Three little Trippertrots on their travels

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mary Trippertrot, after a while, “if we didn’t want a policeman one would be sure to come along, but when you do want one, there never is any. I wonder what we had better do?”

“Well, I know what we hadn’t better do,” spoke Tommy, her brother, quickly.

“What is that?” asked Johnny, Mary’s other brother.

“We hadn’t better go any farther,” answered Tommy, “or else we’ll be more lost than we are now.”

“We can’t be any more lost,” replied Mary, quickly. “But I think we had better stay here until something happens.”

“Well, I wish it would happen very soon,” said Tommy. “Oh, if only the old fisherman, or Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, or even Simple Simon, or the pieman, would come along now they might show us the way home.”

So they looked up and down the street, but they saw no one, and then, all at once, they heard a jolly whistle.

“Oh, there’s the postman!” cried Mary, jumping up. “Now we can give him back the letter he dropped out of his bag, and he will take us home.”

“But that doesn’t sound like the postman,” spoke Tommy.

“I don’t think so either,” added Johnny.

“Then I wonder who it can be?” asked Mary, for there was no letter-man to be seen. “Who whistled? Is somebody playing a trick?”

“I did!” cried a jolly voice, and, just as true as I’m telling you, out from behind a telegraph pole danced Jiggily Jig, the funny boy. “I whistled,” he said, and then he turned two somersaults, one after the other, and laughed in such a jolly way, that the Trippertrots didn’t in the least mind being lost.

“Where did you come from?” asked Mary.

“From behind the telegraph pole,” answered Jiggily Jig.

“And where have you been?” inquired Tommy.

“Behind the telegraph pole,” said Jiggily Jig. “Oh, I was there ever so long, watching you children, but I wasn’t sure you were the Trippertrots, so I didn’t want to come out.”

“Where are you going?” asked Johnny.

“I’m going back behind the telegraph pole, when I do what I can for you,” replied Jiggily Jig. “I live there, you know.”

“What, not behind a telegraph pole?” asked Mary. “You don’t mean to tell me you live there!”

“Why not, I’d like to know?” asked Jiggily Jig. “People live in houses, when telegraph poles are in front of them, so why shouldn’t I live behind a telegraph pole? Come here, and I’ll show you.”

So tripping, and leaping, and dancing, and jumping, Jiggily Jig led the Trippertrots to the telegraph pole, and there, as true as I’m telling you, was the cutest little house you could imagine. It was made out of a whole lot of little dolls’ houses built into one, and there was a front porch, and steps with an upstairs to it, and a chimney on the roof, and doors and windows, and everything that is found in a regular house.

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Mary, in delight.

“Yes, it’s fine!” exclaimed Tommy and Johnny.

“Who made it?” asked Mary.

“I did,” replied Jiggily Jig, proudly. “I would ask you to come in, and have lunch with me,” the funny boy went on, “but to tell you the truth, as I always do, the house is only big enough for one to get in at a time. So we would have to take turns going in to lunch.”

“Oh, we shouldn’t mind that!” said Tommy, quickly, for he was hungry.

“Not in the least,” added Johnny.

“And you could go in to lunch first,” went on Mary, for she was also hungry.

“Oh, there’s no use thinking about it,” said Jiggily Jig, with a sigh, “for, to tell you the truth again, there is nothing to eat for any of us, so there is no manner of use going in.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Tommy, and he was more hungry than ever, and so were Mary and Johnny.

“Well, maybe I’ll have something by supper time, if you stay around long enough,” went on Jiggily Jig. “But it seems to me that you are rather sad. Is there anything I can do for you? Are you lost again?”

“Yes,” replied Mary, “we are. And this letter is lost, too,” and she gave the funny boy the one the postman had dropped.

“Oh, that letter is an easy matter,” said Jiggily Jig. “First I will take it to where it belongs, and then I will take you home.”

“But you don’t know where we live!” objected Mary. “You didn’t the last time, you know.”

“I think I know this time,” spoke Jiggily Jig. “Wait until I look at the writing on the letter,” and he squinted at it upside down.

“Why, you can’t read it that way, can you?” asked Tommy. “I can read some letters in my picture book, but I couldn’t if I turned them upside down.”

“Why, it’s easy if you know how to do it,” spoke Jiggily Jig. “To read a thing upside down, you have only to stand on your head, like this,” and then, as quickly as a cat can wash her face with her red tongue, the funny boy gave a jump and there he was, standing on his head, and reading the letter that way.

“Oh, ho!” he exclaimed. “Now I see where it belongs. I will soon take it there, and soon take you home. Come along, little Trippertrots,” and he started off up the street, holding Mary by the hand.

“Oh, but aren’t you going to lock your house that stands behind the telegraph pole?” asked Mary. “Some one might get in while you are away.”

“No, I won’t bother to lock it,” said Jiggily, “but I have a better plan. Here, watch me.” Then he took hold of a rope, that was fastened around the chimney of his house, and the rope went up over the telegraph wires, and came down on the other side. “I’ll just hoist my house in the air,” said Jiggily Jig, “and then I’d like to see any one get in.” So he pulled on the rope, and up went the house, swinging and dangling in the air. Then Jiggily fastened the rope around the telegraph pole, and left it there.

