all at once, they heard a jolly whistle.
“Oh, there’s the postman!” cried Mary, jumping up. “Now we can give him
back the letter he dropped out of his bag, and he will take us home.”
“But that doesn’t sound like the postman,” spoke Tommy.
“I don’t think so either,” added Johnny.
“Then I wonder who it can be?” asked Mary, for there was no letter-man
to be seen. “Who whistled? Is somebody playing a trick?”
“I did!” cried a jolly voice, and, just as true as I’m telling you,
out from behind a telegraph pole danced Jiggily Jig, the funny boy. “I
whistled,” he said, and then he turned two somersaults, one after the
other, and laughed in such a jolly way, that the Trippertrots didn’t in
the least mind being lost.
“Where did you come from?” asked Mary.
“From behind the telegraph pole,” answered Jiggily Jig.
“And where have you been?” inquired Tommy.
“Behind the telegraph pole,” said Jiggily Jig. “Oh, I was there
ever so long, watching you children, but I wasn’t sure you were the
Trippertrots, so I didn’t want to come out.”
“Where are you going?” asked Johnny.
“I’m going back behind the telegraph pole, when I do what I can for
you,” replied Jiggily Jig. “I live there, you know.”
“What, not behind a telegraph pole?” asked Mary. “You don’t mean to
tell me you live _there_!”
“Why not, I’d like to know?” asked Jiggily Jig. “People live in houses,
when telegraph poles are in _front_ of them, so why shouldn’t I live
_behind_ a telegraph pole? Come here, and I’ll show you.”
So tripping, and leaping, and dancing, and jumping, Jiggily Jig led the
Trippertrots to the telegraph pole, and there, as true as I’m telling
you, was the cutest little house you could imagine. It was made out
of a whole lot of little dolls’ houses built into one, and there was
a front porch, and steps with an upstairs to it, and a chimney on the
roof, and doors and windows, and everything that is found in a regular
house.
“Oh, how lovely!” cried Mary, in delight.
“Yes, it’s fine!” exclaimed Tommy and Johnny.
“Who made it?” asked Mary.
“I did,” replied Jiggily Jig, proudly. “I would ask you to come in, and
have lunch with me,” the funny boy went on, “but to tell you the truth,
as I always do, the house is only big enough for one to get in at a
time. So we would have to take turns going in to lunch.”
“Oh, we shouldn’t mind that!” said Tommy, quickly, for he was hungry.
“Not in the least,” added Johnny.
“And you could go in to lunch first,” went on Mary, for she was also
hungry.
“Oh, there’s no use thinking about it,” said Jiggily Jig, with a sigh,
“for, to tell you the truth again, there is nothing to eat for any of
us, so there is no manner of use going in.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Tommy, and he was more hungry than
ever, and so were Mary and Johnny.
“Well, maybe I’ll have something by supper time, if you stay around
long enough,” went on Jiggily Jig. “But it seems to me that you are
rather sad. Is there anything I can do for you? Are you lost again?”
“Yes,” replied Mary, “we are. And this letter is lost, too,” and she
gave the funny boy the one the postman had dropped.
“Oh, that letter is an easy matter,” said Jiggily Jig. “First I will
take it to where it belongs, and then I will take you home.”
“But you don’t know where we live!” objected Mary. “You didn’t the last
time, you know.”
[Illustration: _So He Pulled on the Rope and Up Went the House_]
“I think I know this time,” spoke Jiggily Jig. “Wait until I look at
the writing on the letter,” and he squinted at it upside down.
“Why, you can’t read it that way, can you?” asked Tommy. “I can read
some letters in my picture book, but I couldn’t if I turned them upside
down.”
“Why, it’s easy if you know how to do it,” spoke Jiggily Jig. “To read
a thing upside down, you have only to stand on your head, like this,”
and then, as quickly as a cat can wash her face with her red tongue,
the funny boy gave a jump and there he was, standing on his head, and
reading the letter that way.
