Part 8

They went on playing, Mary with her doll, and Tommy with his toy ship, and Johnny with his music-box and his make-believe monkey. And he pretended that a chair was a house, and he had lots of fun making the make-believe monkey climb up the porch.

After a while Johnny got tired of this game, and Mary got tired of playing with her doll.

“Oh, I wonder what we can do next?” asked the little Trippertrot girl.

“I know,” answered Tommy. “We can pretend that my ship is a real big one, and we can go sailing all over the world. Where shall we go? Mary can have first choice, because she is a girl.” And then Tommy put his ship in the middle of the playroom floor, and the three children sat around it, and made-believe they were on the deck of it. “Where shall we go first, Mary?” asked her brother, politely.

“Oh, I think I’d like to go to the land where the figs grow,” said Mary. “I just love figs.”

“So do I!” exclaimed Johnny. “And after that can we go to the land where the oranges grow?”

“Yes,” answered Tommy. “And, after we come back from there, with a whole shipload of oranges, we’ll go to the land of the peanuts, and have a lovely party.”

Well, the Trippertrot children played this game for some time, and then, all at once, they heard a pitter-patting out on the porch roof, just as if some one was throwing beans down from the clouds.

“My! What’s that?” cried Tommy, jumping up and running to the window.

“Why, it’s raining--and what big drops!” exclaimed Mary. “It’s a regular summer shower, and here it is pretty nearly Christmas.”

“Oh, let’s open the window a little way,” suggested Johnny, “and stick our hands out to get wet. I like to feel the raindrops on me. It’s like a shower bath, after you’ve been in bathing in the ocean.”

“But, if it’s cold, we must close the window right off again,” said Mary, who was a wise little girl. “We mustn’t get the sniffle-snuffles,” she said.

So the boys agreed to this, and then they opened the window to let the rain splash on their hands. And it was a very nice, warm rain, so they thought they wouldn’t get cold.

My! how those big drops did come down! Faster and faster they fell, until there was a regular little pond in the tin gutter of the porch roof.

“Oh, I have an idea!” suddenly cried Tommy. “I’m going to sail my toy ship here on the roof. There is plenty of water, and then it can go on a really-truly voyage.”

“Fine!” exclaimed Johnny.

“But don’t lean too far out,” cautioned Mary. So Tommy said he wouldn’t, and he got his ship, and put it out on the porch roof, where there was almost a whole bathtubful of water.

More rain came down, nice, warm rain, and the wind blew a little bit and puffed out the sails of the toy ship, and then, all of a sudden, before any one could stop it, that ship sailed right over the edge of the porch roof, down and down in all the raindrops, and then the wind came in a big, puffing, gusty gust, and lo and behold!

There was Tommy’s nice toy ship blown down to the street gutter, and as the gutter was filled with water, the ship was sailing down it as nicely as a little mouse can eat a bit of cheese. Really, it was, I’m not fooling at all.

“Oh! oh! oh!” cried Mary, as she looked down at the toy ship sailing away.

“Oh, me! Oh, my!” exclaimed Johnny.

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” gasped Tommy. “My ship! My ship! I’ll never see it again.”

“Oh, yes, you will!” said Johnny.

“Why, will it sail back to me?” asked his brother.

“No, but we can go after it,” said Johnny. “We can put on our raincoats, and our rubber boots, and take umbrellas and run down the street until we find the ship.”

“Oh, but mamma wouldn’t like us to go out,” spoke Mary.

“Yes, she would,” said Tommy, eagerly. “This is a most special, extra-extraordinary occasion, and I’ve just got to get my ship!”

[Illustration: _On Ran the Trippertrots, Faster and Faster._]

“Besides, it’s a nice, warm rain,” went on Johnny, “and if we do get a little wet it won’t hurt us. I heard Suzette say she was going to give us our baths to-night, and this may save her the trouble.”

“All right, if you boys go, I suppose I’ll have to go, too,” said Mary. So they slipped down to the hall, got on their rubber boots, and, taking their raincoats and umbrellas, they let themselves quietly out of the front door without any one seeing them.

They didn’t mean to do what was naughty, you know, but they didn’t think, and really Tommy wanted his toy ship very much. So down the street they ran after it, through the rain, splashing in and out of puddles, and not getting very wet at all, and anyhow, it was a very warm rain, even if it was almost Christmas time.

“I see it! I see it!” suddenly cried Tommy, as they raced along. “There’s my ship just ahead there.”

“Yes, I see the white sails,” said Mary.

“And I can see the little flag on it,” added Johnny. “Come on! Come on!”

On the Trippertrots ran, faster and faster through the rain, but the toy ship went fast, too, for there was lots of water in the gutter where it was sailing, and the wind was blowing quite hard.

