lantern show! Admission two pins!’” he read
from the piece of paper as he looked at it.

“What kind of a ticket did you mean?” asked Mary, politely.

“A railroad ticket,” answered the conductor. “That is what I meant.
This one is no good.”

“And can’t--can’t we ride on your train?” asked Mary, and, somehow or
other, a few tears came into her pretty eyes. Tommy and Johnny felt
like crying, also, but they happened to remember that boys never
cry--that is, hardly ever--so they didn’t.

“I’m afraid you can’t ride on that ticket,” said the conductor slowly,
as he gave it back to Tommy. “I shall have to put you off----”

“Wait, I’ll pay their fare!” interrupted a nice fat man, in the seat
behind the children.

“Oh, I’m not going to put them off here,” said the conductor kindly,
and it is a good thing he wasn’t, for just then the train was going
through the woods. “But I’ll put them off at the next station,” he
said. “Then I will send word back to the place where they got on, and
some one can come for them. It would not be right to take them as far
off as where this train is going.”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Mary. “We want to go home.”

“But some one will have to come for you when I put you off at the
station,” said the conductor.

“Oh, no one ever comes for us,” exclaimed Mary. “We always have to go
home by ourselves, don’t we, boys?”

“Of course,” answered Tommy and Johnny together. “We are the
Trippertrots, and we are always getting lost, but this time we didn’t
mean to. It was the pink cow’s fault.”

“Oh, dear! I don’t know what in the world to do!” exclaimed the
conductor, and for the third time he scratched his nose with his cap--I
mean with his ticket puncher.

“Well, I know what to do,” said a voice on the other side of the car.
“I am going to give those children something to eat. I know they must
be hungry--children always are.”

And, would you ever believe it? there was the nice little old lady to
whose house the Trippertrots once went when they were lost, and she
had a cat, you remember, who purred as it lay asleep in the middle of
the floor.

“Oh, that lady knows us!” exclaimed Mary. “You can tell where our home
is, can’t you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” said the little old lady. “You know you were at
my house, but when I went to get a policeman, to show you the way home,
the queer little old man came, and you went away with him, and so I
never found your home.

“But don’t worry now, I will give you something to eat, and then I will
get off at the next station with you, and I’ll see if I can’t find some
one to take you home.”

So the little old lady opened her satchel and she took out some nice
chicken sandwiches, and some jam tarts, and some oranges, and gave them
to the Trippertrot children to eat.

Well, the train kept going on and on, and lots of the passengers
watched the Trippertrots eating the lunch which the little old lady
gave them, and the children themselves were having a nice time, though
of course they were sorry that the pink cow had gotten lost.

And then, all of a sudden, the train conductor called out:

“Here’s where you get off, children. Come along; step lively, please.”

So they hurried out of the car, and the little old lady went with them,
and there the children saw a nice little railroad station, like an
umbrella, built under a tree. It was right in the middle of a field.

“My, this is a queer place,” said the little old lady, as she looked
around. “I don’t see how we are going to get away from here,” for,
would you believe me? as soon as they had gotten off the train, the
cars and the choo-choo engine puffed away and left them all standing
there.

“Maybe we’ll find the pink cow, and she can take us home,” said Mary,
so she and her brothers looked all around, but they couldn’t see the
cow. But they heard a funny buzzing, humming noise, and, all at once,
along came a trolley car.

“Oh, that’s the very thing!” cried the little old lady. “I’m sure you
can get home in that.”

“Perhaps we can, if the conductor knows us,” said Mary.

And when the trolley car buzzed up, with a lot of electric sparks
coming out of the roof, the conductor leaned out over the platform and
said:

“Who wants to go home?”

“We do!” cried Mary and Tommy and Johnny.

“Then hop on!” said the trolley-car conductor, with a jolly laugh; so
they hopped on, and the car went off before the little old lady could
get aboard.

“Oh!” cried Mary. “She’s left behind! Now we can never find our way
home.”

“Oh, yes, you can,” exclaimed the trolley-car conductor. “I know you
children. You are the Trippertrots, and my car goes right past your
house. I’ll see you there safely.”

So off the car started, with the three Trippertrots inside, and the
little old lady, who was left behind, waved good-by to them. And the
children didn’t have to pay any car-fare, either.

Inside the car were many people. And there was one very slim boy, who
was very tall, and he kept going to sleep all the while, until finally
the conductor came in and hung him up across one of the straps, just
as if he was a clothes-pin. And there the tall thin boy slept just as
well as if he had been home in bed.

And then, pretty soon, the car stopped right in front of the
Trippertrot home, and Tommy and Mary and Johnny ran up the steps of
their house, very glad indeed to get back, I do assure you.




ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVENTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LAME BIRD


Mary and Tommy and Johnny Trippertrot were coming home from school
early one day when something strange happened to them. You see, the
Trippertrot children were in the kindergarten class.

“What did you learn to-day?” asked Mary of Tommy, as all three of them
came along the street together.

“Oh,” said Tommy, “I learned how to cut out a paper lantern, and it’s
real pretty when you hang it up.”

“That’s nice,” said Mary; “and will you show me how to make one when we
get home?”

“Of course,” answered Tommy, who liked his sister very much.

“And what did you learn to make in the kindergarten class?” asked Mary
of Johnny.

“Oh, the teacher showed us how to make a chain out of paper,” answered
Johnny, “and you can put it around your neck for a necklace.”

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Mary. “I’d like a chain like that.”

“Then I’ll show you how to make one,” said Johnny kindly. “But what did
you learn to make to-day, Mary?”

“Oh, our teacher showed us how to fold a piece of square red paper, and
then cut it with the scissors, and then bend the corners over and make
a pin-wheel just like the man sells at the circus, where there are
lions, and tigers, and elephants that eat peanuts.”

“Lions and tigers don’t eat peanuts,” said Tommy.

“I know that,” answered Mary, “but elephants do, for once I had a
whole bagful, and I was giving the baby elephant one peanut, and a big
elephant behind me, when I didn’t see him, reached over with his trunk,
and took my whole bag of peanuts out of my hand, and ate them up at one
mouthful.”

“Oh! that was terrible!” cried Johnny. “I wish we had some peanuts now.”

“Well, let’s hurry home, and maybe mamma will give us some,” said Mary.
“Anyhow, we can make the paper things which the kindergarten teacher
showed us. Let’s hurry home.”

