Three little Trippertrots on their travels

All of a sudden Mary woke up. She looked out of the little door in the wagon, and she saw houses and trees and telegraph poles moving quickly by.

“My goodness!” exclaimed the little Trippertrot girl, “I wonder why everything is going so fast?”

“What’s that?” politely asked Tommy, as he awakened, when he heard his sister speaking. “What’s the matter, Mary?”

“Are we home yet?” asked Johnny, in his sleepy voice, and he cuddled down farther into the warm straw.

“No, we’re not home, as far as I can see,” answered Mary, looking out of the wagon again, “but everything is sailing past me so very fast—trees, and houses and people and telegraph poles and——”

“Why, it’s us that are sailing!” cried Tommy, when he had taken a peep. “It’s just like riding in a railroad train, when you look out of the window, and you see everything flying past—horses and cows and sheep and farms and fences and trees and telegraph poles and everything. We are moving, Mary, and not the things on the street.”

“That’s right!” said Johnny, when he had peered out.

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Mary. “Then the milkman’s horse must be running away with us, and the milkman isn’t here! Just take a look, Tommy dear, and see if it isn’t so.”

So Tommy looked, and then he cried out:

“Say, I should think he was running away! He’s going so fast that you can’t notice his legs move.”

“Really?” asked Mary.

“Look for yourselves and see,” invited Tommy, so Mary and Johnny looked, and, surely enough, the horse was running as fast as he could along the street, pulling the milk wagon after him, and the three Trippertrot children were inside, down in the warm straw.

“Oh, dear!” cried Mary. “How did it happen?”

“I don’t know,” answered Tommy. “Perhaps a little dog barked at the horse, and he ran away.”

“Who ran, the horse or the dog?” asked Johnny.

“The horse, of course,” replied Tommy, “and he’s running away now.”

“And with us, too; he’s running away with us!” said Mary. “I wonder where he’ll take us?”

“Maybe he’ll take us home,” spoke Tommy. “You know the milkman said he left milk at our house every morning, before we were out of bed, and maybe the horse knows where our house is. We’ll just stay in the wagon, and see what happens.”

“Well, if the horse doesn’t bring us to our house, he may go to his own stable,” said Johnny. “Then the milkman will come after him, and he’ll find us, and he’ll take us home.”

“Oh, that will be nice,” said Mary. So the three Trippertrot children stayed in the wagon, and the horse kept going on faster and faster, but still it was very nice, for the street was smooth, and they didn’t get shaken up the least bit.

And it was comfortable and warm and cozy down in the straw, and there were lots of bottles. After a bit the children were hungry, so they drank some of the milk.

“We’ll ask mamma or papa to pay the man for it,” said Tommy. “They will, for they like us to drink it.”

All this time the horse was pulling the milk wagon farther and farther away. The children kept peering out, but they couldn’t see any house that looked like theirs, and they thought they must have come a long distance from home.

All of a sudden the Trippertrots heard some one out in the street crying:

“Whoa! Whoa there, horsie!”

Then the milkman’s horse stopped running, and the wagon, of course, stopped also.

“Ha! I wonder who that can be?” asked Tommy.

“I’m going to look and see,” spoke Johnny, so out he peeped and then he cried: “Why, it’s Simple Simon, and the pieman is with him.”

“Really?” asked Mary. “I wonder what they want?”

“We want some milk, if you please,” answered the pieman, putting his head in through the milkman’s wagon window—not through the glass, you understand, or he would have been cut, but through the open window. “I would like some milk,” went on the nice pieman.

“What for?” asked Mary, who always liked to know the reason for everything.

“I have to use it to make pies,” said the pieman. “I am going to make a custard pie for Simple Simon, and I need milk.”

“Oh, yes, I have found my penny, though at first I thought I hadn’t any,” said Simple Simon, “so I am going to buy a pie for little Jack Horner, who sits in the corner. But it isn’t going to be a Christmas pie, and there aren’t going to be any plums in it—only custard. And you have to have milk for a custard pie.”

