Part 5

“All right,” agreed Johnny. So they lifted Mary up very gently, for she was a little girl, and not very heavy, and they were strong boys, if they were younger than their sister, and they carried her over toward the basket of clothes.

“Good-night, mamma,” murmured Mary, who was only half awake. “Tuck me in good, I’m so tired and sleepy.”

“She thinks she’s home,” whispered Tommy.

“Yes, we mustn’t wake her up,” said Johnny, also in a whisper. So, very gently, they lifted off the sheet that was over the top of the clean, ironed clothes, and they laid Mary down in among them. But first they put some newspapers around her shoes so they wouldn’t dirty the towels and pillow-cases, you know.

“Now let us get in ourselves,” said Johnny, and he and his brother wrapped some newspapers around their shoes, and then they crawled in the big basket of clothes beside their sister Mary. Then they pulled the sheet up over them, and then--and then--and then--they were both fast asleep almost as quickly as the pussy cat can wiggle its tail. Fast asleep in the basket of clothes were the Trippertrots.

Then the boy, who had been pulling the basket on his wagon, came back from across the street. He didn’t buy anything in the toy shop.

“Now I must take these clothes home,” he said to himself, as he began to wheel them. And then, all of a sudden, he exclaimed: “My! How heavy they are! I wonder what makes that? I guess it must be because I’m going up hill. Never mind, I’ll soon have them where they belong, and then I’ll get the money and take it home to mamma, and she’ll be happy.”

And, mind you, that boy never even dreamed that the three Trippertrot children were in his basket of clothes. He kept on wheeling them along the street, and once he slipped on a banana-skin, and almost fell down. Almost, I say, but not quite. And once a dog barked at him, not in earnest, only in fun, you know. And, all the while, the Trippertrots were fast asleep.

They even dreamed, too, as they were being wheeled along in the basket. Mary dreamed she was in a balloon, taking a trip through the air, and Tommy dreamed he was on the tail of a kite, and Johnny dreamed that he was bouncing up and down on a rocking-horse.

And, after a while, the boy who was pulling the basket of clothes on his wagon came to a house. He stopped in front of it. The house was painted green, and it had a red roof, only you couldn’t see that part of it, unless you went up in a balloon.

“Well, I’m glad I’m here with the clothes,” said the boy. “Now I’ll take them in and get my money.”

So he carried the basket of clothes up into the house. And there he found great excitement going on. The telephone bell was ringing, and there was a policeman there, and the nursemaid was running around through all the rooms, and the lady and man were almost crying.

“My children! Oh, where are my children? They are lost!” cried the lady. “Oh, have you seen my children?”

“No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t,” said the boy, and he really hadn’t, you know. “But here are your clean clothes, Mrs. Trippertrot,” he went on.

The lady took off the sheet from the basket of clothes and there she saw Mary and Tommy and Johnny, all fast asleep.

“Oh, my darlings!” she exclaimed. “Here they are! Oh, you dear washerwoman’s boy, to bring back my lost children!” And she hugged him, and then Tommy and Mary and Johnny awakened, and there they were, right in their own home. It was their own mamma’s basket of clothes into which they had crawled, never even guessing it, and the boy, not knowing it, had brought them safely home. The boy’s mamma was the washerwoman for Mrs. Trippertrot, you see, and he always delivered the clean clothes.

So there the Trippertrots were, but that wasn’t the last of their adventures. No, indeed!

ADVENTURE NUMBER NINE

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE POSTMAN

The three little Trippertrots had not done any traveling for some days now, and they were beginning to get a bit tired of staying in the house so much. They were almost wishing something would happen.

One day they were in the front parlor of their home, looking out of the window, for it was Saturday, I think, and they didn’t have to go to kindergarten school. Suddenly the doorbell rang, and Mary said:

“Oh, I wonder who that is?”

“I’m going to look,” spoke Tommy.

“Mamma said we mustn’t do that,” said Mary. “It isn’t polite.”

