Three little Trippertrots on their travels

“Well, aren’t you coming with me?” asked the grocery boy, as Tommy stood staring at him. As for Mary, she was looking in the oven, to see if the turkey was cooking, and it was turning the loveliest brown color you could imagine. And Johnny Trippertrot was playing spin tops with one of the boys of the poor family. So, you see, Tommy was the only one the grocery boy could look at, or talk to.

“Aren’t you children coming with me?” asked the grocery boy again, after a bit.

“Where do you want us to go?” inquired Tommy.

“Why, anywhere you’d like to go,” replied the grocery boy.

“Oh, then can you take us home?” begged Mary, eagerly, as she opened the oven door, and shut it again, and then the whole kitchen of the poor family was filled with the nicest cooking-smell—just like Christmas and Thanksgiving rolled into one, you know.

“Well, I guess I can take you home,” said the grocery boy. “But how did you get so far away, and are you lost, as usual?”

“Yes, we are lost, the same as we always are,” replied Johnny, as he gave the top to the poor boy to spin. “But we wouldn’t have been in this trouble only the horse first walked away with us and then he ran.”

“What horse?” asked the grocery boy.

“The horse that drew us here, with the Thanksgiving dinner,” said Johnny.

“It must have been your horse,” put in Mary. “You said you had been looking for one, and I think this was yours. And I hope we delivered the Thanksgiving dinner to the right place.”

“Oh, s’posin’ we haven’t!” gasped Johnny. “We’ll have to ask papa to pay for it for us.”

Then Mary told how they had looked out of the window of their home, and had seen the grocery horse walking away with no one on the seat to hold on to the lines, and how they had gotten in the wagon and been drawn along until they got to the house where the poor family lived.

“And,” said Mary, “we saw the Thanksgiving dinner in the wagon, and, as the horse stopped here, we thought it belonged in this house. But if we have make a mistake——”

“Oh, that would be terrible!” exclaimed Tommy.

“Indeed, it would!” said Johnny. And, at this thought, the poor children, who had been sniffing the smell of the roast turkey, and who had been looking at the nuts, and the cranberries, and the oysters, and oranges, and candy, and grapes, and celery, and other good things that the Trippertrot children had brought—at this thought, I say—fearing that their nice dinner might be taken away, the poor children nearly cried. And their mamma looked worried, too.

But you just wait and hear what the grocery boy said. He looked first at Mary, and then at Johnny, and then at Tommy.

“It was no mistake at all,” said the grocery boy, as he waved his white apron like a flag. “That dinner belonged just here, and here it stays. The grocery man I work for is very kind, and he put up a big Thanksgiving dinner, and told me to take it to some poor family. I started out with it, but I saw a poor little doggie, with a tin can tied to his tail.

“So I got out of my wagon to take off the can, and then my horse, that was fastened to the grocery wagon, started off. It must have been then that you children tried to stop him, and I’m much obliged to you. So you see, the horse knew just where to stop, and the Thanksgiving dinner stays right here.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried the poor woman.

“And so are we,” said the poor children.

Then Mary Trippertrot looked in the oven again, and as soon as she opened the stove door out came that nice smell once more, and really it almost makes me hungry to tell you about it.

“Well, I guess it’s time we started away,” said the grocery boy, after a while.

“Oh, yes, you are going to take us home; aren’t you?” asked Mary, as she went up to him, and took hold of his hand, for he was a very nice, kind, gentle grocery boy, and whenever he delivered eggs, he never broke one, he was so careful.

“Yes, I’ll take you home,” he said to Mary and Johnny and Tommy. “Come along.”

“Oh, must you really go?” asked the poor woman. “I wish, after you have been so kind to us, that you could stay and have some of this lovely turkey dinner.”

“Yes, do stay!” cried all the poor children together, like a lot of twins, you know, only, of course, they weren’t.

“Oh, thank you,” said Mary, politely, “we have had our dinner, and really we must get back home before dark, or mamma and papa will worry about us. We shouldn’t have come out, only it was a special, extra-extraordinary occasion, like the time of the dancing bears, and the pink cow, otherwise we never would have come out.”

“Well, let’s start if we’re going to,” said Tommy. So they all said good-by to the poor family, and went out into the street, Mary holding the grocery boy’s right hand, and Tommy his left hand, and Johnny held hold of Mary’s other hand, so they all had hold of hands, you see.

