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+Project Gutenberg's Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by Laura Lee Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's
+
+Author: Laura Lee Hope
+
+Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #18461]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Emmy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
+AT MAMMY JUNE'S
+
+BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S,"
+"SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S," "THE
+BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES," "THE BUNNY BROWN
+SERIES," "THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES," ETC.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY_
+WALTER S. ROGERS
+
+NEW YORK
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+PUBLISHERS
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES=
+
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES=
+
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES=
+
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES=
+
+          (Eleven titles)
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+Copyright, 1922, by
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+    I. AN ESKIMO IGLOO                       1
+   II. THE SNOWMAN                          12
+  III. UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW                   21
+   IV. DADDY'S NEWS                         30
+    V. OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS                  41
+   VI. THE SEA-EAGLE                        51
+  VII. A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS                 66
+ VIII. A GREAT DEAL OF EXCITEMENT           79
+   IX. RUSS'S SECRET                        87
+    X. CHARLESTON AND THE FLEET             94
+   XI. THE MEIGGS PLANTATION               105
+  XII. MAMMY JUNE                          117
+ XIII. THE CATFISH                         127
+  XIV. MAMMY JUNE HELPS                    136
+   XV. WHEN CHRISTMAS IS FOURTH OF JULY    146
+  XVI. A LETTER AND A BIG LIGHT            156
+ XVII. MAMMY JUNE IN PERIL                 166
+XVIII. THE TWINS IN TROUBLE                175
+  XIX. IN MAMMY JUNE'S ROOM                183
+   XX. GOOSEY-GOOSEY-GANDER                194
+  XXI. ROSE HAS AN IDEA                    202
+ XXII. THE STRANGE CRY                     210
+XXIII. A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST                 218
+ XXIV. AN EXCITING TIME                    227
+  XXV. THAT PIGEON WING                    235
+
+  [Illustration: MAMMY JUNE TREATS THE CHILDREN TO A "TAFFY PULL."
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Frontispiece_--(_Page_ 142)]
+
+
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN ESKIMO IGLOO
+
+
+"How could William get the croup that way?" Violet asked with much
+emphasis.
+
+Of course, Vi was always asking questions--so many questions, indeed,
+that it was often impossible for her elders to answer them all; and
+certainly Rose and Russ Bunker, who were putting together a "cut-up"
+puzzle on the table, could not be bothered by Vi's insistence.
+
+"I don't see how he could have got the croup that way," repeated the
+smaller girl. There were six of the little Bunkers, and Vi and Laddie
+were twins. She said to Laddie, who was looking on at the puzzle making:
+"Do you know how William did it, Laddie?"
+
+Laddie, whose real name wasn't "Laddie" at all, but Fillmore Bunker,
+shook his head decidedly.
+
+"I don't know," he told his twin sister. "Not unless it is a riddle:
+'How did William get the croup?'"
+
+"He hasn't got the croup," put in Rose, for just a moment giving the
+twins her attention.
+
+"Why--ee!" cried Vi. "Aunt Jo said he had!"
+
+"She didn't," returned Rose rather shortly and not at all politely.
+
+"She did so!" rejoined Vi instantly, for although she and Rose loved
+each other very much they were not always in agreement. Vi's gray eyes
+snapped she was so vexed. "Aunt Jo said that a window got broke in--in
+the neu-ral-gi-a and William had to drive a long way yesterday and the
+wind blew on him and he got the croup."
+
+"Was that the way of it?" said Laddie, thoughtfully. "Wait a minute, Vi.
+I've most got it----"
+
+"You're not going to have the croup!" declared his twin. "You never had
+it! But I have had the croup, and I didn't catch it the way William
+did."
+
+"No-o," admitted Laddie. "But--but I'm catching a new riddle if you'd
+only wait a minute for me to get it straight."
+
+"Pooh!" said Vi. "Who cares anything about your old riddle? Br-r-r! it's
+cold in this room. Maybe we'll all get the croup if we can't have a
+better fire."
+
+"It isn't the croup you mean, Vi," put in Rose again, but without
+stopping to explain to her smaller sister where and how she was wrong
+about William's illness.
+
+"Say, Russ, why don't the steampipes hum any more?" broke in the voice
+of Margy, the next to the very littlest Bunker, who was playing with
+that latter very important person at one of the great windows
+overlooking the street.
+
+Russ chuckled. He had just put the very last crooked piece of the puzzle
+into place.
+
+"You don't expect to see humming birds in winter, do you, Margy?" he
+asked.
+
+"Just the same, winter is the time for steampipes to hum," said Rose,
+shivering a little. "Oh! See! It's beginning to snow!"
+
+"So 'tis," cried Russ, who was the oldest of the six. "Supposing it
+should be a blizzard, Rose Bunker?"
+
+"S'posing it should!" repeated his sister, quite as much excited as Russ
+was at such a prospect.
+
+"Buzzards fly and eat dead things. We saw 'em in Texas at Cowboy
+Jack's," announced Laddie, forgetting his riddle-making for the moment.
+
+"That is right, Laddie," agreed Rose kindly. "But we're not talking
+about buzzards, but about blizzards. Blizzards are big snowstorms--bigger
+than you ever remember, I guess."
+
+"Oh!" said Laddie doubtfully. "Were we talking about--about blizzards?"
+
+"No, we weren't!" exclaimed Vi, almost stamping her foot. "We were
+talking about William's croup----"
+
+"He hasn't got the croup, I tell you, Vi," Rose said wearily.
+
+"He has. Aunt Jo----"
+
+"In the first place," interrupted Rose quite decidedly, "only children
+have croup. It isn't a grown-up disease."
+
+This announcement silenced even Violet for the moment. She stared at
+her older sister, round-eyed.
+
+"Do--do diseases have to grow up, too?" she finally gasped.
+
+"Oh, dear me, Vi Bunker!" exclaimed Rose, "I wish you didn't ask so many
+questions."
+
+"Why not?" promptly inquired the smaller girl.
+
+"We-ell, it's so hard to answer them," Rose frankly admitted. "Diseases
+don't grow up, I guess, but folks grow up and leave diseases like croup,
+and measles, and chicken-pox, behind them."
+
+"And cut fingers and bumps?" asked Laddie, who had almost forgotten the
+riddle about William's croup that he was striving to make.
+
+But Vi did not forget the croup. One could trust Vi never to forget
+anything about which she once set out to gather information.
+
+"But how did William catch the croup through a broken window in the
+neu-ral-gi-a?" she demanded. "When I had croup I got my feet wet first."
+
+"He hasn't got the croup!" Rose cried again, while Russ began to laugh
+heartily.
+
+"Oh, Vi!" Russ said, "you got it twisted. William caught cold driving
+Aunt Jo's coupé with the window broken in it. He's got neuralgia from
+that."
+
+"And isn't there any croup about it?" Laddie demanded rather sadly.
+"Then I'll have to start making my riddle all over again."
+
+"Will that be awful hard to do, Laddie?" asked his twin. "Why! making
+riddles must be worse than having neu-ral-gi-a--or croup."
+
+"Well, it's harder," sighed her brother. "It's easy to catch--Oh! Oh!
+Russ! Rose! I got it!"
+
+"You haven't neuralgia, like poor William," announced Rose with
+confidence.
+
+"Listen!" announced the glowing Laddie. "What is it that's so easy to
+catch but nobody runs after?"
+
+"Huh! is that a riddle?" asked Russ.
+
+"Course it's a riddle."
+
+"A wubber ball," guessed Mun Bun, coming from the window against the
+panes of which the snow was now beating rapidly.
+
+"No," Laddie said.
+
+"A coupé!" exclaimed Violet.
+
+"Huh! No!" said her twin in disdain.
+
+Margy asked if he meant a kittie. She had been chasing one all over the
+house that morning while Russ and Rose had been to market with their
+aunt, and she did not think a kitten easy to catch at all.
+
+"'Tisn't anything with a tail or claws," crowed the delighted Laddie.
+
+"I bet it's that neuralgia William's got," laughed Russ.
+
+"No-o. It isn't just that," his smaller brother said.
+
+"And you'd better not say 'bet,' Russ Bunker," advised Rose wisely. "You
+know Aunt Jo says that's not nice."
+
+"You just said it," Russ rejoined, grinning. "Twice."
+
+"Oh, I never did!" cried his sister.
+
+"Didn't you just say I'd 'better not say bet?'" demanded Russ. "Well,
+then count 'em! 'Bet' out of 'better' is one, and 'bet' makes two----"
+
+"I never said it the way you did," began Rose, quite put out, when
+Laddie began to clamor:
+
+"Tell me my riddle! You can't--none of you. 'What is it that's so easy
+to catch but nobody runs after?'"
+
+"I don't know, Laddie," said Rose.
+
+"I give it up," said Russ.
+
+"Do you all give it up?" cried Laddie, almost dancing in his glee.
+
+"What is it?" asked Vi.
+
+"Why, the thing that's so easy to catch but nobody runs after, is a
+cold!" announced her twin very proudly.
+
+"And I'm so-o cold," announced Mun Bun, hanging to Rose's skirt while
+the older ones laughed with Laddie. "Don't Aunt Jo ever have it warm in
+her house--like it is at home?"
+
+"Of course she does, Mun Bun," said Rose, quickly hugging the little
+fellow. "But poor William is sick and nobody knows how to tend to the
+heating plant as well as he does. And so--Why, Russ, Mun Bun is cold!
+His hands are like ice."
+
+"And so are my hands!" cried Margy, running hastily from the window.
+"We've been trying to catch the snowflakes through the windowpane."
+
+"No wonder your hands are cold," said Rose admonishingly.
+
+Russ began to cast about in his ingenious mind for some means of getting
+the younger children's attention off the discomfort of a room the
+temperature of which was down to sixty. In one corner were two stacks of
+sectional bookcases which Aunt Jo had just bought, but which had no
+books in them and no glass fronts. Russ considered them for a moment,
+and then looked all about the room.
+
+"I tell you what," he said, slowly. "You know when they took us to the
+Sportsman's Show last week at Mechanic's Hall? Don't you remember about
+that Eskimo igloo that they had built of ice in the middle of the
+skating pond? Let's build an igloo like that, and get into it and keep
+warm."
+
+"O-oo!" gasped Vi, "how can you do that?"
+
+"Where will you get any ice?" Laddie demanded.
+
+"Goodness! it's cold enough in here without bringing in ice," announced
+Rose with confidence.
+
+"We won't build the igloo of ice blocks," said Russ quite calmly. "But
+we'll make believe it is ice."
+
+"I'd rather do that," Laddie agreed. "For make-believe ice can't be so
+wet and cold as real ice, can it?"
+
+"What you going to make your make-believe ice out of, Russ?" demanded
+Vi, the exceedingly practical.
+
+Russ at once set them all to work, clearing the middle of the room and
+bringing up hassocks and small benches and some other articles that
+could be used in the construction of the indoor igloo. He brought the
+sections of the new bookcase, one piece at a time.
+
+Russ really exhibited some skill in building up the walls of the hut in
+the middle of the floor. When it was completed it was rather a tight fit
+for all six of the little Bunkers to squeeze inside, but they did it.
+And the activities of building the igloo had warmed even Mun Bun.
+
+"You know," said Rose thoughtfully, "Eskimos live in these igloos and
+eat blubber, and don't go out at all while it is snowing, same as it
+does now."
+
+"Why don't they go out?" asked Vi.
+
+"Because it is cold," said Russ.
+
+"And why do they eat blubber?"
+
+"Because they are hungry," said Rose.
+
+"What's blubber, anyway?" asked the inquisitive one. "Is it like candy?"
+
+"It's more like candles," answered Russ, laughing.
+
+Just then Laddie kicked excitedly.
+
+"I bet I can make another riddle!" he cried.
+
+"Now, you see, Russ Bunker?" Rose admonished. "Laddie has got that word,
+too."
+
+"Hey, stop kicking, Laddie!" cried Russ.
+
+But in his excitement the boy twin had put his foot right through the
+wall of the igloo! At least, he had kicked one of the boxes out of place
+and the whole structure began to wobble.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrieked Vi. "It's falling."
+
+"Get Mun Bun out," gasped Rose, thinking first of all of the littlest
+Bunker.
+
+But just then the heaped up boxes came down with a crash and the six
+little Bunkers were buried under the ruins of their "igloo."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SNOWMAN
+
+
+A corner of one of the overturned bookcase sections struck Russ Bunker's
+head with considerable force--actually cutting the skin and bringing
+blood. Big as he was, the oldest Bunker yelled loudly.
+
+Then, of course, everybody yelled. Quite a panic followed. When Aunt Jo
+and Mother Bunker came running to the front room where all this had
+taken place the Eskimo igloo looked very much like a pile of boxes with
+a young earthquake at work beneath it!
+
+"For the good land's sake!" gasped Aunt Jo, who usually was very
+particular about her speech, but who on this occasion was startled into
+an exclamation. "What is happening?"
+
+"Get off my head, Vi!" wailed Laddie, from somewhere under the tottering
+pile. "It's not to sit on."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Rose. "Russ is all bloody! Oh, dear!"
+
+"I'm not cold any more," cried Mun Bun. "Let me out! I'll be good!"
+
+But Russ Bunker was neither crying nor struggling. He was a good deal of
+a man, for a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy. Being the oldest of the six
+little Bunkers there were certain duties which fell to his lot, and he
+understood that one of them was to keep cool when anything happened to
+excite or frighten his brothers and sisters.
+
+The whack he had got on the head, and even the trickle of blood down his
+face, did not cause Russ to lose his head. No, indeed. He, and the other
+little Bunkers, had been in innumerable scrapes before, and the wreck of
+the Eskimo igloo was nothing provided Aunt Jo did not make a lot out of
+it. It just crossed Russ' mind that he ought to have asked his aunt
+before he used the sectional bookcases for building-blocks.
+
+Naturally of an inventive turn of mind, Russ was constantly building new
+things--make-believe houses, engines, automobiles, steamboats, and the
+like--usually with a merry whistle on his lips, too. He was a cheerful
+boy and almost always considered the safety and pleasure of his brothers
+and sisters first.
+
+In companionship with Rose, who was a year younger, the boy cared for
+the other four little Bunkers so successfully that Mother Bunker and
+Daddy Bunker were seldom troubled in their minds regarding any of the
+children. Rose was a particularly helpful little girl, and assisted
+Mother Bunker a good deal. She was a real little housewife.
+
+Vi and Laddie, the twins, were both very active children--active with
+their tongues as well as their bodies. Violet's inquisitiveness knew no
+bounds. She wanted to know about every little thing that happened about
+her. Daddy Bunker said he was sure she must ask questions in her sleep.
+Laddie was an inveterate riddle-asker. He learned every riddle he heard;
+and he tried to make up riddles about everything that happened.
+Sometimes he was successful, and sometimes he was not. But he always
+tried again, having a persevering temperament.
+
+The smallest Bunkers--Margy, whose real name was Margaret, and Mun Bun,
+whose real name was Monroe Ford--were quite as anxious to get out from
+under the heap of boxes as the others. Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo ran to
+their assistance, and soon the six were on their feet to be hugged and
+scolded a little by both their mother and aunt.
+
+"But they do get into such mischief all the time," sighed Mother Bunker.
+"I shall be glad when Daddy gets back and decides what to do for the
+winter. I don't know whether we shall go right back to Pineville or
+not."
+
+For it was in Pineville, Pennsylvania, that we first met the six little
+Bunkers and in the first volume of this series went with them on a nice
+vacation to Mother Bunker's mother. The book telling of this is called
+"Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's."
+
+After that lovely visit in Maine the six little Bunkers had gone to stay
+for a time with each of the following very delightful relatives and
+friends: To Aunt Jo's in Boston, where they were now for a second visit
+over the Thanksgiving holidays; to Cousin Tom's; to Grandpa Ford's; to
+Uncle Fred's; to Captain Ben's; and last of all to Cowboy Jack's.
+
+In that last book, "Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's," they had
+enjoyed themselves so much that they were always talking about it. And
+now, as Vi managed to crawl out from under the wreck of the Eskimo
+igloo, she announced:
+
+"That iggilyoo isn't half as nice to live in as Chief Black Bear's
+wigwam was at Cowboy Jack's. You 'member that wigwam, Russ?"
+
+"I remember it, all right," said Russ, rather ruefully touching the cut
+above his temple and bringing away his finger again to look at the blood
+upon it. "Say, is it going to keep right on bleeding, Mother?"
+
+"Not for long," declared Mother Bunker. "But I think you were rightly
+punished, Russ. Suppose the corner of the section had cut Mun Bun's
+head?"
+
+"I should have been awful sorry," admitted Russ. "I guess I didn't think
+much, Mother. I was only trying to amuse 'em 'cause they were cold."
+
+"It is cold in here, Amy. Don't scold the boy. See! The storm is getting
+worse. I don't know what we shall do about the fire. Parker and Annie
+don't seem to know what to do about the heater and I'm sure I don't.
+Oh, dear!"
+
+"B-r-rrr!" shivered Mother Bunker. "I am not fond of your New England
+winters, Jo. I hope we shall go South----"
+
+"Oh, Mother!" cried Rose excitedly. "Shall we really go down South with
+Daddy? Won't that be glorious?"
+
+"I guess it's warm down there," said Laddie. "Or maybe the steampipes
+hum."
+
+"Do the steampipes hum down South?" asked Violet.
+
+While the four older children were exceedingly interested in this new
+proposal for excitement and adventure, Margy and Mun Bun had returned to
+the great window that overlooked the street and the front steps. They
+flattened their noses against the cold pane and stared down into the
+driving snow. Within this short time, since the storm had begun,
+everything was white and the few people passing in the street were like
+snowmen, for the white flakes stuck to their coats and other wraps.
+
+"Oh, see that man!" Margy cried to Mun Bun. "He almost fell down."
+
+"He's not a man," said her little brother with confidence. "He's a boy."
+
+"Oh! He's a black boy--a colored boy. That's right, so he is."
+
+The figure in the snow stumbled along the sidewalk, clinging to the iron
+railings. When he reached the steps of Aunt Jo's house he slipped down
+upon the second step and seemed unable to get up again. His body sagged
+against the iron railing post, and soon the snow began to heap on him
+and about him.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Margy. "He is a reg'lar snowman."
+
+"He's a black snowman," said Mun Bun. "It must be freezing cold out
+there, Margy."
+
+"Of course it is. He'll turn into a nicicle if he stays there on the
+steps," declared the little girl, with some anxiety.
+
+"And he hasn't a coat and scarf like you and me," Mun Bun said. "Maybe
+he hasn't any Grandma Bell to knit scarfs for him."
+
+"I believe we ought to help him, Mun Bun," said Margy, decidedly. "We
+have plenty of coats."
+
+"And scarfs," agreed Mun Bun. "Let's."
+
+So they immediately left the room quite unnoticed by the older people
+in it. This is a remarkable fact. Whenever Margy and Mun Bun had
+mischief in mind they never asked Mother about it. Now, why was that, do
+you suppose?
+
+The two little ones went swiftly downstairs into the front hall. Both
+had coats and caps and scarfs hung on pegs in a little dressing-room
+near the big door. They knew that they should not touch the outer
+garments belonging to the older children; but they got their own wraps.
+
+"Maybe he's too big for them," murmured Margy. "But I guess he can
+squeeze into the coats--into one of them, anyway."
+
+"Course he can," said Mun Bun. "Mine's a nawful warm coat. And that
+black snowman isn't much bigger than I am, Margy."
+
+"I don't know," said his sister slowly, for she was a little wiser than
+Mun Bun about most things. "Open the door."
+
+Mun Bun could do that. This was the inside door, and they stepped into
+the vestibule. Pressing his face close to the glass of one of the outer
+doors, Mun Bun stared down at the "black snowman" on the step.
+
+"He's going to sleep in the snow," said the little boy. "I guess we've
+got to wake him up, Margy."
+
+He pounded on the glass with his fat fist. He knocked several times
+before the figure below even moved. Then the colored boy, who was not
+more than seventeen or eighteen, turned his head and looked up over his
+shoulder at the faces of the two children in the vestibule.
+
+He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual
+thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded.
+He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold.
+
+"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun, beckoning to the strange boy. "Come up
+here!"
+
+The boy in the snow seemed scarcely to understand. Or else he was so
+cold and exhausted that he could not immediately get up from the step on
+which he was sitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW
+
+
+The fluffy, sticky snowflakes gathered very fast upon the colored boy's
+clothing. As Mun Bun had first announced, he looked like a snowman, only
+his face was grayish-black.
+
+He was slim, and when he finally stood up at the bottom of the house
+steps, he seemed to waver just like a slim reed in the fierce wind that
+drove the snowflakes against him. He hesitated, too. It seemed that he
+scarcely knew whether it was best to mount the steps to Aunt Jo's front
+door or not.
+
+"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun again, and continued to beckon to him
+through the glass of the outer door.
+
+Margy held up her coat and cap, and beckoned to the boy also. He looked
+much puzzled as he slowly climbed the steps. His lips moved and the
+children knew he asked:
+
+"What yo' want of me, child'en?"
+
+Mun Bun tugged at the outer door eagerly, and finally it flew open. He
+shouted in the face of the driving snow:
+
+"Come in here, snowman. Come in here!"
+
+"I ain't no snowman," drawled the colored boy. "But I sure is as cold as
+a snowman could possibly be."
+
+"It's warmer inside here than it is out there," Margy said. "Although
+we're not any too warm. Our steampipes don't hum. But you come in."
+
+"Yes," said Mun Bun, grabbing at the colored boy's cold, wet hand. "You
+come in here. We have some coats and things you can put on so you won't
+be cold."
+
+"Ma goodness!" murmured the boy, staring at the garments the children
+held out to him.
+
+"You can wear 'em," said Margy. "We have more."
+
+"You put on my coat," urged Mun Bun. "It's a boy's coat. You won't want
+Margy's, for she's a girl."
+
+"Ma goodness!" ejaculated the colored boy again, "what yo' child'en
+s'pose I do wid dem t'ings? 'Less I puts 'em up de spout?"
+
+The two children hadn't the first idea as to what he meant by putting
+the clothing up the spout. But the colored boy meant that he might pawn
+them and get some money. He did not offer to take the coats and other
+things that Margy and Mun Bun tried to put into his hands.
+
+Just at this moment Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo, followed by Russ and
+Rose, appeared on the stairs. They had missed the two little folks and,
+as Aunt Jo had said, wrinkling her very pretty nose, that she could
+"just smell mischief," they had all come downstairs to see what the
+matter was.
+
+The colored boy spied them. He had evidently been ill used by somebody,
+for he was very much frightened. He thrust the coats back at the
+children and turned to get out of the vestibule.
+
+But the door had been sucked to by the wind and it was hard to open
+again. It was really quite wonderful that Mun Bun had been able to get
+it open when he and Margy had called the strange colored boy in.
+
+"Don't go!" cried Margy.
+
+"Take my coat, please," urged Mun Bun. "I know it will keep you warm."
+
+And all the time the colored boy was tugging at the handle of the outer
+door and fairly panting, he was so anxious to get out. Mother Bunker was
+the first to reach the door into the vestibule, and she opened it
+instantly.
+
+"Wait!" she commanded the strange boy. "What do you want? What are you
+doing here?"
+
+But by this time the young fellow had jerked open the outer door, and
+now he darted out and almost dived down the snowy steps.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" cried Mun Bun, "he's forgot his coat and cap and scarf. I
+wanted him to wear mine because he was so cold and snowed on."
+
+"And he could have had mine, too," declared Margy quite as earnestly.
+
+"What do these tots mean?" gasped Aunt Jo, holding up both hands.
+
+But Mother Bunker, who understood her little Bunkers very well indeed,
+in a flash knew all about it. She cried:
+
+"The poor boy! Bring him back! He did look cold and wet."
+
+"Oh, he's just a tramp," objected Aunt Jo.
+
+"He's poor, Josephine, and unfortunate," answered Mother Bunker, as
+though that settled all question as to what they should do about the
+colored boy.
+
+Russ Bunker had already got his cap and mackinaw. He darted out of the
+house, down the steps, and followed the shuffling figure of the colored
+boy, now all but hidden by the fast-driving snow. How it did snow, to be
+sure!
+
+"Say! Wait a minute!" Russ called, and caught the strange youth by the
+elbow.
+
+"What yo' want, little boy?" demanded the other. "I ain't done nothin'
+to them child'en. No, I ain't. Dey called me up to dat do' or I wouldn't
+have been there."
+
+"I know that," said Russ, urgently detaining him. "But come back. My
+mother wants to speak to you, and I guess my Aunt Jo'll treat you nice,
+too. You're cold and hungry, aren't you?"
+
+"Sure is," groaned the boy.
+
+"Then they will give you something to eat and let you get warm. You'd
+better come," added Russ very sensibly, "for it looks as if it would be
+a big storm."
+
+"Sure do," agreed the colored boy again. "Ah don' like dis snow. Don't
+have nothin' like dis down whar I come f'om. No, suh."
+
+"Now, come on," said Russ eagerly. "My mother's waiting for us."
+
+The negro lad hesitated no longer. Even Russ saw how weary and weak he
+was as he stumbled on beside him. His shoes were broken, his trousers
+were very ragged, and his coat that he had buttoned up closely was
+threadbare. His cap was just the wreck of a cap!
+
+"Yo' sure she ain't goin' to send for no policeman, little boy?" queried
+the stranger. "I wasn't goin' to take them clo'es. No, suh!"
+
+"She understands," said Russ confidently, and holding to the boy's
+ragged sleeve led him up the steps of Aunt Jo's pretty house.
+
+Russ saw Mr. North, the nice old gentleman who lived over the way,
+staring out of his window at this surprising fact: Aunt Jo allowing a
+beggar to enter at her front door! Still, Mr. North, as well as the
+rest of the neighbors, had decided before this that almost anything
+astonishing could happen while the six little Bunkers were visiting
+their Aunt Jo in Boston's Back Bay district.
+
+"Here he is, Mother," said Russ, entering the hall with the colored boy.
+
+The other children had come downstairs now and all understood just what
+Margy and Mun Bun had tried to do for the stranger. Mother Bunker smiled
+kindly upon the wretched lad, even if Aunt Jo did look on a little
+doubtfully from the background.
+
+"We understand all about it, boy," Mother Bunker said. "The little folks
+only wanted to help you; and so do we. Do you live in Boston?"
+
+"Me, Ma'am? No, Ma'am! I lives a long way souf of dis place. Dat I do!"
+
+"And have you no friends here?"
+
+"Friends? Whar'd I get friends?" he demanded, complainingly. "Dey ain't
+no friends for boys like me up Norf yere."
+
+"Oh! What a story!" exclaimed Aunt Jo. "I know people must be just as
+kind in Boston as they are in the South."
+
+"Mebbe dey is, lady," said the colored boy, looking somewhat frightened
+because of Aunt Jo's vigorous speech. "Mebbe dey is; but dey hides it
+better yere. If yo' beg a mess of vittles in dis town dey puts yo' in
+jail. Down Souf dey axes you is you hongry? Ya-as'm!"
+
+At that Aunt Jo began to bustle about to the great delight of the
+children. She called down to Parker, the cook, and asked her to put out
+a nice meal on the end of the kitchen table and to make coffee. And then
+she said she would go up to the attic where, in a press in which she
+kept garments belonging to a church society, there were some warm
+clothes that might fit the colored boy.
+
+Rose and Vi went with Aunt Jo to help, or to look on; but Margy and the
+three boys stayed with their mother to hear more that the visitor might
+say.
+
+"My name's Sam," he replied to Mother Bunker's question. "Dat is, it's
+the name I goes by, for my hones'-to-goodness name is right silly. But I
+had an Uncle Sam, and I considers I has got a right to be named after
+him. So I is."
+
+"Does your Uncle Sam wear a tall hat and red-and-white striped pants
+with straps under the bootsoles and stars on his vest?" asked Laddie,
+with great interest and eagerness.
+
+"I dunno, little fellow," said Sam. "I ain't never seen my Uncle Sam,
+but I heard my mammy talk about him."
+
+Russ and his mother were much amused at Laddie's question. Russ said:
+
+"That Uncle Sam you are talking about, Laddie, is a white man. He
+couldn't be this Sam's uncle."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Laddie, with quite as much curiosity as his twin
+sister might have shown.
+
+"Very true, why not?" repeated Mrs. Bunker, with some gravity. "You are
+wrong, Russ. Our Uncle Sam is just as much this Sam's uncle as he is
+ours. Now go down to the kitchen, Sam. I hear Parker calling for you.
+Eat your fill. And wait down there, for we shall want to see you
+again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DADDY'S NEWS
+
+
+Aunt Jo found the garments she meant to give to Sam, the strange colored
+boy, and she and Rose and Vi came downstairs with them to the room in
+which the children had been playing at first. Russ and Laddie had set up
+the sectional bookcase once more and the room looked less like the wreck
+of an auction room, Mother Bunker said.
+
+She had returned with Margie and the boys. They thought it better--at
+least, the adults did--to leave Sam in the kitchen with Parker and
+Annie, the maid.
+
+"But I hate to see that boy go away from here in this storm," said
+kind-hearted Aunt Jo. "Perhaps what he says about us Boston people in
+comparison with those where he comes from, is true. The police do arrest
+people for begging."
+
+"Well, we have tramps at Pineville," Mother Bunker observed. "But the
+constable doesn't often arrest any. Not if they behave themselves. But a
+city is different. And this boy did not know how to ask for help, of
+course. Don't you think you can be of help to him, Jo?"
+
+"I'll see," said Aunt Jo. "Wait until he has had a chance to eat what
+Parker has fixed for him."
+
+Just then Annie, the parlormaid, tapped on the door.
+
+"Please'm," she said to Aunt Jo, "that colored boy is goin' down in the
+cellar to fix the furnace."
+
+"To fix the furnace?" cried Aunt Jo.
+
+"Yes'm. He says he has taken care of a furnace before. He's been up
+North here for 'most two years. But he lost his job last month and
+couldn't find another."
+
+"The poor boy," murmured Mother Bunker.
+
+"Yes'm," said Annie. "And when he heard that the house was cold because
+me nor Parker didn't know what to do about the furnace, and the fire was
+most out, he said he'd fix it. So he's down there now with Parker and
+Alexis."
+
+"Did Alexis come home?" cried Russ, who was very fond, as were all the
+Bunker children, of Aunt Jo's great Dane. "Can't we go down and see
+Alexis?"
+
+"And see Sam again," said Margy. "Me and Mun Bun found him, you know."
+
+It seemed to the little girl as though the colored boy had been quite
+taken away from her and from Mun Bun. They had what Mother Bunker
+laughingly called "prior rights" in Sam.
+
+"Well, if he is a handy boy like that," said Aunt Jo, referring to the
+colored boy, "and can fix the furnace, we shall just have to keep him
+until William is well again. Has he finished his dinner, Annie?"
+
+"Not yet, Ma'am. And indeed he was hungry. He ate like a wolf. But when
+he heard about us all being beat by that furnace, down he went. There!
+He's shaking the grate now. You can hear him. He said the ashes had to
+be taken out from under the grate or the fire never would burn. Yes'm."
+
+"Well, then," said Mother Bunker, "you children will have to wait to
+see Sam--and Alexis--until he has finished eating."
+
+"Annie," said Aunt Jo quickly, before the girl could go, "how does
+Alexis act toward this boy?"
+
+"Oh, Ma'am! Alexis just snuffed of him, and then put his head in his
+lap. Alexis says he's all right. And for a black person," added the
+parlormaid, "I do think the boy's all right, Ma'am."
+
+She went out and Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker laughed. The youngsters were
+suddenly excited at that moment by the stopping of a taxicab at the
+door. Vi had spied it from the window, for hard as it snowed she could
+see that.
+
+"Here's Daddy! Here's Daddy!" she cried, dancing up and down.
+
+Mun Bun and Margy joined in the dance, while the other three children
+entered upon a whirlwind rush down the stairway to meet Mr. Bunker at
+the front entrance.
+
+He came in, covered with snow, and with his traveling bag. The
+children's charge upon him would surely have overturned anybody but
+Daddy Bunker.
+
+"I scarcely dare come home at all," he shouted up the stairway to his
+wife and Aunt Jo, "because of these young Indians. You would think they
+were after my very life, if you didn't know that it was my pockets they
+want to search."
+
+He shook off the clinging snow and the clinging children until he had
+removed his overcoat. Russ grabbed up the bag, and Rose and Laddie each
+captured an arm and were fairly carried upstairs by Mr. Bunker. He
+landed breathless and laughing with them in the middle of the big room
+which Aunt Jo had given up to the six little Bunkers as their playroom
+while they visited here in her Back Bay home.
+
+"What is the news, Charles?" asked Mother Bunker, almost as eagerly as
+the children themselves might have asked the question.
+
+"I've got to see Armatage personally--that is all there is about it, and
+Frank Armatage cannot come North."
+
+"Then you are going?" said his wife, and the children almost held their
+several breaths to catch Daddy Bunker's reply.
+
+Their father looked around upon the eager little faces. Then he glanced
+at his wife and smiled.
+
+"What do you think?" he asked. "Had I better say before so many little
+pop-eyed, curious folk? I--don't--know----"
+
+"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Rose.
+
+"We want to go with you," breathed Russ.
+
+"I want to go!" cried Vi. "Where is it?"
+
+"If Vi goes, can't I go too?" Margy pleaded.
+
+"I'm not going to stay here, Daddy, if the rest go," declared Laddie.
+
+But Mun Bun just walked gravely over to his father and put up both his
+arms.
+
+"Mun Bun go with Daddy," he said confidently.
+
+"The blessed baby!" cried Aunt Jo.
+
+"It doesn't look much as though they appreciated your hospitality,
+Josephine," said Daddy Bunker to his sister, smiling over the top of Mun
+Bun's head as he held the little fellow.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose instantly, "we have had an awfully nice time here. We
+always do have nice times here. But we want to go with Daddy, and so
+does Mother."
+
+"Two words for yourself and one for me, Rose," laughed her mother. "But
+if it is going to take some time, Charles, I think we would all like to
+go along."
+
+"I had Mr. Armatage on the long distance telephone," said Daddy Bunker,
+smiling. "He was in Savannah. His plantation is some distance from that
+city. And he has invited us all to spend the Christmas holidays with him
+at his country home. What do you think of that?"
+
+It was pretty hard for Mother Bunker to say what she thought of it
+because of the gleeful shouts of the children. It did not much matter to
+Russ, and Rose, and Violet, and Laddie, and Margy, and Mun Bun where
+they went with Daddy Bunker. It was just the idea of going to some new
+place and to have new adventures.
+
+"Well," said the gentleman finally, "the boat sails day after to-morrow.
+Believing that you would approve, Amy, and knowing Jo couldn't go, I
+have already secured reservations for us eight Bunkers--two big
+staterooms. The boat is the _Kammerboy_, of the Blue Pennant Line."
+
+The six little Bunkers were so delighted by this news and the prospect
+of a boat journey into warmer waters than those that ebb and flow about
+Boston, that they almost forgot the colored boy whose entry into the
+house had been brought about by Margy and Mun Bun.
+
+But the latter, sitting in Daddy's lap, a little later began to prattle
+about his "black snowman," and so the story of Sam came out.
+
+By that time the steampipes were humming and the whole house was warm
+and cozy again.
+
+"And we can thank Sam for that, Charles," said Mother Bunker. "William
+is ill, and you would have had to go down and fight that furnace if this
+boy had not come along and proved himself so handy."
+
+"Maybe we'd all better go down and thank him," said Rose soberly.
+
+Daddy Bunker laughed. "I guess you want to get better acquainted with
+this wonderful Sam," he said. "A right nice boy, is he, Mother Bunker?"
+
+"He seems to be," agreed Mother Bunker. "And he certainly needed
+friends. I think Jo will keep him for a while. At least, as long as
+William is laid up."
+
+A little later the children all trooped down to the big kitchen. The
+good-natured cook did not mind their presence. And Alexis, the great
+Dane, showed plainly that he was delighted to see his young playfellows.
+Alexis was a very intelligent dog and it was no wonder that the servants
+and Aunt Jo considered that anybody of whom the dog approved must be
+"all right." Alexis had approved of Sam.
+
+Sam had recovered from his weariness, and, no longer hungry and his next
+few meals in prospect, his spirits had rebounded from their low ebb to
+cheerfulness. The kindness shown him, and the praise the women had
+heaped upon him because of his mastery of the difficult furnace,
+delighted Sam.
+
+"I'm sure obliged to you child'en for as'in' me into this yere house,"
+he said, grinning at Margy and Mun Bun. "Dis is sure just as fine folks
+as we have down Souf. Dey done fed de hongry an' clothed de naked. An'
+mighty good clo'es, too."
+
+He had on the suit Aunt Jo had found for him and almost new shoes,
+while an overcoat and a hat which he was to wear when he went out hung
+behind the cellar door. There was a small room off the kitchen in which
+Sam was to sleep. To the colored boy's mind he was "right good fixed."
+
+"Let me have dat mouf organ, little boy," said Sam, observing Laddie's
+harmonica. "I show yo' sumpin'. Now, cl'ar de way. I's goin' to work de
+mouf organ and dance fo' yo'."
+
+The women stopped in their work to watch him, as well as the children.
+Sam slid out into the middle of the floor, began to jerk a tune out of
+the harmonica, and commenced a slow dance--a sort of double shuffle.
+
+But he soon pivoted and slid much faster, all in time with the sounds he
+drew from the harmonica. Annie and Parker applauded his unexpected
+steps, and the children began to shriek in delight.
+
+"Now we has it!" exclaimed Sam, removing the instrument from between his
+lips, and panting from his exertions. "Now we skates down de floor. Now,
+turn again and back-along. I's a-comin', child'en--I's a-comin'. See me
+dance Jim Crow! Here I comes and dere I goes! Now, de pigeon-wing----"
+
+He cut a most surprising figure, both hands flapping in the air and his
+slim body bent and twisted at a curious angle. With a resounding slap of
+the sole of his shoe on the floor he brought the dance to an end and
+fell panting into his chair.
+
+"You're some dancer, Sam," cried the eager Annie. "Ain't he, Parker?"
+
+"What do you call that figure?" demanded Parker. "A pigeon-wing?"
+
+"Dat's what it is," breathed Sam, smiling widely. "My own particular
+invention, dat is. Nobody can't do dat like I can. No, suh!"
+
+Just then their Mother called the six little Bunkers upstairs, and they
+had to leave the kitchen. But they would all have liked to see Sam cut
+that pigeon-wing again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS
+
+
+How busy the six little Bunkers were on the next day you can easily
+imagine. Such a packing of bags and steamer trunks! Though of course
+Mother Bunker did most of that, although Rose helped some. And such a
+running about the bedrooms and upper halls of Aunt Jo's house asking if
+this thing shouldn't be put in, or that thing shouldn't be left out!
+
+The little people could think of more articles that might be needed down
+South than ten grown-ups could imagine! Laddie was sure they would need
+their bathing suits that they had had at Captain Ben's. Mun Bun, who had
+been playing with Margy in the yard making big snowballs, came in to ask
+his mother if they couldn't take just one of the biggest snowballs with
+them in one of the trunks, because Sam, the colored boy, said there
+wouldn't be any snow down South.
+
+"But, my dear!" exclaimed Mother Bunker, laughing, "we are going down
+South just to escape the snow and the cold. Why carry it with us?"
+
+"But maybe the little boys and girls down there will want to see some
+real snow," said Mun Bun, who could almost always find an answer for any
+question like this.
+
+"Then they will have to come up North to see it," declared his mother
+decidedly. "We cannot take snow along on the boat, that is sure."
+
+Violet found at least a hundred brand new questions to ask about the
+preparations for the trip. Mother Bunker finally called her a
+"chatterbox" and begged her to stop.
+
+"How do you suppose I can attend to a dozen different things at once,
+Violet, and answer your questions, too?"
+
+"Never mind the things, Mother," Vi replied. "Just tell me----"
+
+"Not another question!" exclaimed Mother Bunker. "Stop it!"
+
+And then she put out her hand for something to put in the trunk she was
+packing, and actually squealed when her hand unexpectedly met Alexis's
+cold, damp nose.
+
+"Goodness me!" cried Mother Bunker. "That dog is a nuisance. That is the
+third time, at least, that I have tried to pack his nose in this trunk.
+Every time I reach out for something he thinks I want to pet him."
+
+This delighted Margy and Mun Bun very much. The idea of packing the
+great Dane in a steamer trunk was really quite ridiculous. Violet did
+not venture any more questions immediately however; but Laddie suddenly
+broke out with a new riddle.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother!" he cried. "Do you know the difference between a
+dog and an elephant?"
+
+"I should hope so!" Mother Bunker said, chuckling. "But I suppose you
+want me to give the riddle up so that you can have the pleasure of
+telling me what the difference is between Alexis and an elephant."
+
+"Not just Alexis; any dog," urged Laddie. "And, of course, it would be
+real polite of you if you said you didn't know," added the little boy.
+
+"Very well; what is the difference between an elephant and a dog,
+Laddie?"
+
+"Why," cried Laddie very eagerly, "an elephant owns a trunk of his very
+own; and a dog only wants to get into a trunk. There now!"
+
+"But all dogs don't want to get into trunks," objected Vi. "Do they? Do
+they, now, Mother?"
+
+"I am afraid Laddie's riddle is not as good as some he makes up," said
+Mother Bunker. "For you know, dogs have trunks as well as elephants."
+
+Her eyes twinkled as she said it, for she knew she was going to puzzle
+her little brood. At once they all broke out with questions and
+exclamations. How could that be? They had seen, as Vi said, "oceans of
+dogs" and none of them had had a nose long enough to be called a trunk,
+like the elephants they had seen at the circus.
+
+"Mother is just puzzling us," Laddie said. "How can a dog have a trunk
+when his nose is short and blunt? At least, most dogs' noses are short
+and blunt."
+
+"Each dog has a trunk nevertheless," declared Mother Bunker,
+laughing. "And so have you, and so have I."
+
+"I have a suitcase," announced Mun Bun gravely. "I don't have a trunk."
+
+Mother Bunker swept Mun Bun into her arms then and kissed his chubby
+neck.
+
+"Of course you have a trunk, honey-boy," she cried. "All your little
+body between your shoulders and your legs is your trunk. So you all have
+trunks, and so do the dogs."
+
+The children laughed delightedly at this, but Laddie suddenly stopped
+laughing.
+
+"Why!" he cried out in great glee, "then the elephant, Mother, has two
+trunks. I guess I can make a _good_ riddle out of that, can't I?"
+
+Russ and Rose took Alexis downstairs after that so that he would not be
+in the way. They wanted to see Sam again, anyway. And they asked him to
+dance for them.
+
+"I'm going to learn how to cut that pigeon wing," Russ declared. "You do
+it again, please, Sam. I ought to be able to learn it if I see you do it
+often enough."
+
+However, Russ did not succeed in this ambition. There really was not
+time for him to learn the trick, for the next morning, very early, the
+Bunker family started for the boat. The snowstorm had long since ceased,
+and the streets had been cleaned. William had recovered from his attack
+of neuralgia and drove them in the big closed car to the dock where the
+_Kammerboy_ lay.
+
+  [Illustration: IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS.
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 46]
+
+It was a great white steamer with three smoke stacks and a wireless
+mast. There was so much to see when they first went aboard that the six
+little Bunkers could not possibly observe everything with only two eyes
+apiece! They wanted to be down in the saloon and in the staterooms that
+Daddy Bunker had engaged and out on the deck all at the same time. And
+how were they to do that?
+
+Russ and Rose, however, were allowed to go out on deck and watch the
+ship get out of the dock and steam down the harbor. But Mother Bunker at
+first kept the four smaller children close to her side.
+
+"I never knew Boston was so big," said Rose, as they looked back at the
+smoky city. "I guess Aunt Jo never showed us all of it, did she, Russ?"
+
+"I don't suppose if we lived there a whole year we should be able to
+see it all," declared her brother wisely. "Maybe we could see it better
+from an airplane. I'd like to go up in an airplane."
+
+"No, no! Don't do that, Russ! Maybe the engine would get stalled like
+the motor-car engine does, and then you couldn't get down," said Rose,
+very much worried by this thought.
+
+"Well, we could see the city better."
+
+"We can see it pretty well from here," said Rose. "And see the islands.
+There is a lighthouse, Russ. Would you like to live in a lighthouse?"
+
+"Yes, I would, for a while," agreed her brother. "But I'd rather be
+right on this boat, sailing out into the ocean. Just think, Rose! We've
+never been away out at sea before."
+
+"There was lots of ocean at Captain Ben's," said the girl. "I suppose
+the ocean is all the same everywhere. Just water. I hope it stays flat."
+
+"Stays flat?" repeated Russ, opening his eyes very wide.
+
+"Yes," said Rose gravely. "I don't like water when it's bumpy. It makes
+me feel funny in my stomach when it's that way."
+
+"Oh! It won't be rough," said Russ, with much assurance. "I heard Daddy
+say we were going to sail into summer seas. And that must be warm and
+pleasant water. Don't you think so?"
+
+Rose was looking over the rail now. She pointed.
+
+"That doesn't look as though the water was warm," she cried. "See the
+lumps of ice, Russ? It must be ice water. Where do you suppose the
+summer seas are?"
+
+"We are going to them," declared her brother with confidence. "Daddy
+said so. He said we would go out to a place he called the Gulf Stream
+and that the water would be warm there and the air would be warmer,
+too."
+
+"What do you think of that?" gasped Rose. "A stream in an ocean? I guess
+he was joking."
+
+"Oh, no, he wasn't. He said it real serious. He told Aunt Jo about it."
+
+"But how can a stream--that means a river--be running in the ocean?
+There wouldn't be any banks!" declared the doubtful Rose.
+
+"Let's go and ask him about it," suggested Russ. "And we'll want to keep
+on the lookout for that Gulf Stream too. I wouldn't want to go past it
+without seeing it."
+
+They were just about to hunt for Daddy Bunker in the crowd on deck when
+Laddie came running to them. He was very much excited and he could
+hardly speak when he reached his older brother and sister.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped the smaller boy.
+
+"What is the matter, Laddie?" demanded Russ.
+
+"If it is another riddle, Laddie, take your time. We'll stop and listen
+to it."
+
+"It isn't a riddle--Yes, it is, too! I guess it's a sort of riddle,
+anyway," said Laddie. "Have you seen him?"
+
+"That sounds like a riddle," said Rose. "And of course we haven't seen
+him. What is the answer?"
+
+"Who is it that you are asking your riddle about?" demanded Russ.
+
+"Mun Bun," declared Laddie, breathing very hard, for he had run all the
+way from the stateroom.
+
+"Mun Bun isn't a riddle," said his sister. "He can't be."
+
+"Well, he's lost," declared Laddie. "We can't find him. He was there one
+minute, and just the next he was gone. And Mother can't find him, and
+Vi's gone to hunt for Daddy, and--and--anyhow, Mun Bun has lost himself
+and we don't any of us know what has become of him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SEA-EAGLE
+
+
+Mun Bun was not a very disobedient little boy; but as Daddy Bunker said,
+he had a better "forgetery" than he had memory. Mun Bun quite forgot
+that Mother Bunker had told him not to leave the bigger stateroom where
+she was setting things to rights in her usual careful way. For, as they
+were to be several days on the steamship, she must have a place for
+things and everything in its place, or she could not comfortably take
+care of Daddy and six children.
+
+Then, Mun Bun was so quick! Just as Laddie said: one minute he was
+there, and the next minute he wasn't. He seemed to glide right out of
+sight. Cowboy Jack had called Mun Bun a blob of quicksilver; and you
+know you cannot put your finger on a blob of quicksilver, it runs so
+fast.
+
+That is what Mun Bun had done. Mother Bunker's back was turned; Russ and
+Rose were on deck; the other three children, the twins and Margy, were
+busy prying into every corner of the stateroom to "see what it was meant
+for," when Mun Bun just stepped out.
+
+How long he had been gone when their mother discovered the little boy's
+absence, of course she did not know. She sent Laddie and Vi flying for
+help--the one for Russ and Rose and the other for their father. She
+dared not leave the staterooms herself for fear Mun Bun would reappear
+and be frightened if he did not find her.
+
+She called loudly for him, without getting any answer. Other passengers
+began to take an interest in the loss of the little boy. Stewards began
+to hurry about, looking for a lost boy in the most unlikely places. Some
+of these cubbyholes were so tiny that a canary bird could scarcely have
+hidden in them, while other places where the stewards looked would have
+hidden a giant.
+
+When Mr. Bunker appeared in haste from the smoking cabin, having been
+found by Vi, Mrs. Bunker fairly cast herself into his arms.
+
+"Oh, Charles!" she cried. "He's fallen overboard!"
+
+"You would never think of such a thing, Amy," returned her husband, "if
+the ship wasn't entirely surrounded by water."
+
+"How can you joke, Charles?" she cried.
+
+"I don't joke. Do you know how high the bulwarks are? A little boy like
+Mun Bun could not have fallen overboard. He could not climb the
+bulwarks."
+
+"I never thought of that," agreed Mother Bunker more cheerfully.
+
+"He might have fallen into one of the holds; but I don't believe he has
+done even that. And there are so many officers and men going up and down
+the ladders that I believe he has not even gone off this deck. For
+somebody would be sure to see him."
+
+"Of course he didn't go ashore again?" suggested Rose, who with the
+other children had returned to the staterooms.
+
+"Oh, no. We had started--were well down the harbor in fact--before he
+disappeared."
+
+"Mun Bun is a reg'lar riddle," said Laddie. "He runs away and we can't
+find him; and we hunt for him and there he ain't. Then he comes back by
+himself--sometimes."
+
+"Is that a riddle?" asked his twin scornfully.
+
+"We-ell, maybe it will be when I get it fixed right."
+
+"I don't think much of it," declared Violet. "And I want to find Mun
+Bun."
+
+"Don't you other children get lost on this big ship," said Mother
+Bunker. "Don't go off this floor."
+
+"You mean deck, don't you, Mother?" asked Russ politely. "Floors are
+decks on board ship. Daddy said so."
+
+"You'd better go and look for him, Russ; and you, too, Rose," the
+anxious woman said, as Daddy Bunker strode away. "But you other three
+stay right here by me. I thought that traveling on the train with you
+children was sometimes trying; but living on shipboard is going to be
+worse."
+
+"Yes, Mother," said Rose gravely. "There are so many more places for Mun
+Bun to hide in aboard this ship. Come, Russ."
+
+The two older Bunker children did not know where to look for their
+little brother. But Russ had an idea. He usually did have pretty bright
+ideas, and Rose admitted this fact.
+
+"You know we got up early this morning," Russ said to his sister, "and
+we have been awful busy. And here it is noontime. Mun Bun doesn't
+usually have a nap until after lunch, but I guess he's gone somewhere
+and hidden away and gone to sleep. And when Mun Bun's asleep it is awful
+hard to wake him. You know that, Rose Bunker."
+
+"Yes, I know it," admitted Rose. "But where could he have gone?"
+
+Russ thought over that question pretty hard. Daddy Bunker would have
+said that the little lost boy's older brother was trying to put himself
+in Mun Bun's place and thinking Mun Bun's thoughts.
+
+Now, if Mun Bun had been very sleepy and had crept away to take a nap,
+as he often did after lunch when they were at home, without saying
+anything to Mother Bunker about it, where would he have gone to take
+that nap on this steamboat?
+
+Mun Bun was a bold little boy. He was seldom afraid of anything or
+anybody. Had he not instantly made friends with Sam, the strange
+colored boy, at Aunt Jo's house? So Russ knew he would not be afraid to
+run right out on the deck among the other passengers.
+
+"But that would not be a nice place to go for a nap," said Russ aloud.
+
+"What wouldn't?" asked Rose, quite surprised by her brother's sudden
+speech.
+
+"Out here on the deck. No, he didn't come out here at all," said Russ,
+with confidence.
+
+Russ was an ingenious boy, as we have seen. Once having got the right
+idea in his head he proceeded to think it out.
+
+"Come on back, Rose," he said suddenly, seizing his sister's hand.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To find Mun Bun."
+
+"But he isn't with Mother!"
+
+"I bet--No, I don't mean that word," said Russ. "I mean I _think_ he is
+with Mother, only she doesn't know it."
+
+"Why, Russ Bunker, that sounds awfully silly!"
+
+But she followed after him in much haste. They came running to the two
+staterooms which Daddy Bunker had engaged. Mother and the other
+children were the center of a group of sympathetic people in the
+corridor.
+
+"Oh! did you find him?" Rose cried.
+
+"Of course not," said Vi. "Where should we find him?"
+
+"Here," announced Russ, pushing through the crowd.
+
+"Of course he isn't here, Russ," said Vi. "Can't you count us? Mun Bun
+is not here."
+
+"Well, let me see," said the boy, and he pushed into the bigger
+stateroom where his mother had been working when Mun Bun disappeared.
+Then he opened the door between that room and the other room. It was all
+quiet in there. He glanced into the two berths. There was nobody in
+either of them.
+
+"You are mistaken, Russ," whispered Rose, looking in at the door he had
+left open. "He can't be here. Daddy has just come and says the captain
+has promised to have the ship searched."
+
+But without making any reply Russ Bunker went down on his knees, looked
+under the lower berth, and then stretched an arm under and grabbed
+something with his hand.
+
+A sleepy squeal came from under the berth. Russ, laughing, dragged at
+the chubby ankle his hand had grasped. Mun Bun's cross, sleepy voice was
+raised in protest:
+
+"Don't you! Don't you! Let me be!"
+
+Mother and Daddy Bunker came running.
+
+"That blessed baby!" cried his mother.
+
+"That pestiferous youngster!" exclaimed his father.
+
+But he smiled happily, too, when Mun Bun was completely drawn out from
+under the berth by Russ and was in his mother's arms again. She sat down
+and rocked him to and fro while he "came awake" and looked around at the
+others.
+
+"You have begun well," said Daddy Bunker gravely. "Stirring up the whole
+ship's company before we are out of sight of land! I must hurry and tell
+the captain to call off his sea-dogs. The lost is found."
+
+"What are sea-dogs?" demanded Vi. "Do they have dogs at sea to hunt for
+lost children--dogs like Alexis?"
+
+Nobody answered that question, but Rose and Russ, trotting along the
+deck beside their father, were more fortunate in getting their questions
+answered.
+
+"Are we really going to sail out of sight of land, Daddy?" asked Rose.
+
+"We certainly are," said Mr. Bunker.
+
+"But there is a lot of land," said the girl, pointing. "We can't lose
+all that, can we?"
+
+"That is just what we are going to do. You watch. By and by the land
+will be only a line on the horizon, and then it will fade out of sight
+entirely."
+
+So Russ and Rose remained on deck to watch the land disappear. Rose
+expected it to go something like a "fade-out" on the moving picture
+screen. The disappearance of the land proved to be a very long matter,
+however, and the two children went below for lunch when the first call
+came.
+
+The purser had arranged for the Bunker family at a side table where they
+could be as retired as though they were at home. There were not many
+other children aboard, and the purser liked children anyway. So between
+his good offices and that of the colored stewards, the Bunkers were well
+provided for.
+
+Even the captain--a big, bold-looking man with a gray mustache and lots
+of glittering buttons on his blue coat--stopped at the Bunker table to
+ask about Mun Bun.
+
+"So that is the fellow I was going to put about my ship for and go back
+to Boston to see if he had been left on the dock!" he said very gruffly,
+but smiling with his eyes at Mun Bun, who smiled back. "He looks like
+too big a boy to make such a disturbance on a man's ship."
+
+"Oh, I don't think, Captain Briggs, he will do it again," said Mother
+Bunker.
+
+"I dess wanted to sleep," murmured Mun Bun, holding up his spoon.
+
+"Next time you want your watch below," said Captain Briggs, shaking his
+head, "you report to me first. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, Ma'am," said Mun Bun, quite sure that he had said the right thing
+although they all laughed at him.
+
+Mother Bunker kept the little fellow close to her thereafter; but Vi and
+Laddie followed the two older children out on deck. There was a
+comfortably filled passenger list on the _Kammerboy_; but the wind was
+rather heavy that afternoon and many of them remained in the cabins. But
+the four children had a great game of hide and seek all over the
+forward deck.
+
+Finally Daddy Bunker appeared from aft to make sure that none of the
+quartette was lost. He took Laddie and Vi below with him after a time
+and the two older children were left alone. They found seats in the lee
+of what the ship's men called "the house" and sat down to rest and talk.
+But every now and then one of them jumped up to look astern to see if
+the land had disappeared, as Daddy Bunker said it would.
+
+"It's a long time going," said Rose.
+
+"Well, there is a lot of it to go. Don't you remember," said Russ, "how
+big the North American continent is in the geography?"
+
+"Oh! Is that it?" cried Rose.
+
+"Yes. We've got to lose the whole top part of North America," her
+confident brother declared.
+
+There was some sort of officer (he had brass buttons and wore a cap, so
+Russ and Rose knew he must be an officer) pacing the deck, back and
+forth, not far from their chairs. Every time he came near he threw a
+pleasant word to the brother and sister. Russ and Rose began to ask him
+questions and sometimes trotted beside him as he paced his lookout
+watch. Violet would have delighted in this man, for he seemed to know
+almost everything about ships and the sea and was perfectly willing to
+answer questions.
+
+Rose asked him if, after they had lost the land, they would find the
+Gulf Stream that Daddy Bunker had told them about.
+
+"Pretty soon thereafter, little lady," said the man.
+
+"And--and does it have banks?" pursued Rose.
+
+"Does what have banks?" the man asked, in surprise. "The Gulf Stream?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"No," chuckled the sailor. "It's not like a river--not just like one."
+
+"Then how do you know when you come to the Gulf Stream?" demanded Russ.
+"I should think you'd sail over it without knowing."
+
+But the sailor told them that the stream, or current, was very broad,
+that the water was much warmer than the surrounding ocean, and that the
+Gulf Stream was even a different color from the colder ocean.
+
+"Oh, we won't miss it," declared the man, shaking his head.
+
+Just then Rose saw something out over the ocean, sailing low and making
+a great flapping of black wings. She pointed eagerly:
+
+"There's a buzzard, Russ--like those we saw in Texas."
+
+"Oh, no, little lady, that isn't a buzzard," said the sailor.
+
+"It must be a gull. There were lots of them back in the harbor, you
+know, Rose," her brother rejoined.
+
+"And it's not a gull," said the man, squinting his eyes to look at the
+distant bird. "It's too big. I declare! I think that's an eagle."
+
+"Oh! An eagle like those on top of the flagstaffs?" cried Russ.
+
+"And on the gold pieces?" added Rose, for she had a gold piece that had
+been given her on her last birthday.
+
+"No, not that kind of eagle," said the man. "But he's related. Yes, sir;
+it's a sea-eagle; some call 'em, I guess rightly, ospreys. They're
+fishers, but they can't roost on the sea. That one's a long way off
+shore. Something is the matter with him."
+
+"Do you suppose he's hungry?" asked Rose doubtfully.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if hunger drove him out here so far from land," said
+the sailor, smiling. "But he's been hurt. You can see how his left wing
+droops. Yes, something has happened to that bird."
+
+The bird beat his way heavily toward the ship. First it rose a little
+way in the air, and then it slid down as though almost helpless, beating
+its good wing prodigiously to keep from falling into the water.
+
+"He's making bad weather of it," said the sailor. "Poor chap. If he
+comes aboard----"
+
+"Oh! we'll feed him and mend his wing," cried Rose. "He's just
+like--Why, Russ Bunker! that poor bird is just what Aunt Jo called poor
+Sam, a tramp. That is what he is."
+
+"A sea-going tramp, I guess," said the sailor, laughing.
+
+But he watched the coming sea bird quite as interestedly as did the two
+children. The creature seemed to have selected the steamship as its
+objective point, and it beat its good wing furiously so as to get into
+the course of the _Kammerboy_.
+
+"Can we have the bird if it gets aboard, Mr. Officer?" asked Russ
+eagerly.
+
+"If I can catch it without killing it--for they are very fierce
+birds--it shall be yours," promised the man.
+
+At once, therefore, the eagerness and interest of Russ and Rose Bunker
+were vastly increased. They clung to the rail and watched the
+approaching bird with anxious eyes. It was coming head on toward the bow
+of the ship. Would the _Kammerboy_ get past so swiftly that the
+sea-eagle could not reach it?
+
+The uncertainty of this, and the evident effort of the great bird to fly
+a little farther, greatly excited the two older of the six little
+Bunkers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS
+
+
+The steamship was pursuing her course so swiftly, but so easily, that
+Russ and Rose Bunker scarcely realized that the chances of the big
+bird's landing on the craft were very slim. The children raced along the
+deck toward the bows, believing that the big bird would alight there.
+Their friend, the lookout officer, however, remained at his post.
+
+The big wings of the great sea-eagle beat the air heavily. They were
+covered with almost black feathers above while the feathers on the under
+side of the wings were pearl-gray, a contrast that Rose said was
+"awfully pretty."
+
+"I don't see anything pretty about that poor, struggling bird," said
+Russ shortly. "He's hurt bad. I hope he gets here all right, but--Oh!
+There he goes!"
+
+It was a fact that the big bird almost fell into the sea, being
+weakened. The bow of the _Kammerboy_ swept past the struggling creature.
+Russ and Rose lifted a joined complaint:
+
+"Oh, he's drowned! He drowned!"
+
+It was true that the bird was not a water-fowl and, as the officer had
+told the children, could not "roost" on the sea. It was not web-footed,
+so could not swim. And with an injured wing it was wonderful that it had
+kept up as long as it had, for it was now far, far from the shore.
+
+But the bird had wonderful courage. Although plunged into the water and
+suffering one wave to break and pour over him, the great bird sprang
+into the air once more. He would not give up the fight! Russ and Rose
+saw the flashing eyes, the hooked beak parted, and every other evidence
+of the creature's putting forth a last remaining effort to reach a
+secure resting place for his feet.
+
+And he made it! He beat his powerful wings for the last time and shot up
+over the rail of the steamship. The children shouted with delight. Other
+passengers had been attracted to the place. The officer who had made
+himself the friend of Russ and Rose was prepared for the bird's coming
+inboard. He ran with a piece of strong netting in his hands, and as the
+bird came thumping down on the deck, the man cast this net about the
+creature.
+
+Then what a flapping and croaking and struggling there was! A sailor ran
+forward with a boat-stretcher and wanted to hit the bird; but Russ and
+Rose screamed, and the officer sent the man away.
+
+"We're not going to kill the bird. These little folks want it alive,"
+said the officer. "And so we are going to make a prisoner of it and mend
+that wing if we can."
+
+"Aye, aye, Quartermaster," said the sailor who had tried to interfere.
+
+"See if you can find a big poultry cage," said the officer. "We had live
+turkeys aboard for the Thanksgiving run, and what would hold a turkey
+ought to hold a sea-eagle. Lively now!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, and hurried away.
+
+While they waited for the cage the quartermaster warned the two Bunker
+children to remain well back from the struggling bird, for it might get
+away.
+
+"He is certainly a strong bird," said one of the other passengers,
+looking on, too, from a safe distance. "Don't you think he'd better be
+killed, Officer?"
+
+"Oh, no! Oh, no!" chorused Russ and Rose.
+
+"Of course not. You're one of those folks, sir, that would kill an
+American eagle, too--the bird that is supposed to represent the best
+fighting spirit of this country. No, sir! this bird is going to have his
+chance. If we can heal his wounds, we will set him free again--hey,
+little folks?"
+
+"Of course we will," said Russ stoutly.
+
+"Yes, sir! we'll set him free," agreed Rose. "But when you do it I am
+going down to the stateroom. I think he is pretty savage."
+
+It was quite true. The injured bird was savage. But when Daddy Bunker
+heard about the capture and saw the sea-eagle in its cage, he pointed
+out the fact that there was good reason for the bird to be savage if it
+had a broken wing.
+
+"You would be cross if you had a broken arm, Russ," Daddy Bunker said
+soberly, "So come away and let the poor bird alone for a while. Maybe it
+will eat and drink if it is not watched so closely."
+
+It was found that a bullet had passed through the fleshy part of the
+great bird's wing. The quartermaster declared that, without much doubt,
+the bird had been shot at from a small boat and by some idle and
+thoughtless "sportsman."
+
+"It is wrong," Daddy Bunker said, "to call such people 'sportsmen.'
+There is no real sport in shooting at and laming an inoffensive
+creature, one that cannot be made use of for food. That excuse does not
+hold in this case."
+
+"True word, sir," said the quartermaster. "It was a wicked trick, I'll
+say. But I think the bird will recover very shortly. Perhaps the little
+folks can see the bird released before we get to Charleston."
+
+"Not me!" cried Rose again. "I am going right downstairs when you open
+that cage and set him free. He has got such a wicked eye."
+
+And truly, interested as she was in the poor bird, Rose Bunker did not
+often go near him during the time he was in captivity. She found other
+things to interest her about the swiftly sailing _Kammerboy_.
+
+So did all the other Bunkers. For what interested the six little Bunkers
+was sure to interest Daddy and Mother Bunker. It just _had_ to. As
+Mother Bunker observed, Mun Bun was not the only one of her flock over
+whom she must keep pretty close watch.
+
+They were really well behaved children; but mischief seemed to crop up
+so very easily in their lives. Daddy said that any Bunker could get into
+more adventures nailed into a wooden cage no bigger than the turkey
+crate the great sea-eagle was housed in than other children could find
+in a ten acre lot!
+
+Living at sea on this great steamship was a good deal like living in a
+hotel. And the little Bunkers had lived in hotels, and liked the fun of
+it. Traveling by water was even more fun than traveling on a train. The
+_Kammerboy_ was a fine big ship and there was so much to see and to
+learn that was new and surprising that that first night none of them
+really wanted to go to bed.
+
+Although even that was a new experience. The staterooms were different
+from the berths in a sleeping car. Laddie thought they ought all to be
+tied into their berths so, if the ship rolled, they would not fall out.
+
+"For I don't like falling out of bed," he said. "I always bump myself."
+
+The steamship did not roll that night, however. At least if it did the
+little Bunkers did not know it. They slept soundly and were up bright
+and early in the morning and were all dressed and out on deck in the
+sunshine long before the first breakfast call came.
+
+They made a call on the captive sea-eagle before breakfast and he seemed
+to be recovering, for he snapped his beak viciously when they drew near
+and spread his wings as far as the cage would allow.
+
+"I don't think he's very nice," said Rose. "He doesn't seem to know we
+were kind to him."
+
+"What are you going to do with him, Rose?" asked Vi.
+
+"Let him go when his wing is well."
+
+"But I guess he doesn't know that," said Laddie. "If he did he'd feel
+better about it."
+
+"He bites," said Mun Bun reflectively. "I'd rather have Alexis. Alexis
+doesn't bite."
+
+"Alexis would bite if he thought anybody was going to hurt him," said
+Russ. "But we can't make this eagle understand."
+
+"Why not?" immediately demanded Vi.
+
+"Because we can't talk bird-talk," replied Rose, giggling.
+
+"When I go to school I'll learn bird-talk," announced Mun Bun. "And I'll
+learn to talk dog-talk and cat-talk, too. Then they'll all know what I
+mean."
+
+"That is a splendid idea, dear," Rose said warmly. "You do just that."
+
+"S'posing they don't teach those languages where you go to school, Mun
+Bun?" suggested Laddie gravely. "I guess they don't in all schools. They
+don't in the Pineville school, do they, Russ?"
+
+"I'll ask Mother to send me to a school where they do," declared Mun Bun
+before Russ could reply. "I don't need to learn to talk our kind of
+talk. I know that already. But birds and dogs and cats are different."
+
+"You talk pretty good, I guess, Mun Bun," said Russ. Mun Bun was quite
+proud of this. He did not know that he often said "t" for "c" and "w"
+for "r." "But you will be a long time learning to speak so that this
+bird could understand."
+
+"Well, I shall try," the littlest Bunker declared confidently.
+
+Anyhow, it was decided that the sea-eagle would have to be released
+before Mun Bun learned to talk the eagle language. The quartermaster who
+was Russ and Rose's particular friend, came along with some raw meat
+scraps for the big bird; but the children had to go to breakfast before
+the bird gobbled these up. He was very shy.
+
+Later in the forenoon Russ and Rose were walking along the deck near a
+little house amidships and they heard a funny crackling sound--a
+crackling and snapping like a fresh wood fire. They stopped and looked
+all around.
+
+"I don't see any smoke," said Russ. "But there's a fire somewhere."
+
+"What is that mast with the wires up there for, Russ?" asked his sister,
+looking upward.
+
+"Oh! Daddy told me that was the wireless mast," Russ exclaimed.
+
+"But that can't be," said Rose warmly. "It has wires hitched to it; so
+it can't be wire_less_."
+
+"You know, Rose, they talk from ship to ship, and to the shore, by
+wireless."
+
+"What does that mean?" returned the girl. "A telegraph?"
+
+"That's it!" cried Russ. "And I guess that is what the crackling is.
+Listen!"
+
+"Isn't it a fire, then, that we hear?" for the crackling sound
+continued.
+
+"That's the electric spark," said her brother eagerly. "That is what it
+must be. Let's peep into this room, Rose. It is where the telegraph
+machine is."
+
+There was a window near by, but as they approached it the two children
+found a door in the wireless house, too, and that door was open. A man
+in his shirt-sleeves and with a green shade over his eyes and something
+that looked like a rubber cap strapped to his head was sitting on a
+bench in front of some strange looking machinery.
+
+He was writing on a pad and the crackling sound came from an electric
+spark that flickered back and forth in the machine before him. Russ and
+Rose gazed in, wide-eyed.
+
+At length the crackling stopped and the spark went out with a sputter.
+The man stopped writing and wheeled about in his seat. He saw them
+looking in at the doorway.
+
+"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "If here aren't two of the little Bunkers. Do you
+want to send a message by wireless?"
+
+"Thank you," said Rose promptly. "I think it would be nice to send word
+to Aunt Jo that we are all right and that the ship is all right and that
+we caught an eagle."
+
+"It costs money to send messages," said the wiser Russ.
+
+"Oh! Does it?" asked his sister.
+
+"I am afraid it does," replied the operator, laughing. "You had better
+ask Mr. Bunker about sending a message to your aunt, after all. Some
+messages we do not charge for. But the rules demand that all private
+messages must be paid for in advance."
+
+"Well, then, I guess we'd better write a letter to Aunt Jo," said Rose,
+who was practical, after all. "That won't cost anything but a two cent
+stamp."
+
+"Oh, my!" laughed Russ. "Going to mail it in the ocean?"
+
+"We'll mail it when we get to Charleston," said Rose cheerfully. "I
+guess Aunt Jo won't mind."
+
+Just at this moment there seemed to be some excitement on the deck up
+forward. Two officers who stood on what the children had learned was
+called the quarter were talking excitedly to one of the lookout men.
+They were pointing ahead, and one of the officers put a double-barreled
+glass to his eyes and stared ahead.
+
+The operator came to the doorway of his cabin and looked forward, too.
+He could see over the bulwarks and marked what had caused the
+excitement.
+
+"Ah-ha!" he said. "Come up here, little folks, and you can see it too."
+
+Russ and Rose were quite excited. They stepped up into the doorway
+beside the wireless operator. They both saw at once the two-masted
+vessel that was rolling sluggishly in the sea. Her rail seemed almost
+level with the water and from one of the masts several flags were
+strung.
+
+"What is it?" cried Russ. "That ship looks as though it was going
+down."
+
+"I guess you've hit it right. She does look so," said the operator. "She
+has sprung a leak, sure enough. And she's set distress signals."
+
+"Those flags?" asked Russ. "Do those flags say she is sinking?"
+
+"Those flags ask for help. That schooner doesn't carry a wireless outfit
+as this vessel does. Few small vessels do. I guess we will have to help
+her out," said the wireless operator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A GREAT DEAL OF EXCITEMENT
+
+
+Russ and Rose Bunker were very much excited by the discovery of the
+schooner in distress. They were actually afraid that the vessel was
+going to sink in the ocean right before their eyes!
+
+But the wireless operator reassured them. He said it probably would not
+sink at all. He seemed to have learned at first glance a lot about that
+schooner.
+
+"It's lumber laden, from some Maine port. Probably going to Baltimore,
+or some port down that way. They have jettisoned her deck load, and now
+she'll just float soggily. But her sails will never carry her to port."
+
+Russ eagerly asked what "jettisoned" meant, and the man explained that
+the crew had pushed overboard all the deckload of lumber. The hold was
+filled with the same kind of cargo, and of course lumber would not
+really sink. But the dirty, torn sails which the children saw did not
+promise to hold wind enough to propel the water-logged craft.
+
+"She's got to have help," said the wireless operator, and Russ and Rose
+realized that the _Kammerboy_ was slowing down.
+
+"Are we going to stop?" asked Rose. "Will they take the men off that
+ship into our small boats? Oh, it's a regular shipwreck, Russ!"
+
+"Not much it isn't, little girl," said the operator. "And this steamer
+can't stop to do much in the way of rescue. The crew wouldn't want to
+leave that schooner in good weather, anyway."
+
+"What shall we do, then?" Rose asked again.
+
+Just then their friend, the quartermaster, hurried up with a written
+paper which he handed to the operator.
+
+"Get that out, Sparks," he said, and the operator turned swiftly to his
+instrument and fitted on his cap and "earlaps" again. At least, Rose
+said they were "earlaps."
+
+"Can't we help that schooner?" asked Russ of the quartermaster.
+
+"They don't need us to help them. Only to send a message," was the
+reply, as the wireless spark began to crackle again. "We are telling the
+Government about her plight and a revenue cutter will be sent out to tow
+the schooner into some near port. She has drifted a good way off shore,
+but the weather is settled and there is nothing to fear."
+
+In a few moments the operator had sent the message and got a reply.
+
+"Right out of the air," breathed Rose wonderingly. "I think that is very
+funny, Russ. If that mast isn't exactly wireless, it is almost wireless.
+Anyway, the wires aren't long enough to take much of a message, I should
+think."
+
+This was a mystery that Russ could not expound, so they went to hunt up
+Daddy Bunker for further information regarding the wonder of the
+wireless service. The other four little Bunkers were already greatly
+interested in the deeply rolling lumber schooner.
+
+After more signals with flags had been exchanged between the steamship
+the children were on and the schooner, the former picked up speed again.
+Soon the masts of the schooner were almost out of sight; but the little
+Bunkers continued to discuss the strange incident.
+
+"I wish we could have put out boats and saved them," said Rose. "Like a
+regular wreck, I mean."
+
+"The crew of the schooner would be castaways, then," Russ mused. "I like
+to read stories about castaways."
+
+"Robinson Crusoe had goats," remarked Laddie. "I like goats."
+
+"You wouldn't like goats if they butted you, would you?" asked Vi.
+
+"All goats don't butt," said her twin with assurance.
+
+"Have those men got goats on that wabbly schooner?" Margy demanded. "I
+didn't see any."
+
+"Of course they haven't," Rose replied.
+
+"Then how could they be castaways?" put in Vi promptly. "If castaways
+have goats----"
+
+"Oh! you don't understand," declared Russ. "They only get the goats
+after they get to the desert islands. That is what Laddie means."
+
+"Of course," agreed Laddie.
+
+"Do they eat 'em?" Margy asked.
+
+"Only if they need to," Russ told her, with superior wisdom. "Of course,
+they most always make pets of them."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I guess," said Russ, becoming reflective, "that we might play at
+castaway."
+
+"When we get ashore, do you mean, Russ?" Vi asked.
+
+"Right here."
+
+"No," said Vi. "We'd get our feet wet. We can't play on the ocean, can
+we?"
+
+"We can play on this deck. The officers won't mind. Now all of you come
+up on to this life raft. We'll play you are floating around on the sea
+waiting for somebody to come along in a boat and rescue you."
+
+"Who is going to be the rescuer?" Vi asked.
+
+"I am."
+
+"Are you sure you can rescue us, Russ?" she demanded. "Where's your
+boat?"
+
+Russ pointed to a long lifeboat covered with canvas which lay some
+distance from the life-raft. "That will be my boat," he said eagerly.
+"Rose, you must be in command of the raft. Of course, you have been
+drifting about a long time and you are all hungry and thirsty."
+
+"Mun Bun wants bwead and milk," put in the littlest Bunker, on hearing
+this.
+
+"Well," said Laddie soberly, "you've got to want it a lot before you get
+rescued, Mun Bun. Castaways have to drink the ocean and eat their shoes
+before anybody rescues them."
+
+At this Mun Bun set up a wail. It seemed that his shoes were brand new
+and he was very proud of them. He would not consider eating them for a
+moment!
+
+"Never mind," said Rose, hugging him. "If you get so very hungry before
+Russ rescues us, you can chew on your belt. That is what Laddie means."
+
+Mun Bun observed his belt with round eyes. It seemed to him, and he
+confessed it to Rose, that he would have to be awfully hungry to chew
+that belt. The others entered into the spirit of the play and when Vi
+chanced to step off the raft her twin and Margy seized her and screamed.
+
+"You'll be drowned, Vi Bunker!" said Margy.
+
+"You'll more than get your feet wet if you don't stay on the raft," her
+twin scolded. "And, then, maybe there are sharks."
+
+"Sharks?" put in Margy.
+
+"Yes, big sharks."
+
+"What do they do?" asked Margy, who had not heard so much about this
+castaway play as the older children.
+
+"Big fish," said Laddie promptly.
+
+"I like fish," Margy announced. "You know, Grandma Bell had goldfish.
+They were pretty."
+
+"And I like fish to eat," said Vi. "Are sharks good to eat?"
+
+"Maybe they will eat you," warned Laddie, who had entered into the play
+with all his thought and interest.
+
+"Oh, Laddie Bunker! They wouldn't," cried Vi.
+
+"Well, they might. Anyway, you've got to be afraid of the sharks and not
+step off the raft."
+
+Meanwhile Russ had gone over to the lifeboat. He had not asked even his
+friend, the quartermaster, if he could play in that boat. But he saw no
+reason why he could not, as nobody seemed to be using it.
+
+The canvas cover was tied down with many strings; but the knots slipped
+very easily and the boy pulled out three of the knots and then laid back
+a corner of the canvas. It was dark inside the boat, and before Russ
+crept into it as he intended, he bent over the gunwale and peered in.
+
+Suddenly he gasped, and pulled his head back. He was startled, but Russ
+Bunker was a courageous boy. He had seen something--or he thought he had
+seen something--squirming in the brown darkness inside the boat.
+
+He waited a little, and then put his head under the canvas and took a
+long look. Was there something or somebody there? Russ was determined to
+find out!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RUSS'S SECRET
+
+
+Russ Bunker looked very funny--Rose said he did--when he suddenly came
+back to the raft. Vi and Margy shouted to him that he would be drowned;
+and Laddie said something more about sharks. But their older brother
+paid little attention to them.
+
+He had tied the cover down over the lifeboat again and he would not look
+toward it, not even when Rose asked him what the matter was and if he
+was going to leave all five of the castaways on the raft to starve and
+be thirsty until luncheon time.
+
+"I guess this isn't a very good place to play castaway, after all," said
+Russ gravely. "And, anyway," he added, with sudden animation, "there's
+the man with the gong. We'll have to run down and get cleaned up before
+we go to the table."
+
+"Dear me!" complained Laddie, "we never can have any fun. We always have
+to stop and eat or go to bed, or something. Even on this ship we have
+to."
+
+Laddie thought that the most important thing in the world was play. Rose
+watched Russ with a puzzled look. She felt that something had happened
+that her brother did not want to talk about. Russ had a secret.
+
+The latter did not even look again at the lifeboat as the little party
+passed it on the way to the staterooms. But Russ Bunker's mind was fixed
+upon that boat and what he had seen in it, just the same. He really
+could not decide what to do. He was very much puzzled.
+
+Even his mother and father noticed that Russ was rather silent at the
+lunch table; but he said he was all right. He had something to think
+about, he told them. Daddy and Mother Bunker looked at each other and
+smiled. Russ had a way of thinking over things before he put his small
+troubles before them, and they suspected that nothing much was the
+matter.
+
+But Rose whispered to her brother before they left the table.
+
+"I think that isn't very polite, Russ Bunker."
+
+Russ looked startled.
+
+"What isn't polite?" he asked almost angrily.
+
+"I saw you do that," she said, in the same admonishing way.
+
+"Do what?" he demanded boldly.
+
+"Put those rolls and the apple in your pocket. You wouldn't do that at
+home."
+
+"Well, we're not at home, are we?" he said. "You just keep still, Rose
+Bunker."
