picked out. You--you may have ’em, Tommy. I’ll take next choice, and
maybe I’ll get a red automobile, and we can go for a make-believe ride.”
Before Tommy could answer, the sailorman said in a soft sort of voice:
“May I have that little boy and girl?--make-believe, you know; the same
as you play.”
“Oh, of course,” answered Mary. “You may have them.”
“But what are you going to do with them?” asked Johnny.
“I--I think I’m going to try to make them happy,” said the jolly
sailor, only his voice wasn’t quite so jolly now, though it was very
kind. “I don’t think they look very happy, do you? I don’t believe
they’ve had any Christmas at all,” and the sailorman’s voice was low
and gentle, and he blew his nose very hard, almost like a horn.
“I don’t believe they’ve had any Christmas, either!” exclaimed Mary.
“Nor I! Nor I!” added Tommy and Johnny.
“But I know what I’m going to do!” went on the little Trippertrot girl.
“I’m going down and get a whole basketful of good things to eat, and
I’m going to take some of my toys, and some of the music-box money, and
I’m going to give them to those poor children that I choose. I’m going
to make-believe keep ’em,” she said, to the sailorman, “and I’m going
to try to make ’em happy!”
“So am I!” cried Tommy. “So am I!” cried Johnny.
“I thought you would!” said the sailorman, and now his voice was as
happy again as heart could wish, and he was smiling, as he stumped all
around the room on his wooden leg.
And then the Trippertrot children, and the sailorman, filled a fine
big basket of good things to eat, and they put in some toys for the
girl and boy, and some money, and then they hurried out to give it to
them--the sailor stumping along behind, and blowing his nose like a
Christmas trumpet.
“Here!” cried Mary, as she handed the basket to the poor boy.
“What--what’s this for?” he asked.
“It’s for you!” exclaimed Mary. “For your Christmas--to make you happy!”
“For our Christmas! To make us happy!” repeated the girl, slowly. “Oh,
I--I didn’t think we’d ever have a Christmas--or be happy again.”
“Nor me,” said her brother. “Oh, how kind you are!”
“It was the jolly sailor who thought of it,” said Tommy.
“And we’re going home with you, and make you happier yet,” added
Johnny, and then, before the jolly sailorman could stop them, Mary had
seen a big red auto coming down the street.
“Here,” she cried, “we’ll all get into this. I know the man will let
us.” And, when the auto came rumbling up, Mary said to the man who was
steering it:
“Please take us, and this boy and girl, home to their house so we can
help them have Christmas.”
“Why, certainly I will,” said the man, kindly. Then he helped Mary and
Tommy and Johnny and the poor boy and girl into his auto, and he put in
the big basket of good things, and away they all went.
“Here! Here! Come back, if you please!” called the jolly sailor, trying
to stump along after them with his wooden leg. “You Trippertrots will
be lost again, sure pop!”
But Tommy and Mary and Johnny were so interested in going to make a
Christmas for the poor boy and girl, that they forgot the jolly sailor,
and never heard him calling to them. And they went on and on, farther
and farther away, and what happened when they got to the poor boy’s and
girl’s house I shall have to tell you in the next story.
ADVENTURE NUMBER EIGHTEEN
THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE HUNGRY FAMILY
“Well, well!” exclaimed the sailor, as he stumped on along behind the
automobile, trying to catch it, but he couldn’t, of course. “Well,
well,” he said. “This is certainly very strange. I never saw such
odd children, always tripping and trotting off some place or other.
I wonder where they’ll land now? I must keep on after them, for it’s
partly my fault that they went to give a Christmas dinner to the poor
boy and girl, so I must bring them safely back home.”
Well, the automobile kept going faster and faster, for the kind man
in it had promised to take the children to where the poor boy and
girl lived, and he was doing it. And now I will start and tell you
what happened to the children, and then, later, I will tell you what
happened to the jolly old sailor.
“Do you live very far from here?” asked Tommy Trippertrot, of the poor
boy, as he helped him hold the big basket of turkey, and other good
things to eat.
“Oh, not very far,” replied the poor boy. “And we will soon be there,
if this auto keeps on going as fast as this.”
“Oh, I will surely do that,” said the man who owned it.
“And didn’t you really have any Christmas dinner?” asked Mary, of the
poor girl.
“Oh, my, no!” exclaimed the poor girl. “We haven’t had a Christmas
dinner in so long that I’ve forgotten how one tastes. Papa hasn’t any
work, you know, and mamma isn’t very well, and--and----”
“And we don’t have even ordinary every-day dinners very often!”
exclaimed the poor boy.
