Part 4

So the children sat in the back of the grocery wagon, with the boxes and baskets, and the horse kept going faster and faster on the asphalt street, and the Trippertrots didn’t know where they would get to finally, when, all at once, the horse turned off the asphalt, and began pulling the wagon over the cobblestones.

Rattlety-bang! Rattlety-bang! it went, and the children were all shaken up, and then, all at once, the horse stopped.

“Well, we’re somewhere!” exclaimed Mary. “I’m glad of it.”

“Yes, but I wonder where we are?” spoke Tommy.

“Can it be our house?” asked Johnny.

“No, there are no cobblestones in front of our house,” replied Mary, quickly.

Johnny looked out of the front of the wagon. He saw a little house, not very nice looking, for it was rather ragged, as if it needed a new suit of clothes, and the chimney was almost falling off the roof, and the fence in front was full of holes, and, altogether, it was a very pretty sort of a house indeed.

“What is there?” asked Mary, of her brother.

“This is the place where the Thanksgiving dinner belongs, I guess,” said Johnny. “The horse stopped here of his own accord, so it must be the place.”

“Then, as long as the grocery boy isn’t here, we had better carry the things in,” suggested Tommy. “We can make-believe we are the grocery boys.”

“I can’t be a boy,” said Mary.

“No, you’ll have to be a grocery girl,” spoke Tommy. “But that will be all right. I’ll take the turkey, ’cause I’m the strongest.”

“I wish Jiggily Jig, or Simple Simon, or the nice newsboy was here to help us,” spoke Johnny.

“Oh, we can do it all right,” said his brother. And then, while the kind horse stood very still, the three Trippertrots took the Thanksgiving things out of the wagon, and marched up to the shabby-looking house with them. Tommy put the big turkey down on the step, and knocked at the door.

A poor-looking woman opened it, and behind her the Trippertrots could see a whole lot of hungry-looking children. Oh! how very hungry they were!

“Well, what is it, please?” asked the woman, as she looked at Tommy and Johnny and Mary Trippertrot.

“If--if you please,” spoke Tommy, as he lifted up the big turkey to her, “here is your Thanksgiving dinner.”

“My Thanksgiving dinner!” exclaimed the woman, and a few teardrops came into her eyes, while Mary could hear the hungry children, who were standing behind her, sort of gasping, and making their tongues go around inside their mouths. “My Thanksgiving dinner!” said the woman again. “Bless your dear little heart, I’m not going to have any Thanksgiving dinner. We--we’re too poor!” she said. “There must be some mistake. You are at the wrong house. Thanksgiving dinner! Why--why, I haven’t had a real Thanksgiving dinner since I was a little girl,” and she turned around to look at her poor little children standing behind her.

“Well, you’re going to have one now,” said Mary Trippertrot. “This is yours.”

“No, no!” exclaimed the woman. “You are at the wrong house.”

“It _can’t_ be the wrong house!” cried Johnny. “The grocery horse stopped here himself, and I guess he knows where the dinner belongs. Let’s take it in, Tommy and Mary.”

So into the house went the Trippertrots, carrying the Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, what a dinner it was! There were oranges, and apples, and nuts, and candy, and white grapes, and bread, and butter, and potatoes, and the big turkey, of course; and celery, and cranberries, and some cookies and cakes, and, oh! I couldn’t tell you what else there was! The table was piled quite full.

“Are you sure it’s for us?” asked the poor woman. “I don’t think we ought to keep it.”

“Oh--oh, mamma!” cried one of the poor little girls--and there were about four boys and seven girls in that poor family--“oh, mamma--don’t--don’t--_please_ don’t send it away. We are _so_ hungry.”

“Humph!” exclaimed Johnny, as he looked out of the window, “you can’t send it away if you wanted to--not now.”

“Why not?” asked the woman.

[Illustration: _The Trippertrots Carrying the Thanksgiving Dinner_]

“Because the grocery horse has run away again,” answered Johnny. “I guess he knew what he was doing when he left the dinner here, and now he’s gone back home. So you can’t send the dinner away. You’ve got to keep it.”

“Oh, bless your dear hearts, we will,” said the woman, and, oh! how happy those children were--the poor ones I mean. But, of course, the Trippertrots were happy, too, because they had done a kindness.

Then the poor woman began to cook the Thanksgiving dinner, and she put the turkey in the oven to roast nice and brown, and the Trippertrots were helping her when, all of a sudden, there came a loud knock on the door of the house where the poor family lived.

“Ha! I wonder who that can be?” asked the poor woman.

“I guess it’s our papa come for us,” said Johnny.

“Who are you, and where do you live?” asked the poor woman.

“We are the Trippertrots, but we don’t know where we live, if you please,” said Mary.

“Because we are lost--we are always getting lost,” added Tommy. “But perhaps some one has come for us.”

So the poor woman went to the door, and there stood a boy with a white apron on.

“Ah, I’ve found you at last!” he said, when he saw the Trippertrots. “I’m the grocery boy and I’ve been looking all over for you and the wagon.”

“We’re here, but the horse and wagon are gone,” replied Mary.

“Well, never mind,” said the grocery boy, as he waved his white apron. “Come with me, if you please.”

ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE GROCERY BOY

“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.

[Illustration: TOMMY, JOHNNY AND MARY BEGAN TO FLOAT UP INTO THE AIR]

“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.

