"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.