Three little Trippertrots on their travels

For a while they walked on silently.

“Do you think you can find our house for us?” asked Mary, of the kind old man, as she took a closer hold of his hand.

“Oh, I am sure I can,” he said. “It was right in front of your house that the wind blew off my hat, so I won’t easily forget it.”

“Lots of people think they can take us home after we are lost,” said Johnny, “but, somehow or other, they don’t do it.”

“Yes,” added Tommy Trippertrot. “There was Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, who is always dancing, or turning somersaults, and there was the nice, little old lady, and the man who had the pink cow, and the other man who had the dancing bears, and the milkman, and the grocery boy, and the fireman, and the old fisherman——”

“My, my!” exclaimed the old man whose hat had been blown off by the wind. “Do you know as many people as all that?”

“Oh, yes, and more,” spoke Mary. “You see, we are always getting lost, and every one is kind to us, so they start to take us home. But, just as Johnny says, we never seem to get there, except, of course, once in a while.”

“Or, if we do get home, we run out after something or other, and we’re lost again,” said Tommy.

“Well, don’t worry, I’ll take you safely home,” said the man, as he put his hat on his head real tightly, so the wind couldn’t blow it off again.

And then he and the children walked along some more, and, all at once, they came to a toy store. And, oh, what lovely things there were in the windows; toy boats, and toy houses, and dolls, and doll carriages, and toy automobiles, and steam engines that really went “choo-choo!” And there were whirligigs, and clowns that you couldn’t make lie down straight, no matter how you tried, for they always bobbed up again, smiling at you just like the Cheshire cat in the story.

“Oh, what a lovely place!” cried Mary. “Let’s stop here a while, and choose things.”

“Choose things; what do you mean?” asked the man.

“Oh,” said Johnny, “when we haven’t any money we look in the toy shop windows, and we choose the things we’d like to have and make-believe they’re ours. But we always let Mary have first choice, because she’s a girl, you know.”

“That is very nice and polite of you,” said the man. “Boys should always be kind to their sisters, and all other ladies. But since you have no money, and as you have been very kind to help me get my hat, I will take you in the toy shop and buy you each a toy, and you may choose whatever you like, only this will be real, and not make-believe, for you may take the toys home with you.”

“Oh, really?” inquired Mary, in delight.

“Do you mean truly?” asked Tommy, wonderingly.

“And really-truly and truly-really?” asked Johnny, for it was such a strange thing that he wanted to be quite sure about it.

“Oh, yes, this is in earnest,” said the kind man, with a smile. “So come in and pick out what toys you like best. It is near Christmas time, and you can count this as one of your Christmas presents.”

“And may Mary have first choice?” asked Johnny.

“Surely,” said the man, and he was glad that Tommy and Johnny were so kind to their little sister, but then they were most always that way, and I hope you are, too; but of course you are, so I needn’t have said that last part, need I?

And if the window of the toy shop was lovely, the inside of the shop was more beautiful still. Oh! so many toys as there were! It was just like the place where Santa Claus makes all the nice things for the girls and boys. In fact, some of the toys had just come from the workshop of dear old St. Nicholas himself.

“Well, what are you going to choose, Mary?” asked Tommy, of his sister, when they had looked around a bit.

“I—I think I’ll have that nice big doll over there,” said the little girl, after a while, when she had examined many things.

So the toy shop clerk gave Mary the big doll, and the man, whose hat the Trippertrot children had run after, smiled and said:

“Now, Tommy, it’s your turn.”

“I’ll take that nice sailboat,” said Tommy Trippertrot, and the toy shop clerk gave it to him.

“And now what will Johnny have?” asked the kind man.

“Oh, I’ll take that music-box, that plays such pretty tunes,” said the other boy, for the toy shop clerk had wound the box up while the children were looking around, and it played “Yankee Doodle,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” and a funny tune called “Don’t Laugh When You Sneeze, and Don’t Give the Cat Cheese.” Oh! that last is a very fine tune, indeed.

So the toy shop clerk gave Johnny the music-box, and then each of the Trippertrot children had a nice toy, and the man, whose hat the wind had blown off, paid for them, and he and the children went out in the street again.

“Now I will surely take you home,” said the kind man. “We will go down this street, and up another, and across a third, and along a fourth, and then we will be there.”

So along they went, the children looking at their toys, and feeling very happy that Christmas was so near at hand, when, all at once, they heard some one singing around the corner. Then they heard a whistle, and a voice cried:

“Oh, there are the Trippertrot children! How glad I am to see them. Let me take them home, if you please, Mr. Man, for I am sure they are lost,” and there stood Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, who was always dancing.

