Six little Bunkers at farmer Joel's

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Title: Six little Bunkers at farmer Joel's
Author: Hope, Laura Lee
Language: English
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[Illustration: THE HAY SLIPPED OFF ALONG WITH THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
AND ADAM.

_Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s._ _Frontispiece_—(_Page 152_)

SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
AT FARMER JOEL’S

LAURA LEE HOPE

AUTHOR OF “SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL’S,”
“SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE’S,” “THE
BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES,” “THE BUNNY BROWN
SERIES,” “THE MAKE BELIEVE 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
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL’S

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
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG

THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES

(Sixteen Titles)

THE MAKE BELIEVE SERIES

(Twelve Titles)

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

(Thirteen Titles)

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. RUSS IN DANGER 1

II. A LOAD OF FLOWERS 13

III. THE SECRET 24

IV. WHERE IS LADDIE? 36

V. OFF TO THE FARM 44

VI. SOMETHING IN THE STRAW 54

VII. AT FARMER JOEL’S 64

VIII. IN THE HAY 74

IX. WHEN THE COWS CAME HOME 85

X. BUZZING BEES 97

XI. MUN BUN’S GARDEN 106

XII. A STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE 118

XIII. THE SHOE-LACE BOY 128

XIV. THE SHORTCAKE COMES BACK 136

XV. AN EXCITING RIDE 147

XVI. OFF ON A PICNIC 155

XVII. THE ICE CAVE 163

XVIII. A BIG SPLASH 172

XIX. A FIGHT 184

XX. YELLOW AND WHITE 192

XXI. A MAD BULL 201

XXII. AFTER WILD FLOWERS 208

XXIII. A MEAN BOY 220

XXIV. STUNG 229

XXV. THE HONEY TREE 236

SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL’S

CHAPTER I

RUSS IN DANGER

“Margy, will you look out on the porch and see if she’s there?”

“Yes, Vi, I will. But you ought to say please to me, ’cause mother
says——”

“All right then. _Please_ look and see if she’s there,” begged Vi,
otherwise Violet Bunker. There were six of the little Bunkers. The
other four will be out presently.

Margy, who had been looking at picture books with her year-older sister
in a room off the porch, kindly dropped her book and started for the
door.

“If she’s there bring her in—_please_.” Violet laughed a little as she
added the last word. She remembered what Margy had started to say
about politeness.

Violet was piling up the books, for she had just thought of something
new to play, when Margy came hurrying back into the room.

“She isn’t there!” gasped the smaller Bunker girl.

“She isn’t?” Violet fairly gasped out the words, and you could easily
tell that she was very much excited. “Are you sure, Margy?”

“No, she isn’t there, Vi! Maybe a tramp has taken her!”

“Oh!” cried Violet, in such a loud voice that Mrs. Bunker, having heard
part of the talk, came quickly from the room where she had been sewing.

“Who’s gone?” demanded the mother of the six little Bunkers. “Don’t
tell me Mun Bun is lost again!”

Mun Bun was the youngest of the six little Bunkers. His real name was
Munroe Ford Bunker, but that was entirely too long for the little
fellow, so he was called “Mun Bun.” It was a name he had made up for
himself.

“Where is Mun Bun? Is he lost again?” asked Mrs. Bunker, starting to
take off her apron to go in search of the “little tyke,” as she often
called him, for he certainly did get into mischief very many times.

“Mun Bun isn’t lost,” answered Violet, as she hurried out on the porch
with Margy. “He’s out in the yard with Laddie, digging a hole.”

“An’ he says he’s going to dig down to China,” added Margy.

“And I just put clean bloomers on him!” sighed Mrs. Bunker. “But who is
gone?” she asked again. “It can’t be Rose or Russ—they’re too old to be
taken by a tramp!”

There, now you have heard the names of all six of the little Bunkers,
though Russ, being nearly ten, I think, wouldn’t like to be called
“little.”

“No, it isn’t Russ or Rose,” said Margy. “I saw them going down the
street. Maybe they’re going to daddy’s office to ask him for some money
to buy candy.”

“Oh, they mustn’t do that!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. “This is the first
of the month and daddy is very busy. They shouldn’t have gone there.
Are you sure, Margy?”

“Oh, they didn’t zactly _say_ they were going there,” announced Margy.
“But I thought maybe——”

“You mustn’t tell things you aren’t sure of,” said her mother. “But who
is——”

“Mother, why is daddy so busy the first of the month?” asked Vi,
forgetting for the moment all about what she had sent Margy to look
for. Violet Bunker was, as her father said, “a great girl for asking
questions.” Her mother knew this, and, fearing that Vi would get
started on a list of inquiries that would take some time to answer,
Mrs. Bunker said:

“Now don’t begin that, Vi, dear. I’ll answer just this one question,
but not any more. Your father is busy the first of the month more than
at other times because tenants pay their rents then, and he collects
the rents for a large number of people. That’s one thing a real estate
dealer, like your father, does. Now, don’t ask another question!” she
commanded, for she saw that Vi was getting ready, as Russ would say,
“to spring another.”

“I wasn’t going to ask a question,” said Vi, looking a little hurt in
her feelings. “I was going to say——”

“Wait until I find out what’s happened first,” broke in Mrs. Bunker.
“Who is missing? It can’t be any of you, for you’re all present or
accounted for, as they say in the army. Who is——”

“It’s Esmeralda!” exclaimed Violet. “I had her out on the porch playing
with Margy. Then we went in to look at the picture books, and I forgot
about Esmeralda and——”

“Russ says her name ought to be Measles ’cause she’s all spotted,” put
in Margy, with a shake of her dark, tousled hair. “But it’s only spots
of dirt.”

“Come on,” demanded Vi of Margy, taking her younger sister by the hand.
“We’ve got to find Esmeralda!”

“Oh, it’s your doll!” remarked Mrs. Bunker, with a sigh of relief. “I
thought one of you children was missing. I had quite a start. It’s only
your doll. That’s different.”

“Esmeralda is my _child_, even if she is _only_ a _doll_,” and Vi
marched away with Margy, her head held up proudly.

“Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t want to find your
missing play child,” called Mrs. Bunker quickly, for she realized that
a little girl’s feelings might be hurt by a slighting remark about even
a dirty and spotted doll. “I only meant that I was glad none of you
children was missing. I’ll help you look for Esmeralda.”

“She isn’t out on the porch. I looked,” said Margy.

“We left her there, didn’t we?” asked Vi, for sometimes there was so
much going on at the Bunker house that to remember where one of the
many dolls or other playthings was left became a task.

“Yes, we left Esmeralda out on the porch,” agreed Margy. “But she isn’t
there now. I looked. She’s—she’s gone!”

Margy felt almost as sad over the loss as did Vi, though Esmeralda, or
“Measles,” as Russ called her, belonged particularly to Violet.

“Do you s’pose a tramp would take my doll, Mother?” asked Violet, for
Mrs. Bunker was now walking toward the side porch with her two little
girls.

“No, my dear, I don’t believe so,” was the answer. “What would a tramp
want with a doll?”

This puzzled Vi for a moment, but she quickly had ready a reply.

“He—he might want to give her to his little girl,” Vi said.

“Tramps, as a rule, don’t have little girls,” remarked Mrs. Bunker. “If
they had they wouldn’t be tramps.”

This gave Vi a chance to ask another question. Eagerly she had it ready.

“Why don’t tramps have little girls?” she inquired of her mother. “Do
they run away? I mean do the little girls run away?”

“No, that isn’t the reason,” and Mrs. Bunker tried not to smile at Vi’s
eagerness. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. But show me where
you left your doll,” she added, as they reached the shady side porch.
“Esmeralda certainly isn’t here,” for a look around showed no doll in
sight.

“Oh, where can she be?” gasped Vi, now on the verge of tears. Margy,
seeing how her sister was affected, was also getting ready to weep, but
just then a merry whistle was heard around the corner of the house. It
was the merry whistle of a happy boy.

“Here comes Russ!” exclaimed Violet, for she knew her oldest brother’s
habit of being tuneful. “He’ll help me look for Esmeralda.”

“Maybe he took her,” suggested Margy.

“No. If he did he wouldn’t be coming back whistling,” decided Vi.

Russ Bunker, next to his father the “man” of the family, swung around
the path at the side of the house. Following him was Rose, his sister,
a year younger, a pretty girl, with light, fluffy hair. And, very
often, Rose had a merry song on her lips. But as Russ was now whistling
Rose could not sing. She always said Russ whistled “out of tune,” but
Russ declared it was her singing that was off key.

“Oh, Russ!” exclaimed his mother, “you didn’t go to daddy’s office and
bother him to-day, did you, when it’s the first of the month? And he is
so busy——”

“No, Mother, I wasn’t at daddy’s office,” Russ answered. “Rose and I
just went to the store for some nails. I’m making a seesaw, and——”

“Oh, can I be on it?” begged Margy. “I love to teeter-totter! Please,
Russ, can’t I——”

“I want a ride, too!” put in Vi.

“All right! All right!” agreed Russ, with a laugh. “You can all have
rides—Mun Bun and Laddie too—as soon as I get it made. But it’s a lot
of work and it’s got to be done right and——”

Russ paused. He could see that something was wrong, as he said
afterward. Russ was a quick thinker. Also he was always making things
about the house. These were mostly things with which to play and have
a good time, though once he built a bench for his mother. The only
trouble was that he didn’t make the legs strong enough, and when Norah
O’Grady, the cook, set a tub of water on the bench the legs caved in
and there was a “mess” in the kitchen.

“Has anything happened?” asked Russ, for he could see that his mother
and his two small sisters had come out on the porch with some special
idea in mind.

“Violet’s doll is gone,” explained Mrs. Bunker. “She left it on the
porch, and she feels sad over losing it. If you know anything about
it, Russ——”

“You mean that old Measles doll?” asked the oldest Bunker boy, laughing.

“She hasn’t the measles at all—so there!” and Violet stamped her foot
on the porch.

“Well, she looks so—all spotted,” added Russ, with another laugh.
Then, as he saw that Violet was ready to cry and that Margy was going
to follow with tears, Russ added: “I guess I know where your doll is.
Henry Miller just told me——”

“Oh, did he take her?” cried Violet. “If he did I’ll never speak to him
again and——”

“Now, wait a minute!” advised Russ. “You girls always get so excited!
I didn’t say Henry took your doll. I just met him and he said he saw a
dog running out of our yard with something in his mouth. Maybe it was
the dog that took your doll, Violet.”

“Oh! Oh!” cried the little girl, and she was now sobbing in real
earnest.

“Oh, the dog will eat up Esmeralda!” and Margy added her tears to those
of Violet.

“I’ll go down the street and look for her,” quickly offered Russ. He
was a kind boy that way. Of course he didn’t care for dolls, and he
was anxious to start making the seesaw, nails for which he and Rose had
gone after. But Russ was willing to give up his own pleasure to help
his little sister.

“I’ll get your doll,” he said. “I guess that dog wouldn’t carry her far
after he found out she wasn’t a bone or something good to eat.”

“She—she—she’s a nice doll, anyhow, so there!” sobbed Violet. “An’—an’
I—I want her!”

“I guess I can find her,” offered Russ. “Here, Rose, you hold the
nails.”

Russ started on a run toward the front gate. Mrs. Bunker and the three
girls followed. As yet Laddie and Mun Bun had not heard the excitement
over the missing doll, for they were still in the back yard, “digging
down to China.”

Russ reached the gate, looked down the road in the direction Henry
Miller had told him the dog had run with something in its mouth, and
then Russ cried:

“I see her! I see your doll, Vi! The dog dropped her in the street!
I’ll get her for you.”

Russ started on the run toward a small object lying in the dust of the
road. Before Russ could reach the doll a big automobile truck swung
around the corner and came straight for poor Esmeralda.

“Oh, she’ll be run over!” screamed Violet. “My child!”

But Russ had also seen the truck and, knowing there would be little
left of the doll if one of the heavy wheels went over her, he ran
a little faster and darted directly in front of the big lumbering,
thundering automobile.

“Russ! Russ! Be careful!” called his mother.

“Look out there, youngster!” yelled the man who was driving the truck.

On came the heavy automobile, bearing down on Russ who was now in the
middle of the street, stooping over to pick up Esmeralda.

CHAPTER II

A LOAD OF FLOWERS

Three of the six little Bunkers—Rose, Margy and Violet—stood grouped
around their mother, looking with anxious eyes toward Russ, who had
made up his mind that he was going to get Vi’s doll and snatch it out
of danger before the big truck reached it. But, in doing this, Russ was
also in danger himself.

“Russ! Russ! Come back!” cried his mother, darting forward.

“It’s going to run right over him!” screamed Margy.

“He’ll be smashed!” and Violet covered her eyes with her hands.

“Let the old doll go!” shouted Rose.

But Russ did not heed. Straight across the street, directly in front of
the truck he ran, and toward Vi’s doll Esmeralda that was lying in the
highway, where she had been dropped by the stray dog.

The man driving the big truck, after giving one call of warning, had
ceased, and was now doing his best either to steer out of the way, so
he would not run over Russ, or else to put on the brakes. This last was
not so easy to do as the street just there was down hill and the truck
was a heavy one.

Russ reached the doll before the truck got to it. The Bunker boy picked
up Vi’s plaything and started to run out of danger, but he slipped on a
stone and down he fell in the dust of the road.

“Oh! Oh!” cried his mother. “Oh, Russ!”

Russ was down, but, as he said afterward, he was not “out.” He rolled
to one side, out of the way of the thundering big wheels of the truck.
A moment later he was on his feet, dirty and dusty, but holding proudly
aloft the doll he had rescued.

By this time the man had brought his truck to a stop, a little distance
from the place where Russ had fallen and where the doll had been lying.

“That was a narrow escape for you, youngster!” exclaimed the man
rather sternly. “You ought not to do things like that!”

“I didn’t want Vi’s doll run over,” explained Russ, as his mother and
sisters hurried toward him.

And while Russ is brushing the dust from his clothing and while Vi is
looking over her doll, to make sure it is all right, I shall take a
moment to let you know who the Bunkers are. And I shall also speak of
the other books in this series telling about them. I think it is much
better to read about people after you know who they are and what they
have done.

The first book introducing the children is called “Six Little Bunkers
at Grandma Bell’s.” At the opening of that story you find the Bunkers
living in Pineville, a Pennsylvania town.

Bunker was the family name, and as there were six children, none of
them very large, it was the most natural thing in the world to speak
of them as the “six little Bunkers.” Of course there was a father and
mother Bunker. Mr. Bunker’s name was Charles, and he was in the real
estate business. His wife was named Amy, and there were a number of
relatives, all of whom loved the six little Bunkers and all of whom
the six little Bunkers loved.

As for the children the eldest was Russ—the one who was just in such
danger. Russ seemed destined to become an inventor, for he was always
making new things—make-believe houses, engines, automobiles, steamboats
and the like. And as he worked he whistled merrily.

Rose might be called a “little mother,” for she was very helpful about
the house, and Mrs. Bunker often said:

“I don’t know what I’d do without Rose to help look after the younger
children.”

Violet and Laddie, who were twins, needed much looking after. They were
both rather peculiar. That is, Violet was given to asking questions.
Her father said she could ask more in an hour than could be rightly
answered in a week. As for Laddie, he was fond of asking riddles such
as:

“You can have a house full and a hole full but you can’t keep a bowl
full. What is it?” The answer, of course, is “smoke,” but nothing gave
Laddie more pleasure than to find some one who couldn’t answer that
or some other riddle he asked. Sometimes he made up riddles himself,
or he might ask one that came out of a book. A queer little chap was
Laddie.

Then there was Margy, who was seldom called by her real name of
Margaret, and Mun Bun, otherwise known as Munroe Ford, as I have
mentioned.

Now you have met all the six little Bunkers and I hope you will like
them. As for their aunts, their uncles, their cousins and their
other relatives—well, there are books telling about these different
characters. The children often went to visit their cousins and aunts
and had many adventures.

For instance there is the time they stayed for a while at Aunt Jo’s,
or the occasion of their visit to Cousin Tom’s. They had fun at both
these places, but no more than at Grandpa Ford’s or Uncle Fred’s.
When they spent several weeks at Captain Ben’s the six little Bunkers
had delightful times, and Russ thought there never was such a chap as
Cowboy Jack, at whose ranch they spent some time. The other children
liked Cowboy Jack, too.

Just before the events I am going to tell you about in this book
took place, the children had been down South. You may find out all
that happened by reading the volume, “Six Little Bunkers at Mammy
June’s.” The family was now at home again in Pineville, ready for more
adventures.

“You certainly gave me a fright, boy,” said the truck driver, as he got
down off his high seat and looked at Russ. “Why did you run out into
the road like that?”

“I wanted to get my sister’s doll,” answered Russ, still brushing the
dust from his clothes.

“Um! Well, don’t do it again—that’s all I ask!” begged the man. “I was
afraid I was going to run right over you!”

“Yes, it was a very dangerous thing for him to do,” said Mrs. Bunker.
“He shouldn’t have tried it. I’m sorry he caused you trouble.”

“Oh, it wasn’t exactly trouble,” said the man, and he smiled a little.
“I was going to stop around here, anyhow. I’m looking for a family
named Bunker. Do you know if they live around here?”

“We’re the Bunkers!” quickly answered Russ. “Anyhow, we’re the most of
’em,” he added, laughing. “All but daddy and——”

“Oh!” murmured the driver of the truck. “Are there more of you?”

“It is rather a large family,” said Mrs. Bunker. “I have two more boys.”

“My daddy’s in his office,” volunteered Violet, who was now satisfied
that her doll, Esmeralda, was all right except for a little dirt.

“And Laddie and Mun Bun are digging a hole to China,” added Margy.

“Oh,” and again the man smiled.

“Are you looking for a Mr. Charles Bunker?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“That’s the name, yes, ma’am,” the truck driver replied, glancing at a
slip of paper in his hand. “I have a load of flowers for him.”

“Oh, flowers! Is that what’s on your auto?” cried Rose, for the sides
of the truck were covered with canvas and it could not be seen what it
was laden with. Without waiting for an answer, Rose hurried around to
the rear. There she saw a number of pots of flowers and plants, and,
being very fond of them, she reached up to pull nearer to her the pot
closest to the end of the truck.

Perhaps the sudden stopping of the vehicle had made the pot unsteady,
for, as Rose touched it, the pot was upset and rolled out of the truck
toward the little girl.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Rose.

“What is the matter now?” asked Mrs. Bunker, going around to the rear
of the truck. She was just in time to see a shower of brown earth from
the pot splattering around Rose. The pot fell to the ground and was
broken, the flower in it being knocked out.

“Not much damage done as long as the little girl isn’t harmed,” said
the driver. “I’ve got some extra pots on the truck and I can easily
plant this flower again,” and he picked up the geranium, which was a
pink one in full blossom.

“Let me ’mell!” begged Mun Bun who, with Laddie, had now come out in
the street to see why his mother and the other little Bunkers were
gathered there.

“There isn’t much smell to that geranium,” laughed the driver. “But I
have other flowers that do smell.”

“Are all these for us?” asked Mrs. Bunker, as she saw the mass of
blossoms inside. “Rose, dear, are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

“Yes, Mother, I’m all right,” was the answer. “But, oh, where did all
the pretty flowers come from?”

“They’re from Mr. Joel Todd,” answered the driver.

“Farmer Joel?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Yes, some folks call him that,” was the reply, and Mrs. Bunker
remembered a rather odd character whom her husband knew. Mr. Bunker had
often spoken of “Farmer Joel,” but had said nothing about a load of
flowers coming from him.

“Did my husband order these?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“No, I don’t know that he did, exactly,” the driver answered. “Farmer
Joel had more plants than he could use, so he told me to bring these in
to you, as I had to come this way anyhow with a load of produce.”

“Mother, who is Farmer Joel?” asked Rose, in a whisper.

“He has a farm about forty miles from here,” answered Mrs. Bunker.
“Your father and I were there some years ago. Farmer Joel has orchards,
bees, flowers, chickens, cows, and horses.”

“Oh, what a lovely place that would be to go to for the rest of the
summer!” exclaimed Rose.

“Could we go there, Mother?” begged Vi.

“I—now—I know a riddle about a horse,” spoke up Laddie. “When is a boy
a little horse?”

“We haven’t time for riddles now, dear,” said his mother. “I must tell
this man where to leave the flowers that Farmer Joel was so kind as to
send us.”

“Well, then I’ll tell you when a boy is a little horse,” went on
Laddie. “It’s when he has a cold.”

“Pooh! Being _hoarse_ when you have a cold isn’t being a _horse_ on a
farm,” declared Rose.

“It’s good enough for a riddle,” replied Laddie. “Oh, I want a ride!”
he cried, as he saw the driver climbing up on his seat after Mrs.
Bunker had pointed out her house.

“No, Laddie! Keep off the truck,” his mother warned him.

“Farmer Joel!” said Russ, in a musing tone as they all turned to go
back home. “I wonder if we could go there?”

“Maybe you’ll have the chance,” his mother said, smiling.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried the six little Bunkers in delight.

“But I can’t tell you any more now,” Mrs. Bunker went on. “It’s a
secret!”

CHAPTER III

THE SECRET

Mrs. Bunker could not have said anything more exciting than the word
“secret” if she had tried for a week. Hearing it, the six little
Bunkers fairly jumped for joy.

“Oh, ho! A secret!” cried Russ.

“Let me guess what it is!” begged Laddie, acting as though he thought
it a riddle.

“Oh, tell me!” cried Rose. “I won’t tell the others, Mother.”

“No, no!” laughed Mrs. Bunker. “When it is time to tell the secret you
shall all know it at once.”

“Is it about us?” asked Violet, with what she thought a cunning air,
hoping she might surprise something of the secret from her mother.

“Yes, it’s about all of you,” was the answer.

“Is it good to eat?” was what Mun Bun wanted to know.

“Yes, the secret is good to eat,” answered Mrs. Bunker, with laughing
eyes, as she looked at Farmer Joel’s truck driver.

“Is it good to play with?” was the question Margy asked.

“Yes, it’s good to play with, too,” said her mother.

This set all the six little Bunkers to guessing, and they named first
one thing and then another, but Mrs. Bunker only shook her head,
laughed, and told them they would have to wait to find out about the
secret.

“You’ve got your hands full with those youngsters, I can see that,”
chuckled the truck driver, who had said his name was Adam North. “They
must keep you busy.”

“They do. But they are good children,” Mrs. Bunker said, while Rose was
murmuring:

“I can’t think what kind of a secret it can be that you can eat and
play with. Can you, Russ?”

“Not unless it’s a candy cane—the kind we used to get for Christmas,”
he answered.

“Oh, it couldn’t be _that_!” quickly declared Rose. “Mother wouldn’t
make a secret about a candy cane. I think it must have something to do
with this Farmer Joel.”

“Maybe,” agreed Russ. “But I have to go into the house and brush my
clothes. I didn’t think they were so dusty. It’s like sliding for first
base when you’re playing ball.”

By this time the six little Bunkers in charge of their mother were
ready to walk back toward their house. They made a pretty picture as
they stood in the street, Mun Bun and Margy were first, side by side,
and holding hands as the two youngest generally did. Then came the
twins, Violet and Laddie, next largest in size, and back of them were
Rose and Russ, while Mrs. Bunker came behind the two oldest, smiling at
her “brood,” as she sometimes called them, pretending they were hungry
chickens.

“Well, we’re generally hungry all right,” Russ would say with a laugh
when his mother spoke thus.

“I suppose we look like a procession, don’t we?” asked Mrs. Bunker of
Adam North, as he prepared to start his truckload of flowers.

“Well, a little, yes,” he agreed, with a laugh. “But it’s a mighty nice
procession. I guess Farmer Joel wishes he had one like it.”

“That’s so, he has no children, has he?” remarked Mrs. Bunker. “It’s
been some time since I have seen him, and I thought perhaps he might
have married.”

“No,” went on Mr. North, while the six little Bunkers listened to the
talk, wondering, the while, what the wonderful secret might be. “Farmer
Joel is still a bachelor. He lives with his sister Miss Lavina. She
keeps house for him, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I know Lavina Todd very well,” said Mrs. Bunker. “She and I
were old chums. We went to school together when we lived in the same
country town as girls. But that was quite a number of years ago, and I
thought Farmer Joel might have married in all that time.”

“No—old bachelor,” replied Adam North. “But he’s the kindest, jolliest
soul you’d want to meet and he loves children. That’s why I say he’d
like a procession like yours. Now then, where do you want these
flowers? I’ve got quite a load of ’em.”

“Indeed you have a wonderful load of blossoms,” said Mrs. Bunker. “It
was very kind of Farmer Joel to send them. But I’m afraid I can’t set
them out all alone.”

“Oh, I’ll stay and help you plant the flowers,” offered Adam North, who
was something of a farmer and gardener himself. “Mr. Todd said I was
to do that. I’ve got to stay, anyhow, to see Mr. Bunker. He’ll be home
soon, I expect.”

“Yes, he’ll come home to supper,” replied Mrs. Bunker. “I hope you can
stay and have a meal with us,” she added.

“Well, I might—yes,” was the slow answer. “In fact, I was going to stay
over at the hotel all night, as it’s a long ride back to Cedarhurst,
and I don’t like to drive the truck after dark if I can help it.”

“Oh, then you can stay at our house,” quickly said Mrs. Bunker. “We’d
be delighted to have you. There is plenty of room.”

“And you can tell us about the farm,” added Rose.

“And about the bees,” added Mun Bun. “Does they sting?”

“Sometimes,” laughed Mr. North.

[Illustration: THE CHILDREN HELPED AS MUCH AS THEY COULD.

_Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel's._ _Page 31_]

“And tell us about the cows and chickens,” begged Laddie. “I know a
riddle about—now—about a cow, only I can’t think of it.”

“Maybe it’s the cow that jumped over the moon,” joked Mr. North.

“No, it isn’t that,” Laddie answered. “Maybe I’ll think of it after a
while.”

“I’d like to hear about the horses,” suggested Violet. “How many horses
does Farmer Joel have and do they ever run away and did they ever run
away with you and did you get hurt and are there any little horses? I
don’t believe they’d run away, would they? And if a horse runs away
does he run back again and——”

“Violet! Violet!” cried her mother. But the little girl had stopped
herself, for she was out of breath.

“Does she often get spells like that?” asked Adam North, with a
laughing look at Mrs. Bunker.

“Sometimes,” was the smiling answer. “But generally she asks her
questions one at a time. I don’t know what made her take such a streak.
But come, children, I want to get these flowers set out before daddy
comes home. Come along.”

