Three little Trippertrots

“Oh, this is the best fun yet!” exclaimed Tommy. “I’m real glad we got lost this time.” He could see the nice coach and horses now.

“So am I,” said Johnny.

“And to think of going home in a real coach, with a real coachman!” exclaimed Mary. “It will be real stylish!”

“Yes, and they are real horses, too!” exclaimed Tommy, as the coachman came along the driveway, driving the prancing animals.

“Of course!” cried Johnny. “If they weren’t real horses we’d never get home.”

“Oh, well,” said Mary, “I guess Tommy meant they might be rocking-horses, or sawhorses, or clothes-horses, such as we once rode on. But I’m glad they are real horses. Oh, here we are, all ready for a ride.”

And with that the coachman drove up to the steps and stopped the carriage.

“Jump in, children!” he called to them, “and I’ll soon have you home. Whoa, there, horsies! Don’t jump so and prance about, or you might step on somebody’s toes.”

Then the horses stood very quiet, and Tommy and Mary and Johnny got into the nice carriage. Oh, it was a fine one! with such soft cushions on the seats, and little windows, out of which the children could look, and see what was happening in the streets.

And oh, so many things were happening! There were trolley cars rushing here and there, some one way and some another way, and there were wagons being driven here, and there, and some were from the grocery store, and some from the butcher store. And then there were such lots of automobiles, with their horns going “Toot! Toot!”

“I believe there must be forty-’leven autos at the very least,” said Tommy.

“I’m glad we’re not walking home,” said Mary, “because an automobile might accidentally bump into us.”

“Yes, it’s nice here,” said Tommy, and just then a man with a peanut wagon ran it across the street, right under the noses of the coachman’s horses.

“Hey, there! Where are you going?” cried the coachman to the peanut man, and the coachman had to pull up the horses very quickly, or the peanut man might have been run over. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but he might have been, you know, though I hope none of us would want a thing like that to happen. “Where are you going?” called the coachman again.

“I am going across the street, so as to get on the other side,” said the peanut man. “None of the people over there would buy any of my hot peanuts, so I want to go over on the other side.”

“Quite right,” said the coachman kindly. “I don’t blame you a bit.”

“Oh, isn’t it too bad that nobody would buy his peanuts, poor man!” said Mary. “I would buy some, if I had the money.”

“So would I!” exclaimed Tommy.

“And so would I,” added Johnny.

“Would you now, bless your hearts?” said the hot peanut man. “Then it is I who will be wishing you did have the money.”

“Oh, well, maybe if they haven’t I have,” said the coachman, and, with that, what did he do? He put his one hand in his pocket, while holding on to the horses’ reins with the other, and out he pulled three five-cent pieces. “Here,” said the coachman kindly, “give the children each a bag of hot peanuts.”

“That I will!” exclaimed the peanut man, “and here’s a bag for yourself, Mr. Coachman, for being so kind as not to run over me while I was crossing the street.”

“Oh, pray don’t mention such a little thing as that,” said the coachman, with a smile, as he took the fourth bag. Then the peanut man hurried on across the street, and the coachman drove the Trippertrot children on a little farther.

Pretty soon, after a while the coachman turned around, and, looking into the back part of the big carriage, where the children were, he asked them:

“And now, my little dears, where would you like me to be driving? I mean where is your home? for I want to get the horses back in the stable pretty soon. Where do you live?”

“Why, don’t you know?” asked Mary in wonder.

“Not a bit of it,” answered the coachman, and he was so surprised that he stopped eating peanuts.

“He—doesn’t—know—where—we—live!” cried Tommy and Johnny together, and they, too, were so surprised that they stopped eating peanuts. And then Mary stopped, too.

“How should I know where you live?” asked the coachman. “The master just told me to take you home, and I thought you knew where it was.”

“But we don’t,” said Mary gently. “You see, we are the Trippertrots, and we are always tripping and trotting off somewhere, and getting lost. That’s what we did this time. But I should have thought the man, whose boy owns the big dog we found, would have told you where to take us.”

“Well, he didn’t,” said the coachman. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

“What is it?” asked Tommy and Johnny and Mary, all at once.