+
+Russ ran away directly after he had been excused from the table and they
+did not find him again for quite a while. He appeared with his usual
+cheerful whistle on his lips and made up a fine game of hide and seek on
+the afterdeck. But it was noticeable, if anybody had thought to notice
+it at all, that Russ kept them all from going near the lifeboat and the
+raft, and he would not hear to their playing castaway at all.
+
+"Why not?" asked Vi.
+
+"Oh, that's too old," Russ declared. "We can play that at any time.
+Let's go and listen to the wireless spark. When we get to that
+plantation where we are going maybe I can set up a wireless mast and we
+will send messages."
+
+"To Grandma Bell? And to Aunt Jo?" asked Vi.
+
+"Oh!" cried Laddie, "let's send one to Cowboy Jack. I know he'd be glad
+to hear from us."
+
+So Russ turned the interest of his brothers and sisters away from the
+castaway play. All but Rose. She wondered just what it was that was
+troubling Russ and what the lifeboat had to do with it.
+
+But there were so many new things to be interested in aboard the
+steamship that even Rose forgot to be puzzled after a while. Their
+friend, the quartermaster, took them all over the ship. They saw the
+engines working, and peered down into the stoke hole which was very hot
+and where the firemen worked in their undershirts and trousers and a
+great clanging of shovels and furnace doors was going on.
+
+"I guess the steampipes always hum on this boat," remarked Laddie. "It
+is not like it was at Aunt Jo's before that Sam boy came to make the
+furnace go."
+
+Whether the steampipes hummed or not, the children found that it was
+quite balmy on the boat. Although a strong breeze almost always blew, it
+was a warm one. They had long since entered into the Gulf Stream and the
+warm current seemed to warm the air more and more as the _Kammerboy_
+sailed southward.
+
+It was only two hours after passing the schooner that was in distress
+when they "spoke," as the quartermaster called it, the revenue cutter
+which had been sent to help the disabled vessel, steaming swiftly toward
+the point of the compass where the schooner was wallowing. Mr. Sparks,
+as the wireless operator was called, had exchanged messages with the
+Government vessel and he told the little Bunkers that the lumber
+schooner would be towed into Hampton Roads, from which the cutter had
+come.
+
+All this time Russ Bunker stayed away from the covered boat on the
+hurricane deck. Daddy Bunker, as well as Rose, began to wonder at the
+boy's odd behavior. When dinner time came, Mr. Bunker watched his oldest
+son sharply.
+
+"Can I go out on deck again for a while?" asked Russ politely, as he
+moved back his chair at the end of the meal.
+
+"I don't see why you can't. And Rose too," said their mother. "It is not
+yet dark. But you other children must come with me."
+
+They had all played so hard that it was no cross for the little ones to
+prepare for bed. Mun Bun and Margy were already nodding.
+
+When Rose looked about for Russ, he had disappeared again. So had Daddy.
+They had both slipped out of the saloon cabin without a word.
+
+Russ was hurrying along the runway between the house and the bulwarks,
+and going forward, when Daddy Bunker came around a corner suddenly and
+confronted him. Russ was so startled that he almost cried out.
+
+"Let's see what you have in your pockets, Russ," said Mr. Bunker
+seriously, yet with twinkling eyes. "I noticed that you feared there was
+going to be a famine aboard this steamer, and that you believe in
+preparing for it. Let me see the contents of your pockets."
+
+"Oh, Father!" gasped Russ.
+
+"Aren't afraid, are you, Russ?" asked Daddy Bunker. "If you weren't
+afraid to take the food you needn't be afraid to show it."
+
+"It--it was all mine," said Russ, stammeringly. "I only took what was
+passed to me."
+
+"I know it," said Daddy. "That is one reason why I want to know the
+rights of this mystery. I can't have my son starving himself for the
+sake of feeding a sea-eagle."
+
+"Oh! It isn't the eagle, Daddy."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"It--it isn't an it at all!" exclaimed Russ Bunker and he was so very
+much worried that he was almost in tears.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked his father.
+
+"I--I can't tell you," Russ faltered. "It isn't about me at all. It's
+somebody else, and I oughtn't to tell you, Daddy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHARLESTON AND THE FLEET
+
+
+A boy hates to tell on another person if he is the right kind of boy.
+And Russ was the right kind of boy.
+
+Daddy Bunker knew this; so he did not scold. He just said quietly:
+
+"Very well, my boy. If you are mixed up in something of which you cannot
+tell your father, but which you are sure is all right, then go ahead. I
+am always ready to advise and help you, but if you are sure you do not
+need my advice, go ahead."
+
+He turned quietly away. But these words and his cheerful acceptance of
+Russ' way of thinking rather startled the boy, used as he was to Daddy
+Bunker's ways. He called after him:
+
+"Daddy! I don't know whether I am right or wrong. Only--only I know
+somebody that needs this bread and meat because he is hungry. He's
+_real_ hungry. Can't I give it to him?"
+
+"I think that hunger should be appeased first. Go ahead," said Mr.
+Bunker, but still quite seriously. "Then if you feel that you can come
+and tell me about it, all right."
+
+At that Russ hurried away, much relieved. Rose came into sight and would
+have run after him, but Daddy Bunker stopped her.
+
+"Don't chase him now. He has something particular to do, Rose."
+
+"I think that's real mean!" exclaimed Rose. "He's hiding something from
+me!"
+
+"My!" said Daddy, "do you think your brother should tell you everything
+he knows or does?"
+
+"Why not?" retorted Rose. "I'm sure, Daddy, he is welcome to know
+everything I know."
+
+"Are you sure? Moreover, perhaps he does not care to know all your
+secrets," said Mr. Bunker.
+
+"Anyhow, you must learn, Rose, that other people have a right to their
+own private mysteries; you must not be inquisitive. Russ has got
+something on his mind, it is true; but without doubt we shall all know
+what it is by and by."
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Rose, with almost a gasp. She could not quite
+understand her father's reasoning.
+
+Russ Bunker appeared after a while, looking still very grave indeed for
+a boy of his age. Daddy kept from saying or doing anything to suggest
+that he was curious; but Rose found it hard not to tease her brother to
+explain his taking food from the table and hiding it in his pockets.
+
+"Of course he can't eat it," she whispered to herself. "And he doesn't
+give it to the eagle. Who ever heard of an eagle eating pound cake with
+raisins and citron in it? And I saw Russ take a piece of that.
+
+"But he didn't eat much himself. I wonder if he is sick and is hiding it
+from Mother and Daddy?"
+
+She watched her brother very closely. After a time he seemed more
+cheerful, and they ran races on the open deck. They knew many of the
+passengers by this time to speak to. And there were some few other
+children of about their own ages, too. They talked with these other
+boys and girls, found out where they lived when they were at home, and
+learned where they were going to, when they left the _Kammerboy_ at
+Charleston or Savannah.
+
+Just the same Rose knew that her brother was disturbed in his mind.
+Daddy Bunker's words to her had been sufficient, and Rose said nothing.
+But she began to believe that she should sympathize with Russ instead of
+being vexed with him. He did look so serious when he was not talking.
+
+The evening wore on. The moon rose and silvered the almost pond-like sea
+through which the _Kammerboy_ steamed. Even the children were impressed
+by the beauty of the seascape. Far, far away against the rising moon
+appeared a fairylike ship sailing across its face, each spar and mast
+pricked out as black as jet.
+
+"Just like those silhouettes Aunt Jo cut out for us," declared Rose.
+"Did you ever see anything so cute?"
+
+Russ didn't have much to say about it. He was very grave again. Bedtime
+came, and the brother and sister went below. The little folks, Margy
+and Mun Bun, were in the first stateroom with Mother. Already the twins
+were fast asleep in the second stateroom. Rose was going to sleep with
+Vi in the lower berth and Russ was to crawl in beside Laddie in the
+upper.
+
+But Russ did not seem in a hurry to undress and go to bed. Mother
+brushed Rose's hair for her and the girl got ready for bed in the larger
+stateroom. When she went into the other room there was Russ sitting on
+the stool with only his jacket off.
+
+"Why, Russ Bunker! aren't you going to bed to-night?" demanded Rose.
+
+"I suppose so," admitted Russ.
+
+"Well, you'd better hurry. I want you to put out the light. How do you
+suppose we can sleep?"
+
+Russ reached up and snapped out the electric bulb as Rose threw aside
+her bath-gown and hopped into bed beside her sister.
+
+"You can't see to undress in the dark, Russ," scolded Rose.
+
+Russ did not say a word. He got up and walked into his mother's and
+father's stateroom, and greatly to his sister's vexation he closed the
+door between the two rooms.
+
+Daddy Bunker had just come in.
+
+"Why, Russ," said he, "haven't you gone to bed yet?"
+
+"No, sir," said Russ. "And I guess I can't. I've got to talk to you
+first. I guess I can't go to sleep till I've told you something."
+
+Daddy smiled at Mother Bunker but nodded to Russ.
+
+"All right," he said. "We will go out on deck again and take a turn up
+and down and you shall tell me all about it."
+
+Mother made no objection, although the hour was getting late, and she
+smiled, too, when she saw Russ slip into his jacket again and follow his
+father out of the stateroom. On the deck Russ burst out with:
+
+"I promised I wouldn't tell anybody. But when I gave him his supper I
+told him I'd just have to tell my father, I was afraid; and he said he
+didn't have any father and he didn't know whether fathers wouldn't
+'snitch,' and I said my father wouldn't."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Bunker gravely. "You recommended me as being a safe
+person to trust a secret with. I am glad you did so."
+
+"Yes, sir. For you see he's got to be fed until we get to Charleston."
+
+"Do you mind telling me who this new friend of yours is, and where he
+is, and why he must be fed?"
+
+"He's a sailor boy. He belongs on a destroyer and got left at Boston
+when his ship started for Charleston two days ago."
+
+"He is in the Navy?" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, sir. And he spent all his money and did not know how to get down
+there where the fleet will be in winter quarters, he says, unless he
+went secretly on one of these steamers."
+
+"He is stealing his passage, then?" asked Daddy Bunker.
+
+"I suppose he is, Daddy," said Russ, ruefully enough. "He is in a boat,
+all covered up with canvas. Up there on the deck. I can show you. I
+found him quite by myself, and I was sorry for him, 'specially when he
+said he didn't have anything to eat. And he said, would I keep still
+about it? And at first I said I would."
+
+"I see," said Daddy Bunker, smiling. "Then you thought that you ought
+not to keep the secret from me?"
+
+"That's it, Daddy."
+
+"Quite right," rejoined Mr. Bunker encouragingly. "It is not good policy
+to keep secrets from your mother and father. What do you want to do
+about it now?"
+
+"Why--why, I want you to tell me," confessed Russ. "I got him some
+food."
+
+"I see you did," returned his father, smiling. "At your own cost, Russ."
+
+"We-ell, yes, I could have eaten more if I hadn't taken what I did for
+the sailor boy."
+
+"We'll have to see about that----"
+
+"I don't mind--much. I'm not very hungry," said Russ hurriedly. "It
+wasn't that made me tell you."
+
+"I know it wasn't, Russ," said Daddy Bunker, with a pride that the
+little boy did not understand, and he dropped an approving hand upon
+Russ' shoulder. "Now, I will tell you what we will do. This sailor boy
+shall have his chance to rejoin his ship without getting into any more
+trouble than is necessary. He is probably very young and foolish."
+
+"He isn't very old, I guess," said Russ. "He has been in the Navy only a
+little while, and it was his first 'shore leave,' he called it, in
+Boston. He had some cousins there. They begged him to stay longer than
+he should have. And so he got left."
+
+"I'll fix it if I can," promised Daddy Bunker. "Of course, the first
+thing to do is to pay his fare and then he can come out of the lifeboat
+and have his proper meals. I will see the purser, and the captain if it
+is necessary, and you go to bed, Russ."
+
+"That will be nice!" cried the boy, greatly relieved. "Of course I ought
+to have told you right at first. You always do know how to straighten
+things out, Daddy!"
+
+"That is what fathers and mothers are for," replied Mr. Bunker. "Go down
+and go to sleep, Son, and I will do my best for this young deserter."
+
+When Mr. Bunker entered the stateroom an hour later Mother Bunker wanted
+to know all about it, of course. And if Russ had known just what they
+both said of him he would certainly have been proud.
+
+"He's a manly boy," said Daddy Bunker in conclusion. "I am glad he is
+our son."
+
+The trouble about it all was, in Rose's opinion, that she never quite
+understood it. If Russ had done anything to be punished for, he
+certainly didn't seem to mind the punishment! And Daddy and Mother
+seemed to have a little secret between them, as well as Russ.
+
+"I don't like secrets," she complained the next day, on thinking it all
+over.
+
+"Oh, I do!" cried Laddie. "'Specially now that Christmas is coming."
+
+But Rose knew this was not a Christmas secret. She wondered where the
+nice, pleasant-faced sailor boy came from who seemed to know Russ and
+Daddy Bunker so well. She had not seen him before. And that was another
+mystery that nobody seemed willing to explain to her.
+
+They all had so many good times on the _Kammerboy_, however, that Rose
+really could not be vexed for long. It proved, as had been announced in
+Boston, that the ship sailed into summer seas. There was scarcely a
+cloud in sight for the entire voyage, and certainly the steamship did
+not roll.
+
+At length, late one afternoon, the children were taken up on the
+hurricane deck to see the islands of Charleston Harbor ahead. Many
+warships, and of all sizes, lay in the roadstead, but they did not see
+much of these vessels save their lights that evening.
+
+The _Kammerboy_ was docked to discharge freight and some of her
+passengers. Daddy Bunker arranged for the boy lost from the destroyer to
+be put aboard his ship. Russ hoped that he would not be punished very
+sorely for being left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MEIGGS PLANTATION
+
+
+The Bunker children watched the lights of the fleet until quite late in
+the evening and thought the sight very pretty indeed. They would have
+liked to have gone aboard at least one of the Government vessels
+preferably, of course, the one to which their sailor friend belonged,
+but there was no opportunity for such a visit. For early the next
+morning the _Kammerboy_ steamed out of the harbor of Charleston again on
+the last lap of her voyage to Savannah.
+
+"You can't do it, Russ--ever!" declared Rose, with confidence.
+
+"Well," said the oldest of the six little Bunkers, puffing very much, "I
+can try, can't I? I do wish I could cut that pigeon wing just as Sam did
+it."
+
+They were on the sunshiny deck of the _Kammerboy_, which was plowing
+now toward the headlands near Savannah Harbor. But the little folks had
+been seeing the blue line of the shore ever since leaving Charleston, so
+they were not much interested in it. As Laddie said, they knew it was
+there, and that was enough.
+
+"We know the continent of North America didn't get lost while we were
+out there in the Gulf Stream," said the boy twin, with satisfaction. "So
+it doesn't matter what part of it we hit--it will be land!"
+
+"If we hit it most any old place," said Vi, "we would be shipwrecked and
+be castaways like the game we started to play that time and Russ
+wouldn't let us finish. I wonder why?"
+
+She had ended with a question. But Laddie could not answer it. He was
+watching Russ trying to do that funny dance.
+
+"Uncle Sam's nephew could do it fine," Laddie said to Russ. "But you
+don't get the same twist to it."
+
+"Me do it! Me do it!" cried Mun Bun excitedly, and he began to try to
+dance as Russ had. He looked so cunning jumping about and twisting his
+chubby little body that they all shouted with laughter. But Mun Bun
+thought they were admiring his dancing.
+
+"Me did it like Sam," he declared, stopping to rest.
+
+"You do it fine, Mun Bun," Russ said.
+
+It was a fact, however, that none of them could cut that pigeon wing as
+Sam, the colored boy, had cut it in Aunt Jo's kitchen in Boston.
+
+Now that they were nearing the end of the voyage there were many things
+besides pigeon wings to interest the little Bunkers. In the first place
+the big sea-eagle had to be released from the turkey coop. The
+quartermaster called him Red Eye. And truly his eye was very red and
+angry all the time. And he clashed his great beak whenever anybody came
+near him.
+
+"I guess you couldn't tame him in a hundred years," Russ said
+thoughtfully. "He can't be tamed. That is why we have an eagle for a
+symbol, I guess. We can't be tamed."
+
+It was decided to let Red Eye out of the cage when the ship entered
+Savannah Harbor.
+
+"He's come a long way with us. He has come away down here to Georgia,"
+said Rose thoughtfully. "If he lives in Maine, do you s'pose he will
+ever find his way back?"
+
+"If he doesn't, what matter? It's a fine country," said the
+quartermaster.
+
+"But he will want to see his relations," said the little girl. "Maybe
+he's got a wife and children. He will be dreadfully lonesome away down
+here."
+
+"Maybe you had better take him back with you on the _Kammerboy_," said
+Russ thoughtfully, to the quartermaster.
+
+But the officer could not do that. There had been some objection made
+already to the big sea-eagle caged on deck. Besides, the bird's wing was
+better, and if he was kept much longer confined, the quartermaster said,
+he might forget how to fly!
+
+So they all gathered around (but at a good distance from the cage you
+may be sure), and the eagle was released. He had to be poked out of the
+cage, for it seemed as though he could scarcely believe that the door
+was open and he was free.
+
+He stalked out upon the deck, his great claws rattling on the planks. He
+turned his head from side to side, and then opened his beak and, so Vi
+said, he hissed at them!
+
+"At any rate," admitted Russ afterward, "he did make a funny noise."
+
+"He was clearing his throat," said Laddie, with scorn of his twin. "How
+could an eagle hiss? He isn't a goose."
+
+Laddie knew all about geese, for Grandma Bell had geese. But he did not
+know all about eagles, that was sure! Whether Red Eye hissed, or
+growled, or whatever he did in his throat, he certainly showed little
+friendliness. He raised his wings and flapped them "to see if they
+worked right." Then he uttered a decided croak and jumped a little way
+off the deck.
+
+Evidently this decided him that he was really free and that his great
+wings would bear him. He leaped into the air again, spreading his wings,
+and wheeled to go over the stern of the steamship. The spread of his
+wings when he flapped them was greater than most of the onlookers had
+supposed.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Look out, Laddie!" shouted Rose.
+
+Her warning came too late. The end of the great pinion swept Laddie off
+his feet! He went rolling across the deck, screaming lustily.
+
+"Oh! I'm going overboard! Daddy!" he cried.
+
+But it was Russ who grabbed him and stood him on his feet again.
+
+"You're not going overboard at all," said the older brother. "You
+couldn't. You'd have to climb over the rail to do it."
+
+"We-ell!" breathed Laddie. "It's a wonder he didn't take me right with
+him!"
+
+Then he, like everybody else, became interested in the passage of the
+great bird as it mounted skyward. It went up in a long slant at first,
+and then began to spiral upward, right toward the sun, and presently was
+out of sight.
+
+"It can look the sun straight in the face," said Daddy Bunker. "Which is
+something we cannot do."
+
+"No wonder its eye is red, then," said Rose.
+
+"I guess it's sunburnt," said Margy. "I got sunburnt at Captain Ben's."
+
+That night they docked at Savannah and went to a hotel in two taxicabs,
+for one would not hold all the Bunkers and their baggage too. The hotel
+was a nice one, and Rose thought the negro waiters and chambermaids
+very attentive and very pleasant people.
+
+"They are the smilingest people I ever saw," she confessed to Mother
+Bunker. "I guess they are thinking of funny things all the time."
+
+"Perhaps," granted her mother. "But they are trained to politeness. And
+you children must be just as polite."
+
+They all tried to be polite, and Russ grew quite friendly with one of
+the bellboys who brought them ice water. He asked that boy if he knew
+how to cut the pigeon wing, and the boy grinned very broadly.
+
+"I sure does!" he declared. "But if the boss heard of me doin' it around
+dishyer hotel, he'd bounce me."
+
+"Are you made of rubber?" asked Vi, who was standing by.
+
+"What's dat?" he demanded, rolling his eyes. "Is I made of rubber?
+Course I isn't. I's made of flesh and blood and bones, same as you is,
+little Miss. Only I isn't w'ite like you is."
+
+"But you said the man would bounce you. Rubber balls bounce," explained
+Vi.
+
+At that the bellboy went away laughing very heartily, but Vi could not
+understand why. And, of course, as usual, nobody could explain it to
+Vi's satisfaction.
+
+"I know a riddle!" cried Laddie, after a moment. "What looks like a boy,
+but bounces like a rubber ball? Why! A bellboy!"
+
+And he was highly delighted at this and went around telling everybody
+his new riddle.
+
+In the morning Mr. Frane Armatage appeared at the hotel and was shown up
+to the Bunker rooms. Mr. Armatage, as the little Bunkers knew, was an
+old school friend of Daddy Bunker's; but one whom he had not seen for a
+long time.
+
+"Why," said Mr. Armatage, who was a slender man with graying hair and a
+darker mustache, "Charley was only a boy when I last saw him." He was a
+very jovial man, and red-faced. Rose thought him handsome, and told
+Mother Bunker so. "No, Charley was only a sapling then. And look at him
+now!"
+
+"And look at the sprouts that have sprung from that sapling," laughed
+Daddy Bunker, with a sweeping gesture towards the six little Bunkers.
+
+"Was he only as big as I am?" Russ asked.
+
+"Well, no, come to think of it; he was some bigger than you. We were
+graduating from college when we parted. But it seems a long time ago,
+doesn't it, Charley?"
+
+Daddy Bunker agreed to that. Then he and Mr. Armatage talked business
+for a while. The owner of the Meiggs Plantation wished to get more land
+and hire more hands for the next year, and through Mr. Bunker he
+expected to obtain capital for this. Aside from business the two old
+friends desired very much to renew their boyhood acquaintance and have
+their wives and children become acquainted.
+
+"I've got half as many young ones as you have, Charley," said Mr.
+Armatage. "You've beat me a hundred per cent. I wonder if we keep on
+growing if the ratio will remain the same?"
+
+Russ knew what "ratio" meant, and he asked: "How can it keep that way if
+we grow to be seven little Bunkers? You can't have three and a half
+little Armatages, you know."
+
+"That's a smart boy!" exclaimed the tall man, smiling. "He can see
+through a millstone just as quick as any boy I know. We'll hope that
+there will be no half-portions of Armatages. I want all my children to
+have the usual number of limbs and body."
+
+"If you have little girls, and one was only half a little girl," said
+Rose, "she would be worse off than a mermaid, wouldn't she?"
+
+"She certainly would," agreed the planter.
+
+"Why?" demanded Vi, who did not understand.
+
+"Because half of her would be a fish," said Russ, laughing. "And you
+would have to have all your house under water, Mr. Armatage, or the
+mermaid could not get up and down stairs."
+
+"I declare, Charley!" exclaimed the visitor, "these young ones of yours
+are certainly blessed with great imaginations. I don't believe our
+children ever thought of such things."
+
+The next day the party went out to the Meiggs Plantation. It was a
+two-hours' ride on a branch railroad and a shorter and swifter ride in
+an automobile over the "jounciest" road the children had ever ridden on,
+for part of the way led through a swamp and logs were laid down side by
+side to keep the road, as Mr. Armatage laughingly said, from sinking
+quite out of sight.
+
+But the land on which the Armatage home stood was high and dry. It was a
+beautiful grassy knoll, acres in extent, and shaded by wide-armed trees
+which had scarcely lost any leaves it seemed to the little Bunkers,
+though this was winter. On the wide, white-pillared veranda a very
+handsome lady and two little girls and a little boy stood to receive the
+party.
+
+The children did not come forward to greet the visitors, or even their
+father, until the latter spoke to them. Mr. and Mrs. Bunker were quite
+sure by the actions of Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior, that they
+were not granted the freedom of speech and action that their little ones
+enjoyed. Mother Bunker pitied those children from the start!
+
+  [Illustration: THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS WERE AMAZED AT THE NUMBER OF
+  COLORED CHILDREN.
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 115]
+
+But what amazed the six little Bunkers more than anything else was the
+number of colored children hanging about the veranda to see the
+newcomers. Rose confided to Russ that she thought there must be a
+colored school near by and all the children were out for recess.
+
+And there were so many house-servants that smiling black and brown faces
+appeared everywhere.
+
+"I guess," said Rose to her mother, "that there must be an awful lot of
+work to do in this big house. It's lots bigger than Aunt Jo's or Grandma
+Bell's. It's like a castle, and all these servants are like retainers. I
+read about retainers in a story. Only these retainers aren't dressed in
+uniforms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MAMMY JUNE
+
+
+From the very beginning, although they said nothing about it even to
+each other, the six little Bunkers found the three little Armatages
+"funny." "Funny" is a word that may mean much or little, and often the
+very opposite of humorous. In this case the visitors from the North did
+not understand Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior. They were not like
+any boys and girls whom the Bunkers had ever known before.
+
+Phillis was twelve--quite a "grown up young lady" she seemed to consider
+herself. Yet she broke out now and then in wild, tomboyish activities,
+racing with Russ and Frane, Junior, climbing fences and trees, and
+riding horses bareback in the home lot. It seemed as though Phil, as
+they called her, "held in" just as long as she could, trying to put on
+the airs of grown-ups, and then just had to break out.
+
+"If you tell mother I did this I'll wish a ha'nt after you!" she would
+say to her brother, who was the age of Vi and Laddie, and her sister
+Alice, who was two years younger than herself, but no bigger than Rose.
+Alice had a very low, sweet, contralto voice, like Mrs. Armatage, and a
+very demure manner. Rose became friendly with Alice almost at once.
+
+And the way they treated the colored children of their own age and older
+was just as strange as anything else about the three Armatages. They
+petted and quarreled with them; they expected all kinds of service from
+them; and they were on their part, constantly doing things for the
+children of "the quarters" and giving them presents. Wherever the white
+children went about the plantation there was sure to be a crowd of
+colored boys and girls tagging them.
+
+After the first day Mother Bunker was reassured that nothing could
+happen to her brood, because there were so many of the colored men about
+the grounds to look after them. As in the house, a black or brown face,
+broadly a-smile, was likely to appear almost anywhere.
+
+The quarters, as the cabins occupied by the colored people were called,
+were not far from the house, but not in sight of it. Even the kitchen
+was in a separate house, back of the big house. After bedtime there was
+not a servant left in the big house unless somebody was sick.
+
+"Mammy used to live here," Mrs. Armatage explained, in her languid
+voice, "while the children were small. I couldn't have got along without
+mammy. She was my mammy too. But she's too old to be of much use now,
+and Frane has pensioned her. She has her own little house and plot of
+ground and if her boy--her youngest boy--had stayed with her, mammy
+would get along all right. She worries about that boy."
+
+The Bunker children did not understand much about this until, on the
+second day after their arrival, Phillis said:
+
+"I'm going down to see mammy. Want to come?"
+
+"Is--isn't your mammy here at home?" asked Vi. "Dora Blunt calls her
+mother 'mammy'; but we don't."
+
+"I've got a mother and a mammy too," explained the oldest Armatage girl.
+"You-all come on and see her. She'll be glad to see you folks from the
+North. She will ask you if you've seen her Ebenezer, for he went up
+North. We used to all call him 'Sneezer,' and it made him awfully mad."
+
+"Didn't he have any better name?" asked Russ.
+
+"His full name is Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs. Of course, their
+name isn't really Meiggs, like the plantation; but the darkies often
+take the names of the places where they were born. Sneezer was a real
+nice boy."
+
+"He isn't dead, is he?" asked Russ.
+
+"Reckon not," said Phillis. "But Mammy June is awful' worried about him.
+She hasn't heard from him now for more than a year. So she doesn't know
+what to think."
+
+"But she has got other folks, hasn't she?" Rose asked.
+
+"You'd think so! Grandchildren by the score," replied the older
+Armatage girl, laughing. "Sneezer had lots of older brothers and
+sisters, and they most all have married and live about here and have big
+families. The grandchildren are running in and out of mammy's cabin all
+the time. I have to chase 'em out with a broom sometimes when I go down
+there. And they eat her pretty near up alive!"
+
+Even the smaller Bunkers knew that this was a figure of speech. The
+grandchildren did not actually eat Mammy June, although they might clean
+her cupboard as bare as that of Old Mother Hubbard.
+
+They followed a winding, grass-grown cart path for nearly half a mile
+before coming to Mammy June's house. The way was sloping to the border
+of a "branch" or small stream--a very pretty brook indeed that burbled
+over stones in some places and then had long stretches of quiet pools
+where Frane, Junior, told Russ and Laddie that there were many
+fish--"big fellows."
+
+"I'll get a string and a bent pin and fish for them," said Laddie
+confidently. "I fished that way in the brook at Pineville."
+
+"Huh!" said Frane Armatage, Junior, in scorn. "One of these fish here
+would swallow your pin and line and haul you in."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Vi, with big eyes. "What for?"
+
+"No, the fish wouldn't!" declared Laddie promptly.
+
+"Yes, it would. And swallow you, too."
+
+"No, the fish wouldn't," repeated Laddie, "for I'd let go just as soon
+as it began to tug."
+
+"Smartie!" said Phillis to her brother. "You can't fool these Bunker
+boys. Let Laddie alone."
+
+Of course the troop of white children, walking down the cart path to
+Mammy June's, was followed by a troop of colored children. The latter
+sang and romped and chased about the bordering woods like puppies out
+for a rample. Sometimes they danced.
+
+"Can you cut a pigeon wing?" Russ asked one of the older lads. "I want
+to learn to do that."
+
+"No, I can't do that. Not good. We've got some dancers over at the
+quarters that does it right well," was the reply.
+
+"You ought to've seen Sneezer do it!" cried another of the colored
+children. "Sneezer could do it fine. Couldn't he, Miss Phil?"
+
+"Sneezer was a great dancer," admitted the oldest Armatage girl. "Come
+on, now, Bunkers, and see Mammy June. Keep away from this cabin," she
+added to the colored children, "or I'll call a ha'nt out of the swamp to
+chase you."
+
+"I wonder what those 'ha'nts' are, Russ," whispered Rose to her brother.
+"Do they have feathers? Or don't they fly? They must run pretty fast,
+for Phil is always saying she will make one chase folks."
+
+"I asked Daddy. There isn't any such thing. It's like we say 'ghosts.'"
+
+"Oh! At Hallowe'en? When we dress up in sheets and things?"
+
+"Yes. Maybe these colored children believe in ghosts. But of course we
+don't!"
+
+"No-o," said Rose thoughtfully. "Just the same I wouldn't like to think
+of ha'nts if I was alone in the woods at night. Would you, Russ?"
+
+Russ dodged that question. He said:
+
+"I don't mean to be alone in the woods around here at night. And neither
+do you, Rose Bunker."
+
+Of course neither of them had the least idea what was going to happen to
+them before they started North from the Meiggs Plantation.
+
+Mammy June's cabin was of white-washed logs, with vines climbing about
+the door that were leafless now but very thrifty looking. There were fig
+trees that made a background and a windbreak for the little house, and a
+huge magnolia tree stood not far from the cabin. The front door opened
+upon a roofed porch, and an old colored woman of ample size, in a
+starched and flowered gingham dress and with a white turban on her head,
+was rocking in a big arm chair on this porch when the children appeared.
+
+"Lawsy me!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly to show firm white teeth in
+spite of her age. "Is this yere a celebration or is it a parade? Miss
+Philly, you got a smooch on dat waist, and your skirt is hiked up
+behind. I declar' I believe you've lost a button."
+
+"Why, so I have, Mammy June," answered Phillis. "And more than one.
+Nobody has time to keep buttons sewed on up at the house, now that
+you're not there."
+
+"Shiftless, no-count critters, dem gals up dere. Sho, honey! who is all
+dese lil' white children?"
+
+"Bunkers," explained Frane, Junior.
+
+"What's dem?" asked Mammy June, apparently puzzled. "Is dey to play
+with, or is dey to eat? Bunkers! Lawsy!"
+
+Rose giggled delightedly.
+
+"They are to play with," laughed Alice suddenly. "That is what they are
+for, Mammy June."
+
+"You see you play pretty with them, then," said the old woman, shaking
+her head and speaking admonishingly.
+
+Rose and Russ Bunker at least began to understand that this pleasant old
+colored woman had had the chief care of the three young Armatages while
+they were little. Perhaps she had trained them quite as much as their
+mother and father. And they seemed to love Mammy June accordingly.
+
+That the old woman loved little folks and knew how to make friends with
+them was soon apparent. She had Mun Bun and Margy both together in her
+ample lap while Laddie and Vi leaned against her and listened to the
+tale she was telling the little folks.
+
+Phillis and Alice meanwhile showed Rose the interior of the cabin and
+all its comforts and wonders. Meanwhile Frane, Junior, took Russ down to
+the stream with some of the colored children to show him some of the big
+fish he had threatened Laddie with. Here it was that Russ Bunker engaged
+in his first adventure at the Meiggs Plantation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CATFISH
+
+
+"If Sneezer was here," said Frane, Junior, "he'd show you more fish than
+I can. Sneezer used to just smell 'em out. But come on. I know where
+some of the big ones stay."
+
+"I don't want to dive in after them," declared Russ Bunker, laughing.
+"The way you promised Laddie. And I haven't any hook and line at all."
+
+"We won't go fishing. Not really. Mostly the darkies fish. We don't
+bother to. They bring us plenty to eat when we want them at the house."
+
+"You--you don't do much of anything, do you?" asked Russ doubtfully.
+"Not for yourselves, I mean."
+
+"Don't have to," returned Frane, Junior. "The darkies do it all for us.
+But Phil and Alice and I have to do our own studying."
+
+Russ saw that he was in fun, but he was curious enough to ask the
+smaller boy:
+
+"Do you and the girls go to school?"
+
+"School comes to us. There is a teacher comes here. Lives at the house.
+But it's vacation time now till after New Year's. I hope she never comes
+back!"
+
+"Oh, is she mean to you?"
+
+"Course she is," declared Frane, Junior. "She makes us study. I hate
+to."
+
+"Well, sometimes I don't like what they make us learn in school,"
+admitted Russ slowly. "But I guess it's good for us."
+
+"How do you know, it is?" demanded the other. "I don't feel any better
+after I study. I only get the headache."
+
+Russ could not find an immediate answer for this statement. Besides,
+there was something right in front of him then that aroused his
+interest. It was a big log spanning the stream, with a shaky railing
+nailed to it, made of a long pole attached to several uprights.
+
+"That is the funniest bridge I ever saw," he declared. "Will it hold
+you?"
+
+"Look at that log. It would hold a hundred elephants," declared Frane,
+Junior, who was inclined to exaggerate a good deal at times.
+
+"Not all at once!" cried Russ.
+
+"Yes, sir. If you could get 'em on it," said Frane. "But I don't s'pose
+the railing would stand it."
+
+When the boys went out on the bridge and Russ considered the railing he
+was very sure that this last statement of his little friend was true,
+whether any others were or not. The railing "wabbled" very much, and
+Russ refrained from leaning against it.
+
+"Now, you folks keep back!" whispered Frane shrilly to the colored
+children who had followed them. "I want to show him the big fellow that
+sleeps down here."
+
+Somewhere he had picked up a piece of bark more than a foot long, which
+was rolled into a cylinder. He lay down on the log near the middle of
+the brook and began to look down into the brown and rather cloudy water
+through this odd spyglass.
+
+"What can you see through that thing?" asked Russ.
+
+"Sh! Wait. Don't let 'em hear you," warned Frane, Junior. Then he
+added: "Get down here 'side o' me. When I spot him I'll let you squint
+through this too."
+
+Russ understood now that his companion was trying to see one of the fish
+that lived in the stream--perhaps the "big fellow" Frane had spoken of.
+Russ grew quite excited and he took off his jacket and rolled up his
+sleeves. He knelt down beside Frane, and finally lay right down on his
+stomach and likewise peered over the side of the log.
+
+The log-bridge had been made quite flat on its upper surface with a
+broadaxe, and all the bark had long since worn off. It was all of thirty
+feet long, but it was just as firm as the arch of a stone bridge.
+
+"There!" whispered Frane. "I saw a flicker then. Yep! He's there! Right
+below the edge of that stone!"
+
+"I don't see anything but water. I can't even see the bottom," observed
+Russ, in a low voice, too.
+
+"Don't you see him below the stone?"
+
+"I don't even see the stone," complained Russ.
+
+"Hush! He'll hear you. I see his tail wiggle. He's a big cat."
+
+"Now, don't tell me there's a cat in this brook!" said Russ Bunker,
+shortly. "I know there isn't anything of the kind. Cats hate water."
+
+He had already learned that Frane, Junior, was apt to exaggerate. Russ
+thought the Armatage boy was letting his fancy run wild at this present
+moment.
+
+"It is a cat," murmured Frane. "I can see his whiskers moving. Yep, a
+big fellow! Want to see?" and he took his eye away from the bark
+cylinder.
+
+"Can you see his teeth and his claws and his fur and his tail?" demanded
+Russ scornfully, and without offering to take the cylinder. He did not
+intend to be fooled so easily.
+
+"What are you talking about?" hissed Frane. "And speak quietly. You'll
+drive him away."
+
+"Cats aren't so easily scared," said Russ. "You have to peg stones at
+'em to drive 'em away."
+
+"Huh!" sniffed Frane. "Funny cats up North. I don't believe you have any
+up there."
+
+"You're right we don't," agreed Russ, and now he laughed again. "Not
+any cats that swim. Cats hate the water----"
+
+"Aw, shucks! I'm not talking about cats!" exclaimed Frane. "I'm talking
+about catfish."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated the Northern boy.
+
+"You know a catfish, don't you? It has feelers that we call whiskers.
+Awful nice eating, for they only have a backbone."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Russ again. "I guess I didn't understand. Let me see the
+fish, will you, please?"
+
+"You can look," said Frane passing him the cylinder of bark. "But maybe
+we have scared him off, talking so much."
+
+The big catfish, however, had not been scared away. After a few moments,
+and with Frane's aid, Russ Bunker got the wooden spyglass focused on the
+proper point. He saw the imbedded rock Frane had spoken of. Then he saw
+the fish basking in the water below the rock's edge.
+
+It was almost two feet long, with a big head and goggle eyes, and the
+"whiskers" Frane had spoken of wriggled back and forth in the slow
+current. Russ grew excited.
+
+"Why!" he whispered to Frane, "I could grab it, if I tried. It is just
+like what we call bullheads up in Pineville. I've caught 'em in our
+pond. You can hardly get 'em off the hook without getting stung by 'em."
+
+"Catfish don't sting you. But you have to knock 'em in the head when you
+land them, so as to make 'em behave. I've seen the boys do it."
+
+"I'm going to make a grab for that fellow," declared Russ.
+
+"I reckon you'd miss him. You couldn't hold him, anyway," said Frane
+doubtfully.
+
+"I could so."
+
+"No, you couldn't. He's too big. They never catch catfish that way."
+
+"I know I never caught a bullhead that way," admitted Russ. "But one
+never lay so still for me. And right under this log! Here! You take the
+spyglass."
+
+"You'd better take care," advised the Southern boy.
+
+But Russ felt very daring. It seemed that the fish lay only a few inches
+under the surface of the brown water. If he could grasp the fish and
+throw it ashore, how the other children would all shout! Perhaps Russ
+Bunker wanted to "show off" a little. Anyway, he determined to make the
+attempt to land the big catfish with his hands.
+
+"You can't do it," warned Frane, Junior, creeping back a way so as to
+give Russ more room.
+
+"Don't say that till you see," returned the boy from the North. "Now,
+look! I know just where he lies. Look!"
+
+Russ had rolled his shirtsleeve up to his shoulder. He balanced himself
+on the log, his head and shoulders overhanging the brown water. Suddenly
+he made a dive with his right hand. Even his head touched the water, he
+dipped so deep, and his cap went floating away.
+
+And, wonderful to relate, his hand did seize upon the catfish. Perhaps
+the fish had been asleep down there by the edge of the imbedded stone.
+At any rate it was not quick enough to escape Russ Bunker's darting
+hand.
+
+"I got it!" yelled Russ, in delight.
+
+He tried to seize fast hold upon the body of the catfish, but the fish
+shot forward with a wriggle that slapped its tail against Russ's hand.
+Russ plunged forward, trying to hold it.
+
+"I--guess--he's--a--butter--fish!" he gasped. "He's so slippery----"
+
+And then, losing his balance on the log, Russ Bunker fell right into the
+deep pool with splash enough to frighten all the fishes for yards
+around!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MAMMY JUNE HELPS
+
+
+Of course, Russ Bunker should not have done it. He was always ready to
+try new things and wasn't much afraid of anything that turned up. But
+trying to catch a big catfish with his hands was ridiculous.
+
+Perhaps he realized this when he fell off the log into the stream; but
+it was too late then to know how foolish it was.
+
+The chorus of screams from the children on the bank was the first
+announcement that Mammy June had of the mischief that was afoot. The
+colored children shouted and Frane, Junior, ran right off the log and
+came screaming to the cabin:
+
+"He's gone down! He's gone down!"
+
+"What is the matter with you, Frane?" demanded the old woman, coming
+heavily down off the porch. "Who's gone down? Wha's he gone down to?"
+
+"Russ has gone down," announced Frane. "He's gone down after the
+catfish."
+
+"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June. "Is that li'le boy got into the
+branch?"
+
+Rose and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, as well as the two
+Armatage girls, all came running, too. For the first minute none of them
+understood what had happened to Russ.
+
+But when they reached the bank of the stream they saw something
+splashing in the middle of the pool under the bridge. They couldn't see
+Russ, but they knew that something was struggling there.
+
+"Is that a fish?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a whale."
+
+"Oh!" shrieked Rose. "It's Russ! He'll be drowned!"
+
+"Don't let him get wet, Rose," cried Margy. "Mother won't want him to
+get his clothes wet."
+
+But if there was any part of Russ Bunker that was not wet when he
+managed to get on his feet and his head and shoulders appeared above
+the water, Rose couldn't imagine what part it could be. He was just the
+wettest boy she had ever seen.
+
+Russ had got a footing finally upon the stone beside which the big
+catfish had lain. The water was too deep all around him for him to wade
+out. The bottom of the pool was so deep that it was over the boy's head.
+He had to stand on the rock and gasp for breath for he had swallowed a
+good deal of water, having gone down with his mouth open.
+
+"What did I tell you?" demanded Frane, Junior, from the bank. "You
+couldn't catch that cat."
+
+"I know it!" jerked out Russ. "I know it now."
+
+"Lawsy me!" ejaculated Mammy June. "Is that the way you ketches catfish
+up Norf?"
+
+The other little Bunkers did not understand this. Vi wanted to know at
+once if Russ had a kitty in the water with him. But nobody paid any
+attention to her questions.
+
+"Here, you 'Lias and Henery!" commanded Mammy June to two of the older
+colored boys. "What you standin' there idle for? Go out on that bridge
+and haul that poor chile ashore. What a state he is in, to be sure!"
+
+It did not take long to help Russ up on to the log again. The water just
+poured off him; but it was not very cold and his teeth didn't
+chatter--much. Mammy June showed anxiety, however.
+
+"You come right into de house, honey," she said to Russ. "Now, little
+Miss," she added to Rose, "yo' mustn't scold him now. Wait till we wring
+his clothes out and get him dry. Yo' 'Lias, bring some dry bresh and
+some good sticks. We'll want a hot fire."
+
+Mammy June had no stove in her cabin, but a broad and smoke-blackened
+open fireplace. There was a small fire in it, over which her teakettle
+hung. In five minutes the negro boys made a roaring blaze. Then the old
+woman drove them all out of the cabin save Russ, whom she helped off
+with his wet clothes, rubbed dry with a big towel, and to whom she gave
+a shirt and trousers to put on while she wrung out his clothing and hung
+it all about the fire to dry.
+
+"That shirt and them pants," she said, "b'longs to my Sneezer--my
+Ebenezer. If he was here this wouldn't have happened to yo', honey. He
+wouldn't have let no w'ite boy fall into that branch--no, sir. But these
+no-'count other young ones didn't know 'nough to tell yo' that that
+ain't the way to catch catfish."
+
+"I found out myself," admitted Russ rather ruefully.
+
+Rose came to the door and begged to know if Russ was all right.
+
+"He's going to be just as soon as I get him made a hot drink," declared
+Mammy June.
+
+"Has he got all over being drowned?" Margy demanded.
+
+And even Mun Bun was a good deal troubled because Russ had got so wet.
+"If you had any candy in your pocket, Russ," the little boy said, "it
+must be all soft now. It won't be good to eat."
+
+"I didn't have any candy, Mun Bun," Russ told him. Russ was feeling a
+whole lot better now. Mammy June gave him a nice hot, sweet drink. He
+didn't mind if it was a little "stingy" too.
+
+"Yo' all come in yere--yo' little w'ite folks," said Mammy June, "and
+we'll make some 'lasses taffy. I got plenty sorgum 'lasses. We can make
+it w'ile this catfish boy is getting dry."
+
+She continued to call Russ "the catfish boy" and chuckled over his
+adventure. But she warned him, when his clothing was dry, that he must
+be more careful when he was playing about the water.
+
+"An' yo' got to tell yo' mudder and daddy about it," she instructed
+Russ. "Don't never hide nothin' from 'em."
+
+"Oh, we don't!" Rose broke in. "We always tell Mother and Daddy
+everything."
+
+"That's what I tell my Philly and Ally and Frane, Junior. Always must
+tell they parents."
+
+"And get scolded for it," said Phillis rather crossly.
+
+"Well, then," said Mammy June cheerfully, "you mustn't do things to get
+scolded for. So I tell all these grandchildren of mine. Scat, you
+children!" for she saw several of the smaller colored boys and girls
+trying to steal in at the cabin door. "Ain't room for you in here
+noways. Yo' shall have yo' share of the 'lasses candy when it's done."
+
+That "taffy pull" was a famous one. The six little Bunkers thought they
+had never eaten such nice molasses candy as Mammy June made. Phillis
+Armatage made believe that she did a lot to help for she buttered the
+pans. But it was Mammy June who really did it all.
+
+"I think," confessed Rose to Alice, "that it is awfully nice to have
+both a mammy and a mother, as you girls have. Of course, a mammy can't
+be just what Mother Bunker is to us; but Mammy June is nice."
+
+"She's lots better to us than our mother, in some ways," said Alice
+bluntly. "Mother doesn't want us to play noisy in the house. She has
+headaches and stays on the couch a lot. We have to step soft and can't
+talk loud. But Mammy June never has the fidgets."
+
+"What's 'fidgets'?" asked Rose, quite shocked by the way Alice spoke of
+her mother.
+
+"What ladies have," explained Alice. "Don't your mother have 'em?"
+
+"I guess not. I never heard about them," Rose answered. "Then if your
+mother is sick, I don't suppose she can help it. It is lucky you have
+got a mammy."
+
+That first afternoon ("evening" all these Southern folks called it) at
+Mammy June's was a very pleasant experience. Russ did not mind his
+ducking--much. He only grinned a little when Mammy June called him "the
+catfish boy."
+
+"Serves me good and right," he confessed to Rose. "I ought not to have
+gone into that brook without a bathing suit. And, anyway, I guess a boy
+can't catch fish of any kind with his hands."
+
+Mun Bun and Margy and the smaller colored children managed to spread the
+molasses taffy over face and hands to a greater or less degree; but they
+enjoyed the taffy pull as much as the older children did. Finally, after
+Mammy June had washed his face and hands, Mun Bun climbed up into her
+comfortable lap and went fast asleep.
+
+The old woman, who loved children so dearly and was so kind to them,
+looked at one of her older grandsons, Elias, and ordered him to "get de
+boxwagon to take dis bressed baby home in."
+
+A soapbox on a plank between two pairs of wheels being produced and the
+box made comfortable with a quilt and a pillow belonging to Mammy June,
+Mun Bun was laid, still fast asleep, in this vehicle, and Russ started
+to drag his little brother home.
+
+"Yo' 'Lias!" exclaimed Mammy June, from the doorway of her cabin,
+"whar's yo' manners? Don't you let that w'ite visitor boy drag that
+boxwagon. You get busy, 'Lias."
+
+Russ and the other Bunker children were not used to being waited on at
+every step and turn. But they became better used to it as the time
+passed. The white folks on the Meiggs Plantation seemed to expect all
+this aid from the colored folks, and the latter seemed willing and eager
+to attend.
+
+Russ was not scolded for his involuntary plunge into the branch. In fact
+his father laughed immensely at the tale. But Mother Bunker had to be
+assured that the stream was neither deep nor boisterous before she could
+laugh much.
+
+The children had all had a lovely afternoon at Mammy June's and after
+that day they found most of their enjoyment in running down to her cabin
+and playing there. This delight was shared by the Armatages too. And the
+latter's father and mother seemed perfectly content if the children
+were in mammy's care.
+
+The days passed all too swiftly. Everybody, darkies and all, were on
+tiptoe about the coming festival of Christmas and New Year's. The six
+little Bunkers learned that these holidays were celebrated in different
+style on this Georgia plantation from what they were in the North.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHEN CHRISTMAS IS FOURTH OF JULY
+
+
+Mun Bun and Margy were too little always to accompany the older children
+on their rambles; but the two smallest Bunkers could be trusted to
+invent plays of their own when they might be left out of the older one's
+parties. They had long since learned not to feel slighted if Mother
+Bunker decided that they were to stay near her.
+
+There was sufficient mystery and expectation regarding the coming
+holiday celebrations at the Meiggs Plantation to excite the little folks
+in any case. There was to be no Christmas tree such as the Bunkers had
+had the previous Christmas in the North. Both Mun Bun and Margy could
+remember that tree very clearly.
+
+But there was quite as much hiding of funny shaped packages until the
+gift day should arrive, and the house was being decorated, inside and
+out, for the coming celebration. Mun Bun and Margy watched the servants
+hanging Christmas greens and mistletoe, although, unlike the older
+little Bunkers, they could not go into the swamps with the men to gather
+these greens.
+
+"We just ought to have a Christmas tree of our own," Margy said to Mun
+Bun. "I know where we can get a tree, and we'll beg some wreaths and
+trimming from that nice colored man there."
+
+"We can't," said Mun Bun, somewhat despondently. "We isn't got a house
+to put the tree in. And we had the Christmas tree last time in the
+house."
+
+"I've found a house," whispered Margy. "But don't you tell anybody."
+
+"Not even tell Muvver?" asked Mun Bun, looking almost scared. Yet the
+idea of a secret delighted him too.
+
+"Not till we get it all done. Then we will show her how fine it is,"
+said Margy.
+
+"Where is your house?" asked Mun Bun.
+
+"You come along and I'll show you. I found it all by myself."
+
+She led Mun Bun by the hand out behind the big house and toward the
+quarters. In a sheltered place, behind a hedge, was a little house, sure
+enough. And it was not so very little after all, for when they went into
+it they could both stand upright.
+
+"There isn't any window," said Mun Bun. "This isn't a regular house."
+
+"Of course, it's a house," Margy declared. "It's got a doorway, and----"
+
+"It hasn't got any door, just the same," said Mun Bun, who might have
+liked the house better if he had found it himself.
+
+"We don't need a door. We want it open so the big folks can see our tree
+when we get it trimmed."
+
+"Where is the tree?" demanded the still doubtful little boy.
+
+"Now, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy, "do you want to play at fixing this
+Christmas tree, or don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Mun Bun, who did not really want to be left out of any
+fun, even if he did not think of it first himself. "Show me the tree,
+Margy."
+
+"Of course I will," said his sister. "You must help me get it and carry
+it in here."
+
+"Come on," urged the little boy. "Let's."
+
+So then Margy showed him where the tree she had found stood in a green
+tub outside the door of a small house that was almost all glass. The
+lower panes of glass in this house were whitewashed, so the children
+could not see what was in it; but this tree with its thick, glossy
+leaves seemed to have been left out for anybody to take who wanted it.
+
+They had to tug pretty hard to get the tree out of the tub. As Margy
+said, they didn't want the tub anyway, for it would take up too much
+room. And they were not strong enough to move it.
+
+But they got the tree uprooted, and then were able to carry it to the
+little house that Margy had selected as their own private dwelling for
+the play celebration.
+
+By dragging the tree inside, roots first, they managed to get it in
+without breaking off any of the glossy leaves. They stood it upright and
+made it steady by placing some bricks that they found about the roots.
+Its top reached the roof of the little house.
+
+They begged some broken wreaths and chains of evergreen and even a
+spray of mistletoe with berries on it. The workmen were very kind to the
+smallest Bunkers. Mun Bun grew quite as excited and enthusiastic as
+Margy. They worked hard to trim that tree.
+
+"But it hasn't any lights," said Mun Bun sadly. "And that other
+Christmas tree had lights."
+
+You see, he remembered very clearly about that. And when Mun Bun played
+he always wanted the play to be as real as possible.
+
+"We'll get candles," declared Margy. "I saw candles in the kitchen house
+where that nice cook lives. Let's go and ask her."
+
+But just as they were going to squeeze out of the low door of the little
+house they heard a great shouting and calling, and then suddenly the
+snapping of explosive crackers--fire crackers--began!
+
+"Oh!" gasped Mun Bun. "Who's shootin'?"
+
+"It's firecrackers. You know, we've had 'em before. And they are in a
+barrel," said Margy breathlessly.
+
+Through the doorway of the little house in which they had set up the
+"Christmas tree" the two saw their brothers and sisters, the Armatage
+children, and a lot of the little negroes dancing about a barrel a
+little way down the hill. Margy was right. Into that barrel somebody had
+thrown a lighted bunch of firecrackers--about the safest way in which
+those noisy and delightful "snappers" can be exploded.
+
+And what a noise they made! Mun Bun and Margy almost forgot their own
+play for the moment as they struggled to see which should first go out
+of the door of the little house. Getting in each other's way, they were
+delayed and before they could get out a great dog came bounding toward
+them.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" squealed Margy, and shrank back, leaving to Mun Bun the
+opportunity of getting out if he wanted to.
+
+"I'm not afraid of that dog," said Mun Bun. But, just the same, he did
+not go out when he might have done so. "He isn't as big as Aunt Jo's
+Alexis, is he, Margy?"
+
+"But we aren't acquainted with him like we were with Alexis," whispered
+the little girl.
+
+She knew his name was Bobo. But always before when she had seen him the
+great hound, with his flappy ears and wide mouth, had been chained.
+
+"Do--do you suppose he'll want to bite us?" quavered Mun Bun, admitting
+now that he was afraid of the dog. "And what does he want here in our
+house, Margy?"
+
+Margy suddenly remembered that when she had seen Bobo before he had been
+chained right at this little house. Maybe it was his house, although it
+was bigger than any doghouse she had ever seen before.
+
+"We don't want him in here," cried Mun Bun. "There isn't any room for
+him." Then he cried to the big hound: "Go 'way! You'll spoil our
+Christmas tree."
+
+The big hound came nearer, but more quietly. His eyes were red, and he
+sniffed enquiringly at the doorway while the children crowded back
+against the tree. Perhaps he was the very kindest dog in the world; but
+to Mun Bun and Margy he appeared to be dreadfully savage!
+
+"Go 'way!" they shouted in chorus. And Mun Bun added again: "We don't
+want him in here, do we, Margy?"
+
+The dog seemed determined to thrust himself into the house. Perhaps
+Bobo felt about Mun Bun and Margy as they did about him--that they had
+no right there, and he wanted them to get out. And when he put his great
+head and shoulders into the doorway the little Bunkers began to shriek
+at the top of their voices.
+
+Even the snapping firecrackers could not drown their voices now. Russ
+and Rose heard the cries coming from the doghouse, and they knew Mun Bun
+and Margy were in trouble. They saw Bobo, who had been with them to the
+swamp, seemingly stuck half way in the doorway of his kennel, and Russ
+cried:
+
+"I guess that's where they are. Hear 'em, Rose? Come on, save Mun Bun
+and Margy."
+
+"I'm afraid of that hound," replied Rose, but she followed her brother
+just the same.
+
+Russ shouted to the dog. The hound backed out and looked around at Russ
+Bunker. But his red eyes did not scare the boy.
+
+"We're coming, Mun Bun!" Russ shouted. "We're coming, Margy!"
+
+The two little ones appeared at the door of the kennel. They were not
+crying much, but they had tight hold of each other's hands.
+
+"Russ! Rose!" cried Margy. "Take us out."
+
+"What are you doing in that dog's kennel?" demanded Rose.
+
+"Playing Christmas," said Margy, with quivering voice.
+
+"I guess it isn't Christmas," said Mun Bun doubtfully. "I guess it's
+Fourth of July. Isn't it, Russ? They don't have shooters only on the
+Fourth of July."
+
+"They do down here," said Russ, reaching the kennel and looking in while
+Bobo stood by as though he still wondered why Mun Bun and Margy had
+tried to turn him out of his house.
+
+Just then one of the colored men, who was a gardener, came along and
+stooped to look into the kennel too.
+
+"For de lan's sake!" he cried, "what you childern doin' in dat dog
+kennel?"
+
+"We--we were playing Christmas tree," said Margy, grabbing hold of
+Rose's hand.
+
+"For de lan's sake!" repeated the man, showing the whites of his eyes in
+a most astonishing way. "What dat in dere?"
+
+"That's our Christmas tree," said Mun Bun, very bravely now.
+
+"For de lan's sake!" ejaculated the man for a third time. "What Mistah
+Armatage gwine to say now? Dat's his bestest rubber plant what he tol'
+me to take partic'lar care of. What will you lil' w'ite childern be up
+to next, I'm a-wondering?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A LETTER AND A BIG LIGHT
+
+
+"Why, Mun Bun!" murmured Russ.
+
+"Why, Margy Bunker!" exclaimed Rose.
+
+Mun Bun was staring with all his eyes (and he had two very bright ones)
+at the rubber plant. He did not consider the mischief he had done. He
+was as curious as Vi could possibly have been about an entirely
+different thing.
+
+"If that's a rubber plant, Russ," he demanded, "where's the rubbers? I
+don't see any overshoes on it. What part of it is rubber?"
+
+At that the black man threw back his head and laughed loudly. The
+children all watched his open mouth and rolling eyes and flashing teeth
+and finally they broke into laughter too. They could not help it.
+
+"But," said Russ, after they had stopped laughing, "I am afraid Mr.
+Armatage will be angry with us."
+
+"I dunno--I dunno, chile," said the negro, shaking his head. "He sure is
+partic'lar 'bout dat rubber plant. But mebbe I can repot it and fix it
+up all right. It's only just been uprooted, and I was gwine to change de
+dirt in dat tub, anyway."
+
+"Oh! Do you think you can do it and save Mun Bun and Margy from getting
+a scolding?" Rose cried.
+
+"We'll see, lil' Miss. Shouldn't wonder," and the gardener went to work
+at once.
+
+Meanwhile Bobo sat on his haunches and mournfully looked at what was
+going on. His red eyes had a very sad expression and his drooping ears
+made him look, so Rose said, more mournful still.
+
+"He looks as if he'd just come from a funeral," she said to Russ.
+
+"What's that?" demanded Margy promptly.
+
+But Rose and Russ dodged that question. In fact they did not know how to
+explain just what a funeral was. But in watching the gardener replace
+the rubber plant in the green tub, surrounded with fresh earth from the
+green house, the little ones forgot everything else, even Bobo.
+
+Bobo, just as soon as he could, went into his house and smelled all
+around and finally lay down, his muzzle sticking out of the door.
+
+"He looks unhappy," Rose said. "I guess he thought he wasn't going to
+have any home at all when he saw you two in there with the rubber
+plant."
+
+"It was a good Christmas tree," was Margy's only reply to this.
+
+"But we didn't get the candles to light it up," Mun Bun rejoined,
+walking away hand in hand with Russ. "So how could it be a Christmas
+tree if there weren't any candles?"
+
+As Christmas Day grew closer there was less work done and more play
+engaged in by everybody on the plantation. Christmas Eve there was a
+beautiful display of fireworks on the front lawn of the big house, and
+everybody from the quarters came to see it, as well as the white folks.
+Even Mammy June came up from her cabin by the stream, walking with
+difficulty, for she was lame, and sat in state on the porch "with de
+w'ite folks" to see the fireworks.
+
+The old woman had taken a strong liking to the six little Bunkers and
+she made as much of them as she did of the three little Armatages. But
+the latter were not jealous at all. Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior,
+were likewise delighted with the children from the North.
+
+Christmas Day dawned brilliantly, and although there was what Mr.
+Armatage called "a tang" in the air it was so warm that it was hard for
+the Bunker children to realize that this was the day that they expected
+up North to be "white."
+
+"A 'white Christmas' doesn't mean anything down here in Georgia," said
+Daddy Bunker. "Though once in a while they have a little snow here. But
+they never speak of it--not the natives. It is a sort of scandal in the
+family," and he laughed, looking at Mother Bunker, who understood him if
+the children did not.
+
+But white or green, that Christmas Day was a delightful one. Even
+without a gaudily lighted and trimmed tree, the Bunkers were pleased in
+every way. Their presents were stacked with those belonging to the
+Armatage children under the chimneypiece in the big front parlor, and
+Mr. Armatage himself made the presentations.
+
+There were presents from "all over" for the six little Bunkers; for no
+matter how far they were away from their many relatives and friends, the
+six were fondly remembered. Even Cowboy Jack sent gifts from Texas!
+
+With the presents from Aunt Jo came a letter particularly addressed to
+the children. Russ read it aloud to them all. It gave news of William's
+neuralgia (Vi still insisted on calling it "croup") and about Annie and
+Parker. Even the Great Dane, Alexis, was mentioned. But the most
+important thing spoken of in the letter to the children's minds was the
+fact that Aunt Jo said she meant to keep Sam, the colored boy Mun Bun
+and Margy had introduced into her Back Bay home, all winter.
+
+"The boy is really a treasure," said Aunt Jo. "He can do something
+besides dance--although he does plenty of that in the kitchen to the
+delight of Parker, Annie and William. He has been taught to work, and is
+really a very good houseboy. And he looks well in his uniform."
+
+"I'd like to see him in a uniform," said Laddie. "Is he a soldier, or a
+policeman?"
+
+"He's a 'buttons,'" replied Mother Bunker, laughing. "Aunt Jo has always
+wanted to have a boy in buttons to answer the door and clean the
+knives."
+
+"I'd rather see him dance again," said Russ, and he slyly tried to cut
+that pigeon wing once more. But he made a dismal failure of it.
+
+There was dancing in plenty at the negro quarters that Christmas
+evening. All the white folks went down from the big house to watch the
+proceedings. And again Mammy June was there.
+
+There had been a great feast for the hands, but although one grinning
+negro boy confessed to Russ that he was "full o' tuck," he still could
+dance. This boy was applauded vigorously by his mates, and one of them
+called out:
+
+"'Lias! show dese w'ite folks how _to_ cut dat pigeon wing. Go on, boy!"
+
+"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June, "don't none of you know how to do dat
+like my Sneezer. If he was here he'd show 'em. Just you dance plain,
+honey. Double shuffle's as much as you can do."
+
+So her grandson, 'Lias, did not try any fancy steps. Privately, however,
+and much to Rose's amusement, Russ Bunker often tried to copy Sam's
+pigeon-wing step.
+
+"If we ever go to Aunt Jo's again--and of course we shall--I am going to
+get Sam to show me how to do it. I'll get it perfect some time," sighed
+the oldest Bunker boy.
+
+Vi, looking on at one of her brother's attempts, asked:
+
+"Doesn't it hurt the pigeon to cut its wing?"
+
+But that was a silly question, and they all laughed at her. Laddie grew
+suddenly excited.
+
+"Oh! I know a new riddle!" he cried. "It's a good riddle!"
+
+"What is it?" asked his twin sister.
+
+"It isn't a good riddle just because you made it up, Laddie," said Rose.
+
+"It would be a good one no matter who made it up," answered Laddie
+decidedly. "You let me tell it. I know it's good."
+
+"What is it, Laddie?" Russ Bunker asked.
+
+"Here is the riddle," said Laddie eagerly. "What sort of wing has no
+feathers on it? And the answer is, of course, 'A pigeon wing.' There!
+Isn't that a fine riddle?"
+
+"Pooh!" said Vi. "I don't think so."
+
+"Some pigeons' wings have feathers," said Rose.
+
+"Hoh!" cried Laddie, somewhat disturbed. "That one Russ was trying to
+make doesn't have any feathers on it."
+
+"That's only one kind, and it isn't really a pigeon's wing, you know."
+
+Laddie stared at his sister, Rose, with much doubt. "You're always
+disappointing me, Rose," he murmured.
+
+"But Rose is right, Laddie," said Russ. "And there are other wings that
+have no feathers."
+
+"What wings?" grumbled Laddie.
+
+"I know!" cried Vi suddenly. "Airplane wings! They haven't any
+feathers."
+
+"But they are no more like real wings," complained Rose, "than Russ's
+dancing step."
+
+"No," said the oldest Bunker boy. "I mean bat's wings. Don't you
+remember that bat we caught that time? Its wings didn't have feathers
+at all. It was covered with fur."
+
+"Oh, well," sighed Laddie. "Then my riddle isn't any good."
+
+"Not much, I am afraid," said Russ kindly but firmly.
+
+However, Laddie and the other little Bunkers did not have many
+disappointing things happen to them on this lovely Christmas Day. Mr.
+and Mrs. Armatage tried in every way to make the stay of their guests at
+the Meiggs Plantation as pleasant as possible.
+
+After the celebration at the quarters the white folks came home, and
+there at the big house a fine party was soon under way. People had come
+in their cars from far and near and the house was brilliantly lighted on
+the first two floors.
+
+The children were allowed to look on at this grown folks' party for a
+little while, then they had to go to bed. Phillis and Alice and Frane,
+Junior, seemed to consider it very hard that they were not allowed to
+stay downstairs; but the little Bunkers were used to having their own
+good times and did not expect to enter into the amusements of their
+elders.
+
+"Let's sit on the top step of these stairs," said Phillis to Rose and
+Alice, "and we can see through the balustrades. There's Mrs. Campron!
+She's got a lovely dress on, and diamonds."
+
+Rose remained with the two Armatage girls for a little while and Russ
+saw to it that the little folks went to bed. Then he came out into the
+hall again to see what the girls were doing. Before he could ask them he
+chanced to look out of the back window at the end of the long hall.
+
+"Oh!" cried Russ Bunker. "What is that?"
+
+"What's what?" demanded Phillis. "What do you see?"
+
+"Is it a shooting star?" went on Russ. "See that light! I believe it
+must be a fire."
+
+The girls came running to join him then, more interested in what Russ
+saw than they were in what was going on at the party below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAMMY JUNE IN PERIL
+
+
+From the big house on the Meiggs Plantation, standing on a knoll--which
+means a small hill,--one could see for a long distance all about, in
+spite of the shade trees, and especially when looking from the third
+floor windows. Russ Bunker was looking right out over the quarters where
+the hands lived, and could see far down the slope of the land and to the
+forest beyond the cultivated fields.
+
+It was a lovely starlit night, but of course the stars did not reveal
+everything. The strong red light that sprang up beyond the cabins where
+the colored people lived, revealed a great deal, however.
+
+"It's a house afire!" declared Phillis Armatage.
+
+"Where can there be a house in that direction?" Rose Bunker asked.
+"Isn't that fire beyond the cabins, Russ?"
+
+Russ suddenly sprang to action. He wheeled from the window and ran along
+the hall to the stairway.
+
+"Russ! Russ! Where are you going?" demanded his sister.
+
+"Tell Daddy and Mr. Armatage. I know what house is afire. It's Mammy
+June's cabin!" shouted Russ.
+
+He had previously located the direction of the old woman's cabin by the
+stream, and Russ was sure that he was right now. He left the girls
+screaming after him; he had no time to tell them how he was so sure of
+his statement.
+
+Down the two flights of stairs he plunged until he landed with a bang on
+the hall rug at the foot of the lower flight. He almost fell against Mr.
+Armatage himself when he landed. And Daddy Bunker was not far away.
+
+"Well, well, young man, what's this?" demanded Mr. Armatage, for a
+moment quite as stern with Russ as he was with his own children.
+
+Daddy, too, looked upon Russ with amazement. "Why, Russ," he said, "what
+does this mean? What are you doing down here?"
+
+"There's a fire!" gasped out Russ, his breath almost gone. "There's a
+fire!"
+
+"Upstairs?" demanded Mr. Armatage, whirling toward the stairway.
+
+"Oh, no, sir! No, sir!" cried Russ, stopping him. "It's down the hill. I
+saw it from the window."
+
+"The quarters?" demanded the planter.
+
+"No, sir. It looks like Mammy June's. It's a great red flame shooting
+right up about where her cabin is."
+
+"And the old woman has gone home. She's lame. Like enough she won't get
+out in time--if it is her shack. Come on, boys!" The planter's shout
+rang through the lower rooms and startled both the guests and the
+servants. "There's a fire down by the branch. May be a cabin and
+somebody in it. Come on in your cars and follow me. Get all the buckets
+you can find."
+
+He dashed out of the house, hatless as he was, shouting to the colored
+folks who were gathered outside watching the dancing through the long
+windows. Daddy Bunker followed right behind him. And what do you suppose
+Russ did? Why, he could have touched Daddy Bunker's coat-tails he kept
+so close to him! Nobody forbade him, so Russ went too.
+
+Mr. Armatage and Mr. Bunker got into one of the first cars to start, and
+Russ, with a water pail in each hand, got in too. There was a great
+noise of shouting and the starting of the motor-cars. Men ran hither and
+thither, and all the time the light of the fire down by the stream
+increased.
+
+When they were under way, Mr. Armatage's car leading, they found many of
+the plantation hands running down the grassy road in advance. The cars
+passed these men, Mr. Armatage shouting orders as the car flew by. In
+two minutes they came to the clearing in which Mammy June's cabin stood.
+One end of the little house was all ablaze.
+
+"The poor soul hasn't got out," cried Mr. Armatage, and with Mr. Bunker
+he charged for the door, burst it in, and dashed into the smoke which
+filled the interior.
+
+Russ thought that Daddy Bunker was very brave indeed to do this. It
+looked to the boy as though both men would be burned by the raging fire.
+But he was brave himself. He fought back his tears and ran to the
+stream to fill with water both the pails he carried.
+
+When he came staggering back with the filled pails, the water slopping
+over his shoes, the first of the hands arrived. One man grabbed Russ's
+pails and threw the water upon the burning logs. Such a small amount of
+water only made the flames hiss and the logs steam. But soon other
+filled pails were brought. More of the cars with guests from the party
+arrived, and a chain of men to the stream was formed.
+
+Almost at once Mr. Armatage and Daddy Bunker fought their way out of the
+burning cabin through the smoke, and they bore between them the
+screaming old woman. Mammy June was badly frightened.
+
+"You're all right now, Mammy," declared Mr. Armatage, when he and Mr.
+Bunker put her into the tonneau of the car. "Here, boy!" he added to
+Russ, "you stay with her."
+
+"I got to lose all! I got to lose ma home!" wailed Mammy June. "If my
+Ebenezer had been yere, dat chimbley wouldn't have cotched fire."
+
+"Can't be helped now," said Daddy Bunker soothingly. "We'll try to save
+your home, Mammy."
+
+But although their intentions were of the best, this could not be done.
+The cabin--as dry as a stack of straw--could not be saved. The pails
+were passed from hand to hand as rapidly as possible, but the fire had
+gained such headway that it was impossible to quench it until the cabin
+was in complete ruins.
+
+"You be mighty glad, Mammy June," said Mr. Armatage, finally giving up
+the unequal battle, "that you are saved yourself. And you wouldn't have
+been if this little Bunker hadn't seen the fire when he did."
+
+"Bless him!" groaned the old woman, hugging Russ to her side in the car.
+"If my Ebenezer had been home it wouldn't never have happened, Mistah
+Armatage."
+
+She harped upon this belief incessantly as they finally drove back to
+the big house. The fright and exposure quite turned Mammy June's brain
+for the time. She was somewhat delirious.
+
+"S'pose my Ebenezer come home and find de cabin in ruins. He mebbe will
+think Mammy June burned up, and go right off again. And he might come
+any time!"
+
+The old woman talked of this even after they put her to bed and a doctor
+who chanced to be at Mrs. Armatage's party had attended her. The fire,
+and her bodily illness, had prostrated the old woman.
+
+The end of that Christmas party was not as pleasant as the beginning. It
+was long after midnight before even the children were in their beds and
+composed for sleep. The party broke up at an earlier hour than might
+have been expected.
+
+Rose slept in the room with Phillis and Alice Armatage. Just as she was
+dropping to sleep and after her companions were already in dreamland
+Rose saw the door of the room pushed open. The moon had risen, and Rose
+recognized Russ's tousled head poked in the open door.
+
+"What do you want?" she demanded in a whisper. "Oh, Russ! there isn't
+another fire, is there?"
+
+"No! Hush! I just thought of something."
+
+"What is it?" asked Rose in the same low tone that Russ used.
+
+"We can do something for Mammy June."
+
+"We can't cure her rheumatism, Russ," said Rose. "Even the doctor can't
+do that in a hurry. He said so."
+
+"No. She's worrying about her boy. That boy with the funny name.
+Sneezer."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Rose.
+
+"She is afraid he will come back and find the cabin burned and go away
+again without her knowing it," said Russ gravely, tiptoeing to his
+sister's bedside.
+
+"Yes. Mother says it's real pitiful the way she takes on," sighed the
+little girl.
+
+"Well, Rose, you and I can help about that," said Russ confidently.
+
+"How can we?" she asked, in surprise.
+
+"We can write a sign and stick it up on a pole down there by the burned
+cabin. We'll make a sign saying that Mammy June is up here at the big
+house and for Sneezer to come and see her."
+
+"Oh, goody!" cried Rose, but still under her breath. "That's a fine
+idea, Russ."
+
+"Don't say anything about it to anybody," warned her brother, eager to
+make a secret of the plan that had popped into his head. "We'll write
+that sign early in the morning and go down there and stick it up. Want
+to?"
+
+"Of course I do," said Rose, with a glad little jump in her bed. "I
+think you're just the smartest boy, Russ, to think of it. I won't say a
+word about it, not even to Philly and Alice."
+
+With this plan dancing in her head Rose soon fell asleep while Russ
+stole back to the room where he slept with the smaller boys. After that
+the big house on the Meiggs Plantation became quiet for the rest of the
+long night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE TWINS IN TROUBLE
+
+
+Laddie and Vi Bunker felt as though they had been cheated. They had not
+been allowed to go to the fire, "when Mammy June's cabin had been burned
+all up," Vi declared. They had only seen the fire from an upper window
+of the big Armatage house.
+
+"But it wasn't burned _up_, Vi," her twin insisted. "It was burned
+_down_."
+
+"Russ said it was burned up when he came back from the fire--so now,"
+Violet declared somewhat warmly.
+
+"How can a house burn up? It just fell all to pieces into the cellar."
+
+"There wasn't any cellar to Mammy June's house," Vi observed.
+
+"Well, it fell down; so of course, it burned down."
+
+"The flames went up," repeated Vi, quite as determinedly. "And the wood
+went with 'em--with the flames and smoke. So the cabin burned up."
+
+What might have been the result of this discussion it would be hard to
+say had not the twins both felt so keenly their disappointment. Russ had
+gone to the fire and brought Mammy June out of the cabin and brought her
+up here to the big house! To tell the truth, Russ was so excited when he
+got back that in telling of the adventure he gave the younger children
+to understand that he had done it all himself. Daddy Bunker and Mr.
+Armatage did not appear much in his story.
+
+"Russ is always doing the big things," sighed Laddie. "It's just like a
+riddle----"
+
+"What is?" almost snapped Vi, for she was just as disappointed as her
+twin brother.
+
+"Why, Russ getting the best of everything. Why is it?" muttered Laddie,
+kicking a pebble before him in the path.
+
+"If that's a riddle, I can't answer it," said Vi.
+
+"It isn't any worse to ask riddles than it is to ask questions--so now."
+
+The twins were not always in accord, of course; but they were seldom so
+near to a quarrel as upon this morning. Perhaps, for one thing, the day
+before, they had rather over-done and possibly had over-eaten. They were
+on the verge of doing something that the Bunker children seldom
+did--quarreling. Fortunately something suddenly attracted Laddie's
+attention and he stopped kicking the pebble and pointed down the yard in
+front of them.
+
+"Oh, Vi! See that cunning thing! What is it?"
+
+Something flashed across a green patch of grass away down by the road.
+It was red, had small, sharp-pointed ears and nose and a bushy tail.
+This tail waved quite importantly as the small animal ran.
+
+"Come on!" cried Vi, taking the lead at once. She often did so, for
+Laddie was slower than she. "Come on! Let's get it, Laddie."
+
+Laddie, nothing loath, ran after his twin sister. They raced down the
+hill and came to the little gully into which the animal with the bushy
+tail had disappeared. The end of that gully was the open mouth of a
+culvert under the road.
+
+"Did he go in there?" Laddie demanded. "Did he go into that hole, Vi?"
+
+"He must have," declared Violet. "It must be his home. It's a burrow."
+
+"But he wasn't a bunny. Bunnies have burrows," objected Laddie.
+
+"I guess other animals can have burrows, too," said his twin. "And he
+was lots prettier than a rabbit."
+
+"He was that," admitted the excited Laddie. "It wasn't a rabbit, of
+course. Rabbits aren't red."
+
+"Let's find the other end of the hole," Vi said eagerly. "We'll stop
+both ends up and then--and then----"
+
+"Well, what then?" her twin demanded.
+
+"Why, we can catch him then," said Vi, rather feebly. "That is, we can
+if he wants to come out."
+
+"I suppose we can. If he doesn't take too long. Let's," said Laddie, and
+he ran across the road and looked to see if there was another opening to
+the culvert.
+
+But as it chanced, this was an old and unused drain, and the farther
+mouth of it was stopped up. This made the hole a very nice den for the
+little animal the Bunker twins had seen go into it. But neither Laddie
+nor Vi had any idea as to what the creature was.
+
+"I'm going to get a stick and poke him out," announced Laddie.
+
+"You can't poke him out when there is no other hole over there,"
+rejoined Vi very sensibly.
+
+"I'll poke him till he comes out then," said Laddie, looking all about
+but not starting to find a stick.
+
+To tell the truth he was at the end of his resources. He did not know
+how to get at the little red animal.
+
+"Anyway," he said at last, "maybe he didn't run in here after all."
+
+"He did so, Laddie Bunker!" cried Violet. "I saw him."
+
+This seemed final. Laddie looked all around again, quite puzzled as to
+what to do next. There was no backing out of a thing when once it was
+begun--not with Vi Bunker! She always insisted upon going on to the end,
+no matter what that end might be.
+
+"Well," her twin said at last, "I s'pose I'll have to go in after him."
+
+"How can you?" asked Vi promptly, but excitedly, too.
+
+"I can crawl into that hole----"
+
+"Isn't it too small?"
+
+"Well, I'm not so big," replied Laddie. "I guess I can do it. I'm going
+to try."
+
+He knelt down before the round mouth of the culvert. It was a piece of
+drainpipe with a rough rim at the edge of the hole. Laddie poked his
+head into the hole.
+
+"It's as dark as the inside of your pocket, Vi Bunker," he said, in a
+muffled voice.
+
+"Shall I run get a candle?" asked his sister.
+
+"No," sighed Laddie; and even his sigh sounded funny from inside the
+pipe. "If you do they'll want to know what you want it for. And if we
+are going to catch this--this whatever-it-is, we want to catch it all by
+ourselves. Wait."
+
+Vi granted that request. She waited, watching Laddie's plump little body
+wriggling farther and farther into the culvert. His jacket caught
+several times on the rough rim of the opening. But he persevered.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Laddie at last, and his voice seemed a murmur from a
+great way off.
+
+"I guess you better come back, Laddie," said Vi, getting anxious.
+
+Laddie, if the truth were known, thought so too. For just then he had
+sighted in the dark two fiery points, like flashing bits of glass or
+mica. He knew what they were; they were the eyes of the little red
+animal he had chased into this hole. And Laddie thought that when eyes
+flashed so brilliantly, their owner must be angry.
+
+"He's going to jump at me!" breathed the little boy to himself.
+
+He began to back out hastily. The bottom of his jacket caught on the rim
+of the pipe. He was stuck there!
+
+"Pull! Pull me out, Vi Bunker!" he shouted.
+
+But his voice was so muffled that his sister could not understand what
+he said. It looked as though Laddie was unable to get back the way he
+had come. And he certainly dared not go on ahead.
+
+For now, to increase his fears, he saw other points of light in the
+darkness--all in pairs, the eyes of several smaller animals, he was
+sure! He had self-control enough to count them and found that there
+were five pairs of eyes altogether.
+
+What should he do about it? Struggle as he might he could not back any
+farther. And no manner of wriggling was likely to get him out of the
+hole the way he had come in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN MAMMY JUNE'S ROOM
+
+
+Russ and Rose had both got up very early the day after Christmas, for
+their minds were filled with the idea of helping Mammy June. The poor
+old woman's anxiety should be relieved, and the two oldest of the Bunker
+children were determined that they would relieve it regarding her son,
+"Sneezer," if that were possible.
+
+So Russ found some cardboard boxes that had held certain of their
+Christmas presents, and he tore these apart and they wrote carefully a
+message to the old woman's absent son on both faces of these cards. At
+least, Russ wrote them, for by now he had learned at school to write a
+very good hand. Rose was not so sure--especially about her "q's" and
+capital "S's." Anybody who could read handwriting at all, however,
+could have read those signs that Russ Bunker wrote.
+
+"It doesn't seem like Christmas time at all," Rose said, as the two ran
+down the lane right after breakfast toward the branch and the burned
+cabin. "See the leaves and grass! And there's a flower!"
+
+It was only a weed, but it was a pretty one and Rose gathered it--of
+course for Mother Bunker. When they came in sight of Mammy June's cabin
+it was a sad looking place indeed. The little Bunkers had had several
+nice visits to the old woman's cabin, and they were really very sorry
+that it had burned down.
+
+The disaster was complete. The log walls were tumbled in heaps and were
+all charred. The interior of the hut was little but ashes.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose. "If that Sneezer Meiggs did come home and see all
+this, he might go away again, just as his mother says. It would be too
+dreadful, Russ. I am so glad you invented this idea of putting up signs
+for him."
+
+In fact, Russ was quite proud of his original thought himself. He was
+naturally of an inventive turn of mind and this was not the first novel
+thought he had expressed. He and Rose stuck up the cards on poles that
+they found near by, and they had so many of them that they quite
+surrounded the ashes of the old hut.
+
+"He can't help seeing them if he comes here," said Rose, as they
+departed from the spot. "But do you s'pose he'll ever want to come back
+to the place where everybody called him 'Sneezer'?"
+
+"He ought to want to come back to see Mammy June," declared Russ warmly.
+"I think she is just fine."
+
+"So do I," admitted Rose reflectively. "But I wouldn't want to be called
+by such a name as Sneezer."
+
+It was when they got back to the big house and around to its front that
+the two oldest little Bunkers became aware that something was happening
+down by the road. They saw Vi hopping up and down in a funny fashion,
+and she was screaming.
+
+"Now, what do you suppose is the matter with her?" demanded Rose.
+
+"Don't know. But it's something, sure enough!" rejoined Russ, and he
+started on a run for the spot where Violet was jumping up and down and
+screaming.
+
+As Russ and Rose started down the hill the three Armatage children came
+out of the front door of the big house and ran after them, screaming as
+well. Then appeared a host of small colored folk--Russ and Rose never
+could imagine where they all came from. They seemed to spring right up
+out of the ground when anything exciting happened.
+
+All this troop came streaming down the hill, and very quickly Vi found
+herself surrounded. Russ demanded:
+
+"What's the matter with you? Has something bitten you?"
+
+"They are biting Laddie!" wailed the twin sister.
+
+"How silly!" exclaimed Phillis Armatage. "Laddie isn't here."
+
+"Yes, he is, so now!" cried Vi.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" screamed Alice. "I see his legs!"
+
+At that they all saw his legs--at least, as much of them as were poked
+out of the mouth of the drainpipe. And they certainly were kicking
+vigorously. But the children outside made so much noise that the voice
+of the boy inside the pipe could not be heard.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" declared Vi, jumping up and down again. "It is biting him."
+
+"What is biting him? Mosquitoes?" demanded Russ, as much puzzled as
+anybody.
+
+"The red thing! With the pointed ears! And a big tail!" cried Vi in
+gasps.
+
+"What can she mean?" demanded Rose.
+
+  [Illustration: PHILLY GRABBED LADDIE'S ANKLE AND STARTED TO PULL HIM
+  OUT.
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 187]
+
+But Philly Armatage suspected the reason for Vi's fear at once. She
+grabbed hold of Laddie's ankles and started to draw him out of the pipe.
+
+"You'd better come out!" she cried. "That old fox will bite your nose
+off."
+
+"A fox!" cried Russ, in wonder and alarm. "Does a fox live in that
+hole?"
+
+"And she's got puppies. We saw 'em playing out here one day. Father is
+only waiting for a chance to smoke 'em out. They are terrible. They eat
+hens and other poultry."
+
+Russ was vastly interested, as well as troubled by Laddie's fix. For the
+smaller boy was really wedged by his rolled-up jacket tight into the
+mouth of the culvert. His muffled cries became more imploring, and the
+other children really feared that the mother fox, fearing for her
+young, might have attacked the boy.
+
+"I tell you he must be got out!" shouted Russ.
+
+"How you going to do it?" Philly demanded. Then she called to Laddie:
+"Push in farther, Laddie! Then maybe you can back out all right."
+
+But Laddie Bunker was so much afraid of the foxes by now (he still saw
+their luminous eyes before him) that he dared not squirm any deeper into
+the pipe. What would have happened to him finally--whether or not the
+old fox might not have attacked him--will never be known, for Russ
+Bunker took desperate means to release his brother.
+
+Russ ran to a pile of cobblestones beside the road, seized a big one,
+and staggered back with it in both hands. With the stone he pounded the
+rim of the pipe so hard that it broke in pieces.
+
+"Ow! Ow!" cried the muffled voice of Laddie Bunker. "You are breaking my
+legs. Don't pound me so!"
+
+"Wriggle out! Hurry up! What's holding you?" demanded Russ, half
+angrily because he was so excited.
+
+The smaller boy began to move backward now, the rough rim of the pipe no
+longer holding his jacket. Slowly he pushed out. When he appeared, his
+face very red and tear-streaked, Russ and Phillis pulled him to his
+feet.
+
+"Where's the fox?" demanded Vi, still very much excited.
+
+"Is that a fox?" demanded Laddie, panting.
+
+"Yes," said Phillis Armatage.
+
+"That fox has got five pairs of eyes, then," grumbled Laddie.
+
+"She's got four pups," cried Frane, Junior. "I'm going to run and tell
+father," and he ran away up the hill.
+
+"Come on!" cried Russ, immediately in action again. "Let's stop up the
+hole. Then the foxes can't get out until Mr. Armatage comes."
+
+They did that--at least, Russ and Vi and the colored boys did. Rose
+dusted Laddie off and wiped his face. He soon became more cheerful.
+
+"Well," he said, with a long breath, "they didn't bite me after all;
+but I thought they would. And their eyes shone dreadfully."
+
+"What made them shine?" demanded Vi, her usual curiosity aroused.
+
+"Because they were mad," said her twin promptly. "That old mother fox
+didn't want me in there."
+
+The adventure was happily ended; that is, for Laddie and Vi. Not so for
+the foxes. For Mr. Armatage and the gardener came with shovel and club
+and they dug down to the foxes' den. But the children had not done their
+work of closing the entrance well, and just as Mr. Armatage broke
+through into her den, Mrs. Fox and her puppies scurried out and away
+into the pine woods. But she had to look for a new home, for her old one
+was completely broken up.
+
+After this the little Bunkers and the Armatage children trooped up to
+the house and went to the room where Mammy June had been put to bed. The
+doctor had already been to see her this morning.
+
+The old colored woman was propped up with pillows and she wore the usual
+turban on her head. She smiled delightedly when she saw the white
+children and hailed them as gayly as though she were not in pain.
+
+"Lawsy me, childern!" cried Mammy June. "Has you come to see how I is? I
+sure has got good friends, I sure has! An' if Ebenezer Caliper
+Spotiswood Meiggs was back home yere where he b'longs, there wouldn't be
+a happier ol' woman in all Georgia--no, sir!
+
+"For Mistah Armatage say he's gwine have me another house built before
+spring. And it'll be a lot mo' fixy than my ol' house--yes, sir! Wait
+till my Sneezer comes home and sees it--Tut, tut! He ain't mebbe comin'
+home no mo'!"
+
+"Oh, yes, he will, Mammy June," Philly said comfortingly.
+
+"Don't know. These boys ups and goes away from their mammies and ain't
+never seen nor heard of again."
+
+"But Sneezer loved you too well to stay away always," Alice Armatage
+said.
+
+"And when these Bunkers go back North," put in Frane, Junior, "they are
+going to look for Sneezer everywhere."
+
+"You reckon you'll find him?" asked Mammy June of Rose.
+
+"I hope so," said the oldest Bunker girl.
+
+"Of course we will," agreed Russ stoutly. "And Daddy Bunker will look
+out for him too. He said so."
+
+According to Russ's mind, that Daddy Bunker had promised to help find
+the lost boy seemed conclusive that Sneezer must be found. He and Rose
+began eagerly to tell Mammy June what they had already done to make it
+positive that Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs would not come back to
+the burned cabin some day and go away, thinking that his old mother was
+no longer alive.
+
+"You blessed childern!" exclaimed Mammy June. "And has you fixed it dat
+way for me? But--but--you says you writ dem letters to Sneezer?"
+
+"Yes," said Rose happily. "Yes, we did, Mammy June. And stuck them up on
+poles all about the burned house."
+
+"I don't know! I don't know!" sighed the old woman. "I reckon dat won't
+be much use."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Russ anxiously. "If he comes back he'll see and read
+'em."
+
+"No. No, sir! He may see 'em," said Mammy June, shaking her head on the
+pillow. "But he won't read 'em."
+
+"Why won't he?" Russ demanded in some heat. "I wrote them just as plain
+as plain!"
+
+"But," said Mammy June, still sadly, "you see, my Sneezer never learnt
+to read hand-writin'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+GOOSEY-GOOSEY-GANDER
+
+
+The Bunker children, especially Russ and Rose, felt truly anxious
+because of Mammy June's unhappiness about her absent son. The boy they
+all called Sneezer should have been home now when his mother was
+crippled with rheumatism and had lost her home and all her little
+possessions.
+
+She worried audibly and continually about Sneezer. Russ and Rose took
+counsel together more than once. They had hoped that their signs put up
+at the site of the burned cabin would have satisfied Mammy June that her
+son would come up to the big house whenever, or if ever, he returned to
+his old home. Now the Bunker children were not so sure.
+
+When Russ and Rose told Philly Armatage what they had done she said:
+
+"Mebbe he'll think the writing is just to keep ha'nts away. He can't
+read writing. He always worked in the fields or up here at the house.
+Those signs aren't any good--just as Mammy June says."
+
+This opinion caused Russ and Rose additional anxiety. They did not know
+what to do about it. Even the boy's inventive mind was at fault in the
+emergency.
+
+While the older Bunker brother and sister were troubled in this way and
+Laddie and Vi were recovering from their adventure with the red fox,
+Margy and Mun Bun were, as usual, having their own pleasures and
+difficulties. The littlest Bunker was a born explorer. Daddy Bunker said
+so. And Margy was quite as active as the little fellow.
+
+Hand in hand they wandered all about the big house and out-of-doors as
+well. There was always supposed to be somebody to watch them, especially
+if they went near the barns or paddocks where the horses and mules were.
+But sometimes the little folks slipped away from even Mother Bunker's
+observation.
+
+The gardener often talked to the littlest Bunkers, and he saw, too, that
+they did no more mischief around the greenhouse. When he saw them that
+afternoon trotting down the hill toward the poultry houses he failed to
+follow them. He had his work to do, of course, and it did not enter his
+head that Mun Bun and Margy could get into much trouble with the
+poultry.
+
+Margy and Mun Bun were delighted with the "chickens" as they called most
+of the fowl the Armatages kept. But there were many different kinds--not
+alone of hens and roosters; for there were peafowl, and guineas, and
+ducks, and turkeys. And in addition there was a flock of gray geese.
+
+"Those are gooseys," Margy announced, pointing through the slats of the
+low fence which shut in the geese and their strip of the branch, or
+brook, and the grass plot which the geese had all to themselves.
+
+"Goosey, goosey gander!" chanted Mun Bun, clinging to the top rail of
+the fence and looking through the slats. "Which is ganders and which is
+gooseys, Margy?"
+
+As though in answer to his query one of the big birds, with a horny
+crown on its head, stuck out its neck and ran at the little boy looking
+through the fence. The bird hissed in a most hateful manner too.
+
+"Oh, look out, Mun Bun!" cried his sister. "I guess that's a gander."
+
+But Mun Bun, with a fence between him and the big bird, was as usual
+very brave.
+
+"I don't have to look out, Margy Bunker," he declared proudly. "I am
+already out--so he can't get me. Anyway if he came after us I wouldn't
+let him bite you."
+
+"I guess he would like to bite us," said the little girl, keeping well
+away from the fence herself.
+
+"That's 'cause he must be hungry," said Mun Bun with confidence. "You
+see, he hasn't got anything but grass to eat. I guess they forgot to
+feed him and it makes him mad."
+
+"That is too bad. He is a real pretty bird," agreed Margy. "Wonder if we
+could feed him?"
+
+"We can ask that nice cook for bwead," said Mun Bun doubtfully.
+
+"They don't feed gooseys bread, I guess," objected the little girl.
+
+"What do they feed 'em?"
+
+"I guess corn--or oats."
+
+"Let's go and get some," said Mun Bun promptly, and he backed away from
+the fence, still keeping his gaze fixed on the threatening gander.
+
+They both knew where the feed was kept, for they had watched the colored
+man feed the stock. So they went across to the stables. And nobody saw
+them enter the feed room.
+
+As usual it did not trouble Margy and Mun Bun that they had not asked
+permission to feed the geese. What they had not been literally forbidden
+to do the little folks considered all right. It was true that they were
+great ones for exploring and experimenting. That is how they managed to
+get into so much mischief.
+
+In this matter, however, it did not seem as though Margy and Mun Bun
+could really get into much trouble. They got a little dish and filled it
+with corn and trotted back to the goose pen. This time the gander did
+not charge Mun Bun. But the whole flock was down the slope by the water
+and the little folks had to walk that way along the edge of the fenced
+lot.
+
+They came to a place where a panel of the fence was crooked. It had been
+broken, in fact, and it was much easier to push it aside than not. Why!
+when Mun Bun leaned against it the strip of fence fell right over on to
+the grass of the goose yard.
+
+"Now see what you've done, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy.
+
+"Why--oh--I didn't mean to," sputtered Mun Bun.
+
+"What do you s'pose Mr. Armatage will say?"
+
+"He won't say anything," said Mun Bun briskly. "For he won't see it. And
+now, Margy, we can throw the corn to those gooseys and ganders much
+better. See!"
+
+He grabbed a handful of shelled corn out of the dish and scattered it as
+far as he could toward the flock. At once the gray birds became
+interested. They stretched their long necks and the big gander uttered a
+questioning "honk!"
+
+"It's corn--it's real corn!" cried Mun Bun. "Don't be afraid,
+goosey-goosey-gander," and he shouted with laughter.
+
+Margy threw a handful of corn too. At once the geese drew nearer. When
+they reached the first kernels they began grabbing them up with that
+strange shoveling motion with their bills that all geese and ducks make.
+The children watched them with delight.
+
+But as the geese waddled nearer the old gander began to wiggle his head
+from side to side and to hiss softly. Margy and Mun Bun looked at each
+other, and both drew back.
+
+"I don't like that one much," said Margy. "Do you, Mun Bun?"
+
+"I don't like him at all," confessed the little fellow. "I guess we'd
+better go back. Maybe Mother will be wanting us."
+
+Margy turned as quickly as he did. She had not thrown out all the corn,
+but as she turned away a few kernels scattered from the dish. Instantly
+the gander saw this. With a long hiss he started after the two children,
+and many of his flock kept right behind their leader.
+
+"Oh! Come quick, Mun Bun!" gasped Margy.
+
+Mun Bun seized her hand. As they ran up the slope the corn scattered
+from the dish. This was enough to keep the flock following. But the big
+gander did not chase the little boy and girl because of the scattered
+corn. He was really angry!
+
+The chubby legs of Mun Bun and Margy looked good to that old gander. He
+ran hissing after them and began to flap his wings. One stroke of one of
+those wings would knock down either of the children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ROSE HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+It was just like a nightmare, and both Margy and Mun Bun knew what
+nightmares were. Those are dreams that, when you are "sleeping them,"
+you get chased by something and your feet seem to stick in the mud so
+that you can't run. It is a very frightful sort of dream. And this
+adventure the little ones had got into was surely a frightful peril.
+
+The hissing gander, his neck outstretched and his bill wide open,
+followed the two children with every evidence of wishing to strike them.
+His flapping wings were as powerful, it seemed, as those of the big
+sea-eagle that had been caught aboard ship coming down from Boston, and
+Mun Bun and Margy remembered that creature very vividly.
+
+Others of the flock of geese came on, too. As long as the grains of corn
+kept dropping from Margy's dish, the ravenous geese would follow, even
+if they were not savage, as their leader was.
+
+The chubby legs of the two children hardly kept them ahead of the
+gander's bill. They shrieked at the top of their voices. But for once
+none of the innumerable colored folks was in sight. Even their friend,
+the gardener, had disappeared since Mun Bun and Margy had come down to
+the goose pen.
+
+"Help! Help us!" cried Margy, looking to the world in general to assist.
+
+"Muvver! Muvver!" cried Mun Bun, who held an unshaken belief that Mother
+Bunker must be always at hand and able to rescue him from any trouble.
+
+Mun Bun thought he felt the cold, hard bill of the gander at his bare
+legs. He ran so hard that he lost his breath, somewhere. He couldn't
+even pant, and as for calling out for help again, that was impossible!
+
+Margy dragged him on a few steps, for she was quite strong for a little
+girl. But she knew that she was overtaken. There was no help for it. The
+goosey-goosey-gander was going to eat them up!
+
+But if no human being heard the two children in their distress, there
+was a creature that did. Bobo, the big old hound, who was only chained
+to his house at night or when Mr. Armatage did not want him following
+the mules about the plantation, came out of his kennel and stared down
+the hill. He observed the running and screaming children, and he
+likewise saw the gander who was his old enemy. They had had many a tilt
+before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock
+meant mischief.
+
+Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to
+rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it
+sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps.
+
+Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him.
+Margy's corn went spinning about her and the geese fairly scrambled over
+the two crying children to get at the corn. Perhaps this helped Mun Bun
+and his sister some, although they did not think so at the moment. At
+least, while his family scrambled for the grains of corn the gander
+could not get at the brother and sister to strike them.
+
+And then great Bobo appeared. He bounded into the middle of the flock
+and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his
+muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he
+lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any
+more. He "honked" for help.
+
+Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust
+his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two
+little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing
+that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them.
+
+"The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you
+I wouldn't let him bite you."
+
+Whether his sister was much impressed by this statement or not, is not
+known. However that might be, she fondled Bobo and got upon her feet as
+quickly as Mun Bun arose.
+
+"Isn't he a good old dog?" cooed Margy.
+
+"He's pretty good I think. But--but let's come away from that
+goosey-goosey-gander."
+
+Bobo gave a jump and a bark at the gander, and the latter, which had now
+climbed to its webbed feet, scurried away, the flock following him. It
+was then, while the two children were fondling Bobo, who liked to have
+his long ears pulled by a gentle hand, that Russ and Rose Bunker came
+upon the scene.
+
+Russ and Rose had been down to the burned cabin and had brought away all
+their letters to Sneezer Meiggs. If the colored boy had never learned to
+read writing, there was no use in leaving the notices there. So Russ had
+said, and Rose agreed with him.
+
+"Oh, my dears!" Rose cried out when she saw the little ones so mussed up
+and with tear-stained faces, "what has happened to you?"
+
+"Don't be afraid of Bobo," said Russ, running too. "He won't hurt you."
+
+"He hurted the goosey-goosey-gander," declared Mun Bun confidently. "He
+dug his head under the goosey-goosey-gander and flunged him right over
+on his back."
+
+"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.
+
+"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to
+bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."
+
+"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow,
+flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."
+
+"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo
+saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing
+at us now."
+
+"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.
+
+"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down
+to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."
+
+"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy
+Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."
+
+"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was
+a teeny bit scared myself."
+
+The children--all nine of them--spent much of their time in Mammy June's
+room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping them interested and
+quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother
+Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.
+
+Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad,
+just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them.
+Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to
+relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what
+they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and
+how much she wanted to see him.
+
+Russ and Rose Bunker were quite used to thinking things out for
+themselves. Of course, there were times when Russ had to go to Daddy
+Bunker for help and his sister had to confess to Mother Bunker that she
+did not know what to do. For instance, that adventure of Russ's with the
+sailor-boy aboard the steamship.
+
+But this matter of helping Mammy June's son to find his mother, if by
+chance he came back to the site of the burned cabin, was solely their
+own affair, and Russ and Rose realized the fact.
+
+"We ought to be able to do something about it ourselves," declared Russ
+to his sister. "I'm going to ask Mammy June again if she is sure Sneezer
+can't read a word of writing."
+
+This he did. Mammy June shook her head somewhat sadly.
+
+"Dat boy always have to wo'k," she said. "When first he went away he
+sent me back money by mail. The man he wo'ked for sent it. Then Sneezer
+losed his job. But he never learnt to read hand-writin'. Much as he
+could do to spell out the big print on the front of the newspapers.
+That's surely so!"
+
+Rose suddenly thought of something--and perhaps it was not a foolish
+idea at that.
+
+"Oh, Mammy!" she cried, "can your boy read newspaper print?"
+
+"Sure can. De big print. What yo' call de haidlines in big print. Sure
+can."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Rose, and she dragged Russ away to confer with him in
+secret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE STRANGE CRY
+
+
+Rose Bunker's idea was too good to tell in general. Some ideas are too
+good to keep; but Russ and Rose decided that this one was not in that
+class. They determined to tell nobody--not even Mammy June or Daddy or
+Mother Bunker--about what they proposed to do to help the old colored
+woman.
+
+They had tried once, and failed. And Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior,
+had laughed at them. Now they proposed to do what Rose had thought of,
+and keep it secret from everybody.
+
+"Of course," Rose said, "nothing may come of it."
+
+"But that won't be your fault, Rose," said her brother. "It is a
+perfectly scrumptious idea."
+
+"Do you think so?" asked Rose, much pleased by this frank praise.
+
+"Sure I do. And we'll do it to-night. Then the Armatages won't know
+and--and laugh at us."
+
+For they had found Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, rather trying.
+Not having their childish imaginations so well developed as the six
+little Bunkers had, the children of the plantation were altogether too
+matter-of-fact. Many childish plays that the Bunkers enjoyed did not
+appeal to their little hosts at all.
+
+For instance, when Russ invented some brand new and charming, simple
+play for all to join in, Philly and Alice and Frane just drifted away
+and would have nothing to do with it. They were too polite to criticize;
+but Russ knew that the Armatage children felt themselves "too grown up"
+to be interested in the building of a steamboat or the driving of an
+imaginary motor-car.
+
+His little brothers and sisters, however, were constantly teasing Russ
+to make something new. They enjoyed traveling in reality so much, did
+the six little Bunkers, that, as Daddy laughingly said, traveling in a
+wheelbarrow would have amused them.
+
+So this day when Russ made a whole freight train with empty chicken
+coops, with a caboose at the end and a big engine in front, only Frane
+took an interest in it aside from the Bunkers themselves. And perhaps
+his interest was, only held because Russ agreed to make him the engineer
+while Laddie was fireman.
+
+As for Russ himself, he was the conductor at the end of the long train.
+He had to explain very plainly that of course a freight train had a
+conductor. Every train had to have a "skipper" just like a boat. A
+railroad man had explained all that to Russ Bunker when the family was
+on its way to Cowboy Jack's early in the autumn.
+
+"And you-all," said Russ, copying Frane's speech, speaking to the little
+ones and Rose, "must stay back here with me and be brakemen. When we
+need the handbrakes, I'll tell you, and you run forward over the
+coops--I mean the cars--and set the brakes."
+
+"But suppose we get flung off?" asked Vi.
+
+"That you must not do," said her older brother sternly. "If the train is
+going fast you might get a broken leg. Or if it is going around a curve
+it would be worse. You must be careful."
+
+"I think this is a dangerous play," said Vi hopefully. There was nobody
+really more daring than Vi.
+
+The two Armatage girls tried to coax Rose away from the "train"; but
+Rose liked to play with her brothers and sisters, and she knew that
+Mother Bunker expected her to. So she excused herself to Philly and
+Alice.
+
+Unfortunately they took some offense at this. That evening after supper
+Rose found herself ignored by Phillis and Alice Armatage. At another
+time this ungenerous act might have hurt the oldest Bunker girl. But she
+and Russ had their secret plans to carry through, and Rose was glad to
+get away with her brother in a room where nobody would disturb them.
+
+Again Russ had broken up pasteboard boxes, and he had pen and ink. To
+make new signs all in "big print" to stick up at the site of Mammy
+June's burned cabin was more of a task than merely writing them. This
+was Rose's bright idea. Russ did not deny her powers of invention.
+
+They printed four good signs. Oh, the letters were large and black!
+
+"They ought to be," Russ said. "We've used 'most half a bottle of ink."
+
+"Don't let's tell Philly or any of them," said Rose. "They laugh at so
+many things we do."
+
+"All right," agreed Russ, although he was less sensitive about being
+laughed at than his sister.
+
+But this habit the young Armatages had of laughing at what the little
+Bunkers did caused all the trouble on this night. And it was a night
+that all of the children and most of the grown folks, too, would be
+likely to remember.
+
+The Armatage children knew a great deal more about the plantation and
+the country surrounding it than the Bunkers did. That was only natural.
+Philly or Alice or Frane, Junior, would not have started off secretly,
+as Russ and Rose Bunker did, after nine o'clock at night to go down to
+the place where old Mammy June's cabin had been burned.
+
+To tell the truth, the Armatage children had associated so much with the
+colored folks about the plantation that they were inclined to believe
+that there might be such things as "ha'nts." The little Bunkers had
+heard of "ghosts"; but they looked on such things as being like
+fairies--something to half-believe in, and shiver about, all the time
+knowing that they were not real.
+
+So Russ and Rose had no actual fear of haunts when they started down the
+cart-path toward the wide brook where Russ had had his first adventure
+catching the big fish.
+
+The colored folks were all at home in their quarters; and although it
+was a starlight night they were having no celebration. Everything about
+the plantation seemed particularly quiet. And no sounds at first came to
+the ears of the brother and sister from the forest.
+
+As they approached the place for which they aimed however there came
+suddenly a mournful screech from the woods--a sound that seemed to
+linger longer in their hearing than any strange noise Russ and Rose had
+ever heard. The brother and sister stopped, frightened indeed, and clung
+to each other.
+
+"Oh! What's that?" murmured Rose.
+
+"It--it's maybe an owl," returned Russ, trying to think of the most
+harmless creature that made a noise at night.
+
+"I never heard an owl howl like that," whispered his sister.
+
+"Aw, Rose! owls don't howl. It's wolves that howl--or coyotes such as we
+saw at Cowboy Jack's. Don't you remember the coyote caught in the trap
+that you thought was a dog?"
+
+Rose's mind would not be drawn from the thing in question. She said,
+quite as fearfully:
+
+"Maybe this is a wolf, Russ."
+
+"Of course not," declared the boy trying to speak bravely. "There aren't
+any wolves in this part of the country. I asked Frane, Junior."
+
+But there was evidently a savage creature here that Russ Bunker had
+known nothing about, for now it cried out again! Its long, quavering
+note echoed through the woods and made the boy and girl stand again and
+shiver.
+
+"I--I guess it isn't any animal after all," said Rose suddenly, and
+speaking with some relief. "That's a woman. Of course it is. But she
+must be lost, or something bad has happened to her. Oh, Russ!" she
+added, suddenly seizing her brother once more. "I know what it must be.
+And they are almost always ladies, so Phillis says."
+
+"What's that?" demanded Russ, puzzled.
+
+"It's a ha'nt! It's a lady ha'nt! I do believe it must be!"
+
+"Aw, Rose, what you talking about?" demanded her brother, yet secretly
+quite as much troubled by the strange, eerie sound as she was. "You know
+that haunts are only make-believe."
+
+"We-ell!" sighed Rose, "maybe that's only a make-believe sound we hear.
+But--but I don't like it. There!"
+
+For a third time the screech was repeated. It seemed nearer. Russ could
+not be confident that it was "make-believe." The strange sound seemed
+very real indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST
+
+
+"I don't like that noise a bit," whispered Rose, standing close to her
+brother. "It--it makes me all shivery."
+
+"But, if it is only just a woman calling----"
+
+"There must be something awful the matter with her, if she has to scream
+like that," declared Rose.
+
+As they did not hear the noise again for a little while, both of them
+plucked up courage, and they went on to the burned cabin. The sticks
+they had set up were still standing. Russ fastened each of the four
+pasteboard "letters" to a stick at the four corners of Mammy June's
+ruined house.
+
+There was light enough from the stars for the two children to see quite
+plainly what they were about. Rose, however, was looking all about them
+while Russ did the work of setting up the printed signs for Sneezer
+Meiggs to see if he came home unexpectedly.
+
+"What do you expect to see, Rose?" demanded her brother loftily.
+
+"I don't know. Philly says ha'nts are all in white."
+
+"I don't see anything very white around here," rejoined Russ.
+
+"But there are so many colored folks, perhaps some of the ha'nts might
+be black," suggested Rose. "Then we wouldn't see them very well in the
+shadows."
+
+"I don't believe----" began Russ.
+
+The strange shriek was again heard. Russ stopped in his speech. Rose
+uttered a sharp cry. The screech--and it did sound like a woman's voice,
+the voice of a woman in fearful pain or fright--seemed very near them.
+
+"It's right over there in that patch of woods," said Russ. "I guess she
+is lost--or something."
+
+"Do you believe it is only a lady and not a ha'nt, Russ?" demanded his
+sister.
+
+"Of course it isn't a ha'nt! Such things can't be! And if it was a
+ghost, a ghost is nothing but air, and how could air have such a voice
+as that?"
+
+This reasoning seemed to close the argument. Rose felt that her brother
+must be right. Besides, Russ went right on talking, and talking very
+bravely.
+
+"I think we ought to see what the matter is with her, Rose. She is in
+trouble--maybe she is lost and scared."
+
+"So am I scared," murmured Rose.
+
+"But think how much more you would be scared," her brother said
+seriously, "if you were in those woods alone and didn't know that there
+was anybody else near."
+
+"I wouldn't make so much fuss about it," muttered Rose, for she
+suspected the thought in Russ Bunker's mind and she was really too
+scared to approve of it at once.
+
+"We've got to find her," said the boy impressively.
+
+"Now, Russ!" almost wailed Rose, "you wouldn't go into those woods?
+Aren't you scared?"
+
+"Of course I'm scared," said Russ. "Who wouldn't be? But just because I
+am scared I know the woman must be even more scared. She's got to be
+taken out of the woods and shown where the big house is. Or, if she is a
+colored lady, we'll take her to the quarters."
+
+"I--I wish Daddy was here," ventured Rose.
+
+"But he isn't here," said Russ, with some vexation. "So we've got to
+find the woman by ourselves."
+
+"Oh, dear!" murmured Rose.
+
+But she would not let Russ go alone into the patch of forest behind the
+site of Mammy June's burned cabin; nor did she feel like remaining alone
+in the clearing. Russ picked up a good sized stick and started toward
+the woods.
+
+"Let's shout when we get to the edge," whispered Rose.
+
+They did so; but, really, their voices sounded very faint indeed. No
+reply came. It was several minutes after, and Russ and Rose were quite a
+distance into the woods and following what seemed to be a
+half-grown-over path, before the "woman" screamed again.
+
+"Goodness! How hateful that sounds!" cried Rose.
+
+"I guess she is more scared than we are," ventured Russ. "What do you
+think?"
+
+"I think I'd like to be back at the house," answered Rose.
+
+But Russ would not agree with her. As he went on he grew more confident.
+They did not see even a rabbit. And Russ and Rose knew that rabbits were
+often out at night.
+
+If they had but known it, the awful screech that so disturbed them,
+disturbed the rabbits and the other small fry of the woods much more. At
+the sound of that terrible hunger-cry all the rabbits, and hares, and
+birds that nested on the ground or in trees, trembled.
+
+But Russ seemed to grow braver by the minute. And Rose of course could
+not fail to be inspired by his show of courage. They walked along the
+path hand in hand, and although they did not speak much for the next few
+moments, when they did speak it was quite cheerfully.
+
+"I wish she would yell again," said Russ at last. "For we must be
+getting near to where she was."
+
+"We-ell, if she isn't a ghost----"
+
+Just then the silence of the wood was broken again by the cry. The boy
+and the girl halted involuntarily. No matter how brave Russ might appear
+to be, there was a tone to that scream that made shivers go up and down
+his back.
+
+"Oh, Russ!" cried Rose.
+
+"Oh, Rose!" stammered her brother.
+
+The scream came from so near that it seemed worse than before. And now
+Russ was shaken in his proclaimed opinion. It did not seem that any
+woman, no matter how great her distress might be, could make such a
+terrible sound.
+
+"I guess we'd better go back," confessed Russ after a minute.
+
+Rose was eager to do so. They turned and, hand in hand, began to run.
+And in their haste they somehow missed the path they had been following.
+Or else, it had not been a path at all.
+
+At least, after running so far that they should have reached the burned
+cabin they came out into quite a different clearing! They both knew that
+they had missed the way, for in this clearing stood a little cabin with
+a pitched roof that neither of the Bunker children had ever seen
+before. Nor was the wide brook in sight.
+
+"I guess we've got turned around," Russ said, trying to hide his
+disappointment and fear from his sister. "We've got to go back, Rose."
+
+"Do you know which is back?" she asked.
+
+"We've got to hunt for that old path."
+
+"Don't you leave me, Russ Bunker!" cried Rose, as her brother started
+away.
+
+And just then both of them saw the tawny, long tailed, slinking beast in
+the edge of the thicket.
+
+"Oh! It's a bear!" shrieked Rose.
+
+"Bears don't look like that," gasped Russ, staring at the great, glowing
+eyes of the animal. "It looks more like a cat."
+
+"There never was a cat as big as that, Russ Bunker, and you know it!"
+
+"Come on, Rose," said her brother promptly. "We'll go into that house
+and shut the door. It can't get us then, whatever it is."
+
+In a moment the two children had dashed into the cabin and pulled to the
+swinging door. The door had a lock on the outside, and when Russ banged
+the door shut he heard the lock snap.
+
+"Now it can't get at us!" cried Russ with some satisfaction. "We're
+safe."
+
+"But--but I don't like this old house, Russ Bunker," complained Rose.
+"There is no window."
+
+"All the better," was the brave reply. "That cat can't get at us."
+
+Then the screech sounded again and the boy and girl clung together while
+the sound echoed through the lonesome timber.
+
+"It's that thing that makes the noise," whispered Rose. "Oh, Russ! if
+Daddy Bunker doesn't come after us, maybe it will tear the house down."
+
+"It can't," declared Russ.
+
+"How do you know it can't?"
+
+"Why, cats--even big ones--don't tear houses to pieces, Rose. You know
+they don't! We'll be safe as long as we stay in this place."
+
+"But how long shall we have to stay here?"
+
+"Until that thing goes away," said Russ confidently.
+
+"And maybe it won't go away at all. We'll have to stay here till the
+folks come to find us, Russ. I--I want--my mo-mother!"
+
+"Now, Rose Bunker, don't be a baby!" said her brother. "That thing can't
+get at us in here----"
+
+Just then something thumped heavily on the roof of the hut. Russ could
+not say another word. They heard the great claws of the big cat
+scratching at the roof boards.
+
+Rose screamed again and this time her brother's voice joined with hers
+in a hopeless cry for help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+AN EXCITING TIME
+
+
+Russ and Rose Bunker had slipped out of the house on the hill without
+saying a word to anybody as to where they were going. Since coming to
+the Meiggs Plantation there had been a certain amount of laxness in
+regard to what the children did. They had a freedom that Mother Bunker
+never allowed when they were at home.
+
+Because the Armatage children went and came as they wished, the little
+Bunkers began to do likewise. The house was so big, too, that the
+children might be playing a long way from the room in which their mother
+and father and Mr. Frane Armatage and his wife sat.
+
+The servants who were supposed to keep some watch upon the children were
+now all in the quarters. Servants in the South seldom sleep in "the big
+house." And perhaps Mother Bunker forgot this fact.
+
+At any rate, when she came to look for her brood late in the evening she
+found the four little ones fast asleep in their beds, as she had
+expected them to be. But Rose was not with Phillis and Alice Armatage,
+and Russ's bed was likewise empty.
+
+"Where are those children?" Mother Bunker demanded of Daddy, when she
+had run downstairs again. "Do you know? They should be in bed."
+
+"They were in the library earlier in the evening," Mrs. Armatage said.
+"I think they were writing again."
+
+"Writing?" repeated Mother Bunker. "Making more of those signs to set up
+at the burned house?"
+
+Mr. Armatage chuckled. "Those won't do much good. Sneezer never could
+read writing."
+
+"Let us ask Mammy. Rose and Russ may be with her," suggested Mrs.
+Armatage.
+
+Upstairs went the two ladies and into Mammy June's room. There was a
+night light burning there, but nobody was with the old woman.
+
+"Lawsy me!" exclaimed the old nurse when Mrs. Bunker asked her. "I ain't
+seen them childern since I had my supper. No'm. They ain't been here."
+
+The house was searched from cellar to garret by the two gentlemen.
+Meanwhile the anxious mother and her hostess went to the library. Russ
+had left there some spoiled sheets of cardboard with some of the letters
+printed on them. It was easy to see the attempt he and Rose had made to
+print plainly a notice to Sneezer, Mammy June's absent son, telling him
+that his mother was at the big house.
+
+"The dear things!" said Mrs. Armatage. "Your boy and girl are very kind,
+Mrs. Bunker. They want to relieve Mammy's trouble."
+
+"They have gone down there to-night to stick up those signs!" cried Mrs.
+Bunker, inspired by a new thought.
+
+"Well, I reckon nothing will hurt 'em," said her friend soothingly.
+"I'll tell Mr. Armatage and he will go down there and get them."
+
+This idea impressed both the men when they came back from their
+unsuccessful search of the house.
+
+The two men walked briskly along the trail to the burned cabin. The
+stars gave them light enough to see all about the clearing when they
+arrived. Not a sign of Russ or Rose did they find.
+
+"Do you suppose they went home some other way?" asked Daddy Bunker.
+
+"I don't know. I hope they haven't wandered into the thicket."
+
+As Mr. Armatage spoke both men heard the terrible scream that had first
+startled Russ and Rose. Mr. Bunker fairly jumped.
+
+"That can't be the children!" he ejaculated.
+
+The way his companion looked at him told the children's father a good
+deal. Mr. Bunker seized Mr. Armatage's arm.
+
+"Tell me! What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Something that hasn't been heard around here for years," said the
+planter, his voice trembling a little. "It's the cry of a panther."
+
+Mr. Bunker, although he was practically a city man, had hunted a good
+deal and had been in the wilder parts of the country very often. He knew
+how terribly dangerous a panther might be on occasion; but he likewise
+knew that ordinarily they would not attack human beings. Two little
+children lost in the woods in which a panther was roaming up and down
+was, however, a fearful thing.
+
+"Get a gun and the hands!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "If Russ and Rose have
+mistaken the way home, and are in that timber, they may be in peril."
+
+Mr. Armatage started off on a run for the quarters. He knew that some of
+his hands had guns, and the quarters were nearer than the big house.
+
+Daddy Bunker, although he was unarmed, started directly into the woods,
+trying to mark his course by the repeated screams of the hungry panther.
+He might have been lost himself, for there was not much light to mark
+the way; but Daddy Bunker could judge the situation of the screaming
+panther much better than Russ and Rose had been able to.
+
+He hurried on, gripping a good-sized club that he had found. But, of
+course, he knew better than to attack a panther with a club. He might
+throw the stick at the animal, however, and frighten it away.
+
+Russ and Rose had gone a long way into the thicket. The panther did not
+scream often. So Daddy Bunker did not make much progress in the right
+direction. By and by he had to stop and wait for help, or for the
+panther to scream again.
+
+He heard finally many voices at the edge of the thicket. Then he began
+to see the blaze of torches. A party of colored people--men and
+boys--with torches and guns, followed Mr. Armatage.
+
+In addition, all the hunting dogs on the plantation were scouring the
+timber. Bobo, the big hound, was at the head of this pack. He struck the
+scent of the panther at last, and his long and mournful howl was almost
+as awe-inspiring as the cry of the panther.
+
+"Come on, Bunker!" shouted Mr. Armatage, when the party had overtaken
+the Northern man. "The dogs are the best leaders. Bobo has got a scent
+for any kind of trail. Come on!"
+
+The negroes shouted and swung their torches. Perhaps they made so much
+noise and had so many lights because they somewhat feared the "ha'nts"
+that many of them talked about and believed in.
+
+But the two white men were not thinking of ghosts. They feared what
+might have happened to the two children if they had met the panther.
+
+Just at this time, too, Russ and Rose were not thinking of ghosts. The
+panther was not at all ghostly. He had four great paws, each armed with
+claws that seemed quite capable of tearing to pieces the roof boards of
+the cabin the children had taken refuge in.
+
+"He'll get to us! He will! He will!" Rose cried over and over.
+
+"No, he won't," said her brother, but his voice trembled. "I--I don't
+see how he can."
+
+"Let's run out again while he's on the roof, and run home," said Rose.
+
+"We don't know the way home," objected her brother.
+
+"We can find it. I don't want to be shut up here with that cat."
+
+"It's not so bad. He hasn't got in yet."
+
+But Rose ran to the door, and then she made another discovery that
+added to her fright. The door could not be opened! The spring lock on
+the outside had snapped and there was no way of springing the bolt from
+inside the shack.
+
+"Now see what we've done!" she wailed. "Russ Bunker! we are shut into
+the place, and can't get out, and that thing will come down and claw us
+all to pieces."
+
+With this Rose cast herself upon the ground and could not be comforted.
+In fact, at the moment, Russ could not think of a word to say that would
+comfort his sister. He was just as much frightened as Rose was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THAT PIGEON WING
+
+
+Greatly as the two little Bunkers were alarmed, and as much as their
+father and Mr. Armatage worried about their safety, they really were not
+so very badly off. Not only were the roof boards of the hut in which
+Russ and Rose had taken refuge sound, but soon the panther stopped
+clawing at the boards.
+
+It heard the crowd of men coming and the baying of the hounds. It stood
+up, stretched its neck as it listened, snarled a defiance at Bobo and
+his mates, and then leaped into the nearest tree and so away, from tree
+to tree, into the deeper fastnesses of the wood.
+
+The dogs might follow the scent of the panther on the ground to the
+clearing where the hut stood; but beyond that place they could not
+follow, for the wary cat had left no trail upon the ground.
+
+At first, when the dogs came baying to the spot, Russ and Rose were
+even more frightened than before. The dogs' voices sounded very savage.
+But soon Bobo smelled the children out and leaped, whining, against the
+door of the cabin. He was doing that when Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage
+and the negroes reached the clearing.
+
+"The creature is in that hut," said Daddy Bunker.
+
+"Not much!" returned his friend. "Bobo would not make those sounds if it
+was a panther. Mr. Panther has beat it through the trees. It is
+something else in the charcoal burner's hut. Come on!"
+
+He strode over to the door, snapped back the lock, and threw the door
+open. The torchlight flooded the interior of the place and revealed Russ
+and Rose Bunker, still fearful, clinging to each other as they crouched
+in a corner of the hut.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "Of all the children that ever were
+born, you two manage to get into the greatest adventures! What are you
+doing here?"
+
+"A big cat chased us in here, Daddy," said Russ.
+
+"And he tried to get at us through the roof," added Rose.
+
+Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage looked at each other pretty seriously.
+
+"We didn't get here a minute too soon," said the planter.
+
+"I believe you," returned Mr. Bunker gravely. "This might have been a
+very serious affair."
+
+But in the morning, after Russ and Rose were refreshed by sleep and had
+told the particulars of their adventure at the breakfast table, the
+youngsters really took pride in what had happened to them. The smaller
+children looked upon Russ and Rose as being very wonderful.
+
+"What would you have done, Russ, if that big cat had got into the house
+with you and Rose?" Vi asked.
+
+"But he didn't," was the boy's reply.
+
+"Well, if he had what would you have done?"
+
+But that proved to be another question that Vi Bunker never got
+answered. This was so often the case!
+
+"So you thought it was a ghost at first, and then it turned out to be a
+big cat," Laddie said to Rose. "I think I could make up a riddle about
+that."
+
+"All right," said Rose, with a sigh. "You can make up all the riddles
+you want to about it. Making a riddle about a panther is lots better
+than being chased by one."
+
+Laddie, however, did not make the riddle. In fact he forgot all about it
+in the excitement of what directly followed the rescue of Russ and Rose
+from the wild animal. Mr. Bunker felt so happy about the recovery of the
+two children that he determined to do something nice for the colored
+people who had so enthusiastically aided in hunting for Russ and Rose.
+
+"Let 'em have another big dance and dinner, such as they had Christmas
+eve," Mr. Bunker suggested to the planter. "I'll pay the bill."
+
+"Just as you say, Charley," agreed Mr. Armatage. "That will please 'em
+all about as much as anything you could think of. I'll get some kind of
+music for them to dance by, and we'll all go down and watch 'em. Your
+young ones certainly do like dancing."
+
+This was true. And especially was Russ Bunker anxious to learn to dance
+as some of the colored boys did. He was constantly practising the funny
+pigeon wing that he had seen Sam do in Aunt Jo's kitchen, in Boston. But
+the white boy could not get it just right.
+
+"Never mind, Russ," Laddie said approvingly, "you do it better and
+better all the time. I guess you can do it by and by--three or four
+years from now, maybe." But three or four years seemed a long time to
+Russ.
+
+When they went down to the quarters the evening of the party Russ
+determined to try to dance as well as Frane, Junior, and the negro boys.
+
+Mammy June was much better now, and she was up and about. To please her
+Mr. Armatage had a phaeton brought around and the old nurse was driven
+to the scene of the celebration. Mun Bun and Margy rode in the phaeton
+with Mammy June and were very proud of this particular honor.
+
+The old nurse was loved by everybody on the plantation, both white and
+black. Mother Bunker said that Mammy held "quite a levee" at the
+quarters, sitting in state in her phaeton where she could see all that
+went on.
+
+The dinner was what the negroes called a barbecue. The six little
+Bunkers had never seen such a feast before, for this that their father
+gave them was even more elaborate than the dinner the planter had given
+his hands at Christmas.
+
+There was a great fire in a pit, and over this fire a whole pig was
+roasted on a spit, and poultry, and 'possums that the boys had killed,
+and rabbits. There were sweet potatoes, of course. How the little
+Northerners liked them! The white children had a table to themselves and
+ate as heartily as their colored friends.
+
+Then a place was cleared for the dancing. Mammy June's phaeton was drawn
+to the edge of this dance floor. The music struck up, and there was a
+general rush for partners.
+
+After a while the dancers got more excited, and many of them danced
+alone, "showing off," Frane, Junior, said. They did have the funniest
+steps! Russ Bunker was highly delighted with this kind of dancing.
+
+"Now let me! Let me dance!" he cried, starting out from his seat near
+Mammy June. "A boy showed me in Boston how to cut a pigeon wing. I guess
+I can do it now."
+
+"You can't cut no pigeon wing, w'ite boy," said 'Lias, Mammy's grandson.
+
+"I can try," said Russ bravely, and he danced with much vigor for
+several minutes.
+
+"Oh, my, he done cut Sneezer's pigeon wing!" cried one of the darkies
+presently.
+
+"What's dat? Cut Sneezer's pigeon wing?" cried Mammy June, sitting up to
+watch Russ more closely.
+
+"Dat's jest what he's doin'."
+
+Russ continued to dance, and did his best to imitate the colored boy at
+Aunt Jo's house. He was hard at it when Mammy June, with her eyes almost
+popping out of her head, cried:
+
+"For de lan's sake, boy, come here! I want to ask you sumpin."
+
+Russ was in the midst of cutting the pigeon wing again, and this time he
+was fortunate enough to imitate Sam in almost every particular. Then he
+stopped and walked over to the old colored woman's side.
+
+"How come you try to do it that way, Russ Bunker?" asked Mammy June as
+Russ approached the phaeton. "I ain't never seen you do that before. Who
+showed you?"
+
+"Sam. The boy in Boston. He said he was called after his Uncle Sam. He
+came from down South here, you know, Mammy."
+
+"Was he a cullud boy?" demanded the old woman earnestly.
+
+"Of course he was. Or he couldn't dance this way," and Russ tried to cut
+the pigeon wing again.
+
+"Wait! Wait!" gasped the old woman. "Tell me mo' about that boy who
+showed you. You ain't got it right. But dat's the way my Sneezer done
+it. Only he knows just how."
+
+"Why, Mammy June!" cried Rose, "you don't suppose that Sam can dance
+just like your Sneezer?"
+
+The old nurse was wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her voice was much
+choked with emotion as well. Mrs. Bunker came over to see what the
+matter was.
+
+"Yo' please tell me, Ma'am, all about dat boy dese children say was in
+Boston? Please, Ma'am! Ain't nobody know how to dance dat way but
+Sneezer. And he didn't like his name, Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood
+Meiggs. No'm, he didn't like it at all, 'cause we-all shortened it to
+Sneezer.
+
+"He had an Uncle Sam, too. My brudder. Lives in Birmingham. Sneezer
+always said he wisht he'd been born wid a name like Uncle Sam."
+
+"Perhaps it is the same boy," Mother Bunker said kindly. "Tell me just
+how Ebenezer looks, Mammy June. Then I can be sure."
+
+From the way Mammy described her youngest son, even the children
+recognized him as Sam the chore boy at Aunt Jo's in Boston. Mun Bun and
+Margy, when the matter was quite settled that Sam was Sneezer, began to
+take great pride in the fact that it was their bright eyes that had
+first spied the colored boy walking in the snow and had been the first
+to invite him into Aunt Jo's house.
+
+"He will be there when we go to Boston again, Mammy June," Rose said,
+warmly. "And Daddy and Mother will send him home to you. I guess he'll
+be glad to come. Only, maybe you'd better stop calling him Sneezer. He
+likes Sam best."
+
+"Sure enough, honey," cried Mammy June, "I'll call him anything he likes
+'long as he comes home and stays home with me. Yes, indeedy! I'd call
+him Julius Cæsar Mark Antony Meiggs, if he wants I should."
+
+"But maybe," said Russ thoughtfully, "he wouldn't like that name any
+better than the other. I know I shouldn't."
+
+In a short time it was a settled matter that Mammy June's lost boy would
+return. For she could tell Mrs. Bunker so many things about the absent
+one that there was not a shadow of a doubt that the Sam working for Aunt
+Jo would prove to be Mammy June's boy.
+
+The holidays on the Meiggs Plantation ended, therefore, all the more
+pleasantly because of this discovery. The plantation was a fine place to
+be on, so the six little Bunkers thought. But when Daddy Bunker
+announced that his business with his old friend, the planter, was
+satisfactorily completed, the children were not sorry to think of
+returning North.
+
+"This doesn't seem like winter at all down here," said Russ. "We want to
+slide downhill, and roll snowballs, and make snowmen."
+
+"And it is nice to go sleigh riding," Rose added. "They never can do
+that on the Meiggs Plantation."
+
+"But you can make riddles here," put in Laddie.
+
+Vi might have added that she could ask questions anywhere!
+
+As for Margy and Mun Bun, they were contented to go anywhere that Mother
+Bunker and Daddy went. Something exciting was always happening to all of
+the six little Bunkers. But we will let you guess, with Russ and Rose
+and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, where the next exciting
+adventures of the half dozen youngsters from Pineville will take place.
+
+Then came the time to leave the plantation. The children had many little
+keepsakes to take home with them and they promised to send other
+keepsakes to the Armatage children as soon as they got back to
+Pineville.
+
+"It's been just the nicest outing that ever could be!" said Rose, when
+the good-byes were being spoken. "I'm sure I'll never forget this
+lovely place."
+
+"I's coming back some day if they want me," put in Mun Bun quickly. And
+at this everybody smiled.
+
+Then all climbed into the automobile which was to take them to the
+railroad station. There was a honk of the horn, and amid the waving of
+hands and a hearty cheer, the six little Bunkers and their parents
+started on their journey for home.
+
+
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Bobbsey Twins Books,"
+"The Bunny Brown Series,"
+"The Make-Believe Series," Etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Delightful stories for little boys and girls which sprung into immediate
+popularity. To know the six little Bunkers is to take them at once to
+your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun and cute
+sayings. Each story has a little plot of its own--one that can be easily
+followed--and all are written in Miss Hope's most entertaining manner.
+Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be on the bookshelf of every
+child in the land.
+
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of the popular "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several
+bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and
+wholesome, free from sensationalism, and absorbing from the first
+chapter to the last.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+          Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+          Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+          Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+          Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+          Or Wintering in the Sunny South.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+          Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+          Or A Cave and What it Contained.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
+          Or Doing Their Bit for Uncle Sam.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
+          Or Doing Their Best for the Soldiers.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+          Or A Wreck and A Rescue.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE
+          Or The Hermit of Moonlight Falls.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+          Or The Girl Miner of Gold Run.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS
+
+For Little Men and Women
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that
+charm the hearts of the little ones and of which they never tire.
+
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books
+
+Wrapper and text illustrations drawn by
+FLORENCE ENGLAND NOSWORTHY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These stories by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books are eagerly
+welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their
+eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive
+little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue.
+
+Bunny was a lively little boy, very inquisitive. When he did anything,
+Sue followed his leadership. They had many adventures, some comical in
+the extreme.
+
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE TOM SWIFT SERIES
+
+By VICTOR APPLETON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+These spirited tales, convey in a realistic way, the wonderful advances
+in land and sea locomotion. Stories like these are impressed upon the
+memory and their reading is productive only of good.
+
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
+          TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
+          TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
+          TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
+          TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
+          TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
+          TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES
+
+BY VICTOR APPLETON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Moving pictures and photo plays are famous the world over, and in this
+line of books the reader is given a full description of how the films
+are made--the scenes of little dramas, indoors and out, trick pictures
+to satisfy the curious, soul-stirring pictures of city affairs, life in
+the Wild West, among the cowboys and Indians, thrilling rescues along
+the seacoast, the daring of picture hunters in the jungle among savage
+beasts, and the great risks run in picturing conditions in a land of
+earthquakes. The volumes teem with adventures and will be found
+interesting from first chapter to last.
+
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AND THE FLOOD
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS UNDER THE SEA
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE WAR FRONT
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON FRENCH BATTLEFIELDS
+          MOVING PICTURE BOYS' FIRST SHOWHOUSE
+          MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK
+          MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON BROADWAY
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' OUTDOOR EXHIBITION
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' NEW IDEA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 9: "Gooodness" changed to "Goodness". (Goodness! it's cold)
+
+Page 31: "begger" changed to "beggar". (allowing a beggar)
+
+Page 67: "swin" changed to "swim". (could not swim)
+
+Page 150: "fire-cracker" changed to "firecracker" to conform to rest of
+text. (It's firecrackers.)
+
+One instance each of "white-washed" and "whitewashed" appears in the
+original and was retained.
+
+Christmas Eve is capitalised once and lowercased once. This was
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by 
+Laura Lee Hope
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by Laura Lee Hope.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by Laura Lee Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's
+
+Author: Laura Lee Hope
+
+Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #18461]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Emmy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS<br />AT MAMMY JUNE'S</h1>
+
+<h2>BY<br />LAURA LEE HOPE</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Author of "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's,"<br />
+"Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's," "The<br />
+Bobbsey Twins Series," "The Bunny Brown<br />
+Series," "The Outdoor Girls Series," Etc.</span></div>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><i>ILLUSTRATED BY</i><br />
+WALTER S. ROGERS</div>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><br />NEW YORK<br />
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP<br />
+PUBLISHERS</div>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br /><br />Made in the United States of America
+</div>
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+<h2>BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE</h2>
+
+<div class="center">12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><b>THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES</b></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Six Little Bunker Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><b>THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES</b></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Bobbsey Twins Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><b>THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES</b></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Bunny Brown Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><b>THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES</b></div>
+
+<div class="center">
+(Eleven titles)<br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="center">GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK</div>
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+<div class="center">Copyright, 1922, by<br />
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</div>
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<div class="center">Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">chapter&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td align='left'></td><td align='center'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Eskimo Igloo</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Snowman</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_12'>12</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Uncle Sam's Nephew</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Daddy's News</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_30'>30</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Off for Summer Seas</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_41'>41</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Sea-Eagle</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Signal of Distress</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Great Deal of Excitement</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Russ's Secret</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_87'>87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Charleston and the Fleet</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_94'>94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Meiggs Plantation</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_105'>105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mammy June</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Catfish</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mammy June Helps</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_136'>136</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">When Christmas is Fourth of July</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_146'>146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Letter and a Big Light</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_156'>156</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mammy June in Peril</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_166'>166</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Twins in Trouble</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_175'>175</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Mammy June's Room</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Goosey-Goosey-Gander</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_194'>194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Rose Has an Idea</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_202'>202</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Strange Cry</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Four-Legged Ghost</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_218'>218</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Exciting Time</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_227'>227</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">That Pigeon Wing</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 253px;">
+<img src="images/p001.jpg" width="253" height="400" alt="MAMMY JUNE TREATS THE CHILDREN TO A &quot;TAFFY PULL.&quot;" title="MAMMY JUNE TREATS THE CHILDREN TO A &quot;TAFFY PULL.&quot;" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>MAMMY JUNE TREATS THE CHILDREN TO A &quot;TAFFY PULL.&quot;<br />
+<i>Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's.</i> &nbsp; &nbsp;  &nbsp; &nbsp;<i>Frontispiece</i>&mdash;(<a href='#Page_142'><i>Page</i> 142</a>)</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SIX_LITTLE_BUNKERS_AT_MAMMY_JUNES" id="SIX_LITTLE_BUNKERS_AT_MAMMY_JUNES"></a>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ESKIMO IGLOO</h3>
+
+
+<p>"How could William get the croup that way?" Violet asked with much
+emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Vi was always asking questions&mdash;so many questions, indeed,
+that it was often impossible for her elders to answer them all; and
+certainly Rose and Russ Bunker, who were putting together a "cut-up"
+puzzle on the table, could not be bothered by Vi's insistence.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how he could have got the croup that way," repeated the
+smaller girl. There were six of the little Bunkers, and Vi and Laddie
+were twins. She said to Laddie, who was looking on at the puzzle making:
+"Do you know how William did it, Laddie?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Laddie, whose real name wasn't "Laddie" at all, but Fillmore Bunker,
+shook his head decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he told his twin sister. "Not unless it is a riddle:
+'How did William get the croup?'"</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't got the croup," put in Rose, for just a moment giving the
+twins her attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;ee!" cried Vi. "Aunt Jo said he had!"</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't," returned Rose rather shortly and not at all politely.</p>
+
+<p>"She did so!" rejoined Vi instantly, for although she and Rose loved
+each other very much they were not always in agreement. Vi's gray eyes
+snapped she was so vexed. "Aunt Jo said that a window got broke in&mdash;in
+the neu-ral-gi-a and William had to drive a long way yesterday and the
+wind blew on him and he got the croup."</p>
+
+<p>"Was that the way of it?" said Laddie, thoughtfully. "Wait a minute, Vi.
+I've most got it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going to have the croup!" declared his twin. "You never had
+it! But I have had the crou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>p, and I didn't catch it the way William
+did."</p>
+
+<p>"No-o," admitted Laddie. "But&mdash;but I'm catching a new riddle if you'd
+only wait a minute for me to get it straight."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Vi. "Who cares anything about your old riddle? Br-r-r! it's
+cold in this room. Maybe we'll all get the croup if we can't have a
+better fire."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the croup you mean, Vi," put in Rose again, but without
+stopping to explain to her smaller sister where and how she was wrong
+about William's illness.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Russ, why don't the steampipes hum any more?" broke in the voice
+of Margy, the next to the very littlest Bunker, who was playing with
+that latter very important person at one of the great windows
+overlooking the street.</p>
+
+<p>Russ chuckled. He had just put the very last crooked piece of the puzzle
+into place.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't expect to see humming birds in winter, do you, Margy?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same, winter is the time for steampipes to hum," said Rose,
+shivering a little. "Oh! See! It's beginning to snow!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>"So 'tis," cried Russ, who was the oldest of the six. "Supposing it
+should be a blizzard, Rose Bunker?"</p>
+
+<p>"S'posing it should!" repeated his sister, quite as much excited as Russ
+was at such a prospect.</p>
+
+<p>"Buzzards fly and eat dead things. We saw 'em in Texas at Cowboy
+Jack's," announced Laddie, forgetting his riddle-making for the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"That is right, Laddie," agreed Rose kindly. "But we're not talking
+about buzzards, but about blizzards. Blizzards are big
+snowstorms&mdash;bigger than you ever remember, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Laddie doubtfully. "Were we talking about&mdash;about blizzards?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, we weren't!" exclaimed Vi, almost stamping her foot. "We were
+talking about William's croup&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't got the croup, I tell you, Vi," Rose said wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"He has. Aunt Jo&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place," interrupted Rose quite decidedly, "only children
+have croup. It isn't a grown-up disease."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>This announcement silenced even Violet for the moment. She stared at
+her older sister, round-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do&mdash;do diseases have to grow up, too?" she finally gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me, Vi Bunker!" exclaimed Rose, "I wish you didn't ask so many
+questions."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" promptly inquired the smaller girl.</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell, it's so hard to answer them," Rose frankly admitted. "Diseases
+don't grow up, I guess, but folks grow up and leave diseases like croup,
+and measles, and chicken-pox, behind them."</p>
+
+<p>"And cut fingers and bumps?" asked Laddie, who had almost forgotten the
+riddle about William's croup that he was striving to make.</p>
+
+<p>But Vi did not forget the croup. One could trust Vi never to forget
+anything about which she once set out to gather information.</p>
+
+<p>"But how did William catch the croup through a broken window in the
+neu-ral-gi-a?" she demanded. "When I had croup I got my feet wet first."</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't got the croup!" Rose cried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> again, while Russ began to laugh
+heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Vi!" Russ said, "you got it twisted. William caught cold driving
+Aunt Jo's coup&eacute; with the window broken in it. He's got neuralgia from
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"And isn't there any croup about it?" Laddie demanded rather sadly.
+"Then I'll have to start making my riddle all over again."</p>
+
+<p>"Will that be awful hard to do, Laddie?" asked his twin. "Why! making
+riddles must be worse than having neu-ral-gi-a&mdash;or croup."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's harder," sighed her brother. "It's easy to catch&mdash;Oh! Oh!
+Russ! Rose! I got it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't neuralgia, like poor William," announced Rose with
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" announced the glowing Laddie. "What is it that's so easy to
+catch but nobody runs after?"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! is that a riddle?" asked Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Course it's a riddle."</p>
+
+<p>"A wubber ball," guessed Mun Bun, coming from the window against the
+panes of which the snow was now beating rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," Laddie said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A coup&eacute;!" exclaimed Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! No!" said her twin in disdain.</p>
+
+<p>Margy asked if he meant a kittie. She had been chasing one all over the
+house that morning while Russ and Rose had been to market with their
+aunt, and she did not think a kitten easy to catch at all.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tisn't anything with a tail or claws," crowed the delighted Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet it's that neuralgia William's got," laughed Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"No-o. It isn't just that," his smaller brother said.</p>
+
+<p>"And you'd better not say 'bet,' Russ Bunker," advised Rose wisely. "You
+know Aunt Jo says that's not nice."</p>
+
+<p>"You just said it," Russ rejoined, grinning. "Twice."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I never did!" cried his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you just say I'd 'better not say bet?'" demanded Russ. "Well,
+then count 'em! 'Bet' out of 'better' is one, and 'bet' makes two&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I never said it the way you did," began Rose, q<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>uite put out, when
+Laddie began to clamor:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me my riddle! You can't&mdash;none of you. 'What is it that's so easy
+to catch but nobody runs after?'"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Laddie," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I give it up," said Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you all give it up?" cried Laddie, almost dancing in his glee.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the thing that's so easy to catch but nobody runs after, is a
+cold!" announced her twin very proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'm so-o cold," announced Mun Bun, hanging to Rose's skirt while
+the older ones laughed with Laddie. "Don't Aunt Jo ever have it warm in
+her house&mdash;like it is at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she does, Mun Bun," said Rose, quickly hugging the little
+fellow. "But poor William is sick and nobody knows how to tend to the
+heating plant as well as he does. And so&mdash;Why, Russ, Mun Bun is cold!
+His hands are like ice."</p>
+
+<p>"And so are my hands!" cried Margy, running hastily from the window.
+"We've been trying to ca<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>tch the snowflakes through the windowpane."</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder your hands are cold," said Rose admonishingly.</p>
+
+<p>Russ began to cast about in his ingenious mind for some means of getting
+the younger children's attention off the discomfort of a room the
+temperature of which was down to sixty. In one corner were two stacks of
+sectional bookcases which Aunt Jo had just bought, but which had no
+books in them and no glass fronts. Russ considered them for a moment,
+and then looked all about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what," he said, slowly. "You know when they took us to the
+Sportsman's Show last week at Mechanic's Hall? Don't you remember about
+that Eskimo igloo that they had built of ice in the middle of the
+skating pond? Let's build an igloo like that, and get into it and keep
+warm."</p>
+
+<p>"O-oo!" gasped Vi, "how can you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you get any ice?" Laddie demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Gooodness'">Goodness</ins>! it's cold enough in here without bringing in ice," announced
+Rose with confidence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We won't build the igloo of ice blocks," said Russ quite calmly. "But
+we'll make believe it is ice."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather do that," Laddie agreed. "For make-believe ice can't be so
+wet and cold as real ice, can it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you going to make your make-believe ice out of, Russ?" demanded
+Vi, the exceedingly practical.</p>
+
+<p>Russ at once set them all to work, clearing the middle of the room and
+bringing up hassocks and small benches and some other articles that
+could be used in the construction of the indoor igloo. He brought the
+sections of the new bookcase, one piece at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Russ really exhibited some skill in building up the walls of the hut in
+the middle of the floor. When it was completed it was rather a tight fit
+for all six of the little Bunkers to squeeze inside, but they did it.
+And the activities of building the igloo had warmed even Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," said Rose thoughtfully, "Eskimos live in these igloos and
+eat blubber, and don't go out at all while it is snowing, same as it
+does now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why don't they go out?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is cold," said Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"And why do they eat blubber?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because they are hungry," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"What's blubber, anyway?" asked the inquisitive one. "Is it like candy?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's more like candles," answered Russ, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Laddie kicked excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet I can make another riddle!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you see, Russ Bunker?" Rose admonished. "Laddie has got that word,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, stop kicking, Laddie!" cried Russ.</p>
+
+<p>But in his excitement the boy twin had put his foot right through the
+wall of the igloo! At least, he had kicked one of the boxes out of place
+and the whole structure began to wobble.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrieked Vi. "It's falling."</p>
+
+<p>"Get Mun Bun out," gasped Rose, thinking first of all of the littlest
+Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>But just then the heaped up boxes came down with a crash and the six
+little Bunkers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> were buried under the ruins of their "igloo."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SNOWMAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>A corner of one of the overturned bookcase sections struck Russ Bunker's
+head with considerable force&mdash;actually cutting the skin and bringing
+blood. Big as he was, the oldest Bunker yelled loudly.</p>
+
+<p>Then, of course, everybody yelled. Quite a panic followed. When Aunt Jo
+and Mother Bunker came running to the front room where all this had
+taken place the Eskimo igloo looked very much like a pile of boxes with
+a young earthquake at work beneath it!</p>
+
+<p>"For the good land's sake!" gasped Aunt Jo, who usually was very
+particular about her speech, but who on this occasion was startled into
+an exclamation. "What is happening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get off my head, Vi!" wailed Laddie, from somewhere u<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>nder the
+tottering pile. "It's not to sit on."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh!" cried Rose. "Russ is all bloody! Oh, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not cold any more," cried Mun Bun. "Let me out! I'll be good!"</p>
+
+<p>But Russ Bunker was neither crying nor struggling. He was a good deal of
+a man, for a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy. Being the oldest of the six
+little Bunkers there were certain duties which fell to his lot, and he
+understood that one of them was to keep cool when anything happened to
+excite or frighten his brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>The whack he had got on the head, and even the trickle of blood down his
+face, did not cause Russ to lose his head. No, indeed. He, and the other
+little Bunkers, had been in innumerable scrapes before, and the wreck of
+the Eskimo igloo was nothing provided Aunt Jo did not make a lot out of
+it. It just crossed Russ' mind that he ought to have asked his aunt
+before he used the sectional bookcases for building-blocks.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally of an inventive turn of mind, Russ was constantly building new
+things&mdash;make-believe houses, engines, automobiles, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>steamboats, and the
+like&mdash;usually with a merry whistle on his lips, too. He was a cheerful
+boy and almost always considered the safety and pleasure of his brothers
+and sisters first.</p>
+
+<p>In companionship with Rose, who was a year younger, the boy cared for
+the other four little Bunkers so successfully that Mother Bunker and
+Daddy Bunker were seldom troubled in their minds regarding any of the
+children. Rose was a particularly helpful little girl, and assisted
+Mother Bunker a good deal. She was a real little housewife.</p>
+
+<p>Vi and Laddie, the twins, were both very active children&mdash;active with
+their tongues as well as their bodies. Violet's inquisitiveness knew no
+bounds. She wanted to know about every little thing that happened about
+her. Daddy Bunker said he was sure she must ask questions in her sleep.
+Laddie was an inveterate riddle-asker. He learned every riddle he heard;
+and he tried to make up riddles about everything that happened.
+Sometimes he was successful, and sometimes he was not. But he always
+tried again, having a persevering temperament.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>The smallest Bunkers&mdash;Margy, whose real name was Margaret, and Mun Bun,
+whose real name was Monroe Ford&mdash;were quite as anxious to get out from
+under the heap of boxes as the others. Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo ran to
+their assistance, and soon the six were on their feet to be hugged and
+scolded a little by both their mother and aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"But they do get into such mischief all the time," sighed Mother Bunker.
+"I shall be glad when Daddy gets back and decides what to do for the
+winter. I don't know whether we shall go right back to Pineville or
+not."</p>
+
+<p>For it was in Pineville, Pennsylvania, that we first met the six little
+Bunkers and in the first volume of this series went with them on a nice
+vacation to Mother Bunker's mother. The book telling of this is called
+"Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's."</p>
+
+<p>After that lovely visit in Maine the six little Bunkers had gone to stay
+for a time with each of the following very delightful relatives and
+friends: To Aunt Jo's in Boston, where they were now for a second visit
+over the Thanksgiving holidays; to Cousin Tom's; to Grandpa Ford's; to
+Uncle Fred's; to Capt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>ain Ben's; and last of all to Cowboy Jack's.</p>
+
+<p>In that last book, "Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's," they had
+enjoyed themselves so much that they were always talking about it. And
+now, as Vi managed to crawl out from under the wreck of the Eskimo
+igloo, she announced:</p>
+
+<p>"That iggilyoo isn't half as nice to live in as Chief Black Bear's
+wigwam was at Cowboy Jack's. You 'member that wigwam, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember it, all right," said Russ, rather ruefully touching the cut
+above his temple and bringing away his finger again to look at the blood
+upon it. "Say, is it going to keep right on bleeding, Mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for long," declared Mother Bunker. "But I think you were rightly
+punished, Russ. Suppose the corner of the section had cut Mun Bun's
+head?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should have been awful sorry," admitted Russ. "I guess I didn't think
+much, Mother. I was only trying to amuse 'em 'cause they were cold."</p>
+
+<p>"It is cold in here, Amy. Don't scold the boy. See! The storm is getting
+worse. I don't know what we shall do about the fire. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>Parker and Annie
+don't seem to know what to do about the heater and I'm sure I don't. Oh,
+dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"B-r-rrr!" shivered Mother Bunker. "I am not fond of your New England
+winters, Jo. I hope we shall go South&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother!" cried Rose excitedly. "Shall we really go down South with
+Daddy? Won't that be glorious?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it's warm down there," said Laddie. "Or maybe the steampipes
+hum."</p>
+
+<p>"Do the steampipes hum down South?" asked Violet.</p>
+
+<p>While the four older children were exceedingly interested in this new
+proposal for excitement and adventure, Margy and Mun Bun had returned to
+the great window that overlooked the street and the front steps. They
+flattened their noses against the cold pane and stared down into the
+driving snow. Within this short time, since the storm had begun,
+everything was white and the few people passing in the street were like
+snowmen, for the white flakes stuck to their coats and other wraps.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, see that man!" Margy c<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>ried to Mun Bun. "He almost fell down."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not a man," said her little brother with confidence. "He's a boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! He's a black boy&mdash;a colored boy. That's right, so he is."</p>
+
+<p>The figure in the snow stumbled along the sidewalk, clinging to the iron
+railings. When he reached the steps of Aunt Jo's house he slipped down
+upon the second step and seemed unable to get up again. His body sagged
+against the iron railing post, and soon the snow began to heap on him
+and about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped Margy. "He is a reg'lar snowman."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a black snowman," said Mun Bun. "It must be freezing cold out
+there, Margy."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is. He'll turn into a nicicle if he stays there on the
+steps," declared the little girl, with some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"And he hasn't a coat and scarf like you and me," Mun Bun said. "Maybe
+he hasn't any Grandma Bell to knit scarfs for him."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe we ought to help him, Mun Bun," said Margy, decidedly. "We
+have plenty of coats."</p>
+
+<p>"And scarfs," agreed Mun Bun. "Let's."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So they immediately left the room quite unnoticed by the older people in
+it. This is a remarkable fact. Whenever Margy and Mun Bun had mischief
+in mind they never asked Mother about it. Now, why was that, do you
+suppose?</p>
+
+<p>The two little ones went swiftly downstairs into the front hall. Both
+had coats and caps and scarfs hung on pegs in a little dressing-room
+near the big door. They knew that they should not touch the outer
+garments belonging to the older children; but they got their own wraps.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he's too big for them," murmured Margy. "But I guess he can
+squeeze into the coats&mdash;into one of them, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Course he can," said Mun Bun. "Mine's a nawful warm coat. And that
+black snowman isn't much bigger than I am, Margy."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said his sister slowly, for she was a little wiser than
+Mun Bun about most things. "Open the door."</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun could do that. This was the inside door, and they stepped into
+the vestibule. Pressing his face close to the glass of one of the outer
+doors, Mun Bun sta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>red down at the "black snowman" on the step.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to sleep in the snow," said the little boy. "I guess we've
+got to wake him up, Margy."</p>
+
+<p>He pounded on the glass with his fat fist. He knocked several times
+before the figure below even moved. Then the colored boy, who was not
+more than seventeen or eighteen, turned his head and looked up over his
+shoulder at the faces of the two children in the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual
+thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded.
+He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun, beckoning to the strange boy. "Come up
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy in the snow seemed scarcely to understand. Or else he was so
+cold and exhausted that he could not immediately get up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> from the step
+on which he was sitting.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW</h3>
+
+
+<p>The fluffy, sticky snowflakes gathered very fast upon the colored boy's
+clothing. As Mun Bun had first announced, he looked like a snowman, only
+his face was grayish-black.</p>
+
+<p>He was slim, and when he finally stood up at the bottom of the house
+steps, he seemed to waver just like a slim reed in the fierce wind that
+drove the snowflakes against him. He hesitated, too. It seemed that he
+scarcely knew whether it was best to mount the steps to Aunt Jo's front
+door or not.</p>
+
+<p>"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun again, and continued to beckon to him
+through the glass of the outer door.</p>
+
+<p>Margy held up her coat and cap, and beckoned to the boy also. He looked
+much puzzled as he slowly climbed the steps. His l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>ips moved and the
+children knew he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What yo' want of me, child'en?"</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun tugged at the outer door eagerly, and finally it flew open. He
+shouted in the face of the driving snow:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in here, snowman. Come in here!"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't no snowman," drawled the colored boy. "But I sure is as cold as
+a snowman could possibly be."</p>
+
+<p>"It's warmer inside here than it is out there," Margy said. "Although
+we're not any too warm. Our steampipes don't hum. But you come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Mun Bun, grabbing at the colored boy's cold, wet hand. "You
+come in here. We have some coats and things you can put on so you won't
+be cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Ma goodness!" murmured the boy, staring at the garments the children
+held out to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You can wear 'em," said Margy. "We have more."</p>
+
+<p>"You put on my coat," urged Mun Bun. "It's a boy's coat. You won't want
+Margy's, for she's a girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Ma goodness!" ejaculated the colored boy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>again, "what yo' child'en
+s'pose I do wid dem t'ings? 'Less I puts 'em up de spout?"</p>
+
+<p>The two children hadn't the first idea as to what he meant by putting
+the clothing up the spout. But the colored boy meant that he might pawn
+them and get some money. He did not offer to take the coats and other
+things that Margy and Mun Bun tried to put into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo, followed by Russ and
+Rose, appeared on the stairs. They had missed the two little folks and,
+as Aunt Jo had said, wrinkling her very pretty nose, that she could
+"just smell mischief," they had all come downstairs to see what the
+matter was.</p>
+
+<p>The colored boy spied them. He had evidently been ill used by somebody,
+for he was very much frightened. He thrust the coats back at the
+children and turned to get out of the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>But the door had been sucked to by the wind and it was hard to open
+again. It was really quite wonderful that Mun Bun had been able to get
+it open when he and M<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>argy had called the strange colored boy in.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go!" cried Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"Take my coat, please," urged Mun Bun. "I know it will keep you warm."</p>
+
+<p>And all the time the colored boy was tugging at the handle of the outer
+door and fairly panting, he was so anxious to get out. Mother Bunker was
+the first to reach the door into the vestibule, and she opened it
+instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!" she commanded the strange boy. "What do you want? What are you
+doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>But by this time the young fellow had jerked open the outer door, and
+now he darted out and almost dived down the snowy steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother!" cried Mun Bun, "he's forgot his coat and cap and scarf. I
+wanted him to wear mine because he was so cold and snowed on."</p>
+
+<p>"And he could have had mine, too," declared Margy quite as earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"What do these tots mean?" gasped Aunt Jo, holding up both hands.</p>
+
+<p>But Mother Bunker, who understood her little Bunkers very well inde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>ed,
+in a flash knew all about it. She cried:</p>
+
+<p>"The poor boy! Bring him back! He did look cold and wet."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's just a tramp," objected Aunt Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"He's poor, Josephine, and unfortunate," answered Mother Bunker, as
+though that settled all question as to what they should do about the
+colored boy.</p>
+
+<p>Russ Bunker had already got his cap and mackinaw. He darted out of the
+house, down the steps, and followed the shuffling figure of the colored
+boy, now all but hidden by the fast-driving snow. How it did snow, to be
+sure!</p>
+
+<p>"Say! Wait a minute!" Russ called, and caught the strange youth by the
+elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"What yo' want, little boy?" demanded the other. "I ain't done nothin'
+to them child'en. No, I ain't. Dey called me up to dat do' or I wouldn't
+have been there."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," said Russ, urgently detaining him. "But come back. My
+mother wants to speak to you, and I guess my Aunt Jo'll treat you nice,
+too. You're cold and hungry, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure is," groaned the boy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>"Then they will give you something to eat and let you get warm. You'd
+better come," added Russ very sensibly, "for it looks as if it would be
+a big storm."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure do," agreed the colored boy again. "Ah don' like dis snow. Don't
+have nothin' like dis down whar I come f'om. No, suh."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, come on," said Russ eagerly. "My mother's waiting for us."</p>
+
+<p>The negro lad hesitated no longer. Even Russ saw how weary and weak he
+was as he stumbled on beside him. His shoes were broken, his trousers
+were very ragged, and his coat that he had buttoned up closely was
+threadbare. His cap was just the wreck of a cap!</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' sure she ain't goin' to send for no policeman, little boy?" queried
+the stranger. "I wasn't goin' to take them clo'es. No, suh!"</p>
+
+<p>"She understands," said Russ confidently, and holding to the boy's
+ragged sleeve led him up the steps of Aunt Jo's pretty house.</p>
+
+<p>Russ saw Mr. North, the nice old gentleman who lived over the way,
+staring out of his window at this surprising fact: Aunt Jo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> allowing a
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'begger'">beggar</ins> to enter at her front door! Still, Mr. North, as well as the rest
+of the neighbors, had decided before this that almost anything
+astonishing could happen while the six little Bunkers were visiting
+their Aunt Jo in Boston's Back Bay district.</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is, Mother," said Russ, entering the hall with the colored boy.</p>
+
+<p>The other children had come downstairs now and all understood just what
+Margy and Mun Bun had tried to do for the stranger. Mother Bunker smiled
+kindly upon the wretched lad, even if Aunt Jo did look on a little
+doubtfully from the background.</p>
+
+<p>"We understand all about it, boy," Mother Bunker said. "The little folks
+only wanted to help you; and so do we. Do you live in Boston?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me, Ma'am? No, Ma'am! I lives a long way souf of dis place. Dat I do!"</p>
+
+<p>"And have you no friends here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Friends? Whar'd I get friends?" he demanded, complainingly. "Dey ain't
+no friends for boys like me up Norf yere."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! What a story!" exclaimed Aunt Jo. "I know people must be jus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>t as
+kind in Boston as they are in the South."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe dey is, lady," said the colored boy, looking somewhat frightened
+because of Aunt Jo's vigorous speech. "Mebbe dey is; but dey hides it
+better yere. If yo' beg a mess of vittles in dis town dey puts yo' in
+jail. Down Souf dey axes you is you hongry? Ya-as'm!"</p>
+
+<p>At that Aunt Jo began to bustle about to the great delight of the
+children. She called down to Parker, the cook, and asked her to put out
+a nice meal on the end of the kitchen table and to make coffee. And then
+she said she would go up to the attic where, in a press in which she
+kept garments belonging to a church society, there were some warm
+clothes that might fit the colored boy.</p>
+
+<p>Rose and Vi went with Aunt Jo to help, or to look on; but Margy and the
+three boys stayed with their mother to hear more that the visitor might
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"My name's Sam," he replied to Mother Bunker's question. "Dat is, it's
+the name I goes by, for my hones'-to-goodness name is right silly. But I
+had an Uncle Sam, and I considers I has got a right to be named after
+him. So I is."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>"Does your Uncle Sam wear a tall hat and red-and-white striped pants
+with straps under the bootsoles and stars on his vest?" asked Laddie,
+with great interest and eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno, little fellow," said Sam. "I ain't never seen my Uncle Sam,
+but I heard my mammy talk about him."</p>
+
+<p>Russ and his mother were much amused at Laddie's question. Russ said:</p>
+
+<p>"That Uncle Sam you are talking about, Laddie, is a white man. He
+couldn't be this Sam's uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" demanded Laddie, with quite as much curiosity as his twin
+sister might have shown.</p>
+
+<p>"Very true, why not?" repeated Mrs. Bunker, with some gravity. "You are
+wrong, Russ. Our Uncle Sam is just as much this Sam's uncle as he is
+ours. Now go down to the kitchen, Sam. I hear Parker calling for you.
