Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's.

by Laura Lee Hope.

CHAPTER I

ALL UPSET

"There! It's all done, so I guess we can get on and start off! All aboard!

Toot! Toot!" Russ Bunker made a noise like a steamboat whistle. "Get on!"

he cried.

"Oh, wait a minute! I forgot to put the broom in the corner," said Rose, his sister. "I was helping mother sweep, and I forgot to put the broom away. Wait for me, Russ! Don't let the boat start without me!"

"I won't," promised the little boy, as he tossed back a lock of dark hair which had straggled down over his eyes. They were dark, too, and, just now, were shining in eagerness as he looked at a queer collection of a barrel, a box, some chairs, a stool and a few boards, piled together in the middle of the playroom floor.

"The steamboat will wait for you, Rose," Russ Bunker went on. "But hurry back," and he began to whistle a merry tune as he moved a footstool over to one side. "That's one of the paddle-wheels," he told his smaller brother Laddie, whose real name was Fillmore, but who was always called Laddie. "That's a paddle-wheel!"

"Why doesn't it go 'round then?" asked Violet, Laddie's twin sister. "Why doesn't it go 'round, Russ? I thought wheels always went around!" Vi, as Violet was usually called, loved to ask questions, and sometimes they were the kind that could not be easily answered. This one seemed to be that kind, for Russ went on whistling and did not reply.

"Why doesn't the footstool go around if it's a wheel?" asked Vi again.

"Oh, 'cause--'cause----" began Russ, holding his head on one side and stopping halfway through his whistled tