she would sing, about anything and everything, for she was very
happy, though she and her father were poor.
"La, la, la!" the Girl would sing. "Tra, la, la!" Just simple
little things like that.
"My Singing Girl is happy!" the wood-chopper would say as he tramped
off in the forest.
Now it was toward this cottage of the Singing Girl that Racky, the
runaway rocker, was sliding as he coasted down the grassy hill, at
the foot of which was the wood-chopper's home.
Faster and faster down the slope glided the rocking chair. He could
see the water of the brook sparkling in the sun.
"What shall I do? How can I stop myself from sliding into the brook
and drowning?" thought the chair. He did not dream that, being made
of wood, he would float like a cork, and not sink. "I didn't know
adventures were like this--so dangerous!" murmured Racky, shivering,
for the warm glow had left him. "I wonder what Gassy would do if he
were here?"
But the stove was not there to ask, so Racky just had to keep on
sliding. He was close to the brook now. Another second or two and
he would splash in. But just then the Singing Girl ran out of the
cottage humming:
"La! La! La, la, la!"
She had finished washing the dishes, and was bringing out the
drying-towels to hang on a bush in the sun when, looking up the hill,
she saw the rocking chair coming down.
"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" laughed the Singing Girl. "A chair
sliding down hill! I never saw such a thing before. Never! Never!
Never! Turoo! Turoo! Turoo!" she sang merrily.
"It would be much better if you would stop your singing, sweet as it
sounds, and save me from going into the brook," thought Racky,
though, of course, he said nothing that the Girl could understand.
"Save me! Save me!" begged the chair, in his own, queer talk. "I
ran away to have adventures, but I don't want to be drowned! Save
me!"
And then, just as if the Singing Girl had heard, and understood, she
ran out until she stood in front of the sliding rocker. With a quick
motion, like a cowboy with a lasso, the Girl flung her drying-towel
around the top of the chair's back, and there she held him firmly.
"Whoa there, you funny sliding-down-hill rocker!" laughed the Singing
Girl. "Whoa there, my pony chair! I caught you just in time!"
And, surely enough, that is just what she had done. For, in another
second or two, Racky would have been in the brook, so slippery was
the grassy hill and so shiny were his rockers.
"Now then," said the Singing Girl, looking up the slope, "are there
any more pieces of furniture coming down? If there are I'll be ready
for them."
"No, I am the only one," said Racky. "I ran away all by myself
because I got sat on so hard. Thump, the dog, started to run away
with me, but he turned back to go fishing with the boys. Maybe he'll
come along later. But there is no more furniture!"
Of course the Singing Girl could not understand what Racky said. To
her it sounded only like squeaks, creaks and snaps, such as you may
often hear in a chair when you sit on it. That is the time when
chairs, couches, tables, stools and other things speak to you; only
it isn't everyone who knows what they say.
But the Singing Girl, after standing and looking up the hill a little
while longer, could see no more furniture coming down, so she took
the lasso-towel off the back of Racky and, humming another jolly
little song, she carried the chair into the cottage.
"I could rock myself in there alone if she would let me," said the
chair. "I don't need to be carried. But go ahead, if you like."
Racky had made up his mind to stay in the cottage over night. His
slide down the grassy hill, and his narrow escape from splashing into
the brook, had made the runaway rocker a bit nervous.
"I'll stay here to-night," he said to himself, "and in the morning,
as soon as I get a chance to slip away, I'll travel on."
But of course the Singing Girl knew nothing of this.
"Well, you are a nice, old-fashioned rocker!" she said as she looked
at the chair and hummed a little tune. "We have no rocker in our
cottage, and when Father comes home from chopping wood he will be
glad to sit himself down and rest on your cushions. They look very
soft!"
With that the Girl seated herself in the old, brown rocker and began
swaying to and fro, singing: "La! La! La!"
"Dear me! I hope she doesn't break Grandma's glasses!" thought
Racky, for he could feel the spectacles in between his seat and back
cushions. "The old lady sat on me hard, it is true, but I wouldn't
like her glasses to be smashed!"
Racky wished he could speak the talk of real people, that he might
call out a warning to the Singing Girl, but he could not say a word.
However he creaked and squeaked and rattled as best he could, hoping,
in that way, to make her more careful.
But she only laughed as she rocked to and fro, saying:
"My, but you are an old chair! You must have come out of Noah's Ark,
by the way you creak! And you are a traveling chair, too!" went on
the Singing Girl, for she noticed that, as she rocked, the chair was
sliding over toward the side of the cottage.
