“Well, we will soon be at your house,” spoke the camel, “but if you can’t wait, why, perhaps the old fisherman can catch something for you. He catches such odd things when he fishes.”
“Will you please try?” asked Mary, of the old fisherman.
“To be sure I will,” he said, kindly. So he took a piece of clothes-line, and his hammock-hook, which wasn’t sharp enough to hurt any one, and he dangled it out of the little house, over the side of the camel. And then, all of a sudden, he pulled it up, and there, fast to the hook, were a lot of nice pies.
“Here you are!” cried the old fisherman, as he passed the pies around.
“Oh, dear! Who took my pies? Who took my pies?” suddenly cried a voice down on the ground.
“It’s the pieman, and Simple Simon is with him,” spoke the camel. “Your hook went right into his basket of pies, old fisherman, and you hooked up some.”
“Who took my pies? Who took my pies?” cried the pieman, once more.
“I did, for the Trippertrot children,” answered the old fisherman, sticking his head out between the curtains of the little house. “Is that all right?”
“Oh, yes, surely,” answered the pieman. “The Trippertrots can have all my pies they want for nothing. Good-by, I have to go home to bake some more. Good-by.”
So he and Simple Simon hurried away, and the Trippertrots and the jolly sailor and the old fisherman in the little house on the camel’s back ate the pies, and the camel ate some, too, and then he ran as fast as anything, and in a little while he was at the Trippertrot house, and the runaway children were safely home at last. And, oh! how glad their papa and mamma and Suzette were to see them. And they thanked the old fisherman, and the jolly sailor, and the camel, for taking such good care of the little ones.