The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of the Runaway Rocking Chair, by Howard R. Garis

Author of
"Adventures of the Galloping Gas Stove,"
"Adventures of the Traveling Table,"
"Adventures of the Sliding Foot Stool,"
"Adventures of the Sailing Sofa,"
"Uncle Wiggily Stories," Etc.

Adventures of the Galloping Gas Stove
Adventures of the Runaway Rocking Chair
Adventures of the Traveling Table
Adventures of the Sliding Foot Stool
Adventures of the Sailing Sofa

ADVENTURE I

GRANDMA BAKES A CAKE

Grandma Harden waddled out on the front porch of the Happy Home where Nat and Weezie were playing with Rodney and Addie, the boy and girl from next door. Nat, whose real name was Nathaniel, and Weezie, whose real name was Louisa, called their house "Happy Home," because they had so much fun and so many jolly adventures in it.

Thump, who was Rodney's dog, was sitting on the bottom step of the porch, waiting for some one to throw a stone, so that he might run after it to bring it back.

But Rodney and Nat were too busy, talking about going fishing, to think of throwing stones for Thump. And Weezie and Addie were trying a new dress on Addie's doll, so, of course, they couldn't play with a dog.

"Oh, please, somebody, throw a stone! Let me show you how fast I can run after it!"

But Grandma waddled farther out on the porch—she just had to waddle like a duck because she was so jolly and fat—and Grandma said again:

"So do I!" echoed his chum. "Then we could go fishing now, instead of waiting until after school!"

"You'll have a lot more fun fishing, if you go to school first," said Grandma. "Then you won't be worrying over the lessons you missed."

"Yes," sighed his chum, and slowly they got to their feet. Thump took this as a sign they were going to throw stones for him, or, at least, play in some way, so he leaped joyfully about and barked.

But a moment later Thump's happy bark stopped, his wagging tail drooped between his legs and he looked sad as Rodney cried:

"Poor dog!" murmured Grandma Harden. Thump looked up on hearing a friendly voice, and wagged his tail again. "He would so love to come with you!" said the dear, old lady.

"I'd like to have him," admitted Rodney, "but if I let Mm come part way it's harder to make him go home."

"The other day he walked right into school after us!" said Addie with a laugh. "And the teacher made Rod come out with Thump."

"Oh, say!" eagerly exclaimed Nat, "let's take him along now, and if he comes in school I'll ask teacher if I can't help you lead him out, and we could be a long while at it and not go back, maybe until school was almost out! Hey! How about that?"

"Nothing at all about that!" laughed Grandma, until her body was shaking like a big bowl of jelly—Oh, Grandma Harden was very fat—there was no getting away from that! "Don't try any such tricks!" she went on, playfully shaking her fingers at the boys. "It wouldn't be right to use a dog like that!"

"No, I guess it wouldn't," agreed Rodney. "Go on home, Thump," he said, more softly. "We'll play with you this afternoon."

"We'll take you fishing with us," added Nat. "We'll have to do all our fishing pretty soon, now," he added as he and his chum walked toward the front gate, while Thump, still sadly drooping his tail, slunk off through the grass to his kennel next door.

"Because it will soon be winter," explained Nat. "The water with the fish in will freeze."

"It's nice and warm to-day," said Weezie, who walked on ahead, with her playmate, Addie. The girls were rather more afraid, than were the boys, of being late for school.

"Yes, it's warm to-day," admitted Nat, "but there was a frost last night, I heard Daddy say, and to-night may be colder and freeze water."

"Well, Thanksgiving is this month and Christmas is next month," said Weezie, "so there!"

"Yes, I guess we'll soon have winter, anyhow," admitted Rod. "Well, anyhow, we'll go fishing this afternoon."

"And take Thump" went on Nat. He liked the dog almost as much as did his chum who owned the animal.

Fat Grandma on the porch waved her hand to the children as they looked back before turning the corner of the street.

"You may have some of this surprise, Addie—you and Rodney. Come over with Nat and Weezie after school!"

"Isn't that wonderful!" murmured Addie, clasping Weezie's arm. "What do you suppose the surprise will be?"

"Well, we know it will be a cake, for Grandma always bakes a cake on Monday when Lizzie has to do the washing," explained Weezie. "So that's why we know it's going to be a cake."

"But we don't know what kind," added Nat, "and that's where the surprise comes in. We never know whether it will be a chocolate cake, or a cocoanut cake or an orange short-cake or what kind of a cake it will be."

"So do I," agreed Nat. "Anyhow, when we come home from school we'll know what kind it is."

"I'll save my piece to take with us when we go fishing," said Rodney. "We'll play we're explorers in the woods, Nat, and that all we have to eat is cake!"

"Maybe Grandma will give you boys two pieces of cake," suggested Weezie, as the children hurried on along the street, for they could hear the ringing of the school bell. "You could eat one piece right away and save the other to take fishing with you."

Having seen the children start for school, Grandma Harden waddled back into the house.

"Helen," she called to the mother of Nat and Weezie, "I'm going into the kitchen and bake a cake, as long as Lizzie is down in the laundry."

"All right, Mother!" answered Mrs. Marden. She called the jolly, fat old lady "Mother," though, really, she was only a mother-in-law. However, that made no difference. "But don't tire yourself out, Mother," she warned.

"I'll take Racky into the kitchen with me," said old Mrs. Marden. "I'll sit on that, and mend some stockings while I'm waiting for the cake to bake. I like to watch my cakes so they won't burn."

Now, lest you wonder who Racky was, that fat, Grandma Marden was going to sit on in the kitchen, while she made a cake, I shall tell you. It was an old rocking chair! And it was a very strange, peculiar old rocking chair, as you shall, very soon, find out for yourself.

Humming a little tune, Grandma Marden carried her favorite, old rocking chair to the kitchen. She had owned this chair for many years, since the time she kept house for herself, before she went to live with her son and his family.

The chair was painted brown, and it had a deep, thick, soft cushion on the seat and another cushion on the back. Some buttons on the back cushion made it look like a face.

"Now I'll just mix up—let me see—I guess I'll make a chocolate cake this time," murmured the old lady, "I'll just mix it up and pop it into the oven. Then, while it's baking, I'll sit and rock and mend stockings."

She set the chair in a corner, near the door leading down the cellar steps into the laundry, where Lizzie, the maid, was splashing about in the water with the Monday batch of clothes.

Into a brown bowl Grandma Marden put sugar, flour, milk, baking powder and whatever else goes into a cake. She stirred the batter up until it was frothy and foamy, and then she poured it into shallow tins which she set into the oven of the new gas stove.

"Now I'll get the basket of stockings and rock while the cake is baking," said the fat old lady. "I'm not going to have my cake burned on the edges. If there's one thing worse than another, it's a burned cake, I think!"

The old brown rocker, which Grandma had named "Racky," creaked and groaned as the fat lady sat down in it with her basket of mending.

"Dear me!" murmured Mrs. Harden with a sighing sort of laugh, "you are getting old like myself, Racky! You won't last much longer!"

Now don't be surprised. The rocking chair did not speak out loud, though, when it was needful, it could talk. But this time the chair was speaking to itself.

"No, indeed, I won't last much longer if you drop into me that way!" whispered the chair. "You're getting fatter than ever, old lady!"

This was true enough, but Grandma Marden didn't mind that. She would have been surprised, though, to hear the chair speak, for she did not know her old rocker had anything wonderful, or magical, about it, as, indeed, it had.

To and fro rocked Grandma, humming a little song to herself as she plied her needle in and out, mending holes that Nat and Weezie had worn in their stockings. Many holes there were, for the children ran about like little wild Indians as soon as they came from school.

Every now and then Grandma would get up out of the rocker and look in the oven of the gas stove, to make sure the cake was not burning. And each time she sat down again, the chair creaked and groaned and squeaked, and seemed to shake as if it would fall apart.

"I say there! Easy, Grandma!" exclaimed the chair as the fat old lady sat down particularly hard after about her third look in the oven. "Be a bit careful, if you please! You'll break one of my legs, or a rocker, if you sit down so heavily! Then I'll be put away up in the attic with the other old furniture, and that will be the end of me! Don't sit on me so hard!"

But Grandma only laughed as she heard the chair creaking and groaning in its joints, and she said, again:

"Well, I declare! You're a regular traveler, Racky! Here you are away over by the sink, though when I first sat in you it was near the cellar door. You're a regular traveler!"

And so the rocking chair was. I dare say you have heard of traveling rockers. If you sit in them on one side of the room, and sway to and fro, in a little while you will find yourself on the other side of the room.

Racky, the rocker, was this kind of a chair, though he had never given it much thought. But now, all of a sudden, a daring plan came into his mind. For, in a way, Racky could think, and act and talk.

Grandma picked up the traveling rocker and set it down again near the cellar door. She swung herself backward and forward, finishing the song she was humming, and also mending the last stocking.

Then she wanted to get up, but she had leaned so far back in the chair that she had to try twice before she could rise. And, after the first falling back, the rocker creaked and strained so under her weight that the old lady exclaimed:

"I certainly hope not!" thought Racky, though, for a moment, he feared something like this had happened. But it was only his old joints creaking.

"Well, you seem to be all right," went on Grandma as, finally, sue managed to get up. "We are growing old together, Racky—you and I—growing old together! But you may last a few more years."

"I won't if you keep on sitting down on me as hard as you did just then!" said the chair to himself. "You have no idea how you hurt me! One leg is splintered, I'm sure!"

Grandma Harden took off her glasses and tucked them down in a snug place between the seat and back cushions of the chair. She did not have to wear her spectacles to see to take the layers of cake from the oven, for they were now baked. Only when she sewed, mended or read stories to the children did Grandma need her glasses. So now she left them in the old, traveling rocking chair.

Setting the hot cakes on the table, the old lady went to the front hall to ask her daughter-in-law where the chocolate was kept.

And while Grandma was out of the kitchen, Racky decided on something very bold and strange.

The door leading down into the laundry was open. Out of the kitchen window Racky could look and see Lizzie in the yard hanging out the clothes. And there was no sign of a blackbird coming along to nip at her nose.

So it happened that Racky was alone in the kitchen, and Gassy, the stove, was alone down in the laundry.

