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Title: Adventures of the runaway rocking chair
Author: Howard R. Garis
Illustrator: Lang Campbell
Release Date: July 18, 2023 [eBook #71213]
Language: English
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF THE RUNAWAY
ROCKING CHAIR ***
_Happy Home Series_
ADVENTURES OF THE
RUNAWAY ROCKING
CHAIR
BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
_Author of
"Adventures of the Galloping Gas Stove,"
"Adventures of the Traveling Table,"
"Adventures of the Sliding Foot Stool,"
"Adventures of the Sailing Sofa,"
"Uncle Wiggily Stories," Etc._
ILLUSTRATED BY
LANG CAMPBELL
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
HAPPY HOME SERIES
BY HOWARD R. GARIS
Adventures of the Galloping Gas Stove
Adventures of the Runaway Rocking Chair
Adventures of the Traveling Table
Adventures of the Sliding Foot Stool
Adventures of the Sailing Sofa
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1926, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
_Adventures of the Runaway Rocking Chair_
Made in the United States of America
WHAT THERE IS IN THIS BOOK
You will find
ADVENTURE ONE--GRANDMA BAKES A CAKE
All printed out on ... PAGE 5
Then comes the next
ADVENTURE TWO--RACKY RUNS AWAY
So chase him to ... PAGE 25
After that, if all goes well, there is
ADVENTURE THREE--EXCITEMENT IN THE HOUSE
To find it skip to ... PAGE 39
Now you are to read
ADVENTURE FOUR--SLIDING DOWN HILL
Which starts on ... PAGE 55
If you liked that, there is another,
ADVENTURE FIVE--THE SINGING GIRL
Whose songs are told about on ... PAGE 71
Perhaps you may care to read
ADVENTURE SIX--UP IN THE ATTIC
So climb over to ... PAGE 84
And, when you come down, you will find
ADVENTURE SEVEN--THE SNOW STORM
Which blows you to ... PAGE 96
Finishing that, waiting for you is
ADVENTURE EIGHT--A LITTLE OLD WOMAN
Tramping through the snow to ... PAGE 113
And now, Oh joy! comes
ADVENTURE NINE--SANTA CLAUS
Who surprises you on ... PAGE 131
Then everything comes to a happy end in
ADVENTURE TEN--THE RATTLE-BANG
To find out what that is turn to ... PAGE 143
ADVENTURES OF THE RUNAWAY ROCKING CHAIR
ADVENTURE I
GRANDMA BAKES A CAKE
"Come, children, it is time to go to school!"
Grandma Harden waddled out on the front porch of the Happy Home where
Nat and Weezie were playing with Rodney and Addie, the boy and girl
from next door. Nat, whose real name was Nathaniel, and Weezie,
whose real name was Louisa, called their house "Happy Home," because
they had so much fun and so many jolly adventures in it.
Thump, who was Rodney's dog, was sitting on the bottom step of the
porch, waiting for some one to throw a stone, so that he might run
after it to bring it back.
But Rodney and Nat were too busy, talking about going fishing, to
think of throwing stones for Thump. And Weezie and Addie were trying
a new dress on Addie's doll, so, of course, they couldn't play with a
dog.
Thump wagged his tail and whined softly. That was his way of saying:
"Oh, please, somebody, throw a stone! Let me show you how fast I can
run after it!"
But Grandma waddled farther out on the porch--she just had to waddle
like a duck because she was so jolly and fat--and Grandma said again:
"Come, my dears, it's time to go to school!"
"Oh, I wish there wasn't any school!" exclaimed Nat.
"So do I!" echoed his chum. "Then we could go fishing now, instead
of waiting until after school!"
"You'll have a lot more fun fishing, if you go to school first," said
Grandma. "Then you won't be worrying over the lessons you missed."
"I wouldn't worry over any lessons!" boasted Rodney.
"Nor I," said Nat. "School's no fun! But I guess we'll have to go."
"Yes," sighed his chum, and slowly they got to their feet. Thump
took this as a sign they were going to throw stones for him, or, at
least, play in some way, so he leaped joyfully about and barked.
But a moment later Thump's happy bark stopped, his wagging tail
drooped between his legs and he looked sad as Rodney cried:
"Go home, Thump! Go back home!"
"Poor dog!" murmured Grandma Harden. Thump looked up on hearing a
friendly voice, and wagged his tail again. "He would so love to come
with you!" said the dear, old lady.
"I'd like to have him," admitted Rodney, "but if I let Mm come part
way it's harder to make him go home."
"The other day he walked right into school after us!" said Addie with
a laugh. "And the teacher made Rod come out with Thump."
"Oh, say!" eagerly exclaimed Nat, "let's take him along now, and if
he comes in school I'll ask teacher if I can't help you lead him out,
and we could be a long while at it and not go back, maybe until
school was almost out! Hey! How about that?"
"Nothing at all about that!" laughed Grandma, until her body was
shaking like a big bowl of jelly--Oh, Grandma Harden was very
fat--there was no getting away from that! "Don't try any such
tricks!" she went on, playfully shaking her fingers at the boys. "It
wouldn't be right to use a dog like that!"
"No, I guess it wouldn't," agreed Rodney. "Go on home, Thump," he
said, more softly. "We'll play with you this afternoon."
"We'll take you fishing with us," added Nat. "We'll have to do all
our fishing pretty soon, now," he added as he and his chum walked
toward the front gate, while Thump, still sadly drooping his tail,
slunk off through the grass to his kennel next door.
"Why shall we have to do all our fishing soon?" asked Rod.
"Because it will soon be winter," explained Nat. "The water with the
fish in will freeze."
"It's nice and warm to-day," said Weezie, who walked on ahead, with
her playmate, Addie. The girls were rather more afraid, than were
the boys, of being late for school.
"Yes, it's warm to-day," admitted Nat, "but there was a frost last
night, I heard Daddy say, and to-night may be colder and freeze
water."
"Then it will soon be Christmas!" exclaimed Weezie joyfully.
"Ho! We haven't even had Thanksgiving yet!" objected her brother.
"Well, Thanksgiving is this month and Christmas is next month," said
Weezie, "so there!"
"Yes, I guess we'll soon have winter, anyhow," admitted Rod. "Well,
anyhow, we'll go fishing this afternoon."
"And take Thump" went on Nat. He liked the dog almost as much as did
his chum who owned the animal.
Fat Grandma on the porch waved her hand to the children as they
looked back before turning the corner of the street.
"I'll have a surprise for you when you come home from school," she
said.
"A surprise?" questioned Weezie.
"Yes, something you like!"
"I wish my Grandma would make a surprise," sighed Addie.
The fat, jolly old lady on the porch heard this and said:
"You may have some of this surprise, Addie--you and Rodney. Come
over with Nat and Weezie after school!"
"Oh, we will! Thank you!" exclaimed Weezie.
"Isn't that wonderful!" murmured Addie, clasping Weezie's arm. "What
do you suppose the surprise will be?"
"It will be a cake!" stated Weezie, calmly.
"Oh, if you _know_, then it isn't a _surprise_," said Rodney.
"Well, we know it will be a cake, for Grandma always bakes a cake on
Monday when Lizzie has to do the washing," explained Weezie. "So
that's why we know it's going to be a cake."
"But we don't know what kind," added Nat, "and that's where the
surprise comes in. We never know whether it will be a chocolate
cake, or a cocoanut cake or an orange short-cake or what kind of a
cake it will be."
"Any kind of a cake is good," declared Rodney, "but I like chocolate
best."
"So do I," agreed Nat. "Anyhow, when we come home from school we'll
know what kind it is."
"I'll save my piece to take with us when we go fishing," said Rodney.
"We'll play we're explorers in the woods, Nat, and that all we have
to eat is cake!"
"That'll be fun!" agreed his chum.
"Maybe Grandma will give you boys two pieces of cake," suggested
Weezie, as the children hurried on along the street, for they could
hear the ringing of the school bell. "You could eat one piece right
away and save the other to take fishing with you."
"That would be the best ever!" cried Rodney.
Having seen the children start for school, Grandma Harden waddled
back into the house.
"Helen," she called to the mother of Nat and Weezie, "I'm going into
the kitchen and bake a cake, as long as Lizzie is down in the
laundry."
"All right, Mother!" answered Mrs. Marden. She called the jolly, fat
old lady "Mother," though, really, she was only a mother-in-law.
However, that made no difference. "But don't tire yourself out,
Mother," she warned.
"I'll take Racky into the kitchen with me," said old Mrs. Marden.
"I'll sit on that, and mend some stockings while I'm waiting for the
cake to bake. I like to watch my cakes so they won't burn."
Now, lest you wonder who Racky was, that fat, Grandma Marden was
going to sit on in the kitchen, while she made a cake, I shall tell
you. It was an old rocking chair! And it was a very strange,
peculiar old rocking chair, as you shall, very soon, find out for
yourself.
Humming a little tune, Grandma Marden carried her favorite, old
rocking chair to the kitchen. She had owned this chair for many
years, since the time she kept house for herself, before she went to
live with her son and his family.
The chair was painted brown, and it had a deep, thick, soft cushion
on the seat and another cushion on the back. Some buttons on the
back cushion made it look like a face.
"Now I'll just mix up--let me see--I guess I'll make a chocolate cake
this time," murmured the old lady, "I'll just mix it up and pop it
into the oven. Then, while it's baking, I'll sit and rock and mend
stockings."
She set the chair in a corner, near the door leading down the cellar
steps into the laundry, where Lizzie, the maid, was splashing about
in the water with the Monday batch of clothes.