“We can plant some in the hole we dug,” said Laddie.

“No! No!” cried Mun Bun. “That’s a hole to China and we don’t want any
flowers in it!”

“Easy, Mun Bun! Don’t get so excited,” soothed Russ. “Maybe the people
in China would like some of these flowers.”

“Oh, all right. I give some flowers to Chiweeze,” agreed Mun Bun.

By this time the truck had rolled into the driveway of the Bunker
home, and the family of children and their mother soon followed. The
doll, which had been the cause of so much excitement, and not a little
trouble, was put in the house where no wandering dog could carry her
off again. Then Adam North began unloading the pots of flowers, some of
which needed to be set out in the ground to make them grow better.

It was toward the end of spring, with summer in prospect and just the
time to start making a flower garden, Mr. North said. Farmer Joel
raised many kinds of plants and blossoms, his sister Miss Lavina Todd
helping him. They had so many that it had been decided to send some to
Mr. Bunker.

“But I never thought he could spare all these,” remarked Mrs.
Bunker, when she saw the geraniums, the begonias, the four-o’clocks,
the petunias, the zinnias, the marigolds and many other kinds of
“posy-trees,” as Mun Bun called them.

“Oh, yes, we have more flowers at Cedarhurst than we know what to do
with,” said Adam North, as he began setting out the blossoms.

The children and Mrs. Bunker helped as much as they could, but except
for what Russ, Rose and Mrs. Bunker did there was really not much
help. For Violet, Margy, Mun Bun and Laddie would start to dig a hole
in which to set out a plant, then they would forget all about it in
running to see a new kind of blossom that was taken from the truck.

So it was that there were a number of half-dug holes about the garden,
with nothing planted in them. But Adam North knew his business well,
and soon he had turned the formerly dull Bunker yard into a veritable
flower-show, with bright blossoms here and there.

“Now if you’ll just give ’em a little wetting down with the hose so
they won’t wilt, they’ll come up fresh and strong by morning,” he said,
when the last plant was set out.

“I’ll use the hose!” offered Russ.

“I’ll help!” said Rose.

“So will I!” cried the other four little Bunkers. Using the hose was
something they all delighted to do.

“No, my dears,” said Mrs. Bunker firmly. “Russ will do the sprinkling
and all the others must come in and get washed ready for supper. Daddy
will soon be home and then——”

“Will you tell us the secret?” asked Rose.

“I think so—yes,” was the reply, and this gave the smaller children
something to think about so they did not mind not being allowed to use
the hose.

“I wouldn’t dare let them take turns wetting the new plants,” said Mrs.
Bunker to Adam. “Russ is all right, but the others would shower every
one passing in the street.”

“I reckon so, and wash out all the new plants besides,” chuckled Farmer
Joel’s hired man. “And now,” he went on, “since you have been so kind
as to ask me to stay to supper and remain all night, I’d like to wash
up myself. I’m pretty dirty,” he added, with a laugh, as he looked at
his grimy hands, for he had been delving in the dirt to set out the
flowers.

“Come with me,” said Mrs. Bunker. “And, Russ,” she added, “be careful
about the hose. Don’t spray on any people who may be passing.”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised.

Ordinarily when Russ used the hose all the other little Bunkers stood
around anxiously waiting for their turn. But now, with the prospect of
hearing a secret, they went willingly to the bathroom and soon were as
shining as soap and water could make them.

Adam, as the children soon began to call him, for he was very friendly,
ran the big truck up alongside the garage, as there was not room for
it inside. Then, after he had washed and prepared for supper, he went
out to see that Russ did not spray too much water on the newly set out
plants.

Norah, the cook, had supper almost ready and Adam had told Russ enough
water had been used when the boy, looking down the street, saw his
father approaching.

“Here comes daddy!” he cried.

Mr. Bunker waved his newspaper and as he reached the gate and saw the
visitor a pleasant smile came over his face and he cried:

“Well, Adam North! Glad to see you! How’s Farmer Joel?”

“Right hearty! I brought you those flowers.”

“That’s good! Hello, Russ! How’s everything here?”

“All right, Daddy!”

“Daddy! Daddy!” came in a chorus from the other little Bunkers, and
their father was overwhelmed in a joyous rush.

“What’s the secret?”

“Tell us the secret!”

“Can Mother tell us the secret now?”

These were only a few of the words Mr. Bunker heard as he was hugged
and kissed.

“Secret?” he exclaimed, looking at Adam. “What secret?”

“Oh, you know!” laughed Rose. “It must be about Farmer Joel!”

“Oh, that!” chuckled Mr. Bunker. “Yes, the secret is about him,” he
admitted. “But how did you all know it?”

“There’s been a lot of excitement in the last hour,” said Adam. “I
nearly ran over a doll, just missed smashing Russ, and there’s a secret
in the air. Oh, nobody’s hurt,” he quickly added, for he saw that Mr.
Bunker looked a little alarmed at the mention of what had so nearly
been an accident.

“That’s good,” said Daddy Bunker.

“The secret! The secret!” begged the children.

“All right. Come into the house and I’ll tell you the secret,” he
promised.

With whoops of delight, in trooped the six little Bunkers.

CHAPTER IV

WHERE IS LADDIE?

“Supper is all ready, Daddy! We’ll sit right down,” called Mother
Bunker, as the happy crowd entered. “I see you have already met Farmer
Joel’s man,” she added, nodding and smiling.

“Oh, yes, Adam and I are old friends,” Mr. Bunker said. “And I’m glad
supper is ready, for I’m hungry. Let me see now——”

“The secret! The secret!”

“You promised to tell us the secret!”

“Tell us now!”

“Don’t wait until after supper!”

Thus cried the six little Bunkers.

“Quiet, children! Please be quiet!” begged their mother. “What will
Adam North think of you?”

“Oh, let ’em go on! I like it!” chuckled the truck driver.

“I think perhaps I had better tell the secret,” said Mr. Bunker. “It is
the only way we shall have any peace and quiet. Now all of you sit down
to the table,” he ordered, “and when you can compose yourselves I will
tell you what I have to say.”

It took some little time for all of the six little Bunkers to get
quiet, but finally each one was sitting nicely in his or her chair,
with their father at one end of the table and their mother at the
other, Adam having a place next to Mr. Bunker.

“Now,” said Mr. Bunker, when all was quiet, “in order that you will not
eat too fast, to get through supper quickly to hear the secret, I am
going to tell it to you now.”

“Oh, I can hardly wait!” murmured Rose.

“What is it?” asked Violet.

Then came a moment of eager, anxious waiting.

“We are all going to spend the summer at Farmer Joel’s,” said Mr.
Bunker suddenly.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” came the murmurs of delight. Mrs. Bunker, with laughter
shining in her eyes, looked at the happy faces around her.

“They sure will have fun out there!” said Adam.

“Do you really mean it?” asked Russ. “Are we going?”

“Surely,” said his father. “Farmer Joel’s sister, who has been keeping
house for him, is going away on a visit. When he told me this he said
he didn’t know what he was going to do, as he didn’t want a strange
woman coming in to look after the place. Then I said I would bring my
six little Bunkers up there and they would keep house for him.”

“Did you really say that, Daddy?” Rose asked eagerly.

“I surely did.”

“Well, I can keep house a little bit,” Rose went on. “But to cook for a
farmer——”

Rose began to look worried, so her mother said:

“You won’t have to do it all alone. I am going with you, and so is
Norah, and we’ll see that Farmer Joel doesn’t get hungry.”

“Oh, if mother is coming it will be all right,” said Violet.

“Fine! Yes!” cried the other little Bunkers. You can see they thought
a great deal of their mother.

“So that is how it came about,” went on Mr. Bunker. “Farmer Joel’s
sister is going away on a long visit—to remain all summer. We are going
up there to live on his farm.”

“And can I help get in the crops?” asked Russ, who liked to be busy.

“Yes, we’ll all help,” his father promised. “I think you need a lot of
help on a farm in summer, don’t you, Adam?” he asked.

“That’s right,” answered Farmer Joel’s hired man. “The more help we
have the better. I’m pretty well rushed myself in the summer.”

“And can we see the horses?” asked Violet.

“And the cows?” came from Laddie.

“And the sheep?” Mun Bun wanted to know.

“And the apple trees?” asked Margy.

“I’d like to see the bees make honey,” remarked Rose, who, herself, was
often as busy as any bee.

“You shall see everything there is to see,” promised Daddy Bunker.
“There! Now you know the secret. We are going off to Farmer Joel’s
for the summer, and I think we shall have a fine time. Now eat your
suppers!”

And the six little Bunkers did.

After supper there was more talk about going to the farm, and Mr.
Bunker said:

“I have been talking with Adam, and this seems the best way to go.
Cedarhurst, where Farmer Joel lives, is about forty miles from here. It
is not on any railroad, so we shall need to go in the automobile. As
our car is hardly large enough to take us all and the trunks we shall
need this is what we can do.

“Adam and I will ride to Cedarhurst in the big auto truck that brought
the flowers. In that we can also take the baggage—the trunks of clothes
and the like. The children can also ride in the truck with me. We’ll
fill it full of straw.”

“Oh, that will be fun!” cried Russ.

“A regular straw ride!” added Rose.

“But what about mother?” asked Violet. “Is she going in the truck with
us?”

“Your mother and Norah will drive up in our own touring car,” said Mr.
Bunker.

“When can we go?” asked Russ.

“In a few days,” his father answered.

“Then I won’t bother to make the seesaw here,” went on Russ. “I’ll save
the nails and take them to Farmer Joel’s.”

“That’s a good idea,” agreed Rose. “We can make a lovely teeter-totter
up there, and have lots of fun.”

In the early evening, after supper, not much was talked of by the six
little Bunkers but the coming visit to Farmer Joel’s. Mrs. Bunker,
who had been to the farm some years before with her husband, told the
children about it. There were many places where they could have fun,
she said.

The evening was passing. Mun Bun and Margy, in spite of their hard work
to keep awake, were fast falling asleep, their little heads nodding
from side to side and their eyes closing.

“It’s time they were in bed!” cried Mrs. Bunker, when she finally
noticed them. “It’s long past their hour. And Laddie and Vi, too! They
must go to bed!”

“I’ll carry up Mun Bun,” offered Mr. Bunker.

“And I’ll take Margy,” said Adam, for both the smallest children were
now asleep.

“Come, Vi,” suggested her mother. “You and Laddie can go up by
yourselves.”

“Laddie isn’t here,” said Violet.

“He isn’t? Where is he?” asked her mother. “Perhaps he has fallen
asleep in a corner of the porch,” for they were sitting out on the
piazza talking over the coming visit to Farmer Joel’s.

“No, he isn’t here,” went on Violet. “He got up and walked off a little
while ago.”

“Then I guess he went up to bed by himself,” said Mr. Bunker, as he
went into the house carrying Mun Bun, while Adam followed with Margy.
“I’ll see if he’s in his room,” he added to his wife.

But a little later, when Mr. Bunker called down: “Laddie isn’t up
here!” there was some excitement.

“Where can he be?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Maybe he’s out in the yard trying to catch lightning bugs,” suggested
Rose, for she and Russ were to be allowed to remain up a little later
than the smaller children.

“It’s too early for lightning bugs,” replied Mrs. Bunker. “Where can
the child have gone? Laddie! Laddie!” she called, raising her voice.
“Where are you?”

But the only sound was the singing of the frogs down in the pond—that
is, if you call the noise the frogs make “singing.” There was no answer
from Laddie.

“He may have wandered down into the garden, to look at some of the
flowers you set out,” suggested Mr. Bunker.

“He couldn’t see flowers in the dark,” objected Mrs. Bunker.

“He might if he took a flashlight,” said Russ. “Maybe that’s what he
did. I’ll go and look for him.”

“I’ll come and help you,” offered Adam.

But a search through the garden and more calling of Laddie’s name
brought no answer from the little fellow.

“Where can he have gone?” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. “I’m afraid he’s
lost.”

CHAPTER V

OFF TO THE FARM

Mr. Bunker saw that his wife was growing a little alarmed over Laddie’s
absence, so he said:

“Now don’t worry, we’ll find Laddie.”

“I’ll help you look for him,” said Adam. “He can’t have gone very far.”

“Maybe he fell asleep in the summer-house,” suggested Russ, for at the
end of the garden was a rustic summer-house, or pavilion, in which the
children sometimes played. But Laddie was not there.

“Could he have fallen into the brook?” asked Rose.

“If he did, all that could happen would be that he got wet,” her father
answered, with a laugh.

“And if Laddie fell into the brook I guess he’d yell and we would hear
him,” Rose said, nodding her head.

“’Tisn’t very deep, anyhow,” added Russ.

They looked farther in the garden for Laddie and called his name, but
there was no answer. Mr. Bunker was just beginning to get worried when
the telephone in the house suddenly rang.

“Maybe that’s some news of him!” exclaimed the mother of the missing
little fellow. She started toward the telephone, but Laddie’s father
reached it first.

“Hello! Hello!” called Mr. Bunker into the telephone.

The others listened to what he had to say.

“Yes! Yes,” he went on. “Oh, then he’s all right. I’m glad of that.
Thank you! Yes, I’ll be right down after him.”

“Evidently it’s about Laddie?” said Mrs. Bunker in a questioning voice.

“Yes,” answered her husband, as he hung up the receiver. “Laddie is in
the police station.”

“The _police station_!” cried Russ.

“Is he arrested? What for?” Rose queried wonderingly.

Daddy Bunker laughed, which let them all know it could not be very
serious.

“What is it?” asked his wife.

“As nearly as I can make out,” said Mr. Bunker, “Laddie wandered away
from here and went to the police station about some riddle.”

“A _riddle_!” cried Adam North. “Good gasoline! That boy must dream of
riddles!”

“I sometimes think he does,” sighed his mother. “But what sort of
riddle is it this time?” she asked her husband.

“The officer at the police station didn’t just know,” was Mr. Bunker’s
answer. “He said they had Laddie there and asked me to come and get
him, as they didn’t want to send him home with a policeman for fear the
neighbors would think something had happened. As nearly as I can make
out, Laddie must have thought of a riddle and have gone to the police
station to see if any one could guess it.”

“Why didn’t he ask one of us?” his mother wanted to know. “He generally
does ask us first.”

“We’ll find out all about it when I bring him home,” replied Mr.
Bunker. “I’ll go right after him.”

“Will you take the car?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Yes, I think I’d better. Laddie may have fallen asleep, and he’s
pretty heavy to carry.”

“I’ll go with you,” offered Adam, and soon they were at the police
station.

There they found Laddie wide awake, sitting in the assembly room of the
station house, while several officers, who were on reserve duty, were
laughing and joking with him.

“He’s far from being asleep,” said Mr. North.

“I should say so!” agreed Mr. Bunker. “Laddie boy, what in the world
are you doing down here?” he asked the little fellow.

“I came down to find out about a riddle,” he answered.

“And he’s had us all guessing riddles ever since he walked in here
about an hour ago,” chuckled the police sergeant in charge of the
station. “He’s a great boy!”

“I didn’t perzactly come down here to ask riddles,” said Laddie. “But
I wanted to make up a riddle about a policeman to ask Farmer Joel when
I got to the farm, and I had to see a police station inside to make up
the riddle.”

“Well, did you make the riddle up?” asked the sergeant, with another
laugh. Life at the station was very often dull, and the men on duty
welcomed any little change.

“Yes, I got a riddle,” Laddie announced. “’Tisn’t very good, but maybe
I can think of a better one after a while. This is it. Why is a police
station like a candy shop?”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed the sergeant. “That may be a riddle, but I can’t see
it. Nothing could be more different than a candy store and this police
station.”

“Yes, there’s something alike in each of them,” went on Laddie. “Do you
all give up?” he asked. “Can you tell why a police station is like a
candy shop?”

“Is it because when people are brought here they have to stick?” asked
Adam.

“Ha! Ha! That’s pretty good!” laughed the sergeant. “I’d never think of
that myself! Pretty good! A police station is like a candy shop because
people have to stick here! And it’s true! They do have to stick if we
arrest them and put them in a cell. And if there’s sticky candy on the
floor of a candy shop they’d stick there. Pretty good!”

“No, that isn’t the reason,” said Laddie. “Listen. I’ll tell you.
A police station is like a candy shop because it’s full of sticks.
Sticks, you know—the policemen’s clubs. They’re like sticks of candy,
you know!”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed the sergeant again. “That’s pretty good! I must
remember that to tell the captain. Well, good night to you,” he added,
as Mr. Bunker led Laddie out, thanking the sergeant and his men for
having entertained and kept the little boy.

On the way home in the automobile Mr. Bunker said Laddie should not
have slipped off and gone down the street to the police station without
telling some one about it.

“We were all worried, Laddie,” went on his father.

“I’m sorry,” the little fellow said. “I won’t do it again. But I got to
thinking I could make up a good riddle about a policeman, and I thought
it would be better if I could see one before I made the riddle, so I
just went.”

“Well, it’s a pretty good riddle—I’ll say that,” chuckled Adam North.
“Maybe you can make up some about the farm when you get there. Farmer
Joel likes jokes and riddles.”

“I’ll make up a lot of them for him,” kindly offered Laddie, as if he
had a stock of riddles constantly on hand and could turn them out at a
moment’s notice.

“Oh, Laddie, you bad boy, where have you been?” asked his mother when
he reached home.

When they told her his riddle about the police station and candy shop,
she could not help laughing.

A few days after this everything was ready for the start to Farmer
Joel’s. Mr. Bunker had arranged to leave his real estate business in
charge of his men at the office, and Mrs. Bunker prepared to close the
house, taking Norah with her to cook at the farm.

The children’s clothing had been packed in valises and trunks, and
piled in the big auto truck which was filled with straw to make
a comfortable resting place for the six little Bunkers on their
forty-mile trip.

As I have told you, the children and their father would ride in the
big truck with Adam, and Mrs. Bunker would follow with Norah in the
touring car, the children’s mother doing the driving.

All was one grand excitement in the home of the six little Bunkers
when the morning came on which they were to leave for the farm. Every
one seemed to be talking at once, and certainly the children, Violet
especially, never seemed to have asked so many questions before.

Laddie, too, was on the alert. He was working on a new riddle. He spoke
of it to Russ.

“It’s about a tree,” said Laddie.

“Oh, I know that old riddle,” Russ said. “You mean why is a tree like a
dog? Because it has a bark.”

“No, it isn’t that one,” Laddie said eagerly. “This is a new riddle.
Now I have it! What’s the difference between a tree and a bird? Can you
answer that?”

“Let me see now,” murmured Russ, who wanted to please his little
brother. “The difference between a bird and a tree. Well, one flies and
the other doesn’t.”

“Nope!” cried Laddie. “I’ll tell you. A tree leaves in the spring and
a bird leaves in the fall. See what I mean? A tree leaves in the
spring—the leaves come out. But a bird leaves in the fall. The bird
leaves the North and flies down South where it’s warm.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good riddle,” said Russ.

“Well, maybe I can think of a better one after a while,” Laddie
remarked cheerfully. He certainly was good-natured.

Now that the time of going to the farm had arrived, Violet was eager to
find out all about the animals. She fairly pestered Adam with wanting
to know things. She asked:

“How many chickens are there? How many cows? Did you ever count the
bees?”

“Count the bees? Good land, no!” laughed Adam. “There’s millions of
’em and they never keep still long enough to be counted. Besides, if I
tried they might sting me.”

“Well,” said Vi, “are there any——”

“Violet, get in the truck and sit still,” ordered her mother firmly,
and Violet obeyed.

Everything was ready for the start. Mr. Bunker was counting the
children and the trunks and the satchels, to make sure none was
missing, when Rose asked:

“Where’s Margy?”

“Here she comes,” said Russ, as he noticed his little sister appearing
around the corner of the house.

“What in the world is she carrying?” asked Mr. Bunker.

And well might he inquire. For Margy was half dragging half carrying
a large pasteboard box which seemed alive, for it swayed from side to
side and seemed about to leap away.

“Margy, what have you there?” called her father.

Before she could answer the box gave a sudden lurch to one side, Margy
lost her balance, and down she went on the path in a heap, the box
tumbling over and over as if it had suddenly come to life. What could
it be?

CHAPTER VI

SOMETHING IN THE STRAW

Five little Bunkers, with their father, their mother, Norah, and Adam
North looked at one little Bunker in a queer plight. That one little
Bunker was Margy.

After her fall Margy rolled along the path a short distance, for she
was a round little girl, quite chubby and, as her father often said,
“about as broad as she was long.”

As Margy rolled along, the box she had been carrying also rolled.

There was nothing very strange in Margy’s rolling over and over after a
tumble. She often did that. So did the other little Bunkers. So, also,
do you if you are little and fat.

There was also nothing very strange in the box, which Margy had been
carrying, rolling over. That is, there would not have been anything
strange if the box had just rolled in one direction.

But it did not. It rolled this way and that way and the other way and
then it rolled this way again, in such a strange manner that Russ cried:

“What in the world can be in that box to make it go that way?”

“It’s just as if it was alive!” said Rose.

“Maybe it’s a riddle!” suggested Laddie.

Mrs. Bunker had gone to Margy to pick her up. Beyond a scratch or two
and some bruises, together with some dust on her dress, Margy was
unharmed. She was used to cuts and bruises, so these did not much
matter. Nor did the dust.

Russ ran to pick up the queer, rolling box, calling out:

“What’s in it, Margy?”

Before she could answer there came from within the box, the cover of
which was fitted tightly on, a little yipping whine and bark.

“Oh, it’s a dog!” cried Mun Bun. “I want to see the dog!”

“Dog!” exclaimed Violet. “It must be a terribly little dog to be in a
box like that.”

“Margy, what have you in the box?” asked her father, as Russ was trying
to take off the cover.

“It’s a—now—a puppy!” answered Margy.

“A puppy!” cried the other five little Bunkers, while Margy’s mother
asked:

“Where did you get the puppy, Margy?”

“I went over to Tommy Baker’s house. His dog has some little puppies,
and I took one and put it in this box ’cause I want to take a puppy
with me to the farm,” Margy answered.

The others laughed.

By this time Russ had managed to get the cover off the box, and a cute
little puppy stuck his head out, and, with his tongue, began licking
Russ’s hands. I suppose that was the puppy’s way of telling how glad he
was to get out of the box.

“Oh, isn’t he sweet!” cried Rose.

“Could we keep him?” begged Violet.

“I love him an’ he’s my puppy!” announced Margy.

“Well, the next time you love a puppy don’t shut him up in a box
without any air, and don’t drop him so the box rolls and he turns
somersaults,” advised Daddy Bunker. “Russ, you run back to Mr. Baker’s
with the little dog, and tell him Margy didn’t really mean to take it.”

“Oh, Daddy! can’t I keep it?” begged Margy.

“No, dear. It belongs to Tommy Baker. You’ll find animals enough out at
Farmer Joel’s, anyway,” said her mother, as Russ started back with the
puppy in his arms.

For a moment it seemed as if Margy would cry, but Mun Bun kept her
tears back by saying:

“It was awful funny when he did roll over and over in the box. I like a
puppy to do that!” And when the others laughed at Mun Bun’s funny way
of saying this, Margy also laughed.

Russ came running back, having left the puppy with the others, a last
look was taken around the house to see that all was in good order, and
then Mrs. Bunker and Norah started off in the touring car and Daddy and
Adam North started in the big straw-filled truck with the six little
Bunkers.

“Oh, this is great! It’s going to be lots of fun!” exclaimed Russ, as
they rumbled along.

“I hope there’s a big, old-fashioned kitchen at Farmer Joel’s,” said
Rose. “Mother said I might help her with the baking of cake and pies.”

“Well, I’ll help with the eating,” laughed Russ. “I hope there’s a
brook on the farm. I want to make a water wheel and build a little toy
mill that the water wheel will turn.”

“I’ll help you,” offered Laddie, as Russ whistled merrily.

The way to Cedarhurst where Farmer Joel lived was along a pleasant
road, and the children, sitting on the straw in the big truck, enjoyed
looking out through openings in the canvas sides.

“Did we bring anything to eat?” asked Vi, after a few miles had been
journeyed.

“No, daddy said we were going to stop in Westfield for our lunch,”
explained Rose. “We are going to meet mother there and all eat together
in a restaurant.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun!” declared Vi.

“It would be more fun if we could camp beside the road, make a fire and
cook something,” suggested Russ.

“If I had a gun I could shoot something and we could cook that,” cried
Laddie.

“Pooh! What could you shoot? A bear?” asked his twin sister.

“No,” he drawled. “But maybe I could shoot a chicken.”

“If you did the farmer that owned it would have you arrested,” declared
Russ. “I guess it will be better for us to eat in the restaurant.”

Adam North, who sat up in the front seat with Daddy Bunker, suddenly
turned the truck off to one side of the road and brought the big
machine to a stop.

“Oh, are we there already?” cried Rose, leaping up from the straw where
she had been sitting beside Russ.

“Are we at Farmer Joel’s?” asked Violet eagerly.

“I want to wide on a horsie!” demanded Mun Bun.

“No, we aren’t there yet,” answered Adam. “But I need some water in the
radiator of the auto, so I’ll just stop here and get some. There’s a
farmer here whom I know.”

“May we get out?” asked Russ, for he thought perhaps they might not
stop long enough for this.

“Oh, yes, get out and stretch your legs,” his father told him.

“I’ll wait here five or ten minutes and cool down the engine,” added
Adam.

With whoops and shouts of delight the six little Bunkers piled out of
the truck and ran up and down the road. The machine had come to a stop
with the open rear end close to a wooden platform, which was just as
high as the floor of the big car. From the platform a flight of steps
led to the ground, and the Bunker children got out on this platform and
so descended.

“What’s this for?” asked Violet, with her usual way of starting
questions.

“This,” her father told her, “is a milk platform.”

“What’s a milk——” began Vi, but her father held up his hand.

“I’ll tell you all about it, and then you won’t have to ask any more
questions,” he said, with a smile. “This platform is built for the
farmer to set his cans of milk on. It is made high, so it is easy to
roll the cans of milk from the platform into the wagon. The milk is
collected by a big wagon, or auto truck, from the cheese factory. Many
farmers around here sell their milk and cream to the cheese factory,
and these platforms are built to make the work easier.”

“Oh,” murmured Violet. She had never had so many questions answered
before without her asking any, and she was in rather a daze.

“Now run along and play with the others,” her father told her, for the
five little Bunkers were wandering about, looking at things around the
farmhouse.