"Indeed I am a traveling chair!" said Racky, who could understand
what the Singing Girl was saying, even though he could not talk to
her himself. "I am quite a traveler! Not that I have gone as far as
Gassy, my friend, the stove, in the laundry, for I have only just
started. I am a runaway, traveling rocker! Just wait! In the
morning you will not find me here, for I am going to travel on again."
To do that, Racky had made up his mind. He was going to rock away in
the night, as soon as he knew the Singing Girl and her father were
asleep.
"Well, I must not stay here all day rocking!" cried the Singing Girl
with a laugh. "I have my work to do! But you are such a nice, easy,
old rocker I love to sit in you!"
Up she jumped, but when she looked at the soft cushions she sat down
on them again with a little bounce.
"Easy! Easy!" cried Racky. "You'll break Grandma's glasses!"
However, the spectacles were deep between the cushions, which were
quite thick, and so the glasses came to no harm.
Moving the rocker away from the middle of the cottage floor, the
Singing Girl began to sweep and dust, just as Racky had often seen
Lizzie doing her work back in the Happy Home he had left.
All day long the Singing Girl worked about the cottage, and Racky
stayed just where she put him. For he did not want to let her know
that he could travel by himself whenever he wished.
"But to-night, after dark, I'll slip away," said Racky to himself.
Toward evening the father of the Singing Girl came home from the
forest where he had chopped wood all day.
"Look, Daddy! See what came to me while you were away!" cried the
Singing Girl, as she put the supper on the table. She pointed to the
rocker in a corner.
"Where did you get that?" asked the wood-chopper.
"It came sliding down the grassy hill!"
"Sliding down the grassy hill? What do you mean, Singing Girl? How
could a chair slide down hill?" and the wood-chopper laughed.
"It did look very strange!" said the Singing Girl. "I was standing
in the door, going out to hang up my dish-towel, when I saw the chair
coming down. It almost slid into the brook, but I lassoed it."
"And very glad I am that you did!" thought Racky, who was listening.
"Clever one!" laughed the wood-chopper as he kissed the Singing Girl.
"I think I know how the chair came to be sliding down."
"How was it, Daddy?"
"A load of moving was going along the road at the top of the hill.
This rocking chair fell off and came sliding down. After a while,
when the moving men miss the chair, they will come back for it."
"Oh, dear! That will be too bad!" sighed the Singing Girl. "But of
course I will give the chair to whoever comes for it. Only I would
like to keep it, for it is so soft to sit in. And it creaks in the
funniest way. And, there is something else, Daddy!" she said with
shining eyes.
"What is it, Singing Girl?" he asked, as he began to eat his supper.
"It is a traveling rocker," she answered as she laughed like the
brook tinkling over the stones outside the cottage. "It moves along
over the floor when I rock in it."
"Be careful that it doesn't travel away before those who lost it from
the moving wagon can come after it," said the wood-chopper.
"Oh, never fear! The rocker will stay here until some one comes for
it," answered the Singing Girl.
"We shall see about that," whispered Racky to himself.
That night the cottage was very still and quiet. The wood-chopper
and the Singing Girl were asleep. They left the front door open a
little way so the black cat, who lived in the cottage, could go out
and come in.
"Now is my chance!" whispered Racky, as he looked out the partly-open
door and saw the moon shining on the trees. "I'll travel on!"
ADVENTURE VI
UP IN THE ATTIC
During the luncheon hour, while Nat and Weezie were home from school,
little was talked of but the strange disappearance of the old rocker,
with Grandma's glasses in the cushions.
"I can't understand it at all," murmured the puzzled old lady who
could hardly see the food on her plate. "Such things as rockers
being taken away by tramps never happened in my house!"
"This is a different house, Grandma," said Nat, "and more different
things happen here than happen in any other house around--all the
boys say so. Look how our gas stove ran away!"
"Oh, don't talk to me about such nonsense!" laughed Grandma. "You
must have dreamed that about the stove!"
But Nat and Weezie were sure they had not dreamed it.
"And I believe your rocker ran away just the same," said Weezie.
But the dear old lady shook her white head and murmured:
"A tramp slipped in and took my chair and glasses. However, the
police officer will catch him and bring back Racky, cushions, glasses
and all. And I'll be so glad to get them, for I'm half blind as it
is!"
When the children hurried back to school, Rodney and Addie skipping
along with Nat and Weezie, they talked of what had happened.