Into a brown bowl Grandma Marden put sugar, flour, milk, baking
powder and whatever else goes into a cake. She stirred the batter up
until it was frothy and foamy, and then she poured it into shallow
tins which she set into the oven of the new gas stove.
"Now I'll get the basket of stockings and rock while the cake is
baking," said the fat old lady. "I'm not going to have my cake
burned on the edges. If there's one thing worse than another, it's a
burned cake, I think!"
The old brown rocker, which Grandma had named "Racky," creaked and
groaned as the fat lady sat down in it with her basket of mending.
"Dear me!" murmured Mrs. Harden with a sighing sort of laugh, "you
are getting old like myself, Racky! You won't last much longer!"
"I won't if you sit down on me as hard as that every time!" said
Racky.
Now don't be surprised. The rocking chair did not speak out loud,
though, when it was needful, it could talk. But this time the chair
was speaking to itself.
"No, indeed, I won't last much longer if you drop into me that way!"
whispered the chair. "You're getting fatter than ever, old lady!"
This was true enough, but Grandma Marden didn't mind that. She would
have been surprised, though, to hear the chair speak, for she did not
know her old rocker had anything wonderful, or magical, about it, as,
indeed, it had.
To and fro rocked Grandma, humming a little song to herself as she
plied her needle in and out, mending holes that Nat and Weezie had
worn in their stockings. Many holes there were, for the children ran
about like little wild Indians as soon as they came from school.
Every now and then Grandma would get up out of the rocker and look in
the oven of the gas stove, to make sure the cake was not burning.
And each time she sat down again, the chair creaked and groaned and
squeaked, and seemed to shake as if it would fall apart.
"I say there! Easy, Grandma!" exclaimed the chair as the fat old
lady sat down particularly hard after about her third look in the
oven. "Be a bit careful, if you please! You'll break one of my
legs, or a rocker, if you sit down so heavily! Then I'll be put away
up in the attic with the other old furniture, and that will be the
end of me! Don't sit on me so hard!"
But Grandma only laughed as she heard the chair creaking and groaning
in its joints, and she said, again:
"You're getting old like myself, Racky!"
Back and forth she rocked, and then she laughed and exclaimed:
"Well, I declare! You're a regular traveler, Racky! Here you are
away over by the sink, though when I first sat in you it was near the
cellar door. You're a regular traveler!"
And so the rocking chair was. I dare say you have heard of traveling
rockers. If you sit in them on one side of the room, and sway to and
fro, in a little while you will find yourself on the other side of
the room.
Racky, the rocker, was this kind of a chair, though he had never
given it much thought. But now, all of a sudden, a daring plan came
into his mind. For, in a way, Racky could think, and act and talk.
Grandma picked up the traveling rocker and set it down again near the
cellar door. She swung herself backward and forward, finishing the
song she was humming, and also mending the last stocking.
Then she wanted to get up, but she had leaned so far back in the
chair that she had to try twice before she could rise. And, after
the first falling back, the rocker creaked and strained so under her
weight that the old lady exclaimed:
"Oh, are you going to break a leg?"
"I certainly hope not!" thought Racky, though, for a moment, he
feared something like this had happened. But it was only his old
joints creaking.
"Well, you seem to be all right," went on Grandma as, finally, sue
managed to get up. "We are growing old together, Racky--you and
I--growing old together! But you may last a few more years."
"I won't if you keep on sitting down on me as hard as you did just
then!" said the chair to himself. "You have no idea how you hurt me!
One leg is splintered, I'm sure!"
Grandma Harden took off her glasses and tucked them down in a snug
place between the seat and back cushions of the chair. She did not
have to wear her spectacles to see to take the layers of cake from
the oven, for they were now baked. Only when she sewed, mended or
read stories to the children did Grandma need her glasses. So now
she left them in the old, traveling rocking chair.
Setting the hot cakes on the table, the old lady went to the front
hall to ask her daughter-in-law where the chocolate was kept.
And while Grandma was out of the kitchen, Racky decided on something
very bold and strange.
The door leading down into the laundry was open. Out of the kitchen
window Racky could look and see Lizzie in the yard hanging out the
clothes. And there was no sign of a blackbird coming along to nip at
her nose.
So it happened that Racky was alone in the kitchen, and Gassy, the
stove, was alone down in the laundry.
As I have told you, in another of these "Happy Home" books, entitled
"The Adventures of the Galloping Gas Stove," Gassy had gone through
some wonderful experiences. Having heard, somehow, that a new stove
was to be put into the kitchen, in his place, Gassy decided to run
away! And, what is more, he did, and with him ran Thump, the dog,
who had been scolded because he came into the kitchen with muddy
paws! As if that mattered!
Gassy and Thump had many strange adventures together before they came
home with Rodney, Addie, Nat and Weezie, who had gone to search for
the runaways. They all came home on the back of an elephant, as you
may read in the book about Gassy's adventures.
Mr. Zink, the plumber, brought a new stove for the Harden kitchen,
but as Gassy still was useful, he was put down in the laundry, where
he made the best of it with the wringer and the tubs for company.
And now something else was going to happen. Racky, who was still
creaking from Grandma's weight, softly called down the cellar stairs:
"Gassy, are you there? Hello, Gassy!"
"Where else would I be?" asked the stove. "I can't get away since
the gas pipes hold me fast. What did you want, Racky?"
"I wanted to ask how you ran away that time," went on Racky.
The rocking chair could still see Lizzie out in the garden hanging up
the clothes, and Grandma was still talking to Mrs. Marden about the
chocolate, which seemed to have been mislaid.
"Oh, you want to know how I ran away; is that it?" asked the stove in
the laundry.
"Yes. How did you do it?"
"Why, having four legs, I just galloped away like a horse," was the
answer. "That's all there was to it. I galloped away. But why do
you ask, Racky?"
"Because," replied the chair in a hoarse and creaking whisper,
"because that's what I'm going to do!"
"What!" cried Gassy. "You are going to run away?"
"I have fully made up my mind to run away!" declared the rocker.
"What for?" asked the stove. "What in the world for? Don't you like
it in this jolly house?"
"I like it well enough," went on the chair, "but--"
And just then there was a sound in the hall as if Grandma was coming
back to mix the chocolate to put on the cake.
"Wait a minute--I'll tell you later!" whispered Racky.
ADVENTURE II
RACKY RUNS AWAY
While Gassy, the old stove down in the laundry, was waiting for Racky
to give his reasons for wanting to run away, the rocker was listening
up in the kitchen. The noise he had heard when he was in the middle
of his story, he thought was made by Grandma coming back.
But it must have been a false alarm, for the old lady was still out
in the hall, talking to the mother of Nat and Weezie. She had found
out that the chocolate was on a shelf in the pantry, instead of being
in the white, kitchen cabinet, where it was usually kept. But now
Grandma was talking to Mrs. Trent, the mother of Rodney and Addie.
Mrs. Trent had run over to bring a letter which the postman, by
mistake, had left at her house instead of at the Harden home. And,
so, knowing that Grandma would not come back to the kitchen for a few
moments yet, Racky went on:
"I'm going to run away, Gassy, so I won't be broken to pieces!"
"Broken to pieces! What do you mean?" asked the gas stove.
"Well, it's like this," explained Backy as he rocked to and fro on
the kitchen linoleum. "Old Grandma is getting fatter and heavier day
by day. Every time she sits down in me I'm afraid she'll go through
the seat, or at least crack one of my legs."
"That's a terrible thing to have happen!" spoke Gassy. "That's one
reason why they got a new stove in my place and put me down in the
laundry--because I had a broken leg."
"I can't stand it to think of such a thing!" cried Backy. "So before
the old lady gets any heavier, I've decided to do just what you
did--run away. But I don't know anything about how it is done.
Please tell me!"
"Why, you just watch your chance, as I did, and, when no one is
around to stop you, trot off," advised the gas stove. "You aren't
like I was--fastened to the wall by gas pipes. It ought to be easy
for you to run away. You can move about; can't you?"
"Oh, yes," answered the rocker. "Only a little while ago I moved
half way across the kitchen. Grandma said I was quite a traveler!"
"Then what more do you want?" asked the stove. "Watch your chance
and start out. I wish you joy and luck! You'll have many
adventures!"
"Do you think so?" asked the chair eagerly.
"I am sure of it," replied the laundry stove. "And when you come
back, tell me all about what happened."
"I am not coming back!" declared the rocker. "I have been sat on
long enough! I am never coming back!"
"That's what I said when I galloped away," sighed the old stove.
"But, after all, I was glad to come back. Perhaps you will be the
same."
"No! Never!" said the brown rocker proudly. "When I run away, I go
for good!"
"Well, watch your chance," went on the stove, "and when no one is
looking, slip out the back door and run away. Or, since you have
rockers on your legs, I suppose you will have to rock away."
"Yes," agreed the chair, "I am a traveling rocker and I am going off
to have adventures."
He looked out in the yard. Lizzie, the maid, was no longer there
hanging out the clothes. Racky could hear her moving about down in
the laundry.
At the same time, the chair could hear Grandma talking in the front
hall to Mrs. Trent. The mother of Nat and Weezie had also come down
stairs to get the letter which her neighbor brought over.
"I believe I'll never get a better chance than this!" suddenly
thought Racky. "There is no one in the kitchen to stop me, and I can
rock right out the back door, across the yard, now that Lizzie isn't
there, and through the hole in the fence. Then I'll start traveling
over the vacant lots to have adventures. I'm going now!"
