Chapter III: Part 3

"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