As I have told you, in another of these "Happy Home" books, entitled "The Adventures of the Galloping Gas Stove," Gassy had gone through some wonderful experiences. Having heard, somehow, that a new stove was to be put into the kitchen, in his place, Gassy decided to run away! And, what is more, he did, and with him ran Thump, the dog, who had been scolded because he came into the kitchen with muddy paws! As if that mattered!

Gassy and Thump had many strange adventures together before they came home with Rodney, Addie, Nat and Weezie, who had gone to search for the runaways. They all came home on the back of an elephant, as you may read in the book about Gassy's adventures.

Mr. Zink, the plumber, brought a new stove for the Harden kitchen, but as Gassy still was useful, he was put down in the laundry, where he made the best of it with the wringer and the tubs for company.

And now something else was going to happen. Racky, who was still creaking from Grandma's weight, softly called down the cellar stairs:

"Where else would I be?" asked the stove. "I can't get away since the gas pipes hold me fast. What did you want, Racky?"

The rocking chair could still see Lizzie out in the garden hanging up the clothes, and Grandma was still talking to Mrs. Marden about the chocolate, which seemed to have been mislaid.

"Oh, you want to know how I ran away; is that it?" asked the stove in the laundry.

"Why, having four legs, I just galloped away like a horse," was the answer. "That's all there was to it. I galloped away. But why do you ask, Racky?"

"Because," replied the chair in a hoarse and creaking whisper, "because that's what I'm going to do!"

"What for?" asked the stove. "What in the world for? Don't you like it in this jolly house?"

And just then there was a sound in the hall as if Grandma was coming back to mix the chocolate to put on the cake.

ADVENTURE II

RACKY RUNS AWAY

While Gassy, the old stove down in the laundry, was waiting for Racky to give his reasons for wanting to run away, the rocker was listening up in the kitchen. The noise he had heard when he was in the middle of his story, he thought was made by Grandma coming back.

But it must have been a false alarm, for the old lady was still out in the hall, talking to the mother of Nat and Weezie. She had found out that the chocolate was on a shelf in the pantry, instead of being in the white, kitchen cabinet, where it was usually kept. But now Grandma was talking to Mrs. Trent, the mother of Rodney and Addie. Mrs. Trent had run over to bring a letter which the postman, by mistake, had left at her house instead of at the Harden home. And, so, knowing that Grandma would not come back to the kitchen for a few moments yet, Racky went on:

"Well, it's like this," explained Backy as he rocked to and fro on the kitchen linoleum. "Old Grandma is getting fatter and heavier day by day. Every time she sits down in me I'm afraid she'll go through the seat, or at least crack one of my legs."

"That's a terrible thing to have happen!" spoke Gassy. "That's one reason why they got a new stove in my place and put me down in the laundry—because I had a broken leg."

"I can't stand it to think of such a thing!" cried Backy. "So before the old lady gets any heavier, I've decided to do just what you did—run away. But I don't know anything about how it is done. Please tell me!"

"Why, you just watch your chance, as I did, and, when no one is around to stop you, trot off," advised the gas stove. "You aren't like I was—fastened to the wall by gas pipes. It ought to be easy for you to run away. You can move about; can't you?"

"Oh, yes," answered the rocker. "Only a little while ago I moved half way across the kitchen. Grandma said I was quite a traveler!"

"Then what more do you want?" asked the stove. "Watch your chance and start out. I wish you joy and luck! You'll have many adventures!"

"I am sure of it," replied the laundry stove. "And when you come back, tell me all about what happened."

"I am not coming back!" declared the rocker. "I have been sat on long enough! I am never coming back!"

"That's what I said when I galloped away," sighed the old stove. "But, after all, I was glad to come back. Perhaps you will be the same."

"Well, watch your chance," went on the stove, "and when no one is looking, slip out the back door and run away. Or, since you have rockers on your legs, I suppose you will have to rock away."

"Yes," agreed the chair, "I am a traveling rocker and I am going off to have adventures."

He looked out in the yard. Lizzie, the maid, was no longer there hanging out the clothes. Racky could hear her moving about down in the laundry.

At the same time, the chair could hear Grandma talking in the front hall to Mrs. Trent. The mother of Nat and Weezie had also come down stairs to get the letter which her neighbor brought over.

"I believe I'll never get a better chance than this!" suddenly thought Racky. "There is no one in the kitchen to stop me, and I can rock right out the back door, across the yard, now that Lizzie isn't there, and through the hole in the fence. Then I'll start traveling over the vacant lots to have adventures. I'm going now!"

Racky wished he might call good-bye to Gassy down in the laundry, but, with Lizzie now there, this was out of the question. The stove and chair did not want to let the people of the house know that they could talk among themselves.

"Good-bye, Gassy! I'm going to run away! I'll never see you again, nor hear your voice, for I am never coming back! I am not going to stay here to be sat on by a fat old lady whose weight makes me creak and groan. I am going off by myself to have jolly adventures and lots of fun. Good-bye, Gassy!"

The stove could not hear this whisper, and so did not answer. But over his head Gassy could hear Racky rocking away on the kitchen linoleum.

"I believe that rocker is really getting ready to run away!" thought Gassy as he watched Lizzie wring more clothes out of the blue water so she could hang them in the yard. "I hope he doesn't get caught," mused the gas stove.

And run away was just what the chair intended to do. He had chosen a good time, too, with Grandma out in the hall and Lizzie down in the laundry. The back kitchen door was open, because the room was so hot from the cake-baking. Grandma had opened the door herself.

"Here's where I go!" whispered Racky, and he began to rock very hard, for it was by swaying to and fro that he traveled along sideways, as well as ahead.

Over the kitchen floor he rocked his way, and the cushions were so well tied in the chair that they did not fall out. And Grandma's glasses were tucked down so deeply among the cushions that they did not bounce out.

Racky reached the door, rocked out on the small, back porch and hesitated a moment at the top step.

"Well, I've got to get down them some way," he said to himself. "I may tumble and break a leg, but I'll have all four legs broken, and my rockers, too, if I stay here to be sat on by fat Grandma. She is jolly enough, and means well, but she is too heavy for me!"

So, all of a sudden, giving himself another swaying rock, Racky went sliding down the back steps, making quite a noise.

"There he goes!" whispered the gas stove down in the cellar. "Racky is going adventuring! I wish him luck!"

Lizzie, wringing out the clothes, also heard the sliding, thumping, bumping noise up at the back door.

"It wasn't the baker," said Lizzie as she went on wringing out the clothes from the blue water. "I guess it was the children. But no—it couldn't have been them, either," she said, musingly, "they are at school. It must have been that dog Thump. Yes, that's who it was—that dog Thump."

And, having safely reached the ground at the foot of the kitchen steps, without breaking any of its legs, the chair began to sway to and fro so as to travel across the yard, toward the back fence, where there was a large hole.

Rodney and Nat had made this hole by taking off some of the boards. The boys found it quicker to get into the back lots through the hole in the fence than by going around the corner of the street.

"And I'm glad they left the boards off," said Racky. "I can get out that way. Once in the open lots, I'll go so fast they shall never catch me to bring me back.

"I hope no one in the houses next door, on either side, sees me," thought Racky. "If they do, they may call to Grandma and she will come out and bring me in."

But the only person who saw Racky in the yard was Dabby, the cook in the Trent house, next door, where Rodney and Addie lived. And Dabby caught a glimpse of the rocker between the sheets on the line. She knew the old chair belonged to Grandma Harden.

"I guess they've been cleaning the chair cushions with gasoline," thought Dabby, "and they put them out in the yard to air."

Dabby only had a fleeting glimpse of the rocking chair between the flapping clothes. If she had thought it was running away of course she would have given an alarm, and perhaps have hurried out to stop it. But she did not give it much thought because, a moment later, the telephone bell rang, and Dabby hastened out of the kitchen to answer it.

So it happened that no one really saw the rocking chair get through the hole in the fence, which trick Racky did a few minutes later. It was hard work for the chair to escape from the yard. If it had been a kitchen chair, with legs that had no curved rockers fast to them, it would have been easier.

"But one can never succeed unless he tries," said Racky to himself. "And I am going to try very hard!"

So he rocked and swayed to and fro, straining at his legs and reaching out with his arms—oh, yes! the rocking chair had arms, of course—and at last he was through the hole in the fence.

"I am free at last! Free!" exclaimed Racky in his own kind of a voice—a sort of squeak, peculiar to some rocking chairs. "I am free! No more shall I be sat on by fat, old ladies, though I really love Grandma Marden. But I cannot stand it to be cracked apart and then stuck up in the attic with the junk. I am running away at last!"

The chair was now in the open lots back of the two houses in which the four children lived. All about were dried weeds growing, for summer had passed, it was now late fall, and, as Weezie had said, it would soon be Christmas, or at least Thanksgiving, and we all know Christmas comes after the turkey holiday.

"How wonderful it is to be free—to do as one pleases!" cried Racky, with a happy little laugh. "I wonder what adventure I shall have first?"

"Ha!" cried the chair in surprise, stopping short, "is one of my legs coming loose?"

He felt about with his arms and was glad to find that all four legs were still firmly in place, as were the two rockers. Then Racky felt beneath the cushion and found Grandma's glasses.

"She left them with me when she went to ask about the chocolate," murmured Racky. "Well, I can't take them back, for if I did I might not get another chance to run away. I don't want to leave them here in the lots, either, for it will snow, soon, and they will be covered up. I guess I shall have to take Grandma's glasses with me!"

Starting to rock again, Racky moved on and on over the lots, through patch after patch of dried weeds which tickled his legs and made him laugh in glee. For he was very happy because he was running away.

All of a sudden, from a patch of weeds at his right arm, there came a strange sound. The weeds shivered and shook, though there was no wind to cause them to do this.

"Something is coming!" whispered Racky to himself, stopping short. "I wonder if it is Grandma chasing after me, to make me go back, or if it is an adventure I am about to have? I wonder?"

ADVENTURE III

EXCITEMENT IN THE HOUSE

Racky stood still in the middle of the lot, his four legs held stiffly under him and his arms rigid at his sides.

Suddenly, out of the tangle of frost-killed weeds rushed—Thump, the shaggy dog belonging to Rodney Trent—belonging, also, to his sister Addie; and to Nat and Weezie next door. The dog belonged to all four children, equally, though, in the beginning, Mr. Trent had bought the puppy for Rodney.