“I’ll drive all around, up one street and down the other, and maybe you will see your house,” said the coachman. “Please keep a sharp lookout.”

“Oh, that’s just the way the banana man did, the time we rode in the hay on his cart,” said Johnny.

“Yes, we got home then all right,” said Mary, “and I think we will this time. Go on, Mr. Coachman, if you please, and we will tell you when we come to our house, so you can stop and let us out.”

“Bless their dear little innocent hearts!” exclaimed the coachman—and he spoke to the horses to make them go faster—“I never saw such children in all the days of my life. Not to know where they live! Ah, well, sure the little fairies will watch over ’em, and me, too, I hope, and I’ll get them safely home if I can.”

So he drove on and on, through street after street, but he couldn’t seem to find the Trippertrot house, and, though the children looked out of the carriage windows, and ate their peanuts, they couldn’t see their house, either.

And then, all of a sudden, as Mary was looking at the nice horses, and wondering if they would ever get home again—all at once, I say—she saw a poor little ragged boy standing on the street corner, and he was crying.

“Oh, Tommy and Johnny! Look there!” exclaimed Mary. “That little boy is crying. Something must be the matter.”

“I guess there is,” said Johnny. “We ought to help him.”

“We will!” exclaimed Tommy. “Oh, Mr. Coachman, stop, if you please!” he called out of the front window of the carriage.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the coachman. “Have you found your house?”

“Not yet,” answered Mary, “but we have found a poor little boy, and we want to see what is the matter with him.”

So the coachman stopped the horses, and out jumped Tommy. He went right up to the poor little crying boy, and asked:

“What is the matter? Are you hurt?”

“No, I am lost,” said the poor little boy, and he cried harder than ever.

“My! My!” exclaimed Tommy, in his jolly little voice. “That is nothing. We are lost, too, and we don’t mind it a bit. We are always getting lost. But the coachman is taking us home, and I know he’ll take you home also. Get in the carriage.”

So the poor little ragged boy started to get into the carriage. The coachman saw him and cried out:

“I say now, where are you going?”

“He is coming with us,” answered Mary. “He is lost; and will you please take him home, too?”

“Oh! Oh!” cried the coachman. “This is the worst I ever heard! Here are you children who don’t know where your own home is and you’re trying to find a home for another lost boy. Oh, dear! This is terrible! Terrible!”

“But I do know where my home is,” said the poor little boy, “only it got away from me somehow or other. I know what street it’s on.”

“Do you, indeed?” cried the coachman. “Then that’s more than the Trippertrots know. Whisper now, and tell me where is your home, and I’ll take you to it as fast as the horses can trot. And then, maybe, we’ll have good luck, and find out where these children live.”

So the little boy, who had stopped crying now, told the name of his street and the number of his house. I forget where it was, but that doesn’t matter.

“Oh, joy! Now I know where I’m going,” said the coachman, and the horses started up. Inside the coach the three Trippertrots were eating peanuts, and, of course, they gave the little boy some, and he liked them very much.

And then, all of a sudden, the little boy cried:

“Oh, there’s my house!”

“Are you sure?” asked the coachman. But the little boy didn’t have to answer, for just then out ran a lady.

“Oh, Teddy!” she cried, when she saw the poor little boy. “I thought I would never see you again! Where have you been?” and she took him in her arms.

“I’ve been lost, mamma,” he said, “and these nice children brought me home.”

“And where do you live?” asked the lady.

“That’s the trouble,” said Mary sadly. “Everyone seems to have a home but us.”

And now I’m coming to the strange part of this adventure. Just as Mary said that, along the street came a man with a long, white beard, and as soon as Johnny saw him he cried out:

“Oh, there is the nice old fisherman! You’ll take us home, won’t you?”

“Yes, please do,” said Tommy.

“We wish it so very much,” added Mary. “Won’t you, please?”

“To be sure I will,” said the old fisherman, and there he stood, the same one who had fished up the rubber boots and the raincoat and the umbrella, and who had taken the children to the house of the false-face man. “I’ll take you home,” he said. So he got into the carriage with the Trippertrots, and away they went.