“It sounds like company ringing the bell,” spoke Johnny. “And there goes Suzette to answer it,” he added, as the nursemaid hurried down to the hall to the front door.

“Oh, I remember now!” exclaimed Mary. “I saw mamma putting on her new silk dress a while ago, so she must be going to have company. Come on, boys, we’d better get out of the front room, for mamma doesn’t allow us in there when she has visitors.”

“I know what we can do,” said Tommy, as he crawled under a big chair to get his rubber ball, which had rolled there.

“What?” asked Mary, eagerly.

“We can go upstairs to our playroom,” went on her brother, “and then we can look down in the street, and see whose carriage or automobile is there. Then we’ll know what company mamma has, without looking out of the windows down here.”

“That’s the very thing!” cried Johnny. “And maybe it’s some of those ladies who play or sing in such high voices. We can hear them upstairs, and it will be lots of fun.”

So the Trippertrot children started to go up to their playroom, and in the hall they met Suzette.

“Where are you going?” the nursemaid asked them, as she paused on her way to answer the bell.

“Just upstairs to look out of the window,” replied Mary.

“Very well, but don’t go away,” cautioned Suzette.

“No, not unless it’s a very special, extra-extraordinary occasion,” answered Johnny.

Once they were upstairs they all ran to the window and looked down into the street below. There, in front of their house, was a great big automobile, all enclosed with glass windows, so the people in it wouldn’t get cold. And the man who sat in front had on a big fur coat, like a shaggy bear, so he wouldn’t get frosty.

“Oh, I know whose car that is!” cried Mary. “It belongs to Mrs. Robertson Dudleyshire, and she doesn’t sing or play, so we can’t hear her. It won’t be any fun at all. I wish we had something to do.”

“Wait, maybe she will do something funny, so we can hear it and laugh,” proposed Tommy, so they waited until Mrs. Robertson Dudleyshire was sitting in the parlor below them. They could hear her voice, a deep, rumbling one, and they could hear their mother answering, but, as Mary had said, there was “no fun,” and the Trippertrot children didn’t know what to do.

“Hark! What’s that?” suddenly exclaimed Tommy, as he heard a loud whistle out in the street. “Is that a policeman?”

“Oh! Maybe he’s chasing a dog, with a tin can tied to his tail?” suggested Johnny.

“Why, you silly boys!” cried Mary. “That’s the postman’s whistle. Perhaps he has some letters for us--maybe invitations to some party. Let’s look out of the window.”

So they ran from the middle of the room, where they had been sitting to listen to the rumble of Mrs. Robertson Dudleyshire’s voice, to the front windows, and stuck their little noses flat against the panes of glass, so they could look down to the street.

“Oh, dear! He isn’t coming to our house at all!” cried Mary, as the letter-man passed by, with his bag over his shoulder. “He’s gone next door.”

Once more the postman’s whistle sounded, and then Tommy, who was watching him eagerly, hoping that perhaps there might, after all, be a letter for the Trippertrot home, uttered a cry.

“See!” Tommy exclaimed. “The postman has dropped a letter from his bag, and he doesn’t know it. He’s going right on.”

“Oh, we must tell him about it!” decided Mary. “Knock on the window, boys, and call to him. He’ll understand.”

So Tommy and Johnny knocked on the pane of glass with their fingers, and Mary helped them, but they couldn’t make noise enough so that the postman could hear them. On he hurried, blowing his whistle, and he never thought that he had lost a letter in the street.

“Raise the window and call to him!” said Mary.

So Tommy and Johnny tried to do this, but the window was stuck fast, and they couldn’t open it. And all this time the postman was getting farther and farther away.

“Well, we’ve got to do it!” sighed Mary, at last.

“Do what?” asked Tommy and Johnny together.

“We’ve got to run after the postman, and give him the letter he lost,” said the little Trippertrot girl. “We’ve tried every way we knew to make him hear us, but he didn’t. Now we’ve got to go out. It’s a special, extra-extraordinary occasion, anyhow, I guess.”