Mr. Armstrong owned the place, and he came out to shake hands with Mr.
Bunker and Adam North, telling the latter to take as much water as he
needed for the thirsty automobile.

Mrs. Armstrong invited the children in and gave them some cookies and
glasses of milk.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll spoil your appetites for dinner by eating
now?” asked Daddy Bunker. “It’s eleven o’clock, and we’ll have lunch
about noon.”

“I guess I can eat again,” said Russ.

“So can I.” “And I!” cried the others.

“Bless their hearts!” laughed the motherly Mrs. Armstrong.

While the auto engine was cooling the children ran about and played
tag. Rose thought perhaps her mother and Norah might come past in the
touring car, but Adam said they had probably taken a shorter way, over
a back road.

“I couldn’t go that way because the truck is so heavy,” he explained.
“I have to stick to the hard highways. But we’ll meet your mother in
Westfield.”

“Oh, come on out and see what I found!” cried Margy, running around the
corner of the house.

“What is it?” asked Mun Bun.

“A lot of little pigs in a pen, and they squeal like anything!” Margy
answered.

“Oh, I want to see the pigs! Maybe I can make up a riddle about ’em!”
cried Laddie.

There was a rush for the pen, and the children had fun watching the
little pigs stumble about, rooting with their pink noses in the dirt of
their pen for something to eat.

But now the engine was cool enough to travel on, and Mr. Bunker called
the children to come back. Russ was the first to reach the machine,
running up the platform steps ready to help his smaller brothers and
sisters if they needed it.

He peered inside the truck, thinking perhaps the straw would need
spreading out again in a smooth layer, and, as he did so, he started
back in surprise.

“What’s the matter?” asked Rose, who had followed him.

“There’s something in there—in the straw,” whispered Russ.

“You mean one of the children?” asked Rose, for thus she often spoke of
her smaller brothers and sister.

“No, it—it looks like some animal,” said Russ. “Look!”

Rose looked and saw a dark object—clearly an animal—moving about in the
straw.

“Oh, maybe it’s a bear!” she cried.

CHAPTER VII

AT FARMER JOEL’S

Four other little Bunkers were hurrying up the platform steps to get
into the auto truck when Rose and Russ made this discovery of a strange
animal in the straw.

The first impulse of Rose was to run from the animal that, she half
thought, might be a bear that had wandered in from the woods not far
away and had found the warm straw a good place in which to sleep. The
next thought Rose had was for her smaller brothers and sisters.

Daddy Bunker and Adam North were up near the front of the truck,
getting ready to take their seats, for the engine was now cool and the
radiator filled with fresh water.

Russ had the same idea as had Rose—the desire to save his brothers and
sisters from harm. Seeing them coming up the platform steps he cried:

“Keep back! Keep back! Don’t come up here!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Laddie.

“There’s something in the straw,” Russ answered.

“It’s an animal!” added Rose. “A big animal!”

“Oh, I want to see it!” cried Mun Bun. “I like animals! Maybe we can
have a circus—this is like a circus wagon!”

The big truck certainly was. But Rose did not intend to have Mun Bun or
the other small ones rush into danger. She stood on the milk platform
at the top of the steps, holding out her hands.

“You mustn’t go in there where the animal is!” cried Rose. “Russ, can’t
you do something?” and her voice was shrill with excitement.

“I’ll get a stick—a stone—something——” panted Russ.

Just then from inside the truck came a stamping sound, as if the animal
were kicking about. At the same time a loud cry echoed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Daddy Bunker, coming back from the front end
of the truck.

At the same time Mr. Armstrong, the farmer, hurried out of a side gate,
calling:

“Did any of you see a little colt? He got out of the pasture, and I
don’t want him to run away. He’s valuable and he may get hurt.”

Before any one could answer the sound of neighing came from inside the
truck, and then Russ knew it was made by the animal he and Rose had
seen standing in the straw.

“Ha! That sounds like my colt!” said Farmer Armstrong.

“It is!” shouted Russ, with a laugh. “He’s in the auto. I’ll get him
out.”

The oldest Bunker boy started to go inside the auto truck, whence came
the neighing, stamping sound of the little horse. But Mr. Armstrong
called out:

“No, lad, don’t go in there. He might kick you. Not that he’s ugly, but
he’s in a strange place, and if you go in he might think you meant to
harm him. Better let me do it. I know how to handle that colt.”

The six little Bunkers, with their father and Adam North, stood at one
side to allow Mr. Armstrong to enter the truck. In he went, speaking
soothing words to the little colt.

“Oh, ho, Bonnie Boy! So you thought you’d hide away and go with the six
little Bunkers, did you? None of that! We want you to stay on our farm!
So you tried to hide in the straw, did you, Bonnie Boy? Well, come out
and I’ll give you a lump of sugar.”

And out of the truck, onto the milk platform, walked Mr. Armstrong,
leading by his halter the colt Bonnie Boy, as he was named.

“Oh, isn’t he sweet?” cried Violet. “How old is he and where is his
mother and has he any brothers and sisters and——”

“Careful, Vi!” laughingly called her father. “Mr. Armstrong isn’t used
to having so many questions fired at him at once.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” laughed the good-natured farmer. “But this is the
only little colt I have, and his mother is down in the south pasture.
Now you can pet him if you want to,” he added to the children. “He
won’t kick when he’s outside here where he can see who is near him.”

Up on the platform, around Bonnie Boy, crowded the six little Bunkers,
and the colt rubbed his velvet-like nose against them and whinnied
softly.

“And to think I took him for a bear!” laughed Rose, as she stroked the
glossy neck of the colt.

“Well, he did look like one,” declared Russ.

“Did he walk up the steps?” asked Violet. “I don’t see how he could.”

“Oh, he’s a great little colt,” said Mr. Armstrong proudly. “He does
all sorts of tricks. One day he got out of the pasture and walked right
into the kitchen where my wife was making a cake. She thought I was
coming in with my big boots on, so she didn’t turn around, and the colt
put his nose on the back of her neck. She—Ha! Ha! She thought I was
kissing her. Oh, ho! ho!” and the farmer laughed heartily.

Then he led Bonnie Boy down the steps, the little colt making no
trouble at all about treading on them. He was taken back to the pasture
where his mother was waiting for him, doubtless wondering what had
become of him. It was found that there was a break in the fence, just
large enough for the colt to squeeze through, but not large enough for
his mother, or she would have followed him.

The colt had wandered about, coming up to the rear of the house, and
had then made his way to the front, going up the steps of the milk
platform, and so into the big straw-filled truck, which, perhaps, he
thought was a new kind of barn.

“Well, now we’d better be traveling,” said Mr. Bunker, when the little
colt was taken away. “We don’t want to be late in meeting mother in
Westfield.”

Once again the six little Bunkers were on their way.

They were soon at Westfield, a small country town, and when the big
truck drew up in front of the only restaurant in the place there was
the touring car, with Mrs. Bunker and Norah sitting in it, waiting.

“We got here first, and we would have been here before but I had a
puncture and we had to change a tire,” said Mrs. Bunker.

“That’s too bad,” remarked her husband.

“Did you have any adventures?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Oh, I should say we did!” cried Violet “There was——”

“The cutest little colt!” broke in Rose, “and he——”

“Was in the straw,” continued Russ, “and when Rose saw him she——”

“Thought he was a bear,” said Laddie.

Thus several of the little Bunkers had a turn in telling what had
happened.

“That was quite an adventure!” laughed Mrs. Bunker, when she had been
told all that had taken place at the Armstrong farm.

“I’m trying to make up a riddle about the colt, but I haven’t got very
far yet,” said Laddie. “It’s something about straw and a horseshoe
and—oh, well, maybe I’ll think of it after a while,” he said hopefully.

They had a delightful time, lunching in the restaurant, and nothing
much happened except that Mun Bun spilled a glass of water in his lap
and got wet. But as it was a warm day it didn’t matter.

Margy discovered a little kitten wandering about the eating place, and
she insisted on giving pussy some of her milk. The result was, Margy’s
hands not being very steady, that she upset a glass of milk on the
floor.

But, as the restaurant keeper said, it didn’t matter, for the floor
needed mopping anyhow.

Once more the little party started off in the two automobiles, Mrs.
Bunker and Norah in the touring car taking the lead. In about an hour
more they were at Cedarhurst. Then very soon, turning down a quiet
country road, the six little Bunkers saw in the distance a white
farmhouse in the middle of broad fields—a farmhouse with barns and
other buildings around it.

“That’s a dandy place!” exclaimed Russ.

“Lovely,” murmured Rose.

“Is that where we’re going to stay?” asked Violet.

“Yes, that is Farmer Joel’s,” her father answered.

A little later the little Bunkers were fairly tumbling out of the auto
truck in their eagerness to see all the sights. Mrs. Bunker and Norah
were already at the place.

“My, but I’m glad to see you all!” cried Farmer Joel, and the six
little Bunkers needed but one look at him to make sure they would love
him, for Mr. Todd was a kindly man. And his sister, Miss Lavina, was
just as loving and kind.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” said Miss Todd. “Now that I see so many
lovely children it makes me want to stay and play with you. But brother
Joel says I need a vacation, so I’m going off on a visit.”

The big farm was the most delightful place in the world at which to
spend a vacation. As Adam North had said, there were broad fields—some
green pastures, and others where hay and grain were growing. There were
two orchards, one of apple trees and another of peach trees.

“And don’t eat apples yet, for they aren’t ripe,” warned Farmer Joel
as the children, putting on their old clothes, started out to explore
things.

“I want to see some horses!” cried Laddie.

“I want to go where the sheep are,” Mun Bun said.

“So do I,” chimed in Margy.

“I’ll go to the kitchen to help mother,” offered Rose, but her mother
said:

“No, you run out and play now. Norah and I can manage the work all
right. Later on if you want to help you may.”

So Rose went out with Russ and the others.

“There’s a brook, Russ!” called Violet, as she caught sight of the
sparkle of a little stream.

“That’s good. Then I’ll make a water wheel and a mill,” said Russ.

He and Laddie were looking at the brook, poking in sticks to find out
how deep it was and making ready to build the dam for the water wheel,
when suddenly they heard the voice of Rose crying:

“Oh, drive him away! Make him go away! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“What’s that?” asked Russ, looking up.

“It was Rose,” answered Laddie. “I guess——”

The loud barking of a dog interrupted him, and Rose cried again:

“Oh, Russ, come and drive him away!”

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE HAY

Russ looked up from the dam he was making for the water wheel. He could
not see Rose. Nor could Laddie, who was helping his brother make the
little mill pond. But Rose kept on yelling and the dog kept on barking.

“Oh, somebody please come!” cried Rose.

“I’m coming!” shouted Russ.

He leaped up, followed by Laddie, and, as they turned around a clump of
bushes and looked down the brook they saw Rose standing with her back
against a big tree while in front of her, leaping about and barking
loudly, was a large brown dog.

“Oh, Russ! Russ!” begged his sister, as she caught sight of him and
Laddie. “Come and drive this dog away! He wants to bite me!”

“I’ll drive him away!” declared Russ.

“And I’ll help,” added Laddie. “He’s a bad dog!”

Before the two brothers could reach their sister there came running
toward Rose another boy. This boy had a freckled face and red hair.

“Don’t hit my dog!” cried this red-haired boy. “He won’t hurt you. Hi,
Jimsie!” called this new boy, “behave yourself! Down! Quiet! Quit your
barking!”

The dog looked around at the voice, wagged his tail to show that he
was friendly, and stopped barking. Just then up rushed Russ and Laddie
with sticks in their hands. Rose also had a stick which she had raised
toward the dog, but she had not hit him.

“Don’t beat my dog Jimsie!” begged the strange boy. “He didn’t mean any
harm.”

“What did he try to bite my sister for?” demanded Russ, who was angry.

“Oh, he didn’t exactly try to _bite_ me,” said Rose. “He just barked a
lot and he wouldn’t let me get away, and I was afraid he’d bite me.”

“Jimsie wouldn’t bite anybody,” said the boy, whose name was Ralph
Watson. He lived on the farm next to that of Mr. Todd.

“Well, then, what made him bark at my sister?” asked Russ.

“’Cause she had a stick,” answered Ralph.

“Does he bark at everybody who has a stick?” asked Laddie. “If he does
why doesn’t he bark at Russ and me—we have sticks?”

“I guess he will bark at you as soon as he sees you have sticks,” Ralph
answered. “I’ll try him.” He moved around until he stood beside Russ
and Laddie, and as the dog’s eyes followed his young master Jimsie
caught sight of the two Bunker boys and the sticks they held. At once
Jimsie began to bark, greatly excited.

“There! I told you!” cried Ralph.

“What makes him bark so just because he sees a stick?” asked Russ.
“Does he think we’re going to hit him with ’em? I wouldn’t hit any dog,
unless he was going to bite somebody.”

“No, Jimsie doesn’t think he’s going to be hit,” explained Ralph. “He
just wants you to throw the sticks in the brook so he can jump in and
bring ’em out. Always when he sees any one with a stick he thinks
they’re going to play with him and throw the stick into the water. I
guess he thought you were going to play with him,” said Ralph to Rose,
“and when you didn’t—why, he just barked.”

“Oh, I see!” exclaimed Rose, with a laugh, for she was over her fright
now. “That was his way of asking me to throw the stick in the water.”

“Yes,” answered Ralph with a smile that lighted up his jolly, freckled
face. “Sometimes he barks like anything when I take a stick and don’t
throw it in for him to bring out.”

And, indeed, Jimsie seemed very much excited now because Russ and
Laddie would not toss their sticks into the brook. And at last, to
please the dog, Russ tossed his stick in.

Instantly Jimsie plunged in after it, swimming out and bringing the
stick back to shore, dropping it at the feet of Russ as if asking that
it be thrown in again.

“Oh, isn’t he cute!” exclaimed Rose.

“He’s a good dog!” declared Russ.

“Will he bring out a stick for me?” asked Laddie.

“He’ll do it for anybody,” answered Ralph.

“I’ll try it,” said Laddie.

In he tossed his stick, and in plunged Jimsie after it, bringing it
back to shore, which made Laddie laugh. Then Jimsie gave himself a
shake, sending a shower of drops all over Rose, who was near him.

“Oh!” cried the little Bunker girl in surprise.

“Jimsie, don’t you know any better than that?” cried Ralph, in a
scolding voice. “Shame on you!”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Rose quickly. “This is an old dress and water
won’t spot it. There, go in and get my stick!” she ordered, as she
tossed hers into the brook. “You wanted me to throw it before, but I
didn’t know what you meant by your barking. Now get the stick.”

Jimsie quickly brought the stick to shore for Rose. Then Ralph tossed
one in and his dog got that. Russ and Laddie wanted to try their sticks
over again, but Rose said:

“Oh, the poor dog will get tired! Don’t make him do so much.”

“He likes it,” Ralph said. “He’d chase sticks all day, I guess, if
you’d throw ’em for him. But maybe it’s time he quit. I have to go
after the cows, anyhow.”

“Where are they? Could we go with you?” asked Laddie eagerly.

“Do you live around here?” Russ wanted to know.

Ralph Watson told his name and where he lived, but he said it was a
long distance to the cow pasture where he had to go, and he added that
the mother of the Bunker children might not let them go.

“I’ll take you to-morrow if you want to come, though,” Ralph promised.

“Then we’ll go,” said Rose.

Then, in answer to a question, she told the others that she had been
walking along the brook looking for watercress, of which Daddy Bunker
was very fond. Rose was using the stick to poke aside the bushes on the
edge of the brook when suddenly Jimsie had sprung out at her, driving
her back against the tree, where she had stood, afraid to move while
the dog barked so furiously.

“If I had only known he wanted to play I’d have played with him,”
finished Rose, with a laugh. “But I thought he was a savage dog.”

“Oh, Jimsie is never ugly,” said Ralph. “He barks a lot, but I guess
that’s because he has to do it when he helps me drive the cows. Well,
I’ll see you again,” he added, as he started away with his dog.

“He’s a nice boy,” said Rose, when he was out of sight.

“I’d like to have that dog,” remarked Russ.

“I think—now maybe—I guess I have a riddle about a dog,” began Laddie,
but before he could ask it, or even before he could think what it was,
yells and screams came from another part of the brook.

“That’s Mun Bun!” exclaimed Rose.

“Sounded like Margy, too,” said Russ.

“Maybe they’ve fallen into the water,” suggested Laddie.

Just then Violet was heard asking:

“Oh, what did you want to go and do that for? Now you have gone and
done it! Are your feet wet? Did you get hurt, Mun Bun?”

“Gosh!” laughed Russ, as he and the others started on a run for the
place whence the voices sounded. “I guess Vi would ask questions if the
house was on fire.”

“Sounds as if Margy and Mun Bun had fallen into the brook,” said Rose.

And that’s just what had happened. The three older Bunkers came upon
Violet, Margy and Mun Bun a few seconds later. It was at a place where
a small plank was laid across the brook as a bridge.

Standing in the water on one side of the plank was Mun Bun. In the
water up to her knees on the other side of the plank, was Margy. Both
children were in the middle of the brook, and Violet was on one shore.

“I guess Mun Bun’s feet are wet, and Margy’s, too!” chuckled Russ.
“What’s the matter, Vi?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Oh, these children started to cross the little bridge, and Margy
wanted to go first and Mun Bun wanted to go first, and they pushed and
shoved and———”

“Which one went into the water first?” asked Rose, with a laugh, for,
after all, the accident was not a bad one.

“I fell in first!” cried Mun Bun, as if this was something to be proud
of.

“No, I did!” declared Margy.

“Well, you’d both better come out,” advised Rose. “You’ll have to go
up to the house and get on dry shoes and stockings.”

“I’m going to ask mother if I can’t go barefoot,” said Mun Bun.

“So’m I,” declared Margy.

Their mother let them go barefoot after scolding them a little for
getting their shoes and stockings wet. She said they should have
been more polite and not have tried one to get ahead of the other in
crossing the plank.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to expect such things as wet feet and muddy
clothes if the children play about the farm,” said Farmer Joel’s
sister, who was getting ready to go off on her vacation.

“Oh, I don’t mind as long as the children aren’t hurt,” said their
mother, with a laugh. “They’ll get used to the place after a while and
know how to have fun without getting into too much trouble. Don’t go
far away now,” she added. “Supper will soon be ready.”

“I’ll stay and help set the table,” offered Rose. And as Miss Todd
would be busy with her own affairs and as Norah had the cooking to
look after, Mrs. Bunker was glad of Rose’s help.

Russ and Laddie went back to where they had been building the water
wheel when Rose was frightened by the dog, and Violet, Mun Bun and
Margy said they would go with Adam North, who started out to the barn
to gather the eggs.

“Where do the hens lay their eggs?” asked Violet, starting some of her
usual questions.

“Oh, in different places,” answered the hired man. “Sometimes away
under the barn, and I have to crawl under the beams to get them out.”

“We could do that for you,” offered Violet. “We’re small and we could
easy fit under the barn.”

“Yes, I do have trouble there,” replied Adam. “Once I got stuck under
the barn floor.”

“Did you have to stay there a long time?” Violet asked.

“I did until they could take up some boards in the floor and let me
crawl out that way,” laughed Adam.

Violet watched him go about in different places in the barn to gather
the eggs. She saw Margy and Mun Bun climbing about in the haymow, and
then she forgot about her little brother and sister for a few moments,
as Adam found a nest with more than a dozen eggs in it and called
Violet to look at them.

When she returned to the middle of the barn she could not see either
Mun Bun or Margy.

“Where are you?” she called.

Back came the answer, but in queer, muffled voices.

“We’re in the hay,” roared Mun Bun.

“And we can’t get out and it’s dark!” wailed Margy.

“What has happened to them?” Violet asked Adam North.

CHAPTER IX

WHEN THE COWS CAME HOME

The hired man carefully set down the basket of eggs he had gathered
from different places in the barn. Then he looked up toward the haymow.
This mow was where the hay was piled in the barn to be kept dry so it
could be fed to the horses.

“Were Margy and Mun Bun up there?” asked Adam of Violet.

“Yes, they went up there to slide down. Hay’s slippery, you know,”
answered Violet. “Course it isn’t as slippery as snow or ice, but you
can slide down hill on a pile of hay.”

“I know,” chuckled Adam. “I often used to do it when I was a boy on the
farm. But I don’t see the children now.”

“You can hear them—listen!” advised Violet.

Again came the voices of Mun Bun and Margy.

“We’re in the dark! We’re in the dark!” wailed Margy, who did not like
dark places.

“An’ the hay tickles me, it does!” howled Mun Bun. “I don’t like the
hay to tickle me! Vi! Vi! Come and get me!”

Violet climbed up a little ladder that led from the floor of the barn
to the top of the haymow. The ladder went all the way to the roof of
the barn, for in winter the haymow was piled that full. But now there
was only a little hay in the mow. It rose a few feet over the head of
Adam as he stood on the barn floor, and Violet did not have to climb up
many rungs of the ladder to see over the top of the pile of hay.

“They aren’t here!” she called down to Adam. “I can’t see Margy or Mun
Bun anywhere, but I can hear them. And I hear a hen cackling.”

“I guess a hen has her nest up there,” said the hired man.

“Maybe the hen bit Margy and Mun Bun,” suggested Violet.

“I shouldn’t wonder but what she might peck at ’em if they tried to
move her off her nest,” chuckled the hired man. “But she couldn’t hurt
’em much. Let me get up there, Violet. I think I can find Margy and Mun
Bun.”

Violet climbed up higher on the ladder until she could step off upon
the soft, springing pile of hay. Adam North followed her, and then,
going to one corner of the mow, the hired man called:

“Here they are! I’ve found ’em!”

“Where were they?” asked Vi. “Were they hiding?”

“Well, sort of,” answered Adam, with a smile, as he reached down in
the hay and lifted up first Margy and then Mun Bun. “But I guess they
didn’t hide on purpose. They slipped down into the feed chute.”

“What’s that?” asked Vi.

“It’s the place where we push hay down to the horses in their stalls,”
explained the hired man. “If you don’t know the feed chutes are here
it’s easy to slip in ’em and fall down to the stalls.”

“Oh, would you get killed?” asked Violet, with widely opened eyes.

“No,” answered Adam. “All that would happen would be that you’d fall
into the horse manger, and if the horse was there you might scare it a
bit. But there aren’t any horses in the barn just now.”

Mun Bun and Margy, both of whom had been crying, now stopped, and
Violet looked at the place where they had been lost in the hay. At the
rear of the mow were several long wooden places, like chimneys, made of
smooth boards. Down these “chimneys,” or chutes, hay could be pushed,
dropping into the mangers of the horses stabled below.

Margy and Mun Bun had been running and sliding about on the pile of
hay and, without knowing it, had come too near the feed chute. Into it
they both slipped at the same time, carrying with them some wads of the
dried grass.

As both children slid into the upright chute at the same time, they
became wedged fast, together with some hay, and this stopped them from
sliding all the way down to the manger. And there they had remained,
caught fast, until Adam pulled them out.

“Are you hurt?” asked the hired man, as he helped the little ones down
the ladder.

“No,” answered Margy. “But it was awful dark!”

“And the hay tickled the back of my neck,” added Mun Bun. “I sneezed.”

“And when he sneezed he made me bump my nose and I—now, I cried,”
confessed Margy.

“Well, you’re all right now,” said Violet consolingly. “And maybe you
can find some eggs.”

“Oh, I’d like to find eggs!” exclaimed Margy, quickly drying her tears.

“So would I,” added her brother, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

“All right, come on!” said Adam North. “I haven’t gathered all the eggs
yet—not half, I guess.”

So the children had a good time looking for the nests in the different
places the hens had hidden them. A hen, you know, likes to “steal her
nest,” as the farmers call it. That is, she likes to sneak away in some
quiet place and lay her eggs. Each day, or every other day, she will
lay an egg in the same place. And, if the nest is not found for a week
or more, sometimes there may be a dozen eggs in it, for often two or
more hens may lay eggs in the same nest, taking turns.

And, when there are a dozen, or perhaps thirteen, eggs in the nest,
some hen will begin to “set” on them—hovering over them for three weeks
until little chickens hatch out of the eggs. The warm body and feathers
on the mother hen bring the little chickens to life inside the egg, and
with their beaks they pick open the shell and come out.

It is because a hen does not like to be disturbed when she is hatching
out her eggs that she steals away to make her nest in as quiet and as
dark a place as she can find. But farmers who raise eggs to sell do
not always want them hatched out into chickens, so that is why it is
needful to hunt for these hidden nests to take away the eggs.

“There’s a nest away back in there,” said Adam, who had looked under a
low part of the barn. “I see some eggs, but I can’t reach them.”

“Let me crawl in an’ get ’em!” begged Mun Bun.

“Yes, I guess you’ll have to. I’m too big to get under there,” said the
hired man.

“I want to get half the eggs,” said Margy.

But it was decided that it would be best for Mun Bun only to crawl
under the low place in the barn, and soon he was wiggling and crawling
his way there, toward the hen’s nest.

“If the old hen is on won’t she pick him?” asked Violet.

“There’s no hen on. If there had been I should have seen her,” Adam
North answered. “Mun Bun will be all right if he doesn’t get stuck fast
under the barn as I once was.”

But nothing like this happened, and Mun Bun brought out four eggs, one
at a time, from the hidden nest. He was a proud little boy when he
crawled out with the last egg, not having broken one.

“I like egg-hunting,” he said, with a laugh.

Back to Farmer Joel’s house went Margy, Mun Bun, and Violet with Adam,
who was carrying the eggs. Every one laughed when they all heard how
Margy and Mun Bun had been stuck in the feed chute.

It was now almost supper time, and Mother Bunker told the children to
wash and get ready for the meal. Mr. Todd’s sister was going to leave
on her journey soon after supper.

The meal was a merry one, for Farmer Joel was jolly and made a lot of
jokes. He even started Laddie’s trick of asking riddles, and he asked
many funny ones—riddles to which there was no answer.

Then, after supper, Farmer Joel drove his sister over to the railroad
station, where she was to take a train to visit some relatives in the
West.

The six little Bunkers were so tired after their day of travel and
their afternoon of fun on the farm that they went to bed early. There
was plenty of room in Farmer Joel’s house.

Sleeping in strange beds did not keep the children awake, and they were
soon sound asleep. Mrs. Bunker lay awake, however, making plans for the
next day, and she was somewhat surprised when, after she had been in
bed an hour, she saw a ghostly white little figure coming into her room.

“Who is it? What do you want?” she asked.

