Part 7

Well, as they were looking out of the window of the playroom, they saw a nice old gentleman crossing the street in front of their house. The old man was going very slowly, because he had rheumatism, I guess, or maybe the epizootic, when all at once, the wind, which was blowing very hard, blew right up under his tall silk hat, and blew it off his head. It almost blew off the hair on the old gentleman’s head, and if it had not been fastened tightly there, something like that surely would have happened.

“Oh, there goes his hat!” cried Tommy.

“And see how it rolls along the street!” exclaimed Johnny. “It’s almost as good as a football,” and he laughed out loud.

“Oh, you shouldn’t laugh when any one is in trouble,” spoke Mary, kindly.

“He can’t hear me,” answered Johnny. “Besides, I am really sorry for him.”

“If you are sorry I should think you would go out and help him catch his hat,” spoke Tommy. And truly, the hat of the old man was now rolling swiftly along the street, where the wind blew it, and the old gentleman was chasing after it--after his hat, I mean, not after the wind. Oh, my goodness me, no, and a basket of onions besides!

“We are not to leave the house--mamma said so,” spoke Mary, firmly.

“But I think this is a special, extra-extraordinary occasion,” declared Tommy. “Mamma would want us to go out and help catch the hat for the old man if she were here. I’m sure she would, for she always likes us to be kind to old people, and that gentleman can’t catch his hat all by himself. He can’t run fast enough.”

“That’s right,” agreed Johnny. “See him run! Oh, see him run!”

And, surely enough, the old gentleman was running after his hat as fast as anything. But, no matter how fast he ran, the wind blew his hat still faster, and it rolled along just in front of him. Every once in a while the old man would think he had the hat, and then the wind would come in a sudden puff, and presto-chango! away the hat would roll again, down the street.

“Oh, we ought to help him!” exclaimed Mary Trippertrot. “There is no one else out in the street to do it.”

“Then I will!” cried Tommy. “I’m going to get his hat for him.”

“And so am I,” added Johnny. “Come on, Mary.”

Then they got ready to run out of doors to help the old man get back his hat.

“Oh, dear, we really oughtn’t to go,” spoke Mary, “for we will be sure to be lost, as we always are. But I can’t let you boys go alone. I must be with you. I suppose this is one of those special, extra-extraordinary occasions, and mamma won’t mind very much.”

So Mary Trippertrot and her brothers, Tommy and Johnny, slipped softly down the front stairs, so Suzette, the nursemaid, wouldn’t see them, and out of doors they went.

“Hurry up!” called Tommy, as he ran on ahead, “the old man is nearly around the corner chasing his hat. We must help him, or his hat will be spoiled.”

“That’s right!” said Mary, and away they raced, forgetting everything that their mamma had told them about not going out of the house. But they wanted to do a kindness, you see.

Pretty soon they turned around the corner, and there, down the street, they saw the old man still chasing after his hat. The Trippertrot children soon caught up to him.

“Well, what do you want, little ones?” the man asked, as he turned around and saw them.

“If you please, sir,” said Mary, “we have come to help you chase your hat.”

“Ha! That is very kind of you,” spoke the old man, in a most polite voice. “I am sure I will get my hat now, with so many of us after it. If only the wind didn’t blow so hard my hat would stop rolling along the ground, and then I could get it alone. But I am glad you have joined me. Come on, now, we’ll see if we can’t race after that hat.”

So on ran the Trippertrots, and on ran the nice old man, after his hat, which the wind was making go faster and faster, just like when you roll a hoop.

“Oh, I’m afraid my hat will be ruined!” cried the old man, as he saw it roll into a puddle of water, and bounce out again. “And it is a nice new hat, and inside the lining is a dollar bill that I was saving to buy a Christmas present for my little grandson.”

“Oh, then we must surely get that hat!” said Mary, and she ran on faster than ever, and Tommy and Johnny Trippertrot also ran faster, and the old man ran as fast as he could.

“Look out!” suddenly cried Mary. “That automobile is going to run over your hat, and if it does it will squash it flatter than a sheet of paper.”

“So it will!” agreed the old man, as he looked up in time to see a big automobile rushing along the street, and his hat was almost under the fat wheels of the car.

“Hi, there, Mr. Auto Man! Stop your machine, if you please!” cried the old man. “Don’t run over my hat!”

And the auto man stopped his car just in time--that is, almost in time--for he just ran over a little part of the rim of the hat, and broke off a small piece.

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Mary, as she made a grab for the tall silk hat, but she was just too late.

“Oh, never mind,” spoke the old man, as the hat went rolling on down another street, just as Tom-Tom the piper’s son ran roaring down the street after he took the pig, you know. “I can mend the broken place with court-plaster, if only I can get my hat.”