"Wouldn't it be great if we could catch that tramp and get your
Grandma's chair and glasses?" asked Rod, as he and Nat neared the
schoolhouse.
"It wasn't a tramp, I tell you!" insisted Nat. "I know that chair
ran away just as the stove did."
"Then why can't we chase after it and get it back, the same as we did
when Thump ran away, and we found him and the gas stove together?"
asked Rodney.
"Maybe we could," agreed Nat.
"Oh, let's do it to-morrow, instead of going fishing!" went on the
other boy. "Will you?"
"I guess so--maybe," agreed Nat. "To-morrow or next day. We haven't
any more school this week, on account of some of the classes having
examinations. So we could go hunting for the chair or go fishing,
whichever we liked."
"We can do both!" cried Rod, quickly. "We'll go fishing and take
Thump with us, and he can help us find the lost rocker!"
"And if we get Grandma's glasses, maybe she'll give us each five
cents," exclaimed Nat.
"Hurray! That would be great!" cried Rod, and just then the last
bell rang, so the children had to hurry into school.
That afternoon Nat spoke to his mother about going fishing next day.
"I'm afraid it will be too cold," objected Mrs. Marden. "We shall
have winter almost before we know it."
"That's why Rod and I want to go fishing--before it is too late,"
explained Nat. "Soon the pond and brook will be frozen over, and
then we can't catch anything. May we go?"
"Oh, yes, I guess so," promised Mrs. Marden. "And I hope you catch
the big rocker!"
"What?" cried Nat in surprise, looking at his mother.
"Oh, I mean I hope you catch the big fish," she said, laughing a
little. Truth to tell, she was thinking very much about the
disappearance of the rocker and grandma's glasses, though she did not
really believe the chair had traveled off by itself.
"We'll have lots of fun!" exclaimed Nat and he ran to tell his chum
that he could go fishing. Rod was also permitted to go, and the two
boys made great plans for next day.
"Are you going to take Thump?" asked Weezie of her brother after
supper that evening.
"Oh, yes, sure! Thump's going fishing with us!"
"Then couldn't you take Addie and me?" begged Weezie. "We get tired
playing with dolls. We don't have to fish--we could just watch you
and Rod."
"Yes, I guess you can go," promised Nat.
But the next day it rained. It rained all night. And it rained the
next day, too. Big, pelting drops came down, and when the children
looked out of the windows, they knew there would be no fishing for
them until it cleared. Two whole days of rain, and when there was no
school, either! It was quite sad.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Nat when he saw the second day of rain.
"What can we do?" asked his sister.
"Why don't you play up in the attic?" inquired Grandma. "That's what
I used to do when I was a girl, and it rained on a holiday."
"Oh, yes! Let's do that!" exclaimed Weezie with shining eyes.
"If we could have Rod and Addie over, it would be more fun!" said Nat.
A little later, the four children were up in the big attic of the
Happy Home. On the roof the pelting of the rain drops sounded more
loudly, but Nat and the others did not mind that, for they were snug
and dry, and in the attic were many things with which to play.
"There's an old rocker in the corner," said Rodney, pointing to a
dust-covered one. "Is it the one named Racky, that your Grandma
uses? Maybe she doesn't know it's up here."
"No, that's another chair. It has been here since before Grandma
came to live with us," explained Nat. "But I'll pull it out and we
can play it's a steamboat and take turns having rides. I'll be a
steamboat engineer!"
"And I'll be the captain," offered Rod.
"What can we be?" inquired Addie.
"We'll be the passengers," suggested Weezie. "It's lots of fun to
play steamboat with the old chair."
The two boys pulled it out, across the attic, and, as they did so,
Nat pointed to two long, straight marks the rockers had made in the
dust on the floor.
"Look!" he whispered.
"Well, what about it?" asked Rodney.
"Do you mean the rocker tracks look like twin snake marks?" inquired
Weezie. "They do; don't they?"
"No, I didn't mean that," went on Nat, who had a queer look on his
face as he stared at the dusty trail. "But don't you remember--the
clump of weeds where Thump was barking yesterday? In the soft
ground, near the weeds, were tracks just like these we made now, when
we pulled the rocking chair across the floor."
"Well, what about that?" asked Rodney again.
"Why, don't you see!" went on Nat in a low voice, just a little bit
excited, "these are the same marks. There must have been a rocker
pulled along near the weeds."
"But it wasn't this rocker," objected Weezie.
"No, it was Grandma's rocker, I think!" went on Nat. "I wondered,
when I saw them, what had made those marks near the weeds. Now I
know! It was Grandma's rocker."