“I’ve got to find the eggs!” murmured the voice of Margy. “I’ve got to
crawl under and get the eggs!”

For a moment Mrs. Bunker did not know what to think as she saw Margy
get down on her hands and knees and begin to crawl under the bed. Then,
as Mrs. Bunker picked up her little daughter, she saw that Margy’s eyes
were staring in a strange fashion.

“She’s walking and talking in her sleep!” she exclaimed to Daddy
Bunker. “Wake up, Margy! Wake up!” she called, giving Margy a gentle
shake.

“What’s the matter? Is it morning?” asked Margy, in a sleepy voice,
and then she blinked her eyes and looked around in surprise. “Oh!” she
exclaimed. “What’s the matter?”

“You were thinking so hard about hunting eggs that you got up in your
sleep and began to search for some under my bed,” said Mrs. Bunker
gently, as she carried Margy back to her own room. “Go to sleep now.”

Margy did. Nothing else happened that night, and the children were up
bright and early the next morning. The day was filled with fun. Russ
and Laddie finished their water wheel, about which I shall tell you
more later.

Rose, after helping her mother, went down to the brook to gather
watercress for her father, Farmer Joel having told her where to find
some, and Margy, Violet and Mun Bun had a little picnic by themselves
under the trees in the orchard.

It was toward the close of the afternoon that the barking of a dog was
heard in front of the farmhouse. The six little Bunkers were in the
back yard having some bread and jam that Norah had brought out to them.

“Maybe that is Ralph come to take us after the cows!” cried Russ.

So it proved, but when all six little Bunkers wanted to go to the
distant pasture to help Ralph gather up his herd, Mrs. Bunker said:

“It’s too far for Margy and Mun Bun. But you four may go if you wish.”
She knew where the cow pasture was.

Mun Bun and Margy began to cry, as they wanted to go also, but Farmer
Joel said they could go egg-hunting with Adam, and this pleased the
smaller children so that smiles drove away their tears.

The path to the cow pasture lay through pleasant fields, and half
way to the place was a clear, sparkling spring of water at which the
children stopped for a drink.

Then they climbed a hill, went down in a little valley, and as they
reached a broad field, Ralph said:

“Here’s where we pasture our cows. But I don’t see all of them—the two
black ones are missing.” There were ten cows in the pasture where there
should have been twelve.

“Do you think anybody stole those two cows?” asked Russ.

“Oh, no,” answered Ralph. “I guess they just wandered away. They do,
sometimes.”

“What do you have to do?” Violet wanted to know.

“Have to hunt ’em,” Ralph answered. “Jimsie helps me. There are lots
of places where cows can hide in this pasture—lots of low places, and
bushes and trees. Sometimes it takes me an hour to find the lost cows.”

“Why don’t you yell for ’em?” asked Laddie.

“I will,” said Ralph. “Co, boss! Co, boss! Co, boss!” he called loudly,
the hills echoing his voice.

Then the other children called:

“Co, boss! Co, boss! Co, boss!”

But the missing cows did not come out of the cool, shady places where,
doubtless, they had gone to keep out of the sun.

“We’ll have to scatter and look for ’em,” said Ralph. He and his dog
Jimsie went one way, Rose and Russ went another way, and Laddie and
Violet a third way. Soon the three searching parties were some distance
apart.

Then, suddenly, from a part of the pasture where there was a dense
clump of bushes, came shrieks from Violet.

“Oh, we’ve found the cows! We’ve found them, but they’re going to hook
us!” she yelled. “Russ! Russ! The cows are going to hook us!”

CHAPTER X

BUZZING BEES

Russ and Rose, who had been walking along the shores of a little brook
looking for the missing cows, heard Violet’s yells. A moment later they
heard shouts from Laddie. He was saying:

“Get back there, you old cows! Get back there! Don’t you dare hook my
sister!”

Then Violet’s voice sounded again:

“Oh, but Laddie, they are going to hook me! Oh! Oh!”

“Come on!” called Russ to his sister Rose, and together they rushed up
out of the little glen where the stream ran and hastened toward the
clump of trees and bushes whence came the voices of Laddie and Violet.
Ralph and his dog were not in sight.

“Do you suppose the cows are trying to hook Laddie and Violet with
their horns?” asked Rose.

“I don’t think cows would,” panted Russ as he ran on followed by Rose,
who could not go quite so fast. “Cows don’t hook you, I guess, but
bulls do, though I didn’t hear Ralph say there were any bulls in this
pasture.”

“Is a bull worse than a cow?” Rose asked.

“For hooking you a bull is the worst there is,” Russ answered. “But I
don’t suppose it’s a bull. Maybe the cows are only shaking their heads
at Violet and she thinks they’re trying to hook her.”

And this is just what had happened. Laddie and Violet had found the
lost cows. The two black animals were standing peacefully in a shady
place, chewing their cud. Perhaps they were day-dreaming, if cows ever
do such things. At any rate the cows paid no attention to the “co,
boss” called by the children.

Laddie had fairly stumbled upon the hiding place of the cows, and as
Russ and Rose reached the place they saw Laddie and his twin sister
standing with their backs against a big tree, as Rose had stood when
Jimsie barked at her.

In front of Laddie and Violet were the two cows, chewing their cud,
as I have said. But as Russ looked he could see no signs that the cows
were going to “hook” Violet, as she had shouted they were about to do.

However, just as Russ and Rose reached the place one of the cows shook
her head violently and Vi screamed:

“There! Look! The old thing wants to hook me! Oh, Russ! Oh, Rose!
Laddie! Why don’t you do something!”

“Don’t be silly!” exclaimed Russ, who had little patience with Violet
sometimes. “She isn’t going to hook you!”

“But what makes her shake her head?” demanded Violet, half crying.

“She’s doing it to shake off the flies that are biting her,” answered
Russ, for he observed that when the cow shook her head a cloud of flies
rose from behind her ears. “She’s only doing it to get rid of the
flies, Vi,” said Russ.

“That’s what I told her, but she wouldn’t believe me,” remarked Laddie.
“I said the cows wouldn’t hook her.”

“Well, they looked as if they were going to hook me, anyhow,” said
Violet, who was not frightened now that her older brother and sister
were there with her.

“I’m glad we found the cows, anyhow,” said Rose. “Now we can drive ’em
out with the others and we can call Ralph and his dog and go home.”

The two black cows that had wandered away from the rest of the herd
seemed gentle enough when the children urged them out of the shady
bushes and into the open pasture. The other ten cows were gathered down
near the pasture bars, waiting for them to be opened.

Ralph and Jimsie came slowly up the hill from another part of the
pasture, where they had gone to search for the missing animals.

“Oh, you found them! That’s good!” cried the farm boy, as he saw Rose
and Laddie with Violet and Russ slowly driving the black cows. “You
were pretty lucky,” he added. “Sometimes I’ve hunted an hour for lost
cows.”

“I guess Vi thinks she’s lucky they didn’t hook her,” said Russ, with a
laugh.

“What do you mean—hook her?” inquired Ralph.

[Illustration: THE TWO COWS FRIGHTENED VIOLET AND LADDIE.

_Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel's._ _Page 97_]

And when they told him he laughed and said:

“Our cows never hook anybody—they’re very gentle. But we have a bull
in the barn that’d hook you if he could get out. And Mr. Todd’s got a
bull, too.”

“Why can’t he get out?” Violet wanted to know.

“Because he’s chained fast to a ring in his nose,” answered Ralph. “He
dassn’t pull too hard on the chain ’cause it hurts his nose. So he has
to be good. But if he got loose he’d hook you all right.”

“He couldn’t hook me! I’d throw stones at him,” boasted Laddie.

“You’d better not try it if he ever does get loose,” warned Ralph. “He
wouldn’t mind stones any more than if you chucked soft mud at him. He’s
awful strong.”

“Well, if I saw him coming I’d run,” went on Laddie.

“That wouldn’t do much good,” said Ralph. “That bull can run faster
than you. If you ever do see him and he’s loose, keep away from him or
get on the other side of the fence as fast as you can. Once he nearly
hooked me, but I got to the fence first. He ran right into the fence
with his head down and he bellowed like thunder.”

“Did it hurt him when he bunked into the fence?” asked Vi.

“I guess maybe he didn’t feel it any more than he’d feel a mosquito
bite,” Ralph replied. “He’s tough, our bull is.”

“Goodness! I hope he never gets out,” murmured Rose, looking over
her shoulder as if she feared, even then, the bull might be roaming
somewhere about the pasture.

But he was not in sight and soon the children were quietly driving the
cows along the road toward their barn on the farm of Ralph’s father. In
the barn the cows would be milked and some of the milk would be sent to
the cheese factory.

“Well, did you have a good time?” asked Mrs. Bunker, when her four
children arrived at Farmer Joel’s house after having gone for the cows.

“Yes, it was fun. We had a little adventure,” said Rose, and she told
about the missing cows.

Margy and Mun Bun listened with widely opened eyes to the tale, and
when it was over, Mun Bun exclaimed:

“I wish I’d been there!”

“Why?” asked his mother.

“Oh, I would give the cows some salt and they would love me,” he
answered.

“Salt!” cried Russ. “Who ever heard of giving cows salt?”

“It would make their milk salty!” declared Laddie.

“Well, it didn’t,” said Margy. “’Cause when we went after eggs with
Farmer Joel he gave his cows some salt and when he milked them he gave
Mun Bun and me some of the milk and it wasn’t salty at all, so there!”

“Wasn’t it, Mother?” asked Rose, who seemed to share Laddie’s idea.

“No, of course not, child,” said Mrs. Bunker. “The farmers often give
salt to their cows, sheep and horses. Animals are very fond of a small
bit of salt. And while you were gone Farmer Joel gave his cows some
lumps of rock salt which they licked with their tongues, and seemed
very fond of.”

“Hum!” remarked Laddie. “That’s the first time I ever knew cows liked
salt.” But later when he saw how horses in the pasture followed Adam
North about when he went to “salt” them, and when the little boy
watched the sheep eagerly licking the salt in their field, then he knew
that his mother was right.

Happy days at Farmer Joel’s followed one after another. The six little
Bunkers never had such delightful times. There seemed to be something
new to do all the while. They roamed about the fields and woods, they
gathered eggs, they fed the chickens, and sometimes they had picnics.
They waded in the brook and, once or twice, fell in and got muddy. But
this was expected.

One place that the children stayed away from was the part of the farm
where Mr. Todd kept several hives of bees. The children knew that bees
stung and they did not want this to happen to them.

About a week after the Bunkers had come to stay at Farmer Joel’s, Russ
and Laddie were going to the brook to play with their water wheel when
suddenly they heard a loud buzzing, humming sound in the air. At first
they thought it was a distant aeroplane, but, looking up, they could
see none. However, over in the direction of the bee orchard Russ saw a
dark cloud in the air. The buzzing sound seemed to come from this dark
cloud.

Then Russ knew what it was—a flight of bees.

“Oh, they’re running away!” he cried. “We must tell Farmer Joel!”

He and Laddie hastened toward the house and told the news. Mr. Todd
ran out. As soon as he heard the buzzing sound and saw the moving dark
cloud he cried:

“They’re swarming! I don’t want to lose them! I must try to get them
back!” Into the house he hurried, to come out with a queer, smoking
machine in his hand. Over his head Farmer Joel wore a broad-brimmed
straw hat with a veil of mosquito netting coming down over his
shoulders.

CHAPTER XI

MUN BUN’S GARDEN

The six little Bunkers, never having been at Farmer Joel’s before and
not knowing much about bees, did not understand just what was going to
happen. In a general way the Bunker children knew that bees made honey,
but how they did it, how the insects lived in hives, with a queen bee
who ruled over her subjects almost like a real queen—of all this the
six little Bunkers knew nothing.

“What’s that thing he’s got on his head?” asked Violet, pointing to
the mosquito netting veil that was draped over Farmer Joel’s hat. “And
what’s that tin funnel full of smoke he carries?” For the machine in
the farmer’s hand was like a kitchen funnel, turned on one side, and
from the small end poured a cloud of white smoke.

“I’m going to try to get back that swarm of bees,” called Mr. Todd
as he hurried out toward the trees under which were many hives of the
honey-making insects. “That queen alone is worth fifty dollars. If she
gets away it will be a bad loss for me.”

Away he hurried, followed by a cloud of smoke, and Rose asked:

“How in the world is he going to pick out a queen bee from the million
or more that must be in the swarm?”

“I don’t know,” answered Russ.

“Let’s go out and see how he does it,” proposed Laddie, always ready to
do something. “Maybe I could think of a riddle about bees if I went out
there.”

“Most likely you’d be thinking about their stings if you went out
there,” laughed Mr. Bunker. “You children stay here where you can
watch Farmer Joel, and I’ll tell you what he is doing and how he can,
perhaps, get back his fifty dollar queen, and I’ll tell you a little
about how bees make honey.”

By this time Farmer Joel was out among his bees. The dark cloud of the
swarming hive was right over his head, moving slowly along like some
great bubble—only it was a bubble full of life. In the middle of the
swarm was the queen bee and all her court was following, going wherever
she went.

“How is he going to catch them?” asked Russ.

“He ought to have a butterfly net, or something like that,” said Rose.

“Farmer Joel isn’t exactly going to catch the bees,” explained Daddy
Bunker. “All he can do is to follow them until the queen bee lights on
a tree branch, or some place like that. When she does, all the other
bees will cluster around her, as thickly as possible. Then, if Farmer
Joel is lucky enough to find them, he can take an empty hive, put it on
the ground under the queen bee and the bunch of worker bees, jar them
off into the hive, clap the cover on, and bring it back to his apiary.”

“What’s an ap—an ap—ap—?” began Violet.

“An apiary means a place where bees are kept,” explained Mr. Bunker.
“It comes from the Latin word _apis_, which means bee. Now while we are
waiting to see what happens I’ll tell you a little about bees and why
they swarm.”

The six little Bunkers looked at Farmer Joel, with his smoking machine
and his mosquito netting hat, still following the slowly moving swarm
of bees toward the woods, and then they turned to their father who had
promised to tell them something better than a story.

“Bees are of three kinds,” said Mr. Bunker. “There is the worker bee,
of which there are thousands in every swarm, or hive. The drones are
the father bees, and, I am sorry to say, they are a lazy lot. They
never work, and they eat lots of honey, and sometimes, when too many
drones, or father bees, get into a hive, the worker bees sting them
to death, for they can’t afford to feed too many lazy bees that won’t
work. Then, most important of all, is the queen bee.”

“How can you or Farmer Joel tell one bee from another?” inquired
Violet, and this time the other children were glad she had asked the
question, for this was something they wanted to know.

“The queen bee is larger and longer than any of the others,” answered
Mr. Bunker, “and even you, not knowing anything about bees, could
easily pick her out of hundreds of others. The drones are a little
larger than the workers, and the queer thing about the drones is that
they never sting. They have no stings and cannot harm you. The queen
can sting, but she never does, or hardly ever; for once a bee stings,
it leaves the stinger in a person or an animal, and that means the bee
dies. And it wouldn’t do to have the queen bee die.”

“What would happen if she should die?” asked Russ.

“That is taken care of by the worker bees,” said Mr. Bunker. “In the
cells, or little holes in the wax honeycomb, are many eggs that after
a while will hatch out into other bees, mostly workers or drones. The
queen bee lays the eggs that hatch into other bees. But if it should
happen that the queen should die, the worker bees at once begin to
feed to some of the half-hatched little bees a peculiar kind of food
gathered from the flowers. It is a sort of mixture of honey and juices
from the bees’ bodies. This is called royal food, royal honey or queen
bread. And when the half-hatched little bees eat this strange food
they are changed from ordinary bees into queen bees.

“But as there can be but one queen in a hive, if more hatch out all
but one are killed, and so the life in the hive goes on. The new queen
begins laying eggs, and more drones, workers and perhaps more queens
are hatched. The workers fly off to the fields to gather honey from the
flowers, and they also gather something else.”

“I know!” cried Russ. “Our teacher in school told us! They gather
yellow stuff. It is called——”

“Pollen!” exclaimed Rose. “I know that.”

“Yes,” her father answered, “the bees gather pollen, or the yellow dust
from the flowers, and by mixing this yellow dust with some juices from
their bodies they make beeswax, from which the cells are built to hold
the sweet honey juice.”

“But I thought you said only one queen bee could live in a swarm,” said
Violet. “And if the queen bee lays eggs and other queens hatch out I
should think——”

Mr. Bunker pointed to Farmer Joel, who was still chasing after his
runaway swarm.

“That’s what happens when two queens get in a hive,” said Daddy Bunker.
“One queen leaves, taking with her perhaps half the worker bees and
some drones. They fly away to start a new hive, swarm, or colony, as it
is sometimes called.

“But not always do bees swarm because there are two queens in a hive.
Often the queen may take a notion that she would like a new home, so
out she flies and with her go her faithful subjects, just as in real
life the subjects of a human king or queen follow them.”

“Where do you think these bees will go?” asked Rose.

“It is hard to say,” answered their father. “It looks now as though
they would go to the woods,” for they could see the dark cloud of
insects near the edge of the forest. “They may pick out some hollow
tree and set up housekeeping there, making a wax framework to hold the
honey juices they will later gather from the flowers.”

“Then couldn’t Farmer Joel go to that hollow tree and get the honey if
he wanted to?” asked Laddie.

“Yes, that is sometimes done,” his father replied. “And he might even
get his swarm of bees back, if he could find the right hollow tree. But
that isn’t easy. In the olden days, before men knew how to build little
houses, or hives, for the bees to live in, all the honey was stored in
hollow trees. But men studied the ways of bees, they learned the manner
in which queens ruled and how swarming came about, and they built hives
in which it is easier for the bees to store their honey, and from which
it is also easier to take it.”

“What about that smoke?” asked Rose. “I didn’t know bees liked smoke.”

She was speaking of the queer machine that Farmer Joel carried. They
could see smoke coming from it now in a cloud.

Later, when they had time to look at the smoke machine, the six little
Bunkers saw that it was like a funnel with a bellows, or blower,
beneath it. A fire of rags or rotten wood could be built in the larger
part of the tin funnel, and when the bellows was pressed this blew out
a cloud of smoke.

“Bees don’t like smoke,” said Daddy Bunker. “But when a cloud of it is
blown on them it makes them rather stupid—it calms and quiets them so
they are less likely to sting whoever is working around them. And a
little smoke does them no harm; though, of course, if they had too much
of it they would die.

“So when a man works in his apiary he puts a mosquito veil over his
head and takes his smoker. A few puffs from that down in a hive of bees
will so quiet the insects that he can, with his bare hands, pick them
up and they will not sting him. In this way he can also pick out the
queen from among her thousands of workers and put her in another hive.
If he can do this in time he will stop the swarm from dividing, part of
it flying away, as just happened.”

“Bees are queer,” said Russ.

“Indeed, they are! But I like to hear about them,” said Rose.

By this time Farmer Joel was out of sight in the woods, where his
runaway swarm had gone, and as the children had not been allowed to
follow they played about, waiting for Mr. Todd to return.

“Will he bring the bees back with him?” asked Russ.

“Oh, no, though he could if he had taken a box with him,” said Mr.
Bunker. “All he will do, very likely, is to notice where they light on
a tree, perhaps. Then he may go back this evening and shake them into a
hive.”

It was late that afternoon when Farmer Joel came back, very tired and
looking rather discouraged.

“Did you find the bees?” asked Russ.

“No,” answered Mr. Todd. “They got away, and they took with them a
queen worth fifty dollars. I wish I could have seen where they went,
for then I might get them. But they are lost, I guess.”

“Don’t you think you’ll ever find them again?” Rose wanted to know.

“I’m afraid not,” answered Farmer Joel. “I’ve lost one of my best
swarms and a fine queen bee. Yes, I’d give even more than fifty dollars
for her if I could get her back. Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.”

The six little Bunkers felt sorry for Farmer Joel, and they wished they
might help him, but they did not see how they could go after a queen
and a swarm of stinging bees.

“Come to supper!” called Mrs. Bunker, a little later, when Russ and
Laddie were working over their water wheel and mill, and when Rose was
swinging Margy and Violet under the apple tree.

“Where’s Mun Bun?” asked his mother, as the other little Bunkers came
hurrying to the house at her call.

“I saw him a little while ago,” answered Violet. “He had a shovel and
he was going toward the garden.”

“I guess he was going to dig worms so he could go fishing,” suggested
Laddie. “He asked me if there were fish in the brook.”

“See if you can find him, Russ,” begged his mother.

Russ went toward the garden where he soon saw Mun Bun busy making a
hole, tossing the dirt about with a small shovel.

“Hi there, Mun Bun!” called Russ. “You shouldn’t dig in the garden. You
might spoil something that’s planted there.”

“Nuffin planted here,” said Mun Bun, as he kept on digging. “I did ast
Adam, an’ he said taters was here but he digged ’em all up. Nuffin
planted here, so I plant somethin’.”

“What are you going to plant?” asked Russ, with a smile, while Rose and
the other children drew near.

“I goin’ to plant bones,” answered Mun Bun, hardly looking up, so busy
was he with the shovel.

“Bones!” cried Russ. “You’re going to plant bones?”

“Yes,” answered Mun Bun solemnly, “I plant bones. Look out—you’re
steppin’ on my bones!” he cried, and he pointed to the ground where lay
a pile of chicken bones that Norah had thrown out from dinner.

“Well, what kind of a garden are you making, anyhow?” asked Russ.
“Planting bones!”

“Yes, I plant bones!” declared Mun Bun, the youngest of the Bunkers,
while the other children looked on in wonder.

CHAPTER XII

A STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

Mrs. Bunker, seeing the group of children gathered about Mun Bun,
hurried across the garden to see what it was all about.

“I hope nothing has happened to him,” she said.

“Probably the worst that has happened is that he’s dirty and you’ll
have to scrub him before he can come to the supper table,” chuckled
Daddy Bunker.

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” replied his wife. “I’m used to dirt, and I
expect the children to get grimy. That will wash off.”

“I’ll walk over with you and see what it’s about. Something is going
on, that’s sure!” said Mr. Bunker.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunker found five little Bunkers grouped about the sixth,
and youngest, little Bunker.

“Oh, Mother, look what Mun Bun’s doing!” cried Violet.

“What is he doing?”

“He’s making the funniest kind of a bed in the garden!” laughed Rose.

“A bed!” cried Mr. Bunker. “I hope he isn’t going to sleep out here!”

“No, it’s a bed like a flower bed or a cabbage bed,” explained Russ.
“Only he’s planting——”

“Bones!” burst out Laddie. “Oh, I could make a funny riddle about it if
I could think of it.”

“Mun Bun, what in the world are you doing with those bones?” asked his
mother.

“Plantin’ ’em,” answered the little fellow coolly, as he dropped some
of the chicken bones into the hole he had dug and covered them with
earth.

“Why in the world are you planting bones?” asked his father.

“So more bones will grow,” answered Mun Bun, in a matter-of-fact way.
“Farmer man plants seeds to make things grow, an’ I plant bones so more
bones will grow.”

“Who for?” asked Russ.

“For Jimsie, the dog,” answered the little fellow. “Ralph said his dog
never had enough bones, so I’m going to plant bones and then more bones
will grow, an’ Jimsie can come over here an’ pick off the bones when
they’re ripe an’——”

“Oh, you dear, foolish little boy!” cried his mother, gathering him up
in her arms and kissing and hugging him, dirty as he was. “Don’t you
know bones don’t grow?” she asked.

“Oh, don’t they?” asked Mun Bun, in surprise.

“Of course not!” chimed in Russ. “Only seeds grow.”

“Um,” remarked Mun Bun, his face all rosy where his mother had kissed
him. “Den I plant to-morrer some bird seed.”

“Why bird seed?” asked Daddy Bunker.

“So some birds will grow,” Mun Bun answered.

Then how the other Bunkers laughed, especially Daddy and Mother Bunker
and Rose and Russ, for they saw what a mistake Mun Bun was making!
Margy, Laddie and Violet laughed also, but more because the others
did. And then Mun Bun laughed himself.

“I’m hungry!” he announced.

“Maybe if you plant a knife and fork and plate you’ll get something to
eat!” chuckled Russ.

They had many a good laugh over the queer garden bed Mun Bun made when
he thought that if you planted bones a plant would spring up with more
bones on for Jimsie, the dog. Then they all went in to supper.

“To-morrer,” said Mun Bun, as he was taken off to bed later in the
evening, “I’ll plant some flowers for Jimsie to smell.”

Early the next day Mrs. Bunker was seen in the kitchen with a sunbonnet
on, while on the table near her were a number of small baskets.

“Are we going on a picnic?” asked Russ, who came in to get a string to
fix something on the water wheel that he and Laddie were constantly
“fussing over,” as Norah called it.

“A sort of picnic,” answered his mother. “Farmer Joel told me about a
wild strawberry patch beyond his south meadow, and I thought we could
all go there and pick the berries. There is a basket for each of us
except daddy, who isn’t going, and if we get enough berries——”

“I’ll make a strawberry shortcake!” cried Rose. “Excuse me for
interrupting you, Mother,” she went on, for it was impolite to do
that. “But I just couldn’t wait. May I make a shortcake if we get any
berries?”

“Yes, I think so,” answered Mrs. Bunker. “Come, children,” she called
to the others who flocked into the kitchen, “we’ll have a good time
picking strawberries.”

“We’ll have a better time when we eat the shortcake,” laughed Russ.

“I know a riddle about a shortcake,” said Laddie, wrinkling up his
forehead. “I mean I just made it up. Here it is. How can you make a
strawberry shortcake last the longest?”

“That isn’t a very good riddle,” objected Rose.

“Well, let’s see you answer it,” challenged her small brother. “How can
you make a strawberry shortcake last longest?”

“Put it away in a safe,” guessed Violet.

“Nope!” answered Laddie, and before any one else could make a guess he
cried: “Don’t eat it. That’s how to make a strawberry shortcake last
longest—don’t eat it!”

“Well, if I made a cake I wouldn’t want it to last very long,” laughed
Rose. “I should want people to eat it and tell me how good it was.”

“I’ll eat some,” offered Mun Bun.

“So will I!” added Margy.

“That’s very kind of you!” laughed Rose again, and then the six little
Bunkers and their mother started for the strawberry patch. The berries
grew wild on a warm, sunny hillside, and soon little fingers were busy
turning over the green leaves to find the scarlet fruit beneath.

Into the baskets the berries were dropped one at a time. Wild
strawberries are much smaller than the cultivated variety you buy in
the market, and it takes longer to fill a basket with the wild ones.
But gradually the bottom of the basket Mrs. Bunker carried was covered
with a layer of the delicious fruit. Then she looked into the baskets
of Margy and Mun Bun.