Racky wished he might call good-bye to Gassy down in the laundry,
but, with Lizzie now there, this was out of the question. The stove
and chair did not want to let the people of the house know that they
could talk among themselves.
So Racky could only softly whisper:
"Good-bye, Gassy! I'm going to run away! I'll never see you again,
nor hear your voice, for I am never coming back! I am not going to
stay here to be sat on by a fat old lady whose weight makes me creak
and groan. I am going off by myself to have jolly adventures and
lots of fun. Good-bye, Gassy!"
The stove could not hear this whisper, and so did not answer. But
over his head Gassy could hear Racky rocking away on the kitchen
linoleum.
"I believe that rocker is really getting ready to run away!" thought
Gassy as he watched Lizzie wring more clothes out of the blue water
so she could hang them in the yard. "I hope he doesn't get caught,"
mused the gas stove.
And run away was just what the chair intended to do. He had chosen a
good time, too, with Grandma out in the hall and Lizzie down in the
laundry. The back kitchen door was open, because the room was so hot
from the cake-baking. Grandma had opened the door herself.
"Here's where I go!" whispered Racky, and he began to rock very hard,
for it was by swaying to and fro that he traveled along sideways, as
well as ahead.
Over the kitchen floor he rocked his way, and the cushions were so
well tied in the chair that they did not fall out. And Grandma's
glasses were tucked down so deeply among the cushions that they did
not bounce out.
Racky reached the door, rocked out on the small, back porch and
hesitated a moment at the top step.
"Well, I've got to get down them some way," he said to himself. "I
may tumble and break a leg, but I'll have all four legs broken, and
my rockers, too, if I stay here to be sat on by fat Grandma. She is
jolly enough, and means well, but she is too heavy for me!"
So, all of a sudden, giving himself another swaying rock, Racky went
sliding down the back steps, making quite a noise.
"There he goes!" whispered the gas stove down in the cellar. "Racky
is going adventuring! I wish him luck!"
Lizzie, wringing out the clothes, also heard the sliding, thumping,
bumping noise up at the back door.
"Is that you, Baker!" called the maid, "We want one loaf of bread
to-day!"
But there was no answer.
"It wasn't the baker," said Lizzie as she went on wringing out the
clothes from the blue water. "I guess it was the children. But
no--it couldn't have been them, either," she said, musingly, "they
are at school. It must have been that dog Thump. Yes, that's who it
was--that dog Thump."
But it wasn't Thump, as we know. It was Racky the rocker, running
away.
And, having safely reached the ground at the foot of the kitchen
steps, without breaking any of its legs, the chair began to sway to
and fro so as to travel across the yard, toward the back fence, where
there was a large hole.
Rodney and Nat had made this hole by taking off some of the boards.
The boys found it quicker to get into the back lots through the hole
in the fence than by going around the corner of the street.
"And I'm glad they left the boards off," said Racky. "I can get out
that way. Once in the open lots, I'll go so fast they shall never
catch me to bring me back.
"I hope no one in the houses next door, on either side, sees me,"
thought Racky. "If they do, they may call to Grandma and she will
come out and bring me in."
But the only person who saw Racky in the yard was Dabby, the cook in
the Trent house, next door, where Rodney and Addie lived. And Dabby
caught a glimpse of the rocker between the sheets on the line. She
knew the old chair belonged to Grandma Harden.
"I guess they've been cleaning the chair cushions with gasoline,"
thought Dabby, "and they put them out in the yard to air."
Dabby only had a fleeting glimpse of the rocking chair between the
flapping clothes. If she had thought it was running away of course
she would have given an alarm, and perhaps have hurried out to stop
it. But she did not give it much thought because, a moment later,
the telephone bell rang, and Dabby hastened out of the kitchen to
answer it.
So it happened that no one really saw the rocking chair get through
the hole in the fence, which trick Racky did a few minutes later. It
was hard work for the chair to escape from the yard. If it had been
a kitchen chair, with legs that had no curved rockers fast to them,
it would have been easier.
"But one can never succeed unless he tries," said Racky to himself.
"And I am going to try very hard!"
So he rocked and swayed to and fro, straining at his legs and
reaching out with his arms--oh, yes! the rocking chair had arms, of
course--and at last he was through the hole in the fence.
"I am free at last! Free!" exclaimed Racky in his own kind of a
voice--a sort of squeak, peculiar to some rocking chairs. "I am
free! No more shall I be sat on by fat, old ladies, though I really
love Grandma Marden. But I cannot stand it to be cracked apart and
then stuck up in the attic with the junk. I am running away at last!"
The chair was now in the open lots back of the two houses in which
the four children lived. All about were dried weeds growing, for
summer had passed, it was now late fall, and, as Weezie had said, it
would soon be Christmas, or at least Thanksgiving, and we all know
Christmas comes after the turkey holiday.
"How wonderful it is to be free--to do as one pleases!" cried Racky,
with a happy little laugh. "I wonder what adventure I shall have
first?"
As he rocked along, something rattled beneath his seat cushion.
"Ha!" cried the chair in surprise, stopping short, "is one of my legs
coming loose?"
He felt about with his arms and was glad to find that all four legs
were still firmly in place, as were the two rockers. Then Racky felt
beneath the cushion and found Grandma's glasses.
"She left them with me when she went to ask about the chocolate,"
murmured Racky. "Well, I can't take them back, for if I did I might
not get another chance to run away. I don't want to leave them here
in the lots, either, for it will snow, soon, and they will be covered
up. I guess I shall have to take Grandma's glasses with me!"
Starting to rock again, Racky moved on and on over the lots, through
patch after patch of dried weeds which tickled his legs and made him
laugh in glee. For he was very happy because he was running away.
"Ho, for the jolly adventures!" sang Racky to himself.
All of a sudden, from a patch of weeds at his right arm, there came a
strange sound. The weeds shivered and shook, though there was no
wind to cause them to do this.
"Something is coming!" whispered Racky to himself, stopping short.
"I wonder if it is Grandma chasing after me, to make me go back, or
if it is an adventure I am about to have? I wonder?"
The noise grew louder and the weeds shook harder.
ADVENTURE III
EXCITEMENT IN THE HOUSE
Racky stood still in the middle of the lot, his four legs held
stiffly under him and his arms rigid at his sides.
What was going to happen?
Suddenly, out of the tangle of frost-killed weeds rushed--Thump, the
shaggy dog belonging to Rodney Trent--belonging, also, to his sister
Addie; and to Nat and Weezie next door. The dog belonged to all four
children, equally, though, in the beginning, Mr. Trent had bought the
puppy for Rodney.
"Oh, it's you; is it, Thump?" asked Racky in a low voice, for the
chair, the stove and the dog could talk to, and understand, each
other.
"Yes, it is I," barked Thump, who, at times, was very careful about
grammar, for once he had been to school, as I have told you. "But
what in the world are you doing out here, Racky?" asked the dog.
Racky looked carefully around, before answering, to make sure neither
Grandma nor Lizzie was coming after him. Then, rocking a bit closer
to Thump, who stood in the patch of weeds, with his head thrust out,
the chair whispered:
"I am running away!"
"Running away!" barked Thump.
"Yes! I can't stand Grandma's treatment any longer."
"Did she scratch you, or stick pins in you, or pull your tail?"
whined Thump. "No, she couldn't pull your tail," he made haste to
add, "for you haven't any. But what did she do to you to make you
want to run away?"
"She sits on me too hard!" answered the chair. "Poor Grandma--it
isn't all her fault," added Racky with a sigh, "it's just because she
is getting too heavy and fat! It's too bad, for otherwise, she is
such a jolly old lady. And I'm sorry about her glasses, too! But I
am going to run away! I have already started."
"So I see," barked the dog, coming out of the weeds and walking
around the chair. "You are on your way. But what do you mean about
Grandma's glasses?"
"She left them in between my cushions," answered the chair. "I
didn't dare go back with them, and I don't want to leave them in the
lot for it may snow. Will you take them back to her?"
Thump thought this over for a moment. He was very fond of Grandma
Harden, for she had given him many a juicy bone. He would have been
glad to do her the favor of returning her glasses, but, all of a
sudden, Thump stiffened his tail and barked:
"No! I am going to run away myself!"
"You are?" cried Racky. "When, where and with whom?"
"I am going to run away now--with you!" barked the dog.
"Oh, good!" exclaimed the rocking chair. "I thought I would have to
go alone, by myself. It will be much more jolly to have company. We
can have many adventures, and talk about them. First," he went on
with a little laugh, "when I heard that noise, and saw the weeds
moving, I thought an adventure was coming out. But it was only you,
Thump."
"Yes, I have been roaming around in these weeds looking for a bone I
buried last week," said Thump. "But I can't seem to remember where I
hid it. Yes, I guess I'll run away myself! Rod wouldn't let me come
with him this morning. I'll show him I don't have to stay home
unless I want to! I'm going to run away!"
"You know all about it; don't you?" asked the chair, who felt a bit
envious of the dog. "You have run away before."
"Oh, yes," answered Thump, as though running away was an old story
with him. "I went off with Gassy when he ran away. We had good
times together!"
"And now you're coming with me!" murmured the rocking chair. "How
fine that will be! What jolly adventures we shall have!" And he
laughed until he nearly tumbled over backward.
"Come on then," barked Thump. "We had better get as far off as we
can before they start to chase us, as they may. Did anyone see you
come away?"
"No," answered Racky. "Grandma was out in the hall, and Lizzie went
into the laundry from the yard, just as I slid out the back door. No
one saw me leave."