“Now which way had we better go?” asked the grocery boy, when they stood out on the sidewalk.

“Oh, the shortest way,” said Mary. “We want to get home as soon as we can.”

“Well, I think that would be a good plan,” spoke the grocery boy, “so if you will show me the shortest way to your house, we’ll take it.”

“Why, don’t you know the shortest way?” asked Mary.

“No,” answered the grocery boy, “I can’t say that I do. You see, I haven’t lived in this part of the city very long, and I don’t know my way about very well. So you can easily see that I don’t know the shortest way to your house.”

“Well, then, I suppose we will have to go the longest way home,” said Tommy.

“It won’t matter so much,” went on his brother. “For if we go the longest way we may meet with an adventure, and we might not if we went the short way.”

“Oh, that would be fine!” exclaimed Mary. “Yes, grocery boy, please take us home the longest way.”

The grocery boy took off his cap, and scratched first his nose, and then his left ear. Then he waved his white apron like a flag, and he seemed to be thinking very deeply, just as some children do when they have to spell a hard word in school.

“Well, to tell you the truth, as I always do,” said the grocery boy, “I don’t believe I even know which is the longest way to your house, to say nothing of the shortest way.”

“That’s queer,” spoke Tommy. “What can we do?”

“Oh, I have it!” suddenly cried Mary. “He can take us home the middle way. Don’t you remember the story of the three bears? The little bear couldn’t sleep in the big bed, and the big bear couldn’t sleep in the little bed, but the middle-sized bear could sleep in the middle-sized bed, and so we can go home the middle way, if we can’t find the short or long way.”

“Oh, fine!” exclaimed Tommy and Johnny together.

“How is that, grocery boy?” asked Mary, as she took a tighter hold of his hand.

“It would be very nice, very nice, indeed,” said the grocery boy, “but the truth of the matter is that I don’t know even the middle way to your house. But, if you can tell me what street it’s on, I think I could find it.”

“There we are again!” cried Tommy. “I wish we had thought to have tags put on us, with our address, and then we wouldn’t get lost, or, if we did, a postman could take us home.”

Then the three little Trippertrots looked worried, and, when the kind grocery boy saw this, he said:

“Never mind, I’m sure I can find your house sooner or later. Come, we will walk along, and look for it. Whoever sees it first will get a penny.”

“Who will give it to us?” asked Johnny.

“I will, myself, out of my own pocket,” said the grocery boy. “See, I have a bright, new penny,” and he showed it to the Trippertrots.

“Ah, but suppose you see the house first?” asked Mary.

“I won’t, I promise you,” said the grocery boy. “I will walk along with my eyes shut, and you can lead me. Then some of you will be sure to see the house first yourselves, and you can have the penny, whoever is first.”

“But suppose we all see our house at the same time?” inquired Johnny.

Once more the grocery boy took off his cap, and scratched his nose and ear. Then he again waved his apron like a flag, and said:

“Well, in that case, I will give you each a penny, as I happen to have three,” and he showed them to the children. So they walked along together, the grocery boy with his eyes shut, so he couldn’t see the Trippertrot house first, while Mary and Tommy and Johnny were eagerly watching for it.

In this way the children went along for some distance, but they couldn’t find their house. They saw many wonderful things, however, such as men and ladies riding around in automobiles, and some people in trolley cars, and they saw a dog chasing a cat, and the cat ran up a tree, and her tail was as big as two bananas. At last, however, Mary said:

“Oh, dear, I don’t believe we’ll ever find our home this way. We ought to have the old fisherman, or Jiggily Jig, or Simple Simon, or the newsboy, to help us. We’ll never get home.”

“Oh, yes, we will,” said the grocery boy.

“Ah, I have an idea,” suddenly exclaimed Tommy. “The grocery wagon horse knows where our house is, because he stopped in front of it. Do you know where to find your horse, grocery boy?”

“Yes, I expect he is in the stable now,” was the answer.

“Then go get him, and he’ll take us home in the wagon,” said Tommy.

“The very thing. I’ll do it at once!” exclaimed the grocery boy. “You stay right here until I come back, and I’ll soon have you home in your own house, and I think the horse will know the shortest way, too.”

So the grocery boy started off to the stable, and the Trippertrot children sat down on the front steps of a house to wait for him to come back.