"Oh, it's you; is it, Thump?" asked Racky in a low voice, for the chair, the stove and the dog could talk to, and understand, each other.

"Yes, it is I," barked Thump, who, at times, was very careful about grammar, for once he had been to school, as I have told you. "But what in the world are you doing out here, Racky?" asked the dog.

Racky looked carefully around, before answering, to make sure neither Grandma nor Lizzie was coming after him. Then, rocking a bit closer to Thump, who stood in the patch of weeds, with his head thrust out, the chair whispered:

"Did she scratch you, or stick pins in you, or pull your tail?" whined Thump. "No, she couldn't pull your tail," he made haste to add, "for you haven't any. But what did she do to you to make you want to run away?"

"She sits on me too hard!" answered the chair. "Poor Grandma—it isn't all her fault," added Racky with a sigh, "it's just because she is getting too heavy and fat! It's too bad, for otherwise, she is such a jolly old lady. And I'm sorry about her glasses, too! But I am going to run away! I have already started."

"So I see," barked the dog, coming out of the weeds and walking around the chair. "You are on your way. But what do you mean about Grandma's glasses?"

"She left them in between my cushions," answered the chair. "I didn't dare go back with them, and I don't want to leave them in the lot for it may snow. Will you take them back to her?"

Thump thought this over for a moment. He was very fond of Grandma Harden, for she had given him many a juicy bone. He would have been glad to do her the favor of returning her glasses, but, all of a sudden, Thump stiffened his tail and barked:

"Oh, good!" exclaimed the rocking chair. "I thought I would have to go alone, by myself. It will be much more jolly to have company. We can have many adventures, and talk about them. First," he went on with a little laugh, "when I heard that noise, and saw the weeds moving, I thought an adventure was coming out. But it was only you, Thump."

"Yes, I have been roaming around in these weeds looking for a bone I buried last week," said Thump. "But I can't seem to remember where I hid it. Yes, I guess I'll run away myself! Rod wouldn't let me come with him this morning. I'll show him I don't have to stay home unless I want to! I'm going to run away!"

"You know all about it; don't you?" asked the chair, who felt a bit envious of the dog. "You have run away before."

"Oh, yes," answered Thump, as though running away was an old story with him. "I went off with Gassy when he ran away. We had good times together!"

"And now you're coming with me!" murmured the rocking chair. "How fine that will be! What jolly adventures we shall have!" And he laughed until he nearly tumbled over backward.

"Come on then," barked Thump. "We had better get as far off as we can before they start to chase us, as they may. Did anyone see you come away?"

"No," answered Racky. "Grandma was out in the hall, and Lizzie went into the laundry from the yard, just as I slid out the back door. No one saw me leave."

"It means strange," explained Thump, who was a bit proud that he had once been in school, though he didn't stay long.

"Because mysteriouser is a much more stylisher word," answered the dog. "But let's start running away some more. It's a good thing none of them saw you leave!"

"Yes, indeed!" agreed Racky, and he began to sway again, following Thump across the lots, for the dog, having no rockers on his legs, could go a bit faster than the chair.

But if no one saw Racky leave the house, his absence was soon found out, or discovered, as Thump might have said. For Grandma came back in from the hall to mix the chocolate to put on the cake, and when she did not see the rocking chair where she had left it, with her basket of mended stockings on the floor beside it, the old lady cried out:

"No, the cake isn't burned," answered Grandma. "I took it out of the oven before I went to ask you where the chocolate was. But my rocking chair is gone!"

"Racky—my traveling rocker," went on Grandma. "I brought it out to the kitchen to sit in, while I darned the stockings and watched to see that the cake didn't burn, but now it is gone!"

"Oh, is that all?" laughed her daughter-in-law. "I thought something had happened." And there really had, as was soon found out. "I suppose," went on Nat's mother, "that Lizzie thought you were through with your rocker and has carried it into the living room, where you nearly always sit in it. Lizzie must have taken it."

"What did I take?" asked Lizzie, coming up, just then, from the laundry, in time to hear this last talk. "What did I take, Mrs. Marden?"

"I had it here in the kitchen, to sit in while I watched the cake baking, and mended the children's stockings," added the dear, fat, old lady. "Did you carry it out, Lizzie!"

"Why, no ma'am, Mrs. Marden, I didn't touch your chair," was the quick answer. "I've been down in the laundry, almost all the time, excepting when I was in the yard hanging out the clothes. I didn't even know you had brought your chair to the kitchen."

"It's very queer," said Grandma, looking about. "And my glasses are gone, too!" she added, as she put her hands to the top of her head where, sometimes, she pushed back her "other eyes," as Weezie used to call them.

"In the cushions of the chair. I slipped them off to go ask you about the chocolate. And now the chair is gone and my glasses are with it. Dear me! It is very strange!"

"Why, nothing could have happened," declared the mother of Nat and Weezie. "If Lizzie didn't take the chair, some one else did."

"I didn't, and I don't believe you did," said Grandma, looking at her daughter-in-law. "And Racky certainly couldn't have rocked off by himself, I'm sure!"

"It was before you came to live with us," went on the maid. "Mr. Marden ordered a new gas stove. Mr. Zink, the plumber, loosened the pipes on the old stove. And when he went away to get the new one, the old stove ran away, all by itself, it really did!"

"Oh, what utter nonsense! A fairy story!" laughed Grandma. "I suppose a junk man came and carried off the old gas stove, and the children pretended that it had gone off by itself to have adventures; wasn't that it, Helen?" she asked the mother of Weezie.

"Well," was the slow answer, "the gas stove certainly disappeared. The children declared they found it in the woods, several miles from here. But their father insisted the junk man must have taken it away by mistake, and that it fell out of his wagon in the woods."

"No, it didn't!" declared Lizzie, firmly but with the respect due to her mistress. "That gas stove ran away by itself. And it came home on the back of an elephant, with Thump and the children; didn't it?" she asked. "You can't deny that, Mrs. Marden. The stove came back on an elephant!"

"Did it, really!" asked Grandma. "I have heard the children talk about such a happening, but I supposed they were making it up."

"Well," said Mother Marden, as if she did not like to admit it but was obliged to, "the old gas stove certainly came home on an elephant's back."

"It was a trained elephant, that had escaped from the circus," said the children's mother. "And it picked up our boy and girl, and Rodney and Addie, as well as Thump the dog and the gas stove."

"Really!" exclaimed Grandma. "That is quite strange, of course, but it's very natural. I can understand how that happened. But this is something different. My glasses have vanished, and my rocking chair has gone away, but I'm sure it didn't run off by itself."

"Yes it did!" declared Lizzie, but in a low voice, so neither of the ladies would hear her. "That rocker ran off by itself, you'll find! Something happened to hurt its feelings, just as happened to the old gas stove. This is a very queer house," she went on, shaking her head as she went down into the laundry again. "A very queer house! Strange things happen here! I wouldn't be surprised to see the piano go flying out of the window some day, or the old couch walk off the front porch! No, indeed!"

But Grandma was sure Lizzie had carried the rocker out of the kitchen, and had forgotten about it, or else that Mother Marden had done so.

"But I tell you I wasn't in the kitchen this morning until just now, Mother!" said young Mrs. Marden. "You must have taken the chair and carried it out yourself!"

However this was more easily said than done, and, though soon an excited search was being made, the old rocker could not be found. It was neither down cellar, up stairs nor in the attic.

"There must have been some one in the house," went on the old lady. "Perhaps a tramp came in and carried the rocker away."

But when, still more excited, the three of them hurried to the back door, they only saw Nat and Weezie coming home from school for their noon lunch.

"Is it a chocolate cake?" shouted Nat. Then, all at once, the children knew that something very strange had happened. They could tell this by the looks on the faces of their mother, their grandma and Lizzie.

"Nat, run down to the corner, and bring back Policeman Paddock!" said Grandma, suddenly.

"A tramp has taken my rocking chair and my glasses!" said Grandma, sternly. "I want the policeman to chase after him and get them back! Hurry, or it may be too late!"

But before Nat could hasten down to the corner, up the front steps came big Policeman Paddock himself, swinging his club.

"There's something the matter in the lot back of your house, Mrs. Marden," said the officer to the children's mother. "There's a great commotion in the weeds, and I hear a dog barking! Don't be frightened but I'll just go through your kitchen and over your back fence and see what it's all about!"

The policeman started to run through the house, while Weezie and Nat looked at each other with wonder in their eyes.

ADVENTURE IV

SLIDING DOWN HILL

Not for long, though, did Nat and Weezie stand there. It was all so exciting—so thrilling! The idea of having a policeman come in your house, to rush out toward the back lots where something was happening! Nat and Weezie had never known anything like this.

"No!" answered her brother. "Anyhow, isn't Policeman Paddock here with his club? And Mother and Grandma have gone out to see about it!"

This gave Weezie courage, so she followed the officer out into the yard, close after Nat. The children saw the policeman crawling through the hole in the back fence—the same hole through which Racky the rocker had gone but a little while before. Only they did not know this.

She and her brother had come home from school to eat their lunch, just as had Nat and Weezie. They had heard the loud talk in the house next door, and had seen the blue-coated officer run out of the back door with his swinging club.

"A tramp came in while we were at school," explained Nat, "and took Grandma's rocking chair and her glasses. She sent me after a policeman, but he came in, anyhow, before I could run after him!"

"He said the tramp was in the lots back of our house," added Weezie, "and I guess he's going to arrest him."

"No, he didn't say there was a tramp there," corrected Nat, "but he said there was a lot of scrabbling around in the tall weeds, and he heard a dog bark."

"Maybe it's Thump," suggested Rodney as he and his sister jumped down off the boxes upon which they had climbed, to look over the side fence, and ran toward the back. Their fence also had a hole in it through which they could crawl to the vacant lots.

"Yes, it is Thump!" went on Rodney as the children hurried to the clump of tall, dried weeds, around which now stood the policeman and the mother and grandmother of Nat and Weezie. "It is Thump! There he comes!"

And, surely enough, out of the weeds ran the dog, barking and wagging his tail. He seemed much excited over something.