"Good!" barked Thump. "It will be all the mysteriouser."
"What's mysteriouser?" asked Racky.
"It means strange," explained Thump, who was a bit proud that he had
once been in school, though he didn't stay long.
"Then why don't you say strange?" asked Racky.
"Because mysteriouser is a much more stylisher word," answered the
dog. "But let's start running away some more. It's a good thing
none of them saw you leave!"
"Yes, indeed!" agreed Racky, and he began to sway again, following
Thump across the lots, for the dog, having no rockers on his legs,
could go a bit faster than the chair.
But if no one saw Racky leave the house, his absence was soon found
out, or discovered, as Thump might have said. For Grandma came back
in from the hall to mix the chocolate to put on the cake, and when
she did not see the rocking chair where she had left it, with her
basket of mended stockings on the floor beside it, the old lady cried
out:
"Why, my goodness!"
"Is the cake burned?" asked Nat's mother, who was on her way back up
stairs.
"No, the cake isn't burned," answered Grandma. "I took it out of the
oven before I went to ask you where the chocolate was. But my
rocking chair is gone!"
"Your what?" asked Mother Harden.
"Racky--my traveling rocker," went on Grandma. "I brought it out to
the kitchen to sit in, while I darned the stockings and watched to
see that the cake didn't burn, but now it is gone!"
"Oh, is that all?" laughed her daughter-in-law. "I thought something
had happened." And there really had, as was soon found out. "I
suppose," went on Nat's mother, "that Lizzie thought you were through
with your rocker and has carried it into the living room, where you
nearly always sit in it. Lizzie must have taken it."
"What did I take?" asked Lizzie, coming up, just then, from the
laundry, in time to hear this last talk. "What did I take, Mrs.
Marden?"
"Grandma's rocker," was the answer.
"I had it here in the kitchen, to sit in while I watched the cake
baking, and mended the children's stockings," added the dear, fat,
old lady. "Did you carry it out, Lizzie!"
"Why, no ma'am, Mrs. Marden, I didn't touch your chair," was the
quick answer. "I've been down in the laundry, almost all the time,
excepting when I was in the yard hanging out the clothes. I didn't
even know you had brought your chair to the kitchen."
"It's very queer," said Grandma, looking about. "And my glasses are
gone, too!" she added, as she put her hands to the top of her head
where, sometimes, she pushed back her "other eyes," as Weezie used to
call them.
"Where did you leave your glasses'?" asked Mother Marden.
"In the cushions of the chair. I slipped them off to go ask you
about the chocolate. And now the chair is gone and my glasses are
with it. Dear me! It is very strange!"
"Why, nothing could have happened," declared the mother of Nat and
Weezie. "If Lizzie didn't take the chair, some one else did."
"I didn't, and I don't believe you did," said Grandma, looking at her
daughter-in-law. "And Racky certainly couldn't have rocked off by
himself, I'm sure!"
"What about the gas stove?" asked Lizzie quietly.
"Eh?" exclaimed old Mrs. Marden.
"I say what about the gas stove?" repeated Lizzie.
"Whatever does the girl mean?" asked Grandma in surprise.
"It was before you came to live with us," went on the maid. "Mr.
Marden ordered a new gas stove. Mr. Zink, the plumber, loosened the
pipes on the old stove. And when he went away to get the new one,
the old stove ran away, all by itself, it really did!"
"Oh, what utter nonsense! A fairy story!" laughed Grandma. "I
suppose a junk man came and carried off the old gas stove, and the
children pretended that it had gone off by itself to have adventures;
wasn't that it, Helen?" she asked the mother of Weezie.
"Well," was the slow answer, "the gas stove certainly disappeared.
The children declared they found it in the woods, several miles from
here. But their father insisted the junk man must have taken it away
by mistake, and that it fell out of his wagon in the woods."
"No, it didn't!" declared Lizzie, firmly but with the respect due to
her mistress. "That gas stove ran away by itself. And it came home
on the back of an elephant, with Thump and the children; didn't it?"
she asked. "You can't deny that, Mrs. Marden. The stove came back
on an elephant!"
"Did it, really!" asked Grandma. "I have heard the children talk
about such a happening, but I supposed they were making it up."
"Well," said Mother Marden, as if she did not like to admit it but
was obliged to, "the old gas stove certainly came home on an
elephant's back."
"But how in the world--?" began Grandma.
"It was a trained elephant, that had escaped from the circus," said
the children's mother. "And it picked up our boy and girl, and
Rodney and Addie, as well as Thump the dog and the gas stove."
"Really!" exclaimed Grandma. "That is quite strange, of course, but
it's very natural. I can understand how that happened. But this is
something different. My glasses have vanished, and my rocking chair
has gone away, but I'm sure it didn't run off by itself."
"Yes it did!" declared Lizzie, but in a low voice, so neither of the
ladies would hear her. "That rocker ran off by itself, you'll find!
Something happened to hurt its feelings, just as happened to the old
gas stove. This is a very queer house," she went on, shaking her
head as she went down into the laundry again. "A very queer house!
Strange things happen here! I wouldn't be surprised to see the piano
go flying out of the window some day, or the old couch walk off the
front porch! No, indeed!"
But Grandma was sure Lizzie had carried the rocker out of the
kitchen, and had forgotten about it, or else that Mother Marden had
done so.
"But I tell you I wasn't in the kitchen this morning until just now,
Mother!" said young Mrs. Marden. "You must have taken the chair and
carried it out yourself!"
"No!" said the old lady. "But we'll look around and find it!"
However this was more easily said than done, and, though soon an
excited search was being made, the old rocker could not be found. It
was neither down cellar, up stairs nor in the attic.
"Dear me! What could have become of it, and my glasses?" exclaimed
Grandma.
"It walked away, I tell you!" insisted Lizzie.
"Nonsense!" cried Grandma, and the children's mother said the same.
"There must have been some one in the house," went on the old lady.
"Perhaps a tramp came in and carried the rocker away."
Just then there was a noise on the rear porch, and Lizzie cried:
"Maybe that's a tramp now!"
But when, still more excited, the three of them hurried to the back
door, they only saw Nat and Weezie coming home from school for their
noon lunch.
"Where's the surprise, Grandma?" asked the little girl.
"Is it a chocolate cake?" shouted Nat. Then, all at once, the
children knew that something very strange had happened. They could
tell this by the looks on the faces of their mother, their grandma
and Lizzie.
"Nat, run down to the corner, and bring back Policeman Paddock!" said
Grandma, suddenly.
"A policeman--what for?" gasped Weezie.
"A tramp has taken my rocking chair and my glasses!" said Grandma,
sternly. "I want the policeman to chase after him and get them back!
Hurry, or it may be too late!"
But before Nat could hasten down to the corner, up the front steps
came big Policeman Paddock himself, swinging his club.
"There's something the matter in the lot back of your house, Mrs.
Marden," said the officer to the children's mother. "There's a great
commotion in the weeds, and I hear a dog barking! Don't be
frightened but I'll just go through your kitchen and over your back
fence and see what it's all about!"
The policeman started to run through the house, while Weezie and Nat
looked at each other with wonder in their eyes.
ADVENTURE IV
SLIDING DOWN HILL
Not for long, though, did Nat and Weezie stand there. It was all so
exciting--so thrilling! The idea of having a policeman come in your
house, to rush out toward the back lots where something was
happening! Nat and Weezie had never known anything like this.
"Come on!" called the little boy to his sister. "Let's go see what
it is!"
"Do you think it will hurt us?" asked Weezie, holding back a little.
"No!" answered her brother. "Anyhow, isn't Policeman Paddock here
with his club? And Mother and Grandma have gone out to see about it!"
This gave Weezie courage, so she followed the officer out into the
yard, close after Nat. The children saw the policeman crawling
through the hole in the back fence--the same hole through which Racky
the rocker had gone but a little while before. Only they did not
know this.
"What's the matter, Nat?" asked Rodney, looking over the side fence.
"Is somebody going to be arrested?" asked Addie.
She and her brother had come home from school to eat their lunch,
just as had Nat and Weezie. They had heard the loud talk in the
house next door, and had seen the blue-coated officer run out of the
back door with his swinging club.
"Is somebody going to be arrested!" Addie again inquired.
"Oh, I don't guess so," answered Weezie. "Anyhow, it's only a tramp."
"A tramp came in while we were at school," explained Nat, "and took
Grandma's rocking chair and her glasses. She sent me after a
policeman, but he came in, anyhow, before I could run after him!"
"He said the tramp was in the lots back of our house," added Weezie,
"and I guess he's going to arrest him."
"No, he didn't say there was a _tramp_ there," corrected Nat, "but he
said there was a lot of scrabbling around in the tall weeds, and he
heard a dog bark."
"Maybe it's Thump," suggested Rodney as he and his sister jumped down
off the boxes upon which they had climbed, to look over the side
fence, and ran toward the back. Their fence also had a hole in it
through which they could crawl to the vacant lots.
"Yes, it is Thump!" went on Rodney as the children hurried to the
clump of tall, dried weeds, around which now stood the policeman and
the mother and grandmother of Nat and Weezie. "It is Thump! There
he comes!"
And, surely enough, out of the weeds ran the dog, barking and wagging
his tail. He seemed much excited over something.
"Is the tramp there?" called Nat.
"Did you arrest him!" Rodney wanted to know.
"Are Grandma's chair and glasses there?" was the question Weezie
asked, while Addie called to Thump:
"Be still! Stop barking!"
"No, children," said Mother Harden, "there isn't any tramp here, nor
anything else. And the rocking chair isn't here--how could it be?"
"It could be if it ran away like our gas stove did," said Nat.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed Policeman Paddock. "Who ever heard of a gas stove
running away?"
"Ours did," said Weezie, but the policeman did not hear her, or, if
he did, he paid no attention, for he was playing with Thump, letting
the dog catch hold of the leather thong on the club.
"I guess it was a false alarm," went on the officer as he started
back toward the fence. "I was walking along," he explained, "and I
looked through, between the houses, and saw something moving in the
tall weeds. Then I heard a dog barking and I thought something had
happened. But it hadn't."
"Yes, something happened," said Grandma Harden. "A tramp got in our
house, while I was baking a cake, and stole my rocking chair and my
glasses!"
"Stole a rocking chair!" cried the officer. "That's a queer thing
for a tramp to take! And glasses, too--that's stranger still!"
"My glasses were in the chair cushions," explained Grandma. "And
what I am going to do without them I don't know! I can't see to
read, sew or bake. You'll have to finish chocolate-frosting that
cake, Helen," she told Nat's mother.
"Yes, I'll do that," young Mrs. Harden promised. "But it is very
strange about that chair. We were just sending for you, Mr. Paddock,
to ask if you had seen any tramps about, when you came running in."
"No, I haven't seen any tramps," said the policeman, "but I'll be on
the lookout for any of the ragged chaps who have your chair and
glasses," he told Grandma. "I'll be watching for them!"
"I hope you catch them," exclaimed the old Mrs. Marden.
By this time the two ladies, and the policeman, had made their way
back through the hole in the Marden fence, the officer to go out on
the streets, up and down which he marched all day, keeping order.
And Mrs. Marden wanted to get the children's lunch.
As for the two boys and the two girls, they lingered about the clump
of weeds, near which Thump also stood, his head cocked on one side
and his ears held up.
Oh, Thump could tell a strange story had he wished!
"I wonder what Thump saw here that made him bark so hard?" asked Nat.
"Maybe a strange cat," answered Rod. "Or maybe a big rat."
"Oh--a rat! I'm going in!" cried Weezie, making a dash for the fence.
"So am I!" echoed Addie, so the two boys were left there with Thump.
"Ho! Ho!" laughed Nat. "Rats won't hurt you!"
"Not with Thump around," declared Rod. "Look!" he called to his
chum, "see how the weeds are all trampled down, as if there had been
a fight here."
"Maybe Thump was fighting another dog," suggested Nat.
"Maybe," agreed Rod. "And look at these two funny marks in the soft
ground, as if somebody had dragged a sled along."
"Nobody would drag a sled now," objected Nat. "There's no snow on
the ground, but maybe it will snow soon, for it's getting colder."
"Those are funny marks," went on Rod. "I wonder what made them?"
But Nat could not tell, though, soon after that, he remembered and
then something very strange happened.
Thump sniffed about in the weeds, he sniffed at the queer marks in
the soft ground. Then the boys' mothers called them to lunch.
"I could tell what those marks are if I wanted to," laughed Thump to
himself as he followed his little master into the yard. For the dog
could understand boy and girl talk, though he could not speak that
language. Thump talked by barks, whines and by wags of his tail.
True it was that Thump could have told about the queer marks had he
wished, for they were made by the runaway rocking chair. After Racky
had told the dog he was going away, and after Thump said he, too,
would go, all of a sudden Thump remembered something, and turned back.
"I can't go with you, Racky," barked the dog, as the old, brown chair
started to sway away.
"Why not?" asked Racky. "I thought you said Rodney didn't treat you
kindly--that he wouldn't let you come with him to-day--and that you
would be glad to run away again, as you did with my friend the gas
stove."
"Yes, I said that," softly barked Thump, "but I just happened to
remember that Rod and Nat are going fishing to-morrow, or maybe this
afternoon, and they are going to take me with them. I love to go
fishing with the boys, so I guess I won't run away this time."
"All right," spoke the rocking chair, "then I'll have to run away
alone. But don't tell anybody which way I went, Thump."
"No, I won't tell," promised the dog and then, all of a sudden, he
grew much excited and whispered: "Quick, Racky, rock away as fast as
you can! I see a policeman passing along the street between my house
and your house. Maybe he is coming after you! Rock away! I'll
chase my tail here in the weeds and bark loud, and the policeman will
look at me and he won't see you. That will give you a chance to rock
away and hide! Quick! Go on!"
[Illustration: "QUICK, RACKY, ROCK AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!"]
"Thanks! I will!" said the chair. So away he rocked through the
stiff weeds and bushes, off toward the forest and the lake.
Now Policeman Paddock, though he had been seen by Thump passing along
the street, had no notion of coming after the rocking chair. He did
not even know Racky was running away. But Thump thought he did, and
the dog began making a great fuss so the officer would look at him
and not try to stop Racky.
And, surely enough, hearing the noise in the weeds, Policeman Paddock
came rushing in, as I have told you, but all he saw was a dog. By
this time Racky had rocked far enough away to be out of sight.
"I'm glad they didn't catch me!" murmured the chair to himself as he
traveled on over the vacant lots. "If it hadn't been for Thump,
though, my adventures would be at an end before they had fairly begun.
"But now I am off to see the world! No more fat old ladies, however
nice they are, can sit on me, making me creak and groan. I am going
to do as I please!"
So, holding his arms stiffly against his sides, and settling his
cushions down in his seat and against his back, away rocked Racky.
It was getting colder, though the sun was shining brightly, and at
first the chair, who had lived, all his life, in a warm house, felt a
bit chilly.
"But if I rock faster, perhaps I will get warm," he told himself, so
he swayed to and fro as hard as he could. And the more he rocked the
farther on he traveled, for that is the way of some rocking chairs.
Soon he felt a warm glow all through his legs and arms.
"Yes, I ought to begin my adventures very soon," thought Racky as he
rocked over the fields toward the woods. "I wonder what will be the
first one?"
And, almost before he knew it, an adventure happened to him.
He was swaying along, not thinking of any danger when, all of a
sudden, he found himself on top of a rather steep little hill, which
led down to the edge of a wide brook. The hill was covered with
grass, which was now dried because Jack Frost had touched it with his
cold fingers; and this grass was slippery.
All at once, Racky rocked himself up to the top of this hill, and,
before he could stop himself, he began sliding swiftly down. Faster
and faster his smooth, polished rockers slipped along the crisp grass
as a boy coasts down a snow-covered hill on his sled. Faster and
faster slid Racky.
"Oh, I wonder what will happen to me?" thought the chair. "This is
certainly an adventure. But it will not be a very jolly one if I
splash into that brook at the foot of the hill! Oh, dear! I can't
stop myself!"
And straight on toward the brook slid Racky!
ADVENTURE V
THE SINGING GIRL
Amid a clearing in the forest, and not far from the edge of the
brook, stood a little cottage where lived the Singing Girl. She was
the daughter of a wood-chopper who, every morning, tramped off
through the lanes of tall trees to cut fire-sticks which he sold in
the town. The Singing Girl, as she was called, remained at home in
the cottage, after her father had gone to cut wood. She washed the
dishes, she swept the floors and she dusted the furniture until her
father came home at night, when she would have his supper ready.
As she worked about the cottage, the Girl sang--jolly little songs
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.
"With the sharp ends of my rockers," answered the chair. "Oh, do not
be afraid," he went on with a laugh. "They are not sharp enough to
cut you. But if you will lie down behind me, with your back toward
the ends of my rockers, I will sway to and fro. The rocker ends will
move up and down and scratch your back nicely."
"Oh, joy!" grunted the pig. "I do so need a back-scratch!"
Out he stretched behind the chair, close to the rocker ends. To and
fro swayed Racky, and "scritchy-scratchy" went the somewhat sharp
ends on the pig's back.
"Uff! Uff!" grunted the wild porker. "That feels fine! It gives me
an appetite! Now I will go out and get a breakfast of acorns!"
"What, in all this rain?" exclaimed Racky.
"Oh, I don't mind the rain!" grunted the pig, and out he waddled.
Racky thought he was going to be lonesome in the cave, after the wild
pig had left, but as the rain kept up, and it grew lighter in the dim
cavern, the chair saw a small, gray animal come scampering in. It
seemed to be in trouble.
"Oh, I can't do it! I can't do it!" chattered the small, gray chap.
"What can't you do?" asked Racky, who saw, now, that the animal was a
squirrel.
"I can't crack this hard nut!" was the answer. "I've tried and I've
tried, but the nut is too hard for me to crack or gnaw! You see I am
only a this-year's squirrel," went on the bushy fellow. "When I grow
older, I will know more about cracking nuts. But now I am so hungry,
and I can't get at the meat in this one! Oh, dear!"
"I'll crack the nut for you," said Racky.
"What! You, a rocking chair, will crack a nut! How?" chattered the
squirrel.
"Put the nut down on the floor of the cave," said the chair. "I will
rock over it and crack the shell for you. It will be easy for me, as
I am strong."
The squirrel placed the nut down on a low, flat rock. Racky swayed
to and fro, traveling closer and closer, until one of the rockers was
right over the shell. Then, suddenly:
"Crunch! Crack!"
"There you are--the nut is broken open!" cried Racky, and surely
enough, it was.
"Oh, thank you!" chattered the gray squirrel as he began nibbling the
sweet meat and casting aside the bits of broken shell.
