Three little Trippertrots

The Trippertrot children stood on the sidewalk, looking after Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, and Simple Simon, turning somersaults. Then the Trippertrot children looked at the pieman.

“Whatever shall we do?” asked Mary. “Oh, I wish we had never left the house when mamma told us not to! What shall we do?”

“Go with the pieman, of course,” answered Johnny.

“Yes, and maybe he’ll give us each a pie, and mamma or Suzette could pay him when he gets to our house. I’m very hungry,” spoke Tommy.

“So am I,” said Johnny.

“And I guess I am also,” added Mary.

“Why, bless your hearts!” exclaimed the kind pieman. “Hungry, eh? That will never do! I can’t bear to see hungry children. Step right up to the pie wagon, and help yourselves. I have apple pie, peach pie, lemon pie, cocoanut pie, orange pie, cranberry pie, and even sawdust pie, but I wouldn’t like to give you any of that last. Sawdust pie is very hard to eat.”

“Who does eat sawdust pie?” asked Mary, wondering what it looked like.

“Oh, sawdust pie is for sawdust dolls,” said the pieman. “I make it especially for them. That’s really the only thing they can eat. But what kind would you children like—lemon, peach, custard——”

“Oh, I just love custard pie!” interrupted Johnny, smacking his lips.

“So do I!” cried Tommy.

“And mamma says it’s very good for us,” added Mary.

“Only—only,” spoke Tommy slowly, “we haven’t any money to pay you with just now, Mr. Pieman.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter in the least,” spoke the kind pieman, winking both his eyes, one after the other.

“But when Simple Simon wanted to taste of your pies you made him show you first his penny,” said Johnny.

“And he didn’t have any,” added Mary.

“Oh, but that was Simple Simon,” said the pieman, with a laugh. “He’s different, Simon is. Why, he’d eat every pie on my wagon if I didn’t make him show me his penny every now and then. And sometimes he loses it, and then he can’t have any pie for a week. But I don’t want any money from you Trippertrot children.”

“What kind of pie does Simple Simon like best?” asked Tommy, as he went close up to the pie wagon, and saw that there were several large custard pies on it.

“Oh, he’ll eat almost any kind,” replied the pieman, “but most especially he likes a Christmas pie, the kind I always make for little Jack Horner, who sits in a corner. Yes, Simon is very fond of Christmas pies, with sugar plums in them.”

“Do you make pies for Jack Horner?” asked Johnny.

“To be sure,” answered the pieman, “else he wouldn’t have any to stick his thumb in. But come, now, choose your custard pie, and after you eat it we’ll travel on and see if you can find your home.”

“Why, don’t you know where it is?” asked Mary.

“No,” answered the pieman. “I thought you did.”

“Oh, there we go again!” cried Tommy. “We’re lost once more! Jiggily Jig knew where our house was, but he’s gone off!”

“Yes, he’s gone off, sure enough,” agreed the pieman, and he looked down the street, but he couldn’t see either Jiggily Jig or Simple Simon.

“I thought perhaps Jiggily Jig would have told you where our house was before he began turning those somersaults,” said Mary.

“Bless you, no, he didn’t,” answered the pieman. “But you never can depend on Jiggily Jig. He’s too fond of doing funny tricks. But don’t worry. I dare say I can manage to find your house. So come along, eat your pie, and be happy.”

Then he cut a nice, fresh custard pie for them, and gave them each a piece. Oh, it was most delicious! Which means very nice, you know. Yes, that pie was certainly good, and I wish I could give you all some, if you were allowed to eat it, but I’m not—I mean I’m not allowed to give you any, because there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

“Well, now, if you’re all ready, we’ll start off,” said the kind pieman, when the Trippertrot children had finished eating. “We will go up one street and down another, and perhaps after a while we may come to your home.”

“I’m afraid we won’t,” answered Mary. “We always do seem to have such bad luck in losing our home. I’m sure we never mean to run off, but something always seems to happen.”

“This time it was a fire,” said Johnny.

