"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!"