"But who would pull her rocker off across the back lots like that?"
Addie asked.
Nat looked carefully around the attic before answering. And, when he
did, it was in a whisper. He said:
"Nobody pulled Grandma's rocker along! It went there by itself, the
same as our stove did! The rocker ran away, and we can tell where it
went by following the tracks it left. We can get back Grandma's
rocker and glasses. Come on!" His voice was eager and his eyes were
shining bright.
"We can't go out in the rain," objected Weezie.
"It's stopped raining now," said Rod, looking out of the attic window.
And so it had. The early winter storm was over. But the sky was
still cloudy.
"Maybe it will snow!" exclaimed Addie.
"That'll be fun!" came from Weezie. "I don't mind being out in the
snow, but I don't like to get wet in the rain."
"Then let's go out and see if we can find that runaway rocker!"
proposed Nat. "Mother won't mind. She wants it to be found, and so
does Grandma. She needs her glasses very much."
"All right--we'll go!" decided Rod.
"We'll have lots of fun," added his sister. "And maybe some
adventures like we did when we went after the gas stove. Oh, I'm so
glad it stopped raining!"
The children hurried down out of the attic. They intended to tell
Grandma, or Mother Marden, about what they had seen--the two marks in
the dusty floor--marks that showed where a rocker had been dragged
across--marks like those in the soft ground near the weed-clump. And
Nat and Weezie intended to tell their mother that they were going out
to find Racky and the lost glasses.
But when the children came down from the attic, neither their mother
nor grandmother was to be seen. The ladies had gone next door to
talk to Mrs. Trent, the mother of Addie and Rodney.
"Oh, well," said Nat, after Lizzie had told him where his mother was,
"she won't mind if we go out. Come on!"
"Where are you going?" inquired the maid. "You must dress warmly,
for it will be cold after the rain. Where are you going?"
"Oh--just out--to play," answered Nat. He did not want to say they
were going to search for Racky, but that is just what the children
intended to do.
"We'll find Grandma's glasses!" declared Nat as he led the others
through the kitchen into the back yard, where they could go through
the hole in the fence.
ADVENTURE VII
THE SNOW STORM
Now we shall see what happened to Racky when he slipped out of the
cottage of the Singing Girl into the moonlit forest.
"I hope I don't make a noise and awaken the wood-chopper," thought
the rocking chair as he softly swayed to and fro across the floor.
"He would chase after me and bring me back if he thought I was going
away. He thinks I dropped off a load of moving and slid down hill.
But I didn't at all! I ran away! I know what I did."
The wood-chopper slept soundly after his day's work in the forest,
and the Singing Girl did not open her eyes, as Racky softly slipped
through the door.
"Now I am out again--free--ready for more adventures," laughed the
chair to himself. "But I am not going to fall into you!" he said to
the brook which was murmuring along beneath the trees.
"You may splash into me and swim, if you like," whispered the running
brook. "But my waters are very chilling now, and you might catch
cold."
"Thank you, then I will stay on dry land," said the rocking chair.
"I am a traveler, but not a sailor. Though back in Happy Home, where
I came from, is an old sofa who says he is some day going to sail
away to sea."
"Is he?" asked the brook. "Well, that's wonderful! You know I,
myself, run down to the great, salty sea."
"Oh, do you?" inquired the rocker. "I shall tell the sailing sofa
about you when I go back. But no! I am never going back to be sat
on by fat old Grandma!" creaked the rocker.
"Is your friend, the sofa, a sailor?" went on the brook.
"Well, he has never yet been to sea," Racky replied, "but he is
always talking of going sailing, so I suppose he may, some day."
"Tell him I shall be glad to meet him," went on the brook. "And, if
he likes, he may start his voyaging on my waters."
"I'll tell him, if ever I go back to Happy Home," promised the
rocker, "but I think that will never be."
This talk was in whispers, for Racky did not want to awaken the
Singing Girl nor the wood-chopper. Then, bidding the brook good-bye,
the chair rocked on and on, traveling through the forest, which was
now white and gleaming under the silvery moon.
All of a sudden, as Racky was swaying to and fro, his arms held
stiffly to his sides, he heard a voice calling:
"Who? Who? Who?"
"Oh, dear! That is some one after me!" thought the rocker. "Maybe
it is Grandma, or one of the children, or the policeman whom Thump
saw coming. Or perhaps it is Thump himself! I hope it is!" Then
Racky called: "Hello! Hello! Who are you?"