+Eat your fill. And wait down th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>ere, for we shall want to see you
+again."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>DADDY'S NEWS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Aunt Jo found the garments she meant to give to Sam, the strange colored
+boy, and she and Rose and Vi came downstairs with them to the room in
+which the children had been playing at first. Russ and Laddie had set up
+the sectional bookcase once more and the room looked less like the wreck
+of an auction room, Mother Bunker said.</p>
+
+<p>She had returned with Margie and the boys. They thought it better&mdash;at
+least, the adults did&mdash;to leave Sam in the kitchen with Parker and
+Annie, the maid.</p>
+
+<p>"But I hate to see that boy go away from here in this storm," said
+kind-hearted Aunt Jo. "Perhaps what he says about us Boston people in
+comparison with those where he comes from, is true.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> The police do
+arrest people for begging."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we have tramps at Pineville," Mother Bunker observed. "But the
+constable doesn't often arrest any. Not if they behave themselves. But a
+city is different. And this boy did not know how to ask for help, of
+course. Don't you think you can be of help to him, Jo?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see," said Aunt Jo. "Wait until he has had a chance to eat what
+Parker has fixed for him."</p>
+
+<p>Just then Annie, the parlormaid, tapped on the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Please'm," she said to Aunt Jo, "that colored boy is goin' down in the
+cellar to fix the furnace."</p>
+
+<p>"To fix the furnace?" cried Aunt Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm. He says he has taken care of a furnace before. He's been up
+North here for 'most two years. But he lost his job last month and
+couldn't find another."</p>
+
+<p>"The poor boy," murmured Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm," said Annie. "And when he heard that the house was cold because
+me nor Parker didn't know what to do about the furnace, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>and the fire
+was most out, he said he'd fix it. So he's down there now with Parker
+and Alexis."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Alexis come home?" cried Russ, who was very fond, as were all the
+Bunker children, of Aunt Jo's great Dane. "Can't we go down and see
+Alexis?"</p>
+
+<p>"And see Sam again," said Margy. "Me and Mun Bun found him, you know."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to the little girl as though the colored boy had been quite
+taken away from her and from Mun Bun. They had what Mother Bunker
+laughingly called "prior rights" in Sam.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if he is a handy boy like that," said Aunt Jo, referring to the
+colored boy, "and can fix the furnace, we shall just have to keep him
+until William is well again. Has he finished his dinner, Annie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, Ma'am. And indeed he was hungry. He ate like a wolf. But when
+he heard about us all being beat by that furnace, down he went. There!
+He's shaking the grate now. You can hear him. He said the ashes had to
+be taken out from under the grate or the fire never would burn. Yes'm."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>"Well, then," said Mother Bunker, "you children will have to wait to
+see Sam&mdash;and Alexis&mdash;until he has finished eating."</p>
+
+<p>"Annie," said Aunt Jo quickly, before the girl could go, "how does
+Alexis act toward this boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ma'am! Alexis just snuffed of him, and then put his head in his
+lap. Alexis says he's all right. And for a black person," added the
+parlormaid, "I do think the boy's all right, Ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>She went out and Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker laughed. The youngsters were
+suddenly excited at that moment by the stopping of a taxicab at the
+door. Vi had spied it from the window, for hard as it snowed she could
+see that.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's Daddy! Here's Daddy!" she cried, dancing up and down.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun and Margy joined in the dance, while the other three children
+entered upon a whirlwind rush down the stairway to meet Mr. Bunker at
+the front entrance.</p>
+
+<p>He came in, covered with snow, and with his traveling bag. The
+children's charge upon him would su<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>rely have overturned anybody but
+Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"I scarcely dare come home at all," he shouted up the stairway to his
+wife and Aunt Jo, "because of these young Indians. You would think they
+were after my very life, if you didn't know that it was my pockets they
+want to search."</p>
+
+<p>He shook off the clinging snow and the clinging children until he had
+removed his overcoat. Russ grabbed up the bag, and Rose and Laddie each
+captured an arm and were fairly carried upstairs by Mr. Bunker. He
+landed breathless and laughing with them in the middle of the big room
+which Aunt Jo had given up to the six little Bunkers as their playroom
+while they visited here in her Back Bay home.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the news, Charles?" asked Mother Bunker, almost as eagerly as
+the children themselves might have asked the question.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to see Armatage personally&mdash;that is all there is about it, and
+Frank Armatage cannot come North."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are going?" said his wife, and the children almost held their
+several breaths to catch Daddy Bunker's reply.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>Their father looked around upon the eager little faces. Then he glanced
+at his wife and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think?" he asked. "Had I better say before so many little
+pop-eyed, curious folk? I&mdash;don't&mdash;know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"We want to go with you," breathed Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go!" cried Vi. "Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"If Vi goes, can't I go too?" Margy pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to stay here, Daddy, if the rest go," declared Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>But Mun Bun just walked gravely over to his father and put up both his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun go with Daddy," he said confidently.</p>
+
+<p>"The blessed baby!" cried Aunt Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't look much as though they appreciated your hospitality,
+Josephine," said Daddy Bunker to his sister, smiling over the top of Mun
+Bun's head as he held the little fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Rose instantly, "we have had an awfully nice time here. We
+always do have nice times here. But we wan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>t to go with Daddy, and so
+does Mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Two words for yourself and one for me, Rose," laughed her mother. "But
+if it is going to take some time, Charles, I think we would all like to
+go along."</p>
+
+<p>"I had Mr. Armatage on the long distance telephone," said Daddy Bunker,
+smiling. "He was in Savannah. His plantation is some distance from that
+city. And he has invited us all to spend the Christmas holidays with him
+at his country home. What do you think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>It was pretty hard for Mother Bunker to say what she thought of it
+because of the gleeful shouts of the children. It did not much matter to
+Russ, and Rose, and Violet, and Laddie, and Margy, and Mun Bun where
+they went with Daddy Bunker. It was just the idea of going to some new
+place and to have new adventures.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the gentleman finally, "the boat sails day after to-morrow.
+Believing that you would approve, Amy, and knowing Jo couldn't go, I
+have already secured reservations for us eight Bunkers&mdash;two big
+staterooms. The boat is the <i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>Kammerboy</i>, of the Blue Pennant Line."</p>
+
+<p>The six little Bunkers were so delighted by this news and the prospect
+of a boat journey into warmer waters than those that ebb and flow about
+Boston, that they almost forgot the colored boy whose entry into the
+house had been brought about by Margy and Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>But the latter, sitting in Daddy's lap, a little later began to prattle
+about his "black snowman," and so the story of Sam came out.</p>
+
+<p>By that time the steampipes were humming and the whole house was warm
+and cozy again.</p>
+
+<p>"And we can thank Sam for that, Charles," said Mother Bunker. "William
+is ill, and you would have had to go down and fight that furnace if this
+boy had not come along and proved himself so handy."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe we'd all better go down and thank him," said Rose soberly.</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker laughed. "I guess you want to get better acquainted with
+this wonderful Sam," he said. "A right nice boy, is he, Mother Bunker?"</p>
+
+<p>"He seems to be," agreed Mother Bunker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> "And he certainly needed
+friends. I think Jo will keep him for a while. At least, as long as
+William is laid up."</p>
+
+<p>A little later the children all trooped down to the big kitchen. The
+good-natured cook did not mind their presence. And Alexis, the great
+Dane, showed plainly that he was delighted to see his young playfellows.
+Alexis was a very intelligent dog and it was no wonder that the servants
+and Aunt Jo considered that anybody of whom the dog approved must be
+"all right." Alexis had approved of Sam.</p>
+
+<p>Sam had recovered from his weariness, and, no longer hungry and his next
+few meals in prospect, his spirits had rebounded from their low ebb to
+cheerfulness. The kindness shown him, and the praise the women had
+heaped upon him because of his mastery of the difficult furnace,
+delighted Sam.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure obliged to you child'en for as'in' me into this yere house,"
+he said, grinning at Margy and Mun Bun. "Dis is sure just as fine folks
+as we have down Souf. Dey done fed de hongry an' clothed de naked. An'
+mighty good clo'es, too."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>He had on the suit Aunt Jo had found for him and almost new shoes,
+while an overcoat and a hat which he was to wear when he went out hung
+behind the cellar door. There was a small room off the kitchen in which
+Sam was to sleep. To the colored boy's mind he was "right good fixed."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me have dat mouf organ, little boy," said Sam, observing Laddie's
+harmonica. "I show yo' sumpin'. Now, cl'ar de way. I's goin' to work de
+mouf organ and dance fo' yo'."</p>
+
+<p>The women stopped in their work to watch him, as well as the children.
+Sam slid out into the middle of the floor, began to jerk a tune out of
+the harmonica, and commenced a slow dance&mdash;a sort of double shuffle.</p>
+
+<p>But he soon pivoted and slid much faster, all in time with the sounds he
+drew from the harmonica. Annie and Parker applauded his unexpected
+steps, and the children began to shriek in delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we has it!" exclaimed Sam, removing the instrument from between his
+lips, and panting from his exertions. "Now we skates down de floor. Now,
+turn again and ba<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>ck-along. I's a-comin', child'en&mdash;I's a-comin'. See me
+dance Jim Crow! Here I comes and dere I goes! Now, de pigeon-wing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He cut a most surprising figure, both hands flapping in the air and his
+slim body bent and twisted at a curious angle. With a resounding slap of
+the sole of his shoe on the floor he brought the dance to an end and
+fell panting into his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You're some dancer, Sam," cried the eager Annie. "Ain't he, Parker?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you call that figure?" demanded Parker. "A pigeon-wing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's what it is," breathed Sam, smiling widely. "My own particular
+invention, dat is. Nobody can't do dat like I can. No, suh!"</p>
+
+<p>Just then their Mother called the six little Bunkers upstairs, and they
+had to leave the kitchen. But they would all hav<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>e liked to see Sam cut
+that pigeon-wing again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS</h3>
+
+
+<p>How busy the six little Bunkers were on the next day you can easily
+imagine. Such a packing of bags and steamer trunks! Though of course
+Mother Bunker did most of that, although Rose helped some. And such a
+running about the bedrooms and upper halls of Aunt Jo's house asking if
+this thing shouldn't be put in, or that thing shouldn't be left out!</p>
+
+<p>The little people could think of more articles that might be needed down
+South than ten grown-ups could imagine! Laddie was sure they would need
+their bathing suits that they had had at Captain Ben's. Mun Bun, who had
+been playing with Margy in the yard making big snowballs, came in to ask
+his mother if they couldn't take just one of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>biggest snowballs with
+them in one of the trunks, because Sam, the colored boy, said there
+wouldn't be any snow down South.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear!" exclaimed Mother Bunker, laughing, "we are going down
+South just to escape the snow and the cold. Why carry it with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"But maybe the little boys and girls down there will want to see some
+real snow," said Mun Bun, who could almost always find an answer for any
+question like this.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they will have to come up North to see it," declared his mother
+decidedly. "We cannot take snow along on the boat, that is sure."</p>
+
+<p>Violet found at least a hundred brand new questions to ask about the
+preparations for the trip. Mother Bunker finally called her a
+"chatterbox" and begged her to stop.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you suppose I can attend to a dozen different things at once,
+Violet, and answer your questions, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the things, Mother," Vi replied. "Just tell me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not another question!" exclaimed Mother Bunker. "Stop it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And then she put out her hand for something to put in the trunk she was
+packing, and actually squealed when her hand unexpectedly met Alexis's
+cold, damp nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness me!" cried Mother Bunker. "That dog is a nuisance. That is the
+third time, at least, that I have tried to pack his nose in this trunk.
+Every time I reach out for something he thinks I want to pet him."</p>
+
+<p>This delighted Margy and Mun Bun very much. The idea of packing the
+great Dane in a steamer trunk was really quite ridiculous. Violet did
+not venture any more questions immediately however; but Laddie suddenly
+broke out with a new riddle.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother! Mother!" he cried. "Do you know the difference between a
+dog and an elephant?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope so!" Mother Bunker said, chuckling. "But I suppose you
+want me to give the riddle up so that you can have the pleasure of
+telling me what the difference is between Alexis and an elephant."</p>
+
+<p>"Not just Alexis; any dog," urged Laddie. "And, of course, it would be
+real polite of you if y<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>ou said you didn't know," added the little boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; what is the difference between an elephant and a dog,
+Laddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," cried Laddie very eagerly, "an elephant owns a trunk of his very
+own; and a dog only wants to get into a trunk. There now!"</p>
+
+<p>"But all dogs don't want to get into trunks," objected Vi. "Do they? Do
+they, now, Mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid Laddie's riddle is not as good as some he makes up," said
+Mother Bunker. "For you know, dogs have trunks as well as elephants."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes twinkled as she said it, for she knew she was going to puzzle
+her little brood. At once they all broke out with questions and
+exclamations. How could that be? They had seen, as Vi said, "oceans of
+dogs" and none of them had had a nose long enough to be called a trunk,
+like the elephants they had seen at the circus.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother is just puzzling us," Laddie said. "How can a dog have a trunk
+when his nose is short and blunt? At least, most dogs' noses are short
+and blunt."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Each dog has a trunk nevertheless," declared Mother Bunker, laughing.
+"And so have you, and so have I."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a suitcase," announced Mun Bun gravely. "I don't have a trunk."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bunker swept Mun Bun into her arms then and kissed his chubby
+neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you have a trunk, honey-boy," she cried. "All your little
+body between your shoulders and your legs is your trunk. So you all have
+trunks, and so do the dogs."</p>
+
+<p>The children laughed delightedly at this, but Laddie suddenly stopped
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" he cried out in great glee, "then the elephant, Mother, has two
+trunks. I guess I can make a <i>good</i> riddle out of that, can't I?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose took Alexis downstairs after that so that he would not be
+in the way. They wanted to see Sam again, anyway. And they asked him to
+dance for them.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to learn how to cut that pigeon wing," Russ declared. "You do
+it again, please, Sam. I ought to be able to learn it if I see you do it
+often enough."</p>
+
+<p>However, Russ did not succeed in this ambition. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>There really was not
+time for him to learn the trick, for the next morning, very early, the
+Bunker family started for the boat. The snowstorm had long since ceased,
+and the streets had been cleaned. William had recovered from his attack
+of neuralgia and drove them in the big closed car to the dock where the
+<i>Kammerboy</i> lay.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
+<img src="images/p050.jpg" width="252" height="400" alt="IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS." title="IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS." />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS.<br />
+<i>Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's.</i> &nbsp; &nbsp;  &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href='#Page_46'><i>Page</i> 46</a></div>
+
+<p>It was a great white steamer with three smoke stacks and a wireless
+mast. There was so much to see when they first went aboard that the six
+little Bunkers could not possibly observe everything with only two eyes
+apiece! They wanted to be down in the saloon and in the staterooms that
+Daddy Bunker had engaged and out on the deck all at the same time. And
+how were they to do that?</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose, however, were allowed to go out on deck and watch the
+ship get out of the dock and steam down the harbor. But Mother Bunker at
+first kept the four smaller children close to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew Boston was so big," said Rose, as they looked back at the
+smoky city. "I guess Aunt Jo never showed us all of it, did she, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>"I don't suppose if we lived there a whole year we should be able to
+see it all," declared her brother wisely. "Maybe we could see it better
+from an airplane. I'd like to go up in an airplane."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Don't do that, Russ! Maybe the engine would get stalled like
+the motor-car engine does, and then you couldn't get down," said Rose,
+very much worried by this thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we could see the city better."</p>
+
+<p>"We can see it pretty well from here," said Rose. "And see the islands.
+There is a lighthouse, Russ. Would you like to live in a lighthouse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would, for a while," agreed her brother. "But I'd rather be
+right on this boat, sailing out into the ocean. Just think, Rose! We've
+never been away out at sea before."</p>
+
+<p>"There was lots of ocean at Captain Ben's," said the girl. "I suppose
+the ocean is all the same everywhere. Just water. I hope it stays flat."</p>
+
+<p>"Stays flat?" repeated Russ, opening his eyes very wide.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>"Yes," said Rose gravely. "I don't like water when it's bumpy. It makes
+me feel funny in my stomach when it's that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! It won't be rough," said Russ, with much assurance. "I heard Daddy
+say we were going to sail into summer seas. And that must be warm and
+pleasant water. Don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>Rose was looking over the rail now. She pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't look as though the water was warm," she cried. "See the
+lumps of ice, Russ? It must be ice water. Where do you suppose the
+summer seas are?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to them," declared her brother with confidence. "Daddy
+said so. He said we would go out to a place he called the Gulf Stream
+and that the water would be warm there and the air would be warmer,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of that?" gasped Rose. "A stream in an ocean? I guess
+he was joking."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, he wasn't. He said it real serious. He told Aunt Jo about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can a stream&mdash;that means a river&mdash;be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>running in the ocean?
+There wouldn't be any banks!" declared the doubtful Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go and ask him about it," suggested Russ. "And we'll want to keep
+on the lookout for that Gulf Stream too. I wouldn't want to go past it
+without seeing it."</p>
+
+<p>They were just about to hunt for Daddy Bunker in the crowd on deck when
+Laddie came running to them. He was very much excited and he could
+hardly speak when he reached his older brother and sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped the smaller boy.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Laddie?" demanded Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is another riddle, Laddie, take your time. We'll stop and listen
+to it."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a riddle&mdash;Yes, it is, too! I guess it's a sort of riddle,
+anyway," said Laddie. "Have you seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like a riddle," said Rose. "And of course we haven't seen
+him. What is the answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it that you are asking your riddle about?" demanded Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun," declared Laddie, breathing very hard, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> he had run all the
+way from the stateroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun isn't a riddle," said his sister. "He can't be."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's lost," declared Laddie. "We can't find him. He was there one
+minute, and just the next he was gone. And Mother can't find him, and
+Vi's gone to hunt for Daddy, and&mdash;and&mdash;anyhow, Mun Bun has lost himself
+and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> don't any of us know what has become of him."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SEA-EAGLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mun Bun was not a very disobedient little boy; but as Daddy Bunker said,
+he had a better "forgetery" than he had memory. Mun Bun quite forgot
+that Mother Bunker had told him not to leave the bigger stateroom where
+she was setting things to rights in her usual careful way. For, as they
+were to be several days on the steamship, she must have a place for
+things and everything in its place, or she could not comfortably take
+care of Daddy and six children.</p>
+
+<p>Then, Mun Bun was so quick! Just as Laddie said: one minute he was
+there, and the next minute he wasn't. He seemed to glide right out of
+sight. Cowboy Jack had called Mun Bun a blob of quicksilver; and you
+know you cannot put your finger o<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>n a blob of quicksilver, it runs so
+fast.</p>
+
+<p>That is what Mun Bun had done. Mother Bunker's back was turned; Russ and
+Rose were on deck; the other three children, the twins and Margy, were
+busy prying into every corner of the stateroom to "see what it was meant
+for," when Mun Bun just stepped out.</p>
+
+<p>How long he had been gone when their mother discovered the little boy's
+absence, of course she did not know. She sent Laddie and Vi flying for
+help&mdash;the one for Russ and Rose and the other for their father. She
+dared not leave the staterooms herself for fear Mun Bun would reappear
+and be frightened if he did not find her.</p>
+
+<p>She called loudly for him, without getting any answer. Other passengers
+began to take an interest in the loss of the little boy. Stewards began
+to hurry about, looking for a lost boy in the most unlikely places. Some
+of these cubbyholes were so tiny that a canary bird could scarcely have
+hidden in them, while other places where the stewards looked would have
+hidden a giant.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Bunker appeared in haste from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> the smoking cabin, having been
+found by Vi, Mrs. Bunker fairly cast herself into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charles!" she cried. "He's fallen overboard!"</p>
+
+<p>"You would never think of such a thing, Amy," returned her husband, "if
+the ship wasn't entirely surrounded by water."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you joke, Charles?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't joke. Do you know how high the bulwarks are? A little boy like
+Mun Bun could not have fallen overboard. He could not climb the
+bulwarks."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of that," agreed Mother Bunker more cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"He might have fallen into one of the holds; but I don't believe he has
+done even that. And there are so many officers and men going up and down
+the ladders that I believe he has not even gone off this deck. For
+somebody would be sure to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he didn't go ashore again?" suggested Rose, who with the
+other children had returned to the staterooms.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. We had started&mdash;were well down the harbor in fact&mdash;before he
+disappeared."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun is a reg'lar riddle," said Laddie. "He runs away and we can't
+find him; and we hunt for him and there he ain't. Then he comes back by
+himself&mdash;sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a riddle?" asked his twin scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell, maybe it will be when I get it fixed right."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think much of it," declared Violet. "And I want to find Mun
+Bun."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you other children get lost on this big ship," said Mother
+Bunker. "Don't go off this floor."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean deck, don't you, Mother?" asked Russ politely. "Floors are
+decks on board ship. Daddy said so."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go and look for him, Russ; and you, too, Rose," the
+anxious woman said, as Daddy Bunker strode away. "But you other three
+stay right here by me. I thought that traveling on the train with you
+children was sometimes trying; but living on shipboard is going to be
+worse."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mother," said Rose gravely. "There are so many more places for Mun
+Bun to hide in aboard this ship. Come, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>The two older Bunker children did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> know where to look for their
+little brother. But Russ had an idea. He usually did have pretty bright
+ideas, and Rose admitted this fact.</p>
+
+<p>"You know we got up early this morning," Russ said to his sister, "and
+we have been awful busy. And here it is noontime. Mun Bun doesn't
+usually have a nap until after lunch, but I guess he's gone somewhere
+and hidden away and gone to sleep. And when Mun Bun's asleep it is awful
+hard to wake him. You know that, Rose Bunker."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know it," admitted Rose. "But where could he have gone?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ thought over that question pretty hard. Daddy Bunker would have
+said that the little lost boy's older brother was trying to put himself
+in Mun Bun's place and thinking Mun Bun's thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if Mun Bun had been very sleepy and had crept away to take a nap,
+as he often did after lunch when they were at home, without saying
+anything to Mother Bunker about it, where would he have gone to take
+that nap on this steamboat?</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun was a bold little boy. He was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>seldom afraid of anything or
+anybody. Had he not instantly made friends with Sam, the strange colored
+boy, at Aunt Jo's house? So Russ knew he would not be afraid to run
+right out on the deck among the other passengers.</p>
+
+<p>"But that would not be a nice place to go for a nap," said Russ aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"What wouldn't?" asked Rose, quite surprised by her brother's sudden
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Out here on the deck. No, he didn't come out here at all," said Russ,
+with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Russ was an ingenious boy, as we have seen. Once having got the right
+idea in his head he proceeded to think it out.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on back, Rose," he said suddenly, seizing his sister's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To find Mun Bun."</p>
+
+<p>"But he isn't with Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"I bet&mdash;No, I don't mean that word," said Russ. "I mean I <i>think</i> he is
+with Mother, only she doesn't know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Russ Bunker, that sounds awfully silly!"</p>
+
+<p>But she followed after him in much haste. They came running to the two
+staterooms <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>which Daddy Bunker had engaged. Mother and the other
+children were the center of a group of sympathetic people in the
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! did you find him?" Rose cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," said Vi. "Where should we find him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here," announced Russ, pushing through the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he isn't here, Russ," said Vi. "Can't you count us? Mun Bun
+is not here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let me see," said the boy, and he pushed into the bigger
+stateroom where his mother had been working when Mun Bun disappeared.
+Then he opened the door between that room and the other room. It was all
+quiet in there. He glanced into the two berths. There was nobody in
+either of them.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Russ," whispered Rose, looking in at the door he had
+left open. "He can't be here. Daddy has just come and says the captain
+has promised to have the ship searched."</p>
+
+<p>But without making any reply Russ Bunker went down on his knees, looked
+under the lower berth, and then stretched an arm under and grabbed
+something with his hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A sleepy squeal came from under the berth. Russ, laughing, dragged at
+the chubby ankle his hand had grasped. Mun Bun's cross, sleepy voice was
+raised in protest:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you! Don't you! Let me be!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother and Daddy Bunker came running.</p>
+
+<p>"That blessed baby!" cried his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"That pestiferous youngster!" exclaimed his father.</p>
+
+<p>But he smiled happily, too, when Mun Bun was completely drawn out from
+under the berth by Russ and was in his mother's arms again. She sat down
+and rocked him to and fro while he "came awake" and looked around at the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>"You have begun well," said Daddy Bunker gravely. "Stirring up the whole
+ship's company before we are out of sight of land! I must hurry and tell
+the captain to call off his sea-dogs. The lost is found."</p>
+
+<p>"What are sea-dogs?" demanded Vi. "Do they have dogs at sea to hunt for
+lost children&mdash;dogs like Alexis?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody answered that question, but Rose and Russ, trotting along the
+deck beside their father, were more f<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>ortunate in getting their
+questions answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we really going to sail out of sight of land, Daddy?" asked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"We certainly are," said Mr. Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a lot of land," said the girl, pointing. "We can't lose
+all that, can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what we are going to do. You watch. By and by the land
+will be only a line on the horizon, and then it will fade out of sight
+entirely."</p>
+
+<p>So Russ and Rose remained on deck to watch the land disappear. Rose
+expected it to go something like a "fade-out" on the moving picture
+screen. The disappearance of the land proved to be a very long matter,
+however, and the two children went below for lunch when the first call
+came.</p>
+
+<p>The purser had arranged for the Bunker family at a side table where they
+could be as retired as though they were at home. There were not many
+other children aboard, and the purser liked children anyway. So between
+his good offices and that of the colored stewards, the Bunkers were well
+provided for.</p>
+
+<p>Even the captain&mdash;a big, bold-looking man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>with a gray mustache and lots
+of glittering buttons on his blue coat&mdash;stopped at the Bunker table to
+ask about Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"So that is the fellow I was going to put about my ship for and go back
+to Boston to see if he had been left on the dock!" he said very gruffly,
+but smiling with his eyes at Mun Bun, who smiled back. "He looks like
+too big a boy to make such a disturbance on a man's ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't think, Captain Briggs, he will do it again," said Mother
+Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"I dess wanted to sleep," murmured Mun Bun, holding up his spoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Next time you want your watch below," said Captain Briggs, shaking his
+head, "you report to me first. Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ma'am," said Mun Bun, quite sure that he had said the right thing
+although they all laughed at him.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bunker kept the little fellow close to her thereafter; but Vi and
+Laddie followed the two older children out on deck. There was a
+comfortably filled passenger list on the <i>Kammerboy;</i> but the wind was
+rather heavy that afternoon and many of them remained in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>the cabins.
+But the four children had a great game of hide and seek all over the
+forward deck.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Daddy Bunker appeared from aft to make sure that none of the
+quartette was lost. He took Laddie and Vi below with him after a time
+and the two older children were left alone. They found seats in the lee
+of what the ship's men called "the house" and sat down to rest and talk.
+But every now and then one of them jumped up to look astern to see if
+the land had disappeared, as Daddy Bunker said it would.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long time going," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there is a lot of it to go. Don't you remember," said Russ, "how
+big the North American continent is in the geography?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is that it?" cried Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We've got to lose the whole top part of North America," her
+confident brother declared.</p>
+
+<p>There was some sort of officer (he had brass buttons and wore a cap, so
+Russ and Rose knew he must be an officer) pacing the deck, back and
+forth, not far from their chairs. Every time he came near he threw a
+pleas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>ant word to the brother and sister. Russ and Rose began to ask him
+questions and sometimes trotted beside him as he paced his lookout
+watch. Violet would have delighted in this man, for he seemed to know
+almost everything about ships and the sea and was perfectly willing to
+answer questions.</p>
+
+<p>Rose asked him if, after they had lost the land, they would find the
+Gulf Stream that Daddy Bunker had told them about.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty soon thereafter, little lady," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;and does it have banks?" pursued Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Does what have banks?" the man asked, in surprise. "The Gulf Stream?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"No," chuckled the sailor. "It's not like a river&mdash;not just like one."</p>
+
+<p>"Then how do you know when you come to the Gulf Stream?" demanded Russ.
+"I should think you'd sail over it without knowing."</p>
+
+<p>But the sailor told them that the stream, or current, was very broad,
+that the water was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>much warmer than the surrounding ocean, and that the
+Gulf Stream was even a different color from the colder ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we won't miss it," declared the man, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Rose saw something out over the ocean, sailing low and making
+a great flapping of black wings. She pointed eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a buzzard, Russ&mdash;like those we saw in Texas."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, little lady, that isn't a buzzard," said the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a gull. There were lots of them back in the harbor, you
+know, Rose," her brother rejoined.</p>
+
+<p>"And it's not a gull," said the man, squinting his eyes to look at the
+distant bird. "It's too big. I declare! I think that's an eagle."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! An eagle like those on top of the flagstaffs?" cried Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"And on the gold pieces?" added Rose, for she had a gold piece that had
+been given her on her last birthday.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not that kind of eagle," said the man. "But he's related. Yes, sir;
+it's a sea-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>eagle; some call 'em, I guess rightly, ospreys. They're
+fishers, but they can't roost on the sea. That one's a long way off
+shore. Something is the matter with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose he's hungry?" asked Rose doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder if hunger drove him out here so far from land," said
+the sailor, smiling. "But he's been hurt. You can see how his left wing
+droops. Yes, something has happened to that bird."</p>
+
+<p>The bird beat his way heavily toward the ship. First it rose a little
+way in the air, and then it slid down as though almost helpless, beating
+its good wing prodigiously to keep from falling into the water.</p>
+
+<p>"He's making bad weather of it," said the sailor. "Poor chap. If he
+comes aboard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! we'll feed him and mend his wing," cried Rose. "He's just
+like&mdash;Why, Russ Bunker! that poor bird is just what Aunt Jo called poor
+Sam, a tramp. That is what he is."</p>
+
+<p>"A sea-going tramp, I guess," said the sailor, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>But he watched the coming sea bird quite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>as interestedly as did the two
+children. The creature seemed to have selected the steamship as its
+objective point, and it beat its good wing furiously so as to get into
+the course of the <i>Kammerboy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Can we have the bird if it gets aboard, Mr. Officer?" asked Russ
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"If I can catch it without killing it&mdash;for they are very fierce
+birds&mdash;it shall be yours," promised the man.</p>
+
+<p>At once, therefore, the eagerness and interest of Russ and Rose Bunker
+were vastly increased. They clung to the rail and watched the
+approaching bird with anxious eyes. It was coming head on toward the bow
+of the ship. Would the <i>Kammerboy</i> get past so swiftly that the
+sea-eagle could not reach it?</p>
+
+<p>The uncertainty of this, and the evident effort of the great bird to fly
+a little farther, greatly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>excited the two older of the six little
+Bunkers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The steamship was pursuing her course so swiftly, but so easily, that
+Russ and Rose Bunker scarcely realized that the chances of the big
+bird's landing on the craft were very slim. The children raced along the
+deck toward the bows, believing that the big bird would alight there.
+Their friend, the lookout officer, however, remained at his post.</p>
+
+<p>The big wings of the great sea-eagle beat the air heavily. They were
+covered with almost black feathers above while the feathers on the under
+side of the wings were pearl-gray, a contrast that Rose said was
+"awfully pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anything pretty about that poor, struggling bird," said
+Russ shortly. "He's hurt bad. I hop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>e he gets here all right, but&mdash;Oh!
+There he goes!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a fact that the big bird almost fell into the sea, being
+weakened. The bow of the <i>Kammerboy</i> swept past the struggling creature.
+Russ and Rose lifted a joined complaint:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's drowned! He drowned!"</p>
+
+<p>It was true that the bird was not a water-fowl and, as the officer had
+told the children, could not "roost" on the sea. It was not web-footed,
+so could not <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'swin'">swim</ins>. And with an injured wing it was wonderful that it had
+kept up as long as it had, for it was now far, far from the shore.</p>
+
+<p>But the bird had wonderful courage. Although plunged into the water and
+suffering one wave to break and pour over him, the great bird sprang
+into the air once more. He would not give up the fight! Russ and Rose
+saw the flashing eyes, the hooked beak parted, and every other evidence
+of the creature's putting forth a last remaining effort to reach a
+secure resting place for his feet.</p>
+
+<p>And he made it! He beat his powerful wings for the last time and shot up
+over the rail of the steamship. The children shoute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>d with delight.
+Other passengers had been attracted to the place. The officer who had
+made himself the friend of Russ and Rose was prepared for the bird's
+coming inboard. He ran with a piece of strong netting in his hands, and
+as the bird came thumping down on the deck, the man cast this net about
+the creature.</p>
+
+<p>Then what a flapping and croaking and struggling there was! A sailor ran
+forward with a boat-stretcher and wanted to hit the bird; but Russ and
+Rose screamed, and the officer sent the man away.</p>
+
+<p>"We're not going to kill the bird. These little folks want it alive,"
+said the officer. "And so we are going to make a prisoner of it and mend
+that wing if we can."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye, Quartermaster," said the sailor who had tried to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>"See if you can find a big poultry cage," said the officer. "We had live
+turkeys aboard for the Thanksgiving run, and what would hold a turkey
+ought to hold a sea-eagle. Lively now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, and hurried away.</p>
+
+<p>While they waited for the cage the quartermaster <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>warned the two Bunker
+children to remain well back from the struggling bird, for it might get
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"He is certainly a strong bird," said one of the other passengers,
+looking on, too, from a safe distance. "Don't you think he'd better be
+killed, Officer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! Oh, no!" chorused Russ and Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. You're one of those folks, sir, that would kill an
+American eagle, too&mdash;the bird that is supposed to represent the best
+fighting spirit of this country. No, sir! this bird is going to have his
+chance. If we can heal his wounds, we will set him free again&mdash;hey,
+little folks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we will," said Russ stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir! we'll set him free," agreed Rose. "But when you do it I am
+going down to the stateroom. I think he is pretty savage."</p>
+
+<p>It was quite true. The injured bird was savage. But when Daddy Bunker
+heard about the capture and saw the sea-eagle in its cage, he pointed
+out the fact that there was good reason for the bird to be savage if it
+had a broken wing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>"You would be cross if you had a broken arm, Russ," Daddy Bunker said
+soberly, "So come away and let the poor bird alone for a while. Maybe it
+will eat and drink if it is not watched so closely."</p>
+
+<p>It was found that a bullet had passed through the fleshy part of the
+great bird's wing. The quartermaster declared that, without much doubt,
+the bird had been shot at from a small boat and by some idle and
+thoughtless "sportsman."</p>
+
+<p>"It is wrong," Daddy Bunker said, "to call such people 'sportsmen.'
+There is no real sport in shooting at and laming an inoffensive
+creature, one that cannot be made use of for food. That excuse does not
+hold in this case."</p>
+
+<p>"True word, sir," said the quartermaster. "It was a wicked trick, I'll
+say. But I think the bird will recover very shortly. Perhaps the little
+folks can see the bird released before we get to Charleston."</p>
+
+<p>"Not me!" cried Rose again. "I am going right downstairs when you open
+that cage and set him free. He has got such a wicked eye."</p>
+
+<p>And truly, interested as she was in the poor bird, Rose Bunker did not
+often go near him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>during the time he was in captivity. She found other
+things to interest her about the swiftly sailing <i>Kammerboy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So did all the other Bunkers. For what interested the six little Bunkers
+was sure to interest Daddy and Mother Bunker. It just <i>had</i> to. As
+Mother Bunker observed, Mun Bun was not the only one of her flock over
+whom she must keep pretty close watch.</p>
+
+<p>They were really well behaved children; but mischief seemed to crop up
+so very easily in their lives. Daddy said that any Bunker could get into
+more adventures nailed into a wooden cage no bigger than the turkey
+crate the great sea-eagle was housed in than other children could find
+in a ten acre lot!</p>
+
+<p>Living at sea on this great steamship was a good deal like living in a
+hotel. And the little Bunkers had lived in hotels, and liked the fun of
+it. Traveling by water was even more fun than traveling on a train. The
+<i>Kammerboy</i> was a fine big ship and there was so much to see and to
+learn that was new and surprising that that first night none of them
+really wanted to go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Although even that was a new experience. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>The staterooms were different
+from the berths in a sleeping car. Laddie thought they ought all to be
+tied into their berths so, if the ship rolled, they would not fall out.</p>
+
+<p>"For I don't like falling out of bed," he said. "I always bump myself."</p>
+
+<p>The steamship did not roll that night, however. At least if it did the
+little Bunkers did not know it. They slept soundly and were up bright
+and early in the morning and were all dressed and out on deck in the
+sunshine long before the first breakfast call came.</p>
+
+<p>They made a call on the captive sea-eagle before breakfast and he seemed
+to be recovering, for he snapped his beak viciously when they drew near
+and spread his wings as far as the cage would allow.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he's very nice," said Rose. "He doesn't seem to know we
+were kind to him."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with him, Rose?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him go when his wing is well."</p>
+
+<p>"But I guess he doesn't know that," said Laddie. "If he did he'd feel
+better about it."</p>
+
+<p>"He bites," said Mun Bun reflectively.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> "I'd rather have Alexis. Alexis
+doesn't bite."</p>
+
+<p>"Alexis would bite if he thought anybody was going to hurt him," said
+Russ. "But we can't make this eagle understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" immediately demanded Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Because we can't talk bird-talk," replied Rose, giggling.</p>
+
+<p>"When I go to school I'll learn bird-talk," announced Mun Bun. "And I'll
+learn to talk dog-talk and cat-talk, too. Then they'll all know what I
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a splendid idea, dear," Rose said warmly. "You do just that."</p>
+
+<p>"S'posing they don't teach those languages where you go to school, Mun
+Bun?" suggested Laddie gravely. "I guess they don't in all schools. They
+don't in the Pineville school, do they, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll ask Mother to send me to a school where they do," declared Mun Bun
+before Russ could reply. "I don't need to learn to talk our kind of
+talk. I know that already. But birds and dogs and cats are different."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk pretty good, I guess, Mun Bun," said Russ. Mun Bun was quite
+proud of this. He did not know that he often said "t" for "c" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>and "w"
+for "r." "But you will be a long time learning to speak so that this
+bird could understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shall try," the littlest Bunker declared confidently.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow, it was decided that the sea-eagle would have to be released
+before Mun Bun learned to talk the eagle language. The quartermaster who
+was Russ and Rose's particular friend, came along with some raw meat
+scraps for the big bird; but the children had to go to breakfast before
+the bird gobbled these up. He was very shy.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the forenoon Russ and Rose were walking along the deck near a
+little house amidships and they heard a funny crackling sound&mdash;a
+crackling and snapping like a fresh wood fire. They stopped and looked
+all around.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any smoke," said Russ. "But there's a fire somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that mast with the wires up there for, Russ?" asked his sister,
+looking upward.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Daddy told me that was the wireless mast," Russ exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"But that can't be," said Rose warmly. "It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> has wires hitched to it; so
+it can't be wire<i>less</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Rose, they talk from ship to ship, and to the shore, by
+wireless."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean?" returned the girl. "A telegraph?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!" cried Russ. "And I guess that is what the crackling is.
+Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it a fire, then, that we hear?" for the crackling sound
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the electric spark," said her brother eagerly. "That is what it
+must be. Let's peep into this room, Rose. It is where the telegraph
+machine is."</p>
+
+<p>There was a window near by, but as they approached it the two children
+found a door in the wireless house, too, and that door was open. A man
+in his shirt-sleeves and with a green shade over his eyes and something
+that looked like a rubber cap strapped to his head was sitting on a
+bench in front of some strange looking machinery.</p>
+
+<p>He was writing on a pad and the crackling sound came from an electric
+spark that flickered back and forth in the machine before him. Russ and
+Rose gazed in, wide-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>At length the crackling stopped and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>spark went out with a sputter.
+The man stopped writing and wheeled about in his seat. He saw them
+looking in at the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "If here aren't two of the little Bunkers. Do you
+want to send a message by wireless?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Rose promptly. "I think it would be nice to send word
+to Aunt Jo that we are all right and that the ship is all right and that
+we caught an eagle."</p>
+
+<p>"It costs money to send messages," said the wiser Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Does it?" asked his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid it does," replied the operator, laughing. "You had better
+ask Mr. Bunker about sending a message to your aunt, after all. Some
+messages we do not charge for. But the rules demand that all private
+messages must be paid for in advance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I guess we'd better write a letter to Aunt Jo," said Rose,
+who was practical, after all. "That won't cost anything but a two cent
+stamp."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my!" laughed Russ. "Going to mail it in the ocean?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We'll mail it when we get to Charleston," said Rose cheerfully. "I
+guess Aunt Jo won't mind."</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment there seemed to be some excitement on the deck up
+forward. Two officers who stood on what the children had learned was
+called the quarter were talking excitedly to one of the lookout men.
+They were pointing ahead, and one of the officers put a double-barreled
+glass to his eyes and stared ahead.</p>
+
+<p>The operator came to the doorway of his cabin and looked forward, too.
+He could see over the bulwarks and marked what had caused the
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-ha!" he said. "Come up here, little folks, and you can see it too."</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose were quite excited. They stepped up into the doorway
+beside the wireless operator. They both saw at once the two-masted
+vessel that was rolling sluggishly in the sea. Her rail seemed almost
+level with the water and from one of the masts several flags were
+strung.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" cried Russ. "That shi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>p looks as though it was going
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you've hit it right. She does look so," said the operator. "She
+has sprung a leak, sure enough. And she's set distress signals."</p>
+
+<p>"Those flags?" asked Russ. "Do those flags say she is sinking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those flags ask for help. That schooner doesn't carry a wireless outfit
+as this vessel does. Few small vessels do. I guess we will have to h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>elp
+her out," said the wireless operator.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A GREAT DEAL OF EXCITEMENT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Russ and Rose Bunker were very much excited by the discovery of the
+schooner in distress. They were actually afraid that the vessel was
+going to sink in the ocean right before their eyes!</p>
+
+<p>But the wireless operator reassured them. He said it probably would not
+sink at all. He seemed to have learned at first glance a lot about that
+schooner.</p>
+
+<p>"It's lumber laden, from some Maine port. Probably going to Baltimore,
+or some port down that way. They have jettisoned her deck load, and now
+she'll just float soggily. But her sails will never carry her to port."</p>
+
+<p>Russ eagerly asked what "jettisoned" meant, and the man explained that
+the crew had pushed overboard all the deckload of lumber. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>The hold was
+filled with the same kind of cargo, and of course lumber would not
+really sink. But the dirty, torn sails which the children saw did not
+promise to hold wind enough to propel the water-logged craft.</p>
+
+<p>"She's got to have help," said the wireless operator, and Russ and Rose
+realized that the <i>Kammerboy</i> was slowing down.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we going to stop?" asked Rose. "Will they take the men off that
+ship into our small boats? Oh, it's a regular shipwreck, Russ!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much it isn't, little girl," said the operator. "And this steamer
+can't stop to do much in the way of rescue. The crew wouldn't want to
+leave that schooner in good weather, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we do, then?" Rose asked again.</p>
+
+<p>Just then their friend, the quartermaster, hurried up with a written
+paper which he handed to the operator.</p>
+
+<p>"Get that out, Sparks," he said, and the operator turned swiftly to his
+instrument and fitted on his cap and "earlaps" again. At least, Rose
+said they were "earlaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't we help that s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>chooner?" asked Russ of the quartermaster.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't need us to help them. Only to send a message," was the
+reply, as the wireless spark began to crackle again. "We are telling the
+Government about her plight and a revenue cutter will be sent out to tow
+the schooner into some near port. She has drifted a good way off shore,
+but the weather is settled and there is nothing to fear."</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the operator had sent the message and got a reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Right out of the air," breathed Rose wonderingly. "I think that is very
+funny, Russ. If that mast isn't exactly wireless, it is almost wireless.
+Anyway, the wires aren't long enough to take much of a message, I should
+think."</p>
+
+<p>This was a mystery that Russ could not expound, so they went to hunt up
+Daddy Bunker for further information regarding the wonder of the
+wireless service. The other four little Bunkers were already greatly
+interested in the deeply rolling lumber schooner.</p>
+
+<p>After more signals with flags had been exchanged between the steamship
+the children were on and the schooner, the former picked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>up speed
+again. Soon the masts of the schooner were almost out of sight; but the
+little Bunkers continued to discuss the strange incident.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we could have put out boats and saved them," said Rose. "Like a
+regular wreck, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"The crew of the schooner would be castaways, then," Russ mused. "I like
+to read stories about castaways."</p>
+
+<p>"Robinson Crusoe had goats," remarked Laddie. "I like goats."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't like goats if they butted you, would you?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"All goats don't butt," said her twin with assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Have those men got goats on that wabbly schooner?" Margy demanded. "I
+didn't see any."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they haven't," Rose replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then how could they be castaways?" put in Vi promptly. "If castaways
+have goats&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you don't understand," declared Russ. "They only get the goats
+after they get to the desert islands. That is what Laddie means."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course," agreed Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Do they eat 'em?" Margy asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Only if they need to," Russ told her, with superior wisdom. "Of course,
+they most always make pets of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess," said Russ, becoming reflective, "that we might play at
+castaway."</p>
+
+<p>"When we get ashore, do you mean, Russ?" Vi asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Right here."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Vi. "We'd get our feet wet. We can't play on the ocean, can
+we?"</p>
+
+<p>"We can play on this deck. The officers won't mind. Now all of you come
+up on to this life raft. We'll play you are floating around on the sea
+waiting for somebody to come along in a boat and rescue you."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is going to be the rescuer?" Vi asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you can rescue us, Russ?" she demanded. "Where's your
+boat?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ pointed to a long lifeboat covered with canvas which lay some
+distance from the life-raft. "That will be my boat," he said eagerly.
+"Rose, you must be in command of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>raft. Of course, you have been
+drifting about a long time and you are all hungry and thirsty."</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun wants bwead and milk," put in the littlest Bunker, on hearing
+this.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Laddie soberly, "you've got to want it a lot before you get
+rescued, Mun Bun. Castaways have to drink the ocean and eat their shoes
+before anybody rescues them."</p>
+
+<p>At this Mun Bun set up a wail. It seemed that his shoes were brand new
+and he was very proud of them. He would not consider eating them for a
+moment!</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said Rose, hugging him. "If you get so very hungry before
+Russ rescues us, you can chew on your belt. That is what Laddie means."</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun observed his belt with round eyes. It seemed to him, and he
+confessed it to Rose, that he would have to be awfully hungry to chew
+that belt. The others entered into the spirit of the play and when Vi
+chanced to step off the raft her twin and Margy seized her and screamed.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be drowned, Vi Bunker!" said Margy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>"You'll more than get your feet wet if you don't stay on the raft," her
+twin scolded. "And, then, maybe there are sharks."</p>
+
+<p>"Sharks?" put in Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, big sharks."</p>
+
+<p>"What do they do?" asked Margy, who had not heard so much about this
+castaway play as the older children.</p>
+
+<p>"Big fish," said Laddie promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"I like fish," Margy announced. "You know, Grandma Bell had goldfish.
+They were pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"And I like fish to eat," said Vi. "Are sharks good to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe they will eat you," warned Laddie, who had entered into the play
+with all his thought and interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Laddie Bunker! They wouldn't," cried Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they might. Anyway, you've got to be afraid of the sharks and not
+step off the raft."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Russ had gone over to the lifeboat. He had not asked even his
+friend, the quartermaster, if he could play in that boat. But he saw no
+reason w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>hy he could not, as nobody seemed to be using it.</p>
+
+<p>The canvas cover was tied down with many strings; but the knots slipped
+very easily and the boy pulled out three of the knots and then laid back
+a corner of the canvas. It was dark inside the boat, and before Russ
+crept into it as he intended, he bent over the gunwale and peered in.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he gasped, and pulled his head back. He was startled, but Russ
+Bunker was a courageous boy. He had seen something&mdash;or he thought he had
+seen something&mdash;squirming in the brown darkness inside the boat.</p>
+
+<p>He waited a little, and then put his head under the canvas and took a
+long look. Was there something or somebody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> there? Russ was determined
+to find out!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>RUSS'S SECRET</h3>
+
+
+<p>Russ Bunker looked very funny&mdash;Rose said he did&mdash;when he suddenly came
+back to the raft. Vi and Margy shouted to him that he would be drowned;
+and Laddie said something more about sharks. But their older brother
+paid little attention to them.</p>
+
+<p>He had tied the cover down over the lifeboat again and he would not look
+toward it, not even when Rose asked him what the matter was and if he
+was going to leave all five of the castaways on the raft to starve and
+be thirsty until luncheon time.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess this isn't a very good place to play castaway, after all," said
+Russ gravely. "And, anyway," he added, with sudden animation, "there's
+the man with the gong. We'll have to run down and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>get cleaned up before
+we go to the table."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" complained Laddie, "we never can have any fun. We always have
+to stop and eat or go to bed, or something. Even on this ship we have
+to."</p>
+
+<p>Laddie thought that the most important thing in the world was play. Rose
+watched Russ with a puzzled look. She felt that something had happened
+that her brother did not want to talk about. Russ had a secret.</p>
+
+<p>The latter did not even look again at the lifeboat as the little party
+passed it on the way to the staterooms. But Russ Bunker's mind was fixed
+upon that boat and what he had seen in it, just the same. He really
+could not decide what to do. He was very much puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>Even his mother and father noticed that Russ was rather silent at the
+lunch table; but he said he was all right. He had something to think
+about, he told them. Daddy and Mother Bunker looked at each other and
+smiled. Russ had a way of thinking over things before he put his small
+troubles before them, and they suspected that nothing much was the
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>But Rose whispered t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>o her brother before they left the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that isn't very polite, Russ Bunker."</p>
+
+<p>Russ looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>"What isn't polite?" he asked almost angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you do that," she said, in the same admonishing way.</p>
+
+<p>"Do what?" he demanded boldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Put those rolls and the apple in your pocket. You wouldn't do that at
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we're not at home, are we?" he said. "You just keep still, Rose
+Bunker."</p>
+
+<p>Russ ran away directly after he had been excused from the table and they
+did not find him again for quite a while. He appeared with his usual
+cheerful whistle on his lips and made up a fine game of hide and seek on
+the afterdeck. But it was noticeable, if anybody had thought to notice
+it at all, that Russ kept them all from going near the lifeboat and the
+raft, and he would not hear to their playing castaway at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's too old," Russ declared. "We can play that at any time.
+Let's go and listen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>to the wireless spark. When we get to that
+plantation where we are going maybe I can set up a wireless mast and we
+will send messages."</p>
+
+<p>"To Grandma Bell? And to Aunt Jo?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Laddie, "let's send one to Cowboy Jack. I know he'd be glad
+to hear from us."</p>
+
+<p>So Russ turned the interest of his brothers and sisters away from the
+castaway play. All but Rose. She wondered just what it was that was
+troubling Russ and what the lifeboat had to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>But there were so many new things to be interested in aboard the
+steamship that even Rose forgot to be puzzled after a while. Their
+friend, the quartermaster, took them all over the ship. They saw the
+engines working, and peered down into the stoke hole which was very hot
+and where the firemen worked in their undershirts and trousers and a
+great clanging of shovels and furnace doors was going on.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess the steampipes always hum on this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>boat," remarked Laddie. "It
+is not like it was at Aunt Jo's before that Sam boy came to make the
+furnace go."</p>
+
+<p>Whether the steampipes hummed or not, the children found that it was
+quite balmy on the boat. Although a strong breeze almost always blew, it
+was a warm one. They had long since entered into the Gulf Stream and the
+warm current seemed to warm the air more and more as the <i>Kammerboy</i>
+sailed southward.</p>
+
+<p>It was only two hours after passing the schooner that was in distress
+when they "spoke," as the quartermaster called it, the revenue cutter
+which had been sent to help the disabled vessel, steaming swiftly toward
+the point of the compass where the schooner was wallowing. Mr. Sparks,
+as the wireless operator was called, had exchanged messages with the
+Government vessel and he told the little Bunkers that the lumber
+schooner would be towed into Hampton Roads, from which the cutter had
+come.</p>
+
+<p>All this time Russ Bunker stayed away from the covered boat on the
+hurricane deck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>. Daddy Bunker, as well as Rose, began to wonder at the
+boy's odd behavior. When dinner time came, Mr. Bunker watched his oldest
+son sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I go out on deck again for a while?" asked Russ politely, as he
+moved back his chair at the end of the meal.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you can't. And Rose too," said their mother. "It is not
+yet dark. But you other children must come with me."</p>
+
+<p>They had all played so hard that it was no cross for the little ones to
+prepare for bed. Mun Bun and Margy were already nodding.</p>
+
+<p>When Rose looked about for Russ, he had disappeared again. So had Daddy.
+They had both slipped out of the saloon cabin without a word.</p>
+
+<p>Russ was hurrying along the runway between the house and the bulwarks,
+and going forward, when Daddy Bunker came around a corner suddenly and
+confronted him. Russ was so startled that he almost cried out.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see what you have in your pockets, Russ," said Mr. Bunker
+seriously, yet with twinkling eyes. "I noticed that you feared there was
+going to be a famine aboard this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>steamer, and that you believe in
+preparing for it. Let me see the contents of your pockets."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Father!" gasped Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't afraid, are you, Russ?" asked Daddy Bunker. "If you weren't
+afraid to take the food you needn't be afraid to show it."</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it was all mine," said Russ, stammeringly. "I only took what was
+passed to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," said Daddy. "That is one reason why I want to know the
+rights of this mystery. I can't have my son starving himself for the
+sake of feeding a sea-eagle."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! It isn't the eagle, Daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it isn't an it at all!" exclaimed Russ Bunker and he was so very
+much worried that he was almost in tears.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked his father.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't tell you," Russ faltered. "It isn't about me at all. It's
+som<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>ebody else, and I oughtn't to tell you, Daddy."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>CHARLESTON AND THE FLEET</h3>
+
+
+<p>A boy hates to tell on another person if he is the right kind of boy.
+And Russ was the right kind of boy.</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker knew this; so he did not scold. He just said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, my boy. If you are mixed up in something of which you cannot
+tell your father, but which you are sure is all right, then go ahead. I
+am always ready to advise and help you, but if you are sure you do not
+need my advice, go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>He turned quietly away. But these words and his cheerful acceptance of
+Russ' way of thinking rather startled the boy, used as he was to Daddy
+Bunker's ways. He called after him:</p>
+
+<p>"Daddy! I don't know whether I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> right or wrong. Only&mdash;only I know
+somebody that needs this bread and meat because he is hungry. He's
+<i>real</i> hungry. Can't I give it to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that hunger should be appeased first. Go ahead," said Mr.
+Bunker, but still quite seriously. "Then if you feel that you can come
+and tell me about it, all right."</p>
+
+<p>At that Russ hurried away, much relieved. Rose came into sight and would
+have run after him, but Daddy Bunker stopped her.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't chase him now. He has something particular to do, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's real mean!" exclaimed Rose. "He's hiding something from
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"My!" said Daddy, "do you think your brother should tell you everything
+he knows or does?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" retorted Rose. "I'm sure, Daddy, he is welcome to know
+everything I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure? Moreover, perhaps he does not care to know all your
+secrets," said Mr. Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, you must learn, Rose, that other people have a right to their
+own private mysteries; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>you must not be inquisitive. Russ has got
+something on his mind, it is true; but without doubt we shall all know
+what it is by and by."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" exclaimed Rose, with almost a gasp. She could not quite
+understand her father's reasoning.</p>
+
+<p>Russ Bunker appeared after a while, looking still very grave indeed for
+a boy of his age. Daddy kept from saying or doing anything to suggest
+that he was curious; but Rose found it hard not to tease her brother to
+explain his taking food from the table and hiding it in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he can't eat it," she whispered to herself. "And he doesn't
+give it to the eagle. Who ever heard of an eagle eating pound cake with
+raisins and citron in it? And I saw Russ take a piece of that.</p>
+
+<p>"But he didn't eat much himself. I wonder if he is sick and is hiding it
+from Mother and Daddy?"</p>
+
+<p>She watched her brother very closely. After a time he seemed more
+cheerful, and they ran races on the open deck. They knew many of the
+passengers by this time to speak <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>to. And there were some few other
+children of about their own ages, too. They talked with these other boys
+and girls, found out where they lived when they were at home, and
+learned where they were going to, when they left the <i>Kammerboy</i> at
+Charleston or Savannah.</p>
+
+<p>Just the same Rose knew that her brother was disturbed in his mind.
+Daddy Bunker's words to her had been sufficient, and Rose said nothing.
+But she began to believe that she should sympathize with Russ instead of
+being vexed with him. He did look so serious when he was not talking.</p>
+
+<p>The evening wore on. The moon rose and silvered the almost pond-like sea
+through which the <i>Kammerboy</i> steamed. Even the children were impressed
+by the beauty of the seascape. Far, far away against the rising moon
+appeared a fairylike ship sailing across its face, each spar and mast
+pricked out as black as jet.</p>
+
+<p>"Just like those silhouettes Aunt Jo cut out for us," declared Rose.
+"Did you ever see anything so cute?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ didn't have much to say about it. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>was very grave again. Bedtime
+came, and the brother and sister went below. The little folks, Margy and
+Mun Bun, were in the first stateroom with Mother. Already the twins were
+fast asleep in the second stateroom. Rose was going to sleep with Vi in
+the lower berth and Russ was to crawl in beside Laddie in the upper.</p>
+
+<p>But Russ did not seem in a hurry to undress and go to bed. Mother
+brushed Rose's hair for her and the girl got ready for bed in the larger
+stateroom. When she went into the other room there was Russ sitting on
+the stool with only his jacket off.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Russ Bunker! aren't you going to bed to-night?" demanded Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," admitted Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'd better hurry. I want you to put out the light. How do you
+suppose we can sleep?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ reached up and snapped out the electric bulb as Rose threw aside
+her bath-gown and hopped into bed beside her sister.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't see to undress in the dark, Russ," scolded Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Russ did not say a word. He got up and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> walked into his mother's and
+father's stateroom, and greatly to his sister's vexation he closed the
+door between the two rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker had just come in.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Russ," said he, "haven't you gone to bed yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," said Russ. "And I guess I can't. I've got to talk to you
+first. I guess I can't go to sleep till I've told you something."</p>
+
+<p>Daddy smiled at Mother Bunker but nodded to Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said. "We will go out on deck again and take a turn up
+and down and you shall tell me all about it."</p>
+
+<p>Mother made no objection, although the hour was getting late, and she
+smiled, too, when she saw Russ slip into his jacket again and follow his
+father out of the stateroom. On the deck Russ burst out with:</p>
+
+<p>"I promised I wouldn't tell anybody. But when I gave him his supper I
+told him I'd just have to tell my father, I was afraid; and he said he
+didn't have any father and he didn't know whether fathers wouldn't
+'snitch,' and I said my father wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Mr. Bunker gravely. "You <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>recommended me as being a safe
+person to trust a secret with. I am glad you did so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. For you see he's got to be fed until we get to Charleston."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind telling me who this new friend of yours is, and where he
+is, and why he must be fed?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a sailor boy. He belongs on a destroyer and got left at Boston
+when his ship started for Charleston two days ago."</p>
+
+<p>"He is in the Navy?" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. And he spent all his money and did not know how to get down
+there where the fleet will be in winter quarters, he says, unless he
+went secretly on one of these steamers."</p>
+
+<p>"He is stealing his passage, then?" asked Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he is, Daddy," said Russ, ruefully enough. "He is in a boat,
+all covered up with canvas. Up there on the deck. I can show you. I
+found him quite by myself, and I was sorry for him, 'specially when he
+said he didn't have anything to eat. And he said, would I keep sti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>ll
+about it? And at first I said I would."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Daddy Bunker, smiling. "Then you thought that you ought
+not to keep the secret from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it, Daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," rejoined Mr. Bunker encouragingly. "It is not good policy
+to keep secrets from your mother and father. What do you want to do
+about it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why, I want you to tell me," confessed Russ. "I got him some
+food."</p>
+
+<p>"I see you did," returned his father, smiling. "At your own cost, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell, yes, I could have eaten more if I hadn't taken what I did for
+the sailor boy."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to see about that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind&mdash;much. I'm not very hungry," said Russ hurriedly. "It
+wasn't that made me tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it wasn't, Russ," said Daddy Bunker, with a pride that the
+little boy did not understand, and he dropped an approving hand upon
+Russ' shoulder. "Now, I will tell you what we will do. This sailor boy
+shall have his chance to rejoin his ship without getting into any more
+trouble than is necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>. He is probably very young and foolish."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't very old, I guess," said Russ. "He has been in the Navy only a
+little while, and it was his first 'shore leave,' he called it, in
+Boston. He had some cousins there. They begged him to stay longer than
+he should have. And so he got left."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll fix it if I can," promised Daddy Bunker. "Of course, the first
+thing to do is to pay his fare and then he can come out of the lifeboat
+and have his proper meals. I will see the purser, and the captain if it
+is necessary, and you go to bed, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be nice!" cried the boy, greatly relieved. "Of course I ought
+to have told you right at first. You always do know how to straighten
+things out, Daddy!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what fathers and mothers are for," replied Mr. Bunker. "Go down
+and go to sleep, Son, and I will do my best for this young deserter."</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Bunker entered the stateroom an hour later Mother Bunker wanted
+to know all about it, of course. And if Russ had known just what they
+both said of him he would certainly have been proud.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>"He's a manly boy," said Daddy Bunker in conclusion. "I am glad he is
+our son."</p>
+
+<p>The trouble about it all was, in Rose's opinion, that she never quite
+understood it. If Russ had done anything to be punished for, he
+certainly didn't seem to mind the punishment! And Daddy and Mother
+seemed to have a little secret between them, as well as Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like secrets," she complained the next day, on thinking it all
+over.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do!" cried Laddie. "'Specially now that Christmas is coming."</p>
+
+<p>But Rose knew this was not a Christmas secret. She wondered where the
+nice, pleasant-faced sailor boy came from who seemed to know Russ and
+Daddy Bunker so well. She had not seen him before. And that was another
+mystery that nobody seemed willing to explain to her.</p>
+
+<p>They all had so many good times on the <i>Kammerboy</i>, however, that Rose
+really could not be vexed for long. It proved, as had been announced in
+Boston, that the ship sailed into summer seas. There was scarcely a
+cloud in sight for the entire vo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>yage, and certainly the steamship did
+not roll.</p>
+
+<p>At length, late one afternoon, the children were taken up on the
+hurricane deck to see the islands of Charleston Harbor ahead. Many
+warships, and of all sizes, lay in the roadstead, but they did not see
+much of these vessels save their lights that evening.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Kammerboy</i> was docked to discharge freight and some of her
+passengers. Daddy Bunker arranged for the boy lost from the destroyer to
+be put aboard his ship. Russ hoped that he would not be pu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>nished very
+sorely for being left behind.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MEIGGS PLANTATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Bunker children watched the lights of the fleet until quite late in
+the evening and thought the sight very pretty indeed. They would have
+liked to have gone aboard at least one of the Government vessels
+preferably, of course, the one to which their sailor friend belonged,
+but there was no opportunity for such a visit. For early the next
+morning the <i>Kammerboy</i> steamed out of the harbor of Charleston again on
+the last lap of her voyage to Savannah.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't do it, Russ&mdash;ever!" declared Rose, with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the oldest of the six little Bunkers, puffing very much, "I
+can try, can't I? I do wish I could cut that pigeon wing just as Sam did
+it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were on the sunshiny deck of the <i>Kammerboy</i>, which was plowing now
+toward the headlands near Savannah Harbor. But the little folks had been
+seeing the blue line of the shore ever since leaving Charleston, so they
+were not much interested in it. As Laddie said, they knew it was there,
+and that was enough.</p>
+
+<p>"We know the continent of North America didn't get lost while we were
+out there in the Gulf Stream," said the boy twin, with satisfaction. "So
+it doesn't matter what part of it we hit&mdash;it will be land!"</p>
+
+<p>"If we hit it most any old place," said Vi, "we would be shipwrecked and
+be castaways like the game we started to play that time and Russ
+wouldn't let us finish. I wonder why?"</p>
+
+<p>She had ended with a question. But Laddie could not answer it. He was
+watching Russ trying to do that funny dance.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Sam's nephew could do it fine," Laddie said to Russ. "But you
+don't get the same twist to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Me do it! Me do it!" cried Mun Bun excitedly, and he began to try to
+dance as Russ had. He looked so cunning jumping about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>and twisting his
+chubby little body that they all shouted with laughter. But Mun Bun
+thought they were admiring his dancing.</p>
+
+<p>"Me did it like Sam," he declared, stopping to rest.</p>
+
+<p>"You do it fine, Mun Bun," Russ said.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fact, however, that none of them could cut that pigeon wing as
+Sam, the colored boy, had cut it in Aunt Jo's kitchen in Boston.</p>
+
+<p>Now that they were nearing the end of the voyage there were many things
+besides pigeon wings to interest the little Bunkers. In the first place
+the big sea-eagle had to be released from the turkey coop. The
+quartermaster called him Red Eye. And truly his eye was very red and
+angry all the time. And he clashed his great beak whenever anybody came
+near him.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you couldn't tame him in a hundred years," Russ said
+thoughtfully. "He can't be tamed. That is why we have an eagle for a
+symbol, I guess. We can't be tamed."</p>
+
+<p>It was decided to let Red Eye out of the cage when the ship entered
+Savannah Harbor.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>"He's come a long way with us. He has come away down here to Georgia,"
+said Rose thoughtfully. "If he lives in Maine, do you s'pose he will
+ever find his way back?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he doesn't, what matter? It's a fine country," said the
+quartermaster.</p>
+
+<p>"But he will want to see his relations," said the little girl. "Maybe
+he's got a wife and children. He will be dreadfully lonesome away down
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you had better take him back with you on the <i>Kammerboy</i>," said
+Russ thoughtfully, to the quartermaster.</p>
+
+<p>But the officer could not do that. There had been some objection made
+already to the big sea-eagle caged on deck. Besides, the bird's wing was
+better, and if he was kept much longer confined, the quartermaster said,
+he might forget how to fly!</p>
+
+<p>So they all gathered around (but at a good distance from the cage you
+may be sure), and the eagle was released. He had to be poked out of the
+cage, for it seemed as though he could scarcely believe that the door
+was open and he was free.</p>
+
+<p>He stalked out upon the deck, his great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>claws rattling on the planks.
+He turned his head from side to side, and then opened his beak and, so
+Vi said, he hissed at them!</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," admitted Russ afterward, "he did make a funny noise."</p>
+
+<p>"He was clearing his throat," said Laddie, with scorn of his twin. "How
+could an eagle hiss? He isn't a goose."</p>
+
+<p>Laddie knew all about geese, for Grandma Bell had geese. But he did not
+know all about eagles, that was sure! Whether Red Eye hissed, or
+growled, or whatever he did in his throat, he certainly showed little
+friendliness. He raised his wings and flapped them "to see if they
+worked right." Then he uttered a decided croak and jumped a little way
+off the deck.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently this decided him that he was really free and that his great
+wings would bear him. He leaped into the air again, spreading his wings,
+and wheeled to go over the stern of the steamship. The spread of his
+wings when he flapped them was greater than most of the onlookers had
+supposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Look out, Laddie!" shouted Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Her warning came too late. The end of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> the great pinion swept Laddie off
+his feet! He went rolling across the deck, screaming lustily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I'm going overboard! Daddy!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Russ who grabbed him and stood him on his feet again.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going overboard at all," said the older brother. "You
+couldn't. You'd have to climb over the rail to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell!" breathed Laddie. "It's a wonder he didn't take me right with
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he, like everybody else, became interested in the passage of the
+great bird as it mounted skyward. It went up in a long slant at first,
+and then began to spiral upward, right toward the sun, and presently was
+out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>"It can look the sun straight in the face," said Daddy Bunker. "Which is
+something we cannot do."</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder its eye is red, then," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it's sunburnt," said Margy. "I got sunburnt at Captain Ben's."</p>
+
+<p>That night they docked at Savannah and went to a hotel in two taxicabs,
+for one would not hold all the Bunkers and their baggage <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>too. The hotel
+was a nice one, and Rose thought the negro waiters and chambermaids very
+attentive and very pleasant people.</p>
+
+<p>"They are the smilingest people I ever saw," she confessed to Mother
+Bunker. "I guess they are thinking of funny things all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," granted her mother. "But they are trained to politeness. And
+you children must be just as polite."</p>
+
+<p>They all tried to be polite, and Russ grew quite friendly with one of
+the bellboys who brought them ice water. He asked that boy if he knew
+how to cut the pigeon wing, and the boy grinned very broadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I sure does!" he declared. "But if the boss heard of me doin' it around
+dishyer hotel, he'd bounce me."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you made of rubber?" asked Vi, who was standing by.</p>
+
+<p>"What's dat?" he demanded, rolling his eyes. "Is I made of rubber?
+Course I isn't. I's made of flesh and blood and bones, same as you is,
+little Miss. Only I isn't w'ite like you is."</p>
+
+<p>"But you said the man would bounce <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>you. Rubber balls bounce," explained
+Vi.</p>
+
+<p>At that the bellboy went away laughing very heartily, but Vi could not
+understand why. And, of course, as usual, nobody could explain it to
+Vi's satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"I know a riddle!" cried Laddie, after a moment. "What looks like a boy,
+but bounces like a rubber ball? Why! A bellboy!"</p>
+
+<p>And he was highly delighted at this and went around telling everybody
+his new riddle.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Mr. Frane Armatage appeared at the hotel and was shown up
+to the Bunker rooms. Mr. Armatage, as the little Bunkers knew, was an
+old school friend of Daddy Bunker's; but one whom he had not seen for a
+long time.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Mr. Armatage, who was a slender man with graying hair and a
+darker mustache, "Charley was only a boy when I last saw him." He was a
+very jovial man, and red-faced. Rose thought him handsome, and told
+Mother Bunker so. "No, Charley was only a sapling then. And look at him
+now!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>"And look at the sprouts that have sprung from that sapling," laughed
+Daddy Bunker, with a sweeping gesture towards the six little Bunkers.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he only as big as I am?" Russ asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, come to think of it; he was some bigger than you. We were
+graduating from college when we parted. But it seems a long time ago,
+doesn't it, Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker agreed to that. Then he and Mr. Armatage talked business
+for a while. The owner of the Meiggs Plantation wished to get more land
+and hire more hands for the next year, and through Mr. Bunker he
+expected to obtain capital for this. Aside from business the two old
+friends desired very much to renew their boyhood acquaintance and have
+their wives and children become acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got half as many young ones as you have, Charley," said Mr.
+Armatage. "You've beat me a hundred per cent. I wonder if we keep on
+growing if the ratio will remain the same?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ knew what "ratio" meant, and he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>asked: "How can it keep that way
+if we grow to be seven little Bunkers? You can't have three and a half
+little Armatages, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a smart boy!" exclaimed the tall man, smiling. "He can see
+through a millstone just as quick as any boy I know. We'll hope that
+there will be no half-portions of Armatages. I want all my children to
+have the usual number of limbs and body."</p>
+
+<p>"If you have little girls, and one was only half a little girl," said
+Rose, "she would be worse off than a mermaid, wouldn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"She certainly would," agreed the planter.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" demanded Vi, who did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Because half of her would be a fish," said Russ, laughing. "And you
+would have to have all your house under water, Mr. Armatage, or the
+mermaid could not get up and down stairs."</p>
+
+<p>"I declare, Charley!" exclaimed the visitor, "these young ones of yours
+are certainly blessed with great imaginations. I don't believe our
+children ever thought of such things."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next day the party went out to the Meiggs Plantation. It was a
+two-hours' ride on a branch railroad and a shorter and swifter ride in
+an automobile over the "jounciest" road the children had ever ridden on,
+for part of the way led through a swamp and logs were laid down side by
+side to keep the road, as Mr. Armatage laughingly said, from sinking
+quite out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>But the land on which the Armatage home stood was high and dry. It was a
+beautiful grassy knoll, acres in extent, and shaded by wide-armed trees
+which had scarcely lost any leaves it seemed to the little Bunkers,
+though this was winter. On the wide, white-pillared veranda a very
+handsome lady and two little girls and a little boy stood to receive the
+party.</p>
+
+<p>The children did not come forward to greet the visitors, or even their
+father, until the latter spoke to them. Mr. and Mrs. Bunker were quite
+sure by the actions of Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior, that they
+were not granted the freedom of speech and action that their little ones
+enjoyed. Mother Bunker pitied those children from the start!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/p130.jpg" width="250" height="400" alt="THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS WERE AMAZED AT THE NUMBER OF COLORED CHILDREN." title="THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS WERE AMAZED AT THE NUMBER OF COLORED CHILDREN." />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS WERE AMAZED AT THE NUMBER OF COLORED CHILDREN.<br />
+<i>Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's.</i> &nbsp; &nbsp;  &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href='#Page_115'><i>Page</i> 115</a></div>
+
+<p>But what amazed the six little Bunkers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>more than anything else was the
+number of colored children hanging about the veranda to see the
+newcomers. Rose confided to Russ that she thought there must be a
+colored school near by and all the children were out for recess.</p>
+
+<p>And there were so many house-servants that smiling black and brown faces
+appeared everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess," said Rose to her mother, "that there must be an awful lot of
+work to do in this big house. It's lots bigger than Aunt Jo's or Grandma
+Bell's. It's like a castle, and all these servants are like retainers. I
+read about retainers in a story. Only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>these retainers aren't dressed
+in uniforms."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>MAMMY JUNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>From the very beginning, although they said nothing about it even to
+each other, the six little Bunkers found the three little Armatages
+"funny." "Funny" is a word that may mean much or little, and often the
+very opposite of humorous. In this case the visitors from the North did
+not understand Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior. They were not like
+any boys and girls whom the Bunkers had ever known before.</p>
+
+<p>Phillis was twelve&mdash;quite a "grown up young lady" she seemed to consider
+herself. Yet she broke out now and then in wild, tomboyish activities,
+racing with Russ and Frane, Junior, climbing fences and trees, and
+riding horses bareback in the home lot. It seemed as though Phil, as
+they called her, "held in" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>just as long as she could, trying to put on
+the airs of grown-ups, and then just had to break out.</p>
+
+<p>"If you tell mother I did this I'll wish a ha'nt after you!" she would
+say to her brother, who was the age of Vi and Laddie, and her sister
+Alice, who was two years younger than herself, but no bigger than Rose.
+Alice had a very low, sweet, contralto voice, like Mrs. Armatage, and a
+very demure manner. Rose became friendly with Alice almost at once.</p>
+
+<p>And the way they treated the colored children of their own age and older
+was just as strange as anything else about the three Armatages. They
+petted and quarreled with them; they expected all kinds of service from
+them; and they were on their part, constantly doing things for the
+children of "the quarters" and giving them presents. Wherever the white
+children went about the plantation there was sure to be a crowd of
+colored boys and girls tagging them.</p>
+
+<p>After the first day Mother Bunker was reassured that nothing could
+happen to her brood, because there were so many of the colored <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>men
+about the grounds to look after them. As in the house, a black or brown
+face, broadly a-smile, was likely to appear almost anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The quarters, as the cabins occupied by the colored people were called,
+were not far from the house, but not in sight of it. Even the kitchen
+was in a separate house, back of the big house. After bedtime there was
+not a servant left in the big house unless somebody was sick.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy used to live here," Mrs. Armatage explained, in her languid
+voice, "while the children were small. I couldn't have got along without
+mammy. She was my mammy too. But she's too old to be of much use now,
+and Frane has pensioned her. She has her own little house and plot of
+ground and if her boy&mdash;her youngest boy&mdash;had stayed with her, mammy
+would get along all right. She worries about that boy."</p>
+
+<p>The Bunker children did not understand much about this until, on the
+second day after their arrival, Phillis said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm g<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>oing down to see mammy. Want to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is&mdash;isn't your mammy here at home?" asked Vi. "Dora Blunt calls her
+mother 'mammy'; but we don't."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a mother and a mammy too," explained the oldest Armatage girl.
+"You-all come on and see her. She'll be glad to see you folks from the
+North. She will ask you if you've seen her Ebenezer, for he went up
+North. We used to all call him 'Sneezer,' and it made him awfully mad."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't he have any better name?" asked Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"His full name is Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs. Of course, their
+name isn't really Meiggs, like the plantation; but the darkies often
+take the names of the places where they were born. Sneezer was a real
+nice boy."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't dead, is he?" asked Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Reckon not," said Phillis. "But Mammy June is awful' worried about him.
+She hasn't heard from him now for more than a year. So she doesn't know
+what to think."</p>
+
+<p>"But she has got other folks, hasn't she?" Rose asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>"You'd think so! Grandchildren by the score," replied the older
+Armatage girl, laughing. "Sneezer had lots of older brothers and
+sisters, and they most all have married and live about here and have big
+families. The grandchildren are running in and out of mammy's cabin all
+the time. I have to chase 'em out with a broom sometimes when I go down
+there. And they eat her pretty near up alive!"</p>
+
+<p>Even the smaller Bunkers knew that this was a figure of speech. The
+grandchildren did not actually eat Mammy June, although they might clean
+her cupboard as bare as that of Old Mother Hubbard.</p>
+
+<p>They followed a winding, grass-grown cart path for nearly half a mile
+before coming to Mammy June's house. The way was sloping to the border
+of a "branch" or small stream&mdash;a very pretty brook indeed that burbled
+over stones in some places and then had long stretches of quiet pools
+where Frane, Junior, told Russ and Laddie that there were many
+fish&mdash;"big fellows."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get a string and a bent pin and fish for them," said Laddie
+confidently. "I f<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>ished that way in the brook at Pineville."</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" said Frane Armatage, Junior, in scorn. "One of these fish here
+would swallow your pin and line and haul you in."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped Vi, with big eyes. "What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, the fish wouldn't!" declared Laddie promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it would. And swallow you, too."</p>
+
+<p>"No, the fish wouldn't," repeated Laddie, "for I'd let go just as soon
+as it began to tug."</p>
+
+<p>"Smartie!" said Phillis to her brother. "You can't fool these Bunker
+boys. Let Laddie alone."</p>
+
+<p>Of course the troop of white children, walking down the cart path to
+Mammy June's, was followed by a troop of colored children. The latter
+sang and romped and chased about the bordering woods like puppies out
+for a rample. Sometimes they danced.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you cut a pigeon wing?" Russ asked one of the older lads. "I want
+to learn to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can't do that. Not good. We've got some dancers over at the
+q<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>uarters that does it right well," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to've seen Sneezer do it!" cried another of the colored
+children. "Sneezer could do it fine. Couldn't he, Miss Phil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sneezer was a great dancer," admitted the oldest Armatage girl. "Come
+on, now, Bunkers, and see Mammy June. Keep away from this cabin," she
+added to the colored children, "or I'll call a ha'nt out of the swamp to
+chase you."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what those 'ha'nts' are, Russ," whispered Rose to her brother.