Racky cracked several more nuts for the little chap, who then
scampered out of the cave. The rocker was wishing the rain would
stop, so he could travel on, when a white animal, larger than the
squirrel, came hopping in, carrying in her paws a tiny, furry
creature.
"Hush now! Go to sleep. Rock-a-bye-baby!" crooned the mother
rabbit, for that is what this new animal was. "Go to sleep, my dear!"
"I don't want to go to sleep! I'm not sleepy!" whined the baby
rabbit. "I'm going to stay awake for ever!"
"Oh, what is mother going to do with you?" sighed the grown-up
rabbit. "Please go to sleep!"
"No! No!" whined the baby rabbit.
Racky felt sorry for the mother bunny, who looked so tired out and
bedraggled from the rain.
"If you will put your little baby girl rabbit up on my soft cushions
I will rock her to sleep," kindly offered the chair.
"Oh, that is so good of you," said the mother rabbit.
"But I'm not going to sleep!" whined the cross, peevish little bunny.
"We'll see about that, my dear," murmured the old, brown chair, who
more than once, when they were small, had rocked Nat and Weezie to
sleep in their mother's arms.
The mother bunny put the little rabbit up on the chair's soft
cushions. They were snug and warm, The teeny, weeny bunny cuddled
down as if in a little nest.
"But I'm not going to sleep!" she said.
Slowly, to and fro, Racky commenced to sway. To and fro he rocked,
gently, gently, gently. The mother bunny crooned a little song.
"I'm not--going--not going to--I'm not going--to--to--I'm
not--------going," murmured the baby bunny.
And then, all of a sudden, she fell asleep in the rocker.
"I'm so glad," sighed the tired mother bunny. Then she, too, cuddled
up on Racky's cushions and went to sleep.
It was noon when the little bunny child awakened, no longer cross or
tired after her slumber.
"The rain has stopped," said Mrs. Rabbit. "Come, Hopper, we shall go
out and get a bit of cabbage to nibble." And away they scampered,
after thanking Racky.
"Well, if the rain is over," murmured the chair, which he could see
was the case, by looking out of the cave, "if the rain is over, I
must travel on and find more adventures. I haven't had half enough!"
Away rocked Racky, away from the cave, off through the forest. The
rain had stopped, but it was getting colder. All of a sudden it
began to snow! The air was filled with white, swirling flakes.
"Oh!" cried the runaway rocker, "I don't like this! The rain was
bad, but the snow is worse! What shall I do! I must find shelter!"
And off through the snow-storm rocked the chair as fast as it could
go.
"What will happen next?" thought Racky.
ADVENTURE VIII
A LITTLE OLD WOMAN
Racky, the runaway rocker, swayed out of the cave where he had
scratched the back of the wild pig, where he had cracked the nut for
the squirrel and where he had rocked the baby rabbit to sleep. It
was just about the same time that Nat and the other children started
to search for the missing chair.
"What shall we do with Racky if we find him?" asked Weezie of her
brother, as the four slipped through the hole in the fence and ran
across the lots.
"Well bring him back to Grandma, of course," answered Nat.
"Do you think her glasses will be in the chair cushions?" asked Addie.
"I hope so," was Nat's answer. "For without her glasses Grandma
can't read us any stories. Yes, I think the glasses will be in the
cushions when we find the chair," he decided.
"Oh, but don't you remember?" suddenly called Weezie, as the children
hurried toward the clump of weeds where they had seen the strange
marks.
"Don't we remember what?" asked Nat.
"About the runaway gas stove," went on Weezie. "That had a lot of
good things to eat in the warming oven when it ran away. But when we
found it in the woods, and the elephant brought it home on his back,
there wasn't a single thing left--_not a single thing_!"
"Oh, well, that was different," said Nat. "Hungry people must have
eaten what was in the gas stove--that was all right!"
"You can't eat glasses!" said Rodney.
"That's true!" agreed his chum. "Nobody will take Grandma's glasses
out of the chair cushions. You'll see--we'll find them!"
"I hope we do," murmured Addie, for she and her brother loved the
dear old lady, who lived next door to them, almost as much as did Nat
and Weezie.
Skipping along over the vacant lots, still damp and spongy from the
rain, which had only just stopped, the children soon reached the big
clump of weeds where Nat had noticed the two marks of the chair's
rockers in the soft earth. The marks were just like those made when
the old chair in the attic was dragged through the dust.
"Maybe the marks will all be washed away by the rain," suggested
Rodney.
"They were deep in the ground," answered Nat, "and I guess we'll see
part of 'em." And so it turned out. On the edge of the patch of
weeds, and straggling through them, so that some of the stalks were
bent down and broken, were the tracks made when Racky ran away from
Thump. Though the rain had washed away some of the chair's trail,
still it was plain enough for the children to see.
"Come on!" cried Nat, joyfully excited. "The chair was here all
right! Now all we'll have to do will be to follow these marks and
we'll find Racky. Come on!"
He led the way, followed by the others who were quite as happily
excited as he was. It would be wonderful to find the runaway rocker
and Grandma's glasses, the children thought.
"How far do you think we'll have to go!" asked Weezie, when they had
followed the chair's trail quite a distance over the lot.
"Oh, not very far, I guess," answered her brother. "Why, don't you
want to come?"
"Yes, of course I want to come," replied Weezie. "But I don't want
to go too far from home."
"I don't, either," said Addie. "And it looks like it was going to
rain some more." She glanced up at the clouds.
"I guess it will snow," declared her brother. "It's getting colder."
"If it snows, it will be lots of fun, and we can find Racky easier,"
stated Nat.
"How?" asked Rodney.
"Why, the tracks will be plainer in the snow," said Nat. "And we can
slide down hill, too, after we find the chair and take Grandma's
glasses back to her. Let's run! I can see where the chair has been
along here," and he pointed to the marks in the soft ground--marks
that looked as if a two-wheeled cart had been hauled along there.
They were the tracks of Racky's rockers, plain enough.
Forward ran the children, laughing and shouting until, all of a
sudden, Addie exclaimed:
"Hark! Some one is calling us!"
They stopped to listen. They heard a noise behind them. Then Rodney
began to laugh.
"That's our dog Thump," he said. "We forgot to take him with us, and
he's following after."
"Good! Let him come!" decided Nat. "He can smell along the track,
where it only shows faint, and help us find Racky."
"Come on, Thump! Help us find Racky!" and Rod pointed to the marks
on the ground.
Thump knew what this meant, of course. He could tell that the
rocking chair had come this way, and now Thump knew the children were
seeking Racky. What should Thump do?
"I can lead those children on the wrong trail, away from where Racky
went, and tease them off into the deep woods, where they can never
find that chair," thought Thump to himself. "I can do that, or I can
lead them straight to where Racky is hiding. He cannot be far off,
for he is a slow rocker."
Then Thump thought again:
"If I lead the children to Racky, he will never forgive me, for he
does not want to be found and brought back to Happy Home. But winter
is coming on, there will be snow and ice, soon. Racky may catch cold
in his legs. I think it will be best if the children find him and
bring him home. After all, he may thank me for it. Perhaps Grandma
Marden will not sit on him so hard after he comes back. Yes, I'll
lead the children to Racky!"
Having thus made up his mind to do something that, perhaps, the chair
might not like, at first, Thump just went ahead and did it. He
sniffed at the tracks and started off on a run, barking loudly.
"Come on!" shouted Rodney, who knew, by these signs, that his dog was
"on the trail," as it is called. "Thump will lead us just where the
chair went! Now we'll find it!"
"And Grandma's glasses, too, I hope!" murmured Weezie, as she and
Addie followed the two boys.
Thump ran quite fast, and so did Nat and Rod. The girls tried to
keep up with their brothers, but it was hard work. Once Addie fell
down, and bruised her knees, but she got up again, without crying,
and hurried on. And once Weezie's dress caught on a bramble bush and
was torn. But Rodney happened to have a safety pin in his pocket, so
the dress was mended, after a fashion, and the chase kept up.
The children, led by the dog, reached the top of the hill, down which
Racky had coasted. Here the trail was so faint that the children
could not see it on the grass. But with Thump along, to sniff at the
track left by the chair, they were able to follow.
Down the hill, and up to the cottage of the Singing Girl, Thump led
the way. The dog was barking loudly and the Singing Girl opened the
door.
"Oh, hello, Children and Dog!" she greeted them, pausing in her song.
"What do you want?"
"We are after a runaway rocking chair," answered Nat.
"Have you seen it?" asked Rodney, politely taking off his cap, which
Nat did, also, a moment later.
"Oh, yes," replied the Singing Girl. "Yesterday I found a brown
rocking chair outside our door. It came sliding down the hill, and I
lassoed it with a towel and took it inside."
"Is it there now?" asked Weezie eagerly, "and has it cushions on with
Grandma's glasses in?"
"The chair had cushions," answered the Singing Girl, "but it is gone,
now. Some one came in the night and took it."
"No," said Nat, slowly shaking his head, "no one took the chair away.
It ran off by itself, just as it did from our house."
"Why, I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed the Singing Girl,
with a laugh. "A runaway rocking chair! Truly, though, I saw it
come sliding down hill, but I thought it had fallen off some moving
wagon!"
"No, it ran away from us and it ran away from you," explained Nat.
"Well, we are on Racky's trail, anyhow. He has been here and gone
away. Come on!" he cried.
"Go ahead, Thump!" ordered his master, and the dog, who had been
impatiently leaping around, for he knew the chair was no longer in
the cottage, started off through the woods.