Down through the trees came the call again:
"Who? Who? Who?"
"What do you mean?" asked Racky. "Why do you ask who I am, when you
will not tell me who are you? Who are you?"
"I am the owl bird," was the answer. "I was not asking who you were.
I was just giving my night call of 'Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!' That was to
let my little owls in the nest know I am coming to them, soon, with
something to eat. Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!"
And away flew the owl bird on his big wings, while Racky, glad to
know he was not being chased by a policeman, traveled on. All
through the night the chair rocked away, getting farther and farther
from the Happy Home.
At first it was bright moonlight in the woods, and, though it was
cold, Racky rather liked it. But soon the moon hid behind the
clouds. Then it began to rain and grew very dark.
"If this is an adventure, I do not like it at all!" sighed the
runaway rocker. "I am going to get all wet and my legs and arms and
joints will creak and squeak worse than ever. I wish I could find a
house in which to stay."
Almost without knowing it, the chair was speaking aloud in his own
language and, as he finished, he heard a voice say:
"Why don't you come in here?"
"In where?" asked Racky, for all he could see through the trees was a
big blob of darkness, and the voice seemed to come from this.
"Come into this snug, dry cave," was the answer. "Then you will be
out of the rain."
"Whose cave is it?" asked Racky, remembering to have heard Gassy tell
of caves, or caverns, that the stove had seen in the sides of hills
when he galloped away that time.
"It is the cave of all the Woodland Folk," was the answer. "Any one,
who has no other home, is welcome to live in this cave as long as he
likes."
"Well, I am traveling around, looking for adventures," said Racky.
"I had a home, but I left it, so I shall be glad to come in out of
the rain and stay all night. But who are you, if I may ask?"
"You may ask and I shall tell you," was the polite answer. "I am a
wild pig and after my supper of acorns, last night, I crept into this
cave to sleep. Come in, you are welcome!"
So Racky entered the dark cave in the side of the hill, beneath the
trees from which dripped the cold rain drops. At first the chair
could see nothing, but, after a while, he noticed a little glow, like
a faint fire, in one corner of the cave. And, by the glow of this
pale fire, the chair could see the wild pig curled up on a bed of
dried leaves.
"That fire looks like the one which burns in Gassy, when Lizzie is
doing the washing," said Racky, while he gave his cushions a shake to
get the rain out of them. As he did so, something fell to the floor
of the cave with a tinkle.
"What's that?" asked the wild pig, jumping around.
"Grandma's glasses, I guess," said the chair. "I hope they aren't
broken. They were in my cushions when I ran away and I had no means
of sending them back."
"No, they aren't broken," said the wild pig, who could see quite well
in the dim cave. "Here they are," and he picked them up and gave
them back to Racky, who tucked them in between the cushions again.
"Thanks," creaked the chair. "But is some one going to cook a meal,
that I see a fire glowing?"
"No, that is fox-fire--it has no heat," explained the wild pig.
"Fox-fire?" cried Racky, wonderingly. "Are there foxes in here, and
will they nibble my legs? Though my legs are only wood, I should not
like to have them scratched or nibbled."
"Have no fear!" laughed the wild pig. "It is only called fox-fire
because, in the olden days, foxes were supposed to see their way
about in the forest by its light. It comes from old, punky, rotten
wood and it only glows as pale and gently as you see it now. There
is no danger. The fox-fire comes from an old rotten stump that has
been in this cave longer than I can remember. But, even if a real
fox came in this cave, out of the storm, he would do you no harm. We
are all friends here. Now I am going to sleep again."
"And I will sleep, too," said Racky, who was glad to be in the cave
out of the rain, which was now pattering down harder than ever. And
so, in the soft glow of the fox-fire, Racky went to sleep.
It was still raining when he awakened in the morning, and a little
daylight streamed into the cave. Before the gleam of the gray dawn
the pale fox-fire seemed to fade away.
"But it will glow again when night comes," said the wild pig. Then,
waddling over to the rocker, the pig asked: "Have you a garden rake
about you?"
"A garden rake?" exclaimed Racky. "Why, no! I don't carry rakes!
But why do you want one?"
"To scratch my back," grunted the pig. "You know we porkers always
like to have our backs scratched, and I thought, if you had a rake,
you could do it for me. But never mind--it doesn't matter."
"Oh, but it does!" exclaimed Racky. "I should like to do you a favor
since you were so kind as to invite me into this cave out of the
rain. And I believe I know how I can scratch your back."
"How can you?" asked the wild pig.