"Are Grandma's chair and glasses there?" was the question Weezie asked, while Addie called to Thump:

"No, children," said Mother Harden, "there isn't any tramp here, nor anything else. And the rocking chair isn't here—how could it be?"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Policeman Paddock. "Who ever heard of a gas stove running away?"

"Ours did," said Weezie, but the policeman did not hear her, or, if he did, he paid no attention, for he was playing with Thump, letting the dog catch hold of the leather thong on the club.

"I guess it was a false alarm," went on the officer as he started back toward the fence. "I was walking along," he explained, "and I looked through, between the houses, and saw something moving in the tall weeds. Then I heard a dog barking and I thought something had happened. But it hadn't."

"Yes, something happened," said Grandma Harden. "A tramp got in our house, while I was baking a cake, and stole my rocking chair and my glasses!"

"Stole a rocking chair!" cried the officer. "That's a queer thing for a tramp to take! And glasses, too—that's stranger still!"

"My glasses were in the chair cushions," explained Grandma. "And what I am going to do without them I don't know! I can't see to read, sew or bake. You'll have to finish chocolate-frosting that cake, Helen," she told Nat's mother.

"Yes, I'll do that," young Mrs. Harden promised. "But it is very strange about that chair. We were just sending for you, Mr. Paddock, to ask if you had seen any tramps about, when you came running in."

"No, I haven't seen any tramps," said the policeman, "but I'll be on the lookout for any of the ragged chaps who have your chair and glasses," he told Grandma. "I'll be watching for them!"

By this time the two ladies, and the policeman, had made their way back through the hole in the Marden fence, the officer to go out on the streets, up and down which he marched all day, keeping order. And Mrs. Marden wanted to get the children's lunch.

As for the two boys and the two girls, they lingered about the clump of weeds, near which Thump also stood, his head cocked on one side and his ears held up.

"Not with Thump around," declared Rod. "Look!" he called to his chum, "see how the weeds are all trampled down, as if there had been a fight here."

"Maybe," agreed Rod. "And look at these two funny marks in the soft ground, as if somebody had dragged a sled along."

"Nobody would drag a sled now," objected Nat. "There's no snow on the ground, but maybe it will snow soon, for it's getting colder."

But Nat could not tell, though, soon after that, he remembered and then something very strange happened.

Thump sniffed about in the weeds, he sniffed at the queer marks in the soft ground. Then the boys' mothers called them to lunch.

"I could tell what those marks are if I wanted to," laughed Thump to himself as he followed his little master into the yard. For the dog could understand boy and girl talk, though he could not speak that language. Thump talked by barks, whines and by wags of his tail.

True it was that Thump could have told about the queer marks had he wished, for they were made by the runaway rocking chair. After Racky had told the dog he was going away, and after Thump said he, too, would go, all of a sudden Thump remembered something, and turned back.

"I can't go with you, Racky," barked the dog, as the old, brown chair started to sway away.

"Why not?" asked Racky. "I thought you said Rodney didn't treat you kindly—that he wouldn't let you come with him to-day—and that you would be glad to run away again, as you did with my friend the gas stove."

"Yes, I said that," softly barked Thump, "but I just happened to remember that Rod and Nat are going fishing to-morrow, or maybe this afternoon, and they are going to take me with them. I love to go fishing with the boys, so I guess I won't run away this time."

"All right," spoke the rocking chair, "then I'll have to run away alone. But don't tell anybody which way I went, Thump."

"No, I won't tell," promised the dog and then, all of a sudden, he grew much excited and whispered: "Quick, Racky, rock away as fast as you can! I see a policeman passing along the street between my house and your house. Maybe he is coming after you! Rock away! I'll chase my tail here in the weeds and bark loud, and the policeman will look at me and he won't see you. That will give you a chance to rock away and hide! Quick! Go on!"

"Thanks! I will!" said the chair. So away he rocked through the stiff weeds and bushes, off toward the forest and the lake.

Now Policeman Paddock, though he had been seen by Thump passing along the street, had no notion of coming after the rocking chair. He did not even know Racky was running away. But Thump thought he did, and the dog began making a great fuss so the officer would look at him and not try to stop Racky.

And, surely enough, hearing the noise in the weeds, Policeman Paddock came rushing in, as I have told you, but all he saw was a dog. By this time Racky had rocked far enough away to be out of sight.

"I'm glad they didn't catch me!" murmured the chair to himself as he traveled on over the vacant lots. "If it hadn't been for Thump, though, my adventures would be at an end before they had fairly begun.

"But now I am off to see the world! No more fat old ladies, however nice they are, can sit on me, making me creak and groan. I am going to do as I please!"

So, holding his arms stiffly against his sides, and settling his cushions down in his seat and against his back, away rocked Racky. It was getting colder, though the sun was shining brightly, and at first the chair, who had lived, all his life, in a warm house, felt a bit chilly.

"But if I rock faster, perhaps I will get warm," he told himself, so he swayed to and fro as hard as he could. And the more he rocked the farther on he traveled, for that is the way of some rocking chairs. Soon he felt a warm glow all through his legs and arms.

"Yes, I ought to begin my adventures very soon," thought Racky as he rocked over the fields toward the woods. "I wonder what will be the first one?"

He was swaying along, not thinking of any danger when, all of a sudden, he found himself on top of a rather steep little hill, which led down to the edge of a wide brook. The hill was covered with grass, which was now dried because Jack Frost had touched it with his cold fingers; and this grass was slippery.

All at once, Racky rocked himself up to the top of this hill, and, before he could stop himself, he began sliding swiftly down. Faster and faster his smooth, polished rockers slipped along the crisp grass as a boy coasts down a snow-covered hill on his sled. Faster and faster slid Racky.

"Oh, I wonder what will happen to me?" thought the chair. "This is certainly an adventure. But it will not be a very jolly one if I splash into that brook at the foot of the hill! Oh, dear! I can't stop myself!"

ADVENTURE V

THE SINGING GIRL

Amid a clearing in the forest, and not far from the edge of the brook, stood a little cottage where lived the Singing Girl. She was the daughter of a wood-chopper who, every morning, tramped off through the lanes of tall trees to cut fire-sticks which he sold in the town. The Singing Girl, as she was called, remained at home in the cottage, after her father had gone to cut wood. She washed the dishes, she swept the floors and she dusted the furniture until her father came home at night, when she would have his supper ready.

As she worked about the cottage, the Girl sang—jolly little songs she would sing, about anything and everything, for she was very happy, though she and her father were poor.

"La, la, la!" the Girl would sing. "Tra, la, la!" Just simple little things like that.

"My Singing Girl is happy!" the wood-chopper would say as he tramped off in the forest.

Now it was toward this cottage of the Singing Girl that Racky, the runaway rocker, was sliding as he coasted down the grassy hill, at the foot of which was the wood-chopper's home.

Faster and faster down the slope glided the rocking chair. He could see the water of the brook sparkling in the sun.

"What shall I do? How can I stop myself from sliding into the brook and drowning?" thought the chair. He did not dream that, being made of wood, he would float like a cork, and not sink. "I didn't know adventures were like this—so dangerous!" murmured Racky, shivering, for the warm glow had left him. "I wonder what Gassy would do if he were here?"

But the stove was not there to ask, so Racky just had to keep on sliding. He was close to the brook now. Another second or two and he would splash in. But just then the Singing Girl ran out of the cottage humming:

She had finished washing the dishes, and was bringing out the drying-towels to hang on a bush in the sun when, looking up the hill, she saw the rocking chair coming down.

"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" laughed the Singing Girl. "A chair sliding down hill! I never saw such a thing before. Never! Never! Never! Turoo! Turoo! Turoo!" she sang merrily.

"It would be much better if you would stop your singing, sweet as it sounds, and save me from going into the brook," thought Racky, though, of course, he said nothing that the Girl could understand. "Save me! Save me!" begged the chair, in his own, queer talk. "I ran away to have adventures, but I don't want to be drowned! Save me!"

And then, just as if the Singing Girl had heard, and understood, she ran out until she stood in front of the sliding rocker. With a quick motion, like a cowboy with a lasso, the Girl flung her drying-towel around the top of the chair's back, and there she held him firmly.

"Whoa there, you funny sliding-down-hill rocker!" laughed the Singing Girl. "Whoa there, my pony chair! I caught you just in time!"

And, surely enough, that is just what she had done. For, in another second or two, Racky would have been in the brook, so slippery was the grassy hill and so shiny were his rockers.

"Now then," said the Singing Girl, looking up the slope, "are there any more pieces of furniture coming down? If there are I'll be ready for them."

"No, I am the only one," said Racky. "I ran away all by myself because I got sat on so hard. Thump, the dog, started to run away with me, but he turned back to go fishing with the boys. Maybe he'll come along later. But there is no more furniture!"

Of course the Singing Girl could not understand what Racky said. To her it sounded only like squeaks, creaks and snaps, such as you may often hear in a chair when you sit on it. That is the time when chairs, couches, tables, stools and other things speak to you; only it isn't everyone who knows what they say.

But the Singing Girl, after standing and looking up the hill a little while longer, could see no more furniture coming down, so she took the lasso-towel off the back of Racky and, humming another jolly little song, she carried the chair into the cottage.

"I could rock myself in there alone if she would let me," said the chair. "I don't need to be carried. But go ahead, if you like."

Racky had made up his mind to stay in the cottage over night. His slide down the grassy hill, and his narrow escape from splashing into the brook, had made the runaway rocker a bit nervous.

"I'll stay here to-night," he said to himself, "and in the morning, as soon as I get a chance to slip away, I'll travel on."

"Well, you are a nice, old-fashioned rocker!" she said as she looked at the chair and hummed a little tune. "We have no rocker in our cottage, and when Father comes home from chopping wood he will be glad to sit himself down and rest on your cushions. They look very soft!"

With that the Girl seated herself in the old, brown rocker and began swaying to and fro, singing: "La! La! La!"

"Dear me! I hope she doesn't break Grandma's glasses!" thought Racky, for he could feel the spectacles in between his seat and back cushions. "The old lady sat on me hard, it is true, but I wouldn't like her glasses to be smashed!"

Racky wished he could speak the talk of real people, that he might call out a warning to the Singing Girl, but he could not say a word. However he creaked and squeaked and rattled as best he could, hoping, in that way, to make her more careful.

"My, but you are an old chair! You must have come out of Noah's Ark, by the way you creak! And you are a traveling chair, too!" went on the Singing Girl, for she noticed that, as she rocked, the chair was sliding over toward the side of the cottage.

"Indeed I am a traveling chair!" said Racky, who could understand what the Singing Girl was saying, even though he could not talk to her himself. "I am quite a traveler! Not that I have gone as far as Gassy, my friend, the stove, in the laundry, for I have only just started. I am a runaway, traveling rocker! Just wait! In the morning you will not find me here, for I am going to travel on again."

To do that, Racky had made up his mind. He was going to rock away in the night, as soon as he knew the Singing Girl and her father were asleep.

"Well, I must not stay here all day rocking!" cried the Singing Girl with a laugh. "I have my work to do! But you are such a nice, easy, old rocker I love to sit in you!"

Up she jumped, but when she looked at the soft cushions she sat down on them again with a little bounce.

However, the spectacles were deep between the cushions, which were quite thick, and so the glasses came to no harm.

Moving the rocker away from the middle of the cottage floor, the Singing Girl began to sweep and dust, just as Racky had often seen Lizzie doing her work back in the Happy Home he had left.

All day long the Singing Girl worked about the cottage, and Racky stayed just where she put him. For he did not want to let her know that he could travel by himself whenever he wished.

Toward evening the father of the Singing Girl came home from the forest where he had chopped wood all day.

"Look, Daddy! See what came to me while you were away!" cried the Singing Girl, as she put the supper on the table. She pointed to the rocker in a corner.

"Sliding down the grassy hill? What do you mean, Singing Girl? How could a chair slide down hill?" and the wood-chopper laughed.

"It did look very strange!" said the Singing Girl. "I was standing in the door, going out to hang up my dish-towel, when I saw the chair coming down. It almost slid into the brook, but I lassoed it."

"Clever one!" laughed the wood-chopper as he kissed the Singing Girl. "I think I know how the chair came to be sliding down."

"A load of moving was going along the road at the top of the hill. This rocking chair fell off and came sliding down. After a while, when the moving men miss the chair, they will come back for it."

"Oh, dear! That will be too bad!" sighed the Singing Girl. "But of course I will give the chair to whoever comes for it. Only I would like to keep it, for it is so soft to sit in. And it creaks in the funniest way. And, there is something else, Daddy!" she said with shining eyes.

"It is a traveling rocker," she answered as she laughed like the brook tinkling over the stones outside the cottage. "It moves along over the floor when I rock in it."

"Be careful that it doesn't travel away before those who lost it from the moving wagon can come after it," said the wood-chopper.

"Oh, never fear! The rocker will stay here until some one comes for it," answered the Singing Girl.

That night the cottage was very still and quiet. The wood-chopper and the Singing Girl were asleep. They left the front door open a little way so the black cat, who lived in the cottage, could go out and come in.

"Now is my chance!" whispered Racky, as he looked out the partly-open door and saw the moon shining on the trees. "I'll travel on!"

ADVENTURE VI

UP IN THE ATTIC

During the luncheon hour, while Nat and Weezie were home from school, little was talked of but the strange disappearance of the old rocker, with Grandma's glasses in the cushions.

"I can't understand it at all," murmured the puzzled old lady who could hardly see the food on her plate. "Such things as rockers being taken away by tramps never happened in my house!"

"This is a different house, Grandma," said Nat, "and more different things happen here than happen in any other house around—all the boys say so. Look how our gas stove ran away!"

"Oh, don't talk to me about such nonsense!" laughed Grandma. "You must have dreamed that about the stove!"

"A tramp slipped in and took my chair and glasses. However, the police officer will catch him and bring back Racky, cushions, glasses and all. And I'll be so glad to get them, for I'm half blind as it is!"

When the children hurried back to school, Rodney and Addie skipping along with Nat and Weezie, they talked of what had happened.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could catch that tramp and get your Grandma's chair and glasses?" asked Rod, as he and Nat neared the schoolhouse.

"It wasn't a tramp, I tell you!" insisted Nat. "I know that chair ran away just as the stove did."

"Then why can't we chase after it and get it back, the same as we did when Thump ran away, and we found him and the gas stove together?" asked Rodney.

"Oh, let's do it to-morrow, instead of going fishing!" went on the other boy. "Will you?"

"I guess so—maybe," agreed Nat. "To-morrow or next day. We haven't any more school this week, on account of some of the classes having examinations. So we could go hunting for the chair or go fishing, whichever we liked."

"We can do both!" cried Rod, quickly. "We'll go fishing and take Thump with us, and he can help us find the lost rocker!"

"And if we get Grandma's glasses, maybe she'll give us each five cents," exclaimed Nat.

"Hurray! That would be great!" cried Rod, and just then the last bell rang, so the children had to hurry into school.

"I'm afraid it will be too cold," objected Mrs. Marden. "We shall have winter almost before we know it."

"That's why Rod and I want to go fishing—before it is too late," explained Nat. "Soon the pond and brook will be frozen over, and then we can't catch anything. May we go?"

"Oh, yes, I guess so," promised Mrs. Marden. "And I hope you catch the big rocker!"

"Oh, I mean I hope you catch the big fish," she said, laughing a little. Truth to tell, she was thinking very much about the disappearance of the rocker and grandma's glasses, though she did not really believe the chair had traveled off by itself.

"We'll have lots of fun!" exclaimed Nat and he ran to tell his chum that he could go fishing. Rod was also permitted to go, and the two boys made great plans for next day.

"Are you going to take Thump?" asked Weezie of her brother after supper that evening.

"Then couldn't you take Addie and me?" begged Weezie. "We get tired playing with dolls. We don't have to fish—we could just watch you and Rod."

But the next day it rained. It rained all night. And it rained the next day, too. Big, pelting drops came down, and when the children looked out of the windows, they knew there would be no fishing for them until it cleared. Two whole days of rain, and when there was no school, either! It was quite sad.

"Why don't you play up in the attic?" inquired Grandma. "That's what I used to do when I was a girl, and it rained on a holiday."

A little later, the four children were up in the big attic of the Happy Home. On the roof the pelting of the rain drops sounded more loudly, but Nat and the others did not mind that, for they were snug and dry, and in the attic were many things with which to play.

"There's an old rocker in the corner," said Rodney, pointing to a dust-covered one. "Is it the one named Racky, that your Grandma uses? Maybe she doesn't know it's up here."

"No, that's another chair. It has been here since before Grandma came to live with us," explained Nat. "But I'll pull it out and we can play it's a steamboat and take turns having rides. I'll be a steamboat engineer!"

"We'll be the passengers," suggested Weezie. "It's lots of fun to play steamboat with the old chair."

The two boys pulled it out, across the attic, and, as they did so, Nat pointed to two long, straight marks the rockers had made in the dust on the floor.

"Do you mean the rocker tracks look like twin snake marks?" inquired Weezie. "They do; don't they?"

"No, I didn't mean that," went on Nat, who had a queer look on his face as he stared at the dusty trail. "But don't you remember—the clump of weeds where Thump was barking yesterday? In the soft ground, near the weeds, were tracks just like these we made now, when we pulled the rocking chair across the floor."

"Why, don't you see!" went on Nat in a low voice, just a little bit excited, "these are the same marks. There must have been a rocker pulled along near the weeds."

"No, it was Grandma's rocker, I think!" went on Nat. "I wondered, when I saw them, what had made those marks near the weeds. Now I know! It was Grandma's rocker."

"But who would pull her rocker off across the back lots like that?" Addie asked.

Nat looked carefully around the attic before answering. And, when he did, it was in a whisper. He said:

"Nobody pulled Grandma's rocker along! It went there by itself, the same as our stove did! The rocker ran away, and we can tell where it went by following the tracks it left. We can get back Grandma's rocker and glasses. Come on!" His voice was eager and his eyes were shining bright.

"That'll be fun!" came from Weezie. "I don't mind being out in the snow, but I don't like to get wet in the rain."

"Then let's go out and see if we can find that runaway rocker!" proposed Nat. "Mother won't mind. She wants it to be found, and so does Grandma. She needs her glasses very much."

"We'll have lots of fun," added his sister. "And maybe some adventures like we did when we went after the gas stove. Oh, I'm so glad it stopped raining!"

The children hurried down out of the attic. They intended to tell Grandma, or Mother Marden, about what they had seen—the two marks in the dusty floor—marks that showed where a rocker had been dragged across—marks like those in the soft ground near the weed-clump. And Nat and Weezie intended to tell their mother that they were going out to find Racky and the lost glasses.

But when the children came down from the attic, neither their mother nor grandmother was to be seen. The ladies had gone next door to talk to Mrs. Trent, the mother of Addie and Rodney.

"Oh, well," said Nat, after Lizzie had told him where his mother was, "she won't mind if we go out. Come on!"

"Where are you going?" inquired the maid. "You must dress warmly, for it will be cold after the rain. Where are you going?"

"Oh—just out—to play," answered Nat. He did not want to say they were going to search for Racky, but that is just what the children intended to do.

"We'll find Grandma's glasses!" declared Nat as he led the others through the kitchen into the back yard, where they could go through the hole in the fence.

ADVENTURE VII

THE SNOW STORM

Now we shall see what happened to Racky when he slipped out of the cottage of the Singing Girl into the moonlit forest.

"I hope I don't make a noise and awaken the wood-chopper," thought the rocking chair as he softly swayed to and fro across the floor. "He would chase after me and bring me back if he thought I was going away. He thinks I dropped off a load of moving and slid down hill. But I didn't at all! I ran away! I know what I did."

The wood-chopper slept soundly after his day's work in the forest, and the Singing Girl did not open her eyes, as Racky softly slipped through the door.

"Now I am out again—free—ready for more adventures," laughed the chair to himself. "But I am not going to fall into you!" he said to the brook which was murmuring along beneath the trees.

"You may splash into me and swim, if you like," whispered the running brook. "But my waters are very chilling now, and you might catch cold."

"Thank you, then I will stay on dry land," said the rocking chair. "I am a traveler, but not a sailor. Though back in Happy Home, where I came from, is an old sofa who says he is some day going to sail away to sea."

"Is he?" asked the brook. "Well, that's wonderful! You know I, myself, run down to the great, salty sea."