+"Do they have feathers? Or don't they fly? They must run pretty fast,
+for Phil is always saying she will make one chase folks."</p>
+
+<p>"I asked Daddy. There isn't any such thing. It's like we say 'ghosts.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! At Hallowe'en? When we dress up in sheets and things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Maybe these colored children believe in ghosts. But of course we
+don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"No-o," said Rose thoughtfully. "Just the same I wouldn't like to think
+of ha'nts if I was alone in the woods at night. Would you, Russ?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Russ dodged that question. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean to be alone in the woods around here at night. And neither
+do you, Rose Bunker."</p>
+
+<p>Of course neither of them had the least idea what was going to happen to
+them before they started North from the Meiggs Plantation.</p>
+
+<p>Mammy June's cabin was of white-washed logs, with vines climbing about
+the door that were leafless now but very thrifty looking. There were fig
+trees that made a background and a windbreak for the little house, and a
+huge magnolia tree stood not far from the cabin. The front door opened
+upon a roofed porch, and an old colored woman of ample size, in a
+starched and flowered gingham dress and with a white turban on her head,
+was rocking in a big arm chair on this porch when the children appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Lawsy me!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly to show firm white teeth in
+spite of her age. "Is this yere a celebration or is it a parade? Miss
+Philly, you got a smooch on dat waist, and your skirt is hiked up
+behind. I declar' I believe you've lost a button."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, so I have, Mammy June," answered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>Phillis. "And more than one.
+Nobody has time to keep buttons sewed on up at the house, now that
+you're not there."</p>
+
+<p>"Shiftless, no-count critters, dem gals up dere. Sho, honey! who is all
+dese lil' white children?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bunkers," explained Frane, Junior.</p>
+
+<p>"What's dem?" asked Mammy June, apparently puzzled. "Is dey to play
+with, or is dey to eat? Bunkers! Lawsy!"</p>
+
+<p>Rose giggled delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>"They are to play with," laughed Alice suddenly. "That is what they are
+for, Mammy June."</p>
+
+<p>"You see you play pretty with them, then," said the old woman, shaking
+her head and speaking admonishingly.</p>
+
+<p>Rose and Russ Bunker at least began to understand that this pleasant old
+colored woman had had the chief care of the three young Armatages while
+they were little. Perhaps she had trained them quite as much as their
+mother and father. And they seemed to love Mammy June accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>That the old woman loved little folks and knew how to make friends with
+them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> was soon apparent. She had Mun Bun and Margy both together in her
+ample lap while Laddie and Vi leaned against her and listened to the
+tale she was telling the little folks.</p>
+
+<p>Phillis and Alice meanwhile showed Rose the interior of the cabin and
+all its comforts and wonders. Meanwhile Frane, Junior, took Russ down to
+the stream with some of the colored children to show him some of the big
+fish he had threatened Laddie with. Here it was that Russ Bunker engaged
+in h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>is first adventure at the Meiggs Plantation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CATFISH</h3>
+
+
+<p>"If Sneezer was here," said Frane, Junior, "he'd show you more fish than
+I can. Sneezer used to just smell 'em out. But come on. I know where
+some of the big ones stay."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to dive in after them," declared Russ Bunker, laughing.
+"The way you promised Laddie. And I haven't any hook and line at all."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't go fishing. Not really. Mostly the darkies fish. We don't
+bother to. They bring us plenty to eat when we want them at the house."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you don't do much of anything, do you?" asked Russ doubtfully.
+"Not for yourselves, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't have to," returned Frane, Junior. "The darkies do it all for us.
+But Phil a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>nd Alice and I have to do our own studying."</p>
+
+<p>Russ saw that he was in fun, but he was curious enough to ask the
+smaller boy:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you and the girls go to school?"</p>
+
+<p>"School comes to us. There is a teacher comes here. Lives at the house.
+But it's vacation time now till after New Year's. I hope she never comes
+back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is she mean to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Course she is," declared Frane, Junior. "She makes us study. I hate
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sometimes I don't like what they make us learn in school,"
+admitted Russ slowly. "But I guess it's good for us."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know, it is?" demanded the other. "I don't feel any better
+after I study. I only get the headache."</p>
+
+<p>Russ could not find an immediate answer for this statement. Besides,
+there was something right in front of him then that aroused his
+interest. It was a big log spanning the stream, with a shaky railing
+nailed to it, made of a long pole attached to several uprights.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the funniest bridge I ever saw," he declared. "Will it hold
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that log. It would hold a hundred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>elephants," declared Frane,
+Junior, who was inclined to exaggerate a good deal at times.</p>
+
+<p>"Not all at once!" cried Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. If you could get 'em on it," said Frane. "But I don't s'pose
+the railing would stand it."</p>
+
+<p>When the boys went out on the bridge and Russ considered the railing he
+was very sure that this last statement of his little friend was true,
+whether any others were or not. The railing "wabbled" very much, and
+Russ refrained from leaning against it.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you folks keep back!" whispered Frane shrilly to the colored
+children who had followed them. "I want to show him the big fellow that
+sleeps down here."</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere he had picked up a piece of bark more than a foot long, which
+was rolled into a cylinder. He lay down on the log near the middle of
+the brook and began to look down into the brown and rather cloudy water
+through this odd spyglass.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you see through that thing?" asked Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Sh! Wait. Don't let 'em hear you,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> warned Frane, Junior. Then he
+added: "Get down here 'side o' me. When I spot him I'll let you squint
+through this too."</p>
+
+<p>Russ understood now that his companion was trying to see one of the fish
+that lived in the stream&mdash;perhaps the "big fellow" Frane had spoken of.
+Russ grew quite excited and he took off his jacket and rolled up his
+sleeves. He knelt down beside Frane, and finally lay right down on his
+stomach and likewise peered over the side of the log.</p>
+
+<p>The log-bridge had been made quite flat on its upper surface with a
+broadaxe, and all the bark had long since worn off. It was all of thirty
+feet long, but it was just as firm as the arch of a stone bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" whispered Frane. "I saw a flicker then. Yep! He's there! Right
+below the edge of that stone!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anything but water. I can't even see the bottom," observed
+Russ, in a low voice, too.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you see him below the stone?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't even see the stone," complained Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! He'll hear you. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> see his tail wiggle. He's a big cat."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't tell me there's a cat in this brook!" said Russ Bunker,
+shortly. "I know there isn't anything of the kind. Cats hate water."</p>
+
+<p>He had already learned that Frane, Junior, was apt to exaggerate. Russ
+thought the Armatage boy was letting his fancy run wild at this present
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a cat," murmured Frane. "I can see his whiskers moving. Yep, a
+big fellow! Want to see?" and he took his eye away from the bark
+cylinder.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you see his teeth and his claws and his fur and his tail?" demanded
+Russ scornfully, and without offering to take the cylinder. He did not
+intend to be fooled so easily.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about?" hissed Frane. "And speak quietly. You'll
+drive him away."</p>
+
+<p>"Cats aren't so easily scared," said Russ. "You have to peg stones at
+'em to drive 'em away."</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" sniffed Frane. "Funny cats up North. I don't believe you have any
+up there."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>"You're right we don't," agreed Russ, and now he laughed again. "Not
+any cats that swim. Cats hate the water&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, shucks! I'm not talking about cats!" exclaimed Frane. "I'm talking
+about catfish."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" ejaculated the Northern boy.</p>
+
+<p>"You know a catfish, don't you? It has feelers that we call whiskers.
+Awful nice eating, for they only have a backbone."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" murmured Russ again. "I guess I didn't understand. Let me see the
+fish, will you, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can look," said Frane passing him the cylinder of bark. "But maybe
+we have scared him off, talking so much."</p>
+
+<p>The big catfish, however, had not been scared away. After a few moments,
+and with Frane's aid, Russ Bunker got the wooden spyglass focused on the
+proper point. He saw the imbedded rock Frane had spoken of. Then he saw
+the fish basking in the water below the rock's edge.</p>
+
+<p>It was almost two feet long, with a big head and goggle eyes, and the
+"whiskers" Frane had spoken of wriggled back and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>forth in the slow
+current. Russ grew excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" he whispered to Frane, "I could grab it, if I tried. It is just
+like what we call bullheads up in Pineville. I've caught 'em in our
+pond. You can hardly get 'em off the hook without getting stung by 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Catfish don't sting you. But you have to knock 'em in the head when you
+land them, so as to make 'em behave. I've seen the boys do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to make a grab for that fellow," declared Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon you'd miss him. You couldn't hold him, anyway," said Frane
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I could so."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you couldn't. He's too big. They never catch catfish that way."</p>
+
+<p>"I know I never caught a bullhead that way," admitted Russ. "But one
+never lay so still for me. And right under this log! Here! You take the
+spyglass."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better take care," advised the Southern boy.</p>
+
+<p>But Russ felt very daring. It seemed that the fish lay only a few inches
+under the surface of the brown water. If he could grasp <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>the fish and
+throw it ashore, how the other children would all shout! Perhaps Russ
+Bunker wanted to "show off" a little. Anyway, he determined to make the
+attempt to land the big catfish with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't do it," warned Frane, Junior, creeping back a way so as to
+give Russ more room.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that till you see," returned the boy from the North. "Now,
+look! I know just where he lies. Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Russ had rolled his shirtsleeve up to his shoulder. He balanced himself
+on the log, his head and shoulders overhanging the brown water. Suddenly
+he made a dive with his right hand. Even his head touched the water, he
+dipped so deep, and his cap went floating away.</p>
+
+<p>And, wonderful to relate, his hand did seize upon the catfish. Perhaps
+the fish had been asleep down there by the edge of the imbedded stone.
+At any rate it was not quick enough to escape Russ Bunker's darting
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I got it!" yelled Russ, in delight.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to seize fast hold upon the body of the catfish, but the fish
+shot forward with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>wriggle that slapped its tail against Russ's hand.
+Russ plunged forward, trying to hold it.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;guess&mdash;he's&mdash;a&mdash;butter&mdash;fish!" he gasped. "He's so slippery&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And then, losing his balance on the log, Russ Bunker fell right into the
+deep pool with splash enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> to frighten all the fishes for yards
+around!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MAMMY JUNE HELPS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of course, Russ Bunker should not have done it. He was always ready to
+try new things and wasn't much afraid of anything that turned up. But
+trying to catch a big catfish with his hands was ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he realized this when he fell off the log into the stream; but
+it was too late then to know how foolish it was.</p>
+
+<p>The chorus of screams from the children on the bank was the first
+announcement that Mammy June had of the mischief that was afoot. The
+colored children shouted and Frane, Junior, ran right off the log and
+came screaming to the cabin:</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone down! He's gone down!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you, Frane?" demanded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>the old woman, coming
+heavily down off the porch. "Who's gone down? Wha's he gone down to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Russ has gone down," announced Frane. "He's gone down after the
+catfish."</p>
+
+<p>"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June. "Is that li'le boy got into the
+branch?"</p>
+
+<p>Rose and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, as well as the two
+Armatage girls, all came running, too. For the first minute none of them
+understood what had happened to Russ.</p>
+
+<p>But when they reached the bank of the stream they saw something
+splashing in the middle of the pool under the bridge. They couldn't see
+Russ, but they knew that something was struggling there.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a fish?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a whale."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" shrieked Rose. "It's Russ! He'll be drowned!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let him get wet, Rose," cried Margy. "Mother won't want him to
+get his clothes wet."</p>
+
+<p>But if there was any part of Russ Bunker that was not wet when he
+managed to get on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>his feet and his head and shoulders appeared above
+the water, Rose couldn't imagine what part it could be. He was just the
+wettest boy she had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Russ had got a footing finally upon the stone beside which the big
+catfish had lain. The water was too deep all around him for him to wade
+out. The bottom of the pool was so deep that it was over the boy's head.
+He had to stand on the rock and gasp for breath for he had swallowed a
+good deal of water, having gone down with his mouth open.</p>
+
+<p>"What did I tell you?" demanded Frane, Junior, from the bank. "You
+couldn't catch that cat."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it!" jerked out Russ. "I know it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Lawsy me!" ejaculated Mammy June. "Is that the way you ketches catfish
+up Norf?"</p>
+
+<p>The other little Bunkers did not understand this. Vi wanted to know at
+once if Russ had a kitty in the water with him. But nobody paid any
+attention to her questions.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, you 'Lias and Henery!" commanded Mammy June to two of the older
+colored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> boys. "What you standin' there idle for? Go out on that bridge
+and haul that poor chile ashore. What a state he is in, to be sure!"</p>
+
+<p>It did not take long to help Russ up on to the log again. The water just
+poured off him; but it was not very cold and his teeth didn't
+chatter&mdash;much. Mammy June showed anxiety, however.</p>
+
+<p>"You come right into de house, honey," she said to Russ. "Now, little
+Miss," she added to Rose, "yo' mustn't scold him now. Wait till we wring
+his clothes out and get him dry. Yo' 'Lias, bring some dry bresh and
+some good sticks. We'll want a hot fire."</p>
+
+<p>Mammy June had no stove in her cabin, but a broad and smoke-blackened
+open fireplace. There was a small fire in it, over which her teakettle
+hung. In five minutes the negro boys made a roaring blaze. Then the old
+woman drove them all out of the cabin save Russ, whom she helped off
+with his wet clothes, rubbed dry with a big towel, and to whom she gave
+a shirt and trousers to put on while she wrung out his clothing and hung
+it all about the fire to dry.</p>
+
+<p>"That shirt and them pants," she said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>"b'longs to my Sneezer&mdash;my
+Ebenezer. If he was here this wouldn't have happened to yo', honey. He
+wouldn't have let no w'ite boy fall into that branch&mdash;no, sir. But these
+no-'count other young ones didn't know 'nough to tell yo' that that
+ain't the way to catch catfish."</p>
+
+<p>"I found out myself," admitted Russ rather ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>Rose came to the door and begged to know if Russ was all right.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to be just as soon as I get him made a hot drink," declared
+Mammy June.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he got all over being drowned?" Margy demanded.</p>
+
+<p>And even Mun Bun was a good deal troubled because Russ had got so wet.
+"If you had any candy in your pocket, Russ," the little boy said, "it
+must be all soft now. It won't be good to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't have any candy, Mun Bun," Russ told him. Russ was feeling a
+whole lot better now. Mammy June gave him a nice hot, sweet drink. He
+didn't mind if it was a little "stingy" too.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' all come in yere&mdash;yo' little w'ite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>folks," said Mammy June, "and
+we'll make some 'lasses taffy. I got plenty sorgum 'lasses. We can make
+it w'ile this catfish boy is getting dry."</p>
+
+<p>She continued to call Russ "the catfish boy" and chuckled over his
+adventure. But she warned him, when his clothing was dry, that he must
+be more careful when he was playing about the water.</p>
+
+<p>"An' yo' got to tell yo' mudder and daddy about it," she instructed
+Russ. "Don't never hide nothin' from 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we don't!" Rose broke in. "We always tell Mother and Daddy
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I tell my Philly and Ally and Frane, Junior. Always must
+tell they parents."</p>
+
+<p>"And get scolded for it," said Phillis rather crossly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Mammy June cheerfully, "you mustn't do things to get
+scolded for. So I tell all these grandchildren of mine. Scat, you
+children!" for she saw several of the smaller colored boys and girls
+trying to steal in at the cabin door. "Ain't room for you in here
+noways. Yo' shall have yo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>' share of the 'lasses candy when it's done."</p>
+
+<p>That "taffy pull" was a famous one. The six little Bunkers thought they
+had never eaten such nice molasses candy as Mammy June made. Phillis
+Armatage made believe that she did a lot to help for she buttered the
+pans. But it was Mammy June who really did it all.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," confessed Rose to Alice, "that it is awfully nice to have
+both a mammy and a mother, as you girls have. Of course, a mammy can't
+be just what Mother Bunker is to us; but Mammy June is nice."</p>
+
+<p>"She's lots better to us than our mother, in some ways," said Alice
+bluntly. "Mother doesn't want us to play noisy in the house. She has
+headaches and stays on the couch a lot. We have to step soft and can't
+talk loud. But Mammy June never has the fidgets."</p>
+
+<p>"What's 'fidgets'?" asked Rose, quite shocked by the way Alice spoke of
+her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"What ladies have," explained Alice. "Don't your mother have 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not. I never heard about them," Rose answered. "Then if your
+mother is sick, I don't suppose she can help it. It is lucky you have
+got a mammy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That first afternoon ("evening" all these Southern folks called it) at
+Mammy June's was a very pleasant experience. Russ did not mind his
+ducking&mdash;much. He only grinned a little when Mammy June called him "the
+catfish boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Serves me good and right," he confessed to Rose. "I ought not to have
+gone into that brook without a bathing suit. And, anyway, I guess a boy
+can't catch fish of any kind with his hands."</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun and Margy and the smaller colored children managed to spread the
+molasses taffy over face and hands to a greater or less degree; but they
+enjoyed the taffy pull as much as the older children did. Finally, after
+Mammy June had washed his face and hands, Mun Bun climbed up into her
+comfortable lap and went fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman, who loved children so dearly and was so kind to them,
+looked at one of her older grandsons, Elias, and ordered him to "get de
+boxwagon to take dis bressed baby home in."</p>
+
+<p>A soapbox on a plank between two pairs of wheels being produced and the
+box made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> comfortable with a quilt and a pillow belonging to Mammy June,
+Mun Bun was laid, still fast asleep, in this vehicle, and Russ started
+to drag his little brother home.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' 'Lias!" exclaimed Mammy June, from the doorway of her cabin,
+"whar's yo' manners? Don't you let that w'ite visitor boy drag that
+boxwagon. You get busy, 'Lias."</p>
+
+<p>Russ and the other Bunker children were not used to being waited on at
+every step and turn. But they became better used to it as the time
+passed. The white folks on the Meiggs Plantation seemed to expect all
+this aid from the colored folks, and the latter seemed willing and eager
+to attend.</p>
+
+<p>Russ was not scolded for his involuntary plunge into the branch. In fact
+his father laughed immensely at the tale. But Mother Bunker had to be
+assured that the stream was neither deep nor boisterous before she could
+laugh much.</p>
+
+<p>The children had all had a lovely afternoon at Mammy June's and after
+that day they found most of their enjoyment in running down to her cabin
+and playing there. This delight was shared by the Armatages too. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>And
+the latter's father and mother seemed perfectly content if the children
+were in mammy's care.</p>
+
+<p>The days passed all too swiftly. Everybody, darkies and all, were on
+tiptoe about the coming festival of Christmas and New Year's. The six
+little Bunkers learned that these holidays were celebrated in different
+style on this Georgia pl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>antation from what they were in the North.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEN CHRISTMAS IS FOURTH OF JULY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mun Bun and Margy were too little always to accompany the older children
+on their rambles; but the two smallest Bunkers could be trusted to
+invent plays of their own when they might be left out of the older one's
+parties. They had long since learned not to feel slighted if Mother
+Bunker decided that they were to stay near her.</p>
+
+<p>There was sufficient mystery and expectation regarding the coming
+holiday celebrations at the Meiggs Plantation to excite the little folks
+in any case. There was to be no Christmas tree such as the Bunkers had
+had the previous Christmas in the North. Both Mun Bun and Margy could
+remember that tree very clearly.</p>
+
+<p>But there was quite as much hiding of funny<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> shaped packages until the
+gift day should arrive, and the house was being decorated, inside and
+out, for the coming celebration. Mun Bun and Margy watched the servants
+hanging Christmas greens and mistletoe, although, unlike the older
+little Bunkers, they could not go into the swamps with the men to gather
+these greens.</p>
+
+<p>"We just ought to have a Christmas tree of our own," Margy said to Mun
+Bun. "I know where we can get a tree, and we'll beg some wreaths and
+trimming from that nice colored man there."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't," said Mun Bun, somewhat despondently. "We isn't got a house
+to put the tree in. And we had the Christmas tree last time in the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"I've found a house," whispered Margy. "But don't you tell anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even tell Muvver?" asked Mun Bun, looking almost scared. Yet the
+idea of a secret delighted him too.</p>
+
+<p>"Not till we get it all done. Then we will show her how fine it is,"
+said Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your house?" asked Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"You come along and I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> show you. I found it all by myself."</p>
+
+<p>She led Mun Bun by the hand out behind the big house and toward the
+quarters. In a sheltered place, behind a hedge, was a little house, sure
+enough. And it was not so very little after all, for when they went into
+it they could both stand upright.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any window," said Mun Bun. "This isn't a regular house."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, it's a house," Margy declared. "It's got a doorway, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It hasn't got any door, just the same," said Mun Bun, who might have
+liked the house better if he had found it himself.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't need a door. We want it open so the big folks can see our tree
+when we get it trimmed."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the tree?" demanded the still doubtful little boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy, "do you want to play at fixing this
+Christmas tree, or don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," said Mun Bun, who did not really want to be left out of any
+fun, even if he did not think of it first himself. "Show me the tree,
+Margy."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>"Of course I will," said his sister. "You must help me get it and carry
+it in here."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," urged the little boy. "Let's."</p>
+
+<p>So then Margy showed him where the tree she had found stood in a green
+tub outside the door of a small house that was almost all glass. The
+lower panes of glass in this house were whitewashed, so the children
+could not see what was in it; but this tree with its thick, glossy
+leaves seemed to have been left out for anybody to take who wanted it.</p>
+
+<p>They had to tug pretty hard to get the tree out of the tub. As Margy
+said, they didn't want the tub anyway, for it would take up too much
+room. And they were not strong enough to move it.</p>
+
+<p>But they got the tree uprooted, and then were able to carry it to the
+little house that Margy had selected as their own private dwelling for
+the play celebration.</p>
+
+<p>By dragging the tree inside, roots first, they managed to get it in
+without breaking off any of the glossy leaves. They stood it upright and
+made it steady by placing some bricks that they found about the roots.
+Its top reached the roof of the little house.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>They begged some broken wreaths and chains of evergreen and even a
+spray of mistletoe with berries on it. The workmen were very kind to the
+smallest Bunkers. Mun Bun grew quite as excited and enthusiastic as
+Margy. They worked hard to trim that tree.</p>
+
+<p>"But it hasn't any lights," said Mun Bun sadly. "And that other
+Christmas tree had lights."</p>
+
+<p>You see, he remembered very clearly about that. And when Mun Bun played
+he always wanted the play to be as real as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get candles," declared Margy. "I saw candles in the kitchen house
+where that nice cook lives. Let's go and ask her."</p>
+
+<p>But just as they were going to squeeze out of the low door of the little
+house they heard a great shouting and calling, and then suddenly the
+snapping of explosive crackers&mdash;fire crackers&mdash;began!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped Mun Bun. "Who's shootin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'fire-crackers'">firecrackers</ins>. You know, we've had 'em before. And they are in a
+barrel," said Margy breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Through the doorway of the little house in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> which they had set up the
+"Christmas tree" the two saw their brothers and sisters, the Armatage
+children, and a lot of the little negroes dancing about a barrel a
+little way down the hill. Margy was right. Into that barrel somebody had
+thrown a lighted bunch of firecrackers&mdash;about the safest way in which
+those noisy and delightful "snappers" can be exploded.</p>
+
+<p>And what a noise they made! Mun Bun and Margy almost forgot their own
+play for the moment as they struggled to see which should first go out
+of the door of the little house. Getting in each other's way, they were
+delayed and before they could get out a great dog came bounding toward
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Oh!" squealed Margy, and shrank back, leaving to Mun Bun the
+opportunity of getting out if he wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid of that dog," said Mun Bun. But, just the same, he did
+not go out when he might have done so. "He isn't as big as Aunt Jo's
+Alexis, is he, Margy?"</p>
+
+<p>"But we aren't acquainted with him like we were with Alexis," whispered
+the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>She knew his name was Bobo. But always <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>before when she had seen him the
+great hound, with his flappy ears and wide mouth, had been chained.</p>
+
+<p>"Do&mdash;do you suppose he'll want to bite us?" quavered Mun Bun, admitting
+now that he was afraid of the dog. "And what does he want here in our
+house, Margy?"</p>
+
+<p>Margy suddenly remembered that when she had seen Bobo before he had been
+chained right at this little house. Maybe it was his house, although it
+was bigger than any doghouse she had ever seen before.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want him in here," cried Mun Bun. "There isn't any room for
+him." Then he cried to the big hound: "Go 'way! You'll spoil our
+Christmas tree."</p>
+
+<p>The big hound came nearer, but more quietly. His eyes were red, and he
+sniffed enquiringly at the doorway while the children crowded back
+against the tree. Perhaps he was the very kindest dog in the world; but
+to Mun Bun and Margy he appeared to be dreadfully savage!</p>
+
+<p>"Go 'way!" they shouted in chorus. And Mun Bun added again: "We don't
+want him in here, do we, Margy?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The dog seemed determined to thrust himself into the house. Perhaps Bobo
+felt about Mun Bun and Margy as they did about him&mdash;that they had no
+right there, and he wanted them to get out. And when he put his great
+head and shoulders into the doorway the little Bunkers began to shriek
+at the top of their voices.</p>
+
+<p>Even the snapping firecrackers could not drown their voices now. Russ
+and Rose heard the cries coming from the doghouse, and they knew Mun Bun
+and Margy were in trouble. They saw Bobo, who had been with them to the
+swamp, seemingly stuck half way in the doorway of his kennel, and Russ
+cried:</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that's where they are. Hear 'em, Rose? Come on, save Mun Bun
+and Margy."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid of that hound," replied Rose, but she followed her brother
+just the same.</p>
+
+<p>Russ shouted to the dog. The hound backed out and looked around at Russ
+Bunker. But his red eyes did not scare the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"We're coming, Mun Bun!" Russ shouted. "We're coming, Margy!"</p>
+
+<p>The two little ones appeared at the door of the kennel. They were not
+crying much, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> they had tight hold of each other's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Russ! Rose!" cried Margy. "Take us out."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing in that dog's kennel?" demanded Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Playing Christmas," said Margy, with quivering voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it isn't Christmas," said Mun Bun doubtfully. "I guess it's
+Fourth of July. Isn't it, Russ? They don't have shooters only on the
+Fourth of July."</p>
+
+<p>"They do down here," said Russ, reaching the kennel and looking in while
+Bobo stood by as though he still wondered why Mun Bun and Margy had
+tried to turn him out of his house.</p>
+
+<p>Just then one of the colored men, who was a gardener, came along and
+stooped to look into the kennel too.</p>
+
+<p>"For de lan's sake!" he cried, "what you childern doin' in dat dog
+kennel?"</p>
+
+<p>"We&mdash;we were playing Christmas tree," said Margy, grabbing hold of
+Rose's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"For de lan's sake!" repeated the man, showing the whites of hi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>s eyes
+in a most astonishing way. "What dat in dere?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's our Christmas tree," said Mun Bun, very bravely now.</p>
+
+<p>"For de lan's sake!" ejaculated the man for a third time. "What Mistah
+Armatage gwine to say now? Dat's his bestest rubber plant what he tol'
+me to take partic'lar care of. What will you lil' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>w'ite childern be up
+to next, I'm a-wondering?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>A LETTER AND A BIG LIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Why, Mun Bun!" murmured Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Margy Bunker!" exclaimed Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun was staring with all his eyes (and he had two very bright ones)
+at the rubber plant. He did not consider the mischief he had done. He
+was as curious as Vi could possibly have been about an entirely
+different thing.</p>
+
+<p>"If that's a rubber plant, Russ," he demanded, "where's the rubbers? I
+don't see any overshoes on it. What part of it is rubber?"</p>
+
+<p>At that the black man threw back his head and laughed loudly. The
+children all watched his open mouth and rolling eyes and flashing teeth
+and finally they broke into laughter too. They could not help it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>"But," said Russ, after they had stopped laughing, "I am afraid Mr.
+Armatage will be angry with us."</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno&mdash;I dunno, chile," said the negro, shaking his head. "He sure is
+partic'lar 'bout dat rubber plant. But mebbe I can repot it and fix it
+up all right. It's only just been uprooted, and I was gwine to change de
+dirt in dat tub, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Do you think you can do it and save Mun Bun and Margy from getting
+a scolding?" Rose cried.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see, lil' Miss. Shouldn't wonder," and the gardener went to work
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Bobo sat on his haunches and mournfully looked at what was
+going on. His red eyes had a very sad expression and his drooping ears
+made him look, so Rose said, more mournful still.</p>
+
+<p>"He looks as if he'd just come from a funeral," she said to Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" demanded Margy promptly.</p>
+
+<p>But Rose and Russ dodged that question. In fact they did not know how to
+explain just what a funeral was. But in watching the gardener replace
+the rubber plant in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>green tub, surrounded with fresh earth from the
+green house, the little ones forgot everything else, even Bobo.</p>
+
+<p>Bobo, just as soon as he could, went into his house and smelled all
+around and finally lay down, his muzzle sticking out of the door.</p>
+
+<p>"He looks unhappy," Rose said. "I guess he thought he wasn't going to
+have any home at all when he saw you two in there with the rubber
+plant."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a good Christmas tree," was Margy's only reply to this.</p>
+
+<p>"But we didn't get the candles to light it up," Mun Bun rejoined,
+walking away hand in hand with Russ. "So how could it be a Christmas
+tree if there weren't any candles?"</p>
+
+<p>As Christmas Day grew closer there was less work done and more play
+engaged in by everybody on the plantation. Christmas Eve there was a
+beautiful display of fireworks on the front lawn of the big house, and
+everybody from the quarters came to see it, as well as the white folks.
+Even Mammy June came up from her cabin by the stream, walking with
+difficulty, for she was lame, and sat in state on the p<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>orch "with de
+w'ite folks" to see the fireworks.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman had taken a strong liking to the six little Bunkers and
+she made as much of them as she did of the three little Armatages. But
+the latter were not jealous at all. Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior,
+were likewise delighted with the children from the North.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Day dawned brilliantly, and although there was what Mr.
+Armatage called "a tang" in the air it was so warm that it was hard for
+the Bunker children to realize that this was the day that they expected
+up North to be "white."</p>
+
+<p>"A 'white Christmas' doesn't mean anything down here in Georgia," said
+Daddy Bunker. "Though once in a while they have a little snow here. But
+they never speak of it&mdash;not the natives. It is a sort of scandal in the
+family," and he laughed, looking at Mother Bunker, who understood him if
+the children did not.</p>
+
+<p>But white or green, that Christmas Day was a delightful one. Even
+without a gaudily lighted and trimmed tree, the Bunkers were pleased in
+every way. Their presents were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>stacked with those belonging to the
+Armatage children under the chimneypiece in the big front parlor, and
+Mr. Armatage himself made the presentations.</p>
+
+<p>There were presents from "all over" for the six little Bunkers; for no
+matter how far they were away from their many relatives and friends, the
+six were fondly remembered. Even Cowboy Jack sent gifts from Texas!</p>
+
+<p>With the presents from Aunt Jo came a letter particularly addressed to
+the children. Russ read it aloud to them all. It gave news of William's
+neuralgia (Vi still insisted on calling it "croup") and about Annie and
+Parker. Even the Great Dane, Alexis, was mentioned. But the most
+important thing spoken of in the letter to the children's minds was the
+fact that Aunt Jo said she meant to keep Sam, the colored boy Mun Bun
+and Margy had introduced into her Back Bay home, all winter.</p>
+
+<p>"The boy is really a treasure," said Aunt Jo. "He can do something
+besides dance&mdash;although he does plenty of that in the kitchen to the
+delight of Parker, Annie and William. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>He has been taught to work, and
+is really a very good houseboy. And he looks well in his uniform."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to see him in a uniform," said Laddie. "Is he a soldier, or a
+policeman?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a 'buttons,'" replied Mother Bunker, laughing. "Aunt Jo has always
+wanted to have a boy in buttons to answer the door and clean the
+knives."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather see him dance again," said Russ, and he slyly tried to cut
+that pigeon wing once more. But he made a dismal failure of it.</p>
+
+<p>There was dancing in plenty at the negro quarters that Christmas
+evening. All the white folks went down from the big house to watch the
+proceedings. And again Mammy June was there.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a great feast for the hands, but although one grinning
+negro boy confessed to Russ that he was "full o' tuck," he still could
+dance. This boy was applauded vigorously by his mates, and one of them
+called out:</p>
+
+<p>"'Lias! show dese w'ite folks how <i>to</i> cut dat pigeon wing. Go on, boy!"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June, "don't none of you know how to do dat
+like my Sneezer. If he was here he'd show 'em. Just you dance plain,
+honey. Double shuffle's as much as you can do."</p>
+
+<p>So her grandson, 'Lias, did not try any fancy steps. Privately, however,
+and much to Rose's amusement, Russ Bunker often tried to copy Sam's
+pigeon-wing step.</p>
+
+<p>"If we ever go to Aunt Jo's again&mdash;and of course we shall&mdash;I am going to
+get Sam to show me how to do it. I'll get it perfect some time," sighed
+the oldest Bunker boy.</p>
+
+<p>Vi, looking on at one of her brother's attempts, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't it hurt the pigeon to cut its wing?"</p>
+
+<p>But that was a silly question, and they all laughed at her. Laddie grew
+suddenly excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I know a new riddle!" he cried. "It's a good riddle!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked his twin sister.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a good riddle just because you made it up, Laddie," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a good one no matter who made it up," answered Laddie
+decidedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> "You let me tell it. I know it's good."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Laddie?" Russ Bunker asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the riddle," said Laddie eagerly. "What sort of wing has no
+feathers on it? And the answer is, of course, 'A pigeon wing.' There!
+Isn't that a fine riddle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Vi. "I don't think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Some pigeons' wings have feathers," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Hoh!" cried Laddie, somewhat disturbed. "That one Russ was trying to
+make doesn't have any feathers on it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's only one kind, and it isn't really a pigeon's wing, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Laddie stared at his sister, Rose, with much doubt. "You're always
+disappointing me, Rose," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"But Rose is right, Laddie," said Russ. "And there are other wings that
+have no feathers."</p>
+
+<p>"What wings?" grumbled Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"I know!" cried Vi suddenly. "Airplane wings! They haven't any
+feathers."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are no more like real wings," complained Rose, "than Russ's
+dancing step."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the oldest Bunker boy. "I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>mean bat's wings. Don't you
+remember that bat we caught that time? Its wings didn't have feathers at
+all. It was covered with fur."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," sighed Laddie. "Then my riddle isn't any good."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, I am afraid," said Russ kindly but firmly.</p>
+
+<p>However, Laddie and the other little Bunkers did not have many
+disappointing things happen to them on this lovely Christmas Day. Mr.
+and Mrs. Armatage tried in every way to make the stay of their guests at
+the Meiggs Plantation as pleasant as possible.</p>
+
+<p>After the celebration at the quarters the white folks came home, and
+there at the big house a fine party was soon under way. People had come
+in their cars from far and near and the house was brilliantly lighted on
+the first two floors.</p>
+
+<p>The children were allowed to look on at this grown folks' party for a
+little while, then they had to go to bed. Phillis and Alice and Frane,
+Junior, seemed to consider it very hard that they were not allowed to
+stay downstairs; but the little Bunkers were used to having <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>their own
+good times and did not expect to enter into the amusements of their
+elders.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's sit on the top step of these stairs," said Phillis to Rose and
+Alice, "and we can see through the balustrades. There's Mrs. Campron!
+She's got a lovely dress on, and diamonds."</p>
+
+<p>Rose remained with the two Armatage girls for a little while and Russ
+saw to it that the little folks went to bed. Then he came out into the
+hall again to see what the girls were doing. Before he could ask them he
+chanced to look out of the back window at the end of the long hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Russ Bunker. "What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's what?" demanded Phillis. "What do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a shooting star?" went on Russ. "See that light! I believe it
+must be a fire."</p>
+
+<p>The girls came running to join him then, more interested in what Russ
+saw than they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> were in what was going on at the party below.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MAMMY JUNE IN PERIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>From the big house on the Meiggs Plantation, standing on a knoll&mdash;which
+means a small hill,&mdash;one could see for a long distance all about, in
+spite of the shade trees, and especially when looking from the third
+floor windows. Russ Bunker was looking right out over the quarters where
+the hands lived, and could see far down the slope of the land and to the
+forest beyond the cultivated fields.</p>
+
+<p>It was a lovely starlit night, but of course the stars did not reveal
+everything. The strong red light that sprang up beyond the cabins where
+the colored people lived, revealed a great deal, however.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a house afire!" declared Phillis Armatage.</p>
+
+<p>"Where can there be a house in that direction?" Rose Bunker asked.
+"Isn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> that fire beyond the cabins, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ suddenly sprang to action. He wheeled from the window and ran along
+the hall to the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"Russ! Russ! Where are you going?" demanded his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Daddy and Mr. Armatage. I know what house is afire. It's Mammy
+June's cabin!" shouted Russ.</p>
+
+<p>He had previously located the direction of the old woman's cabin by the
+stream, and Russ was sure that he was right now. He left the girls
+screaming after him; he had no time to tell them how he was so sure of
+his statement.</p>
+
+<p>Down the two flights of stairs he plunged until he landed with a bang on
+the hall rug at the foot of the lower flight. He almost fell against Mr.
+Armatage himself when he landed. And Daddy Bunker was not far away.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, young man, what's this?" demanded Mr. Armatage, for a
+moment quite as stern with Russ as he was with his own children.</p>
+
+<p>Daddy, too, looked upon Russ with amazement. "Why, Russ," he said, "what
+does thi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>s mean? What are you doing down here?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a fire!" gasped out Russ, his breath almost gone. "There's a
+fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Upstairs?" demanded Mr. Armatage, whirling toward the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir! No, sir!" cried Russ, stopping him. "It's down the hill. I
+saw it from the window."</p>
+
+<p>"The quarters?" demanded the planter.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. It looks like Mammy June's. It's a great red flame shooting
+right up about where her cabin is."</p>
+
+<p>"And the old woman has gone home. She's lame. Like enough she won't get
+out in time&mdash;if it is her shack. Come on, boys!" The planter's shout
+rang through the lower rooms and startled both the guests and the
+servants. "There's a fire down by the branch. May be a cabin and
+somebody in it. Come on in your cars and follow me. Get all the buckets
+you can find."</p>
+
+<p>He dashed out of the house, hatless as he was, shouting to the colored
+folks who were gathered outside watching the dancing through the long
+windows. Daddy Bunker followed right behind him. And what do <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>you
+suppose Russ did? Why, he could have touched Daddy Bunker's coat-tails
+he kept so close to him! Nobody forbade him, so Russ went too.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armatage and Mr. Bunker got into one of the first cars to start, and
+Russ, with a water pail in each hand, got in too. There was a great
+noise of shouting and the starting of the motor-cars. Men ran hither and
+thither, and all the time the light of the fire down by the stream
+increased.</p>
+
+<p>When they were under way, Mr. Armatage's car leading, they found many of
+the plantation hands running down the grassy road in advance. The cars
+passed these men, Mr. Armatage shouting orders as the car flew by. In
+two minutes they came to the clearing in which Mammy June's cabin stood.
+One end of the little house was all ablaze.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor soul hasn't got out," cried Mr. Armatage, and with Mr. Bunker
+he charged for the door, burst it in, and dashed into the smoke which
+filled the interior.</p>
+
+<p>Russ thought that Daddy Bunker was very brave indeed to do this. It
+looked to the boy as though both men would be burned by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>raging
+fire. But he was brave himself. He fought back his tears and ran to the
+stream to fill with water both the pails he carried.</p>
+
+<p>When he came staggering back with the filled pails, the water slopping
+over his shoes, the first of the hands arrived. One man grabbed Russ's
+pails and threw the water upon the burning logs. Such a small amount of
+water only made the flames hiss and the logs steam. But soon other
+filled pails were brought. More of the cars with guests from the party
+arrived, and a chain of men to the stream was formed.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at once Mr. Armatage and Daddy Bunker fought their way out of the
+burning cabin through the smoke, and they bore between them the
+screaming old woman. Mammy June was badly frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"You're all right now, Mammy," declared Mr. Armatage, when he and Mr.
+Bunker put her into the tonneau of the car. "Here, boy!" he added to
+Russ, "you stay with her."</p>
+
+<p>"I got to lose all! I got to lose ma home!" wailed Mammy June. "If my
+Ebenezer had been yere, dat chimbley wouldn't have cotched fire."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>"Can't be helped now," said Daddy Bunker soothingly. "We'll try to save
+your home, Mammy."</p>
+
+<p>But although their intentions were of the best, this could not be done.
+The cabin&mdash;as dry as a stack of straw&mdash;could not be saved. The pails
+were passed from hand to hand as rapidly as possible, but the fire had
+gained such headway that it was impossible to quench it until the cabin
+was in complete ruins.</p>
+
+<p>"You be mighty glad, Mammy June," said Mr. Armatage, finally giving up
+the unequal battle, "that you are saved yourself. And you wouldn't have
+been if this little Bunker hadn't seen the fire when he did."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless him!" groaned the old woman, hugging Russ to her side in the car.
+"If my Ebenezer had been home it wouldn't never have happened, Mistah
+Armatage."</p>
+
+<p>She harped upon this belief incessantly as they finally drove back to
+the big house. The fright and exposure quite turned Mammy June's brain
+for the time. She was somewhat delirious.</p>
+
+<p>"S'pose my Ebenezer come home and find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> de cabin in ruins. He mebbe will
+think Mammy June burned up, and go right off again. And he might come
+any time!"</p>
+
+<p>The old woman talked of this even after they put her to bed and a doctor
+who chanced to be at Mrs. Armatage's party had attended her. The fire,
+and her bodily illness, had prostrated the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>The end of that Christmas party was not as pleasant as the beginning. It
+was long after midnight before even the children were in their beds and
+composed for sleep. The party broke up at an earlier hour than might
+have been expected.</p>
+
+<p>Rose slept in the room with Phillis and Alice Armatage. Just as she was
+dropping to sleep and after her companions were already in dreamland
+Rose saw the door of the room pushed open. The moon had risen, and Rose
+recognized Russ's tousled head poked in the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" she demanded in a whisper. "Oh, Russ! there isn't
+another fire, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Hush! I just thought of something."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>Rose in the same low tone that Russ used.</p>
+
+<p>"We can do something for Mammy June."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't cure her rheumatism, Russ," said Rose. "Even the doctor can't
+do that in a hurry. He said so."</p>
+
+<p>"No. She's worrying about her boy. That boy with the funny name.
+Sneezer."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"She is afraid he will come back and find the cabin burned and go away
+again without her knowing it," said Russ gravely, tiptoeing to his
+sister's bedside.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Mother says it's real pitiful the way she takes on," sighed the
+little girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Rose, you and I can help about that," said Russ confidently.</p>
+
+<p>"How can we?" she asked, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"We can write a sign and stick it up on a pole down there by the burned
+cabin. We'll make a sign saying that Mammy June is up here at the big
+house and for Sneezer to come and see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, goody!" cried Rose, but still under her breath. "That's a fine
+idea, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say anything about it to anybody," warned her brother, eager to
+make a secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> of the plan that had popped into his head. "We'll write
+that sign early in the morning and go down there and stick it up. Want
+to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do," said Rose, with a glad little jump in her bed. "I
+think you're just the smartest boy, Russ, to think of it. I won't say a
+word about it, not even to Philly and Alice."</p>
+
+<p>With this plan dancing in her head Rose soon fell asleep while Russ
+stole back to the room where he slept with the smaller boys. After that
+the big house on the Meiggs Plantation became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> quiet for the rest of the
+long night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TWINS IN TROUBLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Laddie and Vi Bunker felt as though they had been cheated. They had not
+been allowed to go to the fire, "when Mammy June's cabin had been burned
+all up," Vi declared. They had only seen the fire from an upper window
+of the big Armatage house.</p>
+
+<p>"But it wasn't burned <i>up</i>, Vi," her twin insisted. "It was burned
+<i>down</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Russ said it was burned up when he came back from the fire&mdash;so now,"
+Violet declared somewhat warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"How can a house burn up? It just fell all to pieces into the cellar."</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't any cellar to Mammy June's house," Vi observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it fell down; so of course, it burned down."</p>
+
+<p>"The flames went up," repeated Vi, quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> as determinedly. "And the wood
+went with 'em&mdash;with the flames and smoke. So the cabin burned up."</p>
+
+<p>What might have been the result of this discussion it would be hard to
+say had not the twins both felt so keenly their disappointment. Russ had
+gone to the fire and brought Mammy June out of the cabin and brought her
+up here to the big house! To tell the truth, Russ was so excited when he
+got back that in telling of the adventure he gave the younger children
+to understand that he had done it all himself. Daddy Bunker and Mr.
+Armatage did not appear much in his story.</p>
+
+<p>"Russ is always doing the big things," sighed Laddie. "It's just like a
+riddle&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is?" almost snapped Vi, for she was just as disappointed as her
+twin brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Russ getting the best of everything. Why is it?" muttered Laddie,
+kicking a pebble before him in the path.</p>
+
+<p>"If that's a riddle, I can't answer it," said Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't any worse to ask riddles than it is to ask questions&mdash;so now."</p>
+
+<p>The twins were not always in accord, of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>course; but they were seldom so
+near to a quarrel as upon this morning. Perhaps, for one thing, the day
+before, they had rather over-done and possibly had over-eaten. They were
+on the verge of doing something that the Bunker children seldom
+did&mdash;quarreling. Fortunately something suddenly attracted Laddie's
+attention and he stopped kicking the pebble and pointed down the yard in
+front of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Vi! See that cunning thing! What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Something flashed across a green patch of grass away down by the road.
+It was red, had small, sharp-pointed ears and nose and a bushy tail.
+This tail waved quite importantly as the small animal ran.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" cried Vi, taking the lead at once. She often did so, for
+Laddie was slower than she. "Come on! Let's get it, Laddie."</p>
+
+<p>Laddie, nothing loath, ran after his twin sister. They raced down the
+hill and came to the little gully into which the animal with the bushy
+tail had disappeared. The end of that gully was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>the open mouth of a
+culvert under the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he go in there?" Laddie demanded. "Did he go into that hole, Vi?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must have," declared Violet. "It must be his home. It's a burrow."</p>
+
+<p>"But he wasn't a bunny. Bunnies have burrows," objected Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess other animals can have burrows, too," said his twin. "And he
+was lots prettier than a rabbit."</p>
+
+<p>"He was that," admitted the excited Laddie. "It wasn't a rabbit, of
+course. Rabbits aren't red."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's find the other end of the hole," Vi said eagerly. "We'll stop
+both ends up and then&mdash;and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what then?" her twin demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we can catch him then," said Vi, rather feebly. "That is, we can
+if he wants to come out."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose we can. If he doesn't take too long. Let's," said Laddie, and
+he ran across the road and looked to see if there was another opening to
+the culvert.</p>
+
+<p>But as it chanced, this was an old and unused drain, and the farther
+mouth of it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>stopped up. This made the hole a very nice den for the
+little animal the Bunker twins had seen go into it. But neither Laddie
+nor Vi had any idea as to what the creature was.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to get a stick and poke him out," announced Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't poke him out when there is no other hole over there,"
+rejoined Vi very sensibly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll poke him till he comes out then," said Laddie, looking all about
+but not starting to find a stick.</p>
+
+<p>To tell the truth he was at the end of his resources. He did not know
+how to get at the little red animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway," he said at last, "maybe he didn't run in here after all."</p>
+
+<p>"He did so, Laddie Bunker!" cried Violet. "I saw him."</p>
+
+<p>This seemed final. Laddie looked all around again, quite puzzled as to
+what to do next. There was no backing out of a thing when once it was
+begun&mdash;not with Vi Bunker! She always insisted upon going on to the end,
+no matter what that end might be.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," her twin said at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>last, "I s'pose I'll have to go in after him."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you?" asked Vi promptly, but excitedly, too.</p>
+
+<p>"I can crawl into that hole&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it too small?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not so big," replied Laddie. "I guess I can do it. I'm going
+to try."</p>
+
+<p>He knelt down before the round mouth of the culvert. It was a piece of
+drainpipe with a rough rim at the edge of the hole. Laddie poked his
+head into the hole.</p>
+
+<p>"It's as dark as the inside of your pocket, Vi Bunker," he said, in a
+muffled voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I run get a candle?" asked his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"No," sighed Laddie; and even his sigh sounded funny from inside the
+pipe. "If you do they'll want to know what you want it for. And if we
+are going to catch this&mdash;this whatever-it-is, we want to catch it all by
+ourselves. Wait."</p>
+
+<p>Vi granted that request. She waited, watching Laddie's plump little body
+wriggling farther and farther into the culvert. His jacket caught
+several times on the rough rim of the opening. But he persevered.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" ejaculated Laddie at last, and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> voice seemed a murmur from a
+great way off.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you better come back, Laddie," said Vi, getting anxious.</p>
+
+<p>Laddie, if the truth were known, thought so too. For just then he had
+sighted in the dark two fiery points, like flashing bits of glass or
+mica. He knew what they were; they were the eyes of the little red
+animal he had chased into this hole. And Laddie thought that when eyes
+flashed so brilliantly, their owner must be angry.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to jump at me!" breathed the little boy to himself.</p>
+
+<p>He began to back out hastily. The bottom of his jacket caught on the rim
+of the pipe. He was stuck there!</p>
+
+<p>"Pull! Pull me out, Vi Bunker!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>But his voice was so muffled that his sister could not understand what
+he said. It looked as though Laddie was unable to get back the way he
+had come. And he certainly dared not go on ahead.</p>
+
+<p>For now, to increase his fears, he saw other points of light in the
+darkness&mdash;all in pairs, the eyes of several smaller animals, he was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>sure! He had self-control enough to count them and found that there
+were five pairs of eyes altogether.</p>
+
+<p>What should he do about it? Struggle as he might he could not back any
+farther. And no manner of wriggling was likely to ge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>t him out of the
+hole the way he had come in.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>IN MAMMY JUNE'S ROOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>Russ and Rose had both got up very early the day after Christmas, for
+their minds were filled with the idea of helping Mammy June. The poor
+old woman's anxiety should be relieved, and the two oldest of the Bunker
+children were determined that they would relieve it regarding her son,
+"Sneezer," if that were possible.</p>
+
+<p>So Russ found some cardboard boxes that had held certain of their
+Christmas presents, and he tore these apart and they wrote carefully a
+message to the old woman's absent son on both faces of these cards. At
+least, Russ wrote them, for by now he had learned at school to write a
+very good hand. Rose was not so sure&mdash;especially about her "q's" and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>capital "S's." Anybody who could read handwriting at all, however,
+could have read those signs that Russ Bunker wrote.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't seem like Christmas time at all," Rose said, as the two ran
+down the lane right after breakfast toward the branch and the burned
+cabin. "See the leaves and grass! And there's a flower!"</p>
+
+<p>It was only a weed, but it was a pretty one and Rose gathered it&mdash;of
+course for Mother Bunker. When they came in sight of Mammy June's cabin
+it was a sad looking place indeed. The little Bunkers had had several
+nice visits to the old woman's cabin, and they were really very sorry
+that it had burned down.</p>
+
+<p>The disaster was complete. The log walls were tumbled in heaps and were
+all charred. The interior of the hut was little but ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Rose. "If that Sneezer Meiggs did come home and see all
+this, he might go away again, just as his mother says. It would be too
+dreadful, Russ. I am so glad you invented this idea of putting up signs
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Russ was quite proud of his original thought himself. He was
+naturally of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>an inventive turn of mind and this was not the first novel
+thought he had expressed. He and Rose stuck up the cards on poles that
+they found near by, and they had so many of them that they quite
+surrounded the ashes of the old hut.</p>
+
+<p>"He can't help seeing them if he comes here," said Rose, as they
+departed from the spot. "But do you s'pose he'll ever want to come back
+to the place where everybody called him 'Sneezer'?"</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to want to come back to see Mammy June," declared Russ warmly.
+"I think she is just fine."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," admitted Rose reflectively. "But I wouldn't want to be called
+by such a name as Sneezer."</p>
+
+<p>It was when they got back to the big house and around to its front that
+the two oldest little Bunkers became aware that something was happening
+down by the road. They saw Vi hopping up and down in a funny fashion,
+and she was screaming.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what do you suppose is the matter with her?" demanded Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know. But it's something, sure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>enough!" rejoined Russ, and he
+started on a run for the spot where Violet was jumping up and down and
+screaming.</p>
+
+<p>As Russ and Rose started down the hill the three Armatage children came
+out of the front door of the big house and ran after them, screaming as
+well. Then appeared a host of small colored folk&mdash;Russ and Rose never
+could imagine where they all came from. They seemed to spring right up
+out of the ground when anything exciting happened.</p>
+
+<p>All this troop came streaming down the hill, and very quickly Vi found
+herself surrounded. Russ demanded:</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you? Has something bitten you?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are biting Laddie!" wailed the twin sister.</p>
+
+<p>"How silly!" exclaimed Phillis Armatage. "Laddie isn't here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is, so now!" cried Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh!" screamed Alice. "I see his legs!"</p>
+
+<p>At that they all saw his legs&mdash;at least, as much of them as were poked
+out of the mouth of the drainpipe. And they certainly were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>kicking
+vigorously. But the children outside made so much noise that the voice
+of the boy inside the pipe could not be heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh!" declared Vi, jumping up and down again. "It is biting him."</p>
+
+<p>"What is biting him? Mosquitoes?" demanded Russ, as much puzzled as
+anybody.</p>
+
+<p>"The red thing! With the pointed ears! And a big tail!" cried Vi in
+gasps.</p>
+
+<p>"What can she mean?" demanded Rose.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/p204.jpg" width="250" height="400" alt="PHILLY GRABBED LADDIE&#39;S ANKLE AND STARTED TO PULL HIM OUT." title="PHILLY GRABBED LADDIE&#39;S ANKLE AND STARTED TO PULL HIM OUT." />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>PHILLY GRABBED LADDIE&#39;S ANKLE AND STARTED TO PULL HIM OUT.<br />
+<i>Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's.</i> &nbsp; &nbsp;  &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href='#Page_187'><i>Page</i> 187</a></div>
+
+<p>But Philly Armatage suspected the reason for Vi's fear at once. She
+grabbed hold of Laddie's ankles and started to draw him out of the pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better come out!" she cried. "That old fox will bite your nose
+off."</p>
+
+<p>"A fox!" cried Russ, in wonder and alarm. "Does a fox live in that
+hole?"</p>
+
+<p>"And she's got puppies. We saw 'em playing out here one day. Father is
+only waiting for a chance to smoke 'em out. They are terrible. They eat
+hens and other poultry."</p>
+
+<p>Russ was vastly interested, as well as troubled by Laddie's fix. For the
+smaller boy was really wedged by his rolled-up jacket tight into the
+mouth of the culvert. His <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>muffled cries became more imploring, and the
+other children really feared that the mother fox, fearing for her young,
+might have attacked the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you he must be got out!" shouted Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"How you going to do it?" Philly demanded. Then she called to Laddie:
+"Push in farther, Laddie! Then maybe you can back out all right."</p>
+
+<p>But Laddie Bunker was so much afraid of the foxes by now (he still saw
+their luminous eyes before him) that he dared not squirm any deeper into
+the pipe. What would have happened to him finally&mdash;whether or not the
+old fox might not have attacked him&mdash;will never be known, for Russ
+Bunker took desperate means to release his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Russ ran to a pile of cobblestones beside the road, seized a big one,
+and staggered back with it in both hands. With the stone he pounded the
+rim of the pipe so hard that it broke in pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"Ow! Ow!" cried the muffled voice of Laddie Bunker. "You are breaking my
+legs. Don't pound me so!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wriggle out! Hurry up! What's holding you?" demanded Russ, half angrily
+because he was so excited.</p>
+
+<p>The smaller boy began to move backward now, the rough rim of the pipe no
+longer holding his jacket. Slowly he pushed out. When he appeared, his
+face very red and tear-streaked, Russ and Phillis pulled him to his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the fox?" demanded Vi, still very much excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a fox?" demanded Laddie, panting.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Phillis Armatage.</p>
+
+<p>"That fox has got five pairs of eyes, then," grumbled Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"She's got four pups," cried Frane, Junior. "I'm going to run and tell
+father," and he ran away up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" cried Russ, immediately in action again. "Let's stop up the
+hole. Then the foxes can't get out until Mr. Armatage comes."</p>
+
+<p>They did that&mdash;at least, Russ and Vi and the colored boys did. Rose
+dusted Laddie off and wiped his face. He soon became more cheerful.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>"Well," he said, with a long breath, "they didn't bite me after all;
+but I thought they would. And their eyes shone dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>"What made them shine?" demanded Vi, her usual curiosity aroused.</p>
+
+<p>"Because they were mad," said her twin promptly. "That old mother fox
+didn't want me in there."</p>
+
+<p>The adventure was happily ended; that is, for Laddie and Vi. Not so for
+the foxes. For Mr. Armatage and the gardener came with shovel and club
+and they dug down to the foxes' den. But the children had not done their
+work of closing the entrance well, and just as Mr. Armatage broke
+through into her den, Mrs. Fox and her puppies scurried out and away
+into the pine woods. But she had to look for a new home, for her old one
+was completely broken up.</p>
+
+<p>After this the little Bunkers and the Armatage children trooped up to
+the house and went to the room where Mammy June had been put to bed. The
+doctor had already been to see her this morning.</p>
+
+<p>The old colored woman was propped up with pillows and she wore the usual
+turban <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>on her head. She smiled delightedly when she saw the white
+children and hailed them as gayly as though she were not in pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Lawsy me, childern!" cried Mammy June. "Has you come to see how I is? I
+sure has got good friends, I sure has! An' if Ebenezer Caliper
+Spotiswood Meiggs was back home yere where he b'longs, there wouldn't be
+a happier ol' woman in all Georgia&mdash;no, sir!</p>
+
+<p>"For Mistah Armatage say he's gwine have me another house built before
+spring. And it'll be a lot mo' fixy than my ol' house&mdash;yes, sir! Wait
+till my Sneezer comes home and sees it&mdash;Tut, tut! He ain't mebbe comin'
+home no mo'!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, he will, Mammy June," Philly said comfortingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know. These boys ups and goes away from their mammies and ain't
+never seen nor heard of again."</p>
+
+<p>"But Sneezer loved you too well to stay away always," Alice Armatage
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"And when these Bunkers go back North," put in Frane, Junior, "t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>hey are
+going to look for Sneezer everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You reckon you'll find him?" asked Mammy June of Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said the oldest Bunker girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we will," agreed Russ stoutly. "And Daddy Bunker will look
+out for him too. He said so."</p>
+
+<p>According to Russ's mind, that Daddy Bunker had promised to help find
+the lost boy seemed conclusive that Sneezer must be found. He and Rose
+began eagerly to tell Mammy June what they had already done to make it
+positive that Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs would not come back to
+the burned cabin some day and go away, thinking that his old mother was
+no longer alive.</p>
+
+<p>"You blessed childern!" exclaimed Mammy June. "And has you fixed it dat
+way for me? But&mdash;but&mdash;you says you writ dem letters to Sneezer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Rose happily. "Yes, we did, Mammy June. And stuck them up on
+poles all about the burned house."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know! I don't know!" sighed the old w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>oman. "I reckon dat won't
+be much use."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" demanded Russ anxiously. "If he comes back he'll see and read
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>"No. No, sir! He may see 'em," said Mammy June, shaking her head on the
+pillow. "But he won't read 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Why won't he?" Russ demanded in some heat. "I wrote them just as plain
+as plain!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Mammy June, still sadly, "you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> see, my Sneezer never learnt
+to read hand-writin'!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>GOOSEY-GOOSEY-GANDER</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Bunker children, especially Russ and Rose, felt truly anxious
+because of Mammy June's unhappiness about her absent son. The boy they
+all called Sneezer should have been home now when his mother was
+crippled with rheumatism and had lost her home and all her little
+possessions.</p>
+
+<p>She worried audibly and continually about Sneezer. Russ and Rose took
+counsel together more than once. They had hoped that their signs put up
+at the site of the burned cabin would have satisfied Mammy June that her
+son would come up to the big house whenever, or if ever, he returned to
+his old home. Now the Bunker children were not so sure.</p>
+
+<p>When Russ and Rose told Phil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>ly Armatage what they had done she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe he'll think the writing is just to keep ha'nts away. He can't
+read writing. He always worked in the fields or up here at the house.
+Those signs aren't any good&mdash;just as Mammy June says."</p>
+
+<p>This opinion caused Russ and Rose additional anxiety. They did not know
+what to do about it. Even the boy's inventive mind was at fault in the
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p>While the older Bunker brother and sister were troubled in this way and
+Laddie and Vi were recovering from their adventure with the red fox,
+Margy and Mun Bun were, as usual, having their own pleasures and
+difficulties. The littlest Bunker was a born explorer. Daddy Bunker said
+so. And Margy was quite as active as the little fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Hand in hand they wandered all about the big house and out-of-doors as
+well. There was always supposed to be somebody to watch them, especially
+if they went near the barns or paddocks where the horses and mules were.
+But sometimes the little folks slipped away from even Mother Bunker's
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>The gardener often talked to the littlest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>Bunkers, and he saw, too,
+that they did no more mischief around the greenhouse. When he saw them
+that afternoon trotting down the hill toward the poultry houses he
+failed to follow them. He had his work to do, of course, and it did not
+enter his head that Mun Bun and Margy could get into much trouble with
+the poultry.</p>
+
+<p>Margy and Mun Bun were delighted with the "chickens" as they called most
+of the fowl the Armatages kept. But there were many different kinds&mdash;not
+alone of hens and roosters; for there were peafowl, and guineas, and
+ducks, and turkeys. And in addition there was a flock of gray geese.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are gooseys," Margy announced, pointing through the slats of the
+low fence which shut in the geese and their strip of the branch, or
+brook, and the grass plot which the geese had all to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Goosey, goosey gander!" chanted Mun Bun, clinging to the top rail of
+the fence and looking through the slats. "Which is ganders and which is
+gooseys, Margy?"</p>
+
+<p>As though in answer to his query one of the big birds, with a horny
+crown on its head, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>stuck out its neck and ran at the little boy looking
+through the fence. The bird hissed in a most hateful manner too.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, look out, Mun Bun!" cried his sister. "I guess that's a gander."</p>
+
+<p>But Mun Bun, with a fence between him and the big bird, was as usual
+very brave.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't have to look out, Margy Bunker," he declared proudly. "I am
+already out&mdash;so he can't get me. Anyway if he came after us I wouldn't
+let him bite you."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he would like to bite us," said the little girl, keeping well
+away from the fence herself.</p>
+
+<p>"That's 'cause he must be hungry," said Mun Bun with confidence. "You
+see, he hasn't got anything but grass to eat. I guess they forgot to
+feed him and it makes him mad."</p>
+
+<p>"That is too bad. He is a real pretty bird," agreed Margy. "Wonder if we
+could feed him?"</p>
+
+<p>"We can ask that nice cook for bwead," said Mun Bun doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't feed gooseys bread, I guess," objected the little girl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do they feed 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess corn&mdash;or oats."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go and get some," said Mun Bun promptly, and he backed away from
+the fence, still keeping his gaze fixed on the threatening gander.</p>
+
+<p>They both knew where the feed was kept, for they had watched the colored
+man feed the stock. So they went across to the stables. And nobody saw
+them enter the feed room.</p>
+
+<p>As usual it did not trouble Margy and Mun Bun that they had not asked
+permission to feed the geese. What they had not been literally forbidden
+to do the little folks considered all right. It was true that they were
+great ones for exploring and experimenting. That is how they managed to
+get into so much mischief.</p>
+
+<p>In this matter, however, it did not seem as though Margy and Mun Bun
+could really get into much trouble. They got a little dish and filled it
+with corn and trotted back to the goose pen. This time the gander did
+not charge Mun Bun. But the whole flock was down the slope by the water
+and the little folks had to wa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>lk that way along the edge of the fenced
+lot.</p>
+
+<p>They came to a place where a panel of the fence was crooked. It had been
+broken, in fact, and it was much easier to push it aside than not. Why!
+when Mun Bun leaned against it the strip of fence fell right over on to
+the grass of the goose yard.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see what you've done, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;oh&mdash;I didn't mean to," sputtered Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you s'pose Mr. Armatage will say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He won't say anything," said Mun Bun briskly. "For he won't see it. And
+now, Margy, we can throw the corn to those gooseys and ganders much
+better. See!"</p>
+
+<p>He grabbed a handful of shelled corn out of the dish and scattered it as
+far as he could toward the flock. At once the gray birds became
+interested. They stretched their long necks and the big gander uttered a
+questioning "honk!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's corn&mdash;it's real corn!" cried Mun Bun. "Don't be afraid,
+goosey-goosey-gander," and he shouted with laughter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>Margy threw a handful of corn too. At once the geese drew nearer. When
+they reached the first kernels they began grabbing them up with that
+strange shoveling motion with their bills that all geese and ducks make.
+The children watched them with delight.</p>
+
+<p>But as the geese waddled nearer the old gander began to wiggle his head
+from side to side and to hiss softly. Margy and Mun Bun looked at each
+other, and both drew back.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like that one much," said Margy. "Do you, Mun Bun?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like him at all," confessed the little fellow. "I guess we'd
+better go back. Maybe Mother will be wanting us."</p>
+
+<p>Margy turned as quickly as he did. She had not thrown out all the corn,
+but as she turned away a few kernels scattered from the dish. Instantly
+the gander saw this. With a long hiss he started after the two children,
+and many of his flock kept right behind their leader.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Come quick, Mun Bun!" gasped Margy.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun seized her hand. As they ran up the slope the corn scattered
+from the dish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> This was enough to keep the flock following. But the big
+gander did not chase the little boy and girl because of the scattered
+corn. He was really angry!</p>
+
+<p>The chubby legs of Mun Bun and Margy looked good to that old gander. He
+ran hissing after them and began to flap his wings. One stroke of one of
+those w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>ings would knock down either of the children.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>ROSE HAS AN IDEA</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was just like a nightmare, and both Margy and Mun Bun knew what
+nightmares were. Those are dreams that, when you are "sleeping them,"
+you get chased by something and your feet seem to stick in the mud so
+that you can't run. It is a very frightful sort of dream. And this
+adventure the little ones had got into was surely a frightful peril.</p>
+
+<p>The hissing gander, his neck outstretched and his bill wide open,
+followed the two children with every evidence of wishing to strike them.
+His flapping wings were as powerful, it seemed, as those of the big
+sea-eagle that had been caught aboard ship coming down from Boston, and
+Mun Bun and Margy remembered that creature very vividly.</p>
+
+<p>Others of the flock of geese came on, too. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>As long as the grains of
+corn kept dropping from Margy's dish, the ravenous geese would follow,
+even if they were not savage, as their leader was.</p>
+
+<p>The chubby legs of the two children hardly kept them ahead of the
+gander's bill. They shrieked at the top of their voices. But for once
+none of the innumerable colored folks was in sight. Even their friend,
+the gardener, had disappeared since Mun Bun and Margy had come down to
+the goose pen.</p>
+
+<p>"Help! Help us!" cried Margy, looking to the world in general to assist.</p>
+
+<p>"Muvver! Muvver!" cried Mun Bun, who held an unshaken belief that Mother
+Bunker must be always at hand and able to rescue him from any trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun thought he felt the cold, hard bill of the gander at his bare
+legs. He ran so hard that he lost his breath, somewhere. He couldn't
+even pant, and as for calling out for help again, that was impossible!</p>
+
+<p>Margy dragged him on a few steps, for she was quite strong for a little
+girl. But she knew that she was overtaken. There was no help for it. The
+goos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>ey-goosey-gander was going to eat them up!</p>
+
+<p>But if no human being heard the two children in their distress, there
+was a creature that did. Bobo, the big old hound, who was only chained
+to his house at night or when Mr. Armatage did not want him following
+the mules about the plantation, came out of his kennel and stared down
+the hill. He observed the running and screaming children, and he
+likewise saw the gander who was his old enemy. They had had many a tilt
+before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock
+meant mischief.</p>
+
+<p>Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to
+rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it
+sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him.
+Margy's corn went spinning about her and the geese fairly scrambled over
+the two crying children to get at the corn. Perhaps this helped Mun Bun
+and his sister some, although they did not think so at the moment. At
+least, while his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>family scrambled for the grains of corn the gander
+could not get at the brother and sister to strike them.</p>
+
+<p>And then great Bobo appeared. He bounded into the middle of the flock
+and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his
+muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he
+lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any
+more. He "honked" for help.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust
+his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two
+little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing
+that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them.</p>
+
+<p>"The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you
+I wouldn't let him bite you."</p>
+
+<p>Whether his sister was much impressed by this statement or not, is not
+known. However that might be, she fondled Bobo and got upon her feet as
+quickly as Mun Bun arose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he a good old dog?" cooed Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"He's pretty good I think. But&mdash;but let's come away from that
+goosey-goosey-gander."</p>
+
+<p>Bobo gave a jump and a bark at the gander, and the latter, which had now
+climbed to its webbed feet, scurried away, the flock following him. It
+was then, while the two children were fondling Bobo, who liked to have
+his long ears pulled by a gentle hand, that Russ and Rose Bunker came
+upon the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose had been down to the burned cabin and had brought away all
+their letters to Sneezer Meiggs. If the colored boy had never learned to
+read writing, there was no use in leaving the notices there. So Russ had
+said, and Rose agreed with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dears!" Rose cried out when she saw the little ones so mussed up
+and with tear-stained faces, "what has happened to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid of Bobo," said Russ, running too. "He won't hurt you."</p>
+
+<p>"He hurted the goosey-goosey-gander," declared Mun Bun confidently. "He
+dug his head under the goosey-goosey-gander and flunged him right over
+on his back."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to
+bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow,
+flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo
+saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing
+at us now."</p>
+
+<p>"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.</p>
+
+<p>"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down
+to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."</p>
+
+<p>"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy
+Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was
+a teeny bit scared myself."</p>
+
+<p>The children&mdash;all nine of them&mdash;spent much of their time in Mammy June's
+room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>them interested and
+quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother
+Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.</p>
+
+<p>Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad,
+just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them.
+Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to
+relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what
+they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and
+how much she wanted to see him.</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose Bunker were quite used to thinking things out for
+themselves. Of course, there were times when Russ had to go to Daddy
+Bunker for help and his sister had to confess to Mother Bunker that she
+did not know what to do. For instance, that adventure of Russ's with the
+sailor-boy aboard the steamship.</p>
+
+<p>But this matter of helping Mammy June's son to find his mother, if by
+chance he came back to the site of the burned cabin, was solely their
+own affair, and Russ and Rose realized the fact.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>"We ought to be able to do something about it ourselves," declared Russ
+to his sister. "I'm going to ask Mammy June again if she is sure Sneezer
+can't read a word of writing."</p>
+
+<p>This he did. Mammy June shook her head somewhat sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat boy always have to wo'k," she said. "When first he went away he
+sent me back money by mail. The man he wo'ked for sent it. Then Sneezer
+losed his job. But he never learnt to read hand-writin'. Much as he
+could do to spell out the big print on the front of the newspapers.
+That's surely so!"</p>
+
+<p>Rose suddenly thought of something&mdash;and perhaps it was not a foolish
+idea at that.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mammy!" she cried, "can your boy read newspaper print?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure can. De big print. What yo' call de haidlines in big print. Sure
+can."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" murmured Rose, and she dragged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> Russ away to confer with him in
+secret.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STRANGE CRY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Rose Bunker's idea was too good to tell in general. Some ideas are too
+good to keep; but Russ and Rose decided that this one was not in that
+class. They determined to tell nobody&mdash;not even Mammy June or Daddy or
+Mother Bunker&mdash;about what they proposed to do to help the old colored
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>They had tried once, and failed. And Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior,
+had laughed at them. Now they proposed to do what Rose had thought of,
+and keep it secret from everybody.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," Rose said, "nothing may come of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But that won't be your fault, Rose," said her brother. "It is a
+perfectly scrumptious idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" asked Rose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>, much pleased by this frank praise.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I do. And we'll do it to-night. Then the Armatages won't know
+and&mdash;and laugh at us."</p>
+
+<p>For they had found Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, rather trying.
+Not having their childish imaginations so well developed as the six
+little Bunkers had, the children of the plantation were altogether too
+matter-of-fact. Many childish plays that the Bunkers enjoyed did not
+appeal to their little hosts at all.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, when Russ invented some brand new and charming, simple
+play for all to join in, Philly and Alice and Frane just drifted away
+and would have nothing to do with it. They were too polite to criticize;
+but Russ knew that the Armatage children felt themselves "too grown up"
+to be interested in the building of a steamboat or the driving of an
+imaginary motor-car.</p>
+
+<p>His little brothers and sisters, however, were constantly teasing Russ
+to make something new. They enjoyed traveling in reality so much, did
+the six little Bunkers, that, as Daddy laughingly said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>traveling in a
+wheelbarrow would have amused them.</p>
+
+<p>So this day when Russ made a whole freight train with empty chicken
+coops, with a caboose at the end and a big engine in front, only Frane
+took an interest in it aside from the Bunkers themselves. And perhaps
+his interest was, only held because Russ agreed to make him the engineer
+while Laddie was fireman.</p>
+
+<p>As for Russ himself, he was the conductor at the end of the long train.
+He had to explain very plainly that of course a freight train had a
+conductor. Every train had to have a "skipper" just like a boat. A
+railroad man had explained all that to Russ Bunker when the family was
+on its way to Cowboy Jack's early in the autumn.</p>
+
+<p>"And you-all," said Russ, copying Frane's speech, speaking to the little
+ones and Rose, "must stay back here with me and be brakemen. When we
+need the handbrakes, I'll tell you, and you run forward over the
+coops&mdash;I mean the cars&mdash;and set the brakes."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose we get flung off?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"That you must not do," said her older brother sternly. "If the train is
+going fast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>you might get a broken leg. Or if it is going around a curve
+it would be worse. You must be careful."</p>
+
+<p>"I think this is a dangerous play," said Vi hopefully. There was nobody
+really more daring than Vi.</p>
+
+<p>The two Armatage girls tried to coax Rose away from the "train"; but
+Rose liked to play with her brothers and sisters, and she knew that
+Mother Bunker expected her to. So she excused herself to Philly and
+Alice.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately they took some offense at this. That evening after supper
+Rose found herself ignored by Phillis and Alice Armatage. At another
+time this ungenerous act might have hurt the oldest Bunker girl. But she
+and Russ had their secret plans to carry through, and Rose was glad to
+get away with her brother in a room where nobody would disturb them.</p>
+
+<p>Again Russ had broken up pasteboard boxes, and he had pen and ink. To
+make new signs all in "big print" to stick up at the site of Mammy
+June's burned cabin was more of a task than merely writing them. This
+was Rose's bright idea. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>Russ did not deny her powers of invention.</p>
+
+<p>They printed four good signs. Oh, the letters were large and black!</p>
+
+<p>"They ought to be," Russ said. "We've used 'most half a bottle of ink."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let's tell Philly or any of them," said Rose. "They laugh at so
+many things we do."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," agreed Russ, although he was less sensitive about being
+laughed at than his sister.</p>
+
+<p>But this habit the young Armatages had of laughing at what the little
+Bunkers did caused all the trouble on this night. And it was a night
+that all of the children and most of the grown folks, too, would be
+likely to remember.</p>
+
+<p>The Armatage children knew a great deal more about the plantation and
+the country surrounding it than the Bunkers did. That was only natural.
+Philly or Alice or Frane, Junior, would not have started off secretly,
+as Russ and Rose Bunker did, after nine o'clock at night to go down to
+the place where old Mammy June's cabin had been burned.</p>
+
+<p>To tell the truth, the Armatage children <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>had associated so much with
+the colored folks about the plantation that they were inclined to
+believe that there might be such things as "ha'nts." The little Bunkers
+had heard of "ghosts"; but they looked on such things as being like
+fairies&mdash;something to half-believe in, and shiver about, all the time
+knowing that they were not real.</p>
+
+<p>So Russ and Rose had no actual fear of haunts when they started down the
+cart-path toward the wide brook where Russ had had his first adventure
+catching the big fish.</p>
+
+<p>The colored folks were all at home in their quarters; and although it
+was a starlight night they were having no celebration. Everything about
+the plantation seemed particularly quiet. And no sounds at first came to
+the ears of the brother and sister from the forest.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached the place for which they aimed however there came
+suddenly a mournful screech from the woods&mdash;a sound that seemed to
+linger longer in their hearing than any strange noise Russ and Rose had
+ever heard. The brother and sister stopped, frightened indeed, and clung
+to each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! What's that?" murmured Rose.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>"It&mdash;it's maybe an owl," returned Russ, trying to think of the most
+harmless creature that made a noise at night.</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard an owl howl like that," whispered his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, Rose! owls don't howl. It's wolves that howl&mdash;or coyotes such as we
+saw at Cowboy Jack's. Don't you remember the coyote caught in the trap
+that you thought was a dog?"</p>
+
+<p>Rose's mind would not be drawn from the thing in question. She said,
+quite as fearfully:</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe this is a wolf, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," declared the boy trying to speak bravely. "There aren't
+any wolves in this part of the country. I asked Frane, Junior."</p>
+
+<p>But there was evidently a savage creature here that Russ Bunker had
+known nothing about, for now it cried out again! Its long, quavering
+note echoed through the woods and made the boy and girl stand again and
+shiver.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I guess it isn't any animal after all," said Rose suddenly, and
+speaking with some relief. "That's a woman. Of course it is. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>But she
+must be lost, or something bad has happened to her. Oh, Russ!" she
+added, suddenly seizing her brother once more. "I know what it must be.
+And they are almost always ladies, so Phillis says."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" demanded Russ, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a ha'nt! It's a lady ha'nt! I do believe it must be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, Rose, what you talking about?" demanded her brother, yet secretly
+quite as much troubled by the strange, eerie sound as she was. "You know
+that haunts are only make-believe."</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell!" sighed Rose, "maybe that's only a make-believe sound we hear.
+But&mdash;but I don't like it. There!"</p>
+
+<p>For a third time the screech was repeated. It seemed nearer. Russ could
+not be confident that it was "make-believe." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> strange sound seemed
+very real indeed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I don't like that noise a bit," whispered Rose, standing close to her
+brother. "It&mdash;it makes me all shivery."</p>
+
+<p>"But, if it is only just a woman calling&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There must be something awful the matter with her, if she has to scream
+like that," declared Rose.</p>
+
+<p>As they did not hear the noise again for a little while, both of them
+plucked up courage, and they went on to the burned cabin. The sticks
+they had set up were still standing. Russ fastened each of the four
+pasteboard "letters" to a stick at the four corners of Mammy June's
+ruined house.</p>
+
+<p>There was light enough from the stars for the two children to see quite
+plainly what <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>they were about. Rose, however, was looking all about them
+while Russ did the work of setting up the printed signs for Sneezer
+Meiggs to see if he came home unexpectedly.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you expect to see, Rose?" demanded her brother loftily.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Philly says ha'nts are all in white."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anything very white around here," rejoined Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"But there are so many colored folks, perhaps some of the ha'nts might
+be black," suggested Rose. "Then we wouldn't see them very well in the
+shadows."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe&mdash;&mdash;" began Russ.</p>
+
+<p>The strange shriek was again heard. Russ stopped in his speech. Rose
+uttered a sharp cry. The screech&mdash;and it did sound like a woman's voice,
+the voice of a woman in fearful pain or fright&mdash;seemed very near them.</p>
+
+<p>"It's right over there in that patch of woods," said Russ. "I guess she
+is lost&mdash;or something."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe it is only a lady and not a ha'nt, Russ?" demanded his
+sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it isn't a ha'nt! Such things <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>can't be! And if it was a
+ghost, a ghost is nothing but air, and how could air have such a voice
+as that?"</p>
+
+<p>This reasoning seemed to close the argument. Rose felt that her brother
+must be right. Besides, Russ went right on talking, and talking very
+bravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we ought to see what the matter is with her, Rose. She is in
+trouble&mdash;maybe she is lost and scared."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I scared," murmured Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"But think how much more you would be scared," her brother said
+seriously, "if you were in those woods alone and didn't know that there
+was anybody else near."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't make so much fuss about it," muttered Rose, for she
+suspected the thought in Russ Bunker's mind and she was really too
+scared to approve of it at once.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to find her," said the boy impressively.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Russ!" almost wailed Rose, "you wouldn't go into those woods?