“Hush!” said his sister, softly; “you mustn’t tell all your troubles.”
“Well, aren’t we often hungry?” he asked. “You know we are!”
“Yes,” replied his sister, “but we’re going to have something to eat
_now_,” and she looked at the basket of good things that Mary and her
brothers had packed for them.
“Where do you want me to take you?” asked the auto man. “Do you know
where your house is?”
“Do you mean us, or them?” asked Tommy, as he looked at the poor boy
and girl.
“Because, if you mean us,” went on Johnny, “we don’t know where our
house is. We’re lost again, I can easily tell that.”
“How?” asked the man.
“Because we are always getting lost,” spoke Mary. “And, besides, we’ve
never been on this street before, or in this part of the city. Oh,
there’s no doubt of it--we’re lost, but we don’t care. It happens so
often that we’re used to it by this time.”
“Besides,” said Johnny, “some one is sure to come for us. Either the
old fisherman, or the pink-cow man, or Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, or
Simple Simon, or the pieman. Oh! some one will find us and take us
home.”
“Besides, there’s the jolly sailor,” remarked Mary.
“That’s so!” cried Johnny. “We forgot him. I wonder where he is?”
“You left him behind,” replied the poor boy. “I heard him calling
after us, but I thought he wanted to stop us from having a Christmas
dinner, or for going too fast, so I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh, the poor, jolly sailorman!” cried Mary. “I hope he is all right.”
“Oh, I guess he can take care of himself,” said the auto man, with a
smile. “But now can you tell me where you live?” he asked of the poor
boy and girl. “I do hope you aren’t lost.”
“No, indeed,” answered the poor girl. “We live away at the other end of
the city, and it’s not in a very nice place. If you don’t want to take
your auto there, you can stop at the corner, and we can walk the rest
of the way.”
“I guess my auto isn’t afraid of poor streets, as long as there aren’t
any tacks in them, to make holes in the tires,” spoke the man, with a
laugh.
Then they went on for quite some distance farther, and, all of a
sudden, the man cried out:
“Oh, look! What is that funny thing? It keeps jumping up and down, and
then turning over. What can it be?”
“Where?” asked all the children, as they looked around, and the man
pointed right ahead of his auto.
“Why, it’s Jiggily Jig!” exclaimed Mary, in surprise, as she saw the
funny boy doing his funny dance in the street and turning his funny
somersaults. “How in the world did he ever get here?”
“I danced all the way,” answered Jiggily Jig, as he heard Mary speak.
“I was paying a visit to Simple Simon, and the pieman, but they had
to go to the fair, to sell the pieman’s pieware, and so I went off
dancing by myself. But I’m very glad to meet you all again,” and he
made such funny little bows, and sang such a queer little song, and
was altogether so happy and jolly, that he was almost as good as the
sailor with the wooden leg, and the poor boy cried out:
“Oh, I wish we had some one jolly like that at our house.”
“Why, Jiggily will come; won’t you?” asked Mary. “Won’t you come and
help us make a jolly Christmas for these new friends of ours?” and she
pointed to the poor boy and girl.
“Of course I will!” answered Jiggily, quickly. “I’ll sing and dance and
turn somersaults. I can somersault all the way there, if you want me
to.”
“Oh, no, get into the auto,” invited the man, and soon Jiggily was
riding along with the others. And in a little while they came to the
place where the poor family lived. And it was also a very hungry
family, as well as very poor, for none of them had had anything to eat
that day, and the papa had no work to earn money, and the mamma was
sick, and there were some other children besides the poor boy and girl.
“Oh, mamma!” cried the poor girl, as she rushed into the house with the
big basket of good things to eat, which her brother helped carry, “we
have a Christmas dinner at last!”
“And real turkey,” said the boy, his eyes opening very big, as he
thought of the good things in the basket.
Well, I can’t tell you how pleased the poor, hungry family was at what
the Trippertrots had brought. They almost cried, they were so happy,
and then they began to eat, and Jiggily Jig did some of his funny
dances, and made them all laugh. Of course, he and Tommy, Mary and
Johnny, didn’t eat, because they had had their Christmas dinners that
day, and so weren’t hungry.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a noise outside, and the auto man
called:
“Well, good-by, I’m going!”
“Wait! You must take the Trippertrots home!” called the poor girl after
him.
“Oh, that would be of no use,” spoke Mary, quickly. “We don’t know
where we live, and it would take too much time riding around trying to
find our house.”
“But what will you do?” asked the poor man, who was the head of the
hungry family, as the auto puffed off.