“I don’t think that’s a very good way,” said Tommy. “Some one might come along, untie the rope, let your house down to the ground, and go in it. Then you couldn’t get in when you came back.”

“Ah, I never thought of that,” said Jiggily. “Wait, I’ll fix that.” So he took a piece of paper and he wrote on it a little message like this:

“There, that will make it safe,” he said. “Now come along, little ones, and we shall see what will happen next.”

So off down the street he led the Trippertrots, but it was rather hard for them to keep up with Jiggily Jig, for he was either dancing, or skipping, or turning somersaults the whole livelong time, and sometimes he was out in the street, and sometimes on the sidewalk.

“Goodness!” thought Mary, “I hope we don’t meet any one who knows us, or they’ll think we’ve gone out walking with a circus clown, though, of course, Jiggily Jig is very nice.”

But Mary didn’t meet any of her friends. In fact, there seemed to be no one on the street, not even a policeman—only the Trippertrot children and Jiggily Jig.

“Are we anywhere near the house where the letter belongs, Jiggily?” asked Mary, after a while.

“I don’t know, I’ll look,” answered the funny boy, and then he turned the letter upside down again, and stood on his head to read the address on the envelope. “Yes, we will be there pretty soon,” he said.

Then he and the Trippertrots went on some more, but they couldn’t go very fast, for, every once in a while, Jiggily would forget where the letter belonged, and he would turn it upside down, and stand on his head to read it, and all this took time.

“Why don’t you hold it right side up when you read it? Then you won’t have to stand on your head,” suggested Mary, who was getting tired and hungry.

“That would be a good way, I guess,” answered the funny boy. “I’m glad you spoke of it, for I would never have thought of it.”

After that they got along better, and pretty soon they came to a fine, large house.

“I think this is where the letter belongs,” said Jiggily. “I’ll go in and inquire, anyhow. The old fisherman lives here.”

“Oh, can we go in and see him?” cried all the Trippertrots together, for they liked the funny old man.

“No, I’m sorry, but you can’t,” answered Jiggily. “He is busy fishing, up in the bathtub, and he doesn’t want to be bothered. But if the letter doesn’t belong here, he can tell me where to take it.”

“And can he tell you how to take us home?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, yes, surely. You wait here until I come back,” and with that Jiggily went up the front steps and rang the bell. But he didn’t wait for any one to come to the door, for, seeing a window on the porch open, he just gave a somersault and went in that way.

“Oh, what a queer way to go in a house!” exclaimed Tommy, as he looked at the window through which Jiggily Jig had vanished.

“Yes, I think it’s real jolly,” said Johnny.

“I don’t think it’s very polite,” remarked Mary, “but then I suppose Jiggily means it all right. It’s just one of his funny ways. Oh, dear, I wish he’d hurry out. Let’s sit down and wait. I wish we were home.”

Tommy and Johnny did, too, and they hadn’t been sitting there very long, waiting for Jiggily, when, all at once, up drove a milk wagon, and out jumped the milkman, with a whole lot of bottles of milk in a little wire basket.

“Oh, you’re here, are you?” the milkman asked, of the Trippertrots, with a jolly laugh.

“Yes, did you expect to see us?” inquired Mary, for she had never seen that milkman before, that she could remember.

“Well, I generally expect to find you somewhere along where I drive,” went on the milkman. “Your papa has told me about you, and how you run away so much.”

“Oh, then, you know us!” exclaimed Tommy, in delight.

“To be sure I do,” was the milkman’s answer. “Why, I leave milk at your house every morning. Of course I know you, and sooner or later I’ve been expecting to find you.”

“That’s funny, we never saw you at our house,” said Johnny.

“No, but that’s because I come around so early in the morning, so your papa can have cream in his coffee,” went on the milkman. “But what are you doing here?”

Then the Trippertrots told him how they had run out to give the lost letter to the postman, and how they had become lost themselves, and how Jiggily Jig had started home with them, and how they had reached the fisherman’s house.

“But he’s in there now with the letter, and he’s been gone some time, and we’re tired,” sighed Mary.

“I know just how you feel,” said the kind milkman. “Well, I’ll soon fix it all right. I’ll go in to leave the bottles of milk for the old fisherman. He pours it in the bathtub, and fishes in it. Sometimes he catches eels, and sometimes bits of cheese or butter. It doesn’t much matter to him.

“But when I come out I’ll drive you home, and you won’t have to worry any more. Now you go hop in my wagon, and I’ll be out very shortly.”

“And will you tell Jiggily Jig that we’re much obliged to him, and that you’ll take us home?” asked Tommy.

“To be sure I will,” answered the milkman, and then he went around the side of the house to leave the bottles of milk, while Mary and Johnny and Tommy ran and got in the milk wagon, cuddling down in the straw that was on the floor.

And, oh! how nice and warm and comfortable it was there.

“We’ll soon be home now,” said Mary, drowsily, for she was very tired.

“Yes,” said Tommy and Johnny together, and they, too, were very sleepy, and, before you could count fifty backwards, the three Trippertrot children were slumbering in the milk wagon.