“Oh, ho!” he exclaimed. “Now I see where it belongs. I will soon take
it there, and soon take you home. Come along, little Trippertrots,” and
he started off up the street, holding Mary by the hand.
“Oh, but aren’t you going to lock your house that stands behind the
telegraph pole?” asked Mary. “Some one might get in while you are away.”
“No, I won’t bother to lock it,” said Jiggily, “but I have a better
plan. Here, watch me.” Then he took hold of a rope, that was fastened
around the chimney of his house, and the rope went up over the
telegraph wires, and came down on the other side. “I’ll just hoist my
house in the air,” said Jiggily Jig, “and then I’d like to see any one
get in.” So he pulled on the rope, and up went the house, swinging
and dangling in the air. Then Jiggily fastened the rope around the
telegraph pole, and left it there.
“I don’t think that’s a very good way,” said Tommy. “Some one might
come along, untie the rope, let your house down to the ground, and go
in it. Then you couldn’t get in when you came back.”
“Ah, I never thought of that,” said Jiggily. “Wait, I’ll fix that.” So
he took a piece of paper and he wrote on it a little message like this:
PLEASE DON’T LET MY HOUSE DOWN, OR GO IN IT.
“There, that will make it safe,” he said. “Now come along, little ones,
and we shall see what will happen next.”
So off down the street he led the Trippertrots, but it was rather hard
for them to keep up with Jiggily Jig, for he was either dancing, or
skipping, or turning somersaults the whole livelong time, and sometimes
he was out in the street, and sometimes on the sidewalk.
“Goodness!” thought Mary, “I hope we don’t meet any one who knows us,
or they’ll think we’ve gone out walking with a circus clown, though, of
course, Jiggily Jig is very nice.”
But Mary didn’t meet any of her friends. In fact, there seemed to be no
one on the street, not even a policeman--only the Trippertrot children
and Jiggily Jig.
“Are we anywhere near the house where the letter belongs, Jiggily?”
asked Mary, after a while.
“I don’t know, I’ll look,” answered the funny boy, and then he turned
the letter upside down again, and stood on his head to read the address
on the envelope. “Yes, we will be there pretty soon,” he said.
Then he and the Trippertrots went on some more, but they couldn’t go
very fast, for, every once in a while, Jiggily would forget where the
letter belonged, and he would turn it upside down, and stand on his
head to read it, and all this took time.
“Why don’t you hold it right side up when you read it? Then you won’t
have to stand on your head,” suggested Mary, who was getting tired and
hungry.
“That would be a good way, I guess,” answered the funny boy. “I’m glad
you spoke of it, for I would never have thought of it.”
After that they got along better, and pretty soon they came to a fine,
large house.
“I think this is where the letter belongs,” said Jiggily. “I’ll go in
and inquire, anyhow. The old fisherman lives here.”
“Oh, can we go in and see him?” cried all the Trippertrots together,
for they liked the funny old man.
“No, I’m sorry, but you can’t,” answered Jiggily. “He is busy fishing,
up in the bathtub, and he doesn’t want to be bothered. But if the
letter doesn’t belong here, he can tell me where to take it.”
“And can he tell you how to take us home?” asked Tommy.
“Oh, yes, surely. You wait here until I come back,” and with that
Jiggily went up the front steps and rang the bell. But he didn’t wait
for any one to come to the door, for, seeing a window on the porch
open, he just gave a somersault and went in that way.
“Oh, what a queer way to go in a house!” exclaimed Tommy, as he looked
at the window through which Jiggily Jig had vanished.
“Yes, I think it’s real jolly,” said Johnny.
“I don’t think it’s very polite,” remarked Mary, “but then I suppose
Jiggily means it all right. It’s just one of his funny ways. Oh, dear,
I wish he’d hurry out. Let’s sit down and wait. I wish we were home.”
Tommy and Johnny did, too, and they hadn’t been sitting there very
long, waiting for Jiggily, when, all at once, up drove a milk wagon,
and out jumped the milkman, with a whole lot of bottles of milk in a
little wire basket.