“Oh, some one will be sure to come for us,” said Mary.
“That’s right,” agreed Tommy and Johnny, and they looked around the
room, where the hungry family lived. It wasn’t a very nice room, but it
was clean. And as for the hungry family, they weren’t hungry any more,
because they had eaten nearly all the things in the basket. It was like
when the Trippertrots took the Thanksgiving dinner to the poor family,
you know.
And, all of a sudden, ten cute, little, tiny mice peeked out from
a hole in the floor, and they made their whiskers go backward and
forward, and they sniffed with their sharp little noses, and their
bright eyes looked all around.
“Oh, aren’t they too dear for anything!” exclaimed Mary. “I wonder what
they want?”
“I guess they want to be fed, too,” spoke the poor boy. “They live in
this house, and they’re hungry, too. Nearly everybody around here is
hungry, I guess, the same as we were.”
“Well, we’ll give them some crumbs,” suggested Johnny, and the children
did this, and I just wish you could have seen the mice eat them up. It
was Christmas for them, too.
So Mary and Tommy and Johnny Trippertrot stayed all that afternoon at
the house of the hungry family, and they played games, and had a good
time. But still no one came for the runaways.
“I wonder if no one is ever coming?” said Mary. “We can’t stay here
forever.”
“I’m sure you’re welcome, as long as you like to stay,” said the poor
lady, kindly.
“But what has become of Jiggily Jig?” asked Johnny. “He might know his
way to our house by this time.”
“Jiggily Jig went dancing off after the auto,” said the poor man of the
hungry family.
“Then I don’t see what has happened to the jolly sailorman,” spoke
Mary. “He ought to be along soon.”
And now I am going to tell you what happened to him. As he was stumping
along on his wooden leg trying to catch up to the auto with the
Trippertrots in it, all of a sudden, he stepped into a mud-hole under
some snow, and his wooden leg went away down in, and he couldn’t get it
out again.
“Oh, dear! I’m stuck here, and I can’t keep on after Mary and Tommy and
Johnny,” he cried. “Oh, what bad luck!”
Then he tried harder and harder to get his wooden leg out of the hole,
but he couldn’t. He was stuck fast. So that’s the reason he couldn’t
go get the Trippertrots, for, you see, he knew he could find the place
where they were, as he was a sailor, and had sailed all over the world,
and could find any place. But the Trippertrots didn’t know why the
jolly sailor didn’t come.
ADVENTURE NUMBER NINETEEN
THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE ELEPHANT
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried the jolly sailorman, as he
pulled and struggled and twisted this way and that, trying to get his
wooden leg loose. “Whatever shall I do?”
He looked all around to see if any one was coming to help him, but he
could see no one, for it was still Christmas day, you remember, and I
suppose most of the people were in their houses, sleeping after dinner,
and the children were playing with their toys, and even the policemen
must have had some presents to look at, for none of the officers were
around to help the jolly sailorman.
I suppose you wonder how he could be jolly when he was in such
trouble--his wooden leg stuck in the mud, and night coming on, when it
would soon be cold and dark. And then, too, he was worried about what
might happen to the Trippertrots, for he was sort of responsible for
their having run away this time.
But, in spite of all that, the sailorman was real jolly, even as he
pulled and tugged to get his wooden leg loose from the mud-hole. He
laughed and he joked, even though there was no one there to hear him,
and he even sang a little song that went something like this:
“Here I am, stuck hard and fast.
But surely I’ll get out at last.
And when I do I think I’ll take
And boil myself a chocolate cake!”
Then he whistled and sung the second verse, which tells about roasting
a lemon pie, and once more he cried out:
“Oh, dear, will I ever get out of here?”
“Why, yes, I think so,” said a pleasant voice behind him, and there
stood a great, big, kind elephant, with his trunk all packed ready
to take a journey, and there was no man with him, only just the big
elephant, all alone by himself.
“Did--did you speak?” asked the sailorman of the elephant, wondering
whether he was dreaming or not.
“Why, yes, I did,” answered the big animal. “Have you any objections?
For if you have----”
“Oh, no, not any, I do assure you,” spoke the sailor, quickly. “Only I
didn’t know that elephants could speak.”
“Neither did I until I tried,” said the elephant. “One seldom does know
what one can do until one tries. However, I’m glad I can speak, because
I want to help you, but there are two things I’d like to mention before
I do.”
“What are they?” asked the sailor. “Please ask them as quickly as you
can, for my wooden leg is freezing fast in the mud, and I fear I shall
never get loose in time to go get the Trippertrot children.”
