"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" laughed the Singing Girl. "A chair sliding down hill! I never saw such a thing before. Never! Never! Never! Turoo! Turoo! Turoo!" she sang merrily.
"It would be much better if you would stop your singing, sweet as it sounds, and save me from going into the brook," thought Racky, though, of course, he said nothing that the Girl could understand. "Save me! Save me!" begged the chair, in his own, queer talk. "I ran away to have adventures, but I don't want to be drowned! Save me!"
And then, just as if the Singing Girl had heard, and understood, she ran out until she stood in front of the sliding rocker. With a quick motion, like a cowboy with a lasso, the Girl flung her drying-towel around the top of the chair's back, and there she held him firmly.
"Whoa there, you funny sliding-down-hill rocker!" laughed the Singing Girl. "Whoa there, my pony chair! I caught you just in time!"
And, surely enough, that is just what she had done. For, in another second or two, Racky would have been in the brook, so slippery was the grassy hill and so shiny were his rockers.
"Now then," said the Singing Girl, looking up the slope, "are there any more pieces of furniture coming down? If there are I'll be ready for them."
"No, I am the only one," said Racky. "I ran away all by myself because I got sat on so hard. Thump, the dog, started to run away with me, but he turned back to go fishing with the boys. Maybe he'll come along later. But there is no more furniture!"
Of course the Singing Girl could not understand what Racky said. To her it sounded only like squeaks, creaks and snaps, such as you may often hear in a chair when you sit on it. That is the time when chairs, couches, tables, stools and other things speak to you; only it isn't everyone who knows what they say.
But the Singing Girl, after standing and looking up the hill a little while longer, could see no more furniture coming down, so she took the lasso-towel off the back of Racky and, humming another jolly little song, she carried the chair into the cottage.
"I could rock myself in there alone if she would let me," said the chair. "I don't need to be carried. But go ahead, if you like."