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!"

"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.