"Oh, do you?" inquired the rocker. "I shall tell the sailing sofa about you when I go back. But no! I am never going back to be sat on by fat old Grandma!" creaked the rocker.

"Well, he has never yet been to sea," Racky replied, "but he is always talking of going sailing, so I suppose he may, some day."

"Tell him I shall be glad to meet him," went on the brook. "And, if he likes, he may start his voyaging on my waters."

"I'll tell him, if ever I go back to Happy Home," promised the rocker, "but I think that will never be."

This talk was in whispers, for Racky did not want to awaken the Singing Girl nor the wood-chopper. Then, bidding the brook good-bye, the chair rocked on and on, traveling through the forest, which was now white and gleaming under the silvery moon.

All of a sudden, as Racky was swaying to and fro, his arms held stiffly to his sides, he heard a voice calling:

"Oh, dear! That is some one after me!" thought the rocker. "Maybe it is Grandma, or one of the children, or the policeman whom Thump saw coming. Or perhaps it is Thump himself! I hope it is!" Then Racky called: "Hello! Hello! Who are you?"

"What do you mean?" asked Racky. "Why do you ask who I am, when you will not tell me who are you? Who are you?"

"I am the owl bird," was the answer. "I was not asking who you were. I was just giving my night call of 'Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!' That was to let my little owls in the nest know I am coming to them, soon, with something to eat. Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!"

And away flew the owl bird on his big wings, while Racky, glad to know he was not being chased by a policeman, traveled on. All through the night the chair rocked away, getting farther and farther from the Happy Home.

At first it was bright moonlight in the woods, and, though it was cold, Racky rather liked it. But soon the moon hid behind the clouds. Then it began to rain and grew very dark.

"If this is an adventure, I do not like it at all!" sighed the runaway rocker. "I am going to get all wet and my legs and arms and joints will creak and squeak worse than ever. I wish I could find a house in which to stay."

Almost without knowing it, the chair was speaking aloud in his own language and, as he finished, he heard a voice say:

"In where?" asked Racky, for all he could see through the trees was a big blob of darkness, and the voice seemed to come from this.

"Come into this snug, dry cave," was the answer. "Then you will be out of the rain."

"Whose cave is it?" asked Racky, remembering to have heard Gassy tell of caves, or caverns, that the stove had seen in the sides of hills when he galloped away that time.

"It is the cave of all the Woodland Folk," was the answer. "Any one, who has no other home, is welcome to live in this cave as long as he likes."

"Well, I am traveling around, looking for adventures," said Racky. "I had a home, but I left it, so I shall be glad to come in out of the rain and stay all night. But who are you, if I may ask?"

"You may ask and I shall tell you," was the polite answer. "I am a wild pig and after my supper of acorns, last night, I crept into this cave to sleep. Come in, you are welcome!"

So Racky entered the dark cave in the side of the hill, beneath the trees from which dripped the cold rain drops. At first the chair could see nothing, but, after a while, he noticed a little glow, like a faint fire, in one corner of the cave. And, by the glow of this pale fire, the chair could see the wild pig curled up on a bed of dried leaves.

"That fire looks like the one which burns in Gassy, when Lizzie is doing the washing," said Racky, while he gave his cushions a shake to get the rain out of them. As he did so, something fell to the floor of the cave with a tinkle.

"Grandma's glasses, I guess," said the chair. "I hope they aren't broken. They were in my cushions when I ran away and I had no means of sending them back."

"No, they aren't broken," said the wild pig, who could see quite well in the dim cave. "Here they are," and he picked them up and gave them back to Racky, who tucked them in between the cushions again.

"Thanks," creaked the chair. "But is some one going to cook a meal, that I see a fire glowing?"

"Fox-fire?" cried Racky, wonderingly. "Are there foxes in here, and will they nibble my legs? Though my legs are only wood, I should not like to have them scratched or nibbled."

"Have no fear!" laughed the wild pig. "It is only called fox-fire because, in the olden days, foxes were supposed to see their way about in the forest by its light. It comes from old, punky, rotten wood and it only glows as pale and gently as you see it now. There is no danger. The fox-fire comes from an old rotten stump that has been in this cave longer than I can remember. But, even if a real fox came in this cave, out of the storm, he would do you no harm. We are all friends here. Now I am going to sleep again."

"And I will sleep, too," said Racky, who was glad to be in the cave out of the rain, which was now pattering down harder than ever. And so, in the soft glow of the fox-fire, Racky went to sleep.

It was still raining when he awakened in the morning, and a little daylight streamed into the cave. Before the gleam of the gray dawn the pale fox-fire seemed to fade away.

"But it will glow again when night comes," said the wild pig. Then, waddling over to the rocker, the pig asked: "Have you a garden rake about you?"

"A garden rake?" exclaimed Racky. "Why, no! I don't carry rakes! But why do you want one?"

"To scratch my back," grunted the pig. "You know we porkers always like to have our backs scratched, and I thought, if you had a rake, you could do it for me. But never mind—it doesn't matter."

"Oh, but it does!" exclaimed Racky. "I should like to do you a favor since you were so kind as to invite me into this cave out of the rain. And I believe I know how I can scratch your back."

"With the sharp ends of my rockers," answered the chair. "Oh, do not be afraid," he went on with a laugh. "They are not sharp enough to cut you. But if you will lie down behind me, with your back toward the ends of my rockers, I will sway to and fro. The rocker ends will move up and down and scratch your back nicely."

Out he stretched behind the chair, close to the rocker ends. To and fro swayed Racky, and "scritchy-scratchy" went the somewhat sharp ends on the pig's back.

"Uff! Uff!" grunted the wild porker. "That feels fine! It gives me an appetite! Now I will go out and get a breakfast of acorns!"

Racky thought he was going to be lonesome in the cave, after the wild pig had left, but as the rain kept up, and it grew lighter in the dim cavern, the chair saw a small, gray animal come scampering in. It seemed to be in trouble.

"I can't crack this hard nut!" was the answer. "I've tried and I've tried, but the nut is too hard for me to crack or gnaw! You see I am only a this-year's squirrel," went on the bushy fellow. "When I grow older, I will know more about cracking nuts. But now I am so hungry, and I can't get at the meat in this one! Oh, dear!"

"Put the nut down on the floor of the cave," said the chair. "I will rock over it and crack the shell for you. It will be easy for me, as I am strong."

The squirrel placed the nut down on a low, flat rock. Racky swayed to and fro, traveling closer and closer, until one of the rockers was right over the shell. Then, suddenly:

"There you are—the nut is broken open!" cried Racky, and surely enough, it was.

"Oh, thank you!" chattered the gray squirrel as he began nibbling the sweet meat and casting aside the bits of broken shell.

Racky cracked several more nuts for the little chap, who then scampered out of the cave. The rocker was wishing the rain would stop, so he could travel on, when a white animal, larger than the squirrel, came hopping in, carrying in her paws a tiny, furry creature.

"Hush now! Go to sleep. Rock-a-bye-baby!" crooned the mother rabbit, for that is what this new animal was. "Go to sleep, my dear!"

"I don't want to go to sleep! I'm not sleepy!" whined the baby rabbit. "I'm going to stay awake for ever!"

"Oh, what is mother going to do with you?" sighed the grown-up rabbit. "Please go to sleep!"

Racky felt sorry for the mother bunny, who looked so tired out and bedraggled from the rain.

"If you will put your little baby girl rabbit up on my soft cushions I will rock her to sleep," kindly offered the chair.

"We'll see about that, my dear," murmured the old, brown chair, who more than once, when they were small, had rocked Nat and Weezie to sleep in their mother's arms.

The mother bunny put the little rabbit up on the chair's soft cushions. They were snug and warm, The teeny, weeny bunny cuddled down as if in a little nest.

Slowly, to and fro, Racky commenced to sway. To and fro he rocked, gently, gently, gently. The mother bunny crooned a little song.

"I'm not—going—not going to—I'm not going—to—to—I'm not————going," murmured the baby bunny.

"I'm so glad," sighed the tired mother bunny. Then she, too, cuddled up on Racky's cushions and went to sleep.

It was noon when the little bunny child awakened, no longer cross or tired after her slumber.

"The rain has stopped," said Mrs. Rabbit. "Come, Hopper, we shall go out and get a bit of cabbage to nibble." And away they scampered, after thanking Racky.

"Well, if the rain is over," murmured the chair, which he could see was the case, by looking out of the cave, "if the rain is over, I must travel on and find more adventures. I haven't had half enough!"

Away rocked Racky, away from the cave, off through the forest. The rain had stopped, but it was getting colder. All of a sudden it began to snow! The air was filled with white, swirling flakes.

"Oh!" cried the runaway rocker, "I don't like this! The rain was bad, but the snow is worse! What shall I do! I must find shelter!" And off through the snow-storm rocked the chair as fast as it could go.

ADVENTURE VIII

A LITTLE OLD WOMAN

Racky, the runaway rocker, swayed out of the cave where he had scratched the back of the wild pig, where he had cracked the nut for the squirrel and where he had rocked the baby rabbit to sleep. It was just about the same time that Nat and the other children started to search for the missing chair.

"What shall we do with Racky if we find him?" asked Weezie of her brother, as the four slipped through the hole in the fence and ran across the lots.

"I hope so," was Nat's answer. "For without her glasses Grandma can't read us any stories. Yes, I think the glasses will be in the cushions when we find the chair," he decided.

"Oh, but don't you remember?" suddenly called Weezie, as the children hurried toward the clump of weeds where they had seen the strange marks.

"About the runaway gas stove," went on Weezie. "That had a lot of good things to eat in the warming oven when it ran away. But when we found it in the woods, and the elephant brought it home on his back, there wasn't a single thing left—not a single thing!"

"Oh, well, that was different," said Nat. "Hungry people must have eaten what was in the gas stove—that was all right!"

"That's true!" agreed his chum. "Nobody will take Grandma's glasses out of the chair cushions. You'll see—we'll find them!"

"I hope we do," murmured Addie, for she and her brother loved the dear old lady, who lived next door to them, almost as much as did Nat and Weezie.

Skipping along over the vacant lots, still damp and spongy from the rain, which had only just stopped, the children soon reached the big clump of weeds where Nat had noticed the two marks of the chair's rockers in the soft earth. The marks were just like those made when the old chair in the attic was dragged through the dust.