On and on the three children raced, but still the toy ship kept ahead of them. Down one street after another it sailed, and there was no one on the sidewalks to tell the Trippertrots that they had better go back home before they got lost, and they were almost lost now, if they had only known it.

All of a sudden, as the ship was going along in the gutter, it happened to strike against a stone, and that made it stop.

“Come on, we can get it now,” called Tommy, so he ran a little faster through the rain, and this time he caught up to his nice little ship and lifted it out of the water. “Ah, ha! Now I have you back again!” he cried, in delight.

“Oh, but look!” cried Mary, turning slowly around.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Johnny.

“We are lost!” said the little Trippertrot girl. “I don’t see a single house, or a tree, or a street that I know. We are certainly lost!”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” spoke Johnny, cheerfully. “We are always getting lost, but we always get home again somehow. I think it’s nice to be lost in the rain.”

“And I’m glad I’ve got my ship,” said Tommy.

The children didn’t exactly know what to do, but they stood there, holding the umbrellas over them, and Tommy was clasping his ship under his arm, when, all at once, out from behind a big tree, stepped a jolly sailorman, with a wooden leg, and as soon as he saw the children he began to sing this song:

“Oh, I’m a jolly-jolly sailorman, I sail the ocean blue. I’ve been in many, many, many lands, But I’ve come back to you.

“So now we’ll sail, we’ll sail away again, And o’er the seas we’ll roam. And when we’ve sailed a million-billion miles I’ll bring you all back home.”

“Ha! ha! How was that for a song, even if I have a wooden leg?” asked the sailorman. “Wasn’t that pretty good?”

“It was very nice,” answered Mary, “but, if you please, sir, we don’t want to sail a million-billion miles.”

“Why not?” asked the sailor. “I see you have your ship already with you. Nothing is easier than to sail. There is plenty of water here. Come, we’ll all get aboard,” and he took Tommy’s ship in his big hands, very carefully.

“No, if you please,” spoke Tommy, “we can’t sail away, because mamma doesn’t know we ran out.” And he told the sailorman how the ship had come to be blown off the porch roof.

“And we got lost chasing after it,” explained Johnny.

“Oh, my! Oh, dear! Oh, me!” laughed the jolly sailorman. “That is just fine! It’s too jolly for anything!”

“I don’t think it is--to be lost,” spoke Mary.

“Why, I’ll take you home,” said the sailorman. “That’s what I’m for--to take the lost Trippertrots home. Come with me,” and he stumped off in front of them, banging his wooden leg down on the sidewalk, and the Trippertrots laughed because they were happy again.

Now to see what happens next.

ADVENTURE NUMBER SIXTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE MUSIC-BOX

As he walked along with the Trippertrots the nice sailorman became more and more jolly every step he took, with his one wooden leg, and his one regular kind of leg.

“And so you children chased after this toy ship, when it went floating down the gutter, did you?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Mary, and she told how they had been playing sail Tommy’s little boat on the porch roof in the rain, when it was blown off, just as I told you in the adventure before this.

“And so you got lost?” asked the sailorman.

“That’s the way it was,” replied Tommy; “but you will take us home, won’t you?”

“To be sure I will,” answered the jolly sailorman, stumping along on his wooden leg.

“But do you know where we live?” asked Mary.

“To be sure I do,” answered the sailorman, with another jolly laugh. “I can easily find your house. Why, I have sailed all over the world, and I have found countries where monkeys live in trees, and throw cocoanuts at you, and countries where there is gold, and other countries where there are diamonds, and I have even found countries where there are little fairies, so it won’t be any trouble for me to find your house--no trouble at all, I do assure you. On the contrary, it will be a pleasure for me,” and then he whistled a jolly tune, and stumped along on his wooden leg harder than ever.

[Illustration: “DID YOU SPEAK?” ASKED THE SAILOR OF THE ELEPHANT]

And all at once, as the jolly sailorman was whistling a jolly tune, and singing a jolly song--all at once, I say--out from behind a big box jumped Jiggily Jig, the funny boy. He turned a somersault, and he didn’t mind the rain a bit, and when he was standing right side up again he made a low bow to the sailorman and said:

“Well, I see you have found the Trippertrot children. Some one is always finding them, for they are always getting lost. Don’t you want me to take them home for you?”

“Oh, no, thank you just the same, Jiggily Jig!” exclaimed Mary. “Every time you try to take us home we get lost worse than before. You are very kind, and you mean all right, but we had rather the jolly sailorman would take us home. Though you may come along, if you like.”

“Indeed, I will,” said Jiggily Jig, as he did a funny dance in the middle of the sidewalk, then he walked along with the three Trippertrots and the jolly sailor.

But they didn’t go along so fast now, because Jiggily Jig had to stop every once in a while to turn a somersault, or do one of his funny dances. But still they were in no hurry, and after a while, just as true as I’m telling you, they came to where Tommy and Johnny and Mary lived.

“Why, there’s our house!” exclaimed Johnny, in surprise.

“The very place!” added Tommy.

“How did you ever find it?” asked Mary.

“Oh, I told you I had sailed all over the world,” answered the jolly sailor, “and to find just one house is as easy for me as eating pie. Why, I once found a whole big city that was lost.”

“How could a whole city be lost?” asked Tommy.

“Well, the city wasn’t exactly lost,” explained the jolly sailor, “but maybe we were. We were on a ship, just like Tommy’s, only bigger, away out on the ocean, and we couldn’t find the city we wanted. It was very foggy, you know. Then I got up out of bed, and I sniffed and I smelled, and I says to the captain, says I, ‘I smell apple pies. They bake apple pies in the city that we can’t find, and so I know we must be close to it.’ And, sure enough, we were, for we hadn’t sailed on much farther before we came to the lost city, and surely enough, everybody in it was eating apple pies. So that’s how it was, and that’s how I found your house for you.”

“Why, how funny!” exclaimed Mary. “Mamma was baking apple pies just before we went out to chase after Tommy’s ship.”

“I knew it!” cried the jolly sailor. “I can smell apple pies a good way off. So this is your house, eh? Well, now I will leave you.”

“Oh, no, you must come in!” said Tommy. “Mamma will want to thank you for bringing us home. And so will Suzette, for if you hadn’t brought us home, she would have had to go after us.”

“Yes, please do come in,” invited Mary. “And you, too, Jiggily Jig.” So they all went in the Trippertrot house, and I can’t tell you how glad Mrs. Trippertrot was to see her children back again, and so was Suzette glad to see them.

They were also glad to see the jolly sailorman and Jiggily Jig, and Mrs. Trippertrot at once went out to the kitchen and got some apple pie, and some glasses of milk, and gave the children some, and the jolly sailorman some, and also some to the funny dancing boy.

“Oh, I knew I smelled apple pie,” said the sailor, as he rubbed his wooden leg with his napkin. “I can always tell when I smell apple pie.”

So the jolly sailorman and Jiggily Jig stayed at the Trippertrot house that night, because it still rained very hard. And now I am going to tell you what happened the next day. It was quite an adventure for the Trippertrots.

The children were up in the playroom, showing their toys to the jolly sailorman, and to Jiggily Jig. Mary showed her new doll, and Tommy his toy ship, and then Johnny brought out his music-box, and played some jolly tunes, and the sailor sang the jolly songs that went with them.

“We got these for Christmas presents, from the man whose hat we chased, when the wind had blown it off,” explained Mary. “Of course it isn’t Christmas yet, but it will be on Monday, and we children must ask papa for some money, so we can buy some presents for our friends,” she said to her two brothers.

“Oh, would you ask your papa for money to buy presents?” inquired the jolly sailor, while Jiggily Jig was off in one corner of the room, trying to stand on his head on a soft cushion.

“Why, how else would we get it, if we didn’t ask papa?” Tommy wanted to know.

“Why, earn it, of course,” said the jolly sailorman. “Money that you earn is the best kind of money in the world, and it buys the nicest kinds of presents, except those you make for yourself. I would rather have a Christmas present that some one made for me, than any other kind, except a kind that some one bought with the money they had earned.”

“But how can we earn money?” asked Tommy.

“Oh, there are lots of ways,” answered the jolly sailorman, just as Jiggily Jig fell down from trying to stand on his ear. “But, of course, your papa might not like you to do them, and that wouldn’t be right. But I think I know of a way that he wouldn’t mind. You can take Johnny’s music-box, and go out and play jolly tunes, and maybe the people will give you pennies, and then you can buy some Christmas presents; that will be better than if you got the money from your papa.”

“But will the people give money just to hear tunes on my music-box?” asked Johnny.

“I think they will, especially if Jiggily Jig and I go along, to sing and dance,” said the jolly sailorman.

“Oh, will you really do that?” asked Mary, clapping her hands.

“I will, really,” answered the sailor, as he stumped about on his wooden leg, and helped Jiggily Jig get up, for the funny boy was all tangled up in a sofa cushion, that he had stood on to try and turn a new kind of somersault.

“Oh, then I’ll ask mamma if we can go,” said Johnny.

His mamma said they might, if the sailorman would take care that the Trippertrot children weren’t lost, and so it was all arranged that they were to start out the next day.

My, I can’t tell you how excited the three little Trippertrots were that night! They could hardly sleep, waiting for next day to come, and Jiggily Jig and the jolly sailorman stayed at the children’s house, in order to be there early the next morning.

So they started out, and Mary took her doll along, and Tommy took his toy ship with him. Of course, Johnny had his music-box, and oh! he played the nicest tunes!

I wish I could play some of them for you, but I don’t know much about music, except that I love it, just as much as you do. They went from house to house, Johnny playing all the tunes in his music-box, and say, I just wish you could have seen Jiggily Jig dance! It was as good as going to the circus. Sometimes he would stand on one leg, and wave the other in the air, and then, all of a sudden, he would bounce up, and turn a double somersault, and then he would stand on his head, and all the while Johnny would be playing tunes.

And then the jolly sailor! Well, say, he was too nice for anything! And he sang jolly songs, all about the ocean blue, and sailing away to distant lands, and about how storms came up, and made the sky dark, and how the sunshine came out again. Oh! it was really very fine. And Mary made-believe her doll danced, and Tommy pretended that his ship was sailing over the ocean blue, and then----

Well, the people in the houses, and the children, too, just loved the funny dances of Jiggily Jig, and the music that Johnny played, and the songs the sailorman sang, and they tossed out lots and lots of pennies to the Trippertrots.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” cried the children, as they picked them up, and put them in their pockets. “Now we can buy lots of Christmas presents.”

So they went on from street to street, playing and dancing and singing, until, at last, along came the man who had the three trained dancing bears--the big one, the middle-sized one, and the little one. And when he heard what the Trippertrots were doing, he said:

“I’ll come with you, and let my bears dance when Johnny plays his music-box, and perhaps we will get more pennies.”

So he did that, and, when the people saw the dancing bears, they threw out more pennies than ever, until Johnny and Tommy and Mary had as many as they could carry.

“Now I must take you back home again, so you won’t get lost,” said the jolly sailorman, and so he did. Then he was going away again, but Mr. Trippertrot asked him to stay and have his Christmas dinner with them, and the sailor said he would.

They wanted Jiggily Jig to stay, too, but he said he had to eat his Christmas dinner with Simple Simon and the pieman, and as for the dancing-bear man, he said he would eat his meal with his pet bears, so the sailorman was the only one who stayed with the Trippertrots.

And now you may read the story that starts on the next page, if you like.

ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVENTEEN

THE TRIPPERTROTS’ CHRISTMAS

“Merry Christmas!” cried Mary Trippertrot, as she jumped out of bed on Christmas morning.

“Merry, merry Christmas!” shouted Tommy.

“Very merry Christmas!” called Johnny.

“And ten thousand of the finest kinds of Christmas joy to everybody in all the world!” cried the jolly old sailor with the wooden leg, as he stumped down the stairs after the Trippertrot children, to see what was on their tree, and what they had in their stockings. “Ten thousand million of the merriest Christmas joys!” went on the jolly sailorman, as he stumped along, for he couldn’t go quite as fast as could the three children, you know.

But do you suppose that worried him? Not a bit of it! He was just as jolly and happy and contented with his one regular leg, and his other wooden leg, as if he had forty-’leven wooden legs, set with gold and diamonds. So he stumped along.

Pretty soon, from the parlor where the children had gone, he heard shouts and laughter, and the singing of songs, and the blowing on horns and mouth-organs, and the banging on drums, and the playing of a music-box, and then the children called again:

“Merry Christmas to everybody, and to papa and mamma especially, and to Suzette, the nursemaid, and to the jolly sailorman, who brought us home when we were lost!”

“Bless their hearts!” exclaimed the sailorman with the wooden leg, as he stumped toward the parlor. “What a fine thing it is to be a child, and to have Christmas! But there! I’m happy, too, for I have a wooden leg, and it isn’t every one who has that.”

Then he went into the room where the Christmas tree was, all glowing with colored lights, for it was still early morning, you know, and dark yet. And the stockings were hung up, too, close by the fireplace, where Santa Claus didn’t have much trouble to come down and fill them, and they were filled, too, if you will kindly believe me.

And such a sight as the jolly sailor saw! There were the children looking at their toys and picture books, and there stood Suzette, the nursemaid, and Mr. and Mrs. Trippertrot, looking at the children, and smiling to see them so happy.

“Well, what did you get, children?” asked the sailorman.

“Oh, what _didn’t_ we get!” gasped Tommy.

“Such a lovely Christmas!” said Mary, with a happy sigh.

“And such beautiful presents,” murmured Johnny, as he looked at a little train of cars that ran by electricity, and the engine had a real electric light in front, to scare pink or green cows off the track.

And Tommy was beating a drum, and walking around with a toy gun, making believe he was a soldier.

And what do you think Mary was doing? Why, she was looking inside and outside of the nicest doll house you could ever imagine. It had a real chimney on top, and there was a bathtub, into which you could put real water, to give a doll a bath, and there was a kitchen with real dishes in it--only small ones, of course--and there was a parlor, with a tiny piano in it, and a real rug on the floor. Oh, but Mary was the happy girl!