+Aren't you scared?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'm scared," said Russ. "Who wouldn't be? But just because I
+am scared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> I know the woman must be even more scared. She's got to be
+taken out of the woods and shown where the big house is. Or, if she is a
+colored lady, we'll take her to the quarters."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I wish Daddy was here," ventured Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"But he isn't here," said Russ, with some vexation. "So we've got to
+find the woman by ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear!" murmured Rose.</p>
+
+<p>But she would not let Russ go alone into the patch of forest behind the
+site of Mammy June's burned cabin; nor did she feel like remaining alone
+in the clearing. Russ picked up a good sized stick and started toward
+the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's shout when we get to the edge," whispered Rose.</p>
+
+<p>They did so; but, really, their voices sounded very faint indeed. No
+reply came. It was several minutes after, and Russ and Rose were quite a
+distance into the woods and following what seemed to be a
+half-grown-over path, before the "woman" screamed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>How hateful that sounds!" cried Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess she is more scared than we are," ventured Russ. "What do you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd like to be back at the house," answered Rose.</p>
+
+<p>But Russ would not agree with her. As he went on he grew more confident.
+They did not see even a rabbit. And Russ and Rose knew that rabbits were
+often out at night.</p>
+
+<p>If they had but known it, the awful screech that so disturbed them,
+disturbed the rabbits and the other small fry of the woods much more. At
+the sound of that terrible hunger-cry all the rabbits, and hares, and
+birds that nested on the ground or in trees, trembled.</p>
+
+<p>But Russ seemed to grow braver by the minute. And Rose of course could
+not fail to be inspired by his show of courage. They walked along the
+path hand in hand, and although they did not speak much for the next few
+moments, when they did speak it was quite cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish she would yell again," said Russ at last. "For we must be
+getting near to where she was."</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell, if she isn't a ghost&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>Just then the silence of the wood was broken again by the cry. The boy
+and the girl halted involuntarily. No matter how brave Russ might appear
+to be, there was a tone to that scream that made shivers go up and down
+his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Russ!" cried Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rose!" stammered her brother.</p>
+
+<p>The scream came from so near that it seemed worse than before. And now
+Russ was shaken in his proclaimed opinion. It did not seem that any
+woman, no matter how great her distress might be, could make such a
+terrible sound.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we'd better go back," confessed Russ after a minute.</p>
+
+<p>Rose was eager to do so. They turned and, hand in hand, began to run.
+And in their haste they somehow missed the path they had been following.
+Or else, it had not been a path at all.</p>
+
+<p>At least, after running so far that they should have reached the burned
+cabin they came out into quite a different clearing! They both knew that
+they had missed the way, for in this clearing stood a little cabin wi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>th
+a pitched roof that neither of the Bunker children had ever seen before.
+Nor was the wide brook in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we've got turned around," Russ said, trying to hide his
+disappointment and fear from his sister. "We've got to go back, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know which is back?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to hunt for that old path."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you leave me, Russ Bunker!" cried Rose, as her brother started
+away.</p>
+
+<p>And just then both of them saw the tawny, long tailed, slinking beast in
+the edge of the thicket.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! It's a bear!" shrieked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Bears don't look like that," gasped Russ, staring at the great, glowing
+eyes of the animal. "It looks more like a cat."</p>
+
+<p>"There never was a cat as big as that, Russ Bunker, and you know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Rose," said her brother promptly. "We'll go into that house
+and shut the door. It can't get us then, whatever it is."</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the two children had dashed into the cabin and pulled to the
+swinging <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>door. The door had a lock on the outside, and when Russ banged
+the door shut he heard the lock snap.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it can't get at us!" cried Russ with some satisfaction. "We're
+safe."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but I don't like this old house, Russ Bunker," complained Rose.
+"There is no window."</p>
+
+<p>"All the better," was the brave reply. "That cat can't get at us."</p>
+
+<p>Then the screech sounded again and the boy and girl clung together while
+the sound echoed through the lonesome timber.</p>
+
+<p>"It's that thing that makes the noise," whispered Rose. "Oh, Russ! if
+Daddy Bunker doesn't come after us, maybe it will tear the house down."</p>
+
+<p>"It can't," declared Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know it can't?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, cats&mdash;even big ones&mdash;don't tear houses to pieces, Rose. You know
+they don't! We'll be safe as long as we stay in this place."</p>
+
+<p>"But how long shall we have to stay here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Until that thing goes away," said Russ confidently.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>"And maybe it won't go away at all. We'll have to stay here till the
+folks come to find us, Russ. I&mdash;I want&mdash;my mo-mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Rose Bunker, don't be a baby!" said her brother. "That thing can't
+get at us in here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Just then something thumped heavily on the roof of the hut. Russ could
+not say another word. They heard the great claws of the big cat
+scratching at the roof boards.</p>
+
+<p>Rose screamed again and this time her brother's voi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>ce joined with hers
+in a hopeless cry for help.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>AN EXCITING TIME</h3>
+
+
+<p>Russ and Rose Bunker had slipped out of the house on the hill without
+saying a word to anybody as to where they were going. Since coming to
+the Meiggs Plantation there had been a certain amount of laxness in
+regard to what the children did. They had a freedom that Mother Bunker
+never allowed when they were at home.</p>
+
+<p>Because the Armatage children went and came as they wished, the little
+Bunkers began to do likewise. The house was so big, too, that the
+children might be playing a long way from the room in which their mother
+and father and Mr. Frane Armatage and his wife sat.</p>
+
+<p>The servants who were supposed to keep some watch upon the children were
+now all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> in the quarters. Servants in the South seldom sleep in "the big
+house." And perhaps Mother Bunker forgot this fact.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, when she came to look for her brood late in the evening she
+found the four little ones fast asleep in their beds, as she had
+expected them to be. But Rose was not with Phillis and Alice Armatage,
+and Russ's bed was likewise empty.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are those children?" Mother Bunker demanded of Daddy, when she
+had run downstairs again. "Do you know? They should be in bed."</p>
+
+<p>"They were in the library earlier in the evening," Mrs. Armatage said.
+"I think they were writing again."</p>
+
+<p>"Writing?" repeated Mother Bunker. "Making more of those signs to set up
+at the burned house?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armatage chuckled. "Those won't do much good. Sneezer never could
+read writing."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us ask Mammy. Rose and Russ may be with her," suggested Mrs.
+Armatage.</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs went the two ladies and into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>Mammy June's room. There was a
+night light burning there, but nobody was with the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Lawsy me!" exclaimed the old nurse when Mrs. Bunker asked her. "I ain't
+seen them childern since I had my supper. No'm. They ain't been here."</p>
+
+<p>The house was searched from cellar to garret by the two gentlemen.
+Meanwhile the anxious mother and her hostess went to the library. Russ
+had left there some spoiled sheets of cardboard with some of the letters
+printed on them. It was easy to see the attempt he and Rose had made to
+print plainly a notice to Sneezer, Mammy June's absent son, telling him
+that his mother was at the big house.</p>
+
+<p>"The dear things!" said Mrs. Armatage. "Your boy and girl are very kind,
+Mrs. Bunker. They want to relieve Mammy's trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"They have gone down there to-night to stick up those signs!" cried Mrs.
+Bunker, inspired by a new thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I reckon nothing will hurt 'em,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> said her friend soothingly.
+"I'll tell Mr. Armatage and he will go down there and get them."</p>
+
+<p>This idea impressed both the men when they came back from their
+unsuccessful search of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The two men walked briskly along the trail to the burned cabin. The
+stars gave them light enough to see all about the clearing when they
+arrived. Not a sign of Russ or Rose did they find.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose they went home some other way?" asked Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I hope they haven't wandered into the thicket."</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Armatage spoke both men heard the terrible scream that had first
+startled Russ and Rose. Mr. Bunker fairly jumped.</p>
+
+<p>"That can't be the children!" he ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>The way his companion looked at him told the children's father a good
+deal. Mr. Bunker seized Mr. Armatage's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me! What is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Something that hasn't been heard around here for years," said the
+planter, his voice trembling a little. "It's the cry of a panther."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>Mr. Bunker, although he was practically a city man, had hunted a good
+deal and had been in the wilder parts of the country very often. He knew
+how terribly dangerous a panther might be on occasion; but he likewise
+knew that ordinarily they would not attack human beings. Two little
+children lost in the woods in which a panther was roaming up and down
+was, however, a fearful thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Get a gun and the hands!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "If Russ and Rose have
+mistaken the way home, and are in that timber, they may be in peril."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armatage started off on a run for the quarters. He knew that some of
+his hands had guns, and the quarters were nearer than the big house.</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker, although he was unarmed, started directly into the woods,
+trying to mark his course by the repeated screams of the hungry panther.
+He might have been lost himself, for there was not much light to mark
+the way; but Daddy Bunker could judge the situation of the screaming
+panther much better than Russ and Rose had been able to.</p>
+
+<p>He hurried on, gripping a good-sized club <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>that he had found. But, of
+course, he knew better than to attack a panther with a club. He might
+throw the stick at the animal, however, and frighten it away.</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose had gone a long way into the thicket. The panther did not
+scream often. So Daddy Bunker did not make much progress in the right
+direction. By and by he had to stop and wait for help, or for the
+panther to scream again.</p>
+
+<p>He heard finally many voices at the edge of the thicket. Then he began
+to see the blaze of torches. A party of colored people&mdash;men and
+boys&mdash;with torches and guns, followed Mr. Armatage.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, all the hunting dogs on the plantation were scouring the
+timber. Bobo, the big hound, was at the head of this pack. He struck the
+scent of the panther at last, and his long and mournful howl was almost
+as awe-inspiring as the cry of the panther.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Bunker!" shouted Mr. Armatage, when the party had overtaken
+the Northern man. "The dogs are the best leaders. Bobo has got a scent
+for any kind of trail. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>The negroes shouted and swung their torches. Perhaps they made so much
+noise and had so many lights because they somewhat feared the "ha'nts"
+that many of them talked about and believed in.</p>
+
+<p>But the two white men were not thinking of ghosts. They feared what
+might have happened to the two children if they had met the panther.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this time, too, Russ and Rose were not thinking of ghosts. The
+panther was not at all ghostly. He had four great paws, each armed with
+claws that seemed quite capable of tearing to pieces the roof boards of
+the cabin the children had taken refuge in.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll get to us! He will! He will!" Rose cried over and over.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he won't," said her brother, but his voice trembled. "I&mdash;I don't
+see how he can."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's run out again while he's on the roof, and run home," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know the way home," objected her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"We can find it. I don't want to be shut up here with that cat."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not so bad. He hasn't got in yet."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>But Rose ran to the door, and then she made another discovery that
+added to her fright. The door could not be opened! The spring lock on
+the outside had snapped and there was no way of springing the bolt from
+inside the shack.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see what we've done!" she wailed. "Russ Bunker! we are shut into
+the place, and can't get out, and that thing will come down and claw us
+all to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>With this Rose cast herself upon the ground and could not be comforted.
+In fact, at the moment, Russ could not think of a word to say that would
+comfort his sister. H<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>e was just as much frightened as Rose was.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THAT PIGEON WING</h3>
+
+
+<p>Greatly as the two little Bunkers were alarmed, and as much as their
+father and Mr. Armatage worried about their safety, they really were not
+so very badly off. Not only were the roof boards of the hut in which
+Russ and Rose had taken refuge sound, but soon the panther stopped
+clawing at the boards.</p>
+
+<p>It heard the crowd of men coming and the baying of the hounds. It stood
+up, stretched its neck as it listened, snarled a defiance at Bobo and
+his mates, and then leaped into the nearest tree and so away, from tree
+to tree, into the deeper fastnesses of the wood.</p>
+
+<p>The dogs might follow the scent of the panther on the ground to the
+clearing where the hut stood; but beyond that place they could not
+follow, for the wary cat had left no trail upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>At first, when the dogs came baying to the spot, Russ and Rose were
+even more frightened than before. The dogs' voices sounded very savage.
+But soon Bobo smelled the children out and leaped, whining, against the
+door of the cabin. He was doing that when Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage
+and the negroes reached the clearing.</p>
+
+<p>"The creature is in that hut," said Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much!" returned his friend. "Bobo would not make those sounds if it
+was a panther. Mr. Panther has beat it through the trees. It is
+something else in the charcoal burner's hut. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>He strode over to the door, snapped back the lock, and threw the door
+open. The torchlight flooded the interior of the place and revealed Russ
+and Rose Bunker, still fearful, clinging to each other as they crouched
+in a corner of the hut.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "Of all the children that ever were
+born, you two manage to get into the greatest adventures! What are you
+doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>g cat chased us in here, Daddy," said Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"And he tried to get at us through the roof," added Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage looked at each other pretty seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't get here a minute too soon," said the planter.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you," returned Mr. Bunker gravely. "This might have been a
+very serious affair."</p>
+
+<p>But in the morning, after Russ and Rose were refreshed by sleep and had
+told the particulars of their adventure at the breakfast table, the
+youngsters really took pride in what had happened to them. The smaller
+children looked upon Russ and Rose as being very wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have done, Russ, if that big cat had got into the house
+with you and Rose?" Vi asked.</p>
+
+<p>"But he didn't," was the boy's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if he had what would you have done?"</p>
+
+<p>But that proved to be another question that Vi Bunker never got
+answered. This was so often the case!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>"So you thought it was a ghost at first, and then it turned out to be a
+big cat," Laddie said to Rose. "I think I could make up a riddle about
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Rose, with a sigh. "You can make up all the riddles
+you want to about it. Making a riddle about a panther is lots better
+than being chased by one."</p>
+
+<p>Laddie, however, did not make the riddle. In fact he forgot all about it
+in the excitement of what directly followed the rescue of Russ and Rose
+from the wild animal. Mr. Bunker felt so happy about the recovery of the
+two children that he determined to do something nice for the colored
+people who had so enthusiastically aided in hunting for Russ and Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em have another big dance and dinner, such as they had Christmas
+eve," Mr. Bunker suggested to the planter. "I'll pay the bill."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you say, Charley," agreed Mr. Armatage. "That will please 'em
+all about as much as anything you could think of. I'll get some kind of
+music for them to dance by, and we'll all go down and watch 'em. Y<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>our
+young ones certainly do like dancing."</p>
+
+<p>This was true. And especially was Russ Bunker anxious to learn to dance
+as some of the colored boys did. He was constantly practising the funny
+pigeon wing that he had seen Sam do in Aunt Jo's kitchen, in Boston. But
+the white boy could not get it just right.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Russ," Laddie said approvingly, "you do it better and
+better all the time. I guess you can do it by and by&mdash;three or four
+years from now, maybe." But three or four years seemed a long time to
+Russ.</p>
+
+<p>When they went down to the quarters the evening of the party Russ
+determined to try to dance as well as Frane, Junior, and the negro boys.</p>
+
+<p>Mammy June was much better now, and she was up and about. To please her
+Mr. Armatage had a phaeton brought around and the old nurse was driven
+to the scene of the celebration. Mun Bun and Margy rode in the phaeton
+with Mammy June and were very proud of this particular honor.</p>
+
+<p>The old nurse was loved by everybody on the plantation, both white and
+black. Mothe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>r Bunker said that Mammy held "quite a levee" at the
+quarters, sitting in state in her phaeton where she could see all that
+went on.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was what the negroes called a barbecue. The six little
+Bunkers had never seen such a feast before, for this that their father
+gave them was even more elaborate than the dinner the planter had given
+his hands at Christmas.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great fire in a pit, and over this fire a whole pig was
+roasted on a spit, and poultry, and 'possums that the boys had killed,
+and rabbits. There were sweet potatoes, of course. How the little
+Northerners liked them! The white children had a table to themselves and
+ate as heartily as their colored friends.</p>
+
+<p>Then a place was cleared for the dancing. Mammy June's phaeton was drawn
+to the edge of this dance floor. The music struck up, and there was a
+general rush for partners.</p>
+
+<p>After a while the dancers got more excited, and many of them danced
+alone, "showing off," Frane, Junior, said. They did have the funniest
+steps! Russ Bunke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>r was highly delighted with this kind of dancing.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me! Let me dance!" he cried, starting out from his seat near
+Mammy June. "A boy showed me in Boston how to cut a pigeon wing. I guess
+I can do it now."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't cut no pigeon wing, w'ite boy," said 'Lias, Mammy's grandson.</p>
+
+<p>"I can try," said Russ bravely, and he danced with much vigor for
+several minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my, he done cut Sneezer's pigeon wing!" cried one of the darkies
+presently.</p>
+
+<p>"What's dat? Cut Sneezer's pigeon wing?" cried Mammy June, sitting up to
+watch Russ more closely.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's jest what he's doin'."</p>
+
+<p>Russ continued to dance, and did his best to imitate the colored boy at
+Aunt Jo's house. He was hard at it when Mammy June, with her eyes almost
+popping out of her head, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"For de lan's sake, boy, come here! I want to ask you sumpin."</p>
+
+<p>Russ was in the midst of cutting the pigeon wing again, and this time he
+was fortunate enough to imitate Sam in almost every particular. Then he
+stopped and walked ov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>er to the old colored woman's side.</p>
+
+<p>"How come you try to do it that way, Russ Bunker?" asked Mammy June as
+Russ approached the phaeton. "I ain't never seen you do that before. Who
+showed you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sam. The boy in Boston. He said he was called after his Uncle Sam. He
+came from down South here, you know, Mammy."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he a cullud boy?" demanded the old woman earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he was. Or he couldn't dance this way," and Russ tried to cut
+the pigeon wing again.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! Wait!" gasped the old woman. "Tell me mo' about that boy who
+showed you. You ain't got it right. But dat's the way my Sneezer done
+it. Only he knows just how."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mammy June!" cried Rose, "you don't suppose that Sam can dance
+just like your Sneezer?"</p>
+
+<p>The old nurse was wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her voice was much
+choked with emotion as well. Mrs. Bunker came over to see what the
+matter was.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' please tell me, Ma'am, all about dat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> boy dese children say was in
+Boston? Please, Ma'am! Ain't nobody know how to dance dat way but
+Sneezer. And he didn't like his name, Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood
+Meiggs. No'm, he didn't like it at all, 'cause we-all shortened it to
+Sneezer.</p>
+
+<p>"He had an Uncle Sam, too. My brudder. Lives in Birmingham. Sneezer
+always said he wisht he'd been born wid a name like Uncle Sam."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is the same boy," Mother Bunker said kindly. "Tell me just
+how Ebenezer looks, Mammy June. Then I can be sure."</p>
+
+<p>From the way Mammy described her youngest son, even the children
+recognized him as Sam the chore boy at Aunt Jo's in Boston. Mun Bun and
+Margy, when the matter was quite settled that Sam was Sneezer, began to
+take great pride in the fact that it was their bright eyes that had
+first spied the colored boy walking in the snow and had been the first
+to invite him into Aunt Jo's house.</p>
+
+<p>"He will be there when we go to Boston again, Mammy June," Rose said,
+warmly. "And Daddy and Mother will send him home <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>to you. I guess he'll
+be glad to come. Only, maybe you'd better stop calling him Sneezer. He
+likes Sam best."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough, honey," cried Mammy June, "I'll call him anything he likes
+'long as he comes home and stays home with me. Yes, indeedy! I'd call
+him Julius C&aelig;sar Mark Antony Meiggs, if he wants I should."</p>
+
+<p>"But maybe," said Russ thoughtfully, "he wouldn't like that name any
+better than the other. I know I shouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>In a short time it was a settled matter that Mammy June's lost boy would
+return. For she could tell Mrs. Bunker so many things about the absent
+one that there was not a shadow of a doubt that the Sam working for Aunt
+Jo would prove to be Mammy June's boy.</p>
+
+<p>The holidays on the Meiggs Plantation ended, therefore, all the more
+pleasantly because of this discovery. The plantation was a fine place to
+be on, so the six little Bunkers thought. But when Daddy Bunker
+announced that his business with his old friend, the planter, was
+satisfactorily completed, the childr<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>en were not sorry to think of
+returning North.</p>
+
+<p>"This doesn't seem like winter at all down here," said Russ. "We want to
+slide downhill, and roll snowballs, and make snowmen."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is nice to go sleigh riding," Rose added. "They never can do
+that on the Meiggs Plantation."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can make riddles here," put in Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>Vi might have added that she could ask questions anywhere!</p>
+
+<p>As for Margy and Mun Bun, they were contented to go anywhere that Mother
+Bunker and Daddy went. Something exciting was always happening to all of
+the six little Bunkers. But we will let you guess, with Russ and Rose
+and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, where the next exciting
+adventures of the half dozen youngsters from Pineville will take place.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the time to leave the plantation. The children had many little
+keepsakes to take home with them and they promised to send other
+keepsakes to the Armatage children as soon as they got back to
+Pineville.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been just the nicest outing that ever <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>could be!" said Rose, when
+the good-byes were being spoken. "I'm sure I'll never forget this lovely
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"I's coming back some day if they want me," put in Mun Bun quickly. And
+at this everybody smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Then all climbed into the automobile which was to take them to the
+railroad station. There was a honk of the horn, and amid the waving of
+hands and a hearty cheer, the six little Bunkers and their parents
+started on their journey for home.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class="center">Author of "The Bobbsey Twins Books,"<br />
+"The Bunny Brown Series,"<br />
+"The Make-Believe Series," Etc.<br /></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center">Durably Bound.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Illustrated.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Uniform Style of Binding</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>Delightful stories for little boys and girls which sprung into immediate
+popularity. To know the six little Bunkers is to take them at once to
+your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun and cute
+sayings. Each story has a little plot of its own&mdash;one that can be easily
+followed&mdash;and all are written in Miss Hope's most entertaining manner.
+Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be on the bookshelf of every
+child in the land.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Six Little Bunker Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2>THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class="center">Author of the popular "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+<div class='center'>UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several
+bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and
+wholesome, free from sensationalism, and absorbing from the first
+chapter to the last.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Outdoor Girls Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or Wintering in the Sunny South.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or A Cave and What it Contained.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or Doing Their Bit for Uncle Sam.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or Doing Their Best for the Soldiers.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or A Wreck and A Rescue.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or The Hermit of Moonlight Falls.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><br />THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Or The Girl Miner of Gold Run.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span>
+</div>
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+<h2>THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>For Little Men and Women</div>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class="center">Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center">12mo.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  DURABLY BOUND. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; ILLUSTRATED. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that
+charm the hearts of the little ones and of which they never tire.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Bobbsey Twins Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2>THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class="center">Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books</div>
+
+<div class="center">Wrapper and text illustrations drawn by<br />
+FLORENCE ENGLAND NOSWORTHY</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center">12mo.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  DURABLY BOUND.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  ILLUSTRATED.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>These stories by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books are eagerly
+welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their
+eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive
+little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue.</p>
+
+<p>Bunny was a lively little boy, very inquisitive. When he did anything,
+Sue followed his leadership. They had many adventures, some comical in
+the extreme.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Bunny Brown Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2>THE TOM SWIFT SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By VICTOR APPLETON</h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center">UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+
+<p>These spirited tales, convey in a realistic way, the wonderful advances
+in land and sea locomotion. Stories like these are impressed upon the
+memory and their reading is productive only of good.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Tom Swift Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<h2>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>BY VICTOR APPLETON</h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center">UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>Moving pictures and photo plays are famous the world over, and in this
+line of books the reader is given a full description of how the films
+are made&mdash;the scenes of little dramas, indoors and out, trick pictures
+to satisfy the curious, soul-stirring pictures of city affairs, life in
+the Wild West, among the cowboys and Indians, thrilling rescues along
+the seacoast, the daring of picture hunters in the jungle among savage
+beasts, and the great risks run in picturing conditions in a land of
+earthquakes. The volumes teem with adventures and will be found
+interesting from first chapter to last.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Moving Picture Boys Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AND THE FLOOD</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS UNDER THE SEA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE WAR FRONT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON FRENCH BATTLEFIELDS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>MOVING PICTURE BOYS' FIRST SHOWHOUSE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON BROADWAY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' OUTDOOR EXHIBITION</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' NEW IDEA</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>One instance each of "white-washed" and "whitewashed" appears in the
+original and were retained.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Eve is capitalised once and lowercased once. This was
+retained.</p>
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by 
+Laura Lee Hope
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S ***
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+Project Gutenberg's Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by Laura Lee Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's
+
+Author: Laura Lee Hope
+
+Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #18461]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Emmy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
+AT MAMMY JUNE'S
+
+BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S,"
+"SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S," "THE
+BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES," "THE BUNNY BROWN
+SERIES," "THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES," ETC.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY_
+WALTER S. ROGERS
+
+NEW YORK
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+PUBLISHERS
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES=
+
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES=
+
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES=
+
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES=
+
+          (Eleven titles)
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+Copyright, 1922, by
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+    I. AN ESKIMO IGLOO                       1
+   II. THE SNOWMAN                          12
+  III. UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW                   21
+   IV. DADDY'S NEWS                         30
+    V. OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS                  41
+   VI. THE SEA-EAGLE                        51
+  VII. A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS                 66
+ VIII. A GREAT DEAL OF EXCITEMENT           79
+   IX. RUSS'S SECRET                        87
+    X. CHARLESTON AND THE FLEET             94
+   XI. THE MEIGGS PLANTATION               105
+  XII. MAMMY JUNE                          117
+ XIII. THE CATFISH                         127
+  XIV. MAMMY JUNE HELPS                    136
+   XV. WHEN CHRISTMAS IS FOURTH OF JULY    146
+  XVI. A LETTER AND A BIG LIGHT            156
+ XVII. MAMMY JUNE IN PERIL                 166
+XVIII. THE TWINS IN TROUBLE                175
+  XIX. IN MAMMY JUNE'S ROOM                183
+   XX. GOOSEY-GOOSEY-GANDER                194
+  XXI. ROSE HAS AN IDEA                    202
+ XXII. THE STRANGE CRY                     210
+XXIII. A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST                 218
+ XXIV. AN EXCITING TIME                    227
+  XXV. THAT PIGEON WING                    235
+
+  [Illustration: MAMMY JUNE TREATS THE CHILDREN TO A "TAFFY PULL."
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Frontispiece_--(_Page_ 142)]
+
+
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN ESKIMO IGLOO
+
+
+"How could William get the croup that way?" Violet asked with much
+emphasis.
+
+Of course, Vi was always asking questions--so many questions, indeed,
+that it was often impossible for her elders to answer them all; and
+certainly Rose and Russ Bunker, who were putting together a "cut-up"
+puzzle on the table, could not be bothered by Vi's insistence.
+
+"I don't see how he could have got the croup that way," repeated the
+smaller girl. There were six of the little Bunkers, and Vi and Laddie
+were twins. She said to Laddie, who was looking on at the puzzle making:
+"Do you know how William did it, Laddie?"
+
+Laddie, whose real name wasn't "Laddie" at all, but Fillmore Bunker,
+shook his head decidedly.
+
+"I don't know," he told his twin sister. "Not unless it is a riddle:
+'How did William get the croup?'"
+
+"He hasn't got the croup," put in Rose, for just a moment giving the
+twins her attention.
+
+"Why--ee!" cried Vi. "Aunt Jo said he had!"
+
+"She didn't," returned Rose rather shortly and not at all politely.
+
+"She did so!" rejoined Vi instantly, for although she and Rose loved
+each other very much they were not always in agreement. Vi's gray eyes
+snapped she was so vexed. "Aunt Jo said that a window got broke in--in
+the neu-ral-gi-a and William had to drive a long way yesterday and the
+wind blew on him and he got the croup."
+
+"Was that the way of it?" said Laddie, thoughtfully. "Wait a minute, Vi.
+I've most got it----"
+
+"You're not going to have the croup!" declared his twin. "You never had
+it! But I have had the croup, and I didn't catch it the way William
+did."
+
+"No-o," admitted Laddie. "But--but I'm catching a new riddle if you'd
+only wait a minute for me to get it straight."
+
+"Pooh!" said Vi. "Who cares anything about your old riddle? Br-r-r! it's
+cold in this room. Maybe we'll all get the croup if we can't have a
+better fire."
+
+"It isn't the croup you mean, Vi," put in Rose again, but without
+stopping to explain to her smaller sister where and how she was wrong
+about William's illness.
+
+"Say, Russ, why don't the steampipes hum any more?" broke in the voice
+of Margy, the next to the very littlest Bunker, who was playing with
+that latter very important person at one of the great windows
+overlooking the street.
+
+Russ chuckled. He had just put the very last crooked piece of the puzzle
+into place.
+
+"You don't expect to see humming birds in winter, do you, Margy?" he
+asked.
+
+"Just the same, winter is the time for steampipes to hum," said Rose,
+shivering a little. "Oh! See! It's beginning to snow!"
+
+"So 'tis," cried Russ, who was the oldest of the six. "Supposing it
+should be a blizzard, Rose Bunker?"
+
+"S'posing it should!" repeated his sister, quite as much excited as Russ
+was at such a prospect.
+
+"Buzzards fly and eat dead things. We saw 'em in Texas at Cowboy
+Jack's," announced Laddie, forgetting his riddle-making for the moment.
+
+"That is right, Laddie," agreed Rose kindly. "But we're not talking
+about buzzards, but about blizzards. Blizzards are big snowstorms--bigger
+than you ever remember, I guess."
+
+"Oh!" said Laddie doubtfully. "Were we talking about--about blizzards?"
+
+"No, we weren't!" exclaimed Vi, almost stamping her foot. "We were
+talking about William's croup----"
+
+"He hasn't got the croup, I tell you, Vi," Rose said wearily.
+
+"He has. Aunt Jo----"
+
+"In the first place," interrupted Rose quite decidedly, "only children
+have croup. It isn't a grown-up disease."
+
+This announcement silenced even Violet for the moment. She stared at
+her older sister, round-eyed.
+
+"Do--do diseases have to grow up, too?" she finally gasped.
+
+"Oh, dear me, Vi Bunker!" exclaimed Rose, "I wish you didn't ask so many
+questions."
+
+"Why not?" promptly inquired the smaller girl.
+
+"We-ell, it's so hard to answer them," Rose frankly admitted. "Diseases
+don't grow up, I guess, but folks grow up and leave diseases like croup,
+and measles, and chicken-pox, behind them."
+
+"And cut fingers and bumps?" asked Laddie, who had almost forgotten the
+riddle about William's croup that he was striving to make.
+
+But Vi did not forget the croup. One could trust Vi never to forget
+anything about which she once set out to gather information.
+
+"But how did William catch the croup through a broken window in the
+neu-ral-gi-a?" she demanded. "When I had croup I got my feet wet first."
+
+"He hasn't got the croup!" Rose cried again, while Russ began to laugh
+heartily.
+
+"Oh, Vi!" Russ said, "you got it twisted. William caught cold driving
+Aunt Jo's coupe with the window broken in it. He's got neuralgia from
+that."
+
+"And isn't there any croup about it?" Laddie demanded rather sadly.
+"Then I'll have to start making my riddle all over again."
+
+"Will that be awful hard to do, Laddie?" asked his twin. "Why! making
+riddles must be worse than having neu-ral-gi-a--or croup."
+
+"Well, it's harder," sighed her brother. "It's easy to catch--Oh! Oh!
+Russ! Rose! I got it!"
+
+"You haven't neuralgia, like poor William," announced Rose with
+confidence.
+
+"Listen!" announced the glowing Laddie. "What is it that's so easy to
+catch but nobody runs after?"
+
+"Huh! is that a riddle?" asked Russ.
+
+"Course it's a riddle."
+
+"A wubber ball," guessed Mun Bun, coming from the window against the
+panes of which the snow was now beating rapidly.
+
+"No," Laddie said.
+
+"A coupe!" exclaimed Violet.
+
+"Huh! No!" said her twin in disdain.
+
+Margy asked if he meant a kittie. She had been chasing one all over the
+house that morning while Russ and Rose had been to market with their
+aunt, and she did not think a kitten easy to catch at all.
+
+"'Tisn't anything with a tail or claws," crowed the delighted Laddie.
+
+"I bet it's that neuralgia William's got," laughed Russ.
+
+"No-o. It isn't just that," his smaller brother said.
+
+"And you'd better not say 'bet,' Russ Bunker," advised Rose wisely. "You
+know Aunt Jo says that's not nice."
+
+"You just said it," Russ rejoined, grinning. "Twice."
+
+"Oh, I never did!" cried his sister.
+
+"Didn't you just say I'd 'better not say bet?'" demanded Russ. "Well,
+then count 'em! 'Bet' out of 'better' is one, and 'bet' makes two----"
+
+"I never said it the way you did," began Rose, quite put out, when
+Laddie began to clamor:
+
+"Tell me my riddle! You can't--none of you. 'What is it that's so easy
+to catch but nobody runs after?'"
+
+"I don't know, Laddie," said Rose.
+
+"I give it up," said Russ.
+
+"Do you all give it up?" cried Laddie, almost dancing in his glee.
+
+"What is it?" asked Vi.
+
+"Why, the thing that's so easy to catch but nobody runs after, is a
+cold!" announced her twin very proudly.
+
+"And I'm so-o cold," announced Mun Bun, hanging to Rose's skirt while
+the older ones laughed with Laddie. "Don't Aunt Jo ever have it warm in
+her house--like it is at home?"
+
+"Of course she does, Mun Bun," said Rose, quickly hugging the little
+fellow. "But poor William is sick and nobody knows how to tend to the
+heating plant as well as he does. And so--Why, Russ, Mun Bun is cold!
+His hands are like ice."
+
+"And so are my hands!" cried Margy, running hastily from the window.
+"We've been trying to catch the snowflakes through the windowpane."
+
+"No wonder your hands are cold," said Rose admonishingly.
+
+Russ began to cast about in his ingenious mind for some means of getting
+the younger children's attention off the discomfort of a room the
+temperature of which was down to sixty. In one corner were two stacks of
+sectional bookcases which Aunt Jo had just bought, but which had no
+books in them and no glass fronts. Russ considered them for a moment,
+and then looked all about the room.
+
+"I tell you what," he said, slowly. "You know when they took us to the
+Sportsman's Show last week at Mechanic's Hall? Don't you remember about
+that Eskimo igloo that they had built of ice in the middle of the
+skating pond? Let's build an igloo like that, and get into it and keep
+warm."
+
+"O-oo!" gasped Vi, "how can you do that?"
+
+"Where will you get any ice?" Laddie demanded.
+
+"Goodness! it's cold enough in here without bringing in ice," announced
+Rose with confidence.
+
+"We won't build the igloo of ice blocks," said Russ quite calmly. "But
+we'll make believe it is ice."
+
+"I'd rather do that," Laddie agreed. "For make-believe ice can't be so
+wet and cold as real ice, can it?"
+
+"What you going to make your make-believe ice out of, Russ?" demanded
+Vi, the exceedingly practical.
+
+Russ at once set them all to work, clearing the middle of the room and
+bringing up hassocks and small benches and some other articles that
+could be used in the construction of the indoor igloo. He brought the
+sections of the new bookcase, one piece at a time.
+
+Russ really exhibited some skill in building up the walls of the hut in
+the middle of the floor. When it was completed it was rather a tight fit
+for all six of the little Bunkers to squeeze inside, but they did it.
+And the activities of building the igloo had warmed even Mun Bun.
+
+"You know," said Rose thoughtfully, "Eskimos live in these igloos and
+eat blubber, and don't go out at all while it is snowing, same as it
+does now."
+
+"Why don't they go out?" asked Vi.
+
+"Because it is cold," said Russ.
+
+"And why do they eat blubber?"
+
+"Because they are hungry," said Rose.
+
+"What's blubber, anyway?" asked the inquisitive one. "Is it like candy?"
+
+"It's more like candles," answered Russ, laughing.
+
+Just then Laddie kicked excitedly.
+
+"I bet I can make another riddle!" he cried.
+
+"Now, you see, Russ Bunker?" Rose admonished. "Laddie has got that word,
+too."
+
+"Hey, stop kicking, Laddie!" cried Russ.
+
+But in his excitement the boy twin had put his foot right through the
+wall of the igloo! At least, he had kicked one of the boxes out of place
+and the whole structure began to wobble.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrieked Vi. "It's falling."
+
+"Get Mun Bun out," gasped Rose, thinking first of all of the littlest
+Bunker.
+
+But just then the heaped up boxes came down with a crash and the six
+little Bunkers were buried under the ruins of their "igloo."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SNOWMAN
+
+
+A corner of one of the overturned bookcase sections struck Russ Bunker's
+head with considerable force--actually cutting the skin and bringing
+blood. Big as he was, the oldest Bunker yelled loudly.
+
+Then, of course, everybody yelled. Quite a panic followed. When Aunt Jo
+and Mother Bunker came running to the front room where all this had
+taken place the Eskimo igloo looked very much like a pile of boxes with
+a young earthquake at work beneath it!
+
+"For the good land's sake!" gasped Aunt Jo, who usually was very
+particular about her speech, but who on this occasion was startled into
+an exclamation. "What is happening?"
+
+"Get off my head, Vi!" wailed Laddie, from somewhere under the tottering
+pile. "It's not to sit on."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Rose. "Russ is all bloody! Oh, dear!"
+
+"I'm not cold any more," cried Mun Bun. "Let me out! I'll be good!"
+
+But Russ Bunker was neither crying nor struggling. He was a good deal of
+a man, for a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy. Being the oldest of the six
+little Bunkers there were certain duties which fell to his lot, and he
+understood that one of them was to keep cool when anything happened to
+excite or frighten his brothers and sisters.
+
+The whack he had got on the head, and even the trickle of blood down his
+face, did not cause Russ to lose his head. No, indeed. He, and the other
+little Bunkers, had been in innumerable scrapes before, and the wreck of
+the Eskimo igloo was nothing provided Aunt Jo did not make a lot out of
+it. It just crossed Russ' mind that he ought to have asked his aunt
+before he used the sectional bookcases for building-blocks.
+
+Naturally of an inventive turn of mind, Russ was constantly building new
+things--make-believe houses, engines, automobiles, steamboats, and the
+like--usually with a merry whistle on his lips, too. He was a cheerful
+boy and almost always considered the safety and pleasure of his brothers
+and sisters first.
+
+In companionship with Rose, who was a year younger, the boy cared for
+the other four little Bunkers so successfully that Mother Bunker and
+Daddy Bunker were seldom troubled in their minds regarding any of the
+children. Rose was a particularly helpful little girl, and assisted
+Mother Bunker a good deal. She was a real little housewife.
+
+Vi and Laddie, the twins, were both very active children--active with
+their tongues as well as their bodies. Violet's inquisitiveness knew no
+bounds. She wanted to know about every little thing that happened about
+her. Daddy Bunker said he was sure she must ask questions in her sleep.
+Laddie was an inveterate riddle-asker. He learned every riddle he heard;
+and he tried to make up riddles about everything that happened.
+Sometimes he was successful, and sometimes he was not. But he always
+tried again, having a persevering temperament.
+
+The smallest Bunkers--Margy, whose real name was Margaret, and Mun Bun,
+whose real name was Monroe Ford--were quite as anxious to get out from
+under the heap of boxes as the others. Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo ran to
+their assistance, and soon the six were on their feet to be hugged and
+scolded a little by both their mother and aunt.
+
+"But they do get into such mischief all the time," sighed Mother Bunker.
+"I shall be glad when Daddy gets back and decides what to do for the
+winter. I don't know whether we shall go right back to Pineville or
+not."
+
+For it was in Pineville, Pennsylvania, that we first met the six little
+Bunkers and in the first volume of this series went with them on a nice
+vacation to Mother Bunker's mother. The book telling of this is called
+"Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's."
+
+After that lovely visit in Maine the six little Bunkers had gone to stay
+for a time with each of the following very delightful relatives and
+friends: To Aunt Jo's in Boston, where they were now for a second visit
+over the Thanksgiving holidays; to Cousin Tom's; to Grandpa Ford's; to
+Uncle Fred's; to Captain Ben's; and last of all to Cowboy Jack's.
+
+In that last book, "Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's," they had
+enjoyed themselves so much that they were always talking about it. And
+now, as Vi managed to crawl out from under the wreck of the Eskimo
+igloo, she announced:
+
+"That iggilyoo isn't half as nice to live in as Chief Black Bear's
+wigwam was at Cowboy Jack's. You 'member that wigwam, Russ?"
+
+"I remember it, all right," said Russ, rather ruefully touching the cut
+above his temple and bringing away his finger again to look at the blood
+upon it. "Say, is it going to keep right on bleeding, Mother?"
+
+"Not for long," declared Mother Bunker. "But I think you were rightly
+punished, Russ. Suppose the corner of the section had cut Mun Bun's
+head?"
+
+"I should have been awful sorry," admitted Russ. "I guess I didn't think
+much, Mother. I was only trying to amuse 'em 'cause they were cold."
+
+"It is cold in here, Amy. Don't scold the boy. See! The storm is getting
+worse. I don't know what we shall do about the fire. Parker and Annie
+don't seem to know what to do about the heater and I'm sure I don't.
+Oh, dear!"
+
+"B-r-rrr!" shivered Mother Bunker. "I am not fond of your New England
+winters, Jo. I hope we shall go South----"
+
+"Oh, Mother!" cried Rose excitedly. "Shall we really go down South with
+Daddy? Won't that be glorious?"
+
+"I guess it's warm down there," said Laddie. "Or maybe the steampipes
+hum."
+
+"Do the steampipes hum down South?" asked Violet.
+
+While the four older children were exceedingly interested in this new
+proposal for excitement and adventure, Margy and Mun Bun had returned to
+the great window that overlooked the street and the front steps. They
+flattened their noses against the cold pane and stared down into the
+driving snow. Within this short time, since the storm had begun,
+everything was white and the few people passing in the street were like
+snowmen, for the white flakes stuck to their coats and other wraps.
+
+"Oh, see that man!" Margy cried to Mun Bun. "He almost fell down."
+
+"He's not a man," said her little brother with confidence. "He's a boy."
+
+"Oh! He's a black boy--a colored boy. That's right, so he is."
+
+The figure in the snow stumbled along the sidewalk, clinging to the iron
+railings. When he reached the steps of Aunt Jo's house he slipped down
+upon the second step and seemed unable to get up again. His body sagged
+against the iron railing post, and soon the snow began to heap on him
+and about him.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Margy. "He is a reg'lar snowman."
+
+"He's a black snowman," said Mun Bun. "It must be freezing cold out
+there, Margy."
+
+"Of course it is. He'll turn into a nicicle if he stays there on the
+steps," declared the little girl, with some anxiety.
+
+"And he hasn't a coat and scarf like you and me," Mun Bun said. "Maybe
+he hasn't any Grandma Bell to knit scarfs for him."
+
+"I believe we ought to help him, Mun Bun," said Margy, decidedly. "We
+have plenty of coats."
+
+"And scarfs," agreed Mun Bun. "Let's."
+
+So they immediately left the room quite unnoticed by the older people
+in it. This is a remarkable fact. Whenever Margy and Mun Bun had
+mischief in mind they never asked Mother about it. Now, why was that, do
+you suppose?
+
+The two little ones went swiftly downstairs into the front hall. Both
+had coats and caps and scarfs hung on pegs in a little dressing-room
+near the big door. They knew that they should not touch the outer
+garments belonging to the older children; but they got their own wraps.
+
+"Maybe he's too big for them," murmured Margy. "But I guess he can
+squeeze into the coats--into one of them, anyway."
+
+"Course he can," said Mun Bun. "Mine's a nawful warm coat. And that
+black snowman isn't much bigger than I am, Margy."
+
+"I don't know," said his sister slowly, for she was a little wiser than
+Mun Bun about most things. "Open the door."
+
+Mun Bun could do that. This was the inside door, and they stepped into
+the vestibule. Pressing his face close to the glass of one of the outer
+doors, Mun Bun stared down at the "black snowman" on the step.
+
+"He's going to sleep in the snow," said the little boy. "I guess we've
+got to wake him up, Margy."
+
+He pounded on the glass with his fat fist. He knocked several times
+before the figure below even moved. Then the colored boy, who was not
+more than seventeen or eighteen, turned his head and looked up over his
+shoulder at the faces of the two children in the vestibule.
+
+He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual
+thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded.
+He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold.
+
+"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun, beckoning to the strange boy. "Come up
+here!"
+
+The boy in the snow seemed scarcely to understand. Or else he was so
+cold and exhausted that he could not immediately get up from the step on
+which he was sitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW
+
+
+The fluffy, sticky snowflakes gathered very fast upon the colored boy's
+clothing. As Mun Bun had first announced, he looked like a snowman, only
+his face was grayish-black.
+
+He was slim, and when he finally stood up at the bottom of the house
+steps, he seemed to waver just like a slim reed in the fierce wind that
+drove the snowflakes against him. He hesitated, too. It seemed that he
+scarcely knew whether it was best to mount the steps to Aunt Jo's front
+door or not.
+
+"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun again, and continued to beckon to him
+through the glass of the outer door.
+
+Margy held up her coat and cap, and beckoned to the boy also. He looked
+much puzzled as he slowly climbed the steps. His lips moved and the
+children knew he asked:
+
+"What yo' want of me, child'en?"
+
+Mun Bun tugged at the outer door eagerly, and finally it flew open. He
+shouted in the face of the driving snow:
+
+"Come in here, snowman. Come in here!"
+
+"I ain't no snowman," drawled the colored boy. "But I sure is as cold as
+a snowman could possibly be."
+
+"It's warmer inside here than it is out there," Margy said. "Although
+we're not any too warm. Our steampipes don't hum. But you come in."
+
+"Yes," said Mun Bun, grabbing at the colored boy's cold, wet hand. "You
+come in here. We have some coats and things you can put on so you won't
+be cold."
+
+"Ma goodness!" murmured the boy, staring at the garments the children
+held out to him.
+
+"You can wear 'em," said Margy. "We have more."
+
+"You put on my coat," urged Mun Bun. "It's a boy's coat. You won't want
+Margy's, for she's a girl."
+
+"Ma goodness!" ejaculated the colored boy again, "what yo' child'en
+s'pose I do wid dem t'ings? 'Less I puts 'em up de spout?"
+
+The two children hadn't the first idea as to what he meant by putting
+the clothing up the spout. But the colored boy meant that he might pawn
+them and get some money. He did not offer to take the coats and other
+things that Margy and Mun Bun tried to put into his hands.
+
+Just at this moment Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo, followed by Russ and
+Rose, appeared on the stairs. They had missed the two little folks and,
+as Aunt Jo had said, wrinkling her very pretty nose, that she could
+"just smell mischief," they had all come downstairs to see what the
+matter was.
+
+The colored boy spied them. He had evidently been ill used by somebody,
+for he was very much frightened. He thrust the coats back at the
+children and turned to get out of the vestibule.
+
+But the door had been sucked to by the wind and it was hard to open
+again. It was really quite wonderful that Mun Bun had been able to get
+it open when he and Margy had called the strange colored boy in.
+
+"Don't go!" cried Margy.
+
+"Take my coat, please," urged Mun Bun. "I know it will keep you warm."
+
+And all the time the colored boy was tugging at the handle of the outer
+door and fairly panting, he was so anxious to get out. Mother Bunker was
+the first to reach the door into the vestibule, and she opened it
+instantly.
+
+"Wait!" she commanded the strange boy. "What do you want? What are you
+doing here?"
+
+But by this time the young fellow had jerked open the outer door, and
+now he darted out and almost dived down the snowy steps.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" cried Mun Bun, "he's forgot his coat and cap and scarf. I
+wanted him to wear mine because he was so cold and snowed on."
+
+"And he could have had mine, too," declared Margy quite as earnestly.
+
+"What do these tots mean?" gasped Aunt Jo, holding up both hands.
+
+But Mother Bunker, who understood her little Bunkers very well indeed,
+in a flash knew all about it. She cried:
+
+"The poor boy! Bring him back! He did look cold and wet."
+
+"Oh, he's just a tramp," objected Aunt Jo.
+
+"He's poor, Josephine, and unfortunate," answered Mother Bunker, as
+though that settled all question as to what they should do about the
+colored boy.
+
+Russ Bunker had already got his cap and mackinaw. He darted out of the
+house, down the steps, and followed the shuffling figure of the colored
+boy, now all but hidden by the fast-driving snow. How it did snow, to be
+sure!
+
+"Say! Wait a minute!" Russ called, and caught the strange youth by the
+elbow.
+
+"What yo' want, little boy?" demanded the other. "I ain't done nothin'
+to them child'en. No, I ain't. Dey called me up to dat do' or I wouldn't
+have been there."
+
+"I know that," said Russ, urgently detaining him. "But come back. My
+mother wants to speak to you, and I guess my Aunt Jo'll treat you nice,
+too. You're cold and hungry, aren't you?"
+
+"Sure is," groaned the boy.
+
+"Then they will give you something to eat and let you get warm. You'd
+better come," added Russ very sensibly, "for it looks as if it would be
+a big storm."
+
+"Sure do," agreed the colored boy again. "Ah don' like dis snow. Don't
+have nothin' like dis down whar I come f'om. No, suh."
+
+"Now, come on," said Russ eagerly. "My mother's waiting for us."
+
+The negro lad hesitated no longer. Even Russ saw how weary and weak he
+was as he stumbled on beside him. His shoes were broken, his trousers
+were very ragged, and his coat that he had buttoned up closely was
+threadbare. His cap was just the wreck of a cap!
+
+"Yo' sure she ain't goin' to send for no policeman, little boy?" queried
+the stranger. "I wasn't goin' to take them clo'es. No, suh!"
+
+"She understands," said Russ confidently, and holding to the boy's
+ragged sleeve led him up the steps of Aunt Jo's pretty house.
+
+Russ saw Mr. North, the nice old gentleman who lived over the way,
+staring out of his window at this surprising fact: Aunt Jo allowing a
+beggar to enter at her front door! Still, Mr. North, as well as the
+rest of the neighbors, had decided before this that almost anything
+astonishing could happen while the six little Bunkers were visiting
+their Aunt Jo in Boston's Back Bay district.
+
+"Here he is, Mother," said Russ, entering the hall with the colored boy.
+
+The other children had come downstairs now and all understood just what
+Margy and Mun Bun had tried to do for the stranger. Mother Bunker smiled
+kindly upon the wretched lad, even if Aunt Jo did look on a little
+doubtfully from the background.
+
+"We understand all about it, boy," Mother Bunker said. "The little folks
+only wanted to help you; and so do we. Do you live in Boston?"
+
+"Me, Ma'am? No, Ma'am! I lives a long way souf of dis place. Dat I do!"
+
+"And have you no friends here?"
+
+"Friends? Whar'd I get friends?" he demanded, complainingly. "Dey ain't
+no friends for boys like me up Norf yere."
+
+"Oh! What a story!" exclaimed Aunt Jo. "I know people must be just as
+kind in Boston as they are in the South."
+
+"Mebbe dey is, lady," said the colored boy, looking somewhat frightened
+because of Aunt Jo's vigorous speech. "Mebbe dey is; but dey hides it
+better yere. If yo' beg a mess of vittles in dis town dey puts yo' in
+jail. Down Souf dey axes you is you hongry? Ya-as'm!"
+
+At that Aunt Jo began to bustle about to the great delight of the
+children. She called down to Parker, the cook, and asked her to put out
+a nice meal on the end of the kitchen table and to make coffee. And then
+she said she would go up to the attic where, in a press in which she
+kept garments belonging to a church society, there were some warm
+clothes that might fit the colored boy.
+
+Rose and Vi went with Aunt Jo to help, or to look on; but Margy and the
+three boys stayed with their mother to hear more that the visitor might
+say.
+
+"My name's Sam," he replied to Mother Bunker's question. "Dat is, it's
+the name I goes by, for my hones'-to-goodness name is right silly. But I
+had an Uncle Sam, and I considers I has got a right to be named after
+him. So I is."
+
+"Does your Uncle Sam wear a tall hat and red-and-white striped pants
+with straps under the bootsoles and stars on his vest?" asked Laddie,
+with great interest and eagerness.
+
+"I dunno, little fellow," said Sam. "I ain't never seen my Uncle Sam,
+but I heard my mammy talk about him."
+
+Russ and his mother were much amused at Laddie's question. Russ said:
+
+"That Uncle Sam you are talking about, Laddie, is a white man. He
+couldn't be this Sam's uncle."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Laddie, with quite as much curiosity as his twin
+sister might have shown.
+
+"Very true, why not?" repeated Mrs. Bunker, with some gravity. "You are
+wrong, Russ. Our Uncle Sam is just as much this Sam's uncle as he is
+ours. Now go down to the kitchen, Sam. I hear Parker calling for you.
+Eat your fill. And wait down there, for we shall want to see you
+again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DADDY'S NEWS
+
+
+Aunt Jo found the garments she meant to give to Sam, the strange colored
+boy, and she and Rose and Vi came downstairs with them to the room in
+which the children had been playing at first. Russ and Laddie had set up
+the sectional bookcase once more and the room looked less like the wreck
+of an auction room, Mother Bunker said.
+
+She had returned with Margie and the boys. They thought it better--at
+least, the adults did--to leave Sam in the kitchen with Parker and
+Annie, the maid.
+
+"But I hate to see that boy go away from here in this storm," said
+kind-hearted Aunt Jo. "Perhaps what he says about us Boston people in
+comparison with those where he comes from, is true. The police do arrest
+people for begging."
+
+"Well, we have tramps at Pineville," Mother Bunker observed. "But the
+constable doesn't often arrest any. Not if they behave themselves. But a
+city is different. And this boy did not know how to ask for help, of
+course. Don't you think you can be of help to him, Jo?"
+
+"I'll see," said Aunt Jo. "Wait until he has had a chance to eat what
+Parker has fixed for him."
+
+Just then Annie, the parlormaid, tapped on the door.
+
+"Please'm," she said to Aunt Jo, "that colored boy is goin' down in the
+cellar to fix the furnace."
+
+"To fix the furnace?" cried Aunt Jo.
+
+"Yes'm. He says he has taken care of a furnace before. He's been up
+North here for 'most two years. But he lost his job last month and
+couldn't find another."
+
+"The poor boy," murmured Mother Bunker.
+
+"Yes'm," said Annie. "And when he heard that the house was cold because
+me nor Parker didn't know what to do about the furnace, and the fire was
+most out, he said he'd fix it. So he's down there now with Parker and
+Alexis."
+
+"Did Alexis come home?" cried Russ, who was very fond, as were all the
+Bunker children, of Aunt Jo's great Dane. "Can't we go down and see
+Alexis?"
+
+"And see Sam again," said Margy. "Me and Mun Bun found him, you know."
+
+It seemed to the little girl as though the colored boy had been quite
+taken away from her and from Mun Bun. They had what Mother Bunker
+laughingly called "prior rights" in Sam.
+
+"Well, if he is a handy boy like that," said Aunt Jo, referring to the
+colored boy, "and can fix the furnace, we shall just have to keep him
+until William is well again. Has he finished his dinner, Annie?"
+
+"Not yet, Ma'am. And indeed he was hungry. He ate like a wolf. But when
+he heard about us all being beat by that furnace, down he went. There!
+He's shaking the grate now. You can hear him. He said the ashes had to
+be taken out from under the grate or the fire never would burn. Yes'm."
+
+"Well, then," said Mother Bunker, "you children will have to wait to
+see Sam--and Alexis--until he has finished eating."
+
+"Annie," said Aunt Jo quickly, before the girl could go, "how does
+Alexis act toward this boy?"
+
+"Oh, Ma'am! Alexis just snuffed of him, and then put his head in his
+lap. Alexis says he's all right. And for a black person," added the
+parlormaid, "I do think the boy's all right, Ma'am."
+
+She went out and Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker laughed. The youngsters were
+suddenly excited at that moment by the stopping of a taxicab at the
+door. Vi had spied it from the window, for hard as it snowed she could
+see that.
+
+"Here's Daddy! Here's Daddy!" she cried, dancing up and down.
+
+Mun Bun and Margy joined in the dance, while the other three children
+entered upon a whirlwind rush down the stairway to meet Mr. Bunker at
+the front entrance.
+
+He came in, covered with snow, and with his traveling bag. The
+children's charge upon him would surely have overturned anybody but
+Daddy Bunker.
+
+"I scarcely dare come home at all," he shouted up the stairway to his
+wife and Aunt Jo, "because of these young Indians. You would think they
+were after my very life, if you didn't know that it was my pockets they
+want to search."
+
+He shook off the clinging snow and the clinging children until he had
+removed his overcoat. Russ grabbed up the bag, and Rose and Laddie each
+captured an arm and were fairly carried upstairs by Mr. Bunker. He
+landed breathless and laughing with them in the middle of the big room
+which Aunt Jo had given up to the six little Bunkers as their playroom
+while they visited here in her Back Bay home.
+
+"What is the news, Charles?" asked Mother Bunker, almost as eagerly as
+the children themselves might have asked the question.
+
+"I've got to see Armatage personally--that is all there is about it, and
+Frank Armatage cannot come North."
+
+"Then you are going?" said his wife, and the children almost held their
+several breaths to catch Daddy Bunker's reply.
+
+Their father looked around upon the eager little faces. Then he glanced
+at his wife and smiled.
+
+"What do you think?" he asked. "Had I better say before so many little
+pop-eyed, curious folk? I--don't--know----"
+
+"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Rose.
+
+"We want to go with you," breathed Russ.
+
+"I want to go!" cried Vi. "Where is it?"
+
+"If Vi goes, can't I go too?" Margy pleaded.
+
+"I'm not going to stay here, Daddy, if the rest go," declared Laddie.
+
+But Mun Bun just walked gravely over to his father and put up both his
+arms.
+
+"Mun Bun go with Daddy," he said confidently.
+
+"The blessed baby!" cried Aunt Jo.
+
+"It doesn't look much as though they appreciated your hospitality,
+Josephine," said Daddy Bunker to his sister, smiling over the top of Mun
+Bun's head as he held the little fellow.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose instantly, "we have had an awfully nice time here. We
+always do have nice times here. But we want to go with Daddy, and so
+does Mother."
+
+"Two words for yourself and one for me, Rose," laughed her mother. "But
+if it is going to take some time, Charles, I think we would all like to
+go along."
+
+"I had Mr. Armatage on the long distance telephone," said Daddy Bunker,
+smiling. "He was in Savannah. His plantation is some distance from that
+city. And he has invited us all to spend the Christmas holidays with him
+at his country home. What do you think of that?"
+
+It was pretty hard for Mother Bunker to say what she thought of it
+because of the gleeful shouts of the children. It did not much matter to
+Russ, and Rose, and Violet, and Laddie, and Margy, and Mun Bun where
+they went with Daddy Bunker. It was just the idea of going to some new
+place and to have new adventures.
+
+"Well," said the gentleman finally, "the boat sails day after to-morrow.
+Believing that you would approve, Amy, and knowing Jo couldn't go, I
+have already secured reservations for us eight Bunkers--two big
+staterooms. The boat is the _Kammerboy_, of the Blue Pennant Line."
+
+The six little Bunkers were so delighted by this news and the prospect
+of a boat journey into warmer waters than those that ebb and flow about
+Boston, that they almost forgot the colored boy whose entry into the
+house had been brought about by Margy and Mun Bun.
+
+But the latter, sitting in Daddy's lap, a little later began to prattle
+about his "black snowman," and so the story of Sam came out.
+
+By that time the steampipes were humming and the whole house was warm
+and cozy again.
+
+"And we can thank Sam for that, Charles," said Mother Bunker. "William
+is ill, and you would have had to go down and fight that furnace if this
+boy had not come along and proved himself so handy."
+
+"Maybe we'd all better go down and thank him," said Rose soberly.
+
+Daddy Bunker laughed. "I guess you want to get better acquainted with
+this wonderful Sam," he said. "A right nice boy, is he, Mother Bunker?"
+
+"He seems to be," agreed Mother Bunker. "And he certainly needed
+friends. I think Jo will keep him for a while. At least, as long as
+William is laid up."
+
+A little later the children all trooped down to the big kitchen. The
+good-natured cook did not mind their presence. And Alexis, the great
+Dane, showed plainly that he was delighted to see his young playfellows.
+Alexis was a very intelligent dog and it was no wonder that the servants
+and Aunt Jo considered that anybody of whom the dog approved must be
+"all right." Alexis had approved of Sam.
+
+Sam had recovered from his weariness, and, no longer hungry and his next
+few meals in prospect, his spirits had rebounded from their low ebb to
+cheerfulness. The kindness shown him, and the praise the women had
+heaped upon him because of his mastery of the difficult furnace,
+delighted Sam.
+
+"I'm sure obliged to you child'en for as'in' me into this yere house,"
+he said, grinning at Margy and Mun Bun. "Dis is sure just as fine folks
+as we have down Souf. Dey done fed de hongry an' clothed de naked. An'
+mighty good clo'es, too."
+
+He had on the suit Aunt Jo had found for him and almost new shoes,
+while an overcoat and a hat which he was to wear when he went out hung
+behind the cellar door. There was a small room off the kitchen in which
+Sam was to sleep. To the colored boy's mind he was "right good fixed."
+
+"Let me have dat mouf organ, little boy," said Sam, observing Laddie's
+harmonica. "I show yo' sumpin'. Now, cl'ar de way. I's goin' to work de
+mouf organ and dance fo' yo'."
+
+The women stopped in their work to watch him, as well as the children.
+Sam slid out into the middle of the floor, began to jerk a tune out of
+the harmonica, and commenced a slow dance--a sort of double shuffle.
+
+But he soon pivoted and slid much faster, all in time with the sounds he
+drew from the harmonica. Annie and Parker applauded his unexpected
+steps, and the children began to shriek in delight.
+
+"Now we has it!" exclaimed Sam, removing the instrument from between his
+lips, and panting from his exertions. "Now we skates down de floor. Now,
+turn again and back-along. I's a-comin', child'en--I's a-comin'. See me
+dance Jim Crow! Here I comes and dere I goes! Now, de pigeon-wing----"
+
+He cut a most surprising figure, both hands flapping in the air and his
+slim body bent and twisted at a curious angle. With a resounding slap of
+the sole of his shoe on the floor he brought the dance to an end and
+fell panting into his chair.
+
+"You're some dancer, Sam," cried the eager Annie. "Ain't he, Parker?"
+
+"What do you call that figure?" demanded Parker. "A pigeon-wing?"
+
+"Dat's what it is," breathed Sam, smiling widely. "My own particular
+invention, dat is. Nobody can't do dat like I can. No, suh!"
+
+Just then their Mother called the six little Bunkers upstairs, and they
+had to leave the kitchen. But they would all have liked to see Sam cut
+that pigeon-wing again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS
+
+
+How busy the six little Bunkers were on the next day you can easily
+imagine. Such a packing of bags and steamer trunks! Though of course
+Mother Bunker did most of that, although Rose helped some. And such a
+running about the bedrooms and upper halls of Aunt Jo's house asking if
+this thing shouldn't be put in, or that thing shouldn't be left out!
+
+The little people could think of more articles that might be needed down
+South than ten grown-ups could imagine! Laddie was sure they would need
+their bathing suits that they had had at Captain Ben's. Mun Bun, who had
+been playing with Margy in the yard making big snowballs, came in to ask
+his mother if they couldn't take just one of the biggest snowballs with
+them in one of the trunks, because Sam, the colored boy, said there
+wouldn't be any snow down South.
+
+"But, my dear!" exclaimed Mother Bunker, laughing, "we are going down
+South just to escape the snow and the cold. Why carry it with us?"
+
+"But maybe the little boys and girls down there will want to see some
+real snow," said Mun Bun, who could almost always find an answer for any
+question like this.
+
+"Then they will have to come up North to see it," declared his mother
+decidedly. "We cannot take snow along on the boat, that is sure."
+
+Violet found at least a hundred brand new questions to ask about the
+preparations for the trip. Mother Bunker finally called her a
+"chatterbox" and begged her to stop.
+
+"How do you suppose I can attend to a dozen different things at once,
+Violet, and answer your questions, too?"
+
+"Never mind the things, Mother," Vi replied. "Just tell me----"
+
+"Not another question!" exclaimed Mother Bunker. "Stop it!"
+
+And then she put out her hand for something to put in the trunk she was
+packing, and actually squealed when her hand unexpectedly met Alexis's
+cold, damp nose.
+
+"Goodness me!" cried Mother Bunker. "That dog is a nuisance. That is the
+third time, at least, that I have tried to pack his nose in this trunk.
+Every time I reach out for something he thinks I want to pet him."
+
+This delighted Margy and Mun Bun very much. The idea of packing the
+great Dane in a steamer trunk was really quite ridiculous. Violet did
+not venture any more questions immediately however; but Laddie suddenly
+broke out with a new riddle.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother!" he cried. "Do you know the difference between a
+dog and an elephant?"
+
+"I should hope so!" Mother Bunker said, chuckling. "But I suppose you
+want me to give the riddle up so that you can have the pleasure of
+telling me what the difference is between Alexis and an elephant."
+
+"Not just Alexis; any dog," urged Laddie. "And, of course, it would be
+real polite of you if you said you didn't know," added the little boy.
+
+"Very well; what is the difference between an elephant and a dog,
+Laddie?"
+
+"Why," cried Laddie very eagerly, "an elephant owns a trunk of his very
+own; and a dog only wants to get into a trunk. There now!"
+
+"But all dogs don't want to get into trunks," objected Vi. "Do they? Do
+they, now, Mother?"
+
+"I am afraid Laddie's riddle is not as good as some he makes up," said
+Mother Bunker. "For you know, dogs have trunks as well as elephants."
+
+Her eyes twinkled as she said it, for she knew she was going to puzzle
+her little brood. At once they all broke out with questions and
+exclamations. How could that be? They had seen, as Vi said, "oceans of
+dogs" and none of them had had a nose long enough to be called a trunk,
+like the elephants they had seen at the circus.
+
+"Mother is just puzzling us," Laddie said. "How can a dog have a trunk
+when his nose is short and blunt? At least, most dogs' noses are short
+and blunt."
+
+"Each dog has a trunk nevertheless," declared Mother Bunker,
+laughing. "And so have you, and so have I."
+
+"I have a suitcase," announced Mun Bun gravely. "I don't have a trunk."
+
+Mother Bunker swept Mun Bun into her arms then and kissed his chubby
+neck.
+
+"Of course you have a trunk, honey-boy," she cried. "All your little
+body between your shoulders and your legs is your trunk. So you all have
+trunks, and so do the dogs."
+
+The children laughed delightedly at this, but Laddie suddenly stopped
+laughing.
+
+"Why!" he cried out in great glee, "then the elephant, Mother, has two
+trunks. I guess I can make a _good_ riddle out of that, can't I?"
+
+Russ and Rose took Alexis downstairs after that so that he would not be
+in the way. They wanted to see Sam again, anyway. And they asked him to
+dance for them.
+
+"I'm going to learn how to cut that pigeon wing," Russ declared. "You do
+it again, please, Sam. I ought to be able to learn it if I see you do it
+often enough."
+
+However, Russ did not succeed in this ambition. There really was not
+time for him to learn the trick, for the next morning, very early, the
+Bunker family started for the boat. The snowstorm had long since ceased,
+and the streets had been cleaned. William had recovered from his attack
+of neuralgia and drove them in the big closed car to the dock where the
+_Kammerboy_ lay.
+
+  [Illustration: IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS.
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 46]
+
+It was a great white steamer with three smoke stacks and a wireless
+mast. There was so much to see when they first went aboard that the six
+little Bunkers could not possibly observe everything with only two eyes
+apiece! They wanted to be down in the saloon and in the staterooms that
+Daddy Bunker had engaged and out on the deck all at the same time. And
+how were they to do that?
+
+Russ and Rose, however, were allowed to go out on deck and watch the
+ship get out of the dock and steam down the harbor. But Mother Bunker at
+first kept the four smaller children close to her side.
+
+"I never knew Boston was so big," said Rose, as they looked back at the
+smoky city. "I guess Aunt Jo never showed us all of it, did she, Russ?"
+
+"I don't suppose if we lived there a whole year we should be able to
+see it all," declared her brother wisely. "Maybe we could see it better
+from an airplane. I'd like to go up in an airplane."
+
+"No, no! Don't do that, Russ! Maybe the engine would get stalled like
+the motor-car engine does, and then you couldn't get down," said Rose,
+very much worried by this thought.
+
+"Well, we could see the city better."
+
+"We can see it pretty well from here," said Rose. "And see the islands.
+There is a lighthouse, Russ. Would you like to live in a lighthouse?"
+
+"Yes, I would, for a while," agreed her brother. "But I'd rather be
+right on this boat, sailing out into the ocean. Just think, Rose! We've
+never been away out at sea before."
+
+"There was lots of ocean at Captain Ben's," said the girl. "I suppose
+the ocean is all the same everywhere. Just water. I hope it stays flat."
+
+"Stays flat?" repeated Russ, opening his eyes very wide.
+
+"Yes," said Rose gravely. "I don't like water when it's bumpy. It makes
+me feel funny in my stomach when it's that way."
+
+"Oh! It won't be rough," said Russ, with much assurance. "I heard Daddy
+say we were going to sail into summer seas. And that must be warm and
+pleasant water. Don't you think so?"
+
+Rose was looking over the rail now. She pointed.
+
+"That doesn't look as though the water was warm," she cried. "See the
+lumps of ice, Russ? It must be ice water. Where do you suppose the
+summer seas are?"
+
+"We are going to them," declared her brother with confidence. "Daddy
+said so. He said we would go out to a place he called the Gulf Stream
+and that the water would be warm there and the air would be warmer,
+too."
+
+"What do you think of that?" gasped Rose. "A stream in an ocean? I guess
+he was joking."
+
+"Oh, no, he wasn't. He said it real serious. He told Aunt Jo about it."
+
+"But how can a stream--that means a river--be running in the ocean?
+There wouldn't be any banks!" declared the doubtful Rose.
+
+"Let's go and ask him about it," suggested Russ. "And we'll want to keep
+on the lookout for that Gulf Stream too. I wouldn't want to go past it
+without seeing it."
+
+They were just about to hunt for Daddy Bunker in the crowd on deck when
+Laddie came running to them. He was very much excited and he could
+hardly speak when he reached his older brother and sister.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped the smaller boy.
+
+"What is the matter, Laddie?" demanded Russ.
+
+"If it is another riddle, Laddie, take your time. We'll stop and listen
+to it."
+
+"It isn't a riddle--Yes, it is, too! I guess it's a sort of riddle,
+anyway," said Laddie. "Have you seen him?"
+
+"That sounds like a riddle," said Rose. "And of course we haven't seen
+him. What is the answer?"
+
+"Who is it that you are asking your riddle about?" demanded Russ.
+
+"Mun Bun," declared Laddie, breathing very hard, for he had run all the
+way from the stateroom.
+
+"Mun Bun isn't a riddle," said his sister. "He can't be."
+
+"Well, he's lost," declared Laddie. "We can't find him. He was there one
+minute, and just the next he was gone. And Mother can't find him, and
+Vi's gone to hunt for Daddy, and--and--anyhow, Mun Bun has lost himself
+and we don't any of us know what has become of him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SEA-EAGLE
+
+
+Mun Bun was not a very disobedient little boy; but as Daddy Bunker said,
+he had a better "forgetery" than he had memory. Mun Bun quite forgot
+that Mother Bunker had told him not to leave the bigger stateroom where
+she was setting things to rights in her usual careful way. For, as they
+were to be several days on the steamship, she must have a place for
+things and everything in its place, or she could not comfortably take
+care of Daddy and six children.
+
+Then, Mun Bun was so quick! Just as Laddie said: one minute he was
+there, and the next minute he wasn't. He seemed to glide right out of
+sight. Cowboy Jack had called Mun Bun a blob of quicksilver; and you
+know you cannot put your finger on a blob of quicksilver, it runs so
+fast.
+
+That is what Mun Bun had done. Mother Bunker's back was turned; Russ and
+Rose were on deck; the other three children, the twins and Margy, were
+busy prying into every corner of the stateroom to "see what it was meant
+for," when Mun Bun just stepped out.
+
+How long he had been gone when their mother discovered the little boy's
+absence, of course she did not know. She sent Laddie and Vi flying for
+help--the one for Russ and Rose and the other for their father. She
+dared not leave the staterooms herself for fear Mun Bun would reappear
+and be frightened if he did not find her.
+
+She called loudly for him, without getting any answer. Other passengers
+began to take an interest in the loss of the little boy. Stewards began
+to hurry about, looking for a lost boy in the most unlikely places. Some
+of these cubbyholes were so tiny that a canary bird could scarcely have
+hidden in them, while other places where the stewards looked would have
+hidden a giant.
+
+When Mr. Bunker appeared in haste from the smoking cabin, having been
+found by Vi, Mrs. Bunker fairly cast herself into his arms.
+
+"Oh, Charles!" she cried. "He's fallen overboard!"
+
+"You would never think of such a thing, Amy," returned her husband, "if
+the ship wasn't entirely surrounded by water."
+
+"How can you joke, Charles?" she cried.
+
+"I don't joke. Do you know how high the bulwarks are? A little boy like
+Mun Bun could not have fallen overboard. He could not climb the
+bulwarks."
+
+"I never thought of that," agreed Mother Bunker more cheerfully.
+
+"He might have fallen into one of the holds; but I don't believe he has
+done even that. And there are so many officers and men going up and down
+the ladders that I believe he has not even gone off this deck. For
+somebody would be sure to see him."
+
+"Of course he didn't go ashore again?" suggested Rose, who with the
+other children had returned to the staterooms.
+
+"Oh, no. We had started--were well down the harbor in fact--before he
+disappeared."
+
+"Mun Bun is a reg'lar riddle," said Laddie. "He runs away and we can't
+find him; and we hunt for him and there he ain't. Then he comes back by
+himself--sometimes."
+
+"Is that a riddle?" asked his twin scornfully.
+
+"We-ell, maybe it will be when I get it fixed right."
+
+"I don't think much of it," declared Violet. "And I want to find Mun
+Bun."
+
+"Don't you other children get lost on this big ship," said Mother
+Bunker. "Don't go off this floor."
+
+"You mean deck, don't you, Mother?" asked Russ politely. "Floors are
+decks on board ship. Daddy said so."
+
+"You'd better go and look for him, Russ; and you, too, Rose," the
+anxious woman said, as Daddy Bunker strode away. "But you other three
+stay right here by me. I thought that traveling on the train with you
+children was sometimes trying; but living on shipboard is going to be
+worse."
+
+"Yes, Mother," said Rose gravely. "There are so many more places for Mun
+Bun to hide in aboard this ship. Come, Russ."
+
+The two older Bunker children did not know where to look for their
+little brother. But Russ had an idea. He usually did have pretty bright
+ideas, and Rose admitted this fact.
+
+"You know we got up early this morning," Russ said to his sister, "and
+we have been awful busy. And here it is noontime. Mun Bun doesn't
+usually have a nap until after lunch, but I guess he's gone somewhere
+and hidden away and gone to sleep. And when Mun Bun's asleep it is awful
+hard to wake him. You know that, Rose Bunker."
+
+"Yes, I know it," admitted Rose. "But where could he have gone?"
+
+Russ thought over that question pretty hard. Daddy Bunker would have
+said that the little lost boy's older brother was trying to put himself
+in Mun Bun's place and thinking Mun Bun's thoughts.
+
+Now, if Mun Bun had been very sleepy and had crept away to take a nap,
+as he often did after lunch when they were at home, without saying
+anything to Mother Bunker about it, where would he have gone to take
+that nap on this steamboat?
+
+Mun Bun was a bold little boy. He was seldom afraid of anything or
+anybody. Had he not instantly made friends with Sam, the strange
+colored boy, at Aunt Jo's house? So Russ knew he would not be afraid to
+run right out on the deck among the other passengers.
+
+"But that would not be a nice place to go for a nap," said Russ aloud.
+
+"What wouldn't?" asked Rose, quite surprised by her brother's sudden
+speech.
+
+"Out here on the deck. No, he didn't come out here at all," said Russ,
+with confidence.
+
+Russ was an ingenious boy, as we have seen. Once having got the right
+idea in his head he proceeded to think it out.
+
+"Come on back, Rose," he said suddenly, seizing his sister's hand.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To find Mun Bun."
+
+"But he isn't with Mother!"
+
+"I bet--No, I don't mean that word," said Russ. "I mean I _think_ he is
+with Mother, only she doesn't know it."
+
+"Why, Russ Bunker, that sounds awfully silly!"
+
+But she followed after him in much haste. They came running to the two
+staterooms which Daddy Bunker had engaged. Mother and the other
+children were the center of a group of sympathetic people in the
+corridor.
+
+"Oh! did you find him?" Rose cried.
+
+"Of course not," said Vi. "Where should we find him?"
+
+"Here," announced Russ, pushing through the crowd.
+
+"Of course he isn't here, Russ," said Vi. "Can't you count us? Mun Bun
+is not here."
+
+"Well, let me see," said the boy, and he pushed into the bigger
+stateroom where his mother had been working when Mun Bun disappeared.
+Then he opened the door between that room and the other room. It was all
+quiet in there. He glanced into the two berths. There was nobody in
+either of them.
+
+"You are mistaken, Russ," whispered Rose, looking in at the door he had
+left open. "He can't be here. Daddy has just come and says the captain
+has promised to have the ship searched."
+
+But without making any reply Russ Bunker went down on his knees, looked
+under the lower berth, and then stretched an arm under and grabbed
+something with his hand.
+
+A sleepy squeal came from under the berth. Russ, laughing, dragged at
+the chubby ankle his hand had grasped. Mun Bun's cross, sleepy voice was
+raised in protest:
+
+"Don't you! Don't you! Let me be!"
+
+Mother and Daddy Bunker came running.
+
+"That blessed baby!" cried his mother.
+
+"That pestiferous youngster!" exclaimed his father.
+
+But he smiled happily, too, when Mun Bun was completely drawn out from
+under the berth by Russ and was in his mother's arms again. She sat down
+and rocked him to and fro while he "came awake" and looked around at the
+others.
+
+"You have begun well," said Daddy Bunker gravely. "Stirring up the whole
+ship's company before we are out of sight of land! I must hurry and tell
+the captain to call off his sea-dogs. The lost is found."
+
+"What are sea-dogs?" demanded Vi. "Do they have dogs at sea to hunt for
+lost children--dogs like Alexis?"
+
+Nobody answered that question, but Rose and Russ, trotting along the
+deck beside their father, were more fortunate in getting their questions
+answered.
+
+"Are we really going to sail out of sight of land, Daddy?" asked Rose.
+
+"We certainly are," said Mr. Bunker.
+
+"But there is a lot of land," said the girl, pointing. "We can't lose
+all that, can we?"
+
+"That is just what we are going to do. You watch. By and by the land
+will be only a line on the horizon, and then it will fade out of sight
+entirely."
+
+So Russ and Rose remained on deck to watch the land disappear. Rose
+expected it to go something like a "fade-out" on the moving picture
+screen. The disappearance of the land proved to be a very long matter,
+however, and the two children went below for lunch when the first call
+came.
+
+The purser had arranged for the Bunker family at a side table where they
+could be as retired as though they were at home. There were not many
+other children aboard, and the purser liked children anyway. So between
+his good offices and that of the colored stewards, the Bunkers were well
+provided for.
+
+Even the captain--a big, bold-looking man with a gray mustache and lots
+of glittering buttons on his blue coat--stopped at the Bunker table to
+ask about Mun Bun.
+
+"So that is the fellow I was going to put about my ship for and go back
+to Boston to see if he had been left on the dock!" he said very gruffly,
+but smiling with his eyes at Mun Bun, who smiled back. "He looks like
+too big a boy to make such a disturbance on a man's ship."
+
+"Oh, I don't think, Captain Briggs, he will do it again," said Mother
+Bunker.
+
+"I dess wanted to sleep," murmured Mun Bun, holding up his spoon.
+
+"Next time you want your watch below," said Captain Briggs, shaking his
+head, "you report to me first. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, Ma'am," said Mun Bun, quite sure that he had said the right thing
+although they all laughed at him.
+
+Mother Bunker kept the little fellow close to her thereafter; but Vi and
+Laddie followed the two older children out on deck. There was a
+comfortably filled passenger list on the _Kammerboy_; but the wind was
+rather heavy that afternoon and many of them remained in the cabins. But
+the four children had a great game of hide and seek all over the
+forward deck.
+
+Finally Daddy Bunker appeared from aft to make sure that none of the
+quartette was lost. He took Laddie and Vi below with him after a time
+and the two older children were left alone. They found seats in the lee
+of what the ship's men called "the house" and sat down to rest and talk.
+But every now and then one of them jumped up to look astern to see if
+the land had disappeared, as Daddy Bunker said it would.
+
+"It's a long time going," said Rose.
+
+"Well, there is a lot of it to go. Don't you remember," said Russ, "how
+big the North American continent is in the geography?"
+
+"Oh! Is that it?" cried Rose.
+
+"Yes. We've got to lose the whole top part of North America," her
+confident brother declared.
+
+There was some sort of officer (he had brass buttons and wore a cap, so
+Russ and Rose knew he must be an officer) pacing the deck, back and
+forth, not far from their chairs. Every time he came near he threw a
+pleasant word to the brother and sister. Russ and Rose began to ask him
+questions and sometimes trotted beside him as he paced his lookout
+watch. Violet would have delighted in this man, for he seemed to know
+almost everything about ships and the sea and was perfectly willing to
+answer questions.
+
+Rose asked him if, after they had lost the land, they would find the
+Gulf Stream that Daddy Bunker had told them about.
+
+"Pretty soon thereafter, little lady," said the man.
+
+"And--and does it have banks?" pursued Rose.
+
+"Does what have banks?" the man asked, in surprise. "The Gulf Stream?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"No," chuckled the sailor. "It's not like a river--not just like one."
+
+"Then how do you know when you come to the Gulf Stream?" demanded Russ.
+"I should think you'd sail over it without knowing."
+
+But the sailor told them that the stream, or current, was very broad,
+that the water was much warmer than the surrounding ocean, and that the
+Gulf Stream was even a different color from the colder ocean.
+
+"Oh, we won't miss it," declared the man, shaking his head.
+
+Just then Rose saw something out over the ocean, sailing low and making
+a great flapping of black wings. She pointed eagerly:
+
+"There's a buzzard, Russ--like those we saw in Texas."
+
+"Oh, no, little lady, that isn't a buzzard," said the sailor.
+
+"It must be a gull. There were lots of them back in the harbor, you
+know, Rose," her brother rejoined.
+
+"And it's not a gull," said the man, squinting his eyes to look at the
+distant bird. "It's too big. I declare! I think that's an eagle."
+
+"Oh! An eagle like those on top of the flagstaffs?" cried Russ.
+
+"And on the gold pieces?" added Rose, for she had a gold piece that had
+been given her on her last birthday.
+
+"No, not that kind of eagle," said the man. "But he's related. Yes, sir;
+it's a sea-eagle; some call 'em, I guess rightly, ospreys. They're
+fishers, but they can't roost on the sea. That one's a long way off
+shore. Something is the matter with him."
+
+"Do you suppose he's hungry?" asked Rose doubtfully.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if hunger drove him out here so far from land," said
+the sailor, smiling. "But he's been hurt. You can see how his left wing
+droops. Yes, something has happened to that bird."
+
+The bird beat his way heavily toward the ship. First it rose a little
+way in the air, and then it slid down as though almost helpless, beating
+its good wing prodigiously to keep from falling into the water.
+
+"He's making bad weather of it," said the sailor. "Poor chap. If he
+comes aboard----"
+
+"Oh! we'll feed him and mend his wing," cried Rose. "He's just
+like--Why, Russ Bunker! that poor bird is just what Aunt Jo called poor
+Sam, a tramp. That is what he is."
+
+"A sea-going tramp, I guess," said the sailor, laughing.
+
+But he watched the coming sea bird quite as interestedly as did the two
+children. The creature seemed to have selected the steamship as its
+objective point, and it beat its good wing furiously so as to get into
+the course of the _Kammerboy_.
+
+"Can we have the bird if it gets aboard, Mr. Officer?" asked Russ
+eagerly.
+
+"If I can catch it without killing it--for they are very fierce
+birds--it shall be yours," promised the man.
+
+At once, therefore, the eagerness and interest of Russ and Rose Bunker
+were vastly increased. They clung to the rail and watched the
+approaching bird with anxious eyes. It was coming head on toward the bow
+of the ship. Would the _Kammerboy_ get past so swiftly that the
+sea-eagle could not reach it?
+
+The uncertainty of this, and the evident effort of the great bird to fly
+a little farther, greatly excited the two older of the six little
+Bunkers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS
+
+
+The steamship was pursuing her course so swiftly, but so easily, that
+Russ and Rose Bunker scarcely realized that the chances of the big
+bird's landing on the craft were very slim. The children raced along the
+deck toward the bows, believing that the big bird would alight there.
+Their friend, the lookout officer, however, remained at his post.
+
+The big wings of the great sea-eagle beat the air heavily. They were
+covered with almost black feathers above while the feathers on the under
+side of the wings were pearl-gray, a contrast that Rose said was
+"awfully pretty."
+
+"I don't see anything pretty about that poor, struggling bird," said
+Russ shortly. "He's hurt bad. I hope he gets here all right, but--Oh!
+There he goes!"
+
+It was a fact that the big bird almost fell into the sea, being
+weakened. The bow of the _Kammerboy_ swept past the struggling creature.
+Russ and Rose lifted a joined complaint:
+
+"Oh, he's drowned! He drowned!"
+
+It was true that the bird was not a water-fowl and, as the officer had
+told the children, could not "roost" on the sea. It was not web-footed,
+so could not swim. And with an injured wing it was wonderful that it had
+kept up as long as it had, for it was now far, far from the shore.
+
+But the bird had wonderful courage. Although plunged into the water and
+suffering one wave to break and pour over him, the great bird sprang
+into the air once more. He would not give up the fight! Russ and Rose
+saw the flashing eyes, the hooked beak parted, and every other evidence
+of the creature's putting forth a last remaining effort to reach a
+secure resting place for his feet.
+
+And he made it! He beat his powerful wings for the last time and shot up
+over the rail of the steamship. The children shouted with delight. Other
+passengers had been attracted to the place. The officer who had made
+himself the friend of Russ and Rose was prepared for the bird's coming
+inboard. He ran with a piece of strong netting in his hands, and as the
+bird came thumping down on the deck, the man cast this net about the
+creature.
+
+Then what a flapping and croaking and struggling there was! A sailor ran
+forward with a boat-stretcher and wanted to hit the bird; but Russ and
+Rose screamed, and the officer sent the man away.
+
+"We're not going to kill the bird. These little folks want it alive,"
+said the officer. "And so we are going to make a prisoner of it and mend
+that wing if we can."
+
+"Aye, aye, Quartermaster," said the sailor who had tried to interfere.
+
+"See if you can find a big poultry cage," said the officer. "We had live
+turkeys aboard for the Thanksgiving run, and what would hold a turkey
+ought to hold a sea-eagle. Lively now!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, and hurried away.
+
+While they waited for the cage the quartermaster warned the two Bunker
+children to remain well back from the struggling bird, for it might get
+away.
+
+"He is certainly a strong bird," said one of the other passengers,
+looking on, too, from a safe distance. "Don't you think he'd better be
+killed, Officer?"
+
+"Oh, no! Oh, no!" chorused Russ and Rose.
+
+"Of course not. You're one of those folks, sir, that would kill an
+American eagle, too--the bird that is supposed to represent the best
+fighting spirit of this country. No, sir! this bird is going to have his
+chance. If we can heal his wounds, we will set him free again--hey,
+little folks?"
+
+"Of course we will," said Russ stoutly.
+
+"Yes, sir! we'll set him free," agreed Rose. "But when you do it I am
+going down to the stateroom. I think he is pretty savage."
+
+It was quite true. The injured bird was savage. But when Daddy Bunker
+heard about the capture and saw the sea-eagle in its cage, he pointed
+out the fact that there was good reason for the bird to be savage if it
+had a broken wing.
+
+"You would be cross if you had a broken arm, Russ," Daddy Bunker said
+soberly, "So come away and let the poor bird alone for a while. Maybe it
+will eat and drink if it is not watched so closely."
+
+It was found that a bullet had passed through the fleshy part of the
+great bird's wing. The quartermaster declared that, without much doubt,
+the bird had been shot at from a small boat and by some idle and
+thoughtless "sportsman."
+
+"It is wrong," Daddy Bunker said, "to call such people 'sportsmen.'
+There is no real sport in shooting at and laming an inoffensive
+creature, one that cannot be made use of for food. That excuse does not
+hold in this case."
+
+"True word, sir," said the quartermaster. "It was a wicked trick, I'll
+say. But I think the bird will recover very shortly. Perhaps the little
+folks can see the bird released before we get to Charleston."
+
+"Not me!" cried Rose again. "I am going right downstairs when you open
+that cage and set him free. He has got such a wicked eye."
+
+And truly, interested as she was in the poor bird, Rose Bunker did not
+often go near him during the time he was in captivity. She found other
+things to interest her about the swiftly sailing _Kammerboy_.
+
+So did all the other Bunkers. For what interested the six little Bunkers
+was sure to interest Daddy and Mother Bunker. It just _had_ to. As
+Mother Bunker observed, Mun Bun was not the only one of her flock over
+whom she must keep pretty close watch.
+
+They were really well behaved children; but mischief seemed to crop up
+so very easily in their lives. Daddy said that any Bunker could get into
+more adventures nailed into a wooden cage no bigger than the turkey
+crate the great sea-eagle was housed in than other children could find
+in a ten acre lot!
+
+Living at sea on this great steamship was a good deal like living in a
+hotel. And the little Bunkers had lived in hotels, and liked the fun of
+it. Traveling by water was even more fun than traveling on a train. The
+_Kammerboy_ was a fine big ship and there was so much to see and to
+learn that was new and surprising that that first night none of them
+really wanted to go to bed.
+
+Although even that was a new experience. The staterooms were different
+from the berths in a sleeping car. Laddie thought they ought all to be
+tied into their berths so, if the ship rolled, they would not fall out.
+
+"For I don't like falling out of bed," he said. "I always bump myself."
+
+The steamship did not roll that night, however. At least if it did the
+little Bunkers did not know it. They slept soundly and were up bright
+and early in the morning and were all dressed and out on deck in the
+sunshine long before the first breakfast call came.
+
+They made a call on the captive sea-eagle before breakfast and he seemed
+to be recovering, for he snapped his beak viciously when they drew near
+and spread his wings as far as the cage would allow.
+
+"I don't think he's very nice," said Rose. "He doesn't seem to know we
+were kind to him."
+
+"What are you going to do with him, Rose?" asked Vi.
+
+"Let him go when his wing is well."
+
+"But I guess he doesn't know that," said Laddie. "If he did he'd feel
+better about it."
+
+"He bites," said Mun Bun reflectively. "I'd rather have Alexis. Alexis
+doesn't bite."
+
+"Alexis would bite if he thought anybody was going to hurt him," said
+Russ. "But we can't make this eagle understand."
+
+"Why not?" immediately demanded Vi.
+
+"Because we can't talk bird-talk," replied Rose, giggling.
+
+"When I go to school I'll learn bird-talk," announced Mun Bun. "And I'll
+learn to talk dog-talk and cat-talk, too. Then they'll all know what I
+mean."
+
+"That is a splendid idea, dear," Rose said warmly. "You do just that."
+
+"S'posing they don't teach those languages where you go to school, Mun
+Bun?" suggested Laddie gravely. "I guess they don't in all schools. They
+don't in the Pineville school, do they, Russ?"
+
+"I'll ask Mother to send me to a school where they do," declared Mun Bun
+before Russ could reply. "I don't need to learn to talk our kind of
+talk. I know that already. But birds and dogs and cats are different."
+
+"You talk pretty good, I guess, Mun Bun," said Russ. Mun Bun was quite
+proud of this. He did not know that he often said "t" for "c" and "w"
+for "r." "But you will be a long time learning to speak so that this
+bird could understand."
+
+"Well, I shall try," the littlest Bunker declared confidently.
+
+Anyhow, it was decided that the sea-eagle would have to be released
+before Mun Bun learned to talk the eagle language. The quartermaster who
+was Russ and Rose's particular friend, came along with some raw meat
+scraps for the big bird; but the children had to go to breakfast before
+the bird gobbled these up. He was very shy.
+
+Later in the forenoon Russ and Rose were walking along the deck near a
+little house amidships and they heard a funny crackling sound--a
+crackling and snapping like a fresh wood fire. They stopped and looked
+all around.
+
+"I don't see any smoke," said Russ. "But there's a fire somewhere."
+
+"What is that mast with the wires up there for, Russ?" asked his sister,
+looking upward.
+
+"Oh! Daddy told me that was the wireless mast," Russ exclaimed.
+
+"But that can't be," said Rose warmly. "It has wires hitched to it; so
+it can't be wire_less_."
+
+"You know, Rose, they talk from ship to ship, and to the shore, by
+wireless."
+
+"What does that mean?" returned the girl. "A telegraph?"
+
+"That's it!" cried Russ. "And I guess that is what the crackling is.
+Listen!"
+
+"Isn't it a fire, then, that we hear?" for the crackling sound
+continued.
+
+"That's the electric spark," said her brother eagerly. "That is what it
+must be. Let's peep into this room, Rose. It is where the telegraph
+machine is."
+
+There was a window near by, but as they approached it the two children
+found a door in the wireless house, too, and that door was open. A man
+in his shirt-sleeves and with a green shade over his eyes and something
+that looked like a rubber cap strapped to his head was sitting on a
+bench in front of some strange looking machinery.
+
+He was writing on a pad and the crackling sound came from an electric
+spark that flickered back and forth in the machine before him. Russ and
+Rose gazed in, wide-eyed.
+
+At length the crackling stopped and the spark went out with a sputter.
+The man stopped writing and wheeled about in his seat. He saw them
+looking in at the doorway.
+
+"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "If here aren't two of the little Bunkers. Do you
+want to send a message by wireless?"
+
+"Thank you," said Rose promptly. "I think it would be nice to send word
+to Aunt Jo that we are all right and that the ship is all right and that
+we caught an eagle."
+
+"It costs money to send messages," said the wiser Russ.
+
+"Oh! Does it?" asked his sister.
+
+"I am afraid it does," replied the operator, laughing. "You had better
+ask Mr. Bunker about sending a message to your aunt, after all. Some
+messages we do not charge for. But the rules demand that all private
+messages must be paid for in advance."
+
+"Well, then, I guess we'd better write a letter to Aunt Jo," said Rose,
+who was practical, after all. "That won't cost anything but a two cent
+stamp."
+
+"Oh, my!" laughed Russ. "Going to mail it in the ocean?"
+
+"We'll mail it when we get to Charleston," said Rose cheerfully. "I
+guess Aunt Jo won't mind."
+
+Just at this moment there seemed to be some excitement on the deck up
+forward. Two officers who stood on what the children had learned was
+called the quarter were talking excitedly to one of the lookout men.
+They were pointing ahead, and one of the officers put a double-barreled
+glass to his eyes and stared ahead.
+
+The operator came to the doorway of his cabin and looked forward, too.
+He could see over the bulwarks and marked what had caused the
+excitement.
+
+"Ah-ha!" he said. "Come up here, little folks, and you can see it too."
+
+Russ and Rose were quite excited. They stepped up into the doorway
+beside the wireless operator. They both saw at once the two-masted
+vessel that was rolling sluggishly in the sea. Her rail seemed almost
+level with the water and from one of the masts several flags were
+strung.
+
+"What is it?" cried Russ. "That ship looks as though it was going
+down."
+
+"I guess you've hit it right. She does look so," said the operator. "She
+has sprung a leak, sure enough. And she's set distress signals."
+
+"Those flags?" asked Russ. "Do those flags say she is sinking?"
+
+"Those flags ask for help. That schooner doesn't carry a wireless outfit
+as this vessel does. Few small vessels do. I guess we will have to help
+her out," said the wireless operator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A GREAT DEAL OF EXCITEMENT
+
+
+Russ and Rose Bunker were very much excited by the discovery of the
+schooner in distress. They were actually afraid that the vessel was
+going to sink in the ocean right before their eyes!
+
+But the wireless operator reassured them. He said it probably would not
+sink at all. He seemed to have learned at first glance a lot about that
+schooner.
+
+"It's lumber laden, from some Maine port. Probably going to Baltimore,
+or some port down that way. They have jettisoned her deck load, and now
+she'll just float soggily. But her sails will never carry her to port."
+
+Russ eagerly asked what "jettisoned" meant, and the man explained that
+the crew had pushed overboard all the deckload of lumber. The hold was
+filled with the same kind of cargo, and of course lumber would not
+really sink. But the dirty, torn sails which the children saw did not
+promise to hold wind enough to propel the water-logged craft.
+
+"She's got to have help," said the wireless operator, and Russ and Rose
+realized that the _Kammerboy_ was slowing down.
+
+"Are we going to stop?" asked Rose. "Will they take the men off that
+ship into our small boats? Oh, it's a regular shipwreck, Russ!"
+
+"Not much it isn't, little girl," said the operator. "And this steamer
+can't stop to do much in the way of rescue. The crew wouldn't want to
+leave that schooner in good weather, anyway."
+
+"What shall we do, then?" Rose asked again.
+
+Just then their friend, the quartermaster, hurried up with a written
+paper which he handed to the operator.
+
+"Get that out, Sparks," he said, and the operator turned swiftly to his
+instrument and fitted on his cap and "earlaps" again. At least, Rose
+said they were "earlaps."
+
+"Can't we help that schooner?" asked Russ of the quartermaster.
+
+"They don't need us to help them. Only to send a message," was the
+reply, as the wireless spark began to crackle again. "We are telling the
+Government about her plight and a revenue cutter will be sent out to tow
+the schooner into some near port. She has drifted a good way off shore,
+but the weather is settled and there is nothing to fear."
+
+In a few moments the operator had sent the message and got a reply.
+
+"Right out of the air," breathed Rose wonderingly. "I think that is very
+funny, Russ. If that mast isn't exactly wireless, it is almost wireless.
+Anyway, the wires aren't long enough to take much of a message, I should
+think."
+
+This was a mystery that Russ could not expound, so they went to hunt up
+Daddy Bunker for further information regarding the wonder of the
+wireless service. The other four little Bunkers were already greatly
+interested in the deeply rolling lumber schooner.
+
+After more signals with flags had been exchanged between the steamship
+the children were on and the schooner, the former picked up speed again.
+Soon the masts of the schooner were almost out of sight; but the little
+Bunkers continued to discuss the strange incident.
+
+"I wish we could have put out boats and saved them," said Rose. "Like a
+regular wreck, I mean."
+
+"The crew of the schooner would be castaways, then," Russ mused. "I like
+to read stories about castaways."
+
+"Robinson Crusoe had goats," remarked Laddie. "I like goats."
+
+"You wouldn't like goats if they butted you, would you?" asked Vi.
+
+"All goats don't butt," said her twin with assurance.
+
+"Have those men got goats on that wabbly schooner?" Margy demanded. "I
+didn't see any."
+
+"Of course they haven't," Rose replied.
+
+"Then how could they be castaways?" put in Vi promptly. "If castaways
+have goats----"
+
+"Oh! you don't understand," declared Russ. "They only get the goats
+after they get to the desert islands. That is what Laddie means."
+
+"Of course," agreed Laddie.
+
+"Do they eat 'em?" Margy asked.
+
+"Only if they need to," Russ told her, with superior wisdom. "Of course,
+they most always make pets of them."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I guess," said Russ, becoming reflective, "that we might play at
+castaway."
+
+"When we get ashore, do you mean, Russ?" Vi asked.
+
+"Right here."
+
+"No," said Vi. "We'd get our feet wet. We can't play on the ocean, can
+we?"
+
+"We can play on this deck. The officers won't mind. Now all of you come
+up on to this life raft. We'll play you are floating around on the sea
+waiting for somebody to come along in a boat and rescue you."
+
+"Who is going to be the rescuer?" Vi asked.
+
+"I am."
+
+"Are you sure you can rescue us, Russ?" she demanded. "Where's your
+boat?"
+
+Russ pointed to a long lifeboat covered with canvas which lay some
+distance from the life-raft. "That will be my boat," he said eagerly.
+"Rose, you must be in command of the raft. Of course, you have been
+drifting about a long time and you are all hungry and thirsty."
+
+"Mun Bun wants bwead and milk," put in the littlest Bunker, on hearing
+this.
+
+"Well," said Laddie soberly, "you've got to want it a lot before you get
+rescued, Mun Bun. Castaways have to drink the ocean and eat their shoes
+before anybody rescues them."
+
+At this Mun Bun set up a wail. It seemed that his shoes were brand new
+and he was very proud of them. He would not consider eating them for a
+moment!
+
+"Never mind," said Rose, hugging him. "If you get so very hungry before
+Russ rescues us, you can chew on your belt. That is what Laddie means."
+
+Mun Bun observed his belt with round eyes. It seemed to him, and he
+confessed it to Rose, that he would have to be awfully hungry to chew
+that belt. The others entered into the spirit of the play and when Vi
+chanced to step off the raft her twin and Margy seized her and screamed.
+
+"You'll be drowned, Vi Bunker!" said Margy.
+
+"You'll more than get your feet wet if you don't stay on the raft," her
+twin scolded. "And, then, maybe there are sharks."
+
+"Sharks?" put in Margy.
+
+"Yes, big sharks."
+
+"What do they do?" asked Margy, who had not heard so much about this
+castaway play as the older children.
+
+"Big fish," said Laddie promptly.
+
+"I like fish," Margy announced. "You know, Grandma Bell had goldfish.
+They were pretty."
+
+"And I like fish to eat," said Vi. "Are sharks good to eat?"
+
+"Maybe they will eat you," warned Laddie, who had entered into the play
+with all his thought and interest.
+
+"Oh, Laddie Bunker! They wouldn't," cried Vi.
+
+"Well, they might. Anyway, you've got to be afraid of the sharks and not
+step off the raft."
+
+Meanwhile Russ had gone over to the lifeboat. He had not asked even his
+friend, the quartermaster, if he could play in that boat. But he saw no
+reason why he could not, as nobody seemed to be using it.
+
+The canvas cover was tied down with many strings; but the knots slipped
+very easily and the boy pulled out three of the knots and then laid back
+a corner of the canvas. It was dark inside the boat, and before Russ
+crept into it as he intended, he bent over the gunwale and peered in.
+
+Suddenly he gasped, and pulled his head back. He was startled, but Russ
+Bunker was a courageous boy. He had seen something--or he thought he had
+seen something--squirming in the brown darkness inside the boat.
+
+He waited a little, and then put his head under the canvas and took a
+long look. Was there something or somebody there? Russ was determined to
+find out!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RUSS'S SECRET
+
+
+Russ Bunker looked very funny--Rose said he did--when he suddenly came
+back to the raft. Vi and Margy shouted to him that he would be drowned;
+and Laddie said something more about sharks. But their older brother
+paid little attention to them.
+
+He had tied the cover down over the lifeboat again and he would not look
+toward it, not even when Rose asked him what the matter was and if he
+was going to leave all five of the castaways on the raft to starve and
+be thirsty until luncheon time.
+
+"I guess this isn't a very good place to play castaway, after all," said
+Russ gravely. "And, anyway," he added, with sudden animation, "there's
+the man with the gong. We'll have to run down and get cleaned up before
+we go to the table."
+
+"Dear me!" complained Laddie, "we never can have any fun. We always have
+to stop and eat or go to bed, or something. Even on this ship we have
+to."
+
+Laddie thought that the most important thing in the world was play. Rose
+watched Russ with a puzzled look. She felt that something had happened
+that her brother did not want to talk about. Russ had a secret.
+
+The latter did not even look again at the lifeboat as the little party
+passed it on the way to the staterooms. But Russ Bunker's mind was fixed
+upon that boat and what he had seen in it, just the same. He really
+could not decide what to do. He was very much puzzled.
+
+Even his mother and father noticed that Russ was rather silent at the
+lunch table; but he said he was all right. He had something to think
+about, he told them. Daddy and Mother Bunker looked at each other and
+smiled. Russ had a way of thinking over things before he put his small
+troubles before them, and they suspected that nothing much was the
+matter.
+
+But Rose whispered to her brother before they left the table.
+
+"I think that isn't very polite, Russ Bunker."
+
+Russ looked startled.
+
+"What isn't polite?" he asked almost angrily.
+
+"I saw you do that," she said, in the same admonishing way.
+
+"Do what?" he demanded boldly.
+
+"Put those rolls and the apple in your pocket. You wouldn't do that at
+home."
+
+"Well, we're not at home, are we?" he said. "You just keep still, Rose
+Bunker."
+
+Russ ran away directly after he had been excused from the table and they
+did not find him again for quite a while. He appeared with his usual
+cheerful whistle on his lips and made up a fine game of hide and seek on
+the afterdeck. But it was noticeable, if anybody had thought to notice
+it at all, that Russ kept them all from going near the lifeboat and the
+raft, and he would not hear to their playing castaway at all.
+
+"Why not?" asked Vi.
+
+"Oh, that's too old," Russ declared. "We can play that at any time.
+Let's go and listen to the wireless spark. When we get to that
+plantation where we are going maybe I can set up a wireless mast and we
+will send messages."
+
+"To Grandma Bell? And to Aunt Jo?" asked Vi.
+
+"Oh!" cried Laddie, "let's send one to Cowboy Jack. I know he'd be glad
+to hear from us."
+
+So Russ turned the interest of his brothers and sisters away from the
+castaway play. All but Rose. She wondered just what it was that was
+troubling Russ and what the lifeboat had to do with it.
+
+But there were so many new things to be interested in aboard the
+steamship that even Rose forgot to be puzzled after a while. Their
+friend, the quartermaster, took them all over the ship. They saw the
+engines working, and peered down into the stoke hole which was very hot
+and where the firemen worked in their undershirts and trousers and a
+great clanging of shovels and furnace doors was going on.
+
+"I guess the steampipes always hum on this boat," remarked Laddie. "It
+is not like it was at Aunt Jo's before that Sam boy came to make the
+furnace go."
+
+Whether the steampipes hummed or not, the children found that it was
+quite balmy on the boat. Although a strong breeze almost always blew, it
+was a warm one. They had long since entered into the Gulf Stream and the
+warm current seemed to warm the air more and more as the _Kammerboy_
+sailed southward.
+
+It was only two hours after passing the schooner that was in distress
+when they "spoke," as the quartermaster called it, the revenue cutter
+which had been sent to help the disabled vessel, steaming swiftly toward
+the point of the compass where the schooner was wallowing. Mr. Sparks,
+as the wireless operator was called, had exchanged messages with the
+Government vessel and he told the little Bunkers that the lumber
+schooner would be towed into Hampton Roads, from which the cutter had
+come.
+
+All this time Russ Bunker stayed away from the covered boat on the
+hurricane deck. Daddy Bunker, as well as Rose, began to wonder at the
+boy's odd behavior. When dinner time came, Mr. Bunker watched his oldest
+son sharply.
+
+"Can I go out on deck again for a while?" asked Russ politely, as he
+moved back his chair at the end of the meal.
+
+"I don't see why you can't. And Rose too," said their mother. "It is not
+yet dark. But you other children must come with me."
+
+They had all played so hard that it was no cross for the little ones to
+prepare for bed. Mun Bun and Margy were already nodding.
+
+When Rose looked about for Russ, he had disappeared again. So had Daddy.
+They had both slipped out of the saloon cabin without a word.
+
+Russ was hurrying along the runway between the house and the bulwarks,
+and going forward, when Daddy Bunker came around a corner suddenly and
+confronted him. Russ was so startled that he almost cried out.
+
+"Let's see what you have in your pockets, Russ," said Mr. Bunker
+seriously, yet with twinkling eyes. "I noticed that you feared there was
+going to be a famine aboard this steamer, and that you believe in
+preparing for it. Let me see the contents of your pockets."
+
+"Oh, Father!" gasped Russ.
+
+"Aren't afraid, are you, Russ?" asked Daddy Bunker. "If you weren't
+afraid to take the food you needn't be afraid to show it."
+
+"It--it was all mine," said Russ, stammeringly. "I only took what was
+passed to me."
+
+"I know it," said Daddy. "That is one reason why I want to know the
+rights of this mystery. I can't have my son starving himself for the
+sake of feeding a sea-eagle."
+
+"Oh! It isn't the eagle, Daddy."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"It--it isn't an it at all!" exclaimed Russ Bunker and he was so very
+much worried that he was almost in tears.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked his father.
+
+"I--I can't tell you," Russ faltered. "It isn't about me at all. It's
+somebody else, and I oughtn't to tell you, Daddy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHARLESTON AND THE FLEET
+
+
+A boy hates to tell on another person if he is the right kind of boy.
+And Russ was the right kind of boy.
+
+Daddy Bunker knew this; so he did not scold. He just said quietly:
+
+"Very well, my boy. If you are mixed up in something of which you cannot
+tell your father, but which you are sure is all right, then go ahead. I
+am always ready to advise and help you, but if you are sure you do not
+need my advice, go ahead."
+
+He turned quietly away. But these words and his cheerful acceptance of
+Russ' way of thinking rather startled the boy, used as he was to Daddy
+Bunker's ways. He called after him:
+
+"Daddy! I don't know whether I am right or wrong. Only--only I know
+somebody that needs this bread and meat because he is hungry. He's
+_real_ hungry. Can't I give it to him?"
+
+"I think that hunger should be appeased first. Go ahead," said Mr.
+Bunker, but still quite seriously. "Then if you feel that you can come
+and tell me about it, all right."
+
+At that Russ hurried away, much relieved. Rose came into sight and would
+have run after him, but Daddy Bunker stopped her.
+
+"Don't chase him now. He has something particular to do, Rose."
+
+"I think that's real mean!" exclaimed Rose. "He's hiding something from
+me!"
+
+"My!" said Daddy, "do you think your brother should tell you everything
+he knows or does?"
+
+"Why not?" retorted Rose. "I'm sure, Daddy, he is welcome to know
+everything I know."
+
+"Are you sure? Moreover, perhaps he does not care to know all your
+secrets," said Mr. Bunker.
+
+"Anyhow, you must learn, Rose, that other people have a right to their
+own private mysteries; you must not be inquisitive. Russ has got
+something on his mind, it is true; but without doubt we shall all know
+what it is by and by."
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Rose, with almost a gasp. She could not quite
+understand her father's reasoning.
+
+Russ Bunker appeared after a while, looking still very grave indeed for
+a boy of his age. Daddy kept from saying or doing anything to suggest
+that he was curious; but Rose found it hard not to tease her brother to
+explain his taking food from the table and hiding it in his pockets.
+
+"Of course he can't eat it," she whispered to herself. "And he doesn't
+give it to the eagle. Who ever heard of an eagle eating pound cake with
+raisins and citron in it? And I saw Russ take a piece of that.
+
+"But he didn't eat much himself. I wonder if he is sick and is hiding it
+from Mother and Daddy?"
+
+She watched her brother very closely. After a time he seemed more
+cheerful, and they ran races on the open deck. They knew many of the
+passengers by this time to speak to. And there were some few other
+children of about their own ages, too. They talked with these other
+boys and girls, found out where they lived when they were at home, and
+learned where they were going to, when they left the _Kammerboy_ at
+Charleston or Savannah.
+
+Just the same Rose knew that her brother was disturbed in his mind.
+Daddy Bunker's words to her had been sufficient, and Rose said nothing.
+But she began to believe that she should sympathize with Russ instead of
+being vexed with him. He did look so serious when he was not talking.
+
+The evening wore on. The moon rose and silvered the almost pond-like sea
+through which the _Kammerboy_ steamed. Even the children were impressed
+by the beauty of the seascape. Far, far away against the rising moon
+appeared a fairylike ship sailing across its face, each spar and mast
+pricked out as black as jet.
+
+"Just like those silhouettes Aunt Jo cut out for us," declared Rose.
+"Did you ever see anything so cute?"
+
+Russ didn't have much to say about it. He was very grave again. Bedtime
+came, and the brother and sister went below. The little folks, Margy
+and Mun Bun, were in the first stateroom with Mother. Already the twins
+were fast asleep in the second stateroom. Rose was going to sleep with
+Vi in the lower berth and Russ was to crawl in beside Laddie in the
+upper.
+
+But Russ did not seem in a hurry to undress and go to bed. Mother
+brushed Rose's hair for her and the girl got ready for bed in the larger
+stateroom. When she went into the other room there was Russ sitting on
+the stool with only his jacket off.
+
+"Why, Russ Bunker! aren't you going to bed to-night?" demanded Rose.
+
+"I suppose so," admitted Russ.
+
+"Well, you'd better hurry. I want you to put out the light. How do you
+suppose we can sleep?"
+
+Russ reached up and snapped out the electric bulb as Rose threw aside
+her bath-gown and hopped into bed beside her sister.
+
+"You can't see to undress in the dark, Russ," scolded Rose.
+
+Russ did not say a word. He got up and walked into his mother's and
+father's stateroom, and greatly to his sister's vexation he closed the
+door between the two rooms.
+
+Daddy Bunker had just come in.
+
+"Why, Russ," said he, "haven't you gone to bed yet?"
+
+"No, sir," said Russ. "And I guess I can't. I've got to talk to you
+first. I guess I can't go to sleep till I've told you something."
+
+Daddy smiled at Mother Bunker but nodded to Russ.
+
+"All right," he said. "We will go out on deck again and take a turn up
+and down and you shall tell me all about it."
+
+Mother made no objection, although the hour was getting late, and she
+smiled, too, when she saw Russ slip into his jacket again and follow his
+father out of the stateroom. On the deck Russ burst out with:
+
+"I promised I wouldn't tell anybody. But when I gave him his supper I
+told him I'd just have to tell my father, I was afraid; and he said he
+didn't have any father and he didn't know whether fathers wouldn't
+'snitch,' and I said my father wouldn't."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Bunker gravely. "You recommended me as being a safe
+person to trust a secret with. I am glad you did so."
+
+"Yes, sir. For you see he's got to be fed until we get to Charleston."
+
+"Do you mind telling me who this new friend of yours is, and where he
+is, and why he must be fed?"
+
+"He's a sailor boy. He belongs on a destroyer and got left at Boston
+when his ship started for Charleston two days ago."
+
+"He is in the Navy?" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, sir. And he spent all his money and did not know how to get down
+there where the fleet will be in winter quarters, he says, unless he
+went secretly on one of these steamers."
+
+"He is stealing his passage, then?" asked Daddy Bunker.
+
+"I suppose he is, Daddy," said Russ, ruefully enough. "He is in a boat,
+all covered up with canvas. Up there on the deck. I can show you. I
+found him quite by myself, and I was sorry for him, 'specially when he
+said he didn't have anything to eat. And he said, would I keep still
+about it? And at first I said I would."
+
+"I see," said Daddy Bunker, smiling. "Then you thought that you ought
+not to keep the secret from me?"
+
+"That's it, Daddy."
+
+"Quite right," rejoined Mr. Bunker encouragingly. "It is not good policy
+to keep secrets from your mother and father. What do you want to do
+about it now?"
+
+"Why--why, I want you to tell me," confessed Russ. "I got him some
+food."
+
+"I see you did," returned his father, smiling. "At your own cost, Russ."
+
+"We-ell, yes, I could have eaten more if I hadn't taken what I did for
+the sailor boy."
+
+"We'll have to see about that----"
+
+"I don't mind--much. I'm not very hungry," said Russ hurriedly. "It
+wasn't that made me tell you."
+
+"I know it wasn't, Russ," said Daddy Bunker, with a pride that the
+little boy did not understand, and he dropped an approving hand upon
+Russ' shoulder. "Now, I will tell you what we will do. This sailor boy
+shall have his chance to rejoin his ship without getting into any more
+trouble than is necessary. He is probably very young and foolish."
+
+"He isn't very old, I guess," said Russ. "He has been in the Navy only a
+little while, and it was his first 'shore leave,' he called it, in
+Boston. He had some cousins there. They begged him to stay longer than
+he should have. And so he got left."
+
+"I'll fix it if I can," promised Daddy Bunker. "Of course, the first
+thing to do is to pay his fare and then he can come out of the lifeboat
+and have his proper meals. I will see the purser, and the captain if it
+is necessary, and you go to bed, Russ."
+
+"That will be nice!" cried the boy, greatly relieved. "Of course I ought
+to have told you right at first. You always do know how to straighten
+things out, Daddy!"
+
+"That is what fathers and mothers are for," replied Mr. Bunker. "Go down
+and go to sleep, Son, and I will do my best for this young deserter."
+
+When Mr. Bunker entered the stateroom an hour later Mother Bunker wanted
+to know all about it, of course. And if Russ had known just what they
+both said of him he would certainly have been proud.
+
+"He's a manly boy," said Daddy Bunker in conclusion. "I am glad he is
+our son."
+
+The trouble about it all was, in Rose's opinion, that she never quite
+understood it. If Russ had done anything to be punished for, he
+certainly didn't seem to mind the punishment! And Daddy and Mother
+seemed to have a little secret between them, as well as Russ.
+
+"I don't like secrets," she complained the next day, on thinking it all
+over.
+
+"Oh, I do!" cried Laddie. "'Specially now that Christmas is coming."
+
+But Rose knew this was not a Christmas secret. She wondered where the
+nice, pleasant-faced sailor boy came from who seemed to know Russ and
+Daddy Bunker so well. She had not seen him before. And that was another
+mystery that nobody seemed willing to explain to her.
+
+They all had so many good times on the _Kammerboy_, however, that Rose
+really could not be vexed for long. It proved, as had been announced in
+Boston, that the ship sailed into summer seas. There was scarcely a
+cloud in sight for the entire voyage, and certainly the steamship did
+not roll.
+
+At length, late one afternoon, the children were taken up on the
+hurricane deck to see the islands of Charleston Harbor ahead. Many
+warships, and of all sizes, lay in the roadstead, but they did not see
+much of these vessels save their lights that evening.
+
+The _Kammerboy_ was docked to discharge freight and some of her
+passengers. Daddy Bunker arranged for the boy lost from the destroyer to
+be put aboard his ship. Russ hoped that he would not be punished very
+sorely for being left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MEIGGS PLANTATION
+
+
+The Bunker children watched the lights of the fleet until quite late in
+the evening and thought the sight very pretty indeed. They would have
+liked to have gone aboard at least one of the Government vessels
+preferably, of course, the one to which their sailor friend belonged,
+but there was no opportunity for such a visit. For early the next
+morning the _Kammerboy_ steamed out of the harbor of Charleston again on
+the last lap of her voyage to Savannah.
+
+"You can't do it, Russ--ever!" declared Rose, with confidence.
+
+"Well," said the oldest of the six little Bunkers, puffing very much, "I
+can try, can't I? I do wish I could cut that pigeon wing just as Sam did
+it."
+
+They were on the sunshiny deck of the _Kammerboy_, which was plowing
+now toward the headlands near Savannah Harbor. But the little folks had
+been seeing the blue line of the shore ever since leaving Charleston, so
+they were not much interested in it. As Laddie said, they knew it was
+there, and that was enough.
+
+"We know the continent of North America didn't get lost while we were
+out there in the Gulf Stream," said the boy twin, with satisfaction. "So
+it doesn't matter what part of it we hit--it will be land!"
+
+"If we hit it most any old place," said Vi, "we would be shipwrecked and
+be castaways like the game we started to play that time and Russ
+wouldn't let us finish. I wonder why?"
+
+She had ended with a question. But Laddie could not answer it. He was
+watching Russ trying to do that funny dance.
+
+"Uncle Sam's nephew could do it fine," Laddie said to Russ. "But you
+don't get the same twist to it."
+
+"Me do it! Me do it!" cried Mun Bun excitedly, and he began to try to
+dance as Russ had. He looked so cunning jumping about and twisting his
+chubby little body that they all shouted with laughter. But Mun Bun
+thought they were admiring his dancing.
+
+"Me did it like Sam," he declared, stopping to rest.
+
+"You do it fine, Mun Bun," Russ said.
+
+It was a fact, however, that none of them could cut that pigeon wing as
+Sam, the colored boy, had cut it in Aunt Jo's kitchen in Boston.
+
+Now that they were nearing the end of the voyage there were many things
+besides pigeon wings to interest the little Bunkers. In the first place
+the big sea-eagle had to be released from the turkey coop. The
+quartermaster called him Red Eye. And truly his eye was very red and
+angry all the time. And he clashed his great beak whenever anybody came
+near him.
+
+"I guess you couldn't tame him in a hundred years," Russ said
+thoughtfully. "He can't be tamed. That is why we have an eagle for a
+symbol, I guess. We can't be tamed."
+
+It was decided to let Red Eye out of the cage when the ship entered
+Savannah Harbor.
+
+"He's come a long way with us. He has come away down here to Georgia,"
+said Rose thoughtfully. "If he lives in Maine, do you s'pose he will
+ever find his way back?"
+
+"If he doesn't, what matter? It's a fine country," said the
+quartermaster.
+
+"But he will want to see his relations," said the little girl. "Maybe
+he's got a wife and children. He will be dreadfully lonesome away down
+here."
+
+"Maybe you had better take him back with you on the _Kammerboy_," said
+Russ thoughtfully, to the quartermaster.
+
+But the officer could not do that. There had been some objection made
+already to the big sea-eagle caged on deck. Besides, the bird's wing was
+better, and if he was kept much longer confined, the quartermaster said,
+he might forget how to fly!
+
+So they all gathered around (but at a good distance from the cage you
+may be sure), and the eagle was released. He had to be poked out of the
+cage, for it seemed as though he could scarcely believe that the door
+was open and he was free.
+
+He stalked out upon the deck, his great claws rattling on the planks. He
+turned his head from side to side, and then opened his beak and, so Vi
+said, he hissed at them!
+
+"At any rate," admitted Russ afterward, "he did make a funny noise."
+
+"He was clearing his throat," said Laddie, with scorn of his twin. "How
+could an eagle hiss? He isn't a goose."
+
+Laddie knew all about geese, for Grandma Bell had geese. But he did not
+know all about eagles, that was sure! Whether Red Eye hissed, or
+growled, or whatever he did in his throat, he certainly showed little
+friendliness. He raised his wings and flapped them "to see if they
+worked right." Then he uttered a decided croak and jumped a little way
+off the deck.
+
+Evidently this decided him that he was really free and that his great
+wings would bear him. He leaped into the air again, spreading his wings,
+and wheeled to go over the stern of the steamship. The spread of his
+wings when he flapped them was greater than most of the onlookers had
+supposed.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Look out, Laddie!" shouted Rose.
+
+Her warning came too late. The end of the great pinion swept Laddie off
+his feet! He went rolling across the deck, screaming lustily.
+
+"Oh! I'm going overboard! Daddy!" he cried.
+
+But it was Russ who grabbed him and stood him on his feet again.
+
+"You're not going overboard at all," said the older brother. "You
+couldn't. You'd have to climb over the rail to do it."
+
+"We-ell!" breathed Laddie. "It's a wonder he didn't take me right with
+him!"
+
+Then he, like everybody else, became interested in the passage of the
+great bird as it mounted skyward. It went up in a long slant at first,
+and then began to spiral upward, right toward the sun, and presently was
+out of sight.
+
+"It can look the sun straight in the face," said Daddy Bunker. "Which is
+something we cannot do."
+
+"No wonder its eye is red, then," said Rose.
+
+"I guess it's sunburnt," said Margy. "I got sunburnt at Captain Ben's."
+
+That night they docked at Savannah and went to a hotel in two taxicabs,
+for one would not hold all the Bunkers and their baggage too. The hotel
+was a nice one, and Rose thought the negro waiters and chambermaids
+very attentive and very pleasant people.
+
+"They are the smilingest people I ever saw," she confessed to Mother
+Bunker. "I guess they are thinking of funny things all the time."
+
+"Perhaps," granted her mother. "But they are trained to politeness. And
+you children must be just as polite."
+
+They all tried to be polite, and Russ grew quite friendly with one of
+the bellboys who brought them ice water. He asked that boy if he knew
+how to cut the pigeon wing, and the boy grinned very broadly.
+
+"I sure does!" he declared. "But if the boss heard of me doin' it around
+dishyer hotel, he'd bounce me."
+
+"Are you made of rubber?" asked Vi, who was standing by.
+
+"What's dat?" he demanded, rolling his eyes. "Is I made of rubber?
+Course I isn't. I's made of flesh and blood and bones, same as you is,
+little Miss. Only I isn't w'ite like you is."
+
+"But you said the man would bounce you. Rubber balls bounce," explained
+Vi.
+
+At that the bellboy went away laughing very heartily, but Vi could not
+understand why. And, of course, as usual, nobody could explain it to
+Vi's satisfaction.
+
+"I know a riddle!" cried Laddie, after a moment. "What looks like a boy,
+but bounces like a rubber ball? Why! A bellboy!"
+
+And he was highly delighted at this and went around telling everybody
+his new riddle.
+
+In the morning Mr. Frane Armatage appeared at the hotel and was shown up
+to the Bunker rooms. Mr. Armatage, as the little Bunkers knew, was an
+old school friend of Daddy Bunker's; but one whom he had not seen for a
+long time.
+
+"Why," said Mr. Armatage, who was a slender man with graying hair and a
+darker mustache, "Charley was only a boy when I last saw him." He was a
+very jovial man, and red-faced. Rose thought him handsome, and told
+Mother Bunker so. "No, Charley was only a sapling then. And look at him
+now!"
+
+"And look at the sprouts that have sprung from that sapling," laughed
+Daddy Bunker, with a sweeping gesture towards the six little Bunkers.
+
+"Was he only as big as I am?" Russ asked.
+
+"Well, no, come to think of it; he was some bigger than you. We were
+graduating from college when we parted. But it seems a long time ago,
+doesn't it, Charley?"
+
+Daddy Bunker agreed to that. Then he and Mr. Armatage talked business
+for a while. The owner of the Meiggs Plantation wished to get more land
+and hire more hands for the next year, and through Mr. Bunker he
+expected to obtain capital for this. Aside from business the two old
+friends desired very much to renew their boyhood acquaintance and have
+their wives and children become acquainted.
+
+"I've got half as many young ones as you have, Charley," said Mr.
+Armatage. "You've beat me a hundred per cent. I wonder if we keep on
+growing if the ratio will remain the same?"
+
+Russ knew what "ratio" meant, and he asked: "How can it keep that way if
+we grow to be seven little Bunkers? You can't have three and a half
+little Armatages, you know."
+
+"That's a smart boy!" exclaimed the tall man, smiling. "He can see
+through a millstone just as quick as any boy I know. We'll hope that
+there will be no half-portions of Armatages. I want all my children to
+have the usual number of limbs and body."
+
+"If you have little girls, and one was only half a little girl," said
+Rose, "she would be worse off than a mermaid, wouldn't she?"
+
+"She certainly would," agreed the planter.
+
+"Why?" demanded Vi, who did not understand.
+
+"Because half of her would be a fish," said Russ, laughing. "And you
+would have to have all your house under water, Mr. Armatage, or the
+mermaid could not get up and down stairs."
+
+"I declare, Charley!" exclaimed the visitor, "these young ones of yours
+are certainly blessed with great imaginations. I don't believe our
+children ever thought of such things."
+
+The next day the party went out to the Meiggs Plantation. It was a
+two-hours' ride on a branch railroad and a shorter and swifter ride in
+an automobile over the "jounciest" road the children had ever ridden on,
+for part of the way led through a swamp and logs were laid down side by
+side to keep the road, as Mr. Armatage laughingly said, from sinking
+quite out of sight.
+
+But the land on which the Armatage home stood was high and dry. It was a
+beautiful grassy knoll, acres in extent, and shaded by wide-armed trees
+which had scarcely lost any leaves it seemed to the little Bunkers,
+though this was winter. On the wide, white-pillared veranda a very
+handsome lady and two little girls and a little boy stood to receive the
+party.
+
+The children did not come forward to greet the visitors, or even their
+father, until the latter spoke to them. Mr. and Mrs. Bunker were quite
+sure by the actions of Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior, that they
+were not granted the freedom of speech and action that their little ones
+enjoyed. Mother Bunker pitied those children from the start!
+
+  [Illustration: THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS WERE AMAZED AT THE NUMBER OF
+  COLORED CHILDREN.
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 115]
+
+But what amazed the six little Bunkers more than anything else was the
+number of colored children hanging about the veranda to see the
+newcomers. Rose confided to Russ that she thought there must be a
+colored school near by and all the children were out for recess.
+
+And there were so many house-servants that smiling black and brown faces
+appeared everywhere.
+
+"I guess," said Rose to her mother, "that there must be an awful lot of
+work to do in this big house. It's lots bigger than Aunt Jo's or Grandma
+Bell's. It's like a castle, and all these servants are like retainers. I
+read about retainers in a story. Only these retainers aren't dressed in
+uniforms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MAMMY JUNE
+
+
+From the very beginning, although they said nothing about it even to
+each other, the six little Bunkers found the three little Armatages
+"funny." "Funny" is a word that may mean much or little, and often the
+very opposite of humorous. In this case the visitors from the North did
+not understand Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior. They were not like
+any boys and girls whom the Bunkers had ever known before.
+
+Phillis was twelve--quite a "grown up young lady" she seemed to consider
+herself. Yet she broke out now and then in wild, tomboyish activities,
+racing with Russ and Frane, Junior, climbing fences and trees, and
+riding horses bareback in the home lot. It seemed as though Phil, as
+they called her, "held in" just as long as she could, trying to put on
+the airs of grown-ups, and then just had to break out.
+
+"If you tell mother I did this I'll wish a ha'nt after you!" she would
+say to her brother, who was the age of Vi and Laddie, and her sister
+Alice, who was two years younger than herself, but no bigger than Rose.
+Alice had a very low, sweet, contralto voice, like Mrs. Armatage, and a
+very demure manner. Rose became friendly with Alice almost at once.
+
+And the way they treated the colored children of their own age and older
+was just as strange as anything else about the three Armatages. They
+petted and quarreled with them; they expected all kinds of service from
+them; and they were on their part, constantly doing things for the
+children of "the quarters" and giving them presents. Wherever the white
+children went about the plantation there was sure to be a crowd of
+colored boys and girls tagging them.
+
+After the first day Mother Bunker was reassured that nothing could
+happen to her brood, because there were so many of the colored men about
+the grounds to look after them. As in the house, a black or brown face,
+broadly a-smile, was likely to appear almost anywhere.
+
+The quarters, as the cabins occupied by the colored people were called,
+were not far from the house, but not in sight of it. Even the kitchen
+was in a separate house, back of the big house. After bedtime there was
+not a servant left in the big house unless somebody was sick.
+
+"Mammy used to live here," Mrs. Armatage explained, in her languid
+voice, "while the children were small. I couldn't have got along without
+mammy. She was my mammy too. But she's too old to be of much use now,
+and Frane has pensioned her. She has her own little house and plot of
+ground and if her boy--her youngest boy--had stayed with her, mammy
+would get along all right. She worries about that boy."
+
+The Bunker children did not understand much about this until, on the
+second day after their arrival, Phillis said:
+
+"I'm going down to see mammy. Want to come?"
+
+"Is--isn't your mammy here at home?" asked Vi. "Dora Blunt calls her
+mother 'mammy'; but we don't."
+
+"I've got a mother and a mammy too," explained the oldest Armatage girl.
+"You-all come on and see her. She'll be glad to see you folks from the
+North. She will ask you if you've seen her Ebenezer, for he went up
+North. We used to all call him 'Sneezer,' and it made him awfully mad."
+
+"Didn't he have any better name?" asked Russ.
+
+"His full name is Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs. Of course, their
+name isn't really Meiggs, like the plantation; but the darkies often
+take the names of the places where they were born. Sneezer was a real
+nice boy."
+
+"He isn't dead, is he?" asked Russ.
+
+"Reckon not," said Phillis. "But Mammy June is awful' worried about him.
+She hasn't heard from him now for more than a year. So she doesn't know
+what to think."
+
+"But she has got other folks, hasn't she?" Rose asked.
+
+"You'd think so! Grandchildren by the score," replied the older
+Armatage girl, laughing. "Sneezer had lots of older brothers and
+sisters, and they most all have married and live about here and have big
+families. The grandchildren are running in and out of mammy's cabin all
+the time. I have to chase 'em out with a broom sometimes when I go down
+there. And they eat her pretty near up alive!"
+
+Even the smaller Bunkers knew that this was a figure of speech. The
+grandchildren did not actually eat Mammy June, although they might clean
+her cupboard as bare as that of Old Mother Hubbard.
+
+They followed a winding, grass-grown cart path for nearly half a mile
+before coming to Mammy June's house. The way was sloping to the border
+of a "branch" or small stream--a very pretty brook indeed that burbled
+over stones in some places and then had long stretches of quiet pools
+where Frane, Junior, told Russ and Laddie that there were many
+fish--"big fellows."
+
+"I'll get a string and a bent pin and fish for them," said Laddie
+confidently. "I fished that way in the brook at Pineville."
+
+"Huh!" said Frane Armatage, Junior, in scorn. "One of these fish here
+would swallow your pin and line and haul you in."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Vi, with big eyes. "What for?"
+
+"No, the fish wouldn't!" declared Laddie promptly.
+
+"Yes, it would. And swallow you, too."
+
+"No, the fish wouldn't," repeated Laddie, "for I'd let go just as soon
+as it began to tug."
+
+"Smartie!" said Phillis to her brother. "You can't fool these Bunker
+boys. Let Laddie alone."
+
+Of course the troop of white children, walking down the cart path to
+Mammy June's, was followed by a troop of colored children. The latter
+sang and romped and chased about the bordering woods like puppies out
+for a rample. Sometimes they danced.
+
+"Can you cut a pigeon wing?" Russ asked one of the older lads. "I want
+to learn to do that."
+
+"No, I can't do that. Not good. We've got some dancers over at the
+quarters that does it right well," was the reply.
+
+"You ought to've seen Sneezer do it!" cried another of the colored
+children. "Sneezer could do it fine. Couldn't he, Miss Phil?"
+
+"Sneezer was a great dancer," admitted the oldest Armatage girl. "Come
+on, now, Bunkers, and see Mammy June. Keep away from this cabin," she
+added to the colored children, "or I'll call a ha'nt out of the swamp to
+chase you."
+
+"I wonder what those 'ha'nts' are, Russ," whispered Rose to her brother.
+"Do they have feathers? Or don't they fly? They must run pretty fast,
+for Phil is always saying she will make one chase folks."
+
+"I asked Daddy. There isn't any such thing. It's like we say 'ghosts.'"
+
+"Oh! At Hallowe'en? When we dress up in sheets and things?"
+
+"Yes. Maybe these colored children believe in ghosts. But of course we
+don't!"
+
+"No-o," said Rose thoughtfully. "Just the same I wouldn't like to think
+of ha'nts if I was alone in the woods at night. Would you, Russ?"
+
+Russ dodged that question. He said:
+
+"I don't mean to be alone in the woods around here at night. And neither
+do you, Rose Bunker."
+
+Of course neither of them had the least idea what was going to happen to
+them before they started North from the Meiggs Plantation.
+
+Mammy June's cabin was of white-washed logs, with vines climbing about
+the door that were leafless now but very thrifty looking. There were fig
+trees that made a background and a windbreak for the little house, and a
+huge magnolia tree stood not far from the cabin. The front door opened
+upon a roofed porch, and an old colored woman of ample size, in a
+starched and flowered gingham dress and with a white turban on her head,
+was rocking in a big arm chair on this porch when the children appeared.
+
+"Lawsy me!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly to show firm white teeth in
+spite of her age. "Is this yere a celebration or is it a parade? Miss
+Philly, you got a smooch on dat waist, and your skirt is hiked up
+behind. I declar' I believe you've lost a button."
+
+"Why, so I have, Mammy June," answered Phillis. "And more than one.
+Nobody has time to keep buttons sewed on up at the house, now that
+you're not there."
+
+"Shiftless, no-count critters, dem gals up dere. Sho, honey! who is all
+dese lil' white children?"
+
+"Bunkers," explained Frane, Junior.
+
+"What's dem?" asked Mammy June, apparently puzzled. "Is dey to play
+with, or is dey to eat? Bunkers! Lawsy!"
+
+Rose giggled delightedly.
+
+"They are to play with," laughed Alice suddenly. "That is what they are
+for, Mammy June."
+
+"You see you play pretty with them, then," said the old woman, shaking
+her head and speaking admonishingly.
+
+Rose and Russ Bunker at least began to understand that this pleasant old
+colored woman had had the chief care of the three young Armatages while
+they were little. Perhaps she had trained them quite as much as their
+mother and father. And they seemed to love Mammy June accordingly.
+
+That the old woman loved little folks and knew how to make friends with
+them was soon apparent. She had Mun Bun and Margy both together in her
+ample lap while Laddie and Vi leaned against her and listened to the
+tale she was telling the little folks.
+
+Phillis and Alice meanwhile showed Rose the interior of the cabin and
+all its comforts and wonders. Meanwhile Frane, Junior, took Russ down to
+the stream with some of the colored children to show him some of the big
+fish he had threatened Laddie with. Here it was that Russ Bunker engaged
+in his first adventure at the Meiggs Plantation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CATFISH
+
+
+"If Sneezer was here," said Frane, Junior, "he'd show you more fish than
+I can. Sneezer used to just smell 'em out. But come on. I know where
+some of the big ones stay."
+
+"I don't want to dive in after them," declared Russ Bunker, laughing.
+"The way you promised Laddie. And I haven't any hook and line at all."
+
+"We won't go fishing. Not really. Mostly the darkies fish. We don't
+bother to. They bring us plenty to eat when we want them at the house."
+
+"You--you don't do much of anything, do you?" asked Russ doubtfully.
+"Not for yourselves, I mean."
+
+"Don't have to," returned Frane, Junior. "The darkies do it all for us.
+But Phil and Alice and I have to do our own studying."
+
+Russ saw that he was in fun, but he was curious enough to ask the
+smaller boy:
+
+"Do you and the girls go to school?"
+
+"School comes to us. There is a teacher comes here. Lives at the house.
+But it's vacation time now till after New Year's. I hope she never comes
+back!"
+
+"Oh, is she mean to you?"
+
+"Course she is," declared Frane, Junior. "She makes us study. I hate
+to."
+
+"Well, sometimes I don't like what they make us learn in school,"
+admitted Russ slowly. "But I guess it's good for us."
+
+"How do you know, it is?" demanded the other. "I don't feel any better
+after I study. I only get the headache."
+
+Russ could not find an immediate answer for this statement. Besides,
+there was something right in front of him then that aroused his
+interest. It was a big log spanning the stream, with a shaky railing
+nailed to it, made of a long pole attached to several uprights.
+
+"That is the funniest bridge I ever saw," he declared. "Will it hold
+you?"
+
+"Look at that log. It would hold a hundred elephants," declared Frane,
+Junior, who was inclined to exaggerate a good deal at times.
+
+"Not all at once!" cried Russ.
+
+"Yes, sir. If you could get 'em on it," said Frane. "But I don't s'pose
+the railing would stand it."
+
+When the boys went out on the bridge and Russ considered the railing he
+was very sure that this last statement of his little friend was true,
+whether any others were or not. The railing "wabbled" very much, and
+Russ refrained from leaning against it.
+
+"Now, you folks keep back!" whispered Frane shrilly to the colored
+children who had followed them. "I want to show him the big fellow that
+sleeps down here."
+
+Somewhere he had picked up a piece of bark more than a foot long, which
+was rolled into a cylinder. He lay down on the log near the middle of
+the brook and began to look down into the brown and rather cloudy water
+through this odd spyglass.
+
+"What can you see through that thing?" asked Russ.
+
+"Sh! Wait. Don't let 'em hear you," warned Frane, Junior. Then he
+added: "Get down here 'side o' me. When I spot him I'll let you squint
+through this too."
+
+Russ understood now that his companion was trying to see one of the fish
+that lived in the stream--perhaps the "big fellow" Frane had spoken of.
+Russ grew quite excited and he took off his jacket and rolled up his
+sleeves. He knelt down beside Frane, and finally lay right down on his
+stomach and likewise peered over the side of the log.
+
+The log-bridge had been made quite flat on its upper surface with a
+broadaxe, and all the bark had long since worn off. It was all of thirty
+feet long, but it was just as firm as the arch of a stone bridge.
+
+"There!" whispered Frane. "I saw a flicker then. Yep! He's there! Right
+below the edge of that stone!"
+
+"I don't see anything but water. I can't even see the bottom," observed
+Russ, in a low voice, too.
+
+"Don't you see him below the stone?"
+
+"I don't even see the stone," complained Russ.
+
+"Hush! He'll hear you. I see his tail wiggle. He's a big cat."
+
+"Now, don't tell me there's a cat in this brook!" said Russ Bunker,
+shortly. "I know there isn't anything of the kind. Cats hate water."
+
+He had already learned that Frane, Junior, was apt to exaggerate. Russ
+thought the Armatage boy was letting his fancy run wild at this present
+moment.
+
+"It is a cat," murmured Frane. "I can see his whiskers moving. Yep, a
+big fellow! Want to see?" and he took his eye away from the bark
+cylinder.
+
+"Can you see his teeth and his claws and his fur and his tail?" demanded
+Russ scornfully, and without offering to take the cylinder. He did not
+intend to be fooled so easily.
+
+"What are you talking about?" hissed Frane. "And speak quietly. You'll
+drive him away."
+
+"Cats aren't so easily scared," said Russ. "You have to peg stones at
+'em to drive 'em away."
+
+"Huh!" sniffed Frane. "Funny cats up North. I don't believe you have any
+up there."
+
+"You're right we don't," agreed Russ, and now he laughed again. "Not
+any cats that swim. Cats hate the water----"
+
+"Aw, shucks! I'm not talking about cats!" exclaimed Frane. "I'm talking
+about catfish."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated the Northern boy.
+
+"You know a catfish, don't you? It has feelers that we call whiskers.
+Awful nice eating, for they only have a backbone."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Russ again. "I guess I didn't understand. Let me see the
+fish, will you, please?"
+
+"You can look," said Frane passing him the cylinder of bark. "But maybe
+we have scared him off, talking so much."
+
+The big catfish, however, had not been scared away. After a few moments,
+and with Frane's aid, Russ Bunker got the wooden spyglass focused on the
+proper point. He saw the imbedded rock Frane had spoken of. Then he saw
+the fish basking in the water below the rock's edge.
+
+It was almost two feet long, with a big head and goggle eyes, and the
+"whiskers" Frane had spoken of wriggled back and forth in the slow
+current. Russ grew excited.
+
+"Why!" he whispered to Frane, "I could grab it, if I tried. It is just
+like what we call bullheads up in Pineville. I've caught 'em in our
+pond. You can hardly get 'em off the hook without getting stung by 'em."
+
+"Catfish don't sting you. But you have to knock 'em in the head when you
+land them, so as to make 'em behave. I've seen the boys do it."
+
+"I'm going to make a grab for that fellow," declared Russ.
+
+"I reckon you'd miss him. You couldn't hold him, anyway," said Frane
+doubtfully.
+
+"I could so."
+
+"No, you couldn't. He's too big. They never catch catfish that way."
+
+"I know I never caught a bullhead that way," admitted Russ. "But one
+never lay so still for me. And right under this log! Here! You take the
+spyglass."
+
+"You'd better take care," advised the Southern boy.
+
+But Russ felt very daring. It seemed that the fish lay only a few inches
+under the surface of the brown water. If he could grasp the fish and
+throw it ashore, how the other children would all shout! Perhaps Russ
+Bunker wanted to "show off" a little. Anyway, he determined to make the
+attempt to land the big catfish with his hands.
+
+"You can't do it," warned Frane, Junior, creeping back a way so as to
+give Russ more room.
+
+"Don't say that till you see," returned the boy from the North. "Now,
+look! I know just where he lies. Look!"
+
+Russ had rolled his shirtsleeve up to his shoulder. He balanced himself
+on the log, his head and shoulders overhanging the brown water. Suddenly
+he made a dive with his right hand. Even his head touched the water, he
+dipped so deep, and his cap went floating away.
+
+And, wonderful to relate, his hand did seize upon the catfish. Perhaps
+the fish had been asleep down there by the edge of the imbedded stone.
+At any rate it was not quick enough to escape Russ Bunker's darting
+hand.
+
+"I got it!" yelled Russ, in delight.
+
+He tried to seize fast hold upon the body of the catfish, but the fish
+shot forward with a wriggle that slapped its tail against Russ's hand.
+Russ plunged forward, trying to hold it.
+
+"I--guess--he's--a--butter--fish!" he gasped. "He's so slippery----"
+
+And then, losing his balance on the log, Russ Bunker fell right into the
+deep pool with splash enough to frighten all the fishes for yards
+around!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MAMMY JUNE HELPS
+
+
+Of course, Russ Bunker should not have done it. He was always ready to
+try new things and wasn't much afraid of anything that turned up. But
+trying to catch a big catfish with his hands was ridiculous.
+
+Perhaps he realized this when he fell off the log into the stream; but
+it was too late then to know how foolish it was.
+
+The chorus of screams from the children on the bank was the first
+announcement that Mammy June had of the mischief that was afoot. The
+colored children shouted and Frane, Junior, ran right off the log and
+came screaming to the cabin:
+
+"He's gone down! He's gone down!"
+
+"What is the matter with you, Frane?" demanded the old woman, coming
+heavily down off the porch. "Who's gone down? Wha's he gone down to?"
+
+"Russ has gone down," announced Frane. "He's gone down after the
+catfish."
+
+"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June. "Is that li'le boy got into the
+branch?"
+
+Rose and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, as well as the two
+Armatage girls, all came running, too. For the first minute none of them
+understood what had happened to Russ.
+
+But when they reached the bank of the stream they saw something
+splashing in the middle of the pool under the bridge. They couldn't see
+Russ, but they knew that something was struggling there.
+
+"Is that a fish?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a whale."
+
+"Oh!" shrieked Rose. "It's Russ! He'll be drowned!"
+
+"Don't let him get wet, Rose," cried Margy. "Mother won't want him to
+get his clothes wet."
+
+But if there was any part of Russ Bunker that was not wet when he
+managed to get on his feet and his head and shoulders appeared above
+the water, Rose couldn't imagine what part it could be. He was just the
+wettest boy she had ever seen.
+
+Russ had got a footing finally upon the stone beside which the big
+catfish had lain. The water was too deep all around him for him to wade
+out. The bottom of the pool was so deep that it was over the boy's head.
+He had to stand on the rock and gasp for breath for he had swallowed a
+good deal of water, having gone down with his mouth open.
+
+"What did I tell you?" demanded Frane, Junior, from the bank. "You
+couldn't catch that cat."
+
+"I know it!" jerked out Russ. "I know it now."
+
+"Lawsy me!" ejaculated Mammy June. "Is that the way you ketches catfish
+up Norf?"
+
+The other little Bunkers did not understand this. Vi wanted to know at
+once if Russ had a kitty in the water with him. But nobody paid any
+attention to her questions.
+
+"Here, you 'Lias and Henery!" commanded Mammy June to two of the older
+colored boys. "What you standin' there idle for? Go out on that bridge
+and haul that poor chile ashore. What a state he is in, to be sure!"
+
+It did not take long to help Russ up on to the log again. The water just
+poured off him; but it was not very cold and his teeth didn't
+chatter--much. Mammy June showed anxiety, however.
+
+"You come right into de house, honey," she said to Russ. "Now, little
+Miss," she added to Rose, "yo' mustn't scold him now. Wait till we wring
+his clothes out and get him dry. Yo' 'Lias, bring some dry bresh and
+some good sticks. We'll want a hot fire."
+
+Mammy June had no stove in her cabin, but a broad and smoke-blackened
+open fireplace. There was a small fire in it, over which her teakettle
+hung. In five minutes the negro boys made a roaring blaze. Then the old
+woman drove them all out of the cabin save Russ, whom she helped off
+with his wet clothes, rubbed dry with a big towel, and to whom she gave
+a shirt and trousers to put on while she wrung out his clothing and hung
+it all about the fire to dry.
+
+"That shirt and them pants," she said, "b'longs to my Sneezer--my
+Ebenezer. If he was here this wouldn't have happened to yo', honey. He
+wouldn't have let no w'ite boy fall into that branch--no, sir. But these
+no-'count other young ones didn't know 'nough to tell yo' that that
+ain't the way to catch catfish."
+
+"I found out myself," admitted Russ rather ruefully.
+
+Rose came to the door and begged to know if Russ was all right.
+
+"He's going to be just as soon as I get him made a hot drink," declared
+Mammy June.
+
+"Has he got all over being drowned?" Margy demanded.
+
+And even Mun Bun was a good deal troubled because Russ had got so wet.
+"If you had any candy in your pocket, Russ," the little boy said, "it
+must be all soft now. It won't be good to eat."
+
+"I didn't have any candy, Mun Bun," Russ told him. Russ was feeling a
+whole lot better now. Mammy June gave him a nice hot, sweet drink. He
+didn't mind if it was a little "stingy" too.
+
+"Yo' all come in yere--yo' little w'ite folks," said Mammy June, "and
+we'll make some 'lasses taffy. I got plenty sorgum 'lasses. We can make
+it w'ile this catfish boy is getting dry."
+
+She continued to call Russ "the catfish boy" and chuckled over his
+adventure. But she warned him, when his clothing was dry, that he must
+be more careful when he was playing about the water.
+
+"An' yo' got to tell yo' mudder and daddy about it," she instructed
+Russ. "Don't never hide nothin' from 'em."
+
+"Oh, we don't!" Rose broke in. "We always tell Mother and Daddy
+everything."
+
+"That's what I tell my Philly and Ally and Frane, Junior. Always must
+tell they parents."
+
+"And get scolded for it," said Phillis rather crossly.
+
+"Well, then," said Mammy June cheerfully, "you mustn't do things to get
+scolded for. So I tell all these grandchildren of mine. Scat, you
+children!" for she saw several of the smaller colored boys and girls
+trying to steal in at the cabin door. "Ain't room for you in here
+noways. Yo' shall have yo' share of the 'lasses candy when it's done."
+
+That "taffy pull" was a famous one. The six little Bunkers thought they
+had never eaten such nice molasses candy as Mammy June made. Phillis
+Armatage made believe that she did a lot to help for she buttered the
+pans. But it was Mammy June who really did it all.
+
+"I think," confessed Rose to Alice, "that it is awfully nice to have
+both a mammy and a mother, as you girls have. Of course, a mammy can't
+be just what Mother Bunker is to us; but Mammy June is nice."
+
+"She's lots better to us than our mother, in some ways," said Alice
+bluntly. "Mother doesn't want us to play noisy in the house. She has
+headaches and stays on the couch a lot. We have to step soft and can't
+talk loud. But Mammy June never has the fidgets."
+
+"What's 'fidgets'?" asked Rose, quite shocked by the way Alice spoke of
+her mother.
+
+"What ladies have," explained Alice. "Don't your mother have 'em?"
+
+"I guess not. I never heard about them," Rose answered. "Then if your
+mother is sick, I don't suppose she can help it. It is lucky you have
+got a mammy."
+
+That first afternoon ("evening" all these Southern folks called it) at
+Mammy June's was a very pleasant experience. Russ did not mind his
+ducking--much. He only grinned a little when Mammy June called him "the
+catfish boy."
+
+"Serves me good and right," he confessed to Rose. "I ought not to have
+gone into that brook without a bathing suit. And, anyway, I guess a boy
+can't catch fish of any kind with his hands."
+
+Mun Bun and Margy and the smaller colored children managed to spread the
+molasses taffy over face and hands to a greater or less degree; but they
+enjoyed the taffy pull as much as the older children did. Finally, after
+Mammy June had washed his face and hands, Mun Bun climbed up into her
+comfortable lap and went fast asleep.
+
+The old woman, who loved children so dearly and was so kind to them,
+looked at one of her older grandsons, Elias, and ordered him to "get de
+boxwagon to take dis bressed baby home in."
+
+A soapbox on a plank between two pairs of wheels being produced and the
+box made comfortable with a quilt and a pillow belonging to Mammy June,
+Mun Bun was laid, still fast asleep, in this vehicle, and Russ started
+to drag his little brother home.
+
+"Yo' 'Lias!" exclaimed Mammy June, from the doorway of her cabin,
+"whar's yo' manners? Don't you let that w'ite visitor boy drag that
+boxwagon. You get busy, 'Lias."
+
+Russ and the other Bunker children were not used to being waited on at
+every step and turn. But they became better used to it as the time
+passed. The white folks on the Meiggs Plantation seemed to expect all
+this aid from the colored folks, and the latter seemed willing and eager
+to attend.
+
+Russ was not scolded for his involuntary plunge into the branch. In fact
+his father laughed immensely at the tale. But Mother Bunker had to be
+assured that the stream was neither deep nor boisterous before she could
+laugh much.
+
+The children had all had a lovely afternoon at Mammy June's and after
+that day they found most of their enjoyment in running down to her cabin
+and playing there. This delight was shared by the Armatages too. And the
+latter's father and mother seemed perfectly content if the children
+were in mammy's care.
+
+The days passed all too swiftly. Everybody, darkies and all, were on
+tiptoe about the coming festival of Christmas and New Year's. The six
+little Bunkers learned that these holidays were celebrated in different
+style on this Georgia plantation from what they were in the North.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHEN CHRISTMAS IS FOURTH OF JULY
+
+
+Mun Bun and Margy were too little always to accompany the older children
+on their rambles; but the two smallest Bunkers could be trusted to
+invent plays of their own when they might be left out of the older one's
+parties. They had long since learned not to feel slighted if Mother
+Bunker decided that they were to stay near her.
+
+There was sufficient mystery and expectation regarding the coming
+holiday celebrations at the Meiggs Plantation to excite the little folks
+in any case. There was to be no Christmas tree such as the Bunkers had
+had the previous Christmas in the North. Both Mun Bun and Margy could
+remember that tree very clearly.
+
+But there was quite as much hiding of funny shaped packages until the
+gift day should arrive, and the house was being decorated, inside and
+out, for the coming celebration. Mun Bun and Margy watched the servants
+hanging Christmas greens and mistletoe, although, unlike the older
+little Bunkers, they could not go into the swamps with the men to gather
+these greens.
+
+"We just ought to have a Christmas tree of our own," Margy said to Mun
+Bun. "I know where we can get a tree, and we'll beg some wreaths and
+trimming from that nice colored man there."
+
+"We can't," said Mun Bun, somewhat despondently. "We isn't got a house
+to put the tree in. And we had the Christmas tree last time in the
+house."
+
+"I've found a house," whispered Margy. "But don't you tell anybody."
+
+"Not even tell Muvver?" asked Mun Bun, looking almost scared. Yet the
+idea of a secret delighted him too.
+
+"Not till we get it all done. Then we will show her how fine it is,"
+said Margy.
+
+"Where is your house?" asked Mun Bun.
+
+"You come along and I'll show you. I found it all by myself."
+
+She led Mun Bun by the hand out behind the big house and toward the
+quarters. In a sheltered place, behind a hedge, was a little house, sure
+enough. And it was not so very little after all, for when they went into
+it they could both stand upright.
+
+"There isn't any window," said Mun Bun. "This isn't a regular house."
+
+"Of course, it's a house," Margy declared. "It's got a doorway, and----"
+
+"It hasn't got any door, just the same," said Mun Bun, who might have
+liked the house better if he had found it himself.
+
+"We don't need a door. We want it open so the big folks can see our tree
+when we get it trimmed."
+
+"Where is the tree?" demanded the still doubtful little boy.
+
+"Now, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy, "do you want to play at fixing this
+Christmas tree, or don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Mun Bun, who did not really want to be left out of any
+fun, even if he did not think of it first himself. "Show me the tree,
+Margy."
+
+"Of course I will," said his sister. "You must help me get it and carry
+it in here."
+
+"Come on," urged the little boy. "Let's."
+
+So then Margy showed him where the tree she had found stood in a green
+tub outside the door of a small house that was almost all glass. The
+lower panes of glass in this house were whitewashed, so the children
+could not see what was in it; but this tree with its thick, glossy
+leaves seemed to have been left out for anybody to take who wanted it.
+
+They had to tug pretty hard to get the tree out of the tub. As Margy
+said, they didn't want the tub anyway, for it would take up too much
+room. And they were not strong enough to move it.
+
+But they got the tree uprooted, and then were able to carry it to the
+little house that Margy had selected as their own private dwelling for
+the play celebration.
+
+By dragging the tree inside, roots first, they managed to get it in
+without breaking off any of the glossy leaves. They stood it upright and
+made it steady by placing some bricks that they found about the roots.
+Its top reached the roof of the little house.
+
+They begged some broken wreaths and chains of evergreen and even a
+spray of mistletoe with berries on it. The workmen were very kind to the
+smallest Bunkers. Mun Bun grew quite as excited and enthusiastic as
+Margy. They worked hard to trim that tree.
+
+"But it hasn't any lights," said Mun Bun sadly. "And that other
+Christmas tree had lights."
+
+You see, he remembered very clearly about that. And when Mun Bun played
+he always wanted the play to be as real as possible.
+
+"We'll get candles," declared Margy. "I saw candles in the kitchen house
+where that nice cook lives. Let's go and ask her."
+
+But just as they were going to squeeze out of the low door of the little
+house they heard a great shouting and calling, and then suddenly the
+snapping of explosive crackers--fire crackers--began!
+
+"Oh!" gasped Mun Bun. "Who's shootin'?"
+
+"It's firecrackers. You know, we've had 'em before. And they are in a
+barrel," said Margy breathlessly.
+
+Through the doorway of the little house in which they had set up the
+"Christmas tree" the two saw their brothers and sisters, the Armatage
+children, and a lot of the little negroes dancing about a barrel a
+little way down the hill. Margy was right. Into that barrel somebody had
+thrown a lighted bunch of firecrackers--about the safest way in which
+those noisy and delightful "snappers" can be exploded.
+
+And what a noise they made! Mun Bun and Margy almost forgot their own
+play for the moment as they struggled to see which should first go out
+of the door of the little house. Getting in each other's way, they were
+delayed and before they could get out a great dog came bounding toward
+them.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" squealed Margy, and shrank back, leaving to Mun Bun the
+opportunity of getting out if he wanted to.
+
+"I'm not afraid of that dog," said Mun Bun. But, just the same, he did
+not go out when he might have done so. "He isn't as big as Aunt Jo's
+Alexis, is he, Margy?"
+
+"But we aren't acquainted with him like we were with Alexis," whispered
+the little girl.
+
+She knew his name was Bobo. But always before when she had seen him the
+great hound, with his flappy ears and wide mouth, had been chained.
+
+"Do--do you suppose he'll want to bite us?" quavered Mun Bun, admitting
+now that he was afraid of the dog. "And what does he want here in our
+house, Margy?"
+
+Margy suddenly remembered that when she had seen Bobo before he had been
+chained right at this little house. Maybe it was his house, although it
+was bigger than any doghouse she had ever seen before.
+
+"We don't want him in here," cried Mun Bun. "There isn't any room for
+him." Then he cried to the big hound: "Go 'way! You'll spoil our
+Christmas tree."
+
+The big hound came nearer, but more quietly. His eyes were red, and he
+sniffed enquiringly at the doorway while the children crowded back
+against the tree. Perhaps he was the very kindest dog in the world; but
+to Mun Bun and Margy he appeared to be dreadfully savage!
+
+"Go 'way!" they shouted in chorus. And Mun Bun added again: "We don't
+want him in here, do we, Margy?"
+
+The dog seemed determined to thrust himself into the house. Perhaps
+Bobo felt about Mun Bun and Margy as they did about him--that they had
+no right there, and he wanted them to get out. And when he put his great
+head and shoulders into the doorway the little Bunkers began to shriek
+at the top of their voices.
+
+Even the snapping firecrackers could not drown their voices now. Russ
+and Rose heard the cries coming from the doghouse, and they knew Mun Bun
+and Margy were in trouble. They saw Bobo, who had been with them to the
+swamp, seemingly stuck half way in the doorway of his kennel, and Russ
+cried:
+
+"I guess that's where they are. Hear 'em, Rose? Come on, save Mun Bun
+and Margy."