"They were deep in the ground," answered Nat, "and I guess we'll see part of 'em." And so it turned out. On the edge of the patch of weeds, and straggling through them, so that some of the stalks were bent down and broken, were the tracks made when Racky ran away from Thump. Though the rain had washed away some of the chair's trail, still it was plain enough for the children to see.

"Come on!" cried Nat, joyfully excited. "The chair was here all right! Now all we'll have to do will be to follow these marks and we'll find Racky. Come on!"

He led the way, followed by the others who were quite as happily excited as he was. It would be wonderful to find the runaway rocker and Grandma's glasses, the children thought.

"How far do you think we'll have to go!" asked Weezie, when they had followed the chair's trail quite a distance over the lot.

"Oh, not very far, I guess," answered her brother. "Why, don't you want to come?"

"Yes, of course I want to come," replied Weezie. "But I don't want to go too far from home."

"I don't, either," said Addie. "And it looks like it was going to rain some more." She glanced up at the clouds.

"If it snows, it will be lots of fun, and we can find Racky easier," stated Nat.

"Why, the tracks will be plainer in the snow," said Nat. "And we can slide down hill, too, after we find the chair and take Grandma's glasses back to her. Let's run! I can see where the chair has been along here," and he pointed to the marks in the soft ground—marks that looked as if a two-wheeled cart had been hauled along there. They were the tracks of Racky's rockers, plain enough.

Forward ran the children, laughing and shouting until, all of a sudden, Addie exclaimed:

They stopped to listen. They heard a noise behind them. Then Rodney began to laugh.

"That's our dog Thump," he said. "We forgot to take him with us, and he's following after."

"Good! Let him come!" decided Nat. "He can smell along the track, where it only shows faint, and help us find Racky."

"Come on, Thump! Help us find Racky!" and Rod pointed to the marks on the ground.

Thump knew what this meant, of course. He could tell that the rocking chair had come this way, and now Thump knew the children were seeking Racky. What should Thump do?

"I can lead those children on the wrong trail, away from where Racky went, and tease them off into the deep woods, where they can never find that chair," thought Thump to himself. "I can do that, or I can lead them straight to where Racky is hiding. He cannot be far off, for he is a slow rocker."

"If I lead the children to Racky, he will never forgive me, for he does not want to be found and brought back to Happy Home. But winter is coming on, there will be snow and ice, soon. Racky may catch cold in his legs. I think it will be best if the children find him and bring him home. After all, he may thank me for it. Perhaps Grandma Marden will not sit on him so hard after he comes back. Yes, I'll lead the children to Racky!"

Having thus made up his mind to do something that, perhaps, the chair might not like, at first, Thump just went ahead and did it. He sniffed at the tracks and started off on a run, barking loudly.

"Come on!" shouted Rodney, who knew, by these signs, that his dog was "on the trail," as it is called. "Thump will lead us just where the chair went! Now we'll find it!"

"And Grandma's glasses, too, I hope!" murmured Weezie, as she and Addie followed the two boys.

Thump ran quite fast, and so did Nat and Rod. The girls tried to keep up with their brothers, but it was hard work. Once Addie fell down, and bruised her knees, but she got up again, without crying, and hurried on. And once Weezie's dress caught on a bramble bush and was torn. But Rodney happened to have a safety pin in his pocket, so the dress was mended, after a fashion, and the chase kept up.

The children, led by the dog, reached the top of the hill, down which Racky had coasted. Here the trail was so faint that the children could not see it on the grass. But with Thump along, to sniff at the track left by the chair, they were able to follow.

Down the hill, and up to the cottage of the Singing Girl, Thump led the way. The dog was barking loudly and the Singing Girl opened the door.

"Oh, hello, Children and Dog!" she greeted them, pausing in her song. "What do you want?"

"Have you seen it?" asked Rodney, politely taking off his cap, which Nat did, also, a moment later.

"Oh, yes," replied the Singing Girl. "Yesterday I found a brown rocking chair outside our door. It came sliding down the hill, and I lassoed it with a towel and took it inside."

"Is it there now?" asked Weezie eagerly, "and has it cushions on with Grandma's glasses in?"

"The chair had cushions," answered the Singing Girl, "but it is gone, now. Some one came in the night and took it."

"No," said Nat, slowly shaking his head, "no one took the chair away. It ran off by itself, just as it did from our house."

"Why, I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed the Singing Girl, with a laugh. "A runaway rocking chair! Truly, though, I saw it come sliding down hill, but I thought it had fallen off some moving wagon!"

"No, it ran away from us and it ran away from you," explained Nat. "Well, we are on Racky's trail, anyhow. He has been here and gone away. Come on!" he cried.

"Go ahead, Thump!" ordered his master, and the dog, who had been impatiently leaping around, for he knew the chair was no longer in the cottage, started off through the woods.

"I hope you find Racky!" the Singing Girl called to the children, as they ran along after Thump. Then she went back in the cottage, humming a little tune.

On and on through the woods Thump led Nat and the others on the trail of Racky. Well it was that the children had the dog along for, without him, they never would have been able to follow Racky's winding trail.

But Thump led them to the cave in the side of the hill, where the chair had slept the second night. There were the marks of his rockers going in, and the marks of his rockers coming out.

"Racky isn't in there," reported Nat and Rod, who ventured into the dim cavern, which Weezie and Addie would not do.

The wild pig, whose back had been so kindly scratched by the chair, the squirrel for whom Racky had cracked a nut, and the mother rabbit whose little bunny had been rocked to sleep, were no longer in the cave, so they could not tell the children where Racky had gone.

"But Thump will find him!" declared Rodney. "Go on!" he called to his pet, and the dog, looking back to see that the children were following, led the way deeper into the forest.

And then, all of a sudden, it began to snow. The storm swooped down over the children, just as it had done over Racky, who was swaying his way along, hardly knowing where he was going or what to do.

But while Racky did not like the swirling, white flakes, the children did, laughing and shouting in glee as they felt the melting, white crystals cool their warm, red cheeks.

"Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" they shouted. "It's snowing! It's snowing! Soon it will be Thanksgiving and Christmas! Santa Claus will come with his sleigh and reindeer when it snows! Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!"

But as the snow came down thicker and faster, the children could not see which way to go. They were in the middle of the woods. Even Thump did not know what to do, for now he could no longer sniff at the track, or trail, made by the runaway rocker. The snow had quite covered it.

"What are we going to do?" asked his sister. "I like the snow, but I don't want to be lost in the storm."

"Yes," agreed Weezie. "Do you know which way home is?" she inquired of her brother.

"No, I don't, either," confessed Rodney. "But I'm sure Thump does! Hi, Thump!" he called to his pet. "Take us home!"

But, instead of barking, and rushing off through the storm as he should have done, Thump drooped his tail between his legs and whimpered, cuddling close to Rodney's legs.

"Oh, he's afraid of something!" whispered Addie. "Thump doesn't know how to lead us home. He's lost, too, and he's afraid of something!"

Truly, the dog did act strange, and as if a little fearful of what was going to happen. The wind was howling and moaning through the bare branches of the trees. The snow flakes were swirling down thicker than ever. All about the children was a pale, frosty mist through which they could see nothing.

They all listened. Above the noise of the storm they could hear the breaking and snapping of twigs and branches on the ground, as heavy feet trod on them.

She pointed off among the trees and there, walking through the storm, toward the children, was a little old woman, wrapped in a big fur coat. She tramped over the snow and over the underbrush like a man.

"Come with me!" cried the old woman, waving her hands toward the children. "Come with me and bring your dog!"

And, hardly knowing why they did so, the children followed the strange woman through the storm, with Thump whining and keeping close to Rodney and Nat.

ADVENTURE IX

SANTA CLAUS

For Racky, caught out in the snow storm, just as the children had been, did not know what to do. The cold, white flakes swirled around his legs, and fell on his stiff, wooden arms, chilling him all the way into his glue, by which he was held together.

"If the snow gets into my cracks, it will melt, and be just like rain," thought Racky as he swayed along. "Then I shall fall apart! Or I shall get the rheumatism, and creak worse, than when fat Grandma sits on me! Oh, dear! I almost wish I had not run away!"

He found that he could travel faster though, with the snow on the ground. For he would rock a little way, then suddenly stop, and he would slide ahead ten feet or more, just as children do on a slippery place.

"Well, there is something good in the snow, anyhow," said the chair to himself. "I can go very fast on it."

But it was getting colder, and the flakes were now so thick that Racky could hardly see more than a little distance in front of him. Once, after a slide, he bumped into an evergreen tree, whose thick branches were white with the crystal flakes.

"Oh, excuse me!" murmured Racky. "I am so sorry! I didn't mean to bump into you. But I am running away, and the snow blinded me!"

"That is quite all right," sighed the evergreen tree, kindly. "I have often thought, myself, that I would like to run away. But I am rooted fast in the ground and must stay here forever. Tell me, is it nice to run away?"

"It was at first," answered Racky, "but I am not so sure about it, now. I have had some wonderful adventures, and I may have more. But just now the snow is sifting down my back and I fear—a-ker-choo!" he suddenly sneezed. "I fear I am catching a—ker-snitzio—I beg your pardon—I fear I am catching cold!"

"I am quite certain of it," said the tree. "But if you want shelter from the storm, rock yourself in beneath my thick branches."

"Thank you, I will," said Racky, noticing that the low-hanging boughs of the evergreen tree made a sort of tent.

Even during the short time the chair had been standing still, talking to the tree, the snow had drifted over his rockers, so that now, when he wanted to move again he found it not easy. But he swayed to and fro, and, at last, managed to get in beneath the thick, green branches.

It was warmer there, almost as warm and sheltered as it had been in the cave, and Racky was thinking he could stay there until the storm was over, when, all of a sudden, he sneezed again:

"Oh, that isn't so good!" sighed the tree. "You have sneezed three times at once."

"I should say it was a sign that you now have a cold, and ought to be in a snug, warm place, near a blazing, hot fire," answered the tree. "I fear it is a bit breezy out here, even under my thick, green branches."

This was quite true, and then, as Racky stood there, shivering in spite of the warm cushions, all at once a shower of snow fell on him.