“That’s what we can,” exclaimed Johnny, and then the three little
Trippertrots tripped and trotted toward their home, for they didn’t
want to get lost again, you see, and have to be brought home in a
trolley car.

As they were going down the street where their house was, and when they
were almost at home, all at once a little birdie fluttered along the
sidewalk.

“Oh, look!” cried Mary. “There’s a little birdie.”

“Yes, and it’s lame, too,” said Tommy.

“Maybe we can catch it, and make it better,” spoke Johnnie, and he
hurried after the birdie, which really was lame. There was something
the matter with one of its legs, so that it couldn’t hop very well, and
there was something the matter with one of its wings, so that it could
only flutter along.

“Wait, little birdie!” exclaimed Tommy kindly, “I won’t hurt you the
least bit.”

But perhaps the bird didn’t understand Tommy’s talk. At any rate, it
still fluttered on, and the three Trippertrot children kept after it,
for Johnny and Mary wouldn’t let Tommy go on alone.

“Wait, birdie!” called Tommy again, “and I’ll give you my paper
lantern,” for Tommy had brought one with him from his kindergarten
class.

But I guess the birdie didn’t like paper lanterns. Anyway, he kept
on fluttering along, just far enough ahead so that the Trippertrot
children couldn’t catch him. They didn’t want to hurt him, you
understand; no, indeed! They only wanted to help him.

“Oh, wait a minute, little bird!” called Johnny, “and I will give you
my paper chain.”

But perhaps the birdie was afraid the paper chain might get tangled in
his legs. At any rate, he didn’t wait, but kept on fluttering along the
sidewalk.

“Perhaps some cat might get him,” said Mary, after a while. “We must
try to catch that birdie, boys, and put him in a safe place. Wait, and
I will speak to him.”

So Mary walked on in front of Tommy and Johnny, and said, in her soft
little voice:

“Wait a minute, birdie, and you may have my paper pin-wheel that I
made in kindergarten class, and it goes around and around as fast as
anything.”

“What goes around,” asked Tommy, with a laugh, “the pin-wheel or the
kindergarten class?”

“Both of them,” answered Mary quickly. “The pin-wheel goes around when
you blow your breath on it, and the kindergarten class goes around when
teacher plays the piano, and we march and play games. But now please
keep quiet, and I may get the birdie.”

So Mary walked on ahead, very, very softly, and once more she told the
lame birdie that it might have her pin-wheel. I don’t know just how it
was, but perhaps the birdie thought if he had the pin-wheel he might be
able to fly up in the air again. At any rate, he stopped fluttering,
and a moment later Mary had him softly nestled in her little, warm
hands.

“Oh, you dear, darling little birdie!” she exclaimed.

“One of his legs is hurt and so is one of his wings,” said Mary, as she
looked at the little lame birdie. “Oh, boys!” she exclaimed, “I know
what let’s do!”

“What?” asked Johnny.

“Let’s take this bird to a doctor’s office,” went on Mary, “and the
doctor will make him all better. How’s that?”

“Fine!” cried Tommy and Johnny together, and then they looked up and
down the street to see a house where a doctor lived. And then, all of a
sudden, Johnny cried:

“Oh, Mary! Oh, Tommy! We’re lost again! We came down the wrong street,
when we followed the fluttering birdie, and now can’t find our way home
again! Oh, what shall we do?”

“Oh, never mind!” spoke Mary, after a bit, when she had looked all
around to see if she could find the way home, but she couldn’t. “Never
mind. We’ll go to the doctor’s office first, and maybe he can tell us
the way home.”

“Maybe he can!” said Tommy and Johnny, and then they didn’t feel badly
any more. Well, the Trippertrot children walked on, Mary carrying the
birdie, which was just as happy as it could be now. And pretty soon the
children met a nice man.

“If you please, sir,” said Tommy, “can you tell us where there’s a
doctor’s office?”

“Why, are you sick?” asked the man quickly.

“No, but the bird is,” said Johnny. “And we’re lost.”

[Illustration: _The Trippertrot Children Ran On._]

“But we didn’t mean to be,” said Tommy quickly. “You see, we were
coming home from school, and we kept on going after this birdie, until,
all of a sudden, we were lost.”

“I see,” said the man, with a jolly laugh. “Well, I hope you will find
your home again. The doctor’s office is just a few houses down this
street. Right next to the candy store,” he added.

“Oh, thank you, then we can easily find it,” said Mary quickly; “we
just love candy.”

“Then here is a cent for each of you,” spoke the man, and he gave them
each a cent, and pretty soon the Trippertrot children ran on, and they
were at the candy store. And they bought some sticks of peppermint
candy, and then they rang the bell at the doctor’s office.

“Well, what is it, children?” asked the doctor, when he came to the
door. “I hope you are not all sick.”

“No, but the little lame birdie is,” said Tommy, “and will you please
cure him? We would give you some pennies for doing it, but we just
spent them all for candy, so we have none.”

“Hum, then I’m afraid _you_ may be sick, as well as the birdie,” said
the doctor.

“We’re lost, anyhow, but we’re not sick--that is, not yet, if you
please,” said Mary. “But can you cure the birdie?”

“Oh, I’m afraid not,” said the doctor kindly. “You see, I am a
boy-or-a-girl or a man-or-a-lady doctor, but not a bird-doctor. You
will have to take the birdie to a bird-doctor.”

“If you please, where is one?” asked Johnny.

“I don’t know,” answered the man-doctor.

“Then I guess you will have to be one yourself,” said Mary. “If you can
cure a boy or a girl you can cure a bird. And then, please will you
find our home for us? We’re the Trippertrots, and we’re lost.”

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” exclaimed the doctor, and he laughed and scratched
his head. “I don’t know what in the world to do. But come in, and bring
the bird.”

Then he took them inside and he gave the bird some warm milk, and he
put some salve on the sore wing and leg, and pretty soon the birdie was
all well again.

“Now what are you going to do with the bird?” asked the doctor when he
had cured it. “Are you going to take it home, and put it in a cage?”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Mary. “Birdies don’t like to be shut up in a
cage. We’re going to let it go; aren’t we, boys?”

“Of course,” said Tommy and Johnny. So the doctor opened a window and
out flew the little birdie, and it was so happy that it wiggled its
tail and called “cheep-cheep!” to the children.