“Well, my first question,” said the elephant, “is why did you sing
about boiling a chocolate cake? A cake is baked, never boiled, you
know.”
“Well,” said the sailor, “that just shows how little I _do_ know. I
never made a chocolate cake, though I am very fond of them, and I
supposed boiling them was as good as baking.”
“Never,” spoke the elephant through his long nose. “Never!”
“Well, what is your second question?” asked the jolly sailor, thinking
how strange it was for the big animal to talk.
“For my second question,” spoke the elephant, “I should like to know
how you could roast a lemon pie?”
“Well, I suppose I was wrong about that, too, just as I was about the
cake,” admitted the sailor.
“You were,” said the elephant, flagging his big ears, “but no matter.
You will know better next time you sing. Now I am going to help you out
of the mud.”
And with that, the big, kind elephant put his trunk around the sailor’s
wooden leg, close to where it was stuck in the mud, and he gave a long,
strong pull, that brave elephant did, and up came the wooden leg, not
a bit the worse from having been stuck in the mud, and the sailor was
able to stump around on it once more as well as ever.
“Ah, thank you very much,” the sailorman said to the elephant. “Now I
can go get the Trippertrot children.”
“And I’ll go with you!” exclaimed the elephant. “I will let you ride on
my back, and the children can ride there, too.”
“Oh, that will be fine,” cried the jolly sailor. “But how does it
happen that you are going about by yourself, and are not in the circus?
Especially on Christmas day.”
“That is easily explained,” said the elephant. “You see, I am so well
trained that the circus men trust me to go about all alone by myself. I
am a trick elephant, you know, and I go to houses and do tricks for the
people, and for the children. Shall I do some tricks for you?”
“One or two, if you please,” answered the sailor, “and then we must
start after those children, for it is growing late.”
So the elephant did the funny trick of standing on one leg, and waving
his trunk in the air, and then he stood up on the end of his trunk and
waved his four feet in the air, and that was really very good. Indeed
it was!
“Now get up on my back,” the elephant said to the sailor, “and away
we’ll go after those children, for I just love children.”
And then, as easily as the baby can cry when it’s hungry, or when a pin
sticks in it, which I hope never happens--as easily as that, I say--the
elephant lifted the sailor in his trunk, and set him upon his back.
Away they started, and that sailor knew just where to look for the
Trippertrot children, for he remembered which way the auto had gone
with the poor boy and girl, and, in a little while, there they
were--the sailor and the jolly elephant--oh, I mean the jolly sailor
and the elephant were at the house of the poor family.
They could hear laughter and shouting inside, and they knew the poor
people had been made happy by the Trippertrots. So the elephant tapped
on the door with his trunk, and my goodness sakes alive! How surprised
Tommy and Johnny and Mary were to see the big animal standing there,
with the jolly sailor on his back.
“Look! Look!” cried Mary.
“Oh, I wonder if it’s a real elephant?” asked Johnny.
“We must be dreaming!” exclaimed Tommy. “Here, Johnny, you pinch me,
and that will tell if I’m awake or not.”
So Johnny pinched Tommy and he pinched his brother’s leg harder than
he meant to, for Tommy cried “Ouch!” Then he knew he was awake, for he
could feel the pinch as quickly as anything.
“I guess it must be a real elephant,” said Mary.
“Well, if you have some real peanuts here I can eat them,” said the
elephant, speaking through his long nose. “And then you can be sure
about it.” And, as it happened, Johnny did have some peanuts in his
pocket, and he gave them to the elephant, who ate them, and that proved
that he was real, and not a dream.
“Come!” cried the jolly sailor, “I have come to take you home,
children. It is getting late, and your papa and mamma will be worried
about you, and so will Suzette, the nursemaid.”
“Oh, but can’t we look at the elephant a little while, before you take
him away?” asked the poor children.
“Yes,” kindly said the elephant, “I’ll stay a little while, and do some
of my tricks for you.” Then he explained how he suddenly found that he
could talk, and he liked it very much, and so he kept on doing it. I,
myself, don’t know how an elephant can talk, so, if you please, don’t
ask me why. But I know this one did it, just the same.
Then he did a lot of tricks, such as sitting down on the wash-bench,
and sucking a whole lot of water up his nose, and then squirting it out
again, like a fire engine. And he lifted all the children up together,
as they stood on a table, and he sat down on a very strong chair, and
rang the dinner bell, only, of course, everybody had had dinner, and so
they didn’t eat again. And then the elephant played a mouth-organ that
Tommy had given the poor boy--what do you think of that?--the elephant
played it by blowing on it through his trunk.
