Read Ebook: Adventures of the runaway rocking chair by Garis Howard Roger Campbell Lang Illustrator

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Ebook has 741 lines and 23701 words, and 15 pages

"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.

"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:

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