“And now can you please take us home?” said Mary to the doctor. “We are
tired and we haven’t been home from school yet, and mamma may worry.
Besides, we want to make some paper lanterns, and paper chains, and
paper pin-wheels. Please take us home.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed the doctor. “I hardly know what to do. Where do
you live?”

“We don’t know,” said Mary and Tommy and Johnny at once.

“Oh, this is worse and worse!” exclaimed the doctor.

“Don’t you know where we live?” asked Mary. “I thought doctors knew
everything.”

“I only wish I did,” said the doctor kindly. “But I will see what I can
do.” So he called in Bridget, his cook, and asked her if she knew where
the children lived.

“Of course,” answered Bridget. “They are the Trippertrots. They live a
couple of streets from here.”

“Can you take them home?” asked the doctor.

“Ah, sure I can,” said Bridget.

“Then please do,” said the doctor.

So Bridget put on her bonnet and shawl, and started to take the
Trippertrots home, but on the way there something else happened.




ADVENTURE NUMBER EIGHTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE NICE BIG DOG


Bridget led Tommy and Mary and Johnny Trippertrot down the steps of the
house and started off up the street with them.

“Are you sure, if you please, that you know where we live, Bridget?”
asked Mary.

“Ah, sure I do!” exclaimed Bridget, with a laugh. “I know Suzette, your
mamma’s nursemaid, and if I know what house _she_ lives in, sure I can
take you to that _same_ house, can’t I?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can!” exclaimed Mary, “and if we had any of our candy
left we’d give you some; wouldn’t we, boys?”

“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed Tommy and Johnny together, like twins, you
know.

“Oh, bless your dear little hearts!” exclaimed Bridget. “I don’t want
any candy. But come along now, and you’ll soon be home.”

So she led them up one street, and down another, and pretty soon they
came to a window of a store that was filled with pretty toys. Oh, there
were trains of cars, and toy soldiers, and dolls, and doll carriages,
and steam engines, and elephants that waggled their heads, and all
things like that.

“Oh, don’t you remember this place?” cried Mary to her brothers.

[Illustration: THE TRAIN KEPT GOING ON AND ON]

“Yes,” said Johnny, “this is the toy shop where we came the first time
we were lost, and we choosed things from the window.”

“That’s what it is,” agreed Tommy.

“Have you children been lost before?” asked Bridget.

“Oh, we’re always getting lost!” exclaimed Mary. “Aren’t we, boys?”

“Of course,” answered Tommy and Johnny together, once more like twins,
you know.

“But it isn’t our fault,” said Mary. “It’s just like to-day; something
always leads us off, like a lame birdie or a pink cow, or the dancing
bears.”

“Bless and save us!” cried Bridget. “What funny children you are, to be
sure! But come along, and we’ll soon be home.”

Well, she was hurrying them along as fast as she could, for it was
getting on toward evening, you know, when all at once Johnny fell down
and he bumped his nose on the sidewalk.

“Oh, my!” he exclaimed.

“There now, don’t cry!” said Mary.

“I’m not going to!” said Johnny bravely. “But--but I want to very much,
and it hurts awful, that’s what it does,” and he couldn’t help two
tears coming into his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall down on the
sidewalk; no, indeed. Oh, I tell you he was a brave little boy!

“Never mind,” said Bridget, “I’ll rub my gold ring on the sore spot,
and maybe that will make it better.”

So she rubbed her cold gold ring on Johnny’s sore nose, and it was soon
better--I mean his nose was better, not the ring, you know.

Well, all of a sudden, as Bridget was leading the children along the
street, and they were thinking they would soon be at home, Bridget
cried out:

“Oh, dear! I quite forgot that I left the meat cooking on the stove for
the doctor’s supper! It will be all burned up! I must hurry back to the
house. Oh, dear! Poor man, he can’t eat burned meat! I must go back at
once.”

“Are you going to take us back with you?” asked Mary, and she didn’t
feel like going, as her feet were very tired, and she wanted to get
home.

“Take you back with me?” cried Bridget. “No, I don’t believe I’ll do
that, or you’ll never get home. See, darlings, it’s but a short step
now to your house. Just down this street a little way, and then you
turn the corner, and there you are. Don’t you think you can find it by
yourselves? The little boy who didn’t cry when he bumped his nose ought
to be able to find it.”

“I--I guess I can,” said Johnny.

“We’ll try, anyhow,” spoke Tommy.

“Well, if we get lost again we can’t help it,” said Mary.

“Oh, you won’t get lost,” declared Bridget, and then, giving them each
a kiss, she hurried back to the doctor’s house so that the supper meat
wouldn’t burn.

Well, the children stood still in the street for a minute, and then
they started in the direction Bridget had shown them. They thought
surely, this time, they could find their house. They were beginning to
be hungry.

“Come on, let’s hurry,” said Mary, so she took hold of Johnny’s hand on
one side, and Tommy’s hand on the other, and away they went.

They hadn’t gone very far before, all at once, and when they hadn’t
yet had time to turn the corner, a nice, big, black and white dog came
running toward them.

“Oh, look, there’s Fido, our dog!” cried Tommy.

“No, Fido isn’t as big as that,” said Johnny quickly. “That is another
dog.”

“But he’s as nice as our Fido,” said Mary, and the boys were sure this
was so.

“And oh, look!” exclaimed Tommy, when the big black and white dog came
closer to them, “this dog must have run away, for there’s a broken
string fast to his collar. Maybe he broke it, and pulled away from the
little house in the yard where he lives.”

“Maybe he did,” agreed Mary. “Doggie, did you run away, and are you
lost?” she asked him.

The doggie wagged his tail up and down.

“Look! Look!” cried Tommy. “He’s saying ‘yes.’ He must be lost, the
same as we were.”

“Do you want us to take you home?” asked Johnny, and once more the
nice, big dog wagged his tail up and down, just as if he was saying
“yes,” that he did.

“Then we’ll take you home,” said Johnny kindly. “Wait a minute, doggie,
until I get hold of that string around your neck.”

So the dog waited, and Johnny took hold of the cord, and so did Tommy;
and then Mary said:

“Oh, boys, I am _so_ tired I don’t believe I can walk another step to
take that lost doggie home. Besides, you don’t know where he lives, and
it may take a long time.”

“Doggies always know their own selves where they live,” said Tommy;
“don’t you, doggie?”