"It's too bad, but it can't be helped," said the evergreen. "You see my branches are covered with snow, and when the wind blows it shakes the snow off so that it falls on you. I am very sorry!"

"I am catching more—a-ker-choo—more cold!" sneezed the chair. "Is there no place, Tree, where I could be warm and sheltered? Is there no place where I can go in, to be away from the storm? After it is over I shall keep on adventuring."

The evergreen thought for a moment and then, as the wind again shook its branches, sifting more snow down on poor Racky, the tree said:

"Oh, a little house!" murmured Racky. "That sounds comforting! And is there a fire in the little house?"

"There must be," answered the evergreen, "a warm, blazing fire. For a little old woman lives in the house and, each day, she comes here to the forest to gather up sticks for her fire. So it must be warm there."

"Why don't you?" asked the tree. "I am glad to have you here, under me, but I cannot help sifting snow on you when the wind blows. And it is too breezy for one who is catching cold. The little old woman is kind. I am sure she will let you come in her house."

"Then I am going there, thank you," said Racky, who was now shivering so that he almost shook Grandma's glasses out from between the cushions. "How can I find the little house?" he asked.

"Bock yourself straight through the woods until you come to a big rock," answered the tree. "Around the corner of that rock stands the house of the little old woman."

And so, with many thanks to the kind evergreen, Racky swayed out from beneath the sheltering branches into the storm again. The wind was blowing harder now, and the snow was swirling down more thickly. It was all the chair could do to slide along. But he held his wooden arms stiffly to his sides, and swayed forward until he came within sight of the big rock, and then he noticed the little house.

Just as Racky looked, he saw the little old woman, in the big fur coat, leading four children and a dog into her cottage. At the sight of them, the chair shrunk back behind the shelter of the great rock.

"The tree said nothing about children and a dog," murmured the chair. "I wonder if this is the right house? I couldn't see those boys and girls very well, nor the dog, either. But if they are going to live in the cottage, there may be no room for me."

"I wonder if they could be the children from the Happy Home where I used to live?" mused Racky. "I wonder if they could be Nat and Weezie, with Rodney and Addie? And perhaps that dog was Thump. But—no—they would not be so far from home in the storm. They must be some other children. I will wait a bit, and then I will knock on the door. The little old woman may be kind enough to take me in."

But, though Racky was not certain of it, those children were the very ones he had mentioned—Nat and his sister, Rodney and Addie, and Thump the dog. The little old woman had seen them in the storm-swept woods.

"We are trying to find our runaway rocking chair, with Grandma's glasses in," answered Nat. He and the other children were no longer frightened, nor worried about being lost in the storm, once they had seen, through the mist of swirling flakes, the kind face of the little old woman.

"A runaway rocking chair!" she laughed. "I never heard of such a thing, though I know about lost glasses, for I often lose my own. But come to my house out of the storm!"

She led the way, and soon the children were snug and warm in the cottage. Racky had seen them go in, but, as I have told you, he was not certain that they were the same children whom he knew. So he stood there in the storm, not knowing what to do.

It did not take the little old woman long to draw chairs up to the bright, blazing fire on the hearth, so the children could sit in them and get warm. Thump, the dog, curled up in a round ball on the hearth, as near the blaze as he dared to go without burning his tail.

"Then here you are!" cried the little old woman, and she set on the table a plate of molasses cookies and a pitcher of milk, with four glasses. Thump looked up from his place on the hearth, hungrily sniffing.

"You shall have your share, too," said the little old lady. "I have a juicy bone in my cupboard for you!"

Soon Thump was gnawing the bone, and the children were eating cookies and drinking milk. The little old lady sat in a deep, easy chair near the blazing fire and said:

"Now tell me more about yourselves, my dears; and this strange story about the runaway rocker. Also, tell me where you live, and I will try to think of a way to send you home, though I cannot take you myself. Tell me all about it."

But before any of them could answer, Weezie, with a queer little, catching sound in her breath, pointed to a window and exclaimed:

And through the glass, a white frame of snow around his face, the other children could see an old man, with apple-red cheeks and long, white whiskers, peering in at them.

"Oh, it is Santa Claus!" murmured Addie, and she dropped a piece of cookie into her glass of milk with a little ploppy splash!

ADVENTURE X

THE RATTLE-BANG

"Come out here a minute, Mrs. Chimney!" called the red-cheeked, old man as he tapped on the snow-covered window. "Come out here, and see what this is, Mrs. Chimney!"

"Maybe he's afraid of us," suggested Addie. "Santa Claus doesn't like children to see him."

"Maybe he said he wanted to get down the chimney," suggested Nat. "That's what Santa Claus always wants to do; though it isn't Christmas yet, nor even Thanksgiving. But he said something about a chimney."

"He calls me Mrs. Chimney, just for fun, because he once mended my chimney when the wind blew off some bricks," explained the little old woman. "But Chimney isn't really my name."

"Is Santa Claus his name?" asked Weezie, who was now not quite so sure of her first guess, since she could neither see any reindeer nor any pack on the old man's back.

"No, he isn't Santa Claus, though he looks like the kind old Saint, my dears," said Mrs. Chimney, as she had been called. "But I must go out and see what he wants."

She opened the door of her cottage. The red-cheeked, old man left the window and stood on the front steps, as the children could see when the door was open. They could also see something else. They held their breaths in wonderment.

"Look, Mrs. Chimney, coming through the storm I saw this old rocking chair sliding along. It slid right up to your door and seemed about to knock. Perhaps it wants to come in out of the snow. I thought I'd better tell you. The chair rocked itself down the hill, from around the edge of the big rock."

"You mean the wind blew it," said Chimney with a smile. "A chair can't rock itself down hill."

"Oh, yes it can! This chair can!" cried Nat. "This is our chair, Racky, that ran away. That's the chair we have been looking for!" He was all excited, and so were the other children.

The children crowded to the open door, through which the late afternoon wind blew little flakes of snow.

"And here are her glasses!" cried Addie, slipping her hand in between the cushions, and taking out the spectacles.

"Well, I do declare!" cried Mrs. Chimney, looking wonderingly at the boys and girls. Thump shuffled out on the steps and barked a welcome to his old friend Racky, saying:

"I am sorry you can't run away any more. I led the children on your trail. I hope you will forgive me."

"It's all right," said Racky. "I'll forgive you. I'm glad they have found me. Or, rather, I am glad I came where the children were. I couldn't stand it to be out in the storm any longer. I was catching cold, and getting a pain in my legs and back. It wasn't your fault, Thump. I saw the children come in here, though, at first, I didn't believe they were the ones I knew. And I wasn't sure it was you, Thump. But I am tired of running away and having adventures. I have had enough. I am ready to go back to Happy Home!"

Of course this talk between Thump and Racky was not heard by the children, nor by Mrs. Chimney nor by Santa Claus, as the boys and girls still called the old man.

"This chair must have fallen off a moving wagon in the storm, and the wind blew it along, so you thought it was rocking itself," said Mrs. Chimney, making the same mistake as had the Singing Girl.

"I saw that chair, ma'am, as plainly as I see you, shuffle along until it got to your door," declared Santa Claus. "It was going to knock with its rockers or arms, I verily believe, so you would take it in."

"Well, have it as you like," said Mrs. Chimney with a laughing look at Santa Claus. "But I am sure of one thing, and that is you children ran away, or walked away, from home, and your folks will be worried."

"And I can take you home, if you don't mind riding in a rattle-bang," said the old man who looked like Santa Claus, though he really wasn't.

"It's an old rattling, banging trap of a wagon, hauled by an old, bony horse, that I drive around collecting rags in," explained Santa Claus, which, though they knew he wasn't, the children always, afterward, called him. "I'm a sort of a junker," he went on, "and my wagon is a rattle-bang. But my horse is strong, if he is bony, and my wagon has a cover on, to keep out the snow. So, if you would like to ride with me, I'll take you home."

"Oh, yes," was the answer. "I have often passed your houses, and seen you children playing in the street. I can take you home. It isn't far from here. Just down the lane and across the fields."

"I'll drive my wagon around," promised the red-cheeked man. "It will be here in a minute!"

Off he shuffled, through the snow, and soon the children heard a rattling, banging sound as the bony horse drew the junk wagon up to the door of Mrs. Chimney's cottage. First, into the wagon was lifted Racky, for he would have found it hard, stiff and cold as he was, to climb up by himself. Then in leaped Thump, cuddling down on the chair's warm seat cushion. Then in climbed the children.

"Gid-dap!" cried Santa Claus to his bony horse and away he started through the storm.

And so, riding in the rattle-bang, through the storm, they reached their homes just about supper time. Mr. and Mrs. Marden and Mr. and Mrs. Trent were then getting worried about the children, and were thinking of having Policeman Paddock go in search of them.

"But here they are, safe and sound!" cried Santa Claus, as he stopped his bony horse and rattle-bang wagon.

"We went after Racky, the runaway rocker, and we found him!" cried Nat in a jolly voice.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed the fat old lady. "They are my glasses! But you never can make me believe that Racky ran away by himself! A tramp took him, and left him in the field where you found him; that's how it happened! I know!"

"But, Grandma," said Weezie as Rod and Addie, with their dog Thump, hurried over to their own house, "we found Racky at Mrs. Chimney's cottage!"

"And he was just about to knock on the door, so she would take him in out of the storm," said Santa Claus.

"Stuff and nonsense! Stuff and nonsense!" laughed Grandma. "But I am delighted to have back my old rocker and my glasses," and, sitting very gently down in the chair, so that it creaked hardly at all, the old lady swayed to and fro, and, putting on her glasses, began to read the paper.

"Well, I'm glad you children are safe home out of the storm," said their father as he thanked Santa Claus for bringing them back.

And that night, when all was still and quiet in Happy Home, the chair called down the stairs to Gassy in the laundry:

And so, for a time, the strange happenings in Happy Home came to an end, but not for very long. Because, shortly after that, as you may read in the next book of this series, there were other queer events. I shall tell you about them in a new story, to be called: "Adventures of the Traveling Table," and I hope you will like it.

The next day Grandma rocked to and fro in her chair, and polished her glasses, ready to bake another cake.

"They tell me you ran away," she said to Racky, just as if he could understand, which he could, though the old lady didn't know it. "They tell me you ran away! Nonsense! A tramp took you!"

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