“Oh, you’re here, are you?” the milkman asked, of the Trippertrots,
with a jolly laugh.
“Yes, did you expect to see us?” inquired Mary, for she had never seen
that milkman before, that she could remember.
“Well, I generally expect to find you somewhere along where I drive,”
went on the milkman. “Your papa has told me about you, and how you run
away so much.”
“Oh, then, you know us!” exclaimed Tommy, in delight.
“To be sure I do,” was the milkman’s answer. “Why, I leave milk at your
house every morning. Of course I know you, and sooner or later I’ve
been expecting to find you.”
“That’s funny, we never saw you at our house,” said Johnny.
“No, but that’s because I come around so early in the morning, so your
papa can have cream in his coffee,” went on the milkman. “But what are
you doing here?”
Then the Trippertrots told him how they had run out to give the lost
letter to the postman, and how they had become lost themselves, and how
Jiggily Jig had started home with them, and how they had reached the
fisherman’s house.
“But he’s in there now with the letter, and he’s been gone some time,
and we’re tired,” sighed Mary.
“I know just how you feel,” said the kind milkman. “Well, I’ll soon
fix it all right. I’ll go in to leave the bottles of milk for the old
fisherman. He pours it in the bathtub, and fishes in it. Sometimes he
catches eels, and sometimes bits of cheese or butter. It doesn’t much
matter to him.
“But when I come out I’ll drive you home, and you won’t have to worry
any more. Now you go hop in my wagon, and I’ll be out very shortly.”
“And will you tell Jiggily Jig that we’re much obliged to him, and that
you’ll take us home?” asked Tommy.
“To be sure I will,” answered the milkman, and then he went around the
side of the house to leave the bottles of milk, while Mary and Johnny
and Tommy ran and got in the milk wagon, cuddling down in the straw
that was on the floor.
And, oh! how nice and warm and comfortable it was there.
“We’ll soon be home now,” said Mary, drowsily, for she was very tired.
“Yes,” said Tommy and Johnny together, and they, too, were very sleepy,
and, before you could count fifty backwards, the three Trippertrot
children were slumbering in the milk wagon.
ADVENTURE NUMBER ELEVEN
THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE LITTLE BABY
All of a sudden Mary woke up. She looked out of the little door in the
wagon, and she saw houses and trees and telegraph poles moving quickly
by.
“My goodness!” exclaimed the little Trippertrot girl, “I wonder why
everything is going so fast?”
“What’s that?” politely asked Tommy, as he awakened, when he heard his
sister speaking. “What’s the matter, Mary?”
“Are we home yet?” asked Johnny, in his sleepy voice, and he cuddled
down farther into the warm straw.
“No, we’re not home, as far as I can see,” answered Mary, looking
out of the wagon again, “but everything is sailing past me so very
fast--trees, and houses and people and telegraph poles and----”
“Why, it’s us that are sailing!” cried Tommy, when he had taken a peep.
“It’s just like riding in a railroad train, when you look out of the
window, and you see everything flying past--horses and cows and sheep
and farms and fences and trees and telegraph poles and everything. We
are moving, Mary, and not the things on the street.”
“That’s right!” said Johnny, when he had peered out.
“Oh, my goodness!” cried Mary. “Then the milkman’s horse must be
running away with us, and the milkman isn’t here! Just take a look,
Tommy dear, and see if it isn’t so.”
So Tommy looked, and then he cried out:
“Say, I should think he _was_ running away! He’s going so fast that you
can’t notice his legs move.”
“Really?” asked Mary.
“Look for yourselves and see,” invited Tommy, so Mary and Johnny
looked, and, surely enough, the horse was running as fast as he could
along the street, pulling the milk wagon after him, and the three
Trippertrot children were inside, down in the warm straw.
“Oh, dear!” cried Mary. “How did it happen?”
“I don’t know,” answered Tommy. “Perhaps a little dog barked at the
horse, and he ran away.”