“Is that all you’ve picked?” she asked, in surprise, for Margy had
three berries in her basket and Mun Bun had two in his, and yet they
had been in the berry patch half an hour. “Don’t you know how to find
the berries, my dears?” asked their mother. “See, you must turn over
the leaves——”

“Excuse me, Mother,” broke in Rose, first asking pardon for
interrupting, “but I guess Margy and Mun Bun eat the berries as fast as
they pick them. That’s what they’ve been doing—eating the berries, I
saw them put only a few in their baskets.”

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Bunker, “we don’t expect them to pick many. We
older ones will have to get you enough for your cake, Rose.”

“I ate only about forty-’leven berries,” confessed Margy.

“An’ I ate six-fourteen,” admitted Mun Bun. “They is awful good, these
berries is, an’ maybe Rose wouldn’t make a cake, anyhow, an’——”

“I see!” laughed Russ. “They were afraid they wouldn’t get their share
of berries if they waited, so they’re taking them now.”

“It’s all right, my dears,” said their mother, for Margy and Mun Bun
did not like to be laughed at. “Eat as many berries as you wish. They
are ripe and fresh and very tempting. We’ll get enough for Rose’s cake,
I think.”

So while the younger ones ate the lovely fruit, the older ones dropped
the berries they picked into the baskets until they had a sufficient
quantity—more than two quarts.

Once, while they were picking, the six little Bunkers heard a roaring,
bellowing sound off behind a second hill.

“Oh, maybe that’s the old bull who has gotten loose—Ralph’s bull!”
cried Violet, as she ran toward her mother.

“I hardly think so,” Mrs. Bunker answered. But the noise sounded again,
very much like the bellow of a bull.

“Russ, get a club and some stones!” cried Rose. “There isn’t any fence
here to jump over. Get a stick and drive away the bull!” Russ caught up
a short club—not a very heavy one if it was to be used against a bull.
Mrs. Bunker stood up and looked around. Then she laughed.

“Don’t be afraid, children,” she said. “It isn’t a bull at all. It’s
the whistle of an engine on a distant train. There it goes!” and she
pointed to the railroad, about a mile off over the hill. A train was
going along, very slowly, it seemed, but probably it was speeding
faster than it appeared to be. And as the Bunkers looked they saw a
puff of white steam from the locomotive. A little later they heard the
whistle. When they had been stooping down the whistle had sounded like
the distant bellow of a bull.

“I’m glad it wasn’t,” said Rose.

“If it had ‘a’ been I’d ‘a’ hit it with a club,” boasted Russ.

“An’ I could throw a stone!” declared Mun Bun.

“Mother, did you notice how funny the whistle was?” asked Rose. “First
we saw the smoke puff up, and then we heard the sound. Why was that?”

“Because light, or sight, travels faster than sound,” said Mrs. Bunker.
“You can see something much quicker than you can hear it. If you
should ever stand far off and see a gun shot off, you would first see
the flash and the smoke, and, some seconds later, you would hear the
report. Sight and sound travel in what are called waves, almost like
the waves of the ocean, except that the sound waves are made of air
instead of water. Light waves are different from air or water waves,
and travel much faster—almost as fast as electricity.”

“And electricity is terribly fast,” said Russ. “Once I took hold of a
battery and as soon as I touched the handles I felt a shock.”

After this the picking of strawberries went on until enough had been
gathered. Then they all ate some and went home, and Rose made the
shortcake, Norah helping her.

“I’ll set the shortcake in the back pantry to cool for supper,” said
Norah, when Rose had finished making it, and very proud the little girl
was.

The shortcake was put away and the little Bunkers were wondering how
next they could have some fun when there came a knock on the kitchen
door.

“I wonder who that can be?” said Norah.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SHOE-LACE BOY

Russ, who was nearest the door, went to open it. Afterward Violet said
she thought it might be some of the neighbors coming to ask for a piece
of Rose’s strawberry shortcake. Laddie said later that he thought it
might be Ralph come on the same sort of errand.

Well, it was a boy who had knocked on the door, but it was not Ralph,
the master of Jimsie, the dog, nor was it any boy the Bunker children
had ever seen around Farmer Joel’s place.

It was a “peddler boy,” as Violet called him—a boy with dark hair, dark
complexion, and deep brown eyes, and he carried a pack on his back and
a box slung by a strap in front of him.

“Shoe laces, collar buttons, suspenders, needles, pins—anything
to-day?” asked the peddler boy, rattling out the words so quickly that
Russ could hardly tell one from another.

“Wha—what’s that?” asked the bewildered Russ.

“Want any shoe laces? Any collar buttons—needles—pins—suspenders—hooks
and eyes—court plaster—pocket knives—any——”

“No, we don’t want anything to-day,” said Norah, advancing to the door
and looking out over Russ’s head.

“How do you know you don’t want anything, Lady?” asked the peddler boy
with a pert and rather smart manner. “I haven’t told you all I carry
yet. I have——”

“But I tell you we don’t want anything!” insisted Norah. “I know what
you have—notions—and we don’t want any because we’re only visiting here
and——”

“I have baggage tags!” interrupted the boy. “If you are only visiting
you’ll want to send your trunks back and you’d better put a tag on.
I’ll show you!” Quickly he opened the box he carried, slung by a strap
about his neck. The other Bunker children, crowding to the door, saw in
the box many of the things the boy had named—pins, needles, some combs
and brushes, and other things.

The boy took out a package of baggage tags, each tag having a short
piece of cord attached to it. These he held out to Norah, at the same
time saying:

“Use these and you never lose any baggage.”

“We take our baggage in the automobile,” said Rose.

“Well, maybe a piece might fall out and if it had a tag on it you
wouldn’t lose it,” said the boy, who spoke in rather a strange manner,
like a foreigner who had recently learned English.

“I tell you we don’t want anything,” said Norah, speaking a little more
sharply.

“What about some letter paper and envelopes?” persisted the boy. “You
could write, couldn’t you, and I sell ’em cheap——”

“No! No! We don’t want a thing, I tell you!” and Norah spoke very
sharply and began to close the door.

“Huh, I guess it wouldn’t be much good to sell you letter paper,”
sneered the boy. “You’re so mean you haven’t any friends that’d want
you to write!”

The door was closed but the words came through.

“Say,” cried Russ, as he struggled to open the door again, “if you talk
like that to our Norah——”

“Never mind,” laughed the good-natured cook. “Such peddlers aren’t
worth answering. He’s angry because we didn’t buy something. If he had
been polite about it I might, but he was too——”

“Too smart! That’s what he was!” finished Rose, and that about
described the shoe-lace peddler.

In the kitchen Norah and the six little Bunkers could hear him
muttering to himself as he walked away, but as Daddy Bunker just then
called the children to give them some picture papers that had come by
mail, they forgot all about the impolite lad.

The Bunker children had fun looking through the illustrated magazine
and they were rather glad to sit down and do this, for picking the
strawberries on the distant hill had been rather tiring.

“I wish supper would soon be ready. I want some of Rose’s shortcake,”
remarked Violet.

“It looked good,” returned Russ. “If it tastes half as good as it
looks, it will be great!”

“I hope it will be good,” said Rose modestly.

Six hungry little Bunkers sat down to the supper table, and pretty soon
there were no more six hungry little Bunkers, for they ate so many of
the good things Norah cooked for them that they were no longer hungry.
But there was still six little Bunkers, and they were anxious to try
Rose’s strawberry shortcake.

“I’ll bring it in to the table and Rose can cut it,” said Norah.

She went to the pantry, but in less than half a minute she came
hurrying back with a strange look on her face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Daddy Bunker. “Did you see a ghost, Norah?”

“No, sir. But—but—didn’t we put the strawberry shortcake in the
pantry?” she asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Yes, surely,” was the answer. “I saw you put it there to cool.”

“Well, it isn’t there now!” exclaimed Norah.

“Oh, did some one take my lovely strawberry shortcake?” sighed Rose.

“Russ, you aren’t playing any of your jokes, are you?” asked his
father, somewhat sternly. “Did you take Rose’s shortcake and hide it,
just for fun?”

“No, sir! I never touched her shortcake. I didn’t see it after Norah
put it away!”

“I’ll take a look,” said Mrs. Bunker. “Perhaps Farmer Joel went in and
set it on a higher shelf.”

“No, indeed!” declared Mr. Todd. “I never go into the pantry. That
isn’t my part of the house. And Adam didn’t touch the shortcake, I’m
sure. Did you?” he asked.

Mr. North shook his head.

“I like strawberry shortcake,” he said, “but I’d never think of playing
a joke with the one Rose baked.”

By this time Mrs. Bunker came back from the pantry whither she had gone
to make a search.

“The shortcake isn’t there,” she said.

“Who could have taken it?” asked Norah.

“Maybe Jimsie!” suggested Russ.

“No dog could reach up to the high sill of the pantry window,” said
Mrs. Bunker. “I can see where the cake was placed on the sill, for a
little of the red juice ran out and made a stain. The cake was lifted
out of the window, perhaps by some one from the outside.”

“I’ll have a look!” exclaimed Mr. Bunker.

He hurried outside to the pantry window at the back of the house,
followed by Russ, Rose and the others. Supper was over except for the
dessert, and this finish of the meal was to have been the shortcake.
With this gone—well, there wasn’t any dessert, that’s all!

Mr. Bunker looked carefully under the window, motioning to the others
to keep back so they would not trample in any footprints that might
remain in the soft ground. Carefully Mr. Bunker looked and then he said:

“Some boy went there, reached in and took the cake.”

“What makes you think it was a boy?” asked Farmer Joel.

“Because of the size of the footprints. They are not much larger than
those Russ would make.”

“I wonder if Ralph was here?” murmured Rose.

“No, I saw Ralph and his Jimsie dog going over to Woodport right after
dinner,” remarked Adam North. “He said he was going to be gone all day.
Ralph didn’t take the cake, nor did his dog Jimsie. Of that I’m sure.”

“Then I know who it was!” suddenly exclaimed Russ.

“Who?” they all asked.

“That peddler, the shoe-lace boy!” Russ answered. “He was mad because
we wouldn’t buy anything, and he sneaked around and took Rose’s
shortcake off the window sill.”

Russ started toward the road.

“Where are you going?” asked his father.

“I’m going to chase after that shoe-lace boy and make him give back the
strawberry shortcake!” cried Russ.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SHORTCAKE COMES BACK

Before his father could stop him Russ had run out on the porch. Laddie,
too, left his seat and started after his brother.

“Charles!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, “are you going to let them go after
that boy? He’s big and might hurt them!”

“I guess Russ and Laddie together are a match for that mean little
peddler,” answered Mr. Bunker. “But perhaps I’d better trail along
after them to see that they don’t get hurt,” he added, getting up. “I
hardly believe, however, that they can catch that peddler. He must be a
long way off by this time.”

The two oldest Bunker boys were already out in the road, looking up and
down for a sight of the shoe-lace peddler.

“Which way do you think he went, Russ?” asked Laddie.

“I don’t know,” was the answer, for the boy who it was thought had
taken Rose’s strawberry shortcake was not in sight. “But here comes
a man driving a team,” Russ went on. “We’ll ask him if he saw this
peddler down the road.”

A neighboring farmer who was known to Russ and Laddie just then
approached Farmer Joel’s house. Mr. Bunker, who was slowly following
his two sons, heard Russ ask:

“Did you see anything of a shoe-lace peddler down the road, Mr. Harper?”

“A shoe-lace peddler?” repeated Mr. Harper. “Um, let me see now. Yes,
I did pass a boy with a pack on his back down by the white bridge,” he
answered.

“That’s the fellow!” exclaimed Russ. “Come on, Laddie!”

“Charles,” said Mrs. Bunker, following her husband out to the front
gate, the other little Bunkers trailing along behind, “do you really
think you ought to let them go?”

“I don’t see any harm in it,” he answered. “In the first place, I don’t
believe Russ and Laddie will catch that boy. But if they do, I’ll
follow along to see that he doesn’t harm them.”

“And if you need help call on us!” chuckled Farmer Joel, as he and Adam
North began to do the night chores around the place. Farmer Joel called
it “doing his chores,” when he locked the barn, saw that the hen-house
was fastened, and got in kindling for the morning fire.

“Oh, I guess there’ll be no trouble,” said Mr. Bunker.

Rose came hurrying out toward the front gate, running ahead of her
father.

“Where are you going, Rose?” he asked her. “I’m going with Russ and
Laddie,” she answered.

“Oh, no, Rose,” said Mrs. Bunker. “I don’t believe I would.”

“Yes, please!” pleaded Rose. “It was my shortcake that peddler boy
took, and I want to bring it back. Please let me go!”

She seemed so much in earnest about it, and looked so disappointed when
her mother had spoken of keeping her back, that Daddy Bunker said:

“All right, run along. But don’t get hurt. Your mother and I will come
along after you.”

So it was that Russ, Laddie, and Rose hurried down the country road
after the peddler who it was suspected had taken the cake. Trailing
after them, but coming more slowly, were Mr. and Mrs. Bunker and the
other little Bunkers.

“What shall we do to him, Russ, when we catch him?” asked Rose, as she
jogged along beside her older brother.

“I’ll ask him for the cake, that’s what I’ll do.”

“And if he doesn’t give it up?”

“Then—then—I—I’ll thump him!” exclaimed Russ, doubling up his fists.

“And I’ll help,” offered Laddie excitedly.

“We-ell, perhaps,” said Rose doubtfully. It sounded to her a little too
boastful.

The white bridge which Mr. Harper had spoken of was about half a mile
down the road from Farmer Joel’s place, and soon after making a turn in
the highway Russ, Rose, and Laddie saw the structure.

“I see some one fishing off the bridge,” remarked Russ. “Maybe it’s
that boy.”

As the three Bunkers came nearer they could see a boy sitting on the
bridge railing, holding a pole from which a line was dangling in the
water that flowed under the bridge. And when the children drew a little
nearer they could make out that the fisher was the shoe-lace peddler
boy.

Almost at the same time that they recognized him, the boy knew them,
and he sprang down from the bridge railing, began winding up his line
and started to pick up his box and basket.

“Here, you! Wait a minute!” ordered Russ.

“I don’t have to wait!” sneered the peddler. “There’s no fish here, so
why should I wait?”

“You’ve got something that we want!” went on Rose, drawing nearer with
Russ, while Laddie began looking about for a club or a stone.

“You said you didn’t want anything,” grumbled the peddler. “I was up by
your house, and you wouldn’t buy any shoe laces nor collar buttons yet,
so why should it be you come running after me now?”

“Because you have my shortcake!” burst out Rose indignantly. “You took
my strawberry shortcake and I want it back.”

“I should have taken your shortcake, little girl?” cried the boy, as if
greatly surprised. “You are mistaken! Why should you say I have your
shortcake?”

“Because you were the only one around the house after the shortcake was
set in the pantry window to cool,” said Russ boldly. “And my father saw
your footprints under the window.”

“And my father’s coming, and so is my mother, and if you don’t give my
sister back her cake they’ll have you arrested!” threatened Laddie.

“Oh, your father and mother—they is coming, are they?” asked the boy,
who did not speak very good English. He was not quite so bold and
defiant as at first.

“Yes, they’re coming,” said Russ, looking over his shoulder down the
road. “But if you give up the shortcake there won’t be any trouble.”

“Why should I have your cake?” cried the boy. “Look you and see—it is
not in mine pockets!” He turned one or two pockets inside out as he
stood on the bridge.

“Pooh! Just as if you could put my big strawberry shortcake in your
pocket!” scoffed Rose.

“It’s in your box or your basket, that’s where it is!” declared Laddie.
And then another thought came to him as he added: “Unless you’ve eaten
it!”

“Oh!” cried Rose, in distress at the thought of her good strawberry
shortcake having been eaten by the shoe-lace peddler.

“I should eat your cake? No! No!” cried the boy, raising his hand in
the air over his head.

“Well, I’m going to have a look in your basket!” threatened Russ,
walking toward the place on the bridge where the peddler boy had set
down the things in which he carried his wares.

“Don’t you touch my basket!” yelled the peddler. “If you open it I
shall a blow give you on the nose!”

He said it in such a funny, excited way that Rose had to laugh, and
Russ said:

“I can give you a hit on the nose, too!”

“You don’t dast!” sneered the peddler.

“Yes, I dare!” insisted Russ.

“And I’ll help him!” added Laddie, who had found a stick.

The peddler boy, who was almost a head taller than Russ, closed his
fists and was walking toward the three Bunker children. Rose felt her
heart beating very fast. She looked back down the road and saw her
father and mother coming, followed by Margy, Mun Bun, and Violet.

“Oh, here come daddy and mother!” cried Rose.

Instantly a change came over the peddler boy. His fists unclenched and
he smiled in a sickly, frightened sort of way.

“Oh, well, maybe your shortcake did get in my box by mistake,” he said.
“I takes me a look and see.”

Quickly he opened his box, and there, wrapped in a clean paper, was the
strawberry shortcake Rose had made.

“Oh!” cried the little girl, in delight. “Oh, my shortcake has come
back!”

“Huh! I thought you said you didn’t have it!” exclaimed Russ, as the
peddler lad lifted out the cake and handed it to Rose.

“Well, maybe I make a mistake and forget,” said the other.

“Huh, I guess you forgot on purpose!” declared Laddie.

By this time Mr. and Mrs. Bunker had come up. They saw that Rose had
her shortcake again.

“Look here, young man,” said Mr. Bunker sternly to the peddler, “you
mustn’t go about the country stealing things, you know! You may land in
jail if you try that again.”

“It was all a mistake, I tell you!” said the shoe-lace peddler, who was
really older in experience than a boy of his years should have been.
“It was a mistake.”

“What do you mean—a mistake?” asked Mr. Bunker.

“Well, I saw the shortcake on the window, and I thought maybe it was to
be thrown away, so I picked it up. I didn’t know anybody wanted it.”

“Well, you know now,” said Mr. Bunker grimly. “And you had better not
try any more tricks like that. Are you sure you didn’t take anything
more by mistake?”

“No, I take nothing more,” answered the boy sullenly, as he fastened
his box again, and, slinging that and his basket of wares over his
shoulder, away he walked. He was quite angry at being caught, it
appeared.

“Oh, I’m so glad I got my shortcake back!” cried Rose. “Now we can eat
it when we get back to the house.”

“Do you think it was kept clean?” asked her mother.

But they need not have worried on that score. Whatever else he was,
the peddler boy seemed clean, and he had wrapped a clean paper about
the short cake before putting it in his box. To be sure some of the
strawberries on top were crushed and a little of their red juice had
run down the sides of the cake.

“But that doesn’t matter, ’cause we got to smash it a lot more when we
eat it,” said Laddie.

Which, of course, was perfectly true.

So Rose’s shortcake came back to Farmer Joel’s and they sat down to the
table again and ate it. Dessert was a little late that evening, but it
was liked none the less.

“Busy day to-morrow, children!” said Farmer Joel, as the six little
Bunkers went up to bed.

“What doing?” asked Russ.

“Getting in the hay!” was the answer. “Those who can’t help can ride on
the hay wagon.”

There were whoops of delight from the six little Bunkers.

“Could I drive the horses?” asked Russ.

“Well, we’ll see about that,” answered Farmer Joel slowly.

“I want to ride on the rake that makes the hay into heaps like Eskimo
houses,” announced Laddie.

“You’d better not do that,” his mother said. “You might fall off and
get raked up with the hay.”

“I’ll look after them, and so will Adam North!” chuckled Farmer Joel.
“So to bed now, all of you. Up bright and early! We must get the hay in
before it rains!”

CHAPTER XV

AN EXCITING RIDE

Very seldom did the six little Bunkers need any one to call them to get
them out of bed. Generally they were up before any one else in Farmer
Joel’s house. The morning when the hay was to be gotten in was no
exception.

Almost as soon as Norah had the fire started and breakfast on the way,
Russ, Rose and the others were impatient to start for the hay field.

“Why does he have to get the hay in before it rains?” asked Violet of
her father, remembering what Farmer Joel had said the night before.

“Because rain spoils hay after it has been cut and is lying in the
field ready to be brought in,” answered Mr. Todd, who heard Vi’s
question. “Once hay is dried, it should be brought in and stored away
in the barn as soon as possible.

“After it is raked up and made into cocks, or Eskimo houses, as Laddie
calls them, if it should rain we’d have to scatter the hay all over
again to dry it out. For if it were to be put away in the haymow when
wet the hay would get mouldy and sour, and the horses would not eat it.”

“Also if the hay gets rained on after it is cut and dried, and while it
is still scattered about the field, it must be turned over so the wet
part will dry in the hot sun before it can be hauled in. We have had
several days of hot weather and my hay is fine and dry now. That’s why
I am anxious to get it into the barn in a hurry.”

“Yes, I think we had better hurry,” said Adam North who, with a couple
of other hired men, was to help get in Farmer Joel’s hay. “We’re likely
to have thunder showers this afternoon.”

“Then we must all move fast!” exclaimed Daddy Bunker, who liked to work
on the farm almost as much as did Adam and Mr. Todd.

The day before the hay had been raked into long rows by Adam, who rode
a large two-wheeled rake drawn by a horse. The rake had long curved
prongs, or teeth, which dragged on the ground pulling the hay with
them. When a large enough pile of hay had been gathered, Adam would
press on a spring with one foot and the teeth of the rake would lift up
over the long row of dried grass. This was kept up until the field was
filled with many rows of hay, like the waves on the seashore.

Then men went about piling the hay into cocks, or cone-shaped piles,
which, as Laddie said, looked like the igloos of the Eskimos. Now all
that remained to be done was to load the hay on a big, broad wagon and
cart it to the barn.

Laddie was a bit disappointed because all the hay was raked up, for he
wanted to ride on the big machine which did this work. But Farmer Joel
said:

“We always have a second raking after we draw in the hay, for a lot of
fodder falls off and is scattered about. You shall ride on the rake
when we go over the field for the second time.”

So Laddie felt better, and he was as jolly as any of the six little
Bunkers when they rode out to the field on the empty wagon. Once the
field was reached there was a busy time. There was little the children
could do, for loading hay is hard work, fit only for big, strong men.

But Russ, Rose and the others watched Adam, Farmer Joel, their father,
and the two hired men dig their shiny pitchforks deep into a hay cock.
Sometimes two men, each with a fork, would lift almost a whole cock up
on the wagon at once. When one man did it alone he took about half the
cock at a time.

As the hay was loaded on the wagon, which was fitted with a rick, going
over the wheels, the pile of dried grass on the vehicle became higher
and higher. So high it was, at last, that the men could hardly pitch
hay up on it.

“I guess we’ll call this a load,” said Farmer Joel, as he looked up at
the sky. “The road is a bit rough and if we put on too much we’ll have
an upset. Adam, I think you’re right,” he went on. “We’ll have thunder
showers this afternoon. Have to hustle, boys, to get the hay in!”

When the horses were ready to haul the first load back to the barn, to
be stored away in the mow, the six little Bunkers were put up on top of
the load to ride.

“Oh, this is lovely!” cried Rose.

“Like being on a hundred feather beds!” added Russ.

“And you don’t feel the jounces at all!” added Laddie, for as the wagon
went over rough places in the field the children were only gently
bounced up and down, and not shaken about as they would have been had
there been no hay on the wagon.

But the rough field caused one little accident which, however, harmed
no one.

The first load of hay was almost out of the field when, as it
approached the bars, Mun Bun suddenly yelled:

“I’m slippin’! I’m slippin’!”

And Margy followed with a like cry.

“Oh, I’m fallin’ off!” she shouted.

And, surely enough, Russ and Rose also felt the top of the load of hay
beginning to slip to one side. Adam North was riding with the children,
Farmer Joel and Daddy Bunker having remained in the field, while one
hired man drove the team of horses.

“I guess they didn’t load this hay evenly,” said Adam. “Part of it is
going to slip off. But don’t be frightened, children,” he said kindly.
“You can’t get hurt falling with a load of hay.”

Just as Adam finished speaking part of the top of the load slid off the
wagon and fell into the field, and with it fell the six little Bunkers
and Adam himself.

“Oh! Oh!” screamed Margy and Mun Bun.

“Keep still!” ordered Russ. “You won’t get hurt!”

“Look out for the pitchforks—they’re sharp!” warned Rose.

Laddie and Violet laughed with glee as they felt themselves sliding.

Down in a heap went the hay, the six little Bunkers and Adam. The hay
was so soft it was like falling in a bed of feathers. The man sitting
in front to drive the horses did not slide off.

“All over! No damage!” cried Adam, with a laugh, as he leaped up and
picked the smallest of the little Bunkers from the pile of hay. “But
we’ll have to load the hay back on the wagon.”

This was soon done, and once more the merry party started for the barn,
which was reached without further accident.

Farmer Joel had many things on his place to save work. Among these was
a hay fork which could pick up almost half a load of hay at once and
raise it to the mow.

A hay fork, at least one kind, looks like a big letter U turned upside
down. The two arms are made of iron, and from their lower ends prongs
come out to hold the hay from slipping off the arms.

A rope, running through a pulley is fastened to the curved part of the
U, and a horse, pulling on the ground end of the rope, hoists into the
air a big mass of hay.

The wagon was driven under the high barn window and from a beam
overhead the hay fork was lowered. Adam North plunged the two sharp
arms deep into the springy, dried grass.

All but Russ had gotten down off the load of hay to wait for the ride
back to the field. But Russ remained there. He wanted to see how the
hay fork worked.

So when Adam plunged the arms into the fodder Russ was near by. Adam
pulled on the handle that shot the prongs out from the arms to hold the
hay from slipping off as the fork was raised.

Then, suddenly, Russ did a daring thing. Seeing the mass of hay rising
in the air, pulled by the horse on the ground below, the boy made a
grab for the bunch of dried grass. He caught it, clung to it and up in
the air he went, on an exciting and dangerous ride.

“Oh, look at Russ! Look at Russ!” cried Rose.

“Hi there, youngster, what are you doing?” shouted Adam.

“I—I’m getting a ride!” Russ answered. But his voice had a frightened
tone in it as he swung about and looked down below. He began to feel
dizzy.

CHAPTER XVI

OFF ON A PICNIC

While Russ swung to and fro in the mass of hay lifted by the hay fork
and was kept over the load itself there was little danger. If he fell
he would land on the hay in the wagon.