And once more the doggie said “yes” with his tail, that he waggled up
and down.

“Very well, then,” said Mary. “I’ll wait here until you come back,
after you take the doggie home.”

“Oh, I know something better than that!” cried Tommy.

“What?” asked Mary, looking about for a place where she could sit down.

“Why, you can ride on the doggie’s back,” exclaimed Tommy. “He is big
and strong, and he won’t mind carrying you the least bit; will you,
doggie? You’ll carry Mary on your back, won’t you?”

“Bow-wow!” barked the doggie, which means “yes,” of course, and besides
that he waggled his tail again.

So Mary’s two brothers lifted her up on the doggie’s back, and he stood
still, just like a pony-horse. Then Tommy and Johnny took hold of the
string on the dog’s collar and they called:

“Go ahead now, doggie. Go where you live.”

Then the dog looked around, to make sure that Mary was safely on his
back, and off he trotted. He went so fast that he nearly pulled Tommy
and Johnny off their feet.

“Oh, wait! Please wait!” cried Tommy.

“Yes, don’t go so fast!” begged Johnny.

“For you’re jouncing me all to pieces,” said Mary, who was holding on
as tightly as she could by winding her fingers in the dog’s shaggy hair
on his back.

Then the dog said: “Bow-wow! bow-wow!” which meant that he was sorry,
and he went slower.

Along the street went the three little Trippertrots, and the nice big
dog, and Tommy and Johnny and Mary were watching all the while for the
place where the dog lived.

But that dog kept straight on, and didn’t seem to want to turn in
anywhere.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mary, “s’posin’ he hasn’t any home!”

“He’s _got_ to have a home,” said Tommy. “All dogs have homes, and
we’ll come to this one’s pretty soon.”

[Illustration: _He Stood Still, Just Like a Pony-Horse._]

“But we’re going right away from our home,” said Mary, “and maybe we
can’t ever find it. I’m afraid we’ll be lost again.”

“Oh, I guess not,” spoke Johnny. “Is your home near here?” he asked, in
the doggie’s ear.

“Bow-wow! Bow-wow!” barked the doggie.

“Now what do you s’pose he means?” asked Mary.

“I don’t know,” said Tommy.

“Neither do I,” spoke Johnny, “but we’ll keep right on, and we’ll get
there some time.”

Pretty soon they met a nice man, and he said to the children:

“Well, where is that big dog taking you?”

“If you please, he isn’t taking _us_ anywhere,” said Mary. “We’re
taking _him_ home. He’s lost.”

“Oh, I see,” said the man, with a laugh. “Well, be sure you don’t get
lost yourselves.”

Then Mary and Tommy and Johnny went on a little farther with the dog,
until all at once, when they got in front of a nice, big, brown-stone
house, they heard a little boy cry out:

“Oh, papa, there’s Nero come back! Some children are bringing him back!
Oh, how glad I am! I thought he was lost.”

“Is this your dog?” asked Tommy, when the little boy and a man came
down the steps.

“Yes,” said the man, “that is my little boy’s dog.”

“And his name is Nero, and he was lost,” spoke the boy.

“Where did you find him?” asked the boy’s papa, while Nero danced
around and barked as loudly as he could, because he was so happy to be
home again.

“He was lost, and we found him,” answered Mary, who had slid down off
Nero’s back, “but now _we_ are lost.”

“Never mind,” said the man, “since you were so kind as to bring my
little boy’s dog home, I will send _you_ home in my carriage. James,”
he called to the coachman, “hitch up the horses, and take these
children home. And, Nero, you must never run away again.”

So Nero barked, which, I suppose, was his way of saying that he never
would, and then he went in the house with the little boy. And pretty
soon the horses were hitched to the carriage.

“Oh, goody! We’re going to have a ride home!” exclaimed Mary.




ADVENTURE NUMBER NINETEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE POOR LITTLE BOY


“Oh, this is the best fun yet!” exclaimed Tommy. “I’m real glad we got
lost this time.” He could see the nice coach and horses now.

“So am I,” said Johnny.

“And to think of going home in a real coach, with a real coachman!”
exclaimed Mary. “It will be real stylish!”

“Yes, and they are real horses, too!” exclaimed Tommy, as the coachman
came along the driveway, driving the prancing animals.

“Of course!” cried Johnny. “If they weren’t real horses we’d never get
home.”

“Oh, well,” said Mary, “I guess Tommy meant they might be
rocking-horses, or sawhorses, or clothes-horses, such as we once rode
on. But I’m glad they are real horses. Oh, here we are, all ready for a
ride.”

And with that the coachman drove up to the steps and stopped the
carriage.

“Jump in, children!” he called to them, “and I’ll soon have you home.
Whoa, there, horsies! Don’t jump so and prance about, or you might step
on somebody’s toes.”

Then the horses stood very quiet, and Tommy and Mary and Johnny got
into the nice carriage. Oh, it was a fine one! with such soft cushions
on the seats, and little windows, out of which the children could look,
and see what was happening in the streets.

And oh, so many things were happening! There were trolley cars rushing
here and there, some one way and some another way, and there were
wagons being driven here, and there, and some were from the grocery
store, and some from the butcher store. And then there were such lots
of automobiles, with their horns going “Toot! Toot!”

“I believe there must be forty-’leven autos at the very least,” said
Tommy.

“I’m glad we’re not walking home,” said Mary, “because an automobile
might accidentally bump into us.”

“Yes, it’s nice here,” said Tommy, and just then a man with a peanut
wagon ran it across the street, right under the noses of the coachman’s
horses.

“Hey, there! Where are you going?” cried the coachman to the peanut
man, and the coachman had to pull up the horses very quickly, or the
peanut man might have been run over. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but
he _might_ have been, you know, though I hope none of us would want a
thing like that to happen. “Where are you going?” called the coachman
again.

“I am going across the street, so as to get on the other side,” said
the peanut man. “None of the people over there would buy any of my hot
peanuts, so I want to go over on the other side.”

“Quite right,” said the coachman kindly. “I don’t blame you a bit.”

“Oh, isn’t it too bad that nobody would buy his peanuts, poor man!”
said Mary. “I would buy some, if I had the money.”

“So would I!” exclaimed Tommy.

“And so would I,” added Johnny.

