Happy Home Series

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.

ILLUSTRATED BY
LANG CAMPBELL

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

HAPPY HOME SERIES

BY HOWARD R. GARIS

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

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers New York

Copyright, 1926, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

Adventures of the Runaway Rocking Chair

Made in the United States of America

WHAT THERE IS IN THIS BOOK

You will find
[ADVENTURE ONE—GRANDMA BAKES A CAKE]
All printed out on ... PAGE 5

Then comes the next
[ADVENTURE TWO—RACKY RUNS AWAY]
So chase him to ... PAGE 25

After that, if all goes well, there is
[ADVENTURE THREE—EXCITEMENT IN THE HOUSE]
To find it skip to ... PAGE 39

Now you are to read
[ADVENTURE FOUR—SLIDING DOWN HILL]
Which starts on ... PAGE 55

If you liked that, there is another,
[ADVENTURE FIVE—THE SINGING GIRL]
Whose songs are told about on ... PAGE 71

Perhaps you may care to read
[ADVENTURE SIX—UP IN THE ATTIC]
So climb over to ... PAGE 84

And, when you come down, you will find
[ADVENTURE SEVEN—THE SNOW STORM]
Which blows you to ... PAGE 96

Finishing that, waiting for you is
[ADVENTURE EIGHT—A LITTLE OLD WOMAN]
Tramping through the snow to ... PAGE 113

And now, Oh joy! comes
[ADVENTURE NINE—SANTA CLAUS]
Who surprises you on ... PAGE 131

Then everything comes to a happy end in
[ADVENTURE TEN—THE RATTLE-BANG]
To find out what that is turn to ... PAGE 143

ADVENTURES OF THE RUNAWAY ROCKING CHAIR

ADVENTURE I
GRANDMA BAKES A CAKE

"Come, children, it is time to go to school!"

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.

Thump wagged his tail and whined softly. That was his way of saying:

"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:

"Come, my dears, it's time to go to school!"

"Oh, I wish there wasn't any school!" exclaimed Nat.

"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."

"I wouldn't worry over any lessons!" boasted Rodney.

"Nor I," said Nat. "School's no fun! But I guess we'll have to go."

"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:

"Go home, Thump! Go back home!"

"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.

"Why shall we have to do all our fishing soon?" asked Rod.

"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."

"Then it will soon be Christmas!" exclaimed Weezie joyfully.

"Ho! We haven't even had Thanksgiving yet!" objected her brother.

"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.

"I'll have a surprise for you when you come home from school," she said.

"A surprise?" questioned Weezie.

"Yes, something you like!"

"I wish my Grandma would make a surprise," sighed Addie.

The fat, jolly old lady on the porch heard this and said:

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

"Oh, we will! Thank you!" exclaimed Weezie.

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

"It will be a cake!" stated Weezie, calmly.

"Oh, if you know, then it isn't a surprise," said Rodney.

"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."

"Any kind of a cake is good," declared Rodney, "but I like chocolate best."

"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!"

"That'll be fun!" agreed his chum.

"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."

"That would be the best ever!" cried Rodney.

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!"

"I won't if you sit down on me as hard as that every time!" said Racky.

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:

"You're getting old like myself, Racky!"

Back and forth she rocked, and then she laughed and exclaimed:

"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:

"Oh, are you going to break a leg?"

"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:

"Gassy, are you there? Hello, Gassy!"

"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?"

"I wanted to ask how you ran away that time," went on 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.

"Yes. How did you do it?"

"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!" cried Gassy. "You are going to run away?"

"I have fully made up my mind to run away!" declared the rocker.

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

"I like it well enough," went on the chair, "but—"

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.

"Wait a minute—I'll tell you later!" whispered Racky.

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:

"I'm going to run away, Gassy, so I won't be broken to pieces!"

"Broken to pieces! What do you mean?" asked the gas stove.

"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!"

"Do you think so?" asked the chair eagerly.

"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."

"No! Never!" said the brown rocker proudly. "When I run away, I go for good!"

"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.

So Racky could only softly whisper:

"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.

"Is that you, Baker!" called the maid, "We want one loaf of bread to-day!"

But there was no answer.

"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."

But it wasn't Thump, as we know. It was Racky the rocker, running away.

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?"

As he rocked along, something rattled beneath his seat cushion.

"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.

"Ho, for the jolly adventures!" sang Racky to himself.

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?"

The noise grew louder and the weeds shook harder.

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.

What was going to happen?

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:

"I am running away!"

"Running away!" barked Thump.

"Yes! I can't stand Grandma's treatment any longer."

"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:

"No! I am going to run away myself!"

"You are?" cried Racky. "When, where and with whom?"

"I am going to run away now—with you!" barked the dog.

"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."

"Good!" barked Thump. "It will be all the mysteriouser."

"What's mysteriouser?" asked Racky.

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

"Then why don't you say strange?" asked Racky.

"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:

"Why, my goodness!"

"Is the cake burned?" asked Nat's mother, who was on her way back up stairs.

"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!"

"Your what?" asked Mother Harden.

"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?"

"Grandma's rocker," was the answer.

"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.

"Where did you leave your glasses'?" asked Mother Marden.

"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!"

"What about the gas stove?" asked Lizzie quietly.

"Eh?" exclaimed old Mrs. Marden.

"I say what about the gas stove?" repeated Lizzie.

"Whatever does the girl mean?" asked Grandma in surprise.

"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."

"But how in the world—?" began Grandma.

"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!"

"No!" said the old lady. "But we'll look around and find it!"

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.

"Dear me! What could have become of it, and my glasses?" exclaimed Grandma.

"It walked away, I tell you!" insisted Lizzie.

"Nonsense!" cried Grandma, and the children's mother said the same.

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

Just then there was a noise on the rear porch, and Lizzie cried:

"Maybe that's a tramp now!"

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.

"Where's the surprise, Grandma?" asked the little girl.

"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 policeman—what for?" gasped Weezie.

"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.

"Come on!" called the little boy to his sister. "Let's go see what it is!"

"Do you think it will hurt us?" asked Weezie, holding back a little.

"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.

"What's the matter, Nat?" asked Rodney, looking over the side fence.

"Is somebody going to be arrested?" asked Addie.

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.

"Is somebody going to be arrested!" Addie again inquired.

"Oh, I don't guess so," answered Weezie. "Anyhow, it's only a tramp."

"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.

"Is the tramp there?" called Nat.

"Did you arrest him!" Rodney wanted to know.

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

"Be still! Stop barking!"

"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?"