But the hay fork had to swing to one side, when high up in the air, so
the hay could be placed in the window opening into the storage mow. And
it was this part of Russ’s ride that was dangerous.

The man on the ground, who had charge of the horse that was hitched to
the pulley rope, knew nothing of what was going on above him, for the
load of hay was so large that it hid Russ and the fork from sight. But
this man heard the shout of Adam, and he called up:

“Is anything the matter?”

“No! No!” quickly answered Adam, for he feared if the horse stopped
the shock might throw Russ from his hold. “Keep on, Jake!” he called to
the hired man. “You’ll have to hoist a boy up as well as a fork full of
hay. Hold on tight there, Russ!” Adam warned the Bunker lad.

“I will,” Russ answered. He was beginning to wish that he had not taken
this dangerous ride. It was done on the impulse of the moment. He had
seen the mass of hay being lifted with the fork and he felt a desire to
go up with it—to get a ride in the air. So he made a grab almost before
he thought.

Up and up went the fork full of hay with Russ on it. Now he was swung
out and away from the wagon, and was directly over the bare ground,
thirty or forty feet below. In the barn window of the mow overhead a
man looked out.

“What’s this you’re sending me?” called this man to Adam.

“It’s Russ! Grab him when he gets near enough to you,” Adam answered.

“I will,” said the man who was “mowing away,” as the work of storing
the hay in the barn is called.

[Illustration: “NOW WATCH HER WHIZZ!” CRIED RUSS.

_Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s_. _Page 160_]

Higher and higher up went Russ, while Rose and the other little Bunkers
on the ground below gazed at him in mingled fright and envy.

“Will he fall and be killed?” asked Vi.

“No, I guess not. Oh, no! Of course not!” exclaimed Rose.

A moment later the fork load of hay with Russ clinging to it, one hand
on the lifting rope, swung within reach of the man in the mow window.
Russ was caught, pulled inside to safety, and as he sank down on the
pile of hay within the barn the man said:

“You’d better not do that again!”

“I won’t!” promised Russ, with a little shiver of fear and excitement.

Rose and the other children breathed more easily now, and Adam North,
wiping the sweat from his forehead, murmured:

“You never know what these youngsters are going to do next!”

Back to the hay field went the empty wagon, the six little Bunkers
riding on it. The trip back was not as comfortable as the one on the
load of hay had been. For the wagon was rickety and the road was rough
and jolty. But the six little Bunkers had a jolly time, just the same.

The men were working fast now, and Daddy Bunker was helping them, for
dark clouds in the west and distant muttering of thunder seemed to tell
of a coming storm, and Farmer Joel did not want his hay to get wet.

Another big load was taken to the barn, no upset happening this time.
And you may be sure Adam made certain that Russ did not cling to the
hay fork.

After three loads had been put away most of the hay was in. Scattered
about the field, however, were little piles and wisps of the
fodder—perhaps half a load in all—and this must be raked up by the big
horse rake.

“Oh, may I have a ride?” cried Laddie, when he saw the machine being
brought out from a corner of the rail fence where it had been standing.

“Yes, I’ll give you each a ride in turn,” kindly offered Adam North,
who was to drive the horse hitched to the big rake. And as Laddie had
asked first he was given the first ride, sitting on the seat beside
Adam.

The curved iron teeth of the rake gathered up a mass of hay until they
could hold no more. Then Adam “tripped” it, as the operation is called.
The teeth rose in the air and passed over the mass of hay which was
left on the ground.

Working in this way, more hay was raked up until there were several
windrows and cocks to be loaded upon the wagon. As a special favor Russ
and Rose were allowed to pitch small forkfuls of the hay on the wagon.
And when all the dried grass had been gathered up the children piled on
and rode to the barn for the last time.

“Hurray! Hurray! Hurray for the hay!” they sang most merrily.

“And it’s a good thing we got it in to-day,” said Farmer Joel, with a
chuckle, as the last forkful was raised to the mow. “For here comes the
rain!”

And down pelted the big drops. There was not much thunder and
lightning, but the rain was very hard and the storm pelted and rumbled
all night.

“It’s a good thing I got in my hay,” said Farmer Joel, as he went to
bed that night. “Now I can sleep in peace.”

For there is nothing more worrying to a farmer than to hear it rain,
knowing it is spoiling his hay. Hay, once wet, is never quite so good
as that which has not been soaked.

Though it rained all night, the sun came out the next day, and the six
little Bunkers could play about and have fun. Russ and Laddie were glad
of the storm, for the rain had made the brook higher, and water was now
for the first time running over the little dam they had made so their
water wheel could be turned.

“She’ll splash like anything now!” cried Laddie, as he and his brother
hastened down to the brook.

The water wheel was made of some flat pieces of wood fastened together
and set in a frame work. The water, spouting over the dam, fell on the
blades of the paddle wheel and turned it. On the axle of the wheel was
a small, round pulley, and around this there was a string, or a belt,
running to a small mill that the boys had made. It had taken them quite
a while to do this.

“Now watch her whizz!” cried Russ to his brothers and sisters, who had
gathered on the bank of the brook.

The water wheel was shoved back so the overflow from the dam would
strike the paddles. Around they went, turning the pulley, moving the
string belt, and also turning the wheel of the “mill.”

“Oh, isn’t that fine!” exclaimed Rose.

“Could I have a ride on it?” Mun Bun wanted to know.

“Hardly!” laughed Russ. “If you sat on it the wheel would break.”

“And you’d get all wet!” added Rose.

The six little Bunkers had much fun that day, and more good times were
ahead of them, for that evening when they made ready for bed, tired but
happy, their mother said:

“To-morrow we are going on a picnic to the woods.”

“A really, truly picnic?” Vi wanted to know.

“Of course.”

“With things to eat?” asked Russ.

“Surely,” said his mother. “Now off to bed with you! Up early, and
we’ll have a fine picnic in the woods.”

You may be sure that not one of the six little Bunkers overslept the
next day. Bright and early they were up, and soon they started for
the picnic grounds in the big hay wagon, on which some straw had been
scattered to make soft seats.

“I wonder if anything will happen to-day?” said Rose to Russ, as they
rode off with their lunches.

“What do you mean?” he inquired.

“I mean anything like an adventure.”

“Oh, maybe we’ll find a—snake!” and Russ laughed as he saw his sister
jump, for Rose did not like snakes.

“You’re a horrid boy!” she murmured.

But an adventure quite different from finding a snake happened to the
six little Bunkers.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ICE CAVE

Along the road, through pleasant fields, and into the woods rumbled
the big farm hay wagon, driven by Adam North. In the wagon sat the
six little Bunkers with their father and mother and Farmer Joel. For
Farmer Joel had decided that, after the haymaking, he was entitled to a
holiday. So he stopped work and went on the picnic with the six little
Bunkers.

“How much farther is it to the picnic grounds?” asked Vi, after they
had ridden for perhaps half an hour.

“Not very far now,” answered Farmer Joel.

“Is it a nice picnic grounds?” went on the little girl who always asked
questions. “And is there——”

“Now, Vi,” interrupted her mother, “suppose you wait until we get there
and you can see what there is to see. You mustn’t tire Farmer Joel by
asking so many questions.”

“Well, I only wanted to ask just one thing more,” begged Vi.

“Go ahead. What is it?” chuckled the good-natured farmer.

“Is there a swing in the picnic woods?” asked Vi, after a moment’s
pause to decide which question was the most important.

“Well, if there isn’t we can put one up, for I brought a rope along,”
answered Adam North. He liked to see the six little Bunkers have fun as
much as the children loved to play.

“Oh, a swing! Goodie!” cried Violet.

“I want to swing in it!” exclaimed Mun Bun.

“So do I!” added Margy.

“I can see where there’s going to be trouble, with only one swing,”
murmured Daddy Bunker, smiling at his wife.

“Oh, they can take turns,” she said.

The wagon was now going through the woods. On either side were green
trees with low-hanging branches, some of which met in an arch overhead,
drooping down so far that the children could reach up and touch the
leaves with their hands.

“Oh, it’s just lovely here,” murmured Rose, who liked beautiful scenery.

“I see something that’s lovelier,” said Russ.

“What?” asked Rose. “I don’t see anything. You can’t get much of a view
down here under the trees, but it’s beautiful just the same.”

“Here’s the view I was looking at,” said Russ, with a laugh, and he
pointed to the piles of lunch boxes and baskets in the front part of
the hay wagon. “That’s a better view than just trees, Rose.”

“Oh, you funny boy!” she laughed. “Always thinking of something to eat!
Don’t you ever think of something else?”

“Yes, right after I’ve had something to eat I think of when it’s going
to be time to eat again,” chuckled Russ.

Deeper into the woods went the picnic wagon. The six little Bunkers
were talking and laughing among themselves, and Farmer Joel was
speaking to Mr. and Mrs. Bunker and Adam about something that had
happened in the village that day.

Suddenly there was a cry from the children, who were in the rear of the
wagon, sprawled about in the straw.

“Laddie’s gone!” exclaimed Rose.

“Did he fall out?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“No, it looks more as if he fell _up_!” shouted Russ.

And that, indeed, is almost what happened. For, looking back, Mr. and
Mrs. Bunker, saw Laddie hanging by his hands to the branch of a tree
he had grasped as the wagon passed beneath it. The little fellow was
swinging over the roadway, the wagon having passed from beneath him.

“Hold on, Laddie! I’ll come back and get you!” shouted Mr. Bunker.

“In mischief again!” murmured Russ.

“Whoa!” called Adam, bringing the horses to a halt.

“Hold on, Laddie! I’ll come and get you!” called Mr. Bunker again, as
he leaped from the hay wagon.

“I—I can’t hold on!” gasped Laddie. “My—my hands are slipping!”

The green branch was slowly bending over and Laddie’s hands were
slipping from it. Then, when he could keep his grasp no longer, he let
go, and down to the ground he fell, feet first.

Luckily Laddie was only a short distance above the ground when he
slipped from the branch, so he did not have far to fall. He was only
jarred and shaken a little bit—not hurt at all.

“Laddie, why did you do that?” his father asked him, when he had
reached the little fellow and picked him up. As Mr. Bunker carried
Laddie back to the waiting wagon Russ remarked:

“I guess he thought maybe he could pull a tree up by the roots when he
caught hold of the branch like that.”

“I did not!” exclaimed Laddie. “I just wanted to pull off a whip for
Mun Bun to play horse with. But when I got hold of the branch I forgot
to let go and it lifted me right out of the wagon.”

“It’s a mercy you weren’t hurt!” exclaimed his mother.

“I should say so!” added Farmer Joel. “It’s safer for you to think up
riddles, Laddie, than it is to do such tricks as that. Come now, sit
quietly in the wagon and think of a riddle.”

“All right,” agreed Laddie, as again he took his place in the straw
with the other little Bunkers. But he did not ask any riddles for a
long time. Perhaps he had been too startled. For surely it was rather
a startling thing to find himself dangling on a tree branch, the wagon
having gone out from under him.

However, in about fifteen minutes more Laddie suddenly cried:

“Oh, now I know a riddle! Why is a basket——”

But before he could say any more the other children broke into cries of:

“There’s the picnic ground! There’s the picnic ground!”

And, surely enough, they had reached the grove in the woods where lunch
was to be eaten and games played.

It was a beautiful day of sunshine, warm and pleasant. Too warm, in
fact, for Mrs. Bunker had to call to the children several times:

“Don’t run around too much and get overheated. It is very warm, and
seems to be getting warmer.”

“Yes,” agreed Farmer Joel, as he looked at the sky. “I think we’ll have
a thunder shower before the day is over.”

“We didn’t bring any umbrellas,” said Mrs. Bunker.

“If it rains very hard we can take shelter in a cave not far from here
that I know of,” said Mr. Todd.

“Oh, a cave! Where is it?” asked Russ, who was lying down in the shade,
having helped put up the swing. “Could we go and see it?” he inquired.

“After a while, maybe,” promised Farmer Joel.

Rose helped her mother spread out the good things to eat. They found
some flat stumps which answered very well for tables, and after Mun Bun
and Margy and Laddie and Violet had swung as much as was good for them,
and when they had raced about, playing tag, hide-and-seek, and other
games, the children were tired enough to sit down in the shade.

“We’ll eat lunch after you rest a bit,” said Mrs. Bunker.

“Ah, now comes the best part of the day!” murmured Russ.

“Silly! Always thinking of something to eat!” chided Rose. But she
smiled pleasantly at her brother.

How good the things eaten in the picnic woods tasted! Even plain bread
and butter was almost as fine as cake, Laddie said. He was trying to
think of a riddle about this—a riddle in which he was to ask when it
was that bread and butter was as good as cake—when suddenly there came
a low rumbling sound.

“What’s that?” asked Margy.

“Thunder, I think,” was the answer.

Mun Bun, who was playing a little distance away, came running in.

“I saw it lighten,” he whispered.

“Yes, I think we’re in for a storm,” said Farmer Joel.

The thunder became louder. The sun was hidden behind dark clouds. The
picnic things were picked up. Mrs. Bunker was glad lunch was over.

Then down pelted the rain.

“Come on!” cried Farmer Joel. “We’ll take shelter in the cave!”

He led the way along a path through the woods. The others followed, Mr.
Bunker carrying Mun Bun and Adam North catching up Margy. The trees
were so thick overhead that not much rain fell on the picnic party.

“Here’s the cave!” cried Farmer Joel, pushing aside some bushes. He
showed a dark opening among some rocks. In they rushed, for it was a
welcome shelter from the storm.

“Oh, but how cool it is in here,” said Rose.

“Yes,” answered Farmer Joel. “This is an ice cave.”

“An ice cave!” exclaimed Russ. “Is there really ice in here in the
middle of summer?”

Before Farmer Joel could answer a terrific crash of thunder seemed to
shake the whole earth.

CHAPTER XVIII

A BIG SPLASH

There was silence in the dark cave of ice following that big noise from
the sky. Then came a steady roar of sound.

“It’s raining cats and dogs outside,” said Farmer Joel. “We got here
just in time.”

Suddenly Margy began to whimper and then she began to cry.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” asked her mother.

“I—I don’t like it in here!” sobbed Margy.

“I—I don’t, either, an’—an’ I’m goin’ to cry, too!” snuffled Mun Bun.

“Oh, come, children!” exclaimed Mr. Bunker, with a laugh. “Don’t be
babies! Why don’t you like it in here?”

“I—I’m ’fraid maybe we’ll be struck by lightning,” whimpered Margy.

“Oh, nonsense!” replied her mother.

“No lightning ever comes in here,” said Farmer Joel. “Why, if lightning
came in there couldn’t be any ice. The lightning would melt the ice,
and it hasn’t done that. I’ll show you a big pile of it back in the
cave. Of course no lightning ever comes in here! Don’t be afraid.”

The thunder was not so loud now, and as no lightning could be seen
because the Bunkers were far back in the dark cave, the two smallest
children stopped their crying.

“Is there really ice in here?” asked Russ.

“It feels so,” said Rose, with a little shiver.

“Yes, there’s ice here,” went on the farmer. “It comes every year, and
stays until after the Fourth of July. Come, I’ll show you.”

Lighting a match and setting ablaze a stick he picked up from the dry
floor of the cave in the rocks, Farmer Joel led the way toward the back
of the dark hole. The blazing stick gave light like a torch.

It grew colder and colder the deeper they went into the cave, and Mrs.
Bunker, with a little shiver, exclaimed:

“It is cold in here!”

“We won’t stay very long,” said Mr. Todd. “I’ll just show the children
the pile of ice and then we’ll go back to the front part of the cave
where the air is warmer. This shower will soon be over and we can go
outside again.”

They walked on a little farther and suddenly Rose cried:

“Oh, I see it! I see a big pile of ice!”

The light from Farmer Joel’s blazing stick glittered on a sparkling
mass of ice and snow in the deepest, darkest part of the cave.

“Is it real?” asked Mun Bun.

“Touch it and see,” advised his father.

Mun Bun put his little hand on the sparkling pile. He drew it quickly
back with a murmur of wonder.

“Oh, it’s terribly cold!” he exclaimed.

“It’s real ice, all right,” laughed Farmer Joel.

“How does it get in here?” Russ asked.

“There is a hole in the roof of the cave—the roof that is made of
rocks,” explained the farmer. “You can see where some water is pouring
in now from the rain.” The children looked and saw drops falling on top
of the pile of ice.

“Not as much water comes in here in the summer as in winter,”
explained Farmer Joel; “for now the holes in the rocky roof are filled
with bushes and leaves. But in the winter, when the leaves dry out,
there is quite an opening. Rain and melted snow runs in and it is so
cold here that a big, solid chunk of ice is frozen.”

“But what makes it stay here when summer comes?” asked Rose.

“Because the warm sun cannot shine inside the cave to melt the ice,”
explained her father.

“That’s right,” added Farmer Joel. “Some years we can come here even in
the middle of August and chop out chunks of ice.”

“I should think you could make ice cream,” said Russ.

“Sometimes we do,” replied Mr. Todd.

“Oh, could we do that now?” cried Rose eagerly.

“We haven’t any freezer nor the things to make ice cream with,”
objected her mother.

“Couldn’t we take some of the ice home in the wagon?” Russ wanted to
know.

“Yes, you could do that,” said Farmer Joel kindly.

For a few minutes longer the six little Bunkers remained looking at
the big mass of ice—ice in the middle of summer. Then as the torch was
burning out and as it was chilly after the warm outdoors, Mrs. Bunker
told the children to go to the front of the cave.

“But we’ll come back and get some of the ice to make ice cream,” stated
Russ.

“Yes,” agreed Farmer Joel.

As he had said, the storm did not last long. Soon the black clouds
rolled away, the thunder and lightning ceased, and the sun came out,
warmer than before. Out of the ice cave rushed the children, merrily
shouting and laughing.

“Be careful now!” called their mother. “The woods are very wet!”

But dry places were found under thick evergreen trees, and there the
six little Bunkers played until it was time to go home.

“And now for the ice!” cried Russ, as the wagon was driven up close to
the entrance to the cave.

“I want to break off a chunk!” cried Mun Bun.

But it was decided best not to let the smaller children go into the ice
cave while pieces were being broken off to take to the farmhouse for
ice cream. So Russ and Rose were the only ones allowed to see Farmer
Joel, Daddy Bunker, and Adam North break off pieces of ice with heavy
sticks of wood. Out to the wagon the chunks were carried. There they
were covered with straw to keep them from melting too much.

“Now for some ice cream!” cried Russ, as they drove home. “I don’t
believe you could find ice in the summer time in many places, could
you?” he asked.

“Well, no,” his father told him. “Not every place has an ice cave,
though they are not as rare as you might suppose. Sometimes, in deep,
rocky glens where the sun seldom shines, I have seen ice as late as the
end of May. But I never saw a real ice cave before.”

“A polar bear could live in that cave, couldn’t he?” asked Mun Bun on
the way home.

“Yes, it might for a little while,” said Farmer Joel, “but I guess it
would miss the ocean. Polar bears need salt water to swim in, as well
as ice chunks to keep them cool.”

“I hope no polar bear comes to live in that cave while we’re here,”
remarked Margy.

“Don’t worry, darling!” laughed her mother. “None will.”

There was plenty of the ice left when the farmhouse was reached. Russ
and Laddie took it from the wagon and cracked it in burlap bags, while
Farmer Joel brought out some coarse salt with which to mix it. Salt
always causes ice to melt faster, and it is only when ice melts and
gives out the cold locked up in it that ice cream can be made.

Norah soon had the freezer full of a mixture of sugar, cream and some
sliced bananas, since the children liked that flavor, and in a little
while Russ and Laddie were turning the handle.

By supper time the ice cream was frozen, and for dessert they had a
dainty dish made from ice brought in the middle of summer from the dark
cave. The six little Bunkers thought it quite wonderful.

The next day Rose saw Farmer Joel carrying what seemed to be a pail of
thick, yellow sour cream out of the kitchen.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked Rose. “Are you going to
feed it to the pigs?” For she had often seen sour milk taken to the pen
of the big and little squealers.

“Give this to the pigs? I guess not!” laughed Farmer Joel. “This is
rich, sour cream, and if my sister were here she would churn it into
butter. But as she is gone I’m taking it to my neighbor, Mr. Ecker. His
wife will churn it for me.”

“Oh, couldn’t I churn?” asked Rose. “I’d love to!”

Farmer Joel set the pail of cream down on a chair and rubbed his chin
thoughtfully.

“Churning is hard work,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a long while before
the butter comes. Of course we have a churn, but——”

“Oh, I’ll get Russ to help me and we’ll take turns churning!” cried
Rose. “Please let me.”

And Farmer Joel did. He brought up the dasher churn from the cellar.
Norah scalded it out with hot water, and when it was cool the sour
cream was put in it and the cover made fast. Then Rose took hold of the
handle of the dasher, which was like the handle of a broom, and moved
it up and down through a hole in the cover, as Farmer Joel told her to.

Chug! Chug! Ker-chug! went the churn dasher, splashing up and down in
the thick, yellow cream. Some of it, in little golden balls, came up on
the handle of the dasher, above the cover.

“That’s butter,” Rose told Mun Bun and Margy, who were watching her.

Margy put out a chubby finger, got a yellow dab and tasted it.

“’Tisn’t a bit like butter!” she said, disappointedly.

“It will be when it is salted,” her mother told her.

When Rose grew tired Russ took a turn, and so did Laddie and Violet,
and soon the dasher was so heavy that none of the children could lift
it.

“I guess the butter has come,” said Farmer Joel. “Yes, there it is.
Look!” he added as he took off the cover, and the children saw big
golden yellow lumps floating about in what was now white buttermilk,
for all the cream had been changed into butter.

“How are you going to get it out?” asked Rose.

“I’ll show you,” answered Farmer Joel, who had often watched his sister
do this work. He moved the flat dasher up and down, slowly turning it
the while, and in a minute or two there was gathered on the top of the
dasher all the floating lumps of butter.

These were lifted out and put in a wooden bowl and Norah “worked out”
the buttermilk, leaving, finally, a firm, yellow lump of butter.

“There you are!” cried Farmer Joel. “When it is salted you may eat some
on your bread for supper.”

And the six little Bunkers did, saying it was the best they had ever
tasted. Daddy Bunker and his wife drank some of the buttermilk left in
the churn after the butter was taken out. But when Russ tasted it he
made a funny face and cried:

“Sour! Ugh! Sour!”

“Of course!” laughed his mother. “Buttermilk is always sour. But it is
good for you, and I like the taste of it.”

“You can have all of mine,” said Russ.

“And I don’t want any, either,” Rose made haste to say.

Thus it was that butter was made, and it came out well except that,
almost at the last minute, Mun Bun took the plug out of the bottom of
the churn and let some of the buttermilk run over the floor. But Norah
soon wiped it up.

The next day Russ decided that he would make a larger mill for his
water wheel in the brook to turn, and Laddie offered to help him. The
two boys went down to the stream with bits of wood, a hammer and nails,
and they were busy for some time. Mrs. Bunker had taken the other
children for a walk in the forest not far away.

While Russ was working at the new mill Laddie piled up stones and bits
of sod on top of the dam already built, to make it higher so the water
back of it would be deeper.

“The deeper the water is and the higher we have the dam,” Russ
explained to Laddie, “the faster the wheel will turn.”

“Yes, it’ll be fine,” agreed Laddie, tugging at a big stone to get it
on top of the dam.

Russ was putting the new play mill in place and was getting ready to
connect it to the water wheel when suddenly he heard a big splash up at
the dam, which he could not see plainly because a bush was in the way.

“What happened, Laddie?” asked Russ. “Did you drop something in the
water?”

“I—I dropped—my—_myself_—in!” gasped Laddie. “Oh, Russ, I’m all the
way—in! I—I’m all—the—way—in!”

CHAPTER XIX

A FIGHT

Russ sprang to his feet, knocking aside the pieces of his mill in doing
so, and rushed around the bush to see what had happened to Laddie. It
was just as the smaller boy had said—he had fallen in the deepest part
of the water back of the dam.

But, after all, it was not very deep, for the brook was a small one.
The water would not have been over Laddie’s head if he stood upright.
But the trouble was that Laddie had slipped as he was about to lift a
heavy stone on top of the dam, and had gone down sideways.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Russ shouted, as he saw Laddie floundering
and struggling in the water.

“I—I guess—blub—blub—glub-ub!” was what Laddie answered.

He started to say that he guessed he could get out by himself, when his
foot slipped on some mud at the bottom of the brook and his face went
under water.

“Oh, Laddie!” cried Russ in alarm.

But he need not have been worried, for Laddie managed to get up on his
feet again, and by this time Russ was beside him, holding out his hands
to his small brother to help him to shore.

“Are you hurt?” Russ asked, as Laddie, gasping for breath and with
water dripping from every part of him, stood on the bank of the brook.

“No, I—I’m not exactly _hurt_,” Laddie answered. Then he smiled and
said: “But I’m awful _wet_!”

“I should say you were! And muddy, too!” chuckled Russ. “It’s a good
thing you had your old clothes on. I guess mother won’t scold much. She
expects us to fall in once or twice. I heard her tell Farmer Joel that.
How did it happen, Laddie?”

“Oh, I guess that stone was too heavy for me. I almost had it where I
wanted it and it began to slip away from me. I made a grab for it and
I slipped and I went down—and in!”

“Yes, you went in all right,” laughed Russ. “Well, come on up to the
house and get on dry things.”

“No,” objected Laddie.

“Why not?” asked his brother. “Are you afraid mother will scold?”

“No, I guess not. But what’s the use of getting dry clothes on when
maybe I’ll get all wet again fixing the dam? As long as I’m wet I might
as well finish the dam, and then we can work the water wheel.”

“Well, maybe that is the best way,” agreed Russ. “It won’t take long to
fix the dam now, and you might fall in again.”

And Laddie did. Once more, as he was lifting a stone to the top of the
dam, he slipped and fell in, but this time he only laughed and kept
right on working. And when the dam was finally built higher, so that
more water poured over to turn the wheel, Laddie went to the house and
put on dry clothes.

His mother, who had come back from the woods, did not scold him when
he told her what had happened, but she made him wash the mud from his
clothes and hang them out to dry, since she said it was only right that
he should do this to save Norah work.

Laddie and Russ had much fun playing at the water wheel and with the
new and larger mill. Rose and the other children went to look at the
splashing mill wheel and thought it very fine indeed.

“If I see that boy sneaking around here, and if he throws stones at
your mill, shall I drive him off?” asked Mun Bun.

“What boy?” Russ wanted to know.

“That peddler boy who took Rose’s strawberry shortcake,” Mun Bun
replied.