“Who ran, the horse or the dog?” asked Johnny.
“The horse, of course,” replied Tommy, “and he’s running away now.”
“And with us, too; he’s running away with us!” said Mary. “I wonder
where he’ll take us?”
“Maybe he’ll take us home,” spoke Tommy. “You know the milkman said he
left milk at our house every morning, before we were out of bed, and
maybe the horse knows where our house is. We’ll just stay in the wagon,
and see what happens.”
“Well, if the horse doesn’t bring us to our house, he may go to his own
stable,” said Johnny. “Then the milkman will come after him, and he’ll
find us, and he’ll take us home.”
“Oh, that will be nice,” said Mary. So the three Trippertrot children
stayed in the wagon, and the horse kept going on faster and faster, but
still it was very nice, for the street was smooth, and they didn’t get
shaken up the least bit.
And it was comfortable and warm and cozy down in the straw, and there
were lots of bottles. After a bit the children were hungry, so they
drank some of the milk.
“We’ll ask mamma or papa to pay the man for it,” said Tommy. “They
will, for they like us to drink it.”
All this time the horse was pulling the milk wagon farther and farther
away. The children kept peering out, but they couldn’t see any house
that looked like theirs, and they thought they must have come a long
distance from home.
All of a sudden the Trippertrots heard some one out in the street
crying:
“Whoa! Whoa there, horsie!”
Then the milkman’s horse stopped running, and the wagon, of course,
stopped also.
“Ha! I wonder who that can be?” asked Tommy.
“I’m going to look and see,” spoke Johnny, so out he peeped and then he
cried: “Why, it’s Simple Simon, and the pieman is with him.”
“Really?” asked Mary. “I wonder what they want?”
“We want some milk, if you please,” answered the pieman, putting his
head in through the milkman’s wagon window--not through the glass, you
understand, or he would have been cut, but through the open window. “I
would like some milk,” went on the nice pieman.
“What for?” asked Mary, who always liked to know the reason for
everything.
“I have to use it to make pies,” said the pieman. “I am going to make a
custard pie for Simple Simon, and I need milk.”
“Oh, yes, I have found my penny, though at first I thought I hadn’t
any,” said Simple Simon, “so I am going to buy a pie for little Jack
Horner, who sits in the corner. But it isn’t going to be a Christmas
pie, and there aren’t going to be any plums in it--only custard. And
you have to have milk for a custard pie.”
“Then you can take all you want, but you will have to pay the milkman,
because we have no money,” said Mary, and the pieman said he would, as
the milkman was a friend of his.
Then the Trippertrots each handed out a bottle of milk to the pieman,
and away the milkman’s horse galloped again, pulling the wagon after
him.
“I wonder what will happen next?” asked Mary, and hardly had she
spoken, than the horse stopped in front of a house that had a red
chimney on top, and green shutters on the windows.
“Oh, maybe this is our house!” cried Tommy.
“No, it isn’t,” said Mary, quickly, as she looked out of the wagon.
“We don’t live here at all. But since the horse stopped here, maybe he
means for us to get out. Perhaps we shall have another adventure here.”
“I’m a little tired of having adventures,” said Tommy. “I want to go
home.”
“So do I,” added his brother.
“Well, we’ll just see what is here,” suggested Mary, so they got out of
the milk wagon, and started to go up to the house, in front of which
the horse had stopped. As soon as they were out of the wagon, the horse
laid down in the street, and went to sleep.
“That’s good,” said Mary, when she saw this. “He won’t run away and
leave us, as the grocery wagon horse did.”
As the Trippertrot children were going up the steps of the house, to
see who lived there, they heard a baby crying. Oh, how sadly that baby
cried! and Mary and Tommy and Johnny knew the big tears must be running
down its face, for they were once babies themselves, and they knew what
happens when you cry.
“Poor little baby!” exclaimed Mary. “I wonder what’s the matter with
it?”
“Maybe a pin is sticking it,” suggested Tommy.
“Maybe it can’t find its rattlebox,” said Johnny.