ADVENTURE NUMBER EIGHT

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE BASKET OF CLOTHES

“My, he is gone a terrible long time,” said Mary Trippertrot, after she and her brothers had waited, and waited, and waited some more, for the grocery boy to come back.

“Yes, perhaps he is lost himself, looking for the stable where his horse is,” suggested Johnny.

“Oh, grocery boys can’t get lost,” declared Tommy. “They have to know their way everywhere, so as to deliver groceries, and bread and butter and--and--lots of things. They can’t get lost.”

“Yes, they can,” said Johnny. “Don’t you remember when we once moved in a new house, and the grocery boy came with some groceries? Suzette told him to put them down cellar. He went down the stairs with his basket, and pretty soon we heard him hollering like anything. He was lost in the cellar, all right, so that shows you grocery boys _can_ get lost.”

“Oh, I remember _that_ time,” said Mary, with a laugh. “The boy hollered because Suzette forgot, and locked him in the cellar, and he couldn’t get out.”

“Well, when you can’t get to where you want to go you’re lost,” insisted Johnny, “so it’s the same thing. That grocery boy was lost, and maybe this one is, who has gone after the horse to take us home.”

“Oh, I hope not,” said Mary, “for it’s getting late, and it will soon be dark. I wish we were home. But we’ll wait here a little while longer.”

So the three little Trippertrots sat on the house-steps and watched the people walking along the street.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Tommy, at length, “everybody seems to have a house but us. See, they are all hurrying home, and we have to stay here.”

“Yes, let’s ask some of them to take us home, and not wait for the grocery boy,” suggested Johnny.

“Oh, no, don’t do that,” begged Mary. “It will be just as it always is. Folks will want to know where our house is, so they can take us to it, and, of course, we can’t tell them, and they’ll lead us off, and we’ll be lost more than ever. The best way will be to wait right here, until the grocery boy comes back with the horse, and then we’ll get home, for some horses know more than people, when it comes to taking lost children home to their papa and mamma.”

“All right, then we’ll wait,” agreed Tommy and Johnny.

They sat on the steps for some little time longer, and, pretty soon, along came a policeman swinging his club, and the brass buttons on his coat sparkled just like diamonds in the sunshine.

“Ah, ha, children!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t tell him we’re lost,” whispered Tommy to Mary. So the little Trippertrot girl said:

“Oh, we are waiting here for the horse and wagon.” She meant the grocery horse and wagon, you know.

“Very good,” said the policeman. “I hope it comes soon. But don’t go away or you might be lost.” Then he walked on, swinging his club, and Johnny laughed softly, and said:

“He doesn’t know we are lost already! But we will soon be at home.”

So they still sat there, and, by-and-by, a fireman came along. He had been home to dinner, and now he was going back to the engine house, to be ready to go to put out any fires that might happen to burn things. The fireman saw the children and he smiled at them.

“Ah, little ones,” he said, “I see you are sitting on the stoop to get the fresh air. That is right, but don’t go away, or you might get lost.”

Then the fireman hurried on to the engine house, and Tommy laughed very softly and said:

“Ha, ha! He doesn’t know we are lost, either.”

And many other people passed by, and either spoke to the Trippertrot children, or laughed at them, or smiled, and still Tommy and Mary and Johnny sat on the steps waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for the grocery boy to come back with the horse and wagon.

And then, somehow or other, before she knew it, Mary began to feel sleepy.

“I will just close my eyes for a minute or two,” she said. “You boys can make-believe you are out camping in the woods, and you can sit up on guard, while I sleep.”

Well, Tommy and Johnny thought that would be fun, so they kept their eyes very wide open, but nothing happened, and pretty soon they felt sleepy, but they wouldn’t go to sleep, for they knew that soldiers never slumbered while they were on guard.

Well, it was getting toward evening now, and it was becoming somewhat cold, and still that grocery boy hadn’t come. You see, he was lost himself, and he couldn’t find the stable where the horse was, and he couldn’t find his way back to where the children were, and there they waited, and waited, and waited.

And then something happened. All at once, along came a boy with a big basket of clothes on a little wagon. Oh, it was a very large basket, and a very small wagon, but it was quite strong, and the boy was also quite strong, so he could pull it very easily. But, when he came to the stoop where the children were, he sat down on the curbstone to rest. And the basket of clothes was so big that he didn’t see the Trippertrot children because they were behind it.

But Tommy and Johnny, who hadn’t gone to sleep, but who still sat beside their sister Mary, they saw the basket of clothes. And they knew Mary was very tired, for her head had fallen over on Tommy’s shoulder. Then Tommy thought of something.

“I say, Johnny,” he exclaimed, “wouldn’t it be fine if we could put Mary in the basket of clothes, so she could have a nice rest?”

“Hum! It would be nice if we could get in ourselves,” said Johnny, “only but the boy wouldn’t let us, I guess.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t,” agreed Tommy, and just then, as truly as I’m telling you, the boy who had the basket of clothes ran across the street to look in a toy shop window; maybe he wanted to see if they had anything he could buy for a penny. Anyhow, there was the basket of clothes on the wagon, and there was no one near it except the Trippertrots.

“Now’s our chance!” exclaimed Tommy. “Quick! We’ll put Mary in the basket, and get in ourselves.”

“But what about when the grocery boy comes back with the horse for us?” asked Johnny.

[Illustration: “_Tuck Me in Good, I’m So Tired and Sleepy_”]

“I don’t believe he’s coming back,” spoke his brother, “or else he’d be here now. We might as well get in the clothes-basket and rest, and see what happens after that.”