“Would you now, bless your hearts?” said the hot peanut man. “Then it
is I who will be wishing you _did_ have the money.”

“Oh, well, maybe if they haven’t I have,” said the coachman, and,
with that, what did he do? He put his one hand in his pocket, while
holding on to the horses’ reins with the other, and out he pulled three
five-cent pieces. “Here,” said the coachman kindly, “give the children
each a bag of hot peanuts.”

“That I will!” exclaimed the peanut man, “and here’s a bag for
yourself, Mr. Coachman, for being so kind as not to run over me while I
was crossing the street.”

“Oh, pray don’t mention such a little thing as that,” said the
coachman, with a smile, as he took the fourth bag. Then the peanut man
hurried on across the street, and the coachman drove the Trippertrot
children on a little farther.

Pretty soon, after a while the coachman turned around, and, looking
into the back part of the big carriage, where the children were, he
asked them:

“And now, my little dears, where would you like me to be driving? I
mean where is your home? for I want to get the horses back in the
stable pretty soon. Where do you live?”

“Why, don’t you know?” asked Mary in wonder.

“Not a bit of it,” answered the coachman, and he was so surprised that
he stopped eating peanuts.

“He--doesn’t--know--where--we--live!” cried Tommy and Johnny together,
and they, too, were so surprised that they stopped eating peanuts. And
then Mary stopped, too.

“How should I know where you live?” asked the coachman. “The master
just told me to take you home, and I thought you knew where it was.”

“But we don’t,” said Mary gently. “You see, we are the Trippertrots,
and we are always tripping and trotting off somewhere, and getting
lost. That’s what we did this time. But I should have thought the man,
whose boy owns the big dog we found, would have told you where to take
us.”

“Well, he didn’t,” said the coachman. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

“What is it?” asked Tommy and Johnny and Mary, all at once.

“I’ll drive all around, up one street and down the other, and maybe you
will see your house,” said the coachman. “Please keep a sharp lookout.”

“Oh, that’s just the way the banana man did, the time we rode in the
hay on his cart,” said Johnny.

“Yes, we got home then all right,” said Mary, “and I think we will this
time. Go on, Mr. Coachman, if you please, and we will tell you when we
come to our house, so you can stop and let us out.”

“Bless their dear little innocent hearts!” exclaimed the coachman--and
he spoke to the horses to make them go faster--“I never saw such
children in all the days of my life. Not to know where they live! Ah,
well, sure the little fairies will watch over ’em, and me, too, I hope,
and I’ll get them safely home if I can.”

So he drove on and on, through street after street, but he couldn’t
seem to find the Trippertrot house, and, though the children looked out
of the carriage windows, and ate their peanuts, they couldn’t see their
house, either.

And then, all of a sudden, as Mary was looking at the nice horses, and
wondering if they would ever get home again--all at once, I say--she
saw a poor little ragged boy standing on the street corner, and he was
crying.

“Oh, Tommy and Johnny! Look there!” exclaimed Mary. “That little boy is
crying. Something must be the matter.”

“I guess there is,” said Johnny. “We ought to help him.”

“We will!” exclaimed Tommy. “Oh, Mr. Coachman, stop, if you please!” he
called out of the front window of the carriage.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the coachman. “Have you found your
house?”

“Not yet,” answered Mary, “but we have found a poor little boy, and we
want to see what is the matter with him.”

So the coachman stopped the horses, and out jumped Tommy. He went right
up to the poor little crying boy, and asked:

“What is the matter? Are you hurt?”

“No, I am lost,” said the poor little boy, and he cried harder than
ever.

“My! My!” exclaimed Tommy, in his jolly little voice. “That is nothing.
We are lost, too, and we don’t mind it a bit. We are always getting
lost. But the coachman is taking us home, and I know he’ll take you
home also. Get in the carriage.”

So the poor little ragged boy started to get into the carriage. The
coachman saw him and cried out:

“I say now, where are you going?”

“He is coming with us,” answered Mary. “He is lost; and will you please
take him home, too?”

“Oh! Oh!” cried the coachman. “This is the worst I ever heard! Here are
you children who don’t know where your own home is and you’re trying to
find a home for another lost boy. Oh, dear! This is terrible! Terrible!”

“But I _do_ know where my home is,” said the poor little boy, “only it
got away from me somehow or other. I know what street it’s on.”

“Do you, indeed?” cried the coachman. “Then that’s more than the
Trippertrots know. Whisper now, and tell me where is your home, and
I’ll take you to it as fast as the horses can trot. And then, maybe,
we’ll have good luck, and find out where these children live.”

So the little boy, who had stopped crying now, told the name of his
street and the number of his house. I forget where it was, but that
doesn’t matter.

“Oh, joy! Now I know where I’m going,” said the coachman, and the
horses started up. Inside the coach the three Trippertrots were eating
peanuts, and, of course, they gave the little boy some, and he liked
them very much.

And then, all of a sudden, the little boy cried:

“Oh, there’s my house!”

“Are you sure?” asked the coachman. But the little boy didn’t have to
answer, for just then out ran a lady.

“Oh, Teddy!” she cried, when she saw the poor little boy. “I thought I
would never see you again! Where have you been?” and she took him in
her arms.

“I’ve been lost, mamma,” he said, “and these nice children brought me
home.”

“And where do you live?” asked the lady.

“That’s the trouble,” said Mary sadly. “Everyone seems to have a home
but us.”

And now I’m coming to the strange part of this adventure. Just as Mary
said that, along the street came a man with a long, white beard, and as
soon as Johnny saw him he cried out:

“Oh, there is the nice old fisherman! You’ll take us home, won’t you?”

“Yes, please do,” said Tommy.

“We wish it so very much,” added Mary. “Won’t you, please?”

“To be sure I will,” said the old fisherman, and there he stood, the
same one who had fished up the rubber boots and the raincoat and the
umbrella, and who had taken the children to the house of the false-face
man. “I’ll take you home,” he said. So he got into the carriage with
the Trippertrots, and away they went.




ADVENTURE NUMBER TWENTY

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE GIRL


“And where have you been since I saw you last?” asked the fisherman of
Mary, as she and her brothers sat on the coach cushions eating peanuts.

“Oh, we have been getting lost nearly every day,” she replied. “Haven’t
we, boys?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered Tommy and Johnny together. “This time it was a
nice big dog that made us get lost,” added Tommy.