“Shall we tell mamma we’re going?” asked Tommy.

“No, she wouldn’t want to be bothered, when she has company,” decided Mary. “Besides, we’ll be right back. It’s only a step. Get your hats and coats, boys, for it’s quite cold.”

“We’ll go down the back stairs,” suggested Tommy, when they were all ready. “Then Suzette won’t see us, and ask questions about where we’re going.”

So they did this, and soon they were running softly along the narrow passageway at the side of the house, that led from the back stoop. Out into the street they scampered and they eagerly looked toward the place where they had seen the letter fall.

Surely enough, it was still there, and Tommy, running to it, eagerly picked up the envelope.

“It’s a real one, all right,” he said, “for it’s got a postage stamp on it, and really-truly writing, with ink.”

“Does it say who it is to?” asked Mary.

“It does, I guess,” answered her brother, “but I can’t read writing.”

“If we could, it would save us the trouble of running after the postman and giving it to him,” spoke Johnny. “Where is he, anyhow?”

They looked up the street and down the street and all over, but they couldn’t see the letter-man. I guess he had gone around the corner.

“Oh, what shall we do?” asked Mary. “We can’t keep the letter, and it wouldn’t be right to take it home. Oh, I wish the postman hadn’t walked so fast!”

“I know what we can do!” cried Tommy. “We can be the postman ourselves, and take the letter where it belongs. We’ll ask the first person we meet where the right house is, and we’ll go there. Then to-morrow we can tell the postman, and he’ll be very glad the letter wasn’t lost.”

Johnny and Mary thought this a fine plan, so they walked along, and pretty soon they met a man.

“If you please,” asked Tommy, “where does this letter belong?” and he showed him the lost one.

“Ha! You are very little children to be out delivering letters,” said the man. “Be careful you don’t get lost yourselves.”

“We won’t!” exclaimed the three little Trippertrots, like two twins, and part of another one, you know. Then the man said that if they went down to the corner, and turned to their right for about four houses they would come to the one where the letter belonged, for the man had read the address.

Then he gave the children each a penny, for he loved little ones, and Mary and Tommy and Johnny walked on to deliver the letter for the postman.

Well, as true as I’m telling you, instead of turning to the right when they got to the corner, they turned to the left. Then, of course, when they went to the fourth house the lady there said the letter didn’t belong to her. So they tried the first house and the second and the third and the fifth, up to over a dozen, on both sides of the street, but they couldn’t find where that letter belonged.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mary, when they had walked on for some distance more. “I just knew this would happen.”

“What has happened?” asked Tommy. “We haven’t lost the letter.”

“No, but we’re lost ourselves,” went on Mary. “Do you boys know which way to go home?”

“No,” answered Tommy, “I don’t.”

“Me either,” said Johnny. “We surely are lost again, and we have the postman’s letter, and that’s lost, too.”

“Oh, we must be very careful of that letter,” said Mary. “We must keep it safe. Here, Tommy, you had better let me carry it. Boys are such careless creatures. I’ll put it in my pocket.”

“Huh! We’ve got more pockets than you have,” declared Johnny, but Mary took the letter and put it in her coat pocket.

“Now we must decide what to do,” the little Trippertrot girl said. “It will soon be night, and we ought to be home, but we can’t find where we live. So let’s sit down on this doorstep, and maybe a policeman will come along and take us back to papa and mamma.”

So down they sat on the cold stone steps, and they looked up and down the street for a kind policeman, but they saw none. And they were--lost again--with a lost letter. Oh, wasn’t it dreadful? But don’t worry. I’ll help them all I can. You just wait for the next story and see what happens.

ADVENTURE NUMBER TEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE MILKMAN

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mary Trippertrot, after a while, “if we didn’t want a policeman one would be sure to come along, but when you do want one, there never is any. I wonder what we had better do?”