“We’ll help you,” said Tommy, and then the Trippertrot children ran on faster than ever after the old man’s hat.

But the hat was blown very hard by the wind, which didn’t seem to want to let go of it. Once the hat was nearly blown under a big, heavy wagon, and the wheels almost rolled over it. Then, a little later, some horses almost stepped on it, and one horse thought it was something good to eat, and was going to chew it, only his driver wouldn’t let him.

And then, all of a sudden, along came a trolley car, and this nearly ran over the hat, only the motorman stopped his car in time. He even got off, and tried to grab the hat, but the wind blew it on farther still, for the breeze was very strong.

“Oh, hadn’t we better go back home?” asked Mary, when they had been chasing the hat for some time. “We might get lost.”

“We’re lost now,” spoke Johnny, as he looked around, though he didn’t stop running. “We’ve never been in this part of the city before.”

“Well, if we’re lost we can’t get any more lost than we are,” said Mary. “We might as well keep on, and try to get the hat for the old gentleman. I like him, as he looks so much like the kind fisherman.”

“All right,” agreed Tommy and Johnny, for they also liked the old gentleman. So on they ran, after the old man who was chasing his hat.

Once the hat blew into the canal, and got all wet, and the next minute it blew out and went almost under the wheels of a choo-choo locomotive, but it rolled away just in time.

And then, all of a sudden, the wind gave a big puff, as if it was blowing out a candle, and presto-chango! the hat blew up into a tree, and there it stuck.

“Well, it’s fast, anyhow,” said the old man, who had almost no breath left, after running so far.

“Yes, it can’t go any more, unless the tree blows with it,” spoke Johnny.

“But how are you going to get it down?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, I know,” said Mary. “One of you boys must climb up the tree, or we can borrow a step-ladder from the house next door, and use that.”

“Let me climb!” cried Johnny.

“No, let me,” said his brother.

“You may both climb up,” declared the old gentleman, with a laugh. “I want my hat as quickly as I can get it, for I am catching cold.”

So up into the tree scrambled Johnny and Tommy, and soon they had the old man’s hat safe. It was a little bit battered and torn, by bouncing along so much, but that didn’t hurt it much. Then the old man put it on his head.

All of a sudden Mary began to cry.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the nice old man. “Are you hungry?”

“No, I am not hungry,” answered Mary, “but we are--lost!”

“And we don’t know our way home!” added Tommy, and he cried, too, but only a little.

“And we’re always getting lost,” went on Johnny, as he started to cry a tear or two. “We’re always getting lost, and this time it was because we chased after your hat.”

“That is too bad,” said the old man. “And, as you have been so kind to me I will be kind to you. Come along, I will take you back home. I know where it is, because my hat blew off right in front of there. Come along, Trippertrots.”

So he brushed the dust off his hat, and put it on his head--put on his hat, I mean, not the dust--and then he took hold of Mary’s hand and Johnny’s, and Johnny took hold of Tommy’s hand, and away they started for the Trippertrot home.

ADVENTURE NUMBER FOURTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE CHRISTMAS TREE

For a while they walked on silently.

“Do you think you can find our house for us?” asked Mary, of the kind old man, as she took a closer hold of his hand.

“Oh, I am sure I can,” he said. “It was right in front of your house that the wind blew off my hat, so I won’t easily forget it.”

“Lots of people think they can take us home after we are lost,” said Johnny, “but, somehow or other, they don’t do it.”

“Yes,” added Tommy Trippertrot. “There was Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, who is always dancing, or turning somersaults, and there was the nice, little old lady, and the man who had the pink cow, and the other man who had the dancing bears, and the milkman, and the grocery boy, and the fireman, and the old fisherman----”

“My, my!” exclaimed the old man whose hat had been blown off by the wind. “Do you know as many people as all that?”

“Oh, yes, and more,” spoke Mary. “You see, we are always getting lost, and every one is kind to us, so they start to take us home. But, just as Johnny says, we never seem to get there, except, of course, once in a while.”

“Or, if we do get home, we run out after something or other, and we’re lost again,” said Tommy.

“Well, don’t worry, I’ll take you safely home,” said the man, as he put his hat on his head real tightly, so the wind couldn’t blow it off again.

And then he and the children walked along some more, and, all at once, they came to a toy store. And, oh, what lovely things there were in the windows; toy boats, and toy houses, and dolls, and doll carriages, and toy automobiles, and steam engines that really went “choo-choo!” And there were whirligigs, and clowns that you couldn’t make lie down straight, no matter how you tried, for they always bobbed up again, smiling at you just like the Cheshire cat in the story.