“Yes, we are lost again,” said Mary Trippertrot, “but this gentleman will take us home, for I am afraid you don’t know the way.”

“Well, perhaps I might get lost, too,” admitted Jiggily. “But, what lovely toys you have! May I see them?”

“Yes, they are Christmas presents,” said Tommy, and then Mary showed her new doll, and Tommy showed his ship, and Johnny showed his music-box, and played a nice little dancing tune on it.

And, no sooner did the music start than Jiggily Jig began dancing, and away down the street he danced, turning over and over in somersaults, until he was out of sight.

“There, you see!” exclaimed Mary, “it’s a good thing we didn’t let him take us home, or we’d never get there.”

“I think so myself,” said the man. Then he led them on a little farther, and, pretty soon, they met the pieman, and Simple Simon was with him, coming from the fair, and the pieman and Simple Simon wanted to take the Trippertrot children home, but they said the hat man had better do it.

And then they met the old fisherman, and the nice old lady, and the pink-cow man, and the dancing-bear man, and each and every one wanted to take the Trippertrot children home, but Mary and her brother said they had rather go with the man whose hat the wind had blown off. So they did, and pretty soon, what do you think?

In a little while the man came to a long, wide street, and he looked at his watch, and said:

“Now I needn’t go any farther, for there is your house right down there. Besides, I haven’t time. I have to catch a train.”

“Do you catch a train just like you catch a ball?” asked Tommy, who wanted to know about lots of things.

“Well, yes,” said the man, with a laugh; “that is, you have to run to catch a train, and sometimes you have to run to catch a ball, so it is much the same thing. But, tell me, can you go home now, when your house is in plain sight?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Mary, and Tommy and Johnny said the same thing, for there, right down the street, they could see their house, and they knew they could easily walk to it.

So they held their toys tightly under their arms, thanked the kind man, said good-by to him, and walked toward their house. And just when they were almost there, and when they could look ahead, and see Suzette, the nursemaid, waving her hand to them, what should happen but that along came a wagon, all loaded with Christmas trees.

You know the kind—nice, tall, green trees, with soft, stickery branches; and on Christmas morning presents grow on the trees, and if the presents are too big they fall down, and you find them on the floor under the tree. Oh, Christmas trees are very wonderful, indeed!

“Oh, see the Christmas trees!” cried Mary, as she and her brothers stopped to look.

“Oh, aren’t they fine!” exclaimed Tommy. And then, all of a sudden, one of the trees fell off the wagon.

“Quick! We must tell the driver man!” shouted Johnny. “He doesn’t know he’s lost a tree.”

“Oh, maybe we can pick it up, and take it around to the front of the wagon to him,” said Mary. So the three Trippertrot children ran up to the tree. But, as it happened, the tree was fast to the wagon by a rope, and when the horses kept on going, of course they pulled the tree along the street with the wagon, like a boy hitching his sled on behind the milkman’s sled.

And then, bless your hearts! just as Mary and Tommy and Johnny ran up to the tree they all stumbled and fell, and down they sat right on the soft branches, and they were being dragged along by the wagon.

“Mercy on us!” cried Suzette, the nursemaid, who was waiting for the children, and who had seen what happened. “Mercy! There they go off once more!”

Then she was so afraid that the children would be carried off, and lost again, that she ran after the wagon and the moving Christmas tree. She grabbed up Mary and her doll, and set the little girl on her feet. Then she ran on a little more and grabbed up Johnny and his music-box, and she set him on his feet, and then she grabbed up Tommy and his ship, and set him on his feet, and then the nursemaid ran to the sidewalk with the three children.

“My! That was a narrow escape!” she exclaimed, all out of breath. “You might all have been lost again. Come into the house at once. Where have you been? Your mamma is waiting for you.”

“Oh, we helped the man get back his hat, that the wind blew off,” said Tommy.

“And just now we were going to tell the man about the Christmas tree that slipped off his wagon,” said Mary.

“Only we didn’t, because we fell down,” spoke Johnny.

“Oh, I’ll tell the man,” said Suzette, the nursemaid. So she called to the tree man, and he stopped his horses, got down, and put the Christmas tree back on his wagon, and he was very thankful that he hadn’t lost it.

Then Suzette took the Trippertrots safely into the house and they thought they would never run away again. But, bless you! just wait and see what happens in the next story.