“Then you can take all you want, but you will have to pay the milkman, because we have no money,” said Mary, and the pieman said he would, as the milkman was a friend of his.

Then the Trippertrots each handed out a bottle of milk to the pieman, and away the milkman’s horse galloped again, pulling the wagon after him.

“I wonder what will happen next?” asked Mary, and hardly had she spoken, than the horse stopped in front of a house that had a red chimney on top, and green shutters on the windows.

“Oh, maybe this is our house!” cried Tommy.

“No, it isn’t,” said Mary, quickly, as she looked out of the wagon. “We don’t live here at all. But since the horse stopped here, maybe he means for us to get out. Perhaps we shall have another adventure here.”

“I’m a little tired of having adventures,” said Tommy. “I want to go home.”

“So do I,” added his brother.

“Well, we’ll just see what is here,” suggested Mary, so they got out of the milk wagon, and started to go up to the house, in front of which the horse had stopped. As soon as they were out of the wagon, the horse laid down in the street, and went to sleep.

“That’s good,” said Mary, when she saw this. “He won’t run away and leave us, as the grocery wagon horse did.”

As the Trippertrot children were going up the steps of the house, to see who lived there, they heard a baby crying. Oh, how sadly that baby cried! and Mary and Tommy and Johnny knew the big tears must be running down its face, for they were once babies themselves, and they knew what happens when you cry.

“Poor little baby!” exclaimed Mary. “I wonder what’s the matter with it?”

“Maybe a pin is sticking it,” suggested Tommy.

“Maybe it can’t find its rattlebox,” said Johnny.

And just then the door of the house opened, and out came a nice lady.

“I heard what you children said,” she exclaimed, “and the trouble with my baby is that he is hungry.”

“Why don’t you give him something to eat, then?” asked Johnny.

“I do,” answered the lady. “I sent the nurse girl to the store for some milk, but she has been gone an hour, and is not back yet, and my baby is crying with hunger. I can’t see what keeps that girl.”

“Maybe she is lost, the same as we are,” said Mary.

“Oh, you poor little dears! Are you lost?” asked the nice lady. “Then come right in the house and get warm.”

“And may we see the baby?” asked Mary, who loved little children.

“Oh, yes,” said the lady, so she took them into the parlor, where the baby was lying in a cradle. Oh! it was the loveliest baby you can imagine! It had such cute little hands and feet, and such blue eyes, and it was all rosy and dimples, and it smelled just like talcum powder perfume.

“Oh, isn’t it a dear!” exclaimed Mary.

“Wah! Wah! Wah!” cried the baby, all of a sudden, as it took hold of Mary’s little finger.

“Poor little dear, he’s hungry, and I can’t see what keeps that nurse girl who went for the milk,” said the lady. “Oh, where can I get something to eat for my baby?”

“Why, we have a whole wagonful of milk!” cried Tommy.

“Of course,” said Johnny. “It belongs to the milkman, but his horse ran away with us.”

“And you can have all the milk you want for your baby,” went on Mary. “Tommy, you and Johnny go and bring in some bottles, please.”

So the Trippertrot boys did this, and soon the lady had warmed some milk for the baby, and then it wiggled its pink toes, and held tight hold of Mary’s little finger, and drank the milk out of a bottle just as any baby should.

“Oh, he’s too sweet and cute for anything!” cried the little Trippertrot girl. “I wish he was mine.”

“Well, I can’t give up my baby,” said the nice lady, “but some day you may come, and take him out in his carriage. But I am sorry to hear that you are lost. Don’t you know where your home is?”

“No, we never do,” answered Tommy. “We’re the Trippertrots, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of you,” said the lady. “Well, perhaps I can think of some way to send you home.”

And all of a sudden there was a noise out in the street, and Mary, looking from the window, cried:

“There goes the milkman’s horse! He’s running away.”

And the next moment there was a knock on the door, and in came the old fisherman who used to catch fish in the bathtub.

“Oh, how glad I am that I have found you,” said the old fisherman to the children. “I have been looking all over for you. Now I will take you home.” And then what do you think? He took his fishpole and began fishing in the baby’s carriage!