"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.