“And on other times it was a pink cow, or the dancing bears,” added
Johnny.

“My! You children certainly have strange adventures,” said the old
fisherman, with a jolly laugh. “But I think they will soon be over
to-day, as we will be home in a little while.”

“Tell me,” said the coachman, as he turned around to speak to the old
fisherman, “do you know where these children live? For they don’t
themselves, and I never saw nor heard of such a thing in all the born
days of my life. Do you know where they live?”

“Oh, yes,” said the old fisherman.

“Thank goodness for that!” exclaimed the coachman. “Get up, horses, we
will soon have them home, and then we can go home ourselves, and I’ll
give you your suppers. Not that I want to be impolite,” the coachman
said quickly, “but you must see that it is a strange thing to be
driving around with children who don’t know where they live.”

“It _is_ queer,” admitted Mary, as she ate the last of her peanuts.

“The next time we get lost,” said Tommy, “we’ll tie a string to our
house and take the cord with us, and when we want to go back, all we’ll
have to do will be to follow the string.”

“That’s a good idea,” said the old fisherman, and then he told the
coachman where to drive, so as to get to the Trippertrot house as soon
as possible.

“Have you caught any more queer fish?” asked Tommy, as they drove
along, for he could not help thinking of the rubber boots, and the
umbrella, that the fisherman had pulled up on the hammock-hook out of
the little lake.

“No, I haven’t been fishing since then,” said the old gentleman. “But
I have my hammock-hook now, and, if the driver will lend me one of the
lines, I’ll fish right here, out of the carriage window.”

“Why, you can’t catch anything by fishing out of a carriage window,”
said Mary politely.

“How do you know?” inquired the old fisherman, with a smile. “Did you
ever try it?”

“No,” said Mary, “I never have.”

“Then you can’t tell!” exclaimed the fisherman. “Why, I have caught
fish in the queerest places you ever heard of, and then again, I’ve
gone fishing in places where I was sure there were fish, and I never
got a bite--except a mosquito bite. So you never can tell.

“Why, once I was in the market, getting something to eat, and I
happened to drop my umbrella, that had a crooked handle. And when I
picked it up, there was a fish fast to it. What do you think of that?”

“Oh, well, yes, of course!” exclaimed Johnny. “There are fish in a
market, for people want to buy them. I believe _that_ all right.”

“So do I,” said Tommy.

“But listen to this,” said the old fisherman. “Once I was in a lady’s
house, and I went in the parlor, and there was a glass jar there on the
table. I put my finger in the jar and a fish bit me. What do you think
of that?”

“Oh, yes, but,” said Mary, “they were goldfish, in water, in the jar. I
have often seen goldfish in a parlor.”

“Then,” said the old fisherman, “if there are goldfish in a parlor and
other fish in the meat market, how can you tell but what there may be
fish in this carriage? I’m going to try, anyhow, for I haven’t fished
in some time. Please, Mr. Coachman, lend me a piece of the horse lines.”

So the coachman did this, and the old fisherman fastened the line on
his hammock-hook, and then he sat on the seat, and let the hook dangle
on the floor.

Every once in a while the old fisherman would pull up the horse line,
with the hammock-hook on it, and he would look carefully at it. But
each time there was nothing on, and the fisherman was much disappointed.

“I’m afraid you will never get any fish in here,” said Mary, after a
while.

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Tommy. “For we have been riding in here for
some time, and if there were any fish we would know it.”

“Besides,” added Johnny, “there isn’t any water here, or else our feet
would be wet, and fish can’t live without water.”

“I believe you’re right!” exclaimed the old fisherman. “I never thought
of that. I have made a mistake. I should have put my hook out of the
back window of the carriage. I’ll do it now,” and he did so at once,
and then he sat very quietly, waiting for a bite, while the coachman
drove on to the Trippertrot house.

All at once the old fisherman cried out:

“I have a bite! I have a bite!”

“Is it a mosquito bite?” asked Mary quickly. “Because if it is you must
put witch hazel on it.”

“No, it is a fish bite,” said the old gentleman.

“On your finger?” asked Tommy.

“No, on the hammock-hook,” said the old gentleman, and then he pulled
in the horse-fish-line, and there, on the hammock-hook, was a tall silk
hat, such as doctors sometimes wear.

“Oh, what a funny catch!” exclaimed Mary.

“Isn’t it, though!” agreed the fisherman. “I don’t know when I ever
caught a silk hat before.”

He was just taking the hat off the hook, and looking at it to see if
there were any holes in it, when all at once the coach stopped and the
coachman said:

“If you please, sir, there is trouble out here.”

“What sort of trouble?” asked the old fisherman.

“Why, there is a gentleman here, sir, without any hat, and he says,
sir, that it’s in my coach.”

“I shouldn’t wonder but what he was right,” spoke the queer fisherman.
“I think _I_ have his hat.”

“Ha! What do you mean by taking off my hat?” asked a voice, and there,
at the coach window, stood a little man, with a very red face. “Where
is my hat?” he cried.

“Here it is,” answered the fisherman. “I beg your pardon. You see when
I fish I never can tell what I am going to catch. I hope I haven’t
bothered you.”

“Well, if I don’t catch cold I won’t mind,” said the little man with
the red face. And he took the hat from the fisherman, put it on his
head, and hurried off.

Then the coachman drove his horses on some more, and the queer old
fisherman dangled his hammock-hook out of the back carriage window
again.

“I wonder what we shall catch this time?” he said to the children, with
a jolly laugh.

“Oh, maybe you’ll catch a chocolate cake,” said Tommy.

“Or an orange pudding,” added Mary.

“Or a dish of ice cream,” said Johnny.

“Well, it might happen,” spoke the fisherman. “Hello! I have something,
anyhow,” he cried, as he pulled in the hook and line.

And what do you suppose was dangling on the end of it?

Why, a lady’s bonnet, of course! Yes, a real lady’s bonnet, all covered
with flowers, and lace, and ribbons, and things like that. I mean the
bonnet was covered with those things--not the lady, you understand.

“Why--why!” exclaimed the fisherman, with a pleased laugh. “I don’t
know when I have caught a lady’s bonnet before. I am having very good
luck to-day.”

Then, just as he was taking the bonnet off the hook, the coachman
stopped the horses and said:

“If you please, sir, there is more trouble out here!”

“What sort of trouble?” asked the fisherman.