“Oh, what a lovely place!” cried Mary. “Let’s stop here a while, and choose things.”

“Choose things; what do you mean?” asked the man.

“Oh,” said Johnny, “when we haven’t any money we look in the toy shop windows, and we choose the things we’d like to have and make-believe they’re ours. But we always let Mary have first choice, because she’s a girl, you know.”

“That is very nice and polite of you,” said the man. “Boys should always be kind to their sisters, and all other ladies. But since you have no money, and as you have been very kind to help me get my hat, I will take you in the toy shop and buy you each a toy, and you may choose whatever you like, only this will be real, and not make-believe, for you may take the toys home with you.”

“Oh, really?” inquired Mary, in delight.

“Do you mean truly?” asked Tommy, wonderingly.

“And really-truly and truly-really?” asked Johnny, for it was such a strange thing that he wanted to be quite sure about it.

“Oh, yes, this is in earnest,” said the kind man, with a smile. “So come in and pick out what toys you like best. It is near Christmas time, and you can count this as one of your Christmas presents.”

“And may Mary have first choice?” asked Johnny.

“Surely,” said the man, and he was glad that Tommy and Johnny were so kind to their little sister, but then they were most always that way, and I hope you are, too; but of course you are, so I needn’t have said that last part, need I?

And if the window of the toy shop was lovely, the inside of the shop was more beautiful still. Oh! so many toys as there were! It was just like the place where Santa Claus makes all the nice things for the girls and boys. In fact, some of the toys had just come from the workshop of dear old St. Nicholas himself.

“Well, what are you going to choose, Mary?” asked Tommy, of his sister, when they had looked around a bit.

“I--I think I’ll have that nice big doll over there,” said the little girl, after a while, when she had examined many things.

So the toy shop clerk gave Mary the big doll, and the man, whose hat the Trippertrot children had run after, smiled and said:

“Now, Tommy, it’s your turn.”

“I’ll take that nice sailboat,” said Tommy Trippertrot, and the toy shop clerk gave it to him.

“And now what will Johnny have?” asked the kind man.

“Oh, I’ll take that music-box, that plays such pretty tunes,” said the other boy, for the toy shop clerk had wound the box up while the children were looking around, and it played “Yankee Doodle,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” and a funny tune called “Don’t Laugh When You Sneeze, and Don’t Give the Cat Cheese.” Oh! that last is a very fine tune, indeed.

So the toy shop clerk gave Johnny the music-box, and then each of the Trippertrot children had a nice toy, and the man, whose hat the wind had blown off, paid for them, and he and the children went out in the street again.

“Now I will surely take you home,” said the kind man. “We will go down this street, and up another, and across a third, and along a fourth, and then we will be there.”

So along they went, the children looking at their toys, and feeling very happy that Christmas was so near at hand, when, all at once, they heard some one singing around the corner. Then they heard a whistle, and a voice cried:

“Oh, there are the Trippertrot children! How glad I am to see them. Let me take them home, if you please, Mr. Man, for I am sure they are lost,” and there stood Jiggily Jig, the funny boy, who was always dancing.

“Yes, we are lost again,” said Mary Trippertrot, “but this gentleman will take us home, for I am afraid you don’t know the way.”

“Well, perhaps I might get lost, too,” admitted Jiggily. “But, what lovely toys you have! May I see them?”

“Yes, they are Christmas presents,” said Tommy, and then Mary showed her new doll, and Tommy showed his ship, and Johnny showed his music-box, and played a nice little dancing tune on it.

And, no sooner did the music start than Jiggily Jig began dancing, and away down the street he danced, turning over and over in somersaults, until he was out of sight.

“There, you see!” exclaimed Mary, “it’s a good thing we didn’t let him take us home, or we’d never get there.”

“I think so myself,” said the man. Then he led them on a little farther, and, pretty soon, they met the pieman, and Simple Simon was with him, coming from the fair, and the pieman and Simple Simon wanted to take the Trippertrot children home, but they said the hat man had better do it.

And then they met the old fisherman, and the nice old lady, and the pink-cow man, and the dancing-bear man, and each and every one wanted to take the Trippertrot children home, but Mary and her brother said they had rather go with the man whose hat the wind had blown off. So they did, and pretty soon, what do you think?

In a little while the man came to a long, wide street, and he looked at his watch, and said:

“Now I needn’t go any farther, for there is your house right down there. Besides, I haven’t time. I have to catch a train.”

“Do you catch a train just like you catch a ball?” asked Tommy, who wanted to know about lots of things.