“Well, I know what we _hadn’t_ better do,” spoke Tommy, her brother, quickly.

“What is that?” asked Johnny, Mary’s other brother.

“We hadn’t better go any farther,” answered Tommy, “or else we’ll be more lost than we are now.”

“We can’t be any _more_ lost,” replied Mary, quickly. “But I think we had better stay here until something happens.”

“Well, I wish it would happen very soon,” said Tommy. “Oh, if only the old fisherman, or Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, or even Simple Simon, or the pieman, would come along now they might show us the way home.”

So they looked up and down the street, but they saw no one, and then, all at once, they heard a jolly whistle.

“Oh, there’s the postman!” cried Mary, jumping up. “Now we can give him back the letter he dropped out of his bag, and he will take us home.”

“But that doesn’t sound like the postman,” spoke Tommy.

“I don’t think so either,” added Johnny.

“Then I wonder who it can be?” asked Mary, for there was no letter-man to be seen. “Who whistled? Is somebody playing a trick?”

“I did!” cried a jolly voice, and, just as true as I’m telling you, out from behind a telegraph pole danced Jiggily Jig, the funny boy. “I whistled,” he said, and then he turned two somersaults, one after the other, and laughed in such a jolly way, that the Trippertrots didn’t in the least mind being lost.

“Where did you come from?” asked Mary.

“From behind the telegraph pole,” answered Jiggily Jig.

“And where have you been?” inquired Tommy.

“Behind the telegraph pole,” said Jiggily Jig. “Oh, I was there ever so long, watching you children, but I wasn’t sure you were the Trippertrots, so I didn’t want to come out.”

“Where are you going?” asked Johnny.

“I’m going back behind the telegraph pole, when I do what I can for you,” replied Jiggily Jig. “I live there, you know.”

“What, not behind a telegraph pole?” asked Mary. “You don’t mean to tell me you live _there_!”

“Why not, I’d like to know?” asked Jiggily Jig. “People live in houses, when telegraph poles are in _front_ of them, so why shouldn’t I live _behind_ a telegraph pole? Come here, and I’ll show you.”

So tripping, and leaping, and dancing, and jumping, Jiggily Jig led the Trippertrots to the telegraph pole, and there, as true as I’m telling you, was the cutest little house you could imagine. It was made out of a whole lot of little dolls’ houses built into one, and there was a front porch, and steps with an upstairs to it, and a chimney on the roof, and doors and windows, and everything that is found in a regular house.

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Mary, in delight.

“Yes, it’s fine!” exclaimed Tommy and Johnny.

“Who made it?” asked Mary.

“I did,” replied Jiggily Jig, proudly. “I would ask you to come in, and have lunch with me,” the funny boy went on, “but to tell you the truth, as I always do, the house is only big enough for one to get in at a time. So we would have to take turns going in to lunch.”

“Oh, we shouldn’t mind that!” said Tommy, quickly, for he was hungry.

“Not in the least,” added Johnny.

“And you could go in to lunch first,” went on Mary, for she was also hungry.

“Oh, there’s no use thinking about it,” said Jiggily Jig, with a sigh, “for, to tell you the truth again, there is nothing to eat for any of us, so there is no manner of use going in.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Tommy, and he was more hungry than ever, and so were Mary and Johnny.

“Well, maybe I’ll have something by supper time, if you stay around long enough,” went on Jiggily Jig. “But it seems to me that you are rather sad. Is there anything I can do for you? Are you lost again?”

“Yes,” replied Mary, “we are. And this letter is lost, too,” and she gave the funny boy the one the postman had dropped.

“Oh, that letter is an easy matter,” said Jiggily Jig. “First I will take it to where it belongs, and then I will take you home.”

“But you don’t know where we live!” objected Mary. “You didn’t the last time, you know.”

[Illustration: _So He Pulled on the Rope and Up Went the House_]

“I think I know this time,” spoke Jiggily Jig. “Wait until I look at the writing on the letter,” and he squinted at it upside down.

“Why, you can’t read it that way, can you?” asked Tommy. “I can read some letters in my picture book, but I couldn’t if I turned them upside down.”

“Why, it’s easy if you know how to do it,” spoke Jiggily Jig. “To read a thing upside down, you have only to stand on your head, like this,” and then, as quickly as a cat can wash her face with her red tongue, the funny boy gave a jump and there he was, standing on his head, and reading the letter that way.

“Oh, ho!” he exclaimed. “Now I see where it belongs. I will soon take it there, and soon take you home. Come along, little Trippertrots,” and he started off up the street, holding Mary by the hand.

“Oh, but aren’t you going to lock your house that stands behind the telegraph pole?” asked Mary. “Some one might get in while you are away.”

“No, I won’t bother to lock it,” said Jiggily, “but I have a better plan. Here, watch me.” Then he took hold of a rope, that was fastened around the chimney of his house, and the rope went up over the telegraph wires, and came down on the other side. “I’ll just hoist my house in the air,” said Jiggily Jig, “and then I’d like to see any one get in.” So he pulled on the rope, and up went the house, swinging and dangling in the air. Then Jiggily fastened the rope around the telegraph pole, and left it there.

“I don’t think that’s a very good way,” said Tommy. “Some one might come along, untie the rope, let your house down to the ground, and go in it. Then you couldn’t get in when you came back.”

“Ah, I never thought of that,” said Jiggily. “Wait, I’ll fix that.” So he took a piece of paper and he wrote on it a little message like this:

PLEASE DON’T LET MY HOUSE DOWN, OR GO IN IT.

“There, that will make it safe,” he said. “Now come along, little ones, and we shall see what will happen next.”

So off down the street he led the Trippertrots, but it was rather hard for them to keep up with Jiggily Jig, for he was either dancing, or skipping, or turning somersaults the whole livelong time, and sometimes he was out in the street, and sometimes on the sidewalk.

“Goodness!” thought Mary, “I hope we don’t meet any one who knows us, or they’ll think we’ve gone out walking with a circus clown, though, of course, Jiggily Jig is very nice.”

But Mary didn’t meet any of her friends. In fact, there seemed to be no one on the street, not even a policeman--only the Trippertrot children and Jiggily Jig.

“Are we anywhere near the house where the letter belongs, Jiggily?” asked Mary, after a while.

“I don’t know, I’ll look,” answered the funny boy, and then he turned the letter upside down again, and stood on his head to read the address on the envelope. “Yes, we will be there pretty soon,” he said.

Then he and the Trippertrots went on some more, but they couldn’t go very fast, for, every once in a while, Jiggily would forget where the letter belonged, and he would turn it upside down, and stand on his head to read it, and all this took time.

“Why don’t you hold it right side up when you read it? Then you won’t have to stand on your head,” suggested Mary, who was getting tired and hungry.

“That would be a good way, I guess,” answered the funny boy. “I’m glad you spoke of it, for I would never have thought of it.”

After that they got along better, and pretty soon they came to a fine, large house.

“I think this is where the letter belongs,” said Jiggily. “I’ll go in and inquire, anyhow. The old fisherman lives here.”

“Oh, can we go in and see him?” cried all the Trippertrots together, for they liked the funny old man.

“No, I’m sorry, but you can’t,” answered Jiggily. “He is busy fishing, up in the bathtub, and he doesn’t want to be bothered. But if the letter doesn’t belong here, he can tell me where to take it.”

“And can he tell you how to take us home?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, yes, surely. You wait here until I come back,” and with that Jiggily went up the front steps and rang the bell. But he didn’t wait for any one to come to the door, for, seeing a window on the porch open, he just gave a somersault and went in that way.

“Oh, what a queer way to go in a house!” exclaimed Tommy, as he looked at the window through which Jiggily Jig had vanished.

“Yes, I think it’s real jolly,” said Johnny.