"I hope you find Racky!" the Singing Girl called to the children, as
they ran along after Thump. Then she went back in the cottage,
humming a little tune.
On and on through the woods Thump led Nat and the others on the trail
of Racky. Well it was that the children had the dog along for,
without him, they never would have been able to follow Racky's
winding trail.
But Thump led them to the cave in the side of the hill, where the
chair had slept the second night. There were the marks of his
rockers going in, and the marks of his rockers coming out.
"Racky isn't in there," reported Nat and Rod, who ventured into the
dim cavern, which Weezie and Addie would not do.
The wild pig, whose back had been so kindly scratched by the chair,
the squirrel for whom Racky had cracked a nut, and the mother rabbit
whose little bunny had been rocked to sleep, were no longer in the
cave, so they could not tell the children where Racky had gone.
"But Thump will find him!" declared Rodney. "Go on!" he called to
his pet, and the dog, looking back to see that the children were
following, led the way deeper into the forest.
And then, all of a sudden, it began to snow. The storm swooped down
over the children, just as it had done over Racky, who was swaying
his way along, hardly knowing where he was going or what to do.
But while Racky did not like the swirling, white flakes, the children
did, laughing and shouting in glee as they felt the melting, white
crystals cool their warm, red cheeks.
"Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" they shouted. "It's snowing! It's
snowing! Soon it will be Thanksgiving and Christmas! Santa Claus
will come with his sleigh and reindeer when it snows! Hurray!
Hurray! Hurray!"
But as the snow came down thicker and faster, the children could not
see which way to go. They were in the middle of the woods. Even
Thump did not know what to do, for now he could no longer sniff at
the track, or trail, made by the runaway rocker. The snow had quite
covered it.
"I thought it would be easier in the snow, but it's harder," said Nat.
"What are we going to do?" asked his sister. "I like the snow, but I
don't want to be lost in the storm."
"I guess we'd better go home," murmured Addie.
"Yes," agreed Weezie. "Do you know which way home is?" she inquired
of her brother.
"Well, not exactly," Nat replied. "But I guess Rod knows."
"No, I don't, either," confessed Rodney. "But I'm sure Thump does!
Hi, Thump!" he called to his pet. "Take us home!"
But, instead of barking, and rushing off through the storm as he
should have done, Thump drooped his tail between his legs and
whimpered, cuddling close to Rodney's legs.
"Oh, he's afraid of something!" whispered Addie. "Thump doesn't know
how to lead us home. He's lost, too, and he's afraid of something!"
Truly, the dog did act strange, and as if a little fearful of what
was going to happen. The wind was howling and moaning through the
bare branches of the trees. The snow flakes were swirling down
thicker than ever. All about the children was a pale, frosty mist
through which they could see nothing.
Suddenly Weezie whispered:
"I hear some one coming!"
They all listened. Above the noise of the storm they could hear the
breaking and snapping of twigs and branches on the ground, as heavy
feet trod on them.
"Maybe it's the circus elephant coming for us," said Addie in a low
voice.
"Elephants don't come out in winter," declared Nat. "It's too cold
for them."
"Oh, look!" cried Weezie. "See there!"
She pointed off among the trees and there, walking through the storm,
toward the children, was a little old woman, wrapped in a big fur
coat. She tramped over the snow and over the underbrush like a man.
"Come with me!" cried the old woman, waving her hands toward the
children. "Come with me and bring your dog!"
[Illustration: "COME WITH ME!" CRIED THE OLD WOMAN.]
And, hardly knowing why they did so, the children followed the
strange woman through the storm, with Thump whining and keeping close
to Rodney and Nat.
ADVENTURE IX
SANTA CLAUS
For Racky, caught out in the snow storm, just as the children had
been, did not know what to do. The cold, white flakes swirled around
his legs, and fell on his stiff, wooden arms, chilling him all the
way into his glue, by which he was held together.
"If the snow gets into my cracks, it will melt, and be just like
rain," thought Racky as he swayed along. "Then I shall fall apart!
Or I shall get the rheumatism, and creak worse, than when fat Grandma
sits on me! Oh, dear! I almost wish I had not run away!"
He found that he could travel faster though, with the snow on the
ground. For he would rock a little way, then suddenly stop, and he
would slide ahead ten feet or more, just as children do on a slippery
place.
"Well, there is something good in the snow, anyhow," said the chair
to himself. "I can go very fast on it."
But it was getting colder, and the flakes were now so thick that
Racky could hardly see more than a little distance in front of him.
Once, after a slide, he bumped into an evergreen tree, whose thick
branches were white with the crystal flakes.
"Whoa there!" exclaimed the tree. "Where are you going, chair?"
"Oh, excuse me!" murmured Racky. "I am so sorry! I didn't mean to
bump into you. But I am running away, and the snow blinded me!"
"That is quite all right," sighed the evergreen tree, kindly. "I
have often thought, myself, that I would like to run away. But I am
rooted fast in the ground and must stay here forever. Tell me, is it
nice to run away?"
"It was at first," answered Racky, "but I am not so sure about it,
now. I have had some wonderful adventures, and I may have more. But
just now the snow is sifting down my back and I fear--a-ker-choo!" he
suddenly sneezed. "I fear I am catching a--ker-snitzio--I beg your
pardon--I fear I am catching cold!"
"I am quite certain of it," said the tree. "But if you want shelter
from the storm, rock yourself in beneath my thick branches."
"Thank you, I will," said Racky, noticing that the low-hanging boughs
of the evergreen tree made a sort of tent.
Even during the short time the chair had been standing still, talking
to the tree, the snow had drifted over his rockers, so that now, when
he wanted to move again he found it not easy. But he swayed to and
fro, and, at last, managed to get in beneath the thick, green
branches.
It was warmer there, almost as warm and sheltered as it had been in
the cave, and Racky was thinking he could stay there until the storm
was over, when, all of a sudden, he sneezed again:
"Ker-choo! Ker-foo! Ker-snitzio!"
"Oh, that isn't so good!" sighed the tree. "You have sneezed three
times at once."
"What is that a sign of?" asked Racky.
"I should say it was a sign that you now have a cold, and ought to be
in a snug, warm place, near a blazing, hot fire," answered the tree.
"I fear it is a bit breezy out here, even under my thick, green
branches."
This was quite true, and then, as Racky stood there, shivering in
spite of the warm cushions, all at once a shower of snow fell on him.
"Oh!" cried the chair.
"It's too bad, but it can't be helped," said the evergreen. "You see
my branches are covered with snow, and when the wind blows it shakes
the snow off so that it falls on you. I am very sorry!"
"I am catching more--a-ker-choo--more cold!" sneezed the chair. "Is
there no place, Tree, where I could be warm and sheltered? Is there
no place where I can go in, to be away from the storm? After it is
over I shall keep on adventuring."
The evergreen thought for a moment and then, as the wind again shook
its branches, sifting more snow down on poor Racky, the tree said:
"Just beyond this patch of woods, where I am rooted, is a little
house."
"Oh, a little house!" murmured Racky. "That sounds comforting! And
is there a fire in the little house?"
"There must be," answered the evergreen, "a warm, blazing fire. For
a little old woman lives in the house and, each day, she comes here
to the forest to gather up sticks for her fire. So it must be warm
there."
"I wish I could go in the little house," sighed Racky.
"Why don't you?" asked the tree. "I am glad to have you here, under
me, but I cannot help sifting snow on you when the wind blows. And
it is too breezy for one who is catching cold. The little old woman
is kind. I am sure she will let you come in her house."
"Then I am going there, thank you," said Racky, who was now shivering
so that he almost shook Grandma's glasses out from between the
cushions. "How can I find the little house?" he asked.
"Bock yourself straight through the woods until you come to a big
rock," answered the tree. "Around the corner of that rock stands the
house of the little old woman."
And so, with many thanks to the kind evergreen, Racky swayed out from
beneath the sheltering branches into the storm again. The wind was
blowing harder now, and the snow was swirling down more thickly. It
was all the chair could do to slide along. But he held his wooden
arms stiffly to his sides, and swayed forward until he came within
sight of the big rock, and then he noticed the little house.
Just as Racky looked, he saw the little old woman, in the big fur
coat, leading four children and a dog into her cottage. At the sight
of them, the chair shrunk back behind the shelter of the great rock.
"The tree said nothing about children and a dog," murmured the chair.
"I wonder if this is the right house? I couldn't see those boys and
girls very well, nor the dog, either. But if they are going to live
in the cottage, there may be no room for me."
Then the runaway rocker thought of something else.
"I wonder if they could be the children from the Happy Home where I
used to live?" mused Racky. "I wonder if they could be Nat and
Weezie, with Rodney and Addie? And perhaps that dog was Thump.
But--no--they would not be so far from home in the storm. They must
be some other children. I will wait a bit, and then I will knock on
the door. The little old woman may be kind enough to take me in."
But, though Racky was not certain of it, those children were the very
ones he had mentioned--Nat and his sister, Rodney and Addie, and
Thump the dog. The little old woman had seen them in the storm-swept
woods.
"What are you doing out in the snow?" she had asked them.
"We are trying to find our runaway rocking chair, with Grandma's
glasses in," answered Nat. He and the other children were no longer
frightened, nor worried about being lost in the storm, once they had
seen, through the mist of swirling flakes, the kind face of the
little old woman.
"A runaway rocking chair!" she laughed. "I never heard of such a
thing, though I know about lost glasses, for I often lose my own.
But come to my house out of the storm!"