“Well, now it’s time to go home,” said the jolly sailor at last. So
they said good-by to the poor family, and Mary and Tommy and Johnny
promised to send them something more to eat, and some warm clothes to
wear, and the sailor said he would ask Mr. Trippertrot to get the poor
man some work--and he did, I’m glad to say.
“Up on my back!” cried the elephant, as he walked out of the poor
family’s house, for it was a very large house, you know, and had
once belonged to a rich family, so an elephant could easily get in
it through the wide doors. Then the elephant lifted Mary and Tommy
and Johnny up on his back, and then the sailor--the jolly sailor, you
know--and away they started through the night (for it was now dark) to
the Trippertrot home. The jolly sailor knew the way very well, and so
the children could enjoy themselves.
Then, all of a sudden, a man came running along. “Hold on there, Mr.
Elephant!” he called.
“What is the matter?” asked the elephant.
“Why, I guess you have forgotten that you are to do your tricks in my
theatre to-night,” said the man. “You must come with me, if you please.”
“So I must,” spoke the elephant. “I did forget. I can’t go along any
farther with you children just now.”
“But how are we ever to get home?” asked Mary, sorrowfully.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said the elephant, kindly. “I will send
my friend, the two-humped camel, along, and you can ride home on his
back--you and the sailor.”
So the elephant lifted them all down off his back with his trunk, and
when he had told them good-by, and promised to see them again, he went
off with the man to do his tricks in the theater, and the Trippertrots
and the jolly sailor were left standing in the street. And it got
darker and darker.
ADVENTURE NUMBER TWENTY
THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE TWO-HUMPED CAMEL
“How long do you suppose it will be before the two-humped camel gets
here?” asked Mary, as she and her brothers waited in the street with
the jolly sailor.
“I hope the elephant sends him along pretty soon,” said Johnny.
“I think I see something coming,” answered Tommy, slowly, and then, all
of a sudden, they all heard a queer voice singing:
“I’m a great big two-humped camel,
From a sandy desert waste,
And I’m coming now to get you, dears,
With most particular haste.
“I’ll ride you far upon my back,
Between my fuzzy humps,
And try to step most softly o’er
The lumpy, bumpy-bumps.”
“Oh, I do believe that’s our camel!” cried Mary, in delight.
“I’m sure it is,” said Tommy.
“And I’m glad it is,” added Johnny, for now he was as hungry as his
brother, and wanted to get home to supper.
“Avast and belay there!” called the sailor, in his jolly voice.
“Are you the camel which the kind elephant was to send to take the
Trippertrots and me back home?”
“I am that very self-same individual and particular camel,” was the
answer, for, you see, the camel could talk just like the elephant,
only not so much through his nose. And then he came closer, and my!
how big and tall he was! and what a long, funny curve there was to his
neck. But what the children liked best of all was to see on his back,
between his humps, a little house, with long, soft, warm red curtains
all around it, and inside a red lamp was burning, and it looked just as
nice and warm and cosy as it could be.
“Oh, won’t we have fun going home in that!” cried Tommy.
“Won’t we just, though!” said Johnny, jumping up and down.
“Why, it’s just like a cabin in a ship,” the sailor declared. “This is
just fine!”
“Oh, but look how high up it is!” cried Mary. “I never can climb up
there--never--never! And there is no ladder!”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said the two-humped camel, kindly. “I will show you
how you can get in the little house on my back with no more trouble
than it is to wash your face. Are you all ready to start for home?”
“Oh, yes!” said all the Trippertrot children at once.
And then the camel gave a grunt, and he knelt down in the street, and
that made his back come quite low, and the little house with the red
lamp and the red curtains was near enough so that the jolly sailor
could lift up Mary and Tommy and Johnny into it.
“Now, hold fast!” cried the camel, “for it sort of jiggles one about,
when I get up off my knees. Hold fast.”
Inside the house were some benches, and a little table, and the
children and the sailor held fast to the benches. And it is a good
thing they did, or they might have fallen out, for the camel nearly
stood on his head when he got up off his knees.
“Now, here we go,” called the camel, and off he started for the
Trippertrot home, swinging along with big strides.
And then, all of a sudden, the children, who had drawn the curtains of
the little red house close together, so they couldn’t see outside--all
at once, I say, they heard some one shout:
“Hold on, stop, if you please! I’d like to come up there!”
“Shall I stop?” asked the camel, of the jolly sailorman, turning his
long neck around so he could look into the little house on his back.