+
+"I'm afraid of that hound," replied Rose, but she followed her brother
+just the same.
+
+Russ shouted to the dog. The hound backed out and looked around at Russ
+Bunker. But his red eyes did not scare the boy.
+
+"We're coming, Mun Bun!" Russ shouted. "We're coming, Margy!"
+
+The two little ones appeared at the door of the kennel. They were not
+crying much, but they had tight hold of each other's hands.
+
+"Russ! Rose!" cried Margy. "Take us out."
+
+"What are you doing in that dog's kennel?" demanded Rose.
+
+"Playing Christmas," said Margy, with quivering voice.
+
+"I guess it isn't Christmas," said Mun Bun doubtfully. "I guess it's
+Fourth of July. Isn't it, Russ? They don't have shooters only on the
+Fourth of July."
+
+"They do down here," said Russ, reaching the kennel and looking in while
+Bobo stood by as though he still wondered why Mun Bun and Margy had
+tried to turn him out of his house.
+
+Just then one of the colored men, who was a gardener, came along and
+stooped to look into the kennel too.
+
+"For de lan's sake!" he cried, "what you childern doin' in dat dog
+kennel?"
+
+"We--we were playing Christmas tree," said Margy, grabbing hold of
+Rose's hand.
+
+"For de lan's sake!" repeated the man, showing the whites of his eyes in
+a most astonishing way. "What dat in dere?"
+
+"That's our Christmas tree," said Mun Bun, very bravely now.
+
+"For de lan's sake!" ejaculated the man for a third time. "What Mistah
+Armatage gwine to say now? Dat's his bestest rubber plant what he tol'
+me to take partic'lar care of. What will you lil' w'ite childern be up
+to next, I'm a-wondering?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A LETTER AND A BIG LIGHT
+
+
+"Why, Mun Bun!" murmured Russ.
+
+"Why, Margy Bunker!" exclaimed Rose.
+
+Mun Bun was staring with all his eyes (and he had two very bright ones)
+at the rubber plant. He did not consider the mischief he had done. He
+was as curious as Vi could possibly have been about an entirely
+different thing.
+
+"If that's a rubber plant, Russ," he demanded, "where's the rubbers? I
+don't see any overshoes on it. What part of it is rubber?"
+
+At that the black man threw back his head and laughed loudly. The
+children all watched his open mouth and rolling eyes and flashing teeth
+and finally they broke into laughter too. They could not help it.
+
+"But," said Russ, after they had stopped laughing, "I am afraid Mr.
+Armatage will be angry with us."
+
+"I dunno--I dunno, chile," said the negro, shaking his head. "He sure is
+partic'lar 'bout dat rubber plant. But mebbe I can repot it and fix it
+up all right. It's only just been uprooted, and I was gwine to change de
+dirt in dat tub, anyway."
+
+"Oh! Do you think you can do it and save Mun Bun and Margy from getting
+a scolding?" Rose cried.
+
+"We'll see, lil' Miss. Shouldn't wonder," and the gardener went to work
+at once.
+
+Meanwhile Bobo sat on his haunches and mournfully looked at what was
+going on. His red eyes had a very sad expression and his drooping ears
+made him look, so Rose said, more mournful still.
+
+"He looks as if he'd just come from a funeral," she said to Russ.
+
+"What's that?" demanded Margy promptly.
+
+But Rose and Russ dodged that question. In fact they did not know how to
+explain just what a funeral was. But in watching the gardener replace
+the rubber plant in the green tub, surrounded with fresh earth from the
+green house, the little ones forgot everything else, even Bobo.
+
+Bobo, just as soon as he could, went into his house and smelled all
+around and finally lay down, his muzzle sticking out of the door.
+
+"He looks unhappy," Rose said. "I guess he thought he wasn't going to
+have any home at all when he saw you two in there with the rubber
+plant."
+
+"It was a good Christmas tree," was Margy's only reply to this.
+
+"But we didn't get the candles to light it up," Mun Bun rejoined,
+walking away hand in hand with Russ. "So how could it be a Christmas
+tree if there weren't any candles?"
+
+As Christmas Day grew closer there was less work done and more play
+engaged in by everybody on the plantation. Christmas Eve there was a
+beautiful display of fireworks on the front lawn of the big house, and
+everybody from the quarters came to see it, as well as the white folks.
+Even Mammy June came up from her cabin by the stream, walking with
+difficulty, for she was lame, and sat in state on the porch "with de
+w'ite folks" to see the fireworks.
+
+The old woman had taken a strong liking to the six little Bunkers and
+she made as much of them as she did of the three little Armatages. But
+the latter were not jealous at all. Phillis and Alice and Frane, Junior,
+were likewise delighted with the children from the North.
+
+Christmas Day dawned brilliantly, and although there was what Mr.
+Armatage called "a tang" in the air it was so warm that it was hard for
+the Bunker children to realize that this was the day that they expected
+up North to be "white."
+
+"A 'white Christmas' doesn't mean anything down here in Georgia," said
+Daddy Bunker. "Though once in a while they have a little snow here. But
+they never speak of it--not the natives. It is a sort of scandal in the
+family," and he laughed, looking at Mother Bunker, who understood him if
+the children did not.
+
+But white or green, that Christmas Day was a delightful one. Even
+without a gaudily lighted and trimmed tree, the Bunkers were pleased in
+every way. Their presents were stacked with those belonging to the
+Armatage children under the chimneypiece in the big front parlor, and
+Mr. Armatage himself made the presentations.
+
+There were presents from "all over" for the six little Bunkers; for no
+matter how far they were away from their many relatives and friends, the
+six were fondly remembered. Even Cowboy Jack sent gifts from Texas!
+
+With the presents from Aunt Jo came a letter particularly addressed to
+the children. Russ read it aloud to them all. It gave news of William's
+neuralgia (Vi still insisted on calling it "croup") and about Annie and
+Parker. Even the Great Dane, Alexis, was mentioned. But the most
+important thing spoken of in the letter to the children's minds was the
+fact that Aunt Jo said she meant to keep Sam, the colored boy Mun Bun
+and Margy had introduced into her Back Bay home, all winter.
+
+"The boy is really a treasure," said Aunt Jo. "He can do something
+besides dance--although he does plenty of that in the kitchen to the
+delight of Parker, Annie and William. He has been taught to work, and is
+really a very good houseboy. And he looks well in his uniform."
+
+"I'd like to see him in a uniform," said Laddie. "Is he a soldier, or a
+policeman?"
+
+"He's a 'buttons,'" replied Mother Bunker, laughing. "Aunt Jo has always
+wanted to have a boy in buttons to answer the door and clean the
+knives."
+
+"I'd rather see him dance again," said Russ, and he slyly tried to cut
+that pigeon wing once more. But he made a dismal failure of it.
+
+There was dancing in plenty at the negro quarters that Christmas
+evening. All the white folks went down from the big house to watch the
+proceedings. And again Mammy June was there.
+
+There had been a great feast for the hands, but although one grinning
+negro boy confessed to Russ that he was "full o' tuck," he still could
+dance. This boy was applauded vigorously by his mates, and one of them
+called out:
+
+"'Lias! show dese w'ite folks how _to_ cut dat pigeon wing. Go on, boy!"
+
+"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June, "don't none of you know how to do dat
+like my Sneezer. If he was here he'd show 'em. Just you dance plain,
+honey. Double shuffle's as much as you can do."
+
+So her grandson, 'Lias, did not try any fancy steps. Privately, however,
+and much to Rose's amusement, Russ Bunker often tried to copy Sam's
+pigeon-wing step.
+
+"If we ever go to Aunt Jo's again--and of course we shall--I am going to
+get Sam to show me how to do it. I'll get it perfect some time," sighed
+the oldest Bunker boy.
+
+Vi, looking on at one of her brother's attempts, asked:
+
+"Doesn't it hurt the pigeon to cut its wing?"
+
+But that was a silly question, and they all laughed at her. Laddie grew
+suddenly excited.
+
+"Oh! I know a new riddle!" he cried. "It's a good riddle!"
+
+"What is it?" asked his twin sister.
+
+"It isn't a good riddle just because you made it up, Laddie," said Rose.
+
+"It would be a good one no matter who made it up," answered Laddie
+decidedly. "You let me tell it. I know it's good."
+
+"What is it, Laddie?" Russ Bunker asked.
+
+"Here is the riddle," said Laddie eagerly. "What sort of wing has no
+feathers on it? And the answer is, of course, 'A pigeon wing.' There!
+Isn't that a fine riddle?"
+
+"Pooh!" said Vi. "I don't think so."
+
+"Some pigeons' wings have feathers," said Rose.
+
+"Hoh!" cried Laddie, somewhat disturbed. "That one Russ was trying to
+make doesn't have any feathers on it."
+
+"That's only one kind, and it isn't really a pigeon's wing, you know."
+
+Laddie stared at his sister, Rose, with much doubt. "You're always
+disappointing me, Rose," he murmured.
+
+"But Rose is right, Laddie," said Russ. "And there are other wings that
+have no feathers."
+
+"What wings?" grumbled Laddie.
+
+"I know!" cried Vi suddenly. "Airplane wings! They haven't any
+feathers."
+
+"But they are no more like real wings," complained Rose, "than Russ's
+dancing step."
+
+"No," said the oldest Bunker boy. "I mean bat's wings. Don't you
+remember that bat we caught that time? Its wings didn't have feathers
+at all. It was covered with fur."
+
+"Oh, well," sighed Laddie. "Then my riddle isn't any good."
+
+"Not much, I am afraid," said Russ kindly but firmly.
+
+However, Laddie and the other little Bunkers did not have many
+disappointing things happen to them on this lovely Christmas Day. Mr.
+and Mrs. Armatage tried in every way to make the stay of their guests at
+the Meiggs Plantation as pleasant as possible.
+
+After the celebration at the quarters the white folks came home, and
+there at the big house a fine party was soon under way. People had come
+in their cars from far and near and the house was brilliantly lighted on
+the first two floors.
+
+The children were allowed to look on at this grown folks' party for a
+little while, then they had to go to bed. Phillis and Alice and Frane,
+Junior, seemed to consider it very hard that they were not allowed to
+stay downstairs; but the little Bunkers were used to having their own
+good times and did not expect to enter into the amusements of their
+elders.
+
+"Let's sit on the top step of these stairs," said Phillis to Rose and
+Alice, "and we can see through the balustrades. There's Mrs. Campron!
+She's got a lovely dress on, and diamonds."
+
+Rose remained with the two Armatage girls for a little while and Russ
+saw to it that the little folks went to bed. Then he came out into the
+hall again to see what the girls were doing. Before he could ask them he
+chanced to look out of the back window at the end of the long hall.
+
+"Oh!" cried Russ Bunker. "What is that?"
+
+"What's what?" demanded Phillis. "What do you see?"
+
+"Is it a shooting star?" went on Russ. "See that light! I believe it
+must be a fire."
+
+The girls came running to join him then, more interested in what Russ
+saw than they were in what was going on at the party below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAMMY JUNE IN PERIL
+
+
+From the big house on the Meiggs Plantation, standing on a knoll--which
+means a small hill,--one could see for a long distance all about, in
+spite of the shade trees, and especially when looking from the third
+floor windows. Russ Bunker was looking right out over the quarters where
+the hands lived, and could see far down the slope of the land and to the
+forest beyond the cultivated fields.
+
+It was a lovely starlit night, but of course the stars did not reveal
+everything. The strong red light that sprang up beyond the cabins where
+the colored people lived, revealed a great deal, however.
+
+"It's a house afire!" declared Phillis Armatage.
+
+"Where can there be a house in that direction?" Rose Bunker asked.
+"Isn't that fire beyond the cabins, Russ?"
+
+Russ suddenly sprang to action. He wheeled from the window and ran along
+the hall to the stairway.
+
+"Russ! Russ! Where are you going?" demanded his sister.
+
+"Tell Daddy and Mr. Armatage. I know what house is afire. It's Mammy
+June's cabin!" shouted Russ.
+
+He had previously located the direction of the old woman's cabin by the
+stream, and Russ was sure that he was right now. He left the girls
+screaming after him; he had no time to tell them how he was so sure of
+his statement.
+
+Down the two flights of stairs he plunged until he landed with a bang on
+the hall rug at the foot of the lower flight. He almost fell against Mr.
+Armatage himself when he landed. And Daddy Bunker was not far away.
+
+"Well, well, young man, what's this?" demanded Mr. Armatage, for a
+moment quite as stern with Russ as he was with his own children.
+
+Daddy, too, looked upon Russ with amazement. "Why, Russ," he said, "what
+does this mean? What are you doing down here?"
+
+"There's a fire!" gasped out Russ, his breath almost gone. "There's a
+fire!"
+
+"Upstairs?" demanded Mr. Armatage, whirling toward the stairway.
+
+"Oh, no, sir! No, sir!" cried Russ, stopping him. "It's down the hill. I
+saw it from the window."
+
+"The quarters?" demanded the planter.
+
+"No, sir. It looks like Mammy June's. It's a great red flame shooting
+right up about where her cabin is."
+
+"And the old woman has gone home. She's lame. Like enough she won't get
+out in time--if it is her shack. Come on, boys!" The planter's shout
+rang through the lower rooms and startled both the guests and the
+servants. "There's a fire down by the branch. May be a cabin and
+somebody in it. Come on in your cars and follow me. Get all the buckets
+you can find."
+
+He dashed out of the house, hatless as he was, shouting to the colored
+folks who were gathered outside watching the dancing through the long
+windows. Daddy Bunker followed right behind him. And what do you suppose
+Russ did? Why, he could have touched Daddy Bunker's coat-tails he kept
+so close to him! Nobody forbade him, so Russ went too.
+
+Mr. Armatage and Mr. Bunker got into one of the first cars to start, and
+Russ, with a water pail in each hand, got in too. There was a great
+noise of shouting and the starting of the motor-cars. Men ran hither and
+thither, and all the time the light of the fire down by the stream
+increased.
+
+When they were under way, Mr. Armatage's car leading, they found many of
+the plantation hands running down the grassy road in advance. The cars
+passed these men, Mr. Armatage shouting orders as the car flew by. In
+two minutes they came to the clearing in which Mammy June's cabin stood.
+One end of the little house was all ablaze.
+
+"The poor soul hasn't got out," cried Mr. Armatage, and with Mr. Bunker
+he charged for the door, burst it in, and dashed into the smoke which
+filled the interior.
+
+Russ thought that Daddy Bunker was very brave indeed to do this. It
+looked to the boy as though both men would be burned by the raging fire.
+But he was brave himself. He fought back his tears and ran to the
+stream to fill with water both the pails he carried.
+
+When he came staggering back with the filled pails, the water slopping
+over his shoes, the first of the hands arrived. One man grabbed Russ's
+pails and threw the water upon the burning logs. Such a small amount of
+water only made the flames hiss and the logs steam. But soon other
+filled pails were brought. More of the cars with guests from the party
+arrived, and a chain of men to the stream was formed.
+
+Almost at once Mr. Armatage and Daddy Bunker fought their way out of the
+burning cabin through the smoke, and they bore between them the
+screaming old woman. Mammy June was badly frightened.
+
+"You're all right now, Mammy," declared Mr. Armatage, when he and Mr.
+Bunker put her into the tonneau of the car. "Here, boy!" he added to
+Russ, "you stay with her."
+
+"I got to lose all! I got to lose ma home!" wailed Mammy June. "If my
+Ebenezer had been yere, dat chimbley wouldn't have cotched fire."
+
+"Can't be helped now," said Daddy Bunker soothingly. "We'll try to save
+your home, Mammy."
+
+But although their intentions were of the best, this could not be done.
+The cabin--as dry as a stack of straw--could not be saved. The pails
+were passed from hand to hand as rapidly as possible, but the fire had
+gained such headway that it was impossible to quench it until the cabin
+was in complete ruins.
+
+"You be mighty glad, Mammy June," said Mr. Armatage, finally giving up
+the unequal battle, "that you are saved yourself. And you wouldn't have
+been if this little Bunker hadn't seen the fire when he did."
+
+"Bless him!" groaned the old woman, hugging Russ to her side in the car.
+"If my Ebenezer had been home it wouldn't never have happened, Mistah
+Armatage."
+
+She harped upon this belief incessantly as they finally drove back to
+the big house. The fright and exposure quite turned Mammy June's brain
+for the time. She was somewhat delirious.
+
+"S'pose my Ebenezer come home and find de cabin in ruins. He mebbe will
+think Mammy June burned up, and go right off again. And he might come
+any time!"
+
+The old woman talked of this even after they put her to bed and a doctor
+who chanced to be at Mrs. Armatage's party had attended her. The fire,
+and her bodily illness, had prostrated the old woman.
+
+The end of that Christmas party was not as pleasant as the beginning. It
+was long after midnight before even the children were in their beds and
+composed for sleep. The party broke up at an earlier hour than might
+have been expected.
+
+Rose slept in the room with Phillis and Alice Armatage. Just as she was
+dropping to sleep and after her companions were already in dreamland
+Rose saw the door of the room pushed open. The moon had risen, and Rose
+recognized Russ's tousled head poked in the open door.
+
+"What do you want?" she demanded in a whisper. "Oh, Russ! there isn't
+another fire, is there?"
+
+"No! Hush! I just thought of something."
+
+"What is it?" asked Rose in the same low tone that Russ used.
+
+"We can do something for Mammy June."
+
+"We can't cure her rheumatism, Russ," said Rose. "Even the doctor can't
+do that in a hurry. He said so."
+
+"No. She's worrying about her boy. That boy with the funny name.
+Sneezer."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Rose.
+
+"She is afraid he will come back and find the cabin burned and go away
+again without her knowing it," said Russ gravely, tiptoeing to his
+sister's bedside.
+
+"Yes. Mother says it's real pitiful the way she takes on," sighed the
+little girl.
+
+"Well, Rose, you and I can help about that," said Russ confidently.
+
+"How can we?" she asked, in surprise.
+
+"We can write a sign and stick it up on a pole down there by the burned
+cabin. We'll make a sign saying that Mammy June is up here at the big
+house and for Sneezer to come and see her."
+
+"Oh, goody!" cried Rose, but still under her breath. "That's a fine
+idea, Russ."
+
+"Don't say anything about it to anybody," warned her brother, eager to
+make a secret of the plan that had popped into his head. "We'll write
+that sign early in the morning and go down there and stick it up. Want
+to?"
+
+"Of course I do," said Rose, with a glad little jump in her bed. "I
+think you're just the smartest boy, Russ, to think of it. I won't say a
+word about it, not even to Philly and Alice."
+
+With this plan dancing in her head Rose soon fell asleep while Russ
+stole back to the room where he slept with the smaller boys. After that
+the big house on the Meiggs Plantation became quiet for the rest of the
+long night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE TWINS IN TROUBLE
+
+
+Laddie and Vi Bunker felt as though they had been cheated. They had not
+been allowed to go to the fire, "when Mammy June's cabin had been burned
+all up," Vi declared. They had only seen the fire from an upper window
+of the big Armatage house.
+
+"But it wasn't burned _up_, Vi," her twin insisted. "It was burned
+_down_."
+
+"Russ said it was burned up when he came back from the fire--so now,"
+Violet declared somewhat warmly.
+
+"How can a house burn up? It just fell all to pieces into the cellar."
+
+"There wasn't any cellar to Mammy June's house," Vi observed.
+
+"Well, it fell down; so of course, it burned down."
+
+"The flames went up," repeated Vi, quite as determinedly. "And the wood
+went with 'em--with the flames and smoke. So the cabin burned up."
+
+What might have been the result of this discussion it would be hard to
+say had not the twins both felt so keenly their disappointment. Russ had
+gone to the fire and brought Mammy June out of the cabin and brought her
+up here to the big house! To tell the truth, Russ was so excited when he
+got back that in telling of the adventure he gave the younger children
+to understand that he had done it all himself. Daddy Bunker and Mr.
+Armatage did not appear much in his story.
+
+"Russ is always doing the big things," sighed Laddie. "It's just like a
+riddle----"
+
+"What is?" almost snapped Vi, for she was just as disappointed as her
+twin brother.
+
+"Why, Russ getting the best of everything. Why is it?" muttered Laddie,
+kicking a pebble before him in the path.
+
+"If that's a riddle, I can't answer it," said Vi.
+
+"It isn't any worse to ask riddles than it is to ask questions--so now."
+
+The twins were not always in accord, of course; but they were seldom so
+near to a quarrel as upon this morning. Perhaps, for one thing, the day
+before, they had rather over-done and possibly had over-eaten. They were
+on the verge of doing something that the Bunker children seldom
+did--quarreling. Fortunately something suddenly attracted Laddie's
+attention and he stopped kicking the pebble and pointed down the yard in
+front of them.
+
+"Oh, Vi! See that cunning thing! What is it?"
+
+Something flashed across a green patch of grass away down by the road.
+It was red, had small, sharp-pointed ears and nose and a bushy tail.
+This tail waved quite importantly as the small animal ran.
+
+"Come on!" cried Vi, taking the lead at once. She often did so, for
+Laddie was slower than she. "Come on! Let's get it, Laddie."
+
+Laddie, nothing loath, ran after his twin sister. They raced down the
+hill and came to the little gully into which the animal with the bushy
+tail had disappeared. The end of that gully was the open mouth of a
+culvert under the road.
+
+"Did he go in there?" Laddie demanded. "Did he go into that hole, Vi?"
+
+"He must have," declared Violet. "It must be his home. It's a burrow."
+
+"But he wasn't a bunny. Bunnies have burrows," objected Laddie.
+
+"I guess other animals can have burrows, too," said his twin. "And he
+was lots prettier than a rabbit."
+
+"He was that," admitted the excited Laddie. "It wasn't a rabbit, of
+course. Rabbits aren't red."
+
+"Let's find the other end of the hole," Vi said eagerly. "We'll stop
+both ends up and then--and then----"
+
+"Well, what then?" her twin demanded.
+
+"Why, we can catch him then," said Vi, rather feebly. "That is, we can
+if he wants to come out."
+
+"I suppose we can. If he doesn't take too long. Let's," said Laddie, and
+he ran across the road and looked to see if there was another opening to
+the culvert.
+
+But as it chanced, this was an old and unused drain, and the farther
+mouth of it was stopped up. This made the hole a very nice den for the
+little animal the Bunker twins had seen go into it. But neither Laddie
+nor Vi had any idea as to what the creature was.
+
+"I'm going to get a stick and poke him out," announced Laddie.
+
+"You can't poke him out when there is no other hole over there,"
+rejoined Vi very sensibly.
+
+"I'll poke him till he comes out then," said Laddie, looking all about
+but not starting to find a stick.
+
+To tell the truth he was at the end of his resources. He did not know
+how to get at the little red animal.
+
+"Anyway," he said at last, "maybe he didn't run in here after all."
+
+"He did so, Laddie Bunker!" cried Violet. "I saw him."
+
+This seemed final. Laddie looked all around again, quite puzzled as to
+what to do next. There was no backing out of a thing when once it was
+begun--not with Vi Bunker! She always insisted upon going on to the end,
+no matter what that end might be.
+
+"Well," her twin said at last, "I s'pose I'll have to go in after him."
+
+"How can you?" asked Vi promptly, but excitedly, too.
+
+"I can crawl into that hole----"
+
+"Isn't it too small?"
+
+"Well, I'm not so big," replied Laddie. "I guess I can do it. I'm going
+to try."
+
+He knelt down before the round mouth of the culvert. It was a piece of
+drainpipe with a rough rim at the edge of the hole. Laddie poked his
+head into the hole.
+
+"It's as dark as the inside of your pocket, Vi Bunker," he said, in a
+muffled voice.
+
+"Shall I run get a candle?" asked his sister.
+
+"No," sighed Laddie; and even his sigh sounded funny from inside the
+pipe. "If you do they'll want to know what you want it for. And if we
+are going to catch this--this whatever-it-is, we want to catch it all by
+ourselves. Wait."
+
+Vi granted that request. She waited, watching Laddie's plump little body
+wriggling farther and farther into the culvert. His jacket caught
+several times on the rough rim of the opening. But he persevered.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Laddie at last, and his voice seemed a murmur from a
+great way off.
+
+"I guess you better come back, Laddie," said Vi, getting anxious.
+
+Laddie, if the truth were known, thought so too. For just then he had
+sighted in the dark two fiery points, like flashing bits of glass or
+mica. He knew what they were; they were the eyes of the little red
+animal he had chased into this hole. And Laddie thought that when eyes
+flashed so brilliantly, their owner must be angry.
+
+"He's going to jump at me!" breathed the little boy to himself.
+
+He began to back out hastily. The bottom of his jacket caught on the rim
+of the pipe. He was stuck there!
+
+"Pull! Pull me out, Vi Bunker!" he shouted.
+
+But his voice was so muffled that his sister could not understand what
+he said. It looked as though Laddie was unable to get back the way he
+had come. And he certainly dared not go on ahead.
+
+For now, to increase his fears, he saw other points of light in the
+darkness--all in pairs, the eyes of several smaller animals, he was
+sure! He had self-control enough to count them and found that there
+were five pairs of eyes altogether.
+
+What should he do about it? Struggle as he might he could not back any
+farther. And no manner of wriggling was likely to get him out of the
+hole the way he had come in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN MAMMY JUNE'S ROOM
+
+
+Russ and Rose had both got up very early the day after Christmas, for
+their minds were filled with the idea of helping Mammy June. The poor
+old woman's anxiety should be relieved, and the two oldest of the Bunker
+children were determined that they would relieve it regarding her son,
+"Sneezer," if that were possible.
+
+So Russ found some cardboard boxes that had held certain of their
+Christmas presents, and he tore these apart and they wrote carefully a
+message to the old woman's absent son on both faces of these cards. At
+least, Russ wrote them, for by now he had learned at school to write a
+very good hand. Rose was not so sure--especially about her "q's" and
+capital "S's." Anybody who could read handwriting at all, however,
+could have read those signs that Russ Bunker wrote.
+
+"It doesn't seem like Christmas time at all," Rose said, as the two ran
+down the lane right after breakfast toward the branch and the burned
+cabin. "See the leaves and grass! And there's a flower!"
+
+It was only a weed, but it was a pretty one and Rose gathered it--of
+course for Mother Bunker. When they came in sight of Mammy June's cabin
+it was a sad looking place indeed. The little Bunkers had had several
+nice visits to the old woman's cabin, and they were really very sorry
+that it had burned down.
+
+The disaster was complete. The log walls were tumbled in heaps and were
+all charred. The interior of the hut was little but ashes.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose. "If that Sneezer Meiggs did come home and see all
+this, he might go away again, just as his mother says. It would be too
+dreadful, Russ. I am so glad you invented this idea of putting up signs
+for him."
+
+In fact, Russ was quite proud of his original thought himself. He was
+naturally of an inventive turn of mind and this was not the first novel
+thought he had expressed. He and Rose stuck up the cards on poles that
+they found near by, and they had so many of them that they quite
+surrounded the ashes of the old hut.
+
+"He can't help seeing them if he comes here," said Rose, as they
+departed from the spot. "But do you s'pose he'll ever want to come back
+to the place where everybody called him 'Sneezer'?"
+
+"He ought to want to come back to see Mammy June," declared Russ warmly.
+"I think she is just fine."
+
+"So do I," admitted Rose reflectively. "But I wouldn't want to be called
+by such a name as Sneezer."
+
+It was when they got back to the big house and around to its front that
+the two oldest little Bunkers became aware that something was happening
+down by the road. They saw Vi hopping up and down in a funny fashion,
+and she was screaming.
+
+"Now, what do you suppose is the matter with her?" demanded Rose.
+
+"Don't know. But it's something, sure enough!" rejoined Russ, and he
+started on a run for the spot where Violet was jumping up and down and
+screaming.
+
+As Russ and Rose started down the hill the three Armatage children came
+out of the front door of the big house and ran after them, screaming as
+well. Then appeared a host of small colored folk--Russ and Rose never
+could imagine where they all came from. They seemed to spring right up
+out of the ground when anything exciting happened.
+
+All this troop came streaming down the hill, and very quickly Vi found
+herself surrounded. Russ demanded:
+
+"What's the matter with you? Has something bitten you?"
+
+"They are biting Laddie!" wailed the twin sister.
+
+"How silly!" exclaimed Phillis Armatage. "Laddie isn't here."
+
+"Yes, he is, so now!" cried Vi.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" screamed Alice. "I see his legs!"
+
+At that they all saw his legs--at least, as much of them as were poked
+out of the mouth of the drainpipe. And they certainly were kicking
+vigorously. But the children outside made so much noise that the voice
+of the boy inside the pipe could not be heard.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" declared Vi, jumping up and down again. "It is biting him."
+
+"What is biting him? Mosquitoes?" demanded Russ, as much puzzled as
+anybody.
+
+"The red thing! With the pointed ears! And a big tail!" cried Vi in
+gasps.
+
+"What can she mean?" demanded Rose.
+
+  [Illustration: PHILLY GRABBED LADDIE'S ANKLE AND STARTED TO PULL HIM
+  OUT.
+  _Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 187]
+
+But Philly Armatage suspected the reason for Vi's fear at once. She
+grabbed hold of Laddie's ankles and started to draw him out of the pipe.
+
+"You'd better come out!" she cried. "That old fox will bite your nose
+off."
+
+"A fox!" cried Russ, in wonder and alarm. "Does a fox live in that
+hole?"
+
+"And she's got puppies. We saw 'em playing out here one day. Father is
+only waiting for a chance to smoke 'em out. They are terrible. They eat
+hens and other poultry."
+
+Russ was vastly interested, as well as troubled by Laddie's fix. For the
+smaller boy was really wedged by his rolled-up jacket tight into the
+mouth of the culvert. His muffled cries became more imploring, and the
+other children really feared that the mother fox, fearing for her
+young, might have attacked the boy.
+
+"I tell you he must be got out!" shouted Russ.
+
+"How you going to do it?" Philly demanded. Then she called to Laddie:
+"Push in farther, Laddie! Then maybe you can back out all right."
+
+But Laddie Bunker was so much afraid of the foxes by now (he still saw
+their luminous eyes before him) that he dared not squirm any deeper into
+the pipe. What would have happened to him finally--whether or not the
+old fox might not have attacked him--will never be known, for Russ
+Bunker took desperate means to release his brother.
+
+Russ ran to a pile of cobblestones beside the road, seized a big one,
+and staggered back with it in both hands. With the stone he pounded the
+rim of the pipe so hard that it broke in pieces.
+
+"Ow! Ow!" cried the muffled voice of Laddie Bunker. "You are breaking my
+legs. Don't pound me so!"
+
+"Wriggle out! Hurry up! What's holding you?" demanded Russ, half
+angrily because he was so excited.
+
+The smaller boy began to move backward now, the rough rim of the pipe no
+longer holding his jacket. Slowly he pushed out. When he appeared, his
+face very red and tear-streaked, Russ and Phillis pulled him to his
+feet.
+
+"Where's the fox?" demanded Vi, still very much excited.
+
+"Is that a fox?" demanded Laddie, panting.
+
+"Yes," said Phillis Armatage.
+
+"That fox has got five pairs of eyes, then," grumbled Laddie.
+
+"She's got four pups," cried Frane, Junior. "I'm going to run and tell
+father," and he ran away up the hill.
+
+"Come on!" cried Russ, immediately in action again. "Let's stop up the
+hole. Then the foxes can't get out until Mr. Armatage comes."
+
+They did that--at least, Russ and Vi and the colored boys did. Rose
+dusted Laddie off and wiped his face. He soon became more cheerful.
+
+"Well," he said, with a long breath, "they didn't bite me after all;
+but I thought they would. And their eyes shone dreadfully."
+
+"What made them shine?" demanded Vi, her usual curiosity aroused.
+
+"Because they were mad," said her twin promptly. "That old mother fox
+didn't want me in there."
+
+The adventure was happily ended; that is, for Laddie and Vi. Not so for
+the foxes. For Mr. Armatage and the gardener came with shovel and club
+and they dug down to the foxes' den. But the children had not done their
+work of closing the entrance well, and just as Mr. Armatage broke
+through into her den, Mrs. Fox and her puppies scurried out and away
+into the pine woods. But she had to look for a new home, for her old one
+was completely broken up.
+
+After this the little Bunkers and the Armatage children trooped up to
+the house and went to the room where Mammy June had been put to bed. The
+doctor had already been to see her this morning.
+
+The old colored woman was propped up with pillows and she wore the usual
+turban on her head. She smiled delightedly when she saw the white
+children and hailed them as gayly as though she were not in pain.
+
+"Lawsy me, childern!" cried Mammy June. "Has you come to see how I is? I
+sure has got good friends, I sure has! An' if Ebenezer Caliper
+Spotiswood Meiggs was back home yere where he b'longs, there wouldn't be
+a happier ol' woman in all Georgia--no, sir!
+
+"For Mistah Armatage say he's gwine have me another house built before
+spring. And it'll be a lot mo' fixy than my ol' house--yes, sir! Wait
+till my Sneezer comes home and sees it--Tut, tut! He ain't mebbe comin'
+home no mo'!"
+
+"Oh, yes, he will, Mammy June," Philly said comfortingly.
+
+"Don't know. These boys ups and goes away from their mammies and ain't
+never seen nor heard of again."
+
+"But Sneezer loved you too well to stay away always," Alice Armatage
+said.
+
+"And when these Bunkers go back North," put in Frane, Junior, "they are
+going to look for Sneezer everywhere."
+
+"You reckon you'll find him?" asked Mammy June of Rose.
+
+"I hope so," said the oldest Bunker girl.
+
+"Of course we will," agreed Russ stoutly. "And Daddy Bunker will look
+out for him too. He said so."
+
+According to Russ's mind, that Daddy Bunker had promised to help find
+the lost boy seemed conclusive that Sneezer must be found. He and Rose
+began eagerly to tell Mammy June what they had already done to make it
+positive that Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs would not come back to
+the burned cabin some day and go away, thinking that his old mother was
+no longer alive.
+
+"You blessed childern!" exclaimed Mammy June. "And has you fixed it dat
+way for me? But--but--you says you writ dem letters to Sneezer?"
+
+"Yes," said Rose happily. "Yes, we did, Mammy June. And stuck them up on
+poles all about the burned house."
+
+"I don't know! I don't know!" sighed the old woman. "I reckon dat won't
+be much use."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Russ anxiously. "If he comes back he'll see and read
+'em."
+
+"No. No, sir! He may see 'em," said Mammy June, shaking her head on the
+pillow. "But he won't read 'em."
+
+"Why won't he?" Russ demanded in some heat. "I wrote them just as plain
+as plain!"
+
+"But," said Mammy June, still sadly, "you see, my Sneezer never learnt
+to read hand-writin'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+GOOSEY-GOOSEY-GANDER
+
+
+The Bunker children, especially Russ and Rose, felt truly anxious
+because of Mammy June's unhappiness about her absent son. The boy they
+all called Sneezer should have been home now when his mother was
+crippled with rheumatism and had lost her home and all her little
+possessions.
+
+She worried audibly and continually about Sneezer. Russ and Rose took
+counsel together more than once. They had hoped that their signs put up
+at the site of the burned cabin would have satisfied Mammy June that her
+son would come up to the big house whenever, or if ever, he returned to
+his old home. Now the Bunker children were not so sure.
+
+When Russ and Rose told Philly Armatage what they had done she said:
+
+"Mebbe he'll think the writing is just to keep ha'nts away. He can't
+read writing. He always worked in the fields or up here at the house.
+Those signs aren't any good--just as Mammy June says."
+
+This opinion caused Russ and Rose additional anxiety. They did not know
+what to do about it. Even the boy's inventive mind was at fault in the
+emergency.
+
+While the older Bunker brother and sister were troubled in this way and
+Laddie and Vi were recovering from their adventure with the red fox,
+Margy and Mun Bun were, as usual, having their own pleasures and
+difficulties. The littlest Bunker was a born explorer. Daddy Bunker said
+so. And Margy was quite as active as the little fellow.
+
+Hand in hand they wandered all about the big house and out-of-doors as
+well. There was always supposed to be somebody to watch them, especially
+if they went near the barns or paddocks where the horses and mules were.
+But sometimes the little folks slipped away from even Mother Bunker's
+observation.
+
+The gardener often talked to the littlest Bunkers, and he saw, too, that
+they did no more mischief around the greenhouse. When he saw them that
+afternoon trotting down the hill toward the poultry houses he failed to
+follow them. He had his work to do, of course, and it did not enter his
+head that Mun Bun and Margy could get into much trouble with the
+poultry.
+
+Margy and Mun Bun were delighted with the "chickens" as they called most
+of the fowl the Armatages kept. But there were many different kinds--not
+alone of hens and roosters; for there were peafowl, and guineas, and
+ducks, and turkeys. And in addition there was a flock of gray geese.
+
+"Those are gooseys," Margy announced, pointing through the slats of the
+low fence which shut in the geese and their strip of the branch, or
+brook, and the grass plot which the geese had all to themselves.
+
+"Goosey, goosey gander!" chanted Mun Bun, clinging to the top rail of
+the fence and looking through the slats. "Which is ganders and which is
+gooseys, Margy?"
+
+As though in answer to his query one of the big birds, with a horny
+crown on its head, stuck out its neck and ran at the little boy looking
+through the fence. The bird hissed in a most hateful manner too.
+
+"Oh, look out, Mun Bun!" cried his sister. "I guess that's a gander."
+
+But Mun Bun, with a fence between him and the big bird, was as usual
+very brave.
+
+"I don't have to look out, Margy Bunker," he declared proudly. "I am
+already out--so he can't get me. Anyway if he came after us I wouldn't
+let him bite you."
+
+"I guess he would like to bite us," said the little girl, keeping well
+away from the fence herself.
+
+"That's 'cause he must be hungry," said Mun Bun with confidence. "You
+see, he hasn't got anything but grass to eat. I guess they forgot to
+feed him and it makes him mad."
+
+"That is too bad. He is a real pretty bird," agreed Margy. "Wonder if we
+could feed him?"
+
+"We can ask that nice cook for bwead," said Mun Bun doubtfully.
+
+"They don't feed gooseys bread, I guess," objected the little girl.
+
+"What do they feed 'em?"
+
+"I guess corn--or oats."
+
+"Let's go and get some," said Mun Bun promptly, and he backed away from
+the fence, still keeping his gaze fixed on the threatening gander.
+
+They both knew where the feed was kept, for they had watched the colored
+man feed the stock. So they went across to the stables. And nobody saw
+them enter the feed room.
+
+As usual it did not trouble Margy and Mun Bun that they had not asked
+permission to feed the geese. What they had not been literally forbidden
+to do the little folks considered all right. It was true that they were
+great ones for exploring and experimenting. That is how they managed to
+get into so much mischief.
+
+In this matter, however, it did not seem as though Margy and Mun Bun
+could really get into much trouble. They got a little dish and filled it
+with corn and trotted back to the goose pen. This time the gander did
+not charge Mun Bun. But the whole flock was down the slope by the water
+and the little folks had to walk that way along the edge of the fenced
+lot.
+
+They came to a place where a panel of the fence was crooked. It had been
+broken, in fact, and it was much easier to push it aside than not. Why!
+when Mun Bun leaned against it the strip of fence fell right over on to
+the grass of the goose yard.
+
+"Now see what you've done, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy.
+
+"Why--oh--I didn't mean to," sputtered Mun Bun.
+
+"What do you s'pose Mr. Armatage will say?"
+
+"He won't say anything," said Mun Bun briskly. "For he won't see it. And
+now, Margy, we can throw the corn to those gooseys and ganders much
+better. See!"
+
+He grabbed a handful of shelled corn out of the dish and scattered it as
+far as he could toward the flock. At once the gray birds became
+interested. They stretched their long necks and the big gander uttered a
+questioning "honk!"
+
+"It's corn--it's real corn!" cried Mun Bun. "Don't be afraid,
+goosey-goosey-gander," and he shouted with laughter.
+
+Margy threw a handful of corn too. At once the geese drew nearer. When
+they reached the first kernels they began grabbing them up with that
+strange shoveling motion with their bills that all geese and ducks make.
+The children watched them with delight.
+
+But as the geese waddled nearer the old gander began to wiggle his head
+from side to side and to hiss softly. Margy and Mun Bun looked at each
+other, and both drew back.
+
+"I don't like that one much," said Margy. "Do you, Mun Bun?"
+
+"I don't like him at all," confessed the little fellow. "I guess we'd
+better go back. Maybe Mother will be wanting us."
+
+Margy turned as quickly as he did. She had not thrown out all the corn,
+but as she turned away a few kernels scattered from the dish. Instantly
+the gander saw this. With a long hiss he started after the two children,
+and many of his flock kept right behind their leader.
+
+"Oh! Come quick, Mun Bun!" gasped Margy.
+
+Mun Bun seized her hand. As they ran up the slope the corn scattered
+from the dish. This was enough to keep the flock following. But the big
+gander did not chase the little boy and girl because of the scattered
+corn. He was really angry!
+
+The chubby legs of Mun Bun and Margy looked good to that old gander. He
+ran hissing after them and began to flap his wings. One stroke of one of
+those wings would knock down either of the children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ROSE HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+It was just like a nightmare, and both Margy and Mun Bun knew what
+nightmares were. Those are dreams that, when you are "sleeping them,"
+you get chased by something and your feet seem to stick in the mud so
+that you can't run. It is a very frightful sort of dream. And this
+adventure the little ones had got into was surely a frightful peril.
+
+The hissing gander, his neck outstretched and his bill wide open,
+followed the two children with every evidence of wishing to strike them.
+His flapping wings were as powerful, it seemed, as those of the big
+sea-eagle that had been caught aboard ship coming down from Boston, and
+Mun Bun and Margy remembered that creature very vividly.
+
+Others of the flock of geese came on, too. As long as the grains of corn
+kept dropping from Margy's dish, the ravenous geese would follow, even
+if they were not savage, as their leader was.
+
+The chubby legs of the two children hardly kept them ahead of the
+gander's bill. They shrieked at the top of their voices. But for once
+none of the innumerable colored folks was in sight. Even their friend,
+the gardener, had disappeared since Mun Bun and Margy had come down to
+the goose pen.
+
+"Help! Help us!" cried Margy, looking to the world in general to assist.
+
+"Muvver! Muvver!" cried Mun Bun, who held an unshaken belief that Mother
+Bunker must be always at hand and able to rescue him from any trouble.
+
+Mun Bun thought he felt the cold, hard bill of the gander at his bare
+legs. He ran so hard that he lost his breath, somewhere. He couldn't
+even pant, and as for calling out for help again, that was impossible!
+
+Margy dragged him on a few steps, for she was quite strong for a little
+girl. But she knew that she was overtaken. There was no help for it. The
+goosey-goosey-gander was going to eat them up!
+
+But if no human being heard the two children in their distress, there
+was a creature that did. Bobo, the big old hound, who was only chained
+to his house at night or when Mr. Armatage did not want him following
+the mules about the plantation, came out of his kennel and stared down
+the hill. He observed the running and screaming children, and he
+likewise saw the gander who was his old enemy. They had had many a tilt
+before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock
+meant mischief.
+
+Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to
+rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it
+sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps.
+
+Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him.
+Margy's corn went spinning about her and the geese fairly scrambled over
+the two crying children to get at the corn. Perhaps this helped Mun Bun
+and his sister some, although they did not think so at the moment. At
+least, while his family scrambled for the grains of corn the gander
+could not get at the brother and sister to strike them.
+
+And then great Bobo appeared. He bounded into the middle of the flock
+and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his
+muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he
+lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any
+more. He "honked" for help.
+
+Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust
+his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two
+little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing
+that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them.
+
+"The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you
+I wouldn't let him bite you."
+
+Whether his sister was much impressed by this statement or not, is not
+known. However that might be, she fondled Bobo and got upon her feet as
+quickly as Mun Bun arose.
+
+"Isn't he a good old dog?" cooed Margy.
+
+"He's pretty good I think. But--but let's come away from that
+goosey-goosey-gander."
+
+Bobo gave a jump and a bark at the gander, and the latter, which had now
+climbed to its webbed feet, scurried away, the flock following him. It
+was then, while the two children were fondling Bobo, who liked to have
+his long ears pulled by a gentle hand, that Russ and Rose Bunker came
+upon the scene.
+
+Russ and Rose had been down to the burned cabin and had brought away all
+their letters to Sneezer Meiggs. If the colored boy had never learned to
+read writing, there was no use in leaving the notices there. So Russ had
+said, and Rose agreed with him.
+
+"Oh, my dears!" Rose cried out when she saw the little ones so mussed up
+and with tear-stained faces, "what has happened to you?"
+
+"Don't be afraid of Bobo," said Russ, running too. "He won't hurt you."
+
+"He hurted the goosey-goosey-gander," declared Mun Bun confidently. "He
+dug his head under the goosey-goosey-gander and flunged him right over
+on his back."
+
+"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.
+
+"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to
+bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."
+
+"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow,
+flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."
+
+"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo
+saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing
+at us now."
+
+"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.
+
+"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down
+to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."
+
+"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy
+Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."
+
+"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was
+a teeny bit scared myself."
+
+The children--all nine of them--spent much of their time in Mammy June's
+room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping them interested and
+quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother
+Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.
+
+Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad,
+just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them.
+Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to
+relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what
+they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and
+how much she wanted to see him.
+
+Russ and Rose Bunker were quite used to thinking things out for
+themselves. Of course, there were times when Russ had to go to Daddy
+Bunker for help and his sister had to confess to Mother Bunker that she
+did not know what to do. For instance, that adventure of Russ's with the
+sailor-boy aboard the steamship.
+
+But this matter of helping Mammy June's son to find his mother, if by
+chance he came back to the site of the burned cabin, was solely their
+own affair, and Russ and Rose realized the fact.
+
+"We ought to be able to do something about it ourselves," declared Russ
+to his sister. "I'm going to ask Mammy June again if she is sure Sneezer
+can't read a word of writing."
+
+This he did. Mammy June shook her head somewhat sadly.
+
+"Dat boy always have to wo'k," she said. "When first he went away he
+sent me back money by mail. The man he wo'ked for sent it. Then Sneezer
+losed his job. But he never learnt to read hand-writin'. Much as he
+could do to spell out the big print on the front of the newspapers.
+That's surely so!"
+
+Rose suddenly thought of something--and perhaps it was not a foolish
+idea at that.
+
+"Oh, Mammy!" she cried, "can your boy read newspaper print?"
+
+"Sure can. De big print. What yo' call de haidlines in big print. Sure
+can."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Rose, and she dragged Russ away to confer with him in
+secret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE STRANGE CRY
+
+
+Rose Bunker's idea was too good to tell in general. Some ideas are too
+good to keep; but Russ and Rose decided that this one was not in that
+class. They determined to tell nobody--not even Mammy June or Daddy or
+Mother Bunker--about what they proposed to do to help the old colored
+woman.
+
+They had tried once, and failed. And Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior,
+had laughed at them. Now they proposed to do what Rose had thought of,
+and keep it secret from everybody.
+
+"Of course," Rose said, "nothing may come of it."
+
+"But that won't be your fault, Rose," said her brother. "It is a
+perfectly scrumptious idea."
+
+"Do you think so?" asked Rose, much pleased by this frank praise.
+
+"Sure I do. And we'll do it to-night. Then the Armatages won't know
+and--and laugh at us."
+
+For they had found Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, rather trying.
+Not having their childish imaginations so well developed as the six
+little Bunkers had, the children of the plantation were altogether too
+matter-of-fact. Many childish plays that the Bunkers enjoyed did not
+appeal to their little hosts at all.
+
+For instance, when Russ invented some brand new and charming, simple
+play for all to join in, Philly and Alice and Frane just drifted away
+and would have nothing to do with it. They were too polite to criticize;
+but Russ knew that the Armatage children felt themselves "too grown up"
+to be interested in the building of a steamboat or the driving of an
+imaginary motor-car.
+
+His little brothers and sisters, however, were constantly teasing Russ
+to make something new. They enjoyed traveling in reality so much, did
+the six little Bunkers, that, as Daddy laughingly said, traveling in a
+wheelbarrow would have amused them.
+
+So this day when Russ made a whole freight train with empty chicken
+coops, with a caboose at the end and a big engine in front, only Frane
+took an interest in it aside from the Bunkers themselves. And perhaps
+his interest was, only held because Russ agreed to make him the engineer
+while Laddie was fireman.
+
+As for Russ himself, he was the conductor at the end of the long train.
+He had to explain very plainly that of course a freight train had a
+conductor. Every train had to have a "skipper" just like a boat. A
+railroad man had explained all that to Russ Bunker when the family was
+on its way to Cowboy Jack's early in the autumn.
+
+"And you-all," said Russ, copying Frane's speech, speaking to the little
+ones and Rose, "must stay back here with me and be brakemen. When we
+need the handbrakes, I'll tell you, and you run forward over the
+coops--I mean the cars--and set the brakes."
+
+"But suppose we get flung off?" asked Vi.
+
+"That you must not do," said her older brother sternly. "If the train is
+going fast you might get a broken leg. Or if it is going around a curve
+it would be worse. You must be careful."
+
+"I think this is a dangerous play," said Vi hopefully. There was nobody
+really more daring than Vi.
+
+The two Armatage girls tried to coax Rose away from the "train"; but
+Rose liked to play with her brothers and sisters, and she knew that
+Mother Bunker expected her to. So she excused herself to Philly and
+Alice.
+
+Unfortunately they took some offense at this. That evening after supper
+Rose found herself ignored by Phillis and Alice Armatage. At another
+time this ungenerous act might have hurt the oldest Bunker girl. But she
+and Russ had their secret plans to carry through, and Rose was glad to
+get away with her brother in a room where nobody would disturb them.
+
+Again Russ had broken up pasteboard boxes, and he had pen and ink. To
+make new signs all in "big print" to stick up at the site of Mammy
+June's burned cabin was more of a task than merely writing them. This
+was Rose's bright idea. Russ did not deny her powers of invention.
+
+They printed four good signs. Oh, the letters were large and black!
+
+"They ought to be," Russ said. "We've used 'most half a bottle of ink."
+
+"Don't let's tell Philly or any of them," said Rose. "They laugh at so
+many things we do."
+
+"All right," agreed Russ, although he was less sensitive about being
+laughed at than his sister.
+
+But this habit the young Armatages had of laughing at what the little
+Bunkers did caused all the trouble on this night. And it was a night
+that all of the children and most of the grown folks, too, would be
+likely to remember.
+
+The Armatage children knew a great deal more about the plantation and
+the country surrounding it than the Bunkers did. That was only natural.
+Philly or Alice or Frane, Junior, would not have started off secretly,
+as Russ and Rose Bunker did, after nine o'clock at night to go down to
+the place where old Mammy June's cabin had been burned.
+
+To tell the truth, the Armatage children had associated so much with the
+colored folks about the plantation that they were inclined to believe
+that there might be such things as "ha'nts." The little Bunkers had
+heard of "ghosts"; but they looked on such things as being like
+fairies--something to half-believe in, and shiver about, all the time
+knowing that they were not real.
+
+So Russ and Rose had no actual fear of haunts when they started down the
+cart-path toward the wide brook where Russ had had his first adventure
+catching the big fish.
+
+The colored folks were all at home in their quarters; and although it
+was a starlight night they were having no celebration. Everything about
+the plantation seemed particularly quiet. And no sounds at first came to
+the ears of the brother and sister from the forest.
+
+As they approached the place for which they aimed however there came
+suddenly a mournful screech from the woods--a sound that seemed to
+linger longer in their hearing than any strange noise Russ and Rose had
+ever heard. The brother and sister stopped, frightened indeed, and clung
+to each other.
+
+"Oh! What's that?" murmured Rose.
+
+"It--it's maybe an owl," returned Russ, trying to think of the most
+harmless creature that made a noise at night.
+
+"I never heard an owl howl like that," whispered his sister.
+
+"Aw, Rose! owls don't howl. It's wolves that howl--or coyotes such as we
+saw at Cowboy Jack's. Don't you remember the coyote caught in the trap
+that you thought was a dog?"
+
+Rose's mind would not be drawn from the thing in question. She said,
+quite as fearfully:
+
+"Maybe this is a wolf, Russ."
+
+"Of course not," declared the boy trying to speak bravely. "There aren't
+any wolves in this part of the country. I asked Frane, Junior."
+
+But there was evidently a savage creature here that Russ Bunker had
+known nothing about, for now it cried out again! Its long, quavering
+note echoed through the woods and made the boy and girl stand again and
+shiver.
+
+"I--I guess it isn't any animal after all," said Rose suddenly, and
+speaking with some relief. "That's a woman. Of course it is. But she
+must be lost, or something bad has happened to her. Oh, Russ!" she
+added, suddenly seizing her brother once more. "I know what it must be.
+And they are almost always ladies, so Phillis says."
+
+"What's that?" demanded Russ, puzzled.
+
+"It's a ha'nt! It's a lady ha'nt! I do believe it must be!"
+
+"Aw, Rose, what you talking about?" demanded her brother, yet secretly
+quite as much troubled by the strange, eerie sound as she was. "You know
+that haunts are only make-believe."
+
+"We-ell!" sighed Rose, "maybe that's only a make-believe sound we hear.
+But--but I don't like it. There!"
+
+For a third time the screech was repeated. It seemed nearer. Russ could
+not be confident that it was "make-believe." The strange sound seemed
+very real indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST
+
+
+"I don't like that noise a bit," whispered Rose, standing close to her
+brother. "It--it makes me all shivery."
+
+"But, if it is only just a woman calling----"
+
+"There must be something awful the matter with her, if she has to scream
+like that," declared Rose.
+
+As they did not hear the noise again for a little while, both of them
+plucked up courage, and they went on to the burned cabin. The sticks
+they had set up were still standing. Russ fastened each of the four
+pasteboard "letters" to a stick at the four corners of Mammy June's
+ruined house.
+
+There was light enough from the stars for the two children to see quite
+plainly what they were about. Rose, however, was looking all about them
+while Russ did the work of setting up the printed signs for Sneezer
+Meiggs to see if he came home unexpectedly.
+
+"What do you expect to see, Rose?" demanded her brother loftily.
+
+"I don't know. Philly says ha'nts are all in white."
+
+"I don't see anything very white around here," rejoined Russ.
+
+"But there are so many colored folks, perhaps some of the ha'nts might
+be black," suggested Rose. "Then we wouldn't see them very well in the
+shadows."
+
+"I don't believe----" began Russ.
+
+The strange shriek was again heard. Russ stopped in his speech. Rose
+uttered a sharp cry. The screech--and it did sound like a woman's voice,
+the voice of a woman in fearful pain or fright--seemed very near them.
+
+"It's right over there in that patch of woods," said Russ. "I guess she
+is lost--or something."
+
+"Do you believe it is only a lady and not a ha'nt, Russ?" demanded his
+sister.
+
+"Of course it isn't a ha'nt! Such things can't be! And if it was a
+ghost, a ghost is nothing but air, and how could air have such a voice
+as that?"
+
+This reasoning seemed to close the argument. Rose felt that her brother
+must be right. Besides, Russ went right on talking, and talking very
+bravely.
+
+"I think we ought to see what the matter is with her, Rose. She is in
+trouble--maybe she is lost and scared."
+
+"So am I scared," murmured Rose.
+
+"But think how much more you would be scared," her brother said
+seriously, "if you were in those woods alone and didn't know that there
+was anybody else near."
+
+"I wouldn't make so much fuss about it," muttered Rose, for she
+suspected the thought in Russ Bunker's mind and she was really too
+scared to approve of it at once.
+
+"We've got to find her," said the boy impressively.
+
+"Now, Russ!" almost wailed Rose, "you wouldn't go into those woods?
+Aren't you scared?"
+
+"Of course I'm scared," said Russ. "Who wouldn't be? But just because I
+am scared I know the woman must be even more scared. She's got to be
+taken out of the woods and shown where the big house is. Or, if she is a
+colored lady, we'll take her to the quarters."
+
+"I--I wish Daddy was here," ventured Rose.
+
+"But he isn't here," said Russ, with some vexation. "So we've got to
+find the woman by ourselves."
+
+"Oh, dear!" murmured Rose.
+
+But she would not let Russ go alone into the patch of forest behind the
+site of Mammy June's burned cabin; nor did she feel like remaining alone
+in the clearing. Russ picked up a good sized stick and started toward
+the woods.
+
+"Let's shout when we get to the edge," whispered Rose.
+
+They did so; but, really, their voices sounded very faint indeed. No
+reply came. It was several minutes after, and Russ and Rose were quite a
+distance into the woods and following what seemed to be a
+half-grown-over path, before the "woman" screamed again.
+
+"Goodness! How hateful that sounds!" cried Rose.
+
+"I guess she is more scared than we are," ventured Russ. "What do you
+think?"
+
+"I think I'd like to be back at the house," answered Rose.
+
+But Russ would not agree with her. As he went on he grew more confident.
+They did not see even a rabbit. And Russ and Rose knew that rabbits were
+often out at night.
+
+If they had but known it, the awful screech that so disturbed them,
+disturbed the rabbits and the other small fry of the woods much more. At
+the sound of that terrible hunger-cry all the rabbits, and hares, and
+birds that nested on the ground or in trees, trembled.
+
+But Russ seemed to grow braver by the minute. And Rose of course could
+not fail to be inspired by his show of courage. They walked along the
+path hand in hand, and although they did not speak much for the next few
+moments, when they did speak it was quite cheerfully.
+
+"I wish she would yell again," said Russ at last. "For we must be
+getting near to where she was."
+
+"We-ell, if she isn't a ghost----"
+
+Just then the silence of the wood was broken again by the cry. The boy
+and the girl halted involuntarily. No matter how brave Russ might appear
+to be, there was a tone to that scream that made shivers go up and down
+his back.
+
+"Oh, Russ!" cried Rose.
+
+"Oh, Rose!" stammered her brother.
+
+The scream came from so near that it seemed worse than before. And now
+Russ was shaken in his proclaimed opinion. It did not seem that any
+woman, no matter how great her distress might be, could make such a
+terrible sound.
+
+"I guess we'd better go back," confessed Russ after a minute.
+
+Rose was eager to do so. They turned and, hand in hand, began to run.
+And in their haste they somehow missed the path they had been following.
+Or else, it had not been a path at all.
+
+At least, after running so far that they should have reached the burned
+cabin they came out into quite a different clearing! They both knew that
+they had missed the way, for in this clearing stood a little cabin with
+a pitched roof that neither of the Bunker children had ever seen
+before. Nor was the wide brook in sight.
+
+"I guess we've got turned around," Russ said, trying to hide his
+disappointment and fear from his sister. "We've got to go back, Rose."
+
+"Do you know which is back?" she asked.
+
+"We've got to hunt for that old path."
+
+"Don't you leave me, Russ Bunker!" cried Rose, as her brother started
+away.
+
+And just then both of them saw the tawny, long tailed, slinking beast in
+the edge of the thicket.
+
+"Oh! It's a bear!" shrieked Rose.
+
+"Bears don't look like that," gasped Russ, staring at the great, glowing
+eyes of the animal. "It looks more like a cat."
+
+"There never was a cat as big as that, Russ Bunker, and you know it!"
+
+"Come on, Rose," said her brother promptly. "We'll go into that house
+and shut the door. It can't get us then, whatever it is."
+
+In a moment the two children had dashed into the cabin and pulled to the
+swinging door. The door had a lock on the outside, and when Russ banged
+the door shut he heard the lock snap.
+
+"Now it can't get at us!" cried Russ with some satisfaction. "We're
+safe."
+
+"But--but I don't like this old house, Russ Bunker," complained Rose.
+"There is no window."
+
+"All the better," was the brave reply. "That cat can't get at us."
+
+Then the screech sounded again and the boy and girl clung together while
+the sound echoed through the lonesome timber.
+
+"It's that thing that makes the noise," whispered Rose. "Oh, Russ! if
+Daddy Bunker doesn't come after us, maybe it will tear the house down."
+
+"It can't," declared Russ.
+
+"How do you know it can't?"
+
+"Why, cats--even big ones--don't tear houses to pieces, Rose. You know
+they don't! We'll be safe as long as we stay in this place."
+
+"But how long shall we have to stay here?"
+
+"Until that thing goes away," said Russ confidently.
+
+"And maybe it won't go away at all. We'll have to stay here till the
+folks come to find us, Russ. I--I want--my mo-mother!"
+
+"Now, Rose Bunker, don't be a baby!" said her brother. "That thing can't
+get at us in here----"
+
+Just then something thumped heavily on the roof of the hut. Russ could
+not say another word. They heard the great claws of the big cat
+scratching at the roof boards.
+
+Rose screamed again and this time her brother's voice joined with hers
+in a hopeless cry for help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+AN EXCITING TIME
+
+
+Russ and Rose Bunker had slipped out of the house on the hill without
+saying a word to anybody as to where they were going. Since coming to
+the Meiggs Plantation there had been a certain amount of laxness in
+regard to what the children did. They had a freedom that Mother Bunker
+never allowed when they were at home.
+
+Because the Armatage children went and came as they wished, the little
+Bunkers began to do likewise. The house was so big, too, that the
+children might be playing a long way from the room in which their mother
+and father and Mr. Frane Armatage and his wife sat.
+
+The servants who were supposed to keep some watch upon the children were
+now all in the quarters. Servants in the South seldom sleep in "the big
+house." And perhaps Mother Bunker forgot this fact.
+
+At any rate, when she came to look for her brood late in the evening she
+found the four little ones fast asleep in their beds, as she had
+expected them to be. But Rose was not with Phillis and Alice Armatage,
+and Russ's bed was likewise empty.
+
+"Where are those children?" Mother Bunker demanded of Daddy, when she
+had run downstairs again. "Do you know? They should be in bed."
+
+"They were in the library earlier in the evening," Mrs. Armatage said.
+"I think they were writing again."
+
+"Writing?" repeated Mother Bunker. "Making more of those signs to set up
+at the burned house?"
+
+Mr. Armatage chuckled. "Those won't do much good. Sneezer never could
+read writing."
+
+"Let us ask Mammy. Rose and Russ may be with her," suggested Mrs.
+Armatage.
+
+Upstairs went the two ladies and into Mammy June's room. There was a
+night light burning there, but nobody was with the old woman.
+
+"Lawsy me!" exclaimed the old nurse when Mrs. Bunker asked her. "I ain't
+seen them childern since I had my supper. No'm. They ain't been here."
+
+The house was searched from cellar to garret by the two gentlemen.
+Meanwhile the anxious mother and her hostess went to the library. Russ
+had left there some spoiled sheets of cardboard with some of the letters
+printed on them. It was easy to see the attempt he and Rose had made to
+print plainly a notice to Sneezer, Mammy June's absent son, telling him
+that his mother was at the big house.
+
+"The dear things!" said Mrs. Armatage. "Your boy and girl are very kind,
+Mrs. Bunker. They want to relieve Mammy's trouble."
+
+"They have gone down there to-night to stick up those signs!" cried Mrs.
+Bunker, inspired by a new thought.
+
+"Well, I reckon nothing will hurt 'em," said her friend soothingly.
+"I'll tell Mr. Armatage and he will go down there and get them."
+
+This idea impressed both the men when they came back from their
+unsuccessful search of the house.
+
+The two men walked briskly along the trail to the burned cabin. The
+stars gave them light enough to see all about the clearing when they
+arrived. Not a sign of Russ or Rose did they find.
+
+"Do you suppose they went home some other way?" asked Daddy Bunker.
+
+"I don't know. I hope they haven't wandered into the thicket."
+
+As Mr. Armatage spoke both men heard the terrible scream that had first
+startled Russ and Rose. Mr. Bunker fairly jumped.
+
+"That can't be the children!" he ejaculated.
+
+The way his companion looked at him told the children's father a good
+deal. Mr. Bunker seized Mr. Armatage's arm.
+
+"Tell me! What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Something that hasn't been heard around here for years," said the
+planter, his voice trembling a little. "It's the cry of a panther."
+
+Mr. Bunker, although he was practically a city man, had hunted a good
+deal and had been in the wilder parts of the country very often. He knew
+how terribly dangerous a panther might be on occasion; but he likewise
+knew that ordinarily they would not attack human beings. Two little
+children lost in the woods in which a panther was roaming up and down
+was, however, a fearful thing.
+
+"Get a gun and the hands!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "If Russ and Rose have
+mistaken the way home, and are in that timber, they may be in peril."
+
+Mr. Armatage started off on a run for the quarters. He knew that some of
+his hands had guns, and the quarters were nearer than the big house.
+
+Daddy Bunker, although he was unarmed, started directly into the woods,
+trying to mark his course by the repeated screams of the hungry panther.
+He might have been lost himself, for there was not much light to mark
+the way; but Daddy Bunker could judge the situation of the screaming
+panther much better than Russ and Rose had been able to.
+
+He hurried on, gripping a good-sized club that he had found. But, of
+course, he knew better than to attack a panther with a club. He might
+throw the stick at the animal, however, and frighten it away.
+
+Russ and Rose had gone a long way into the thicket. The panther did not
+scream often. So Daddy Bunker did not make much progress in the right
+direction. By and by he had to stop and wait for help, or for the
+panther to scream again.
+
+He heard finally many voices at the edge of the thicket. Then he began
+to see the blaze of torches. A party of colored people--men and
+boys--with torches and guns, followed Mr. Armatage.
+
+In addition, all the hunting dogs on the plantation were scouring the
+timber. Bobo, the big hound, was at the head of this pack. He struck the
+scent of the panther at last, and his long and mournful howl was almost
+as awe-inspiring as the cry of the panther.
+
+"Come on, Bunker!" shouted Mr. Armatage, when the party had overtaken
+the Northern man. "The dogs are the best leaders. Bobo has got a scent
+for any kind of trail. Come on!"
+
+The negroes shouted and swung their torches. Perhaps they made so much
+noise and had so many lights because they somewhat feared the "ha'nts"
+that many of them talked about and believed in.
+
+But the two white men were not thinking of ghosts. They feared what
+might have happened to the two children if they had met the panther.
+
+Just at this time, too, Russ and Rose were not thinking of ghosts. The
+panther was not at all ghostly. He had four great paws, each armed with
+claws that seemed quite capable of tearing to pieces the roof boards of
+the cabin the children had taken refuge in.
+
+"He'll get to us! He will! He will!" Rose cried over and over.
+
+"No, he won't," said her brother, but his voice trembled. "I--I don't
+see how he can."
+
+"Let's run out again while he's on the roof, and run home," said Rose.
+
+"We don't know the way home," objected her brother.
+
+"We can find it. I don't want to be shut up here with that cat."
+
+"It's not so bad. He hasn't got in yet."
+
+But Rose ran to the door, and then she made another discovery that
+added to her fright. The door could not be opened! The spring lock on
+the outside had snapped and there was no way of springing the bolt from
+inside the shack.
+
+"Now see what we've done!" she wailed. "Russ Bunker! we are shut into
+the place, and can't get out, and that thing will come down and claw us
+all to pieces."
+
+With this Rose cast herself upon the ground and could not be comforted.
+In fact, at the moment, Russ could not think of a word to say that would
+comfort his sister. He was just as much frightened as Rose was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THAT PIGEON WING
+
+
+Greatly as the two little Bunkers were alarmed, and as much as their
+father and Mr. Armatage worried about their safety, they really were not
+so very badly off. Not only were the roof boards of the hut in which
+Russ and Rose had taken refuge sound, but soon the panther stopped
+clawing at the boards.
+
+It heard the crowd of men coming and the baying of the hounds. It stood
+up, stretched its neck as it listened, snarled a defiance at Bobo and
+his mates, and then leaped into the nearest tree and so away, from tree
+to tree, into the deeper fastnesses of the wood.
+
+The dogs might follow the scent of the panther on the ground to the
+clearing where the hut stood; but beyond that place they could not
+follow, for the wary cat had left no trail upon the ground.
+
+At first, when the dogs came baying to the spot, Russ and Rose were
+even more frightened than before. The dogs' voices sounded very savage.
+But soon Bobo smelled the children out and leaped, whining, against the
+door of the cabin. He was doing that when Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage
+and the negroes reached the clearing.
+
+"The creature is in that hut," said Daddy Bunker.
+
+"Not much!" returned his friend. "Bobo would not make those sounds if it
+was a panther. Mr. Panther has beat it through the trees. It is
+something else in the charcoal burner's hut. Come on!"
+
+He strode over to the door, snapped back the lock, and threw the door
+open. The torchlight flooded the interior of the place and revealed Russ
+and Rose Bunker, still fearful, clinging to each other as they crouched
+in a corner of the hut.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "Of all the children that ever were
+born, you two manage to get into the greatest adventures! What are you
+doing here?"
+
+"A big cat chased us in here, Daddy," said Russ.
+
+"And he tried to get at us through the roof," added Rose.
+
+Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage looked at each other pretty seriously.
+
+"We didn't get here a minute too soon," said the planter.
+
+"I believe you," returned Mr. Bunker gravely. "This might have been a
+very serious affair."
+
+But in the morning, after Russ and Rose were refreshed by sleep and had
+told the particulars of their adventure at the breakfast table, the
+youngsters really took pride in what had happened to them. The smaller
+children looked upon Russ and Rose as being very wonderful.
+
+"What would you have done, Russ, if that big cat had got into the house
+with you and Rose?" Vi asked.
+
+"But he didn't," was the boy's reply.
+
+"Well, if he had what would you have done?"
+
+But that proved to be another question that Vi Bunker never got
+answered. This was so often the case!
+
+"So you thought it was a ghost at first, and then it turned out to be a
+big cat," Laddie said to Rose. "I think I could make up a riddle about
+that."
+
+"All right," said Rose, with a sigh. "You can make up all the riddles
+you want to about it. Making a riddle about a panther is lots better
+than being chased by one."
+
+Laddie, however, did not make the riddle. In fact he forgot all about it
+in the excitement of what directly followed the rescue of Russ and Rose
+from the wild animal. Mr. Bunker felt so happy about the recovery of the
+two children that he determined to do something nice for the colored
+people who had so enthusiastically aided in hunting for Russ and Rose.
+
+"Let 'em have another big dance and dinner, such as they had Christmas
+eve," Mr. Bunker suggested to the planter. "I'll pay the bill."
+
+"Just as you say, Charley," agreed Mr. Armatage. "That will please 'em
+all about as much as anything you could think of. I'll get some kind of
+music for them to dance by, and we'll all go down and watch 'em. Your
+young ones certainly do like dancing."
+
+This was true. And especially was Russ Bunker anxious to learn to dance
+as some of the colored boys did. He was constantly practising the funny
+pigeon wing that he had seen Sam do in Aunt Jo's kitchen, in Boston. But
+the white boy could not get it just right.
+
+"Never mind, Russ," Laddie said approvingly, "you do it better and
+better all the time. I guess you can do it by and by--three or four
+years from now, maybe." But three or four years seemed a long time to
+Russ.
+
+When they went down to the quarters the evening of the party Russ
+determined to try to dance as well as Frane, Junior, and the negro boys.
+
+Mammy June was much better now, and she was up and about. To please her
+Mr. Armatage had a phaeton brought around and the old nurse was driven
+to the scene of the celebration. Mun Bun and Margy rode in the phaeton
+with Mammy June and were very proud of this particular honor.
+
+The old nurse was loved by everybody on the plantation, both white and
+black. Mother Bunker said that Mammy held "quite a levee" at the
+quarters, sitting in state in her phaeton where she could see all that
+went on.
+
+The dinner was what the negroes called a barbecue. The six little
+Bunkers had never seen such a feast before, for this that their father
+gave them was even more elaborate than the dinner the planter had given
+his hands at Christmas.
+
+There was a great fire in a pit, and over this fire a whole pig was
+roasted on a spit, and poultry, and 'possums that the boys had killed,
+and rabbits. There were sweet potatoes, of course. How the little
+Northerners liked them! The white children had a table to themselves and
+ate as heartily as their colored friends.
+
+Then a place was cleared for the dancing. Mammy June's phaeton was drawn
+to the edge of this dance floor. The music struck up, and there was a
+general rush for partners.
+
+After a while the dancers got more excited, and many of them danced
+alone, "showing off," Frane, Junior, said. They did have the funniest
+steps! Russ Bunker was highly delighted with this kind of dancing.
+
+"Now let me! Let me dance!" he cried, starting out from his seat near
+Mammy June. "A boy showed me in Boston how to cut a pigeon wing. I guess
+I can do it now."
+
+"You can't cut no pigeon wing, w'ite boy," said 'Lias, Mammy's grandson.
+
+"I can try," said Russ bravely, and he danced with much vigor for
+several minutes.
+
+"Oh, my, he done cut Sneezer's pigeon wing!" cried one of the darkies
+presently.
+
+"What's dat? Cut Sneezer's pigeon wing?" cried Mammy June, sitting up to
+watch Russ more closely.
+
+"Dat's jest what he's doin'."
+
+Russ continued to dance, and did his best to imitate the colored boy at
+Aunt Jo's house. He was hard at it when Mammy June, with her eyes almost
+popping out of her head, cried:
+
+"For de lan's sake, boy, come here! I want to ask you sumpin."
+
+Russ was in the midst of cutting the pigeon wing again, and this time he
+was fortunate enough to imitate Sam in almost every particular. Then he
+stopped and walked over to the old colored woman's side.
+
+"How come you try to do it that way, Russ Bunker?" asked Mammy June as
+Russ approached the phaeton. "I ain't never seen you do that before. Who
+showed you?"
+
+"Sam. The boy in Boston. He said he was called after his Uncle Sam. He
+came from down South here, you know, Mammy."
+
+"Was he a cullud boy?" demanded the old woman earnestly.
+
+"Of course he was. Or he couldn't dance this way," and Russ tried to cut
+the pigeon wing again.
+
+"Wait! Wait!" gasped the old woman. "Tell me mo' about that boy who
+showed you. You ain't got it right. But dat's the way my Sneezer done
+it. Only he knows just how."
+
+"Why, Mammy June!" cried Rose, "you don't suppose that Sam can dance
+just like your Sneezer?"
+
+The old nurse was wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her voice was much
+choked with emotion as well. Mrs. Bunker came over to see what the
+matter was.
+
+"Yo' please tell me, Ma'am, all about dat boy dese children say was in
+Boston? Please, Ma'am! Ain't nobody know how to dance dat way but
+Sneezer. And he didn't like his name, Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood
+Meiggs. No'm, he didn't like it at all, 'cause we-all shortened it to
+Sneezer.
+
+"He had an Uncle Sam, too. My brudder. Lives in Birmingham. Sneezer
+always said he wisht he'd been born wid a name like Uncle Sam."
+
+"Perhaps it is the same boy," Mother Bunker said kindly. "Tell me just
+how Ebenezer looks, Mammy June. Then I can be sure."
+
+From the way Mammy described her youngest son, even the children
+recognized him as Sam the chore boy at Aunt Jo's in Boston. Mun Bun and
+Margy, when the matter was quite settled that Sam was Sneezer, began to
+take great pride in the fact that it was their bright eyes that had
+first spied the colored boy walking in the snow and had been the first
+to invite him into Aunt Jo's house.
+
+"He will be there when we go to Boston again, Mammy June," Rose said,
+warmly. "And Daddy and Mother will send him home to you. I guess he'll
+be glad to come. Only, maybe you'd better stop calling him Sneezer. He
+likes Sam best."
+
+"Sure enough, honey," cried Mammy June, "I'll call him anything he likes
+'long as he comes home and stays home with me. Yes, indeedy! I'd call
+him Julius Caesar Mark Antony Meiggs, if he wants I should."
+
+"But maybe," said Russ thoughtfully, "he wouldn't like that name any
+better than the other. I know I shouldn't."
+
+In a short time it was a settled matter that Mammy June's lost boy would
+return. For she could tell Mrs. Bunker so many things about the absent
+one that there was not a shadow of a doubt that the Sam working for Aunt
+Jo would prove to be Mammy June's boy.
+
+The holidays on the Meiggs Plantation ended, therefore, all the more
+pleasantly because of this discovery. The plantation was a fine place to
+be on, so the six little Bunkers thought. But when Daddy Bunker
+announced that his business with his old friend, the planter, was
+satisfactorily completed, the children were not sorry to think of
+returning North.
+
+"This doesn't seem like winter at all down here," said Russ. "We want to
+slide downhill, and roll snowballs, and make snowmen."
+
+"And it is nice to go sleigh riding," Rose added. "They never can do
+that on the Meiggs Plantation."
+
+"But you can make riddles here," put in Laddie.
+
+Vi might have added that she could ask questions anywhere!
+
+As for Margy and Mun Bun, they were contented to go anywhere that Mother
+Bunker and Daddy went. Something exciting was always happening to all of
+the six little Bunkers. But we will let you guess, with Russ and Rose
+and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, where the next exciting
+adventures of the half dozen youngsters from Pineville will take place.
+
+Then came the time to leave the plantation. The children had many little
+keepsakes to take home with them and they promised to send other
+keepsakes to the Armatage children as soon as they got back to
+Pineville.
+
+"It's been just the nicest outing that ever could be!" said Rose, when
+the good-byes were being spoken. "I'm sure I'll never forget this
+lovely place."
+
+"I's coming back some day if they want me," put in Mun Bun quickly. And
+at this everybody smiled.
+
+Then all climbed into the automobile which was to take them to the
+railroad station. There was a honk of the horn, and amid the waving of
+hands and a hearty cheer, the six little Bunkers and their parents
+started on their journey for home.
+
+
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Bobbsey Twins Books,"
+"The Bunny Brown Series,"
+"The Make-Believe Series," Etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Delightful stories for little boys and girls which sprung into immediate
+popularity. To know the six little Bunkers is to take them at once to
+your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun and cute
+sayings. Each story has a little plot of its own--one that can be easily
+followed--and all are written in Miss Hope's most entertaining manner.
+Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be on the bookshelf of every
+child in the land.
+
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S
+          SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of the popular "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several
+bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and
+wholesome, free from sensationalism, and absorbing from the first
+chapter to the last.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+          Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+          Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+          Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+          Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+          Or Wintering in the Sunny South.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+          Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+          Or A Cave and What it Contained.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
+          Or Doing Their Bit for Uncle Sam.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
+          Or Doing Their Best for the Soldiers.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+          Or A Wreck and A Rescue.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE
+          Or The Hermit of Moonlight Falls.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+          Or The Girl Miner of Gold Run.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS
+
+For Little Men and Women
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that
+charm the hearts of the little ones and of which they never tire.
+
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+          THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books
+
+Wrapper and text illustrations drawn by
+FLORENCE ENGLAND NOSWORTHY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These stories by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books are eagerly
+welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their
+eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive
+little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue.
+
+Bunny was a lively little boy, very inquisitive. When he did anything,
+Sue followed his leadership. They had many adventures, some comical in
+the extreme.
+
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
+          BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE TOM SWIFT SERIES
+
+By VICTOR APPLETON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+These spirited tales, convey in a realistic way, the wonderful advances
+in land and sea locomotion. Stories like these are impressed upon the
+memory and their reading is productive only of good.
+
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
+          TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
+          TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
+          TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
+          TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
+          TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
+          TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
+          TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES
+
+BY VICTOR APPLETON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Moving pictures and photo plays are famous the world over, and in this
+line of books the reader is given a full description of how the films
+are made--the scenes of little dramas, indoors and out, trick pictures
+to satisfy the curious, soul-stirring pictures of city affairs, life in
+the Wild West, among the cowboys and Indians, thrilling rescues along
+the seacoast, the daring of picture hunters in the jungle among savage
+beasts, and the great risks run in picturing conditions in a land of
+earthquakes. The volumes teem with adventures and will be found
+interesting from first chapter to last.
+
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AND THE FLOOD
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS UNDER THE SEA
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE WAR FRONT
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON FRENCH BATTLEFIELDS
+          MOVING PICTURE BOYS' FIRST SHOWHOUSE
+          MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK
+          MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON BROADWAY
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' OUTDOOR EXHIBITION
+          THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' NEW IDEA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 9: "Gooodness" changed to "Goodness". (Goodness! it's cold)
+
+Page 31: "begger" changed to "beggar". (allowing a beggar)
+
+Page 67: "swin" changed to "swim". (could not swim)
+
+Page 150: "fire-cracker" changed to "firecracker" to conform to rest of
+text. (It's firecrackers.)
+
+One instance each of "white-washed" and "whitewashed" appears in the
+original and was retained.
+
+Christmas Eve is capitalised once and lowercased once. This was
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's, by
+Laura Lee Hope
+
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