“Well, yes,” said the man, with a laugh; “that is, you have to run to catch a train, and sometimes you have to run to catch a ball, so it is much the same thing. But, tell me, can you go home now, when your house is in plain sight?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Mary, and Tommy and Johnny said the same thing, for there, right down the street, they could see their house, and they knew they could easily walk to it.

So they held their toys tightly under their arms, thanked the kind man, said good-by to him, and walked toward their house. And just when they were almost there, and when they could look ahead, and see Suzette, the nursemaid, waving her hand to them, what should happen but that along came a wagon, all loaded with Christmas trees.

[Illustration: _And Down They Sat Right on the Soft Branches_]

You know the kind--nice, tall, green trees, with soft, stickery branches; and on Christmas morning presents grow on the trees, and if the presents are too big they fall down, and you find them on the floor under the tree. Oh, Christmas trees are very wonderful, indeed!

“Oh, see the Christmas trees!” cried Mary, as she and her brothers stopped to look.

“Oh, aren’t they fine!” exclaimed Tommy. And then, all of a sudden, one of the trees fell off the wagon.

“Quick! We must tell the driver man!” shouted Johnny. “He doesn’t know he’s lost a tree.”

“Oh, maybe we can pick it up, and take it around to the front of the wagon to him,” said Mary. So the three Trippertrot children ran up to the tree. But, as it happened, the tree was fast to the wagon by a rope, and when the horses kept on going, of course they pulled the tree along the street with the wagon, like a boy hitching his sled on behind the milkman’s sled.

And then, bless your hearts! just as Mary and Tommy and Johnny ran up to the tree they all stumbled and fell, and down they sat right on the soft branches, and they were being dragged along by the wagon.

“Mercy on us!” cried Suzette, the nursemaid, who was waiting for the children, and who had seen what happened. “Mercy! There they go off once more!”

Then she was so afraid that the children would be carried off, and lost again, that she ran after the wagon and the moving Christmas tree. She grabbed up Mary and her doll, and set the little girl on her feet. Then she ran on a little more and grabbed up Johnny and his music-box, and she set him on his feet, and then she grabbed up Tommy and his ship, and set him on his feet, and then the nursemaid ran to the sidewalk with the three children.

“My! That was a narrow escape!” she exclaimed, all out of breath. “You might all have been lost again. Come into the house at once. Where have you been? Your mamma is waiting for you.”

“Oh, we helped the man get back his hat, that the wind blew off,” said Tommy.

“And just now we were going to tell the man about the Christmas tree that slipped off his wagon,” said Mary.

“Only we didn’t, because we fell down,” spoke Johnny.

“Oh, I’ll tell the man,” said Suzette, the nursemaid. So she called to the tree man, and he stopped his horses, got down, and put the Christmas tree back on his wagon, and he was very thankful that he hadn’t lost it.

Then Suzette took the Trippertrots safely into the house and they thought they would never run away again. But, bless you! just wait and see what happens in the next story.

ADVENTURE NUMBER FIFTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE TOY SHIP

Up in the nursery of their house the three little Trippertrots were having a good time. Mary was playing with her doll that the kind man had bought for her, and Tommy was playing with his toy ship, and Johnny was playing with his music-box, making believe he was a hand-organ man. Only, of course, he didn’t have any monkey, except a make-believe one.

“Now come on,” said Johnny, as he played a funny tune called: “If It Should Snow or Hail or Rain, Just Get Aboard the Choo-Choo Train.” Yes, Johnny played that tune, and then he called out: “Come on, now, Jacko, climb up and get the pennies.”

“Why, who in the world are you talking to?” asked his sister Mary, as she put her doll to bed in her crib.

“Why, I am talking to my monkey,” answered Johnny. “I am a hand-organ man, and they all have monkeys to climb up the rainpipes on houses, or else up the front stoop to get the pennies for the masters. My monkey doesn’t want to climb, as he is a very little monkey. But I guess he will soon learn.”

“I don’t see any monkey,” spoke Tommy, looking all around the playroom.

“Oh, he’s only a make-believe monkey, just as I am a make-believe hand-organ man,” explained Johnny. “Only my music-box is real, of course, and it plays real tunes. Listen!”

Then he played another one for his brother and sister, and they liked it very much.

“I know what I am going to do,” said Johnny, when the tune was over. “I’m going to put a cushion down on the floor, and then my little make-believe monkey won’t be afraid to climb up, for if he falls he won’t get hurt.”

“Why, how funny!” exclaimed Mary. “If he’s a make-believe monkey he can’t fall, so what good will a cushion do him?”

“Oh, but I’m only going to put a make-believe, pretend cushion down for him, so that part is all right,” went on Johnny, and then Mary and Tommy both laughed, and so did Johnny.