And just then the door of the house opened, and out came a nice lady.
“I heard what you children said,” she exclaimed, “and the trouble with
my baby is that he is hungry.”
“Why don’t you give him something to eat, then?” asked Johnny.
“I do,” answered the lady. “I sent the nurse girl to the store for some
milk, but she has been gone an hour, and is not back yet, and my baby
is crying with hunger. I can’t see what keeps that girl.”
“Maybe she is lost, the same as we are,” said Mary.
“Oh, you poor little dears! Are you lost?” asked the nice lady. “Then
come right in the house and get warm.”
“And may we see the baby?” asked Mary, who loved little children.
“Oh, yes,” said the lady, so she took them into the parlor, where the
baby was lying in a cradle. Oh! it was the loveliest baby you can
imagine! It had such cute little hands and feet, and such blue eyes,
and it was all rosy and dimples, and it smelled just like talcum powder
perfume.
“Oh, isn’t it a dear!” exclaimed Mary.
“Wah! Wah! Wah!” cried the baby, all of a sudden, as it took hold of
Mary’s little finger.
“Poor little dear, he’s hungry, and I can’t see what keeps that nurse
girl who went for the milk,” said the lady. “Oh, where can I get
something to eat for my baby?”
“Why, we have a whole wagonful of milk!” cried Tommy.
[Illustration: “AND SUCH BEAUTIFUL PRESENTS,” MURMURED JOHNNY]
“Of course,” said Johnny. “It belongs to the milkman, but his horse ran
away with us.”
“And you can have all the milk you want for your baby,” went on Mary.
“Tommy, you and Johnny go and bring in some bottles, please.”
So the Trippertrot boys did this, and soon the lady had warmed some
milk for the baby, and then it wiggled its pink toes, and held tight
hold of Mary’s little finger, and drank the milk out of a bottle just
as any baby should.
“Oh, he’s too sweet and cute for anything!” cried the little
Trippertrot girl. “I wish he was mine.”
“Well, I can’t give up my baby,” said the nice lady, “but some day you
may come, and take him out in his carriage. But I am sorry to hear that
you are lost. Don’t you know where your home is?”
“No, we never do,” answered Tommy. “We’re the Trippertrots, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of you,” said the lady. “Well, perhaps I can think
of some way to send you home.”
And all of a sudden there was a noise out in the street, and Mary,
looking from the window, cried:
“There goes the milkman’s horse! He’s running away.”
And the next moment there was a knock on the door, and in came the old
fisherman who used to catch fish in the bathtub.
“Oh, how glad I am that I have found you,” said the old fisherman to
the children. “I have been looking all over for you. Now I will take
you home.” And then what do you think? He took his fishpole and began
fishing in the baby’s carriage!
ADVENTURE NUMBER TWELVE
THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE BABY CARRIAGE
When the baby’s mamma saw the queer old fisherman fishing in the baby’s
carriage she cried out:
“Oh, you funny man! Why are you doing that?”
“Hush!” exclaimed Mary Trippertrot, in a whisper, “don’t disturb him,
please. He always fishes in strange places, and you should see the
queer things he catches.”
“Yes,” went on Tommy, “once he fished up an umbrella and a pair of
rubber boots from a little lake.”
“And a raincoat, and right after that it began to rain, and we put the
things on--that is, the boots and raincoat--and held the umbrella over
us, and we didn’t get wet, and we went to the house of the false-face
man,” said Johnny, almost out of breath.
“My! My! What queer children you are, and what odd adventures you must
have had,” said the baby’s mamma, while the baby lay in the crib and
drank the milk from the bottle.
“Oh, we are the Trippertrots, and we are always getting lost, and
having funny things happen to us,” said Mary. “This time we got lost
because we ran out after the postman, to give him back a letter he had
dropped, and Jiggly Jig found us, and then he went in a house, and the
milkman told us to get in his wagon.”
“Yes, and the milkman’s horse ran away with us, and here we are,”
finished Tommy, for by this time Mary was out of breath.