“Why, there is a lady here, sir, that says you have her new bonnet.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” spoke the fisherman. “This must be it. It got
caught on my hook by mistake.”

“Oh, I hope it’s not torn!” cried the lady, as she looked in at the
coach window.

“Not in the least,” said the fisherman politely, as he gave the bonnet
to her.

And on they went again.

“I must be careful what I catch next time,” said the fisherman, as he
once more put the hammock-hook out of the back window of the coach. In
a minute he pulled it in again, and this time there was a loaf of bread
on it, all wrapped up in paper, and tied with a pink string. And no
sooner had the bread been pulled in, than there was a crying sound out
in the street, and a voice said:

“Oh, my bread! Some one has taken my loaf of bread, and I haven’t any
money to buy any more! Oh, dear!”

“Bless me!” cried the old fisherman. “I wouldn’t have taken any one’s
loaf of bread for the world.”

Then he looked out of the coach window, and he saw a poor little girl
crying real, salty tears.

“Oh, my! don’t cry,” said the kind fisherman. “Are you lost, too?”

“No, but I was coming home from the store, with a loaf of bread,” said
the poor little girl, “and all at once I--I didn’t have it.”

“Ah, here it is,” said the old fisherman kindly, and he handed it to
her out of the coach window. Well, you just should have seen how wide
open the little girl’s eyes were.

“Are--are you one of the magicians that makes rabbits come out of a
hat?” the poor little girl asked.

“Oh, yes. I can do those tricks sometimes,” said the old fisherman. “I
just caught your bread by mistake.”

“Oh, will you do some tricks?” cried Mary and Johnny and Tommy, all
together.

“Not now, some other day,” said the old fisherman. “Get up in the
carriage, little girl, and we will take you home.”

So the poor little girl got up in the carriage, and as she knew where
her home was, the coachman soon drove her there, and the old fisherman
gave her ten cents.

“And now for the Trippertrot house!” cried the old fisherman, as they
started off again. “We’ll soon be there.”

“And very glad I’ll be of it!” said the coachman, “for such queer
goings on I never saw before in all the born days of my life. Fishing
out of a coach! The idea!”

All of a sudden, as the children and the old fisherman were riding
along, a policeman, who was on a horse, galloped up to the coach, and
holding up his hand to stop it, cried out:

“Is the old fisherman in there?”

“Of course I am,” replied the fisherman. “What is the matter?”

“You are wanted at once,” spoke the policeman. “Down at the bird and
animal store. The big glass globe, where the goldfish swim, was upset
by a puppy dog wagging his tail, and the fish are all flopping over the
floor. The man who owns them wants you to come and help him catch them.”

“Of course, I’ll go at once,” said the kind old fisherman. “It will be
fun for the children to watch me catch the fish.”

“No, the Trippertrot children must stay here,” said the policeman. “I
forgot to tell you that a snake also got loose when the fish fell out
of the globe, and we wouldn’t want the children to be bitten by the
snake.”

“No, indeed, we don’t want to be, either,” spoke Mary. “But what is to
become of us? Who will take care of us? How will we ever get home?”

“Oh, I will look after you,” said the policeman. “Here, I will wrap you
up in my nice coat,” he went on, taking off the coat that he wore.

“But where will we stay?” asked Tommy.

“Yes, we must stay somewhere, until the coach and the old fisherman
come back for us,” went on Johnny.

“Ha! I have it! The very thing!” cried the policeman, as he saw a man
going past carrying a big rocking-chair on his head. “Let me take that
chair for the Trippertrot children to sit in until this coach comes
back,” the policeman said to the man, and the man did it at once.

So the policeman wrapped the three children in his coat, and set them
in the big rocking-chair, close to a street lamp-post, so the coachman
could easily find them again when he came back.

“I’ll just write your names and addresses on a card, and tie it to the
chair,” said the policeman. “Then there will be no trouble about you
getting home again.” So he did that, for he knew where the Trippertrots
lived, though he didn’t have time to take them home himself.

Then the policeman rode away on his horse, and the fisherman drove off
in the coach to catch the goldfish, and the children were left sitting
in the rocking-chair on the street, beside the lamp-post.

And they didn’t mind it a bit, not even when it began to rain all of a
sudden, for they were very snug in the coat.

Well, it rained and it rained, and pretty soon the children were so
nice and cozy and warm that they went to sleep. And then, who should
come along but an expressman, driving his wagon, and the wagon was
painted red.

“Whoa!” called the expressman to his horse, as he saw the rocking-chair
by the lamp-post. “I must see what this is. Maybe it dropped off some
one’s wagon.”

So he went up to the rocking-chair, and my goodness me sakes alive and
a spoonful of mustard! Wasn’t he surprised when he opened the big
coat, and saw Mary and Tommy and Johnny sleeping inside it.

“Why, this is very strange!” said the expressman. “I wonder who could
have left three little children out in the rain like this?” Then he
looked at his wagon to see if he would have room for them inside it.
And he thought he had.

“My! My! My sakes alive and some Thanksgiving turkey!” cried the
expressman. “I never heard of such a thing in all my born days and
nights! I am certainly surprised!”

“Heard of what? What is the matter?” cried Tommy, who suddenly
awakened, and looked up at the expressman. “What is it that you are
surprised at? Is it a surprise party?”

“No, indeed,” replied the expressman. “But I am surprised that any one
would leave you here in the storm like this.”

“The policeman did,” explained Mary, “but he wrapped us up in his big
coat. We were with the old fisherman, but he had to go away to catch
the goldfish that spilled all over the floor. I guess he is coming back
for us.”

“But if he doesn’t, what are we to do?” asked Johnny. “I wish some one
could take us home now.”

“Perhaps this nice expressman can take us home,” suggested Tommy, for
he could see the expressman’s wagon standing there.

“Of course, I could take you home, if I knew where you lived,” said the
expressman.

“It’s written on a tag tied to the chair,” said Mary, in her most
polite voice.

“What is?” asked the expressman. “What is written there?”

“The address where we live,” went on the little Trippertrot girl. “Do
you think you can find our house?”

“Of course I can,” answered the expressman. “I’ll soon have you home.
You’ll be all right now, and I’ll pull the canvas sides down on my
wagon, and you’ll be as nice and snug as you can be, even though it
rains all the while, for my express wagon has a top on it. And later on
I’ll tell the policeman and the fisherman that I took you away. Then
they won’t worry.”

