Three little Trippertrots on their travels

As he walked along with the Trippertrots the nice sailorman became more and more jolly every step he took, with his one wooden leg, and his one regular kind of leg.

“And so you children chased after this toy ship, when it went floating down the gutter, did you?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Mary, and she told how they had been playing sail Tommy’s little boat on the porch roof in the rain, when it was blown off, just as I told you in the adventure before this.

“And so you got lost?” asked the sailorman.

“That’s the way it was,” replied Tommy; “but you will take us home, won’t you?”

“To be sure I will,” answered the jolly sailorman, stumping along on his wooden leg.

“But do you know where we live?” asked Mary.

“To be sure I do,” answered the sailorman, with another jolly laugh. “I can easily find your house. Why, I have sailed all over the world, and I have found countries where monkeys live in trees, and throw cocoanuts at you, and countries where there is gold, and other countries where there are diamonds, and I have even found countries where there are little fairies, so it won’t be any trouble for me to find your house—no trouble at all, I do assure you. On the contrary, it will be a pleasure for me,” and then he whistled a jolly tune, and stumped along on his wooden leg harder than ever.

And all at once, as the jolly sailorman was whistling a jolly tune, and singing a jolly song—all at once, I say—out from behind a big box jumped Jiggily Jig, the funny boy. He turned a somersault, and he didn’t mind the rain a bit, and when he was standing right side up again he made a low bow to the sailorman and said:

“Well, I see you have found the Trippertrot children. Some one is always finding them, for they are always getting lost. Don’t you want me to take them home for you?”

“Oh, no, thank you just the same, Jiggily Jig!” exclaimed Mary. “Every time you try to take us home we get lost worse than before. You are very kind, and you mean all right, but we had rather the jolly sailorman would take us home. Though you may come along, if you like.”

“Indeed, I will,” said Jiggily Jig, as he did a funny dance in the middle of the sidewalk, then he walked along with the three Trippertrots and the jolly sailor.

But they didn’t go along so fast now, because Jiggily Jig had to stop every once in a while to turn a somersault, or do one of his funny dances. But still they were in no hurry, and after a while, just as true as I’m telling you, they came to where Tommy and Johnny and Mary lived.

“Why, there’s our house!” exclaimed Johnny, in surprise.

“The very place!” added Tommy.

“How did you ever find it?” asked Mary.

“Oh, I told you I had sailed all over the world,” answered the jolly sailor, “and to find just one house is as easy for me as eating pie. Why, I once found a whole big city that was lost.”

“How could a whole city be lost?” asked Tommy.

“Well, the city wasn’t exactly lost,” explained the jolly sailor, “but maybe we were. We were on a ship, just like Tommy’s, only bigger, away out on the ocean, and we couldn’t find the city we wanted. It was very foggy, you know. Then I got up out of bed, and I sniffed and I smelled, and I says to the captain, says I, ‘I smell apple pies. They bake apple pies in the city that we can’t find, and so I know we must be close to it.’ And, sure enough, we were, for we hadn’t sailed on much farther before we came to the lost city, and surely enough, everybody in it was eating apple pies. So that’s how it was, and that’s how I found your house for you.”

“Why, how funny!” exclaimed Mary. “Mamma was baking apple pies just before we went out to chase after Tommy’s ship.”

“I knew it!” cried the jolly sailor. “I can smell apple pies a good way off. So this is your house, eh? Well, now I will leave you.”

“Oh, no, you must come in!” said Tommy. “Mamma will want to thank you for bringing us home. And so will Suzette, for if you hadn’t brought us home, she would have had to go after us.”

“Yes, please do come in,” invited Mary. “And you, too, Jiggily Jig.” So they all went in the Trippertrot house, and I can’t tell you how glad Mrs. Trippertrot was to see her children back again, and so was Suzette glad to see them.

They were also glad to see the jolly sailorman and Jiggily Jig, and Mrs. Trippertrot at once went out to the kitchen and got some apple pie, and some glasses of milk, and gave the children some, and the jolly sailorman some, and also some to the funny dancing boy.

“Oh, I knew I smelled apple pie,” said the sailor, as he rubbed his wooden leg with his napkin. “I can always tell when I smell apple pie.”

So the jolly sailorman and Jiggily Jig stayed at the Trippertrot house that night, because it still rained very hard. And now I am going to tell you what happened the next day. It was quite an adventure for the Trippertrots.