“And I wonder where the fisherman will take us?” spoke Johnny.
“He said he’d take us home,” replied Tommy. “Ah, he’s caught
something!” he cried, for at that moment the funny old fisherman, who
had not spoken since he began fishing, pulled up his hammock-hook and
line, and there, dangling on the end of it, was a baby’s pink knitted
sock.
“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the old fisherman. “I rather thought I would catch
something this time. This is better than a fish,” and making a low bow
he handed the baby’s sock to the baby’s mamma.
“Oh, where did you get it?” she asked.
“I fished it up out of the baby’s carriage,” said the old fisherman,
with a jolly laugh. “Perhaps I can catch something else if I try.”
“I wish you would,” said the lady. “I have been looking all over for my
baby’s pink socks, and I couldn’t find them. I never thought to look in
the carriage.”
“Perhaps I can fish up the other one,” said the old fisherman, and then
he sat down on the piano stool, and began dangling his hook and line in
the baby carriage again, while the baby drank milk from the bottle, and
the Trippertrot children and the lady looked at the fisherman. I forgot
to tell you that on the end of the fisherman’s line was a hammock-hook.
It wasn’t very sharp, and it couldn’t hurt any one, not even a baby’s
pink sock, you see.
“There, I think I have something!” cried the fisherman at last, as he
pulled up his line again. “The other sock!” he exclaimed, and there,
surely enough, dangling from the hammock-hook, was the second pink sock.
“Oh, how very kind of you!” cried the lady. “I wish you would always
stay here, and fish for the things that are lost. The baby loses so
many things, and then there’s the little dog--he hides things.”
“Oh, we have a dog!” cried Mary.
“His name is Fido!” said Tommy.
“And we have a cat named Ivy Vine,” added Johnny.
“How very nice,” said the lady, while the baby lay in the crib, looked
up at the ceiling and blinked his blue eyes. “I will show you our dog,”
went on the lady. “His name is Bony.”
“What a funny name!” exclaimed Mary. “Why do you call him that?”
“Because he is so fond of bones,” the lady said. Then she called:
“Here, Bony! Bony! Bony!” and in came running a little, fat poodle dog,
and he stood up on his hind legs, and wagged his tail, and then he
tried to get hold of Tommy’s shoe, to pull it off.
“Why does he do that?” the little Trippertrot boy wanted to know.
“I guess he thinks it’s something he can hide,” answered the lady.
“Bony is the greatest dog for hiding things! He carries off my
slippers, and my husband’s shoes, and all the baby’s rattleboxes, and
hides them in such funny places. Sometimes in the icebox, and sometimes
under the parlor chairs, and sometimes even down cellar in the coal-bin.
“That’s why I wish you could stay here and fish for the things that are
lost,” the lady said to the nice old fisherman.
“You are very kind,” he answered, with a low bow, “but I can’t stay. I
came after the Trippertrot children, to take them home. They’re lost,
you know.”
“Oh, yes, so we are, I nearly forgot,” spoke Mary.
“Are you sure you can find our house?” asked Tommy.
“I certainly can,” replied the fisherman, with another jolly laugh.
“But how are we going to get home?” asked Mary. “The milk wagon horse
has run away, and we can’t walk, because it is so far. What shall we
do?”
“That’s so,” agreed the fisherman, scratching his nose with the
hammock-hook that wasn’t sharp. “I could carry you on my back, one at a
time, I suppose. That is, I could carry Mary home first, and then come
back for Johnny or Tommy, and if I took Tommy next I could carry Johnny
last.”
“But we would be pretty late getting home, wouldn’t we?” asked Johnny.
“At least, I would be if you took me last.”
“That’s so,” agreed Mary. “Can’t you think of some other way, Mr.
Fisherman?”
“Hum!” he said. “If I only had an automobile now, or an airship, we
would be all right.”
“Or if we each had a toy green or red balloon, we could take hold of
them, and float home,” said Johnny.