She led the way, and soon the children were snug and warm in the
cottage. Racky had seen them go in, but, as I have told you, he was
not certain that they were the same children whom he knew. So he
stood there in the storm, not knowing what to do.
It did not take the little old woman long to draw chairs up to the
bright, blazing fire on the hearth, so the children could sit in them
and get warm. Thump, the dog, curled up in a round ball on the
hearth, as near the blaze as he dared to go without burning his tail.
"Now, would you like something to eat?" asked the little old woman.
"Oh--would we?" murmured the boys, while the girls bashfully
whispered:
"Oh, yes, very much indeed!"
"Then here you are!" cried the little old woman, and she set on the
table a plate of molasses cookies and a pitcher of milk, with four
glasses. Thump looked up from his place on the hearth, hungrily
sniffing.
"You shall have your share, too," said the little old lady. "I have
a juicy bone in my cupboard for you!"
Soon Thump was gnawing the bone, and the children were eating cookies
and drinking milk. The little old lady sat in a deep, easy chair
near the blazing fire and said:
"Now tell me more about yourselves, my dears; and this strange story
about the runaway rocker. Also, tell me where you live, and I will
try to think of a way to send you home, though I cannot take you
myself. Tell me all about it."
But before any of them could answer, Weezie, with a queer little,
catching sound in her breath, pointed to a window and exclaimed:
"Look! There's Santa Claus!"
And through the glass, a white frame of snow around his face, the
other children could see an old man, with apple-red cheeks and long,
white whiskers, peering in at them.
"Oh, it is Santa Claus!" murmured Addie, and she dropped a piece of
cookie into her glass of milk with a little ploppy splash!
ADVENTURE X
THE RATTLE-BANG
"Come out here a minute, Mrs. Chimney!" called the red-cheeked, old
man as he tapped on the snow-covered window. "Come out here, and see
what this is, Mrs. Chimney!"
"If that is Santa Claus, why doesn't he come in?" asked Weezie.
"Maybe he's afraid of us," suggested Addie. "Santa Claus doesn't
like children to see him."
"Oh, no, it isn't that!" laughed the little old woman.
"And why does he call you Mrs. Chimney?" asked Rodney.
"Maybe he said he wanted to get down the chimney," suggested Nat.
"That's what Santa Claus always wants to do; though it isn't
Christmas yet, nor even Thanksgiving. But he said _something_ about
a chimney."
And the white-whiskered man tapped on the snow-covered pane again,
and called:
"Come out, Mrs. Chimney! Come out!"
"He calls me Mrs. Chimney, just for fun, because he once mended my
chimney when the wind blew off some bricks," explained the little old
woman. "But Chimney isn't really my name."
"Is Santa Claus _his_ name?" asked Weezie, who was now not quite so
sure of her first guess, since she could neither see any reindeer nor
any pack on the old man's back.
"No, he isn't Santa Claus, though he looks like the kind old Saint,
my dears," said Mrs. Chimney, as she had been called. "But I must go
out and see what he wants."
She opened the door of her cottage. The red-cheeked, old man left
the window and stood on the front steps, as the children could see
when the door was open. They could also see something else. They
held their breaths in wonderment.
"Oh, see!" murmured Weezie, pointing a trembling finger.
But before the others could gasp out their surprises, the old man
exclaimed:
"Look, Mrs. Chimney, coming through the storm I saw this old rocking
chair sliding along. It slid right up to your door and seemed about
to knock. Perhaps it wants to come in out of the snow. I thought
I'd better tell you. The chair rocked itself down the hill, from
around the edge of the big rock."
"You mean the wind blew it," said Chimney with a smile. "A chair
can't rock itself down hill."
"Oh, yes it can! This chair can!" cried Nat. "This is our chair,
Racky, that ran away. That's the chair we have been looking for!"
He was all excited, and so were the other children.
"Yes, that's Racky!" echoed Weezie.
The children crowded to the open door, through which the late
afternoon wind blew little flakes of snow.
"It's your Grandmother's rocking chair!" added Rod. "Sure it is!"
"And here are her glasses!" cried Addie, slipping her hand in between
the cushions, and taking out the spectacles.
"Well, I do declare!" cried Mrs. Chimney, looking wonderingly at the
boys and girls. Thump shuffled out on the steps and barked a welcome
to his old friend Racky, saying:
"I am sorry you can't run away any more. I led the children on your
trail. I hope you will forgive me."
"It's all right," said Racky. "I'll forgive you. I'm glad they have
found me. Or, rather, I am glad I came where the children were. I
couldn't stand it to be out in the storm any longer. I was catching
cold, and getting a pain in my legs and back. It wasn't your fault,
Thump. I saw the children come in here, though, at first, I didn't
believe they were the ones I knew. And I wasn't sure it was you,
Thump. But I am tired of running away and having adventures. I have
had enough. I am ready to go back to Happy Home!"
"I'm glad," barked the dog. "We'll all go together."
Of course this talk between Thump and Racky was not heard by the
children, nor by Mrs. Chimney nor by Santa Claus, as the boys and
girls still called the old man.
"This chair must have fallen off a moving wagon in the storm, and the
wind blew it along, so you thought it was rocking itself," said Mrs.
Chimney, making the same mistake as had the Singing Girl.
"I saw that chair, ma'am, as plainly as I see you, shuffle along
until it got to your door," declared Santa Claus. "It was going to
knock with its rockers or arms, I verily believe, so you would take
it in."
"Nonsense!" laughed Mrs. Chimney.
"Oh, but it's true!" exclaimed Nat. "The chair ran away."
"Just like our gas stove," added Weezie.
"Well, have it as you like," said Mrs. Chimney with a laughing look
at Santa Claus. "But I am sure of one thing, and that is you
children ran away, or walked away, from home, and your folks will be
worried."
"Yes, they may be," admitted Rodney.
"We'd like to go home, though it's lovely here," said Addie, politely.
"And I can take you home, if you don't mind riding in a rattle-bang,"
said the old man who looked like Santa Claus, though he really wasn't.
"What's a rattle-bang?" Nat wanted to know.
"It's an old rattling, banging trap of a wagon, hauled by an old,
bony horse, that I drive around collecting rags in," explained Santa
Claus, which, though they knew he wasn't, the children always,
afterward, called him. "I'm a sort of a junker," he went on, "and my
wagon is a rattle-bang. But my horse is strong, if he is bony, and
my wagon has a cover on, to keep out the snow. So, if you would like
to ride with me, I'll take you home."
"Do you know where we live?" asked Rodney.
"Oh, yes," was the answer. "I have often passed your houses, and
seen you children playing in the street. I can take you home. It
isn't far from here. Just down the lane and across the fields."
"I'll drive my wagon around," promised the red-cheeked man. "It will
be here in a minute!"
Off he shuffled, through the snow, and soon the children heard a
rattling, banging sound as the bony horse drew the junk wagon up to
the door of Mrs. Chimney's cottage. First, into the wagon was lifted
Racky, for he would have found it hard, stiff and cold as he was, to
climb up by himself. Then in leaped Thump, cuddling down on the
chair's warm seat cushion. Then in climbed the children.
"Gid-dap!" cried Santa Claus to his bony horse and away he started
through the storm.
"Come and see me again, sometime, my dears!" invited Mrs. Chimney.
"We will!" promised Nat, Rodney, Weezie and Addie. "We will!"
And so, riding in the rattle-bang, through the storm, they reached
their homes just about supper time. Mr. and Mrs. Marden and Mr. and
Mrs. Trent were then getting worried about the children, and were
thinking of having Policeman Paddock go in search of them.
"But here they are, safe and sound!" cried Santa Claus, as he stopped
his bony horse and rattle-bang wagon.
"Where in the world have you been?" asked Mrs. Marden.
"We went after Racky, the runaway rocker, and we found him!" cried
Nat in a jolly voice.
"And we found Grandma's glasses, too!" added Weezie, holding up the
spectacles.
"Well, I declare!" exclaimed the fat old lady. "They are my glasses!
But you never can make me believe that Racky ran away by himself! A
tramp took him, and left him in the field where you found him; that's
how it happened! I know!"
"But, Grandma," said Weezie as Rod and Addie, with their dog Thump,
hurried over to their own house, "we found Racky at Mrs. Chimney's
cottage!"
"And he was just about to knock on the door, so she would take him in
out of the storm," said Santa Claus.
"Stuff and nonsense! Stuff and nonsense!" laughed Grandma. "But I
am delighted to have back my old rocker and my glasses," and, sitting
very gently down in the chair, so that it creaked hardly at all, the
old lady swayed to and fro, and, putting on her glasses, began to
read the paper.
The snow rattled on the windows.
"Well, I'm glad you children are safe home out of the storm," said
their father as he thanked Santa Claus for bringing them back.
And that night, when all was still and quiet in Happy Home, the chair
called down the stairs to Gassy in the laundry:
"I had some wonderful adventures. I'll tell you about them sometime."
"Yes, do," invited the gas stove. "But not now. I am going to
sleep."
"So am I," murmured Racky.
And so, for a time, the strange happenings in Happy Home came to an
end, but not for very long. Because, shortly after that, as you may
read in the next book of this series, there were other queer events.
I shall tell you about them in a new story, to be called: "Adventures
of the Traveling Table," and I hope you will like it.
The next day Grandma rocked to and fro in her chair, and polished her
glasses, ready to bake another cake.
"They tell me you ran away," she said to Racky, just as if he could
understand, which he could, though the old lady didn't know it.
"They tell me you ran away! Nonsense! A tramp took you!"
But we know better than that; don't we?
THE END
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