“Why, have you seen him again?” asked Mrs. Bunker, in surprise.

“Yes, I saw him going along the road yesterday,” Mun Bun said. “But he
didn’t come in and try to sell any shoe laces.”

“He’d better not come around here again!” declared Russ, with flashing
eyes as he clenched his fists. “If he comes I—I’ll hit him!”

“You mustn’t fight, Russ,” his mother said. “But I hardly believe it
is the same boy. He wouldn’t stay around here after being so bold as
to take Rose’s shortcake the way he did. It must have been some other
peddler, Mun Bun.”

“No, it was the same one,” insisted the little fellow, and later they
found out that he was right.

Two days after this a little girl who lived down the road from Farmer
Joel’s house invited Rose, Violet, and Margy to come to a party.

“It’s funny she didn’t invite us,” said Russ.

“She isn’t going to have any boys this time,” Rose explained. “But
maybe she will next time, and then you can go.”

“Maybe next time we won’t want to!” answered Russ. “Anyhow, we’re going
fishing now. Come on, Laddie!”

“All right,” agreed the other. “Fishing is more fun, anyhow, than
parties.”

“Can I come fishing?” asked Mun Bun.

As Russ and Laddie promised to look after him, Mun Bun’s mother allowed
the little fellow to go with the other two boys. There was a small
stream, larger than the brook, about half a mile away across Farmer
Joel’s fields, and toward that place Russ, Laddie, and Mun Bun went in
the afternoon.

“Now be careful, Russ, that your brothers don’t fall in and don’t let
them get fish hooks in their hands,” warned Mr. Bunker, for, to his
delight, Mun Bun was allowed to fish with a real hook and not with
a bent pin, with which he never had any luck. This was to be a real
fishing party.

“I’ll take care of them,” promised Russ.

Away went the boys over the fields toward the little river, Russ
merrily whistling. On a shady, grassy bank, under a big buttonwood
tree, the boys sat down and cast their baited hooks into the deep water
of an eddy, where, in the quiet pool, there were said to be large fish.

Presently the cork on the line attached to Russ’s pole began to bob up
and down. Then it went under water.

“You have a bite, Russ!” excitedly called Laddie.

“I know I have! Keep still or you’ll scare it away!”

Russ waited a moment longer. The cork went away under.

“Now I have him!” cried Russ.

He pulled up his line. On the hook was a good-sized fish which Russ
landed back of him on the grass.

“Oh, I wish I could get one!” sighed Laddie enviously.

“Look at my cork! Look!” suddenly cried Mun Bun.

“He’s got a bite, too!” cried Laddie. “Pull in, Mun Bun! Pull in! I’ll
help you!”

Laddie pulled out the little fellow’s line, and, surely enough, Mun Bun
had caught a fish, not as large as the one Russ had landed, but still
Mun Bun was much delighted.

“I wonder if I’ll get one?” sighed Laddie.

He did a little later. Then Russ caught a second one, and after a while
Laddie said he would go farther downstream to another “hole” he knew of.

“The fish are biting good to-day,” Russ said, as he baited his hook and
threw it in again.

A little later a shadow fell on the grass behind Russ and Mun Bun. Russ
turned around and saw—that ugly peddler boy who had taken the shortcake
Rose had baked!

“Huh!” sneered the peddler, as he walked up with a pole in his hands.
“What right you fellows got to fish here?”

“This is Farmer Joel’s land, and we’re staying at his house,” said
Russ. “Course we have a right to fish here!”

“You have not!” cried the peddler. “And you’d better get away before I
make you. I’ll punch you—that’s what I’ll do!”

Russ leaped to his feet and started toward the peddler lad, who was
larger than Russ.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Mun Bun.

Then suddenly the peddler drew back his fist and struck Russ, knocking
him down.

CHAPTER XX

YELLOW AND WHITE

Mun Bun felt like bursting into tears. To see his beloved big brother,
Russ, knocked down in this fashion was enough to make any small boy
cry. It was almost like the time when Russ was so nearly run over by
the truck.

But suddenly it came to Mun Bun that he must be brave. If Russ were
badly hurt Mun Bun must do something about it—just what, of course, Mun
Bun did not know. But he felt he must not cry.

So he “squeezed back” the tears, as he said later, and then he did what
perhaps was not just right, but what, I think, most children would
have done had the boy who started the fight been a big boy, as was the
peddler lad.

Mun Bun caught up a stone and threw it at the peddler boy.

“You let my brother alone!” cried Mun Bun angrily. “I’ll throw another
stone at you if you don’t. And I’ll call my father! I’ll go get my
father now—and Farmer Joel and Adam! That’s what I’ll do!”

Usually Mun Bun was not a very straight shot with a stone or a
baseball. Generally, when Mun Bun threw, Russ would laugh and say the
safest place was right in front of the little fellow. For Mun Bun
seldom hit the thing he aimed at.

However, this time, as luck would have it, the stone he threw struck
the peddler boy on the shoulder. And then the peddler boy ran away,
leaving Russ lying there. I think the peddler boy ran more because of
what Mun Bun said about Mr. Bunker being called than because of the
stone, for it was a small one and could not have hurt him much.

“There! He’s gone, Russ!” cried Mun Bun, as he ran to his brother. “You
needn’t be ’fraid any more!”

“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” boasted Russ, as he arose. He had been stunned
by the blow and the fall, and really was not much hurt. “I was going
to get up and punch him,” went on Russ. “He hit me too sudden, or he
wouldn’t have knocked me down. I was just getting up to hit him.”

“He ran away. I made him run!” cried Mun Bun. “I hit him with a stone
and he ran away!”

“Good for you!” exclaimed Russ, and then Laddie came back from down the
stream where he had gone to fish.

“What’s the matter?” asked Laddie.

“Oh, that mean peddler boy was around again,” said Russ. “He hit me and
knocked me down. He hit me before I had a chance to fight him.”

Laddie dropped his pole and line.

“Where is he?” cried the little fellow. “I’ll fix him!”

“Mun Bun fixed him,” chuckled Russ, telling what had happened.

“I wonder what’s the matter with that fellow, anyhow?” asked Laddie,
when he had looked around among the bushes and made sure the ugly
peddler chap was not to be seen. “What’s the matter with him, stealing
things and knocking folks down?”

“I don’t know,” answered Russ, with a shake of his head. “That’s like
one of your riddles, Laddie, only it isn’t so easy to answer. He
didn’t have any good reason for hitting me.”

“We’ll tell Farmer Joel on him,” said Mun Bun.

And this was done when the boys went back to the house after each
catching a few more fish. They really did very well, and Mrs. Bunker
said they had enough for what Norah called a “mess,” meaning enough to
cook so all would have some to eat.

“That boy is a rascal,” said Farmer Joel, when he heard what had
happened. “I’ll tell the constable about him, and if he finds out where
the peddler is staying I’ll have him arrested.”

“And if I find him,” threatened Adam North, “I’ll set him out among the
beehives and let him get stung three or four times. That will cure him
of wanting to knock people down.”

“Speaking of bees,” said Mr. Bunker to Farmer Joel, “did you ever find
that swarm that got away?”

“No, I didn’t,” answered Farmer Joel. “But I wish I could, for that
was a valuable queen. I guess they’re somewhere in the woods, but I’m
afraid I’ll never get them back.”

Russ had a little bruise on his chin where the peddler boy had struck
him, and Mother Bunker bathed the sore spot with witch hazel, which
made it feel better.

Aside from this little happening and small accidents that occurred from
day to day, the six little Bunkers had wonderfully good times at Farmer
Joel’s. They played all day long out of doors when it did not rain, and
when it showered there was the big barn.

As the summer passed many good things to eat ripened on the trees in
the farmer’s orchard. There were apples, plums, peaches, and pears, and
Mrs. Bunker had a hard time to keep the children from eating so much
fruit that it would make them ill.

One day they were all out in the orchard helping gather the apples.
Farmer Joel, Adam, another hired man and Mr. Bunker were picking the
apples and packing them in boxes and baskets to be sent away. Care
was used in picking the apples not to let them fall, for if they were
bruised they soon rotted. Apples that fell to the ground were not
packed and shipped away with the best fruit. Farmer Joel was very
particular with his apples.

I said the six little Bunkers were helping pick the apples, but of
course the four smaller ones could not do much more than pick up those
that fell to the ground when the tree was shaken by the men climbing up
in it. To their great delight, Russ and Rose were allowed to climb up
some of the low trees.

Mun Bun was running about in the orchard, laughing and having a good
time, when he suddenly gave a howl, calling:

“Oh, that boy hit me! That peddler boy hit me on the head with a stone!
Look out for the peddler boy!”

“What’s that?” cried Farmer Joel. “Is that rascal here?”

Mun Bun sat down on the ground, and this time he cried real tears.

“That boy hit me on the head with a stone!” he sobbed.

For a time there was some excitement, the men coming down out of the
trees to look for the peddler boy. But a moment later along came Ralph
Watson from the next farm, and with him was his dog Jimsie.

“Did you see anything of a peddler boy?” Ralph was asked.

“No,” he answered.

“I don’t believe Mun Bun was hit by a stone at all!” suddenly exclaimed
Mrs. Bunker, looking at Mun Bun’s head. “I don’t believe that peddler
boy has been here, either.”

“But something hit me, Mother!” insisted Mun Bun.

“Yes, but it was an apple falling from one of the trees,” his mother
said. “Look, here is an apple leaf in your hair, Mun Bun. It was an
apple that hit you.”

And, surely enough, when they looked, there on the ground beside Mun
Bun was an apple. They were more sure it was a bit of fruit that had
hit him a moment or two lately for suddenly Jimsie, the dog, let out a
howl, and they all saw an apple fall and hit the dog on the head.

This made Mun Bun laugh, and he said:

“Jimsie got hit just like me, didn’t he?”

“And he howled pretty nearly as loudly,” chuckled Russ.

“Perhaps I’d better take the smaller children in from the orchard,”
said Mrs. Bunker, after a while. “A lot of apples are falling, and some
are so large and hard that little heads might be hurt.”

“I think it’s as well,” agreed Mr. Bunker.

“You may gather the eggs, if you wish,” said Farmer Joel. “It’s about
time.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun!” cried Violet.

“An’ I want a basket all by myself!” insisted Margy.

“So do I,” said Mun Bun, forgetting all about being hit by a falling
apple.

So off to the barn went Mrs. Bunker, with Margy and Mun Bun, Laddie and
Violet, while Russ, Rose, and Ralph remained in the orchard to help
pick the apples.

Most of the hens laid in nests in the big hen-house built for them, but
there were some of the chickens that “stole their nests,” as Farmer
Joel said, going in the barn, or even under it.

The children had been around long enough now to know where most of
these hidden nests were, and they scattered and began looking for the
eggs.

Mrs. Bunker had the basket with the most of the eggs in, for she
did not dare trust them to the children. She was coming out of the
hen-house with Laddie and Violet when Mun Bun, who had gone into the
barn with Margy, came running up to his mother.

“Oh! Oh!” cried the little fellow. “You ought to see her!”

“See whom?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Margy!” gasped Mun Bun. “She’s all yellow and white!”

CHAPTER XXI

A MAD BULL

Violet almost dropped her basket of eggs, she was so excited.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried. “Maybe Margy’s getting the chicken pox or
something like that. All yellow and white! Oh, dear!”

“It isn’t chicken pox,” said Mrs. Bunker, trying not to laugh. “Though
I think it has something to do with chickens—and eggs. You say Margy is
all yellow and white, Mun Bun?” she asked.

“Yes’m, but the yellow shows most. It’s all over her face and her
dress——”

“The poor thing!” murmured Violet.

“I’ll go and help her,” offered Laddie, not stopping to make a riddle
this time, though he said later that he had one about a chicken and an
egg if he could only think of it.

“She’s right around here—under the barn,” went on Mun Bun, leading the
way from the hen-house.

“Under the barn?” asked Mrs. Bunker. “Is she caught fast there?”

“No, Mother,” replied Mun Bun. “She’s just all whites and yellows. She
crawled under the barn to get some eggs, and when she came out with ’em
in her dress, why—now—she—she slipped and she fell down and—and—the
eggs all busted and——”

“There she is now!” interrupted Violet, as they came within sight of
the unfortunate Margy. Well might Violet murmur: “Poor dear!”

Margy seemed covered with the whites and yellows of broken eggs from
her head to her feet. And, as Mun Bun said, the “yellow showed the
most.”

“Oh, you poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, trying not to laugh. “Come
to the house and I’ll wash you clean. Poor Margy! Never mind, dear!”
for Margy was crying.

“I—I didn’t—mean—to break the—the—eggs!” she sobbed. “You s’pose Farmer
Joel—you s’pose he’ll be very mad?”

“Of course not!” Mrs. Bunker hastened to say. “He doesn’t mind a few
eggs. The hens will lay more.”

“If she’d had on a rubber apron it would have been all right,” said
Laddie, as they went on toward the house.

“How do you mean?” Violet, as usual, asked a question.

“Why, if Margy had had on a rubber apron the whites and yellows of the
eggs wouldn’t ‘a’ soaked out and she could carry ’em to the kitchen
and Norah could make a cake. She says broken eggs are just as good for
cakes as other eggs.”

“Yes,” agreed Violet. “’Cause you have to break eggs, anyhow, to get
them into a cake. But even if Margy had these in a rubber apron,
there’d be a lot of shells.”

“That’s so,” agreed Laddie. “I guess even a rubber apron wouldn’t be
much good. The best way is not to break eggs. Now I’m going to make a
riddle about them.” And he did. He himself said afterward it wasn’t a
very good riddle. Laddie would ask:

“How can you get an egg out of the shell without breaking it?”

And after every one had given up he would answer:

“You can’t.”

Sometimes Laddie made up better riddles than that.

Margy was washed and a clean dress was put on her, and by this time the
men and Russ and Rose came in from the apple orchard and it was almost
time for supper.

Norah had cooked a good meal, and it was well that she had, for every
one had a hearty appetite. Working in the apple orchard and gathering
eggs made them all hungry.

It was several days after this that, when Mrs. Bunker was taking the
four smaller children for a walk through the fields, a distant rumbling
sound was heard.

“Is that thunder?” asked Violet, looking toward the sky.

“I think not,” her mother answered. “If it is, the storm is a distant
one and will not break until we get home.”

“It isn’t thunder,” announced Laddie, after the rumbling sound was
heard again.

“What is it?” Mun Bun wanted to know.

“It’s Farmer Joel’s bull,” said Laddie. “I can see him down in that
field,” and he pointed to a distant pasture in which, all alone, was
the big bull, roaming around, pawing the ground, shaking his head, and
now and then uttering the low, rumbling bellow, which sounded like
distant thunder.

“Oh, so it is the bull,” remarked Mrs. Bunker, when, from a distant
hill, they had watched the powerful animal running about.

“I hope the fence is good and strong so he can’t get loose,” said
Violet.

“I guess Farmer Joel wouldn’t turn the bull into a field unless the
fence was good and strong,” replied Mrs. Bunker.

“Mother, what would we do if the bull got loose and chased us?” Margy
asked.

“The best thing to do, I suppose,” said Mother Bunker, “would be to run
and get on the other side of a strong fence, if it could be done. Or
climb a tree. Bulls can’t go up trees.”

“But after you got up into the tree he might hit the tree with his head
and knock you out and hook you, mightn’t he?” asked Violet.

“Well, he might,” replied her mother. “Perhaps it would be best not to
go anywhere near the bull. But if he should come after you—run away
somewhere or get behind a fence or something.”

“He’s terrible strong, isn’t he?” observed Mun Bun, as he watched the
bull hitting his head against the fence as if trying to knock it over.

“He is, indeed. Bulls are very strong,” said his mother. “I should
think Farmer Joel would be afraid this one would knock the fence down.
But perhaps it is all right.”

However, the fence was not all right, or else the bull was stronger
than was supposed, for a few days later something very alarming took
place.

Russ and Rose had been left in charge of the four smaller Bunkers while
their father and mother went visiting a distant farmer whom Mr. Bunker
had known some years before.

“Let’s go down and look at the water wheel,” suggested Russ, for
Laddie, Violet, Mun Bun and Margy never seemed to tire of this.

“Will that old peddler boy come and hit you again?” Mun Bun wanted to
know.

“No, I guess he’s gone away,” answered Russ.

Down to the brook they went, a merry, happy group of children. They
threw stones into the water, set little bits of wood afloat, pretending
they were boats, and had a good time watching the splashing water wheel.

Suddenly Laddie, who had wandered off a little way to gather some brown
cattails growing in a swampy place, came running back, fear showing on
his face.

“He—he’s coming!” gasped Laddie.

“Who? That peddler boy?” demanded Russ, clenching his fists.

“No! The mad bull! He’s coming! Look out!” shouted Laddie.

CHAPTER XXII

AFTER WILD FLOWERS

For a moment or two Russ did not know whether or not Laddie was joking.
The little fellow often played tricks, and this might be one of these
times. But when Russ looked at Laddie’s face the older Bunker boy felt
sure there must be something wrong.

Still, before getting excited about it, and, perhaps, unnecessarily
frightening Rose, Margy, Mun Bun and Violet, it might be well to make
sure. So Russ asked:

“Which way is he coming, Laddie?”

“Right across the lots,” was the answer. “I saw him when I was after
cattails. He’s coming right this way!”

“Then we’d better hide behind a fence,” advised Violet. “The other day,
when we saw the old mad bull pawing in his field and making a noise
like thunder, mother said we should hide behind a fence.”

“There isn’t any fence here to hide behind,” said Mun Bun, who was
beginning to understand what it was all about.

“Did you hear the bull make a noise like thunder?” asked Violet. You
might be sure she would put in a question or two, no matter what was
happening.

Before Laddie could answer, and while Russ and Rose were thinking what
was best to do to get their younger brothers and sisters out of the way
of the powerful beast, there came from the near-by meadow a rumbling
sound.

“There he goes!” cried Laddie. “I mean here he comes, and he’s
bellowing like thunder!”

Certainly it was a fearsome sound.

“I want my mamma!” wailed Margy.

“So do I!” joined in Mun Bun.

“We’ll take care of you!” quickly said Rose, putting her arms around
the two younger children. “Oh, Russ!” she whispered, “what are we going
to do?”

“We ought to have something red to shake at the bull!” cried Violet.
“Red makes bulls go away.”

“It does not!” declared Laddie. “It’s just different. Red makes ’em run
at you! Has anybody got any red on?” he asked anxiously.

He looked quickly at the others. To his relief no red was to be seen,
and Laddie was glad. As yet the bull was not in sight, for the children
were on one side of the brook and on either bank was a fringe of bushes
and cattails, and these hid the oncoming animal. But if he was not seen
he was heard, and once more his loud bellow sounded.

“Come on! Run!” screamed Violet.

“Yes, we’d better get away from here,” agreed Russ, looking about for a
safe place.

Laddie, who had picked up a stone, perhaps intending to throw it and,
maybe, hit the bull on the nose, dropped the rock. Rose had started on
ahead with Mun Bun and Margy, and Russ now took the hands of Violet and
Laddie, for he felt he could help them run faster this way. Then Rose,
who was a little distance ahead, cried out:

“Oh, there’s a good place to hide!”

“Where?” asked Russ.

“In the old hen-house! We can go in there and lock ourselves in. Come
on!”

She pointed to an old and rather ramshackle sort of building that had
been used as a hen-house by Farmer Joel before he built a better one
nearer the barn. This old hen-house was down near the bank of the
brook, and the children had often played in it. Now it seemed just the
refuge they needed.

“The old bull can knock that house down!” said Laddie. “It’s almost
falling, anyhow.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Russ declared. “And there isn’t any fence
to hide behind. Come on to the hen-house, everybody!”

Behind them came the bellowing bull. They could hear him “roaring,” as
Mun Bun called it, and, as he looked back over his shoulder, Russ saw
the powerful animal splashing his way across the brook.

“He’s surely coming after us!” the boy thought. He had hoped that
perhaps the bull might wander off somewhere else.

“Oh! Oh!” screamed Margy. “He’ll hook us!”

I do not really believe the bull at first had any notion of running
after the children. He had merely gotten out of his pasture and was
wandering about when Laddie saw him. He came to the brook to get a
drink.

Then, after splashing into the water and quenching his thirst, he saw
the six little Bunkers and actually ran toward them. But they had a
good start and hastened toward the hen-house.

With a bellow the bull took after them, his tail out stiff in the air,
his head down and his hoofs making the dirt fly. There were, perhaps,
more reasons than one why the bull chased the children. He might have
thought they had salt to give him, for often Farmer Joel and his men
gave this dainty to the bull and the cows in the fields. Or the bull
may have been just playful. Or perhaps his temper was just ugly. It is
hard to tell sometimes the difference between playfulness and temper.
Bulls are strong and like to show off their strength, sometimes butting
their heads against a fence just for fun, it seems.

At any rate on came this bull after the children, and Russ and Rose
hastened with their younger brothers and sisters toward the open door
of the hen-house.

They reached it some little distance ahead of the charging animal. In
they ran. Russ closed the door and placed against it a strong stick he
found on the floor. The hen-house was deserted except for one chicken
that had strayed in to lay an egg, and she flew off the nest, cackling
in surprise, as the children entered.

Mun Bun and Margy laughed at this, and Rose was glad, for she did not
want them to be too frightened. She and Russ expected every moment to
hear the bull dash against the hen-house door. The boy was afraid, if
this happened, that the shaky door would be broken so the bull could
get in.

But, to his surprise, a moment later Laddie cried:

“Look! He ran right past here!”

And that is just what happened. The bull, charging head down, had
carried himself well past the hen-house, but could be seen to one side
rushing around.

That is one difference between a bull and a cow. A bull charges with
his head down and cannot well see where he is going, so that if one is
very active he can leap out of the way. But a cow rushes at you with
head up and “takes better aim,” as Laddie expressed it.

So this is how it happened that the bull rushed past the hen-house
without doing any damage. Rose breathed a sigh of relief, and she said:

“Now don’t make any noise and maybe he won’t know we’re here. Keep
still!”

And you may be sure the four small little Bunkers did—very still.

Through the window the children watched the bull. He stopped running
and looked about. He bellowed, he pawed the earth, and he seemed
puzzled. Perhaps he was wondering where those children went to, and how
thankful they all were that they were in the hen-house!

“But if he bumps into it he’ll knock it over,” whispered Laddie.

However, the bull did nothing of the sort. Perhaps he thought the
hen-house was a barn, and may have imagined if he “bumped into it” he
would have to stay in, and he would rather be out in the fields. So he
wandered about the hen-house, muttering and bellowing, as if daring any
one to do anything to him.

Of course the children dared not come out while the bull was there,
and they did not know what to do. But they were glad of one thing, and
this was that the animal did not try to come in after them.

“But maybe he will come,” suggested Laddie, in a whisper, when Rose and
Russ talked about how lucky it was that the bull hadn’t tried to butt
down the old hen-house.

“No, I don’t believe he’ll come in now,” said Russ.

“Shall we have to stay here all night?” Violet wanted to know, when
they had been in the hen-house nearly ten minutes and the bull had
shown no likelihood of going away soon.

“I don’t like it here. I want to go out and play!” said Mun Bun, but
he was careful not to speak above a whisper, for he could see the bull
through the dirty windows of the place.

Perhaps it was well that the windows were dirty, for the bull could not
look in through them and see the children.

“No, I don’t believe we’ll have to stay here all night,” said Russ,
though he had no idea how they would get away nor how soon.

However, help was on the way. Adam North, walking down toward the
brook, heard the low, muttering bellows of the bull, and then saw him
moving about the old hen-house.

“Hello, my fine fellow, how did you get out of your pasture?” asked
Adam, speaking to the bull as one might to a dog. “You’ve been up to
some mischief, I’m sure. I wonder——Bless my stars! The children!” cried
Adam North. “Have you been chasing the six little Bunkers?”

Adam looked about but could see no sign of the boys and girls, so he
felt pretty sure they were safe, wherever they were. But he knew the
bull must be shut up in his pasture or he might do some damage. Calling
another hired man, and each of them taking a sharp pitchfork, of which
the bull was much afraid, they drove him away from the hen-house, back
across the brook, and into his pasture, where the broken fence was made
secure.

Then, when Adam and his helper came back after having driven away the
bull, out of the hen-house rushed the six little Bunkers. They had
watched Adam and the other man drive away the animal, but had not dared
come out until everything was all right.

“Were you in there all the while?” asked Adam North.

“Yes,” answered Russ. “We ran in there when the bull chased us.”

“Well, it was the best thing you could have done. My! I’m glad nothing
happened to you. The old bull may have intended just to play with you,
but even to be tossed in fun on a bull’s horns is no joke.”

“I should say not!” agreed Russ.

So that happening ended safely.

“People talk about the quiet life on a farm!” Mrs. Bunker said to her
husband when she came home that evening and heard what had taken place.
“This far our vacation has been anything but quiet.”

“The children seem to enjoy it, though,” said Mr. Bunker. “Even being
chased by a bull appears to agree with them. I never saw them with such
appetites,” for this talk took place at the supper table.

“Oh, they can always eat,” laughed Mrs. Bunker. “I’m glad of that.”

Farmer Joel made sure the next day that the bull’s fence was made so
strong that he could not again get out, and all the hired men were
told to be very careful if they opened the gate to make positive that
it was fastened.

“What are you children going to do to-day?” asked Farmer Joel at the
breakfast table the next morning. “Are you going to chase any more
bulls?”

“Oh! Why, we didn’t chase _him_! He chased _us_!” exclaimed Violet,
looking at her mother in surprise.

“Farmer Joel is only joking, my dear,” said her mother, and then Violet
saw the twinkle in his eyes.

“If you have nothing special to do,” went on Mr. Todd, “you might
gather some wild flowers. There’s going to be a church sociable, and
my sister generally gathers flowers to decorate. But as she isn’t here
now——”

“We’ll get the flowers for you,” quickly offered Mrs. Bunker. “Come,
children, we’ll go to the woods and get flowers for the church.”

They were soon on their way to a place where, Farmer Joel said, many
kinds of wild flowers grew. All six of the little Bunkers went with
their mother.

They strolled through the field, and in a distant pasture saw the old
bull that had chased them. But he seemed good-natured now, for he was
lying under a tree asleep.

“Oh, I have a riddle!” suddenly cried Laddie. “When is a bad bull a
good bull?”

“After he gets whipped, maybe,” suggested Russ.

“After they give him salt,” said Rose, when Laddie had said Russ was
wrong.

“No, that isn’t it,” the riddle-giver replied. “A bad bull is a good
bull when he’s asleep.”

“He’s like some children I know,” said Mrs. Bunker, with a smile.

Then they reached the place where the wild flowers grew and began to
pick them. There were many and beautiful blossoms. Rose was reaching
over to gather a red bloom when suddenly she heard a queer sound near
her.

“Oh, Russ!” she cried. “It’s a rattlesnake!”

CHAPTER XXIII

A MEAN BOY

Rose dropped her bunch of wild flowers and ran toward her brother. As
for Russ, he hardly knew what to do. He, also, had heard the buzzing,
rattling sound and he had heard stories of how poisonous rattlesnakes
are.

“Don’t let him get me! Don’t let the snake bite me!” Rose cried.

“I don’t see any snake,” Russ answered, looking down in the grass. His
mother and the other children were some distance off.

“I don’t see it, but I heard it,” Rose exclaimed, very much excited.

Then Russ heard again the queer sound and at once it came to his mind
what it was. He had often heard it before, back in Pineville on hot,
summer days—just such a day as this was—toward the end of the season.

“That isn’t a rattlesnake, Rose,” said Russ. “Don’t be a baby!”

“What was it then?” she asked. “It sounded just like a rattlesnake. I
mean like I think one would sound, for I never saw any.”

“It was a locust,” answered Russ. “I guess it’s on this tree,” and he
pointed to one near which they had been gathering flowers. “Yes, it’s
on this tree, I see it!” he added, as the sound came again. “Come and
watch how funny it does it, Rose. It jiggles itself all over.”

“Are you sure it isn’t a snake?” she asked.

“Of course I am!” said Russ. “Why, I’m looking right now at the locust.
It’s low down. I never saw one so low. Most always when they sing out
like that they’re high in the trees. Come quick, before it flies away.”

Rose came over to Russ’s side. She looked to where he pointed and saw a
curious winged insect that, just as Rose arrived, began to give forth
its queer song. And, as Russ said, the locust seemed to “jiggle” all
over. Its wings and legs trembled with the force of the noise it made.

“Will it bite?” asked Rose.

“I don’t know,” Russ answered. “I’m not going to put my finger near
enough to find out. I heard Farmer Joel say the locusts ate up most of
his garden one year, so I guess they must bite some things. Anyhow, it
isn’t a rattlesnake.”

“I’m glad of it,” answered Rose, with a breath of relief, as she picked
up her scattered wild flowers.

“Is anything the matter over there?” called Mrs. Bunker, as she saw
Rose and Russ moving about the tree.

“Rose thought she heard a rattlesnake, but it wasn’t,” Russ laughed.

“What was it?” Violet wanted to know.

“A locust,” Russ replied, and then all the children wanted to see the
insect, watching it vibrate itself on a tree and make that queer sound.

“I wonder what he would do if I tickled him?” said Laddie. And when
he tried it, gently pushing the locust with a small twig, the insect
quickly flew away.

“I guess there are no rattlesnakes around here,” said Mrs. Bunker, when
the excitement had died away. “Now go on with your flower-gathering,
children. We must get some fine bouquets for Farmer Joel.”

The wild flowers made a grand display in the Sunday-school room of the
church, which was decorated with them for the annual festival. The six
little Bunkers attended for a short time and had lots of fun.

Mun Bun spilled his dish of ice cream in the lap of a lady next to whom
he was sitting, and Margy tipped over her glass of lemonade, letting it
run down the neck of her dress. This so excited her that she cried:

“Oh, I’m getting drowned! I’m getting drowned!” But of course she
wasn’t. It made some excitement, though.

The lady in whose lap Mun Bun spilled the ice cream was very kind about
it. She said it was a last year’s dress, anyhow, and now she would have
a good reason for getting a new one.

When the six little Bunkers went home from the church festival Laddie
tried to make up a riddle about Margy’s getting wet with the lemonade.

“I want to make a riddle about her but I can’t think just how to do
it,” said the little fellow to Russ.

“Why not ask, When is Margy like a goldfish?” Russ suggested.

“What would the answer be?” inquired Laddie.

“Oh, you could say when she tried to swim in lemonade,” replied Russ.

“I guess I will,” decided Laddie, and he had that for a new riddle,
though it was not as clever as some he had thought up all by himself.

There were many happy days spent in the woods and fields about Farmer
Joel’s by the six little Bunkers. Every morning when the children arose
there was the prospect of happy times ahead of them. And nearly always
these happy expectations came true. Even when it rained, as I have
said, the children could play in the big barn on the pile of fragrant
hay they had helped put in.

One fine day when Farmer Joel drove into town with Mr. and Mrs. Bunker,
who wanted to do some shopping, the six little Bunkers were left in
charge of Norah and Adam North.

Russ, Rose and the others played about the house and yard for a while,
Russ putting some “improvements” as he called them, on his water wheel,
and Rose helping Norah bake a cake.

Then Laddie and Violet, who had been playing with Mun Bun and Margy in
the swing under the tree, came to the house asking:

“Can’t we go to the woods and have a picnic?”

“Oh, we couldn’t have a picnic without mother,” objected Rose.

“Just a little one,” begged Violet. “Couldn’t you give us a few
cookies, or something like that, Norah? We could go off to the woods,
near the place where we picked the wild flowers, and eat there.”

“Yes, you may do that,” Norah agreed, for she liked the children to
have fun. “You had better go with them, though, Rose and Russ,” said
the faithful cook.

“Oh, yes, we’ll go,” promised Rose.

A little later, with small boxes and baskets of a simple lunch, the six
little Bunkers set off for the woods once more. They were laughing,
singing, and shouting, having a fine time, and they had no idea that
there would be trouble.

Russ found a place where a little spring bubbled up, and it was decided
they would eat their lunch there when the time came, as, from past
experience, Russ knew the children would be thirsty as soon as they had
eaten. And nothing so spoils a picnic in the woods as not being able to
get a drink of water when you need it.

Rose and Russ put the lunch away on top of a stump and then the smaller
children began playing about under the trees. Rose had brought along a
partly finished dress for one of her dolls, and she was sewing on this,
while Russ cut a stick and began to make a whistle.

“Though I’m not sure I can make it,” he said, puckering up his own lips
to send forth a shrill tune.

“Why not?” asked Laddie.

“Well, the bark doesn’t peel off so well now as it does in the spring,”
Russ answered. “But maybe if I pound it long enough I can slip it off.”

An hour or more passed pleasantly, the children busy at their
different means of having fun, and then Mun Bun came toward Rose,
saying:

“I’m hungry now. I want to eat.”

“So do I!” added Margy, who generally wanted to do whatever she heard
Mun Bun say he wanted to do.

“Well, I think we can have lunch,” decided Rose. “Ho, Russ!” she called.

A loud whistle answered her, for Russ had succeeded in stripping the
bark from a tree branch and had whittled out a whistle that was louder
than the one formed by his lips.

“Come, we’re going to eat!” called Rose, and soon all six little
Bunkers were walking toward the stump where the lunch had been left.

But when they reached it—the lunch was gone!

“Who took it?” demanded Rose.

“I didn’t! You needn’t look at me!” declared Laddie quickly. He
sometimes did play jokes like this—if you call them jokes.

“Are you sure we left it on this stump?” asked Russ.

“Of course I’m sure,” said Rose. “Look, you can see some of the
crumbs. Oh, Russ, some one has eaten the lunch!”

“Maybe it was a bear!” suggested Violet, with a little shiver of mixed
delight and fear.

“There are no bears here,” Russ replied impatiently.

“Then maybe it was a squirrel,” suggested Laddie.

“A squirrel couldn’t carry away the boxes, baskets, and everything!”
declared Rose.

Suddenly, from behind the bushes, came a chuckle in a boy’s voice. At
first Russ thought perhaps Ralph Watson and his dog Jimsie had come
along, and that Ralph had hidden the lunch for fun. But a moment later
the ugly face of the peddler boy looked out from the bushes.

“I took your lunch!” he said. “I ate it! I ate it all up!”

CHAPTER XXIV

STUNG

For a moment or two the six little Bunkers could hardly believe this
dreadful news. In fact the two youngest did not quite understand what
the peddler boy said. Then Rose exclaimed:

“Oh, you couldn’t! You couldn’t eat all our lunch!”

“Ha! Ha!” chuckled the mean peddler boy. “Yes, I did! I was terribly
hungry, and I ate it all! You took your strawberry shortcake away from
me, but you can’t take this lunch away, because I ate it all up! Ha!
Ha!”

“You horrid boy!” cried Rose. She said afterward she just couldn’t help
calling him that name, even though it was not very polite. But, then,
he wasn’t polite himself, that peddler boy wasn’t.

“You—you——” began Laddie, spluttering somewhat, which he often did when
he was excited. “Did you take my apples?” For Laddie had put up in the
lunch a special little basket of apples.

“I have the apples in my pocket!” boasted the shoe-lace boy. “I ate one
of ’em, and I’ll eat the others when I get home. But I ate all the rest
of your lunch. I haven’t any of that in my pockets.”

“Look here, you—you rascal!” cried Russ. He didn’t know what the
peddler’s name was, but “rascal,” seemed the right thing to call him.
“I’m going to tell my father and Farmer Joel on you, and they’ll have
you arrested!” threatened Russ.

“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” boasted the peddler, though he had run once
before when told that this would happen to him.

Russ did not know what to do. The shoe-lace boy was larger and
stronger. Once Russ had been knocked down by the lad, and Russ did not
want this to happen again.

Still Russ was no coward. He never would have gone after Violet’s doll
that day when the truck was about to run over it if he were a coward.
So Russ made up his mind he must do something.

He couldn’t get the lunch back—he knew that—but he might punish the lad
who had taken it. So Russ doubled up his fists, and Laddie, seeing him,
did the same, for Laddie had an idea.

“If we both go at him at once we can fight him, Russ!” whispered
Laddie. “You go at him on one side and I’ll go at him on the other.”

Of course this was the proper way for two small boys to fight one large
one. But Russ did not like to fight—especially when Rose and the other
children were there.

“You’re a mean coward, that’s what you are!” cried Russ. “You sneaked
up and took our lunch when we weren’t there. You wouldn’t dare take it
when we were around.”

And this was true. The peddler boy was a coward, and he had watched his
chance to sneak up to the lunch when the six little Bunkers were some
distance from it.

“Pooh! I don’t care! I got your lunch, anyhow, and it tasted good and
you can’t get it back!” boasted the boy.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mun Bun, who didn’t quite understand what it was all
about. “I’m hungry!”

“So’m I,” wailed Margy.

“I’m sorry,” said Rose, “but the mean boy ate up all the lunch.”

At last Laddie seemed unable to stand it any longer. He felt that he
must do something.

“Come on, Russ!” he cried. “Let’s fight him!” And Laddie, all alone,
rushed toward the boy, who was standing on the edge of the woods.

Russ knew it would not be wise to let Laddie get near the bigger boy.
Laddie might be knocked down as Russ was, so Russ started after Laddie.
This looked to the peddler as though he were going to be attacked. And
though he boasted of not being afraid, he was. He felt that if Russ and
Laddie, to say nothing of Violet and Rose, all went at him together,
big and strong as he was, he would be knocked down and beaten.

“Ho! Ho! You can’t catch me!” he cried, turning to run. “I ate all your
lunch! Ho! Ho! I ate all your lunch!”

Away he ran, toward the woods.

“Coward! You’re a coward!” shrieked Violet tauntingly.

“Come on! Let’s run after him!” begged Laddie.

Russ looked toward the fleeing boy.

“No, Laddie,” he said, “it wouldn’t be any good chasing after him. He’d
get away. But he’s a coward just the same.”

“He’s horrid mean—that’s what I say!” declared Rose. “To take our nice
picnic lunch! Now we’ll have to go home.”

“I’m going to tell Farmer Joel about him,” announced Russ.

“Maybe he’ll have him arrested,” suggested Violet.

Suddenly Laddie pointed to the boy and exclaimed:

“Look how funny he’s acting!”

“What makes him do that?” asked Vi.

“Oh, listen to him yell!” ejaculated Russ.

Indeed, the peddler lad was acting strangely. He was in the woods now
and he was jumping up and down, waving his arms about, slapping his
hands on his head and legs, and at the same time crying aloud.

“What’s he saying?” asked Rose.

“Hark!” advised Russ.

They all listened, and from the jumping boy came the words:

“Oh, I’m stung! I’m stung! Take ’em away, somebody! Take ’em away! I’m
stung!”

Then Rose cried:

“Bees! Bees! A lot of bees are after him!”

“Yes, and there are some buzzing around here!” said Russ quickly. “He
must have run into a hornet’s nest or something, and some of ’em are
flying around here. I heard ’em buzz!”

“So did I!” added Violet.

“But they aren’t hornets,” said Laddie. “Look! There’s one,” and he
pointed to a yellow-banded insect lazily flying in the air above them.
“That’s a honey bee, like those Farmer Joel has.”

“And look at the lot of ’em around that boy!” cried Rose. “Oh, what a
lot of bees!”

She pointed to the woods where the rascally lad was still leaping
about, slapping himself with his hands, and now and then lying down in
the dried leaves to roll about.

“Come on! We’d better run!” advised Russ. “These are honey bees all
right, but they sting as badly as hornets. A swarm must have gotten
away from Farmer Joel’s and this boy ran right into ’em. Come on, we’ll
go before they get after us.”

As yet only one or two bees had flown toward the six little Bunkers,
but they started away, nevertheless, for there was no fun remaining at
a picnic if they had no lunch to eat.

“Oh, look! There he goes, running!” cried Laddie, pointing toward the
peddler boy who was darting away into the woods as fast as he could go,
followed by the cloud of bees.

CHAPTER XXV

THE HONEY TREE

The six little Bunkers paused a moment before leaving the picnic
grounds, where so sad a happening as losing their lunch had occurred,
and looked toward the peddler boy. He was certainly running as hard as
he could to get away from the stinging insects.

“It serves him right for taking our lunch!” declared Rose, though
perhaps she shouldn’t have said it.

“Do you s’pose the bees knew he took our things? And did they sting him
because they like us and because Farmer Joel has bees like these bees?”
asked Violet, looking at a honey insect perched on a flower. Violet
seemed to think it best to ask as many questions at once as possible.

But no one took the trouble to answer them. Russ and Rose were anxious
to get the smaller children out of the way of the bees.

“Come, children! We’ve got to hurry, just as Russ says,” said Rose.

“Is it goin’ to rain?” asked Mun Bun. Generally when there was a shower
coming up he knew the need of haste.

“No, it isn’t going to rain,” said Russ. “If it did it would send the
bees into shelter and they wouldn’t take after that boy.”

“Do you think they stung him much?” asked Rose.

“From the way he yelled I should say they stung him pretty hard,” Russ
answered. “I’m glad they didn’t come our way.”

By this time they were some distance from their picnic ground, and no
bees were buzzing around them.

“Do you think they were Farmer Joel’s bees?” asked Rose of Russ, as
they walked on toward the house.

“I’m pretty sure of it,” was his reply. “No one else around here keeps
honey bees.”

“Are there any other kinds of bees except honey bees?” Vi wanted to
know.

“Oh, yes,” answered Rose. “Ask mother about them—or daddy.”

“What’s the matter, children, didn’t you have fun at your picnic?”
Norah wanted to know, when the six little Bunkers came straggling back,
some hours before she expected them. Farmer Joel and Mr. and Mrs.
Bunker were still in town.

“Yes, we had some fun,” answered Rose. “But we had to come back to get
more lunch,” for she had decided, as it was not yet late, they could go
back to the woods.

“You want more lunch!” cried the good-natured cook. “Bless and save us,
my dears! But if you ate all that, and want more—oh, I wouldn’t dare
give it to you! Your mother wouldn’t like it. You’d get sick.”

“But we didn’t eat it!” cried Laddie.

“You didn’t? Who did?”

“The peddler boy!”

And then the story was told—about the bees and everything. Norah
laughed when she heard how the bad boy had been sent howling into
the woods by the stings of the honey insects, and she quickly put up
another lunch for the children.

“But if you go back to the same place to eat it,” she said, “that same
peddler boy may take it again.”

“No, he won’t!” cried Russ. “If he does—I’ll take a big club along this
time.”

“And we’ll hide the lunch where he can’t find it,” added Laddie.

“I guess we’ll be so hungry we’ll eat it as soon as we get to the
woods and then there won’t be anything left for him to take,” observed
Violet. And this was voted the best idea of all.

“But maybe the bees might sting you,” said Norah. “Perhaps you had
better stay around here and eat.”

“No, thank you,” answered Russ. “We’ll go just a little way into the
woods—not as far as before, and then the bees won’t come. But did any
swarm get away from here, Norah? It was a swarm of bees we saw in the
woods chasing that peddler boy.”

“No, I didn’t hear of any swarm getting away from here,” said Norah.
“But then I don’t know much about bees. Better ask Adam.”

Before starting off on their second picnic Russ found the hired man and
inquired about the swarm of bees.

“No, they didn’t come from here,” said Adam. “I’ve been around the
orchard all day and I’ve seen no bees starting out to take an excursion
with the queen. They must be from somewhere else, but I don’t know of
any one who has bees around here except Farmer Joel.”

The children gave little more thought to the bees, because they were
hungry and wanted to have fun off in the woods eating the second lunch
that Norah had put up for them.

This time no bad boy took the good things, and the six little Bunkers
had the cakes and sandwiches for themselves. It was while they were
walking along the road on their way home later in the afternoon that
the carriage of Dr. Snow passed them.

The six little Bunkers had met Dr. Snow a few weeks before, when one of
Farmer Joel’s hired men had cut his foot with an axe. The doctor had
called at the farmhouse several times and now knew every one from Mun
Bun to Russ. Seeing the doctor driving past in a hurry and knowing that
by this time Mr. and Mrs. Bunker must be at home, Russ began to wonder
if an accident had happened.

“Is any one sick at Farmer Joel’s?” called Russ, as the doctor’s
carriage drove past.

“No, my little man. No, I’m glad to say,” answered Dr. Snow, pulling
his horses to a stop. “I’m not going to stop at Farmer Joel’s. I’m on
my way to see a peddler boy who lives on the other side of the valley.
They telephoned me to come to see him. He has been badly stung by bees.”

“Oh, that must be our boy!” cried Rose.

“Your boy?” exclaimed the doctor.

“I mean the one who took our lunch,” and Rose related the story.

“Yes, very likely it’s the same boy,” said the physician, with a smile.
“Well, I’ll do the best I can for him. But I think this will be a
lesson to him.”

The doctor drove on and the six little Bunkers hurried to the house and
soon were telling their father and mother all that had happened during
the day.

“What’s that?” asked Farmer Joel, when he heard the tale. “Some bees
came out of the woods and stung the boy, you say?”

“You should have heard him yell!” remarked Russ.

“Well, I don’t like to see any one hurt,” went on Farmer Joel. “But
this story of bees in the woods is a strange one. No swarms have left
my hives lately and—say, wait—I have an idea!” he suddenly cried.

“Did you see a hollow tree anywhere near the place the bees swarmed out
on the boy and stung him?” asked the farmer of Russ.

“No,” was the answer. “We weren’t close enough to see a hollow tree.
But we could see the bees.”

“And we could see the boy dance,” added Laddie.

“Hum!” mused Farmer Joel. “It’s just possible now,” he proceeded, “that
these bees are the same swarm that went away with my fifty-dollar queen
soon after you six little Bunkers arrived. In fact, I’m pretty sure
they’re my bees, but I’m going to find out for certain. That’s what I’m
going to do!”

“How can you?” asked Mr. Bunker.

“I’ll get your children to show me as nearly as they can the place the
bees stung this peddler boy, and I’ll look around there for my missing
swarm and the queen. They must have made a home for themselves in some
hollow tree, those bees must, and when the boy wandered too near it
they swarmed out and stung him, for they thought he was after the honey
they had stored there.”

“But if the runaway bees rushed out and stung the boy, won’t they come
out and sting you if you try to get them back?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“I’ll wait until cold weather, until the bees are asleep in the tree,
and then, if I find them, I can safely bring them in without getting
stung,” said Farmer Joel. “It would be strange if your children should
be the means of me finding my lost queen. I’d be very glad to get her
back.”

“Maybe the peddler boy could tell where the bee tree is,” suggested
Adam North.

“I guess he won’t want to talk about bees for a long while,” chuckled
Farmer Joel. Dr. Snow had stopped at the farmhouse on his way home
after visiting the lad, and had said the boy was badly stung.

“His face is swelled up like a balloon,” said the physician, “and he
can’t see out of his eyes. If you want to find that honey tree, Joel,
you’ll have to look for it yourself.”

And this Mr. Todd did the next day. As there might be considerable
walking to do, only the four older children went along with their
father and Farmer Joel.

They reached the first picnic ground and Rose pointed out the flat
stump where the lunch had been left before the peddler lad took it.
Then, as nearly as they could remember, the children pointed out where
in the woods they saw the leaping, slapping peddler boy. For it was
there that the bees began to sting him.

“And as so many came out at once it must have been near their honey
tree that it happened,” said the farmer.

Laddie and Russ and the two girls followed their father and Mr. Todd
over into the woods. It was very still and pleasant, the sun shining
down through the green leaves.

“I see some bees!” suddenly cried Laddie. “There’s a whole procession
of them.”

He pointed off to one side and there, flitting through the sunlight and
shadows of the forest could be seen a number of bees—dark bees with
yellow stripes, or bands, on their bodies.

“That’s my kind of bees—the Italian sort,” said Farmer Joel when he had
observed two or three near at hand gathering honey from wild flowers.

“But where do they have their nest—I mean their hive?” asked Russ.

“Oh, somewhere around here,” answered Farmer Joel. “We must look for a
hollow tree. But move carefully. I don’t want any of you to get stung,
though I brought my smoke machine. Guess I’ll start it going.”

He built a smudge fire inside the tin funnel with the bellows beneath
it, and soon smoke was being puffed out into the air. This kept the
bees away from the searchers for the honey tree.

Suddenly Russ exclaimed:

“I hear a humming sound. It’s like the humming your bees make in their
hives, Mr. Joel.”

“I hear it, too,” said Violet.

They looked and listened, and then, off to one side, they saw many bees
flying in through the hole in a tree. It was a hollow tree, that was
evident, and it was a dead one.

“Keep back, all of you,” said Farmer Joel, “and I’ll soon find out if
there are bees in there.”

While the others moved back he tossed a stick against the tree. It
struck with a hollow sound, and instantly a cloud of bees flew out.

“There they are! My bees!” cried Farmer Joel. “The queen must be with
them, for the bees wouldn’t stay and make honey without a queen. Well,
now that I know where they are, I’ll mark this tree and when cold
weather comes I’ll come here and take my bees back again—my bees and
the fifty dollar queen.”

“Are you glad we helped you find them?” asked Laddie.

“Indeed I am, little man! Thank you!” said Farmer Joel. “And to-night
you shall have hot biscuits and honey for supper.”

Marking the location of the tree, so it could easily be found again,
Farmer Joel returned to the house with Mr. Bunker, Russ and Laddie and
the two girls. They had found what they set out to find, and later on,
after the six little Bunkers returned home, there came a letter from
Mr. Todd, saying he had gotten his queen and swarm of bees back and
that also in the hollow tree was found fifty pounds of good honey.

“My bees kept on working for me, even if they ran away from home,” he
said in the letter.

With the finding of the lost swarm, the most exciting adventures of
the six little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s came to a close. They did not
return home at once, for summer was not over and Miss Todd was not
ready to come home. But the peddler boy did not again bother them.

From Dr. Snow it was learned that the shoe-lace chap went back to the
city to sell things after his bee stings were cured. And I think he
never again took the picnic lunch of any little boys and girls.

“Well, Mother, and children, we must soon begin to think of getting
back home,” said Daddy Bunker, one day after a pleasant trip in the
woods and fields.

“Oh, it’s too soon to go home yet!” sighed Russ. “I want to stay until
the pumpkins are large enough to make into a jack-o’-lantern.”

“I wanted to gather some popcorn,” said Rose.

“Couldn’t we stay until chestnuts are ripe?” asked Laddie.

“I’m afraid not,” said his father. “I must get back to my real estate
business, and you children must get ready for school.”

But at least one wish came true, for a few days later Farmer Joel
brought into the house a big yellow pumpkin that had ripened faster
than any of the others. Out of this Russ made a jack-o’-lantern, and he
and the children had a jolly parade around the house that evening.

And so the summer of the six little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s came to an
end, and they all said it was one of the happiest times they had ever
spent.

THE END

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 FORDS
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 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 MAKE-BELIEVE STORIES

(Trademark Registered.)

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS, ETC.

Colored Wrappers and Illustrations by HARRY L. SMITH

In this fascinating line of books Miss Hope has the various toys come
to life “when nobody is looking” and she puts them through a series of
adventures as interesting as can possibly be imagined.

THE STORY OF A SAWDUST DOLL

How the toys held a party at the Toy Counter; how the Sawdust Doll
was taken to the home of a nice little girl, and what happened to her
there.

THE STORY OF A WHITE ROCKING HORSE

He was a bold charger and a man purchased him for his son’s birthday.
Once the Horse had to go to the Toy Hospital, and my! what sights he
saw there.

THE STORY OF A LAMB ON WHEELS

She was a dainty creature and a sailor bought her and took her to a
little girl relative and she had a great time.

THE STORY OF A BOLD TIN SOLDIER

He was Captain of the Company and marched up and down in the store at
night. Then he went to live with a little boy and had the time of his
life.

THE STORY OF A CANDY RABBIT

He was continually in danger of losing his life by being eaten up.
But he had plenty of fun, and often saw his many friends from the Toy
Counter.

THE STORY OF A MONKEY ON A STICK

He was mighty lively and could do many tricks. The boy who owned him
gave a show, and many of the Monkey’s friends were among the actors.

THE STORY OF A CALICO CLOWN

He was a truly comical chap and all the other toys loved him greatly.

THE STORY OF A NODDING DONKEY

He made happy the life of a little lame boy and did lots of other good
deeds.

THE STORY OF A CHINA CAT

The Cat had many adventures, but enjoyed herself most of the time.

THE STORY OF A PLUSH BEAR

This fellow came from the North Pole, stopped for a while at the toy
store, and was then taken to the seashore by his little master.

THE STORY OF A STUFFED ELEPHANT

He was a wise looking animal and had a great variety of adventures.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 196 Changed: bathed the sore sport with witch hazel
to: bathed the sore spot with witch hazel

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