“My children! Oh, where are my children? They are lost!” cried the lady. “Oh, have you seen my children?”
“No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t,” said the boy, and he really hadn’t, you know. “But here are your clean clothes, Mrs. Trippertrot,” he went on.
The lady took off the sheet from the basket of clothes and there she saw Mary and Tommy and Johnny, all fast asleep.
“Oh, my darlings!” she exclaimed. “Here they are! Oh, you dear washerwoman’s boy, to bring back my lost children!” And she hugged him, and then Tommy and Mary and Johnny awakened, and there they were, right in their own home. It was their own mamma’s basket of clothes into which they had crawled, never even guessing it, and the boy, not knowing it, had brought them safely home. The boy’s mamma was the washerwoman for Mrs. Trippertrot, you see, and he always delivered the clean clothes.
So there the Trippertrots were, but that wasn’t the last of their adventures. No, indeed!
ADVENTURE NUMBER NINE
THE TRIPPERTROTS AND THE POSTMAN
The three little Trippertrots had not done any traveling for some days now, and they were beginning to get a bit tired of staying in the house so much. They were almost wishing something would happen.
One day they were in the front parlor of their home, looking out of the window, for it was Saturday, I think, and they didn’t have to go to kindergarten school. Suddenly the doorbell rang, and Mary said:
“Oh, I wonder who that is?”
“I’m going to look,” spoke Tommy.