The children were up in the playroom, showing their toys to the jolly sailorman, and to Jiggily Jig. Mary showed her new doll, and Tommy his toy ship, and then Johnny brought out his music-box, and played some jolly tunes, and the sailor sang the jolly songs that went with them.

“We got these for Christmas presents, from the man whose hat we chased, when the wind had blown it off,” explained Mary. “Of course it isn’t Christmas yet, but it will be on Monday, and we children must ask papa for some money, so we can buy some presents for our friends,” she said to her two brothers.

“Oh, would you ask your papa for money to buy presents?” inquired the jolly sailor, while Jiggily Jig was off in one corner of the room, trying to stand on his head on a soft cushion.

“Why, how else would we get it, if we didn’t ask papa?” Tommy wanted to know.

“Why, earn it, of course,” said the jolly sailorman. “Money that you earn is the best kind of money in the world, and it buys the nicest kinds of presents, except those you make for yourself. I would rather have a Christmas present that some one made for me, than any other kind, except a kind that some one bought with the money they had earned.”

“But how can we earn money?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, there are lots of ways,” answered the jolly sailorman, just as Jiggily Jig fell down from trying to stand on his ear. “But, of course, your papa might not like you to do them, and that wouldn’t be right. But I think I know of a way that he wouldn’t mind. You can take Johnny’s music-box, and go out and play jolly tunes, and maybe the people will give you pennies, and then you can buy some Christmas presents; that will be better than if you got the money from your papa.”

“But will the people give money just to hear tunes on my music-box?” asked Johnny.

“I think they will, especially if Jiggily Jig and I go along, to sing and dance,” said the jolly sailorman.

“Oh, will you really do that?” asked Mary, clapping her hands.

“I will, really,” answered the sailor, as he stumped about on his wooden leg, and helped Jiggily Jig get up, for the funny boy was all tangled up in a sofa cushion, that he had stood on to try and turn a new kind of somersault.

“Oh, then I’ll ask mamma if we can go,” said Johnny.

His mamma said they might, if the sailorman would take care that the Trippertrot children weren’t lost, and so it was all arranged that they were to start out the next day.

My, I can’t tell you how excited the three little Trippertrots were that night! They could hardly sleep, waiting for next day to come, and Jiggily Jig and the jolly sailorman stayed at the children’s house, in order to be there early the next morning.

So they started out, and Mary took her doll along, and Tommy took his toy ship with him. Of course, Johnny had his music-box, and oh! he played the nicest tunes!

I wish I could play some of them for you, but I don’t know much about music, except that I love it, just as much as you do. They went from house to house, Johnny playing all the tunes in his music-box, and say, I just wish you could have seen Jiggily Jig dance! It was as good as going to the circus. Sometimes he would stand on one leg, and wave the other in the air, and then, all of a sudden, he would bounce up, and turn a double somersault, and then he would stand on his head, and all the while Johnny would be playing tunes.

And then the jolly sailor! Well, say, he was too nice for anything! And he sang jolly songs, all about the ocean blue, and sailing away to distant lands, and about how storms came up, and made the sky dark, and how the sunshine came out again. Oh! it was really very fine. And Mary made-believe her doll danced, and Tommy pretended that his ship was sailing over the ocean blue, and then——

Well, the people in the houses, and the children, too, just loved the funny dances of Jiggily Jig, and the music that Johnny played, and the songs the sailorman sang, and they tossed out lots and lots of pennies to the Trippertrots.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” cried the children, as they picked them up, and put them in their pockets. “Now we can buy lots of Christmas presents.”

So they went on from street to street, playing and dancing and singing, until, at last, along came the man who had the three trained dancing bears—the big one, the middle-sized one, and the little one. And when he heard what the Trippertrots were doing, he said:

“I’ll come with you, and let my bears dance when Johnny plays his music-box, and perhaps we will get more pennies.”

So he did that, and, when the people saw the dancing bears, they threw out more pennies than ever, until Johnny and Tommy and Mary had as many as they could carry.

“Now I must take you back home again, so you won’t get lost,” said the jolly sailorman, and so he did. Then he was going away again, but Mr. Trippertrot asked him to stay and have his Christmas dinner with them, and the sailor said he would.

They wanted Jiggily Jig to stay, too, but he said he had to eat his Christmas dinner with Simple Simon and the pieman, and as for the dancing-bear man, he said he would eat his meal with his pet bears, so the sailorman was the only one who stayed with the Trippertrots.

And now you may read the story that starts on the next page, if you like.