Front matter (continued 2)

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

"We are after a runaway rocking chair," answered Nat.

"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.

"I thought it would be easier in the snow, but it's harder," said Nat.

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

"I guess we'd better go home," murmured Addie.

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

"Well, not exactly," Nat replied. "But I guess Rod knows."

"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.

Suddenly Weezie whispered:

"I hear some one coming!"

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.

"Maybe it's the circus elephant coming for us," said Addie in a low voice.

"Elephants don't come out in winter," declared Nat. "It's too cold for them."

"Oh, look!" cried Weezie. "See there!"

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!"

"COME WITH ME!" CRIED THE OLD WOMAN.

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.

"Whoa there!" exclaimed the tree. "Where are you going, chair?"

"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:

"Ker-choo! Ker-foo! Ker-snitzio!"

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

"What is that a sign of?" asked Racky.

"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.

"Oh!" cried the chair.

"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:

"Just beyond this patch of woods, where I am rooted, is a little house."

"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."

"I wish I could go in the little house," sighed Racky.

"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."

Then the runaway rocker thought of something else.

"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.

"What are you doing out in the snow?" she had asked them.

"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.

"Now, would you like something to eat?" asked the little old woman.

"Oh—would we?" murmured the boys, while the girls bashfully whispered:

"Oh, yes, very much indeed!"

"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:

"Look! There's Santa Claus!"

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!"

"If that is Santa Claus, why doesn't he come in?" asked Weezie.

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

"Oh, no, it isn't that!" laughed the little old woman.

"And why does he call you Mrs. Chimney?" asked Rodney.

"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."

And the white-whiskered man tapped on the snow-covered pane again, and called:

"Come out, Mrs. Chimney! Come out!"

"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.

"Oh, see!" murmured Weezie, pointing a trembling finger.

But before the others could gasp out their surprises, the old man exclaimed:

"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.

"Yes, that's Racky!" echoed Weezie.

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

"It's your Grandmother's rocking chair!" added Rod. "Sure it is!"

"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!"

"I'm glad," barked the dog. "We'll all go together."

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."

"Nonsense!" laughed Mrs. Chimney.

"Oh, but it's true!" exclaimed Nat. "The chair ran away."

"Just like our gas stove," added Weezie.

"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."

"Yes, they may be," admitted Rodney.

"We'd like to go home, though it's lovely here," said Addie, politely.

"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.

"What's a rattle-bang?" Nat wanted to know.

"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."

"Do you know where we live?" asked Rodney.

"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.

"Come and see me again, sometime, my dears!" invited Mrs. Chimney.

"We will!" promised Nat, Rodney, Weezie and Addie. "We will!"

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.

"Where in the world have you been?" asked Mrs. Marden.

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

"And we found Grandma's glasses, too!" added Weezie, holding up the spectacles.

"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.

The snow rattled on the windows.

"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:

"I had some wonderful adventures. I'll tell you about them sometime."

"Yes, do," invited the gas stove. "But not now. I am going to sleep."

"So am I," murmured Racky.

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!"

But we know better than that; don't we?

THE END