“And the other time it was a little lost girl, crying in the street,” spoke Tommy.

“Well, never mind,” said the pieman. “I’ll sing a little song as we go along, and people will come to the doors or windows of their houses to see what I have to sell, and some of the people may see you children, and know you. Then they can tell me where to take you home.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Mary, dancing up and down, almost like Jiggily Jig did.

“Lots and lots of people know us,” said Johnny. “I’m sure that would be a very good plan.”

“Then we’ll do it,” spoke the pieman. “Now let me see, what song shall I sing? Oh, I know one.” And then he sang this song:

Well, no sooner had the kind pieman finished his song than all the people along the street began opening their doors and windows, and putting their heads out.

“Ho! Ho!” cried some boys and girls who were just home from school. “We would like some pies.”

“Then come and get them,” said the pieman, and the boys and girls, and lots of ladies, also, came around the pieman’s wagon, and bought his pies.

Then, when he was wrapping up the pies, or taking in the money, or making change, the pieman would say:

“Do any of you boys or girls, or ladies know where these children live?”

“Why, don’t they know where they live themselves?” asked one lady.

“Oh, no,” answered the pieman. “These are the three little Trippertrots, and they are always getting lost. I am looking for their house as I go along selling pies.”

But no one seemed to know where Mary or Johnny or Tommy lived. Lots and lots of boys and girls and ladies and men came out to buy pies, and they looked at the children, but none knew where they lived.

“Maybe some big giant has moved our house away,” said Tommy, “and that’s why we can’t find it.”

“Oh, of course not!” exclaimed Mary. “Giants don’t live around here.”

“Well, I wish they did,” said Johnny quickly.

“Why?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, then we could ask one of them to take us up on his shoulder, and he could walk about two of his steps and he would be right at our house, and we’d be home,” went on Johnny. “But I s’pose that can’t happen. We’ll have to trip and trot along until the pieman finds our house.”

So along through the streets they went, the pieman singing his little song, and selling pies, and asking all the people he met if they knew where the Trippertrots lived.

But no one did, and Mary and Tommy and Johnny were beginning to think they would never find their papa or mamma, or Suzette, the nursemaid, again.

And then, all of a sudden, as the pieman was pushing his cart down a little street where there were lots of trees, and many small houses with red chimneys on them sticking up through the roof—all of a sudden, I say—out ran a little girl, holding a dollie in her arms.

“Oh, Mr. Pieman!” cried the little girl. “I have been waiting such a long time for you!”

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the kind pieman.

“Oh, Sallie, my doll, is very ill,” said the little girl, “and I want some sawdust pie for her.”

“I have just one left,” said the pieman. “Here it is, and I hope she will soon be better.” Then he wrapped up the sawdust pie for the little girl’s doll, and he asked her—asked the little girl, I mean—if she knew where the Trippertrots lived. “For I can’t seem to find their home,” said the kind pieman, blinking both his eyes at once.

“No, I don’t know, where they live,” said the little girl, as she looked carefully at Mary, Johnny and Tommy.

“Oh, dear!” cried Mary. “I’m so tired walking about, looking for our home.”

“So am I!” exclaimed Johnny and Tommy.

“Then I know the very thing to do,” said the little girl, as she looked in the paper to see if her sawdust pie was all right. “Here comes the banana man, and he has quite a large wagon which he pushes about on its two wheels. Let him take you on his wagon, and ride you through the streets, and perhaps you may find your home that way.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Mary.

“It will be fun to ride in the banana wagon,” said Johnny, jumping up and down.

“Yes, and I think he can take us home,” spoke Tommy.

And just then along came the banana man, and he said he would be very glad to help the Trippertrots get home. So the pieman said good-by to them, and gave them each a little custard pie, and then he went off to find Simple Simon and Jiggly Jig.

“Jump on my wagon,” said the banana man, and the Trippertrot children did so, as there was lots of room. Up they hopped, and away they went along the street, looking for their house, and wondering how long it would be before they found the place.