So he picked up the chair and the children, both at the same time,
still wrapped in the coat as they were, and the expressman put them,
chair and all, into his big wagon. Then, having looked at the address
on the tag, which told on which street the Trippertrot family lived,
and the number of the house, the expressman whistled a funny, jolly
little tune to his horse, and away he galloped through the storm, up
one street and down another.

And, oh! how nice, and warm, and cozy it was for the Trippertrot
children in the express wagon. The canvas sides kept out the wind and
the rain, and none of the drops could get in the top, for there was
a roof over the wagon. It was so warm in there (for there was a nice
lantern all lighted and burning, as it was getting dark)--it was so
warm, I say--that the children didn’t need the coat around them any
more.

“Let’s get out of the chair, and see the different things that are in
the wagon,” suggested Mary, after a while.

“Oh, yes, let’s,” agreed Johnny. “We have never ridden in an express
wagon before. This is a new adventure.”

So they laid aside the coat, and crawled out of the big rocking-chair.
They saw lots of boxes and packages in the wagon, and they wondered
what they contained, but they were too polite to ask. In fact, the
expressman was too busy to answer them, for the storm was quite bad
now, and he had all he could do to drive his horse through it. But it
was fun for the children in the wagon, as they were warm, and they
could see very well by the light of the lantern.

All of a sudden, in one corner of the wagon they heard a noise that
sounded like:

“Cut! Cut! Cut-ka-dah-cut!”

“What’s that?” cried Johnny.

“That’s a chicken,” answered Tommy.

“What, in this wagon?” asked Mary.

“It sounded so,” went on Tommy. “Let’s look around and find it.”

So the children began looking in and around the different boxes and
packages, until, all of a sudden, Mary saw a little box, with slats
nailed across the front, like a small chicken-coop, and inside was a
dear, little red hen.

“Cut! Cut! Cut-ka-dah-cut!” called the red hen.

“Oh, you little dear!” exclaimed Mary. “I wish I had you for my own.”

“Maybe it is coming to our house for a present to us,” suggested Tommy.

“See if there’s a tag on it, like on our rocking-chair, to tell where
the expressman is to leave it,” said Johnny.

“No, there isn’t any,” said Mary, after she had looked.

“Cut! Cut! Cut-ka-dah-cut!” cried the red hen again, just as if she was
trying to tell where she belonged.

“Has she laid any eggs?” asked Tommy.

“I don’t see any,” spoke Mary, as she looked inside the little
chicken-coop. “But maybe she will, if we wait a little longer.”

So the three Trippertrot children sat down on the floor of the express
wagon, and watched the little red hen, as she scratched around in the
coop, but she didn’t seem to be laying any eggs. And all this while the
expressman was driving through the rain toward the place where Tommy
and Mary and Johnny lived.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a noise in another corner of the
wagon, and when the children looked there they saw a dear, little white
bunny-rabbit in a cage.

“Oh, if we could only have that!” exclaimed Tommy, in delight.

“Has it got a tag on it, to say that it is coming to our house?” asked
Johnny eagerly.

“No,” replied his sister Mary. “It’s just like the coop of the little
red hen--no tag on it.”

And then there was a queer little chattering sort of a noise in another
corner of the express wagon, and when the children ran over there, they
saw a squirrel, with a big, bushy tail, in a wire cage, and there was
no tag on his cage to tell where he belonged.

“Oh, maybe the expressman will let us keep the three pets!” cried Mary.
“It would be lovely if he would.”

And just then the express wagon stopped.

“Here you are, children!” cried the man, in a jolly voice.

“Where are we?” asked Tommy and Mary and Johnny all together, like
twins.

“Right in front of your own house!” said the expressman. “I have
brought you home, and the big coat, and the rocking-chair, also. Here
we go!”

And with that he picked up Tommy and Johnny and Mary, and the chair,
and the coat, and carried them into the house. And maybe Mr. and Mrs.
Trippertrot and Suzette, the nursemaid, weren’t surprised to see their
children back after such a long time away.

“Oh, you runaway darlings!” cried their mamma. “Where have you been?”

“Almost everywhere,” answered Mary. “But, mamma, dear, one minute,
please. I want to ask the expressman if we can have the little red hen,
and the rabbit, and the squirrel we found in his wagon, because they
have no tags on the cages to show who owns them, and we might have
them.”

“Have them? Of course you may!” cried the expressman. “I’ll bring them
right in. You see, the tags were torn off the boxes, and I don’t know
what to do with them, and I’ll be glad to have some nice children feed
the animals.”

So he brought into the Trippertrot house the squirrel and the rabbit
and the little red hen, and gave them to the children, who had lots of
fun with them for many days after that.

And then Papa Trippertrot thanked the expressman, and all of a sudden,
who should come along but the old fisherman. He got to the house just
as the expressman was driving away.

“Oh, such a time as I had catching those goldfish!” the fisherman
exclaimed. “They flopped all over the floor, and the monkey in the bird
store nearly caught one, and the parrot almost had another. But, thank
goodness, I got them all safe in the fish-globe again, and then I went
to take care of you children, but I found you had gone away. So I came
on here.”

“How did you know we were here?” asked Mary.

“I met Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, and he told me,” said the fisherman.
“He came along just as the expressman was taking you home, and so I
knew just what to do. I sent the coachman and coach back, and I came
here by walking. Oh, but such a time as I’ve had! And how glad I am
that you children are safe home!”

And Mary and Tommy and Johnny were also very glad to get home, and
their papa and mamma were very glad to see them, and they invited
the old fisherman to stay to supper. And he said he would, and the
Trippertrots thought they would never trip or trot away from home again.

But, of course, that isn’t saying that they did not go away. In fact,
they did, and they had many more wonderful adventures, and I will tell
you about them in the next book of this series, which will be called,
“Three Little Trippertrots on Their Travels.”

So Mary and Tommy and Johnny, and their papa and mamma, sat talking
to the old fisherman, who told them many strange stories of the funny
things he had caught.

“Oh, but it is nice to be home again,” said Mary.

“Indeed it is,” agreed Tommy and Johnny.

“And we are happy to have you home,” said their mamma and papa. And
now, for a little while, we will say good-by to the Three Little
Trippertrots.


THE END




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
    public domain.





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