Cousin Tom gave Russ one of the j.a.panese dolls from the box and, with it in his arms, Russ ran toward his little sister.

"Look! Here it is!" he cried.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped Violet, hardly able to believe her eyes. "Oh, what a lovely, lovely doll!"

A disappointed look came over the face of Rose, but it changed to one of joy when her father took out another doll and gave it to her. Then Mun Bun set up a cry:

"I want one!"

"So do I!" echoed Margy.

"There is one for each of you," laughed Cousin Tom, as he took out two more dolls.

"And two left over!" added Russ.

"Oh, where did you get them?" asked Rose. "Oh, I just love mine!" and she hugged it to her closely.

"My doll's wet!" exclaimed Mun Bun, as he saw the damp dress on his plaything.

"Mine is, too," said Violet. "But all dolls have to be wet when they come out of the ocean, don't they, Daddy?"

"Yes, I suppose so. And that is where these dolls came from--right out of the ocean."

Then the children were told how the queer box had been found again floating near the beach and how Cousin Tom had waded out in his high rubber boots and brought it to sh.o.r.e.

Mother Bunker and Cousin Ruth came out to see the find and they, too, thought the dolls were wonderful.

"And we saw a fish that could walk," added Laddie when the dolls had been looked at again and again.

Then he and Russ told about the queer-looking skate.

The doll with the wig of black hair that had been soaked off was laid aside to be mended, as was the one the dress of which was badly stained by sea water. But the other dolls were almost as good as new. And, in fact, Rose and Violet would rather have had them than new dolls right out of the store, because there was such a queer story connected with them.

"I wonder if they came right from j.a.pan," mused Rose as she made believe put her doll to sleep.

"We can pretend so, anyhow," said Violet. "I'm not going to cry about my other doll that was drowned now, 'cause I got this one. She's the nicest one I ever had."

"Mine, too," added Rose.

I might say that the six little Bunkers never found out where the dolls came from. But most likely they had fallen off some ship and the oiled silk and other wrappings kept them in good shape until the box was washed up on the beach the second time.

"Well, if the seash.o.r.e is a bad place to lose things on account of so much sand it is also a good place to find things," said Mother Bunker that night when the six little Bunkers had been put to bed and the dolls were also "asleep."

"I'm glad you like it here," said Cousin Ruth. "But I am sorry that Rose lost her locket."

"Well, it couldn't be helped," said the little girl's mother. "I did have hopes that we would find it soon after she lost it. But now I have given up."

"Yes," agreed her husband. "The locket is gone forever."

But I have still a secret to tell you about that.

A few days after the finding of the dolls all six of the little Bunkers were playing down on the beach. Four of them had the j.a.panese dolls, but Russ and Laddie did not.

Laddie was digging a hole in the sand and trying to think of a new riddle, and Violet had just finished asking Russ a lot of questions when, all of a sudden, George Carr, the little boy whose dog had been bitten by the Sallie Growler, came running around a group of sand dunes, crying:

"Oh, the boat's upset! The boat's upset, and all the men are spilled out! And the fish, too! Come and see the upset boat!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SAND FORT

"What do you mean--the boat upset?" asked Russ, looking up from the sand fort he was making on the beach. "Do you mean one of your toy boats and is it make-believe men that are spilled out?"

"No, I mean real ones!" exclaimed George. "It's one of the fishing boats, and it was just coming in from having been out to the nets. It was full of fish and they're all over, and you can pick up a lot of 'em and they're good to eat. And maybe one of the men is drowned. Anyhow, there's a lot of 'em in the water. Come on and look!"

"Where is it?" asked Laddie.

"Right down the beach!" and George pointed. "'Tisn't far."

"Come on, Mun Bun and Margy!" called Rose as she saw Russ and Laddie start down the beach with George and his dog. "We'll go and see what it is. Vi, you take Mun Bun's hand and I'll look after Margy."

"Shall we leave our dolls here?" asked Vi.

"Yes. There's n.o.body here now and we can go faster if we don't carry them," answered Rose. "Here, Mun Bun and Margy, leave your dolls with Vi's and mine. They'll be all right."

Rose laid her doll down on the sand and the others did the same, so that there were four j.a.panese dolls in a row.

"Won't the waves come up and get 'em?" asked Margy as she looked back on the dolls.

"No, the waves don't come up as high as the place where we left them,"

said Rose, who had taken care to put the dolls to "sleep" well above what is called "high-water mark," that is, the highest place on the beach where the tide ever comes.

"Come on! Hurry if you want to see the men from the upset boat!" George called back to Rose and the others.

"Let's wait for 'em," proposed Laddie. "Maybe they'll be lonesome. I'm going to wait."

"Well, we'll all wait," said George, who was a kind-hearted boy. "If you can't see the men swim out you can see the lot of fish that went overboard."

As the children came out from behind the little hills of sand they saw, down on the beach, a crowd of men and boys. And out in the surf and the waves, which were high and rough, was a large white boat, turned bottom up, and about it were men swimming.

"Oh, will they drown?" asked Russ, much excited.

"No, I guess not," answered George. "They're fishermen and they 'most all can swim. Anyhow the water isn't very deep where they are. They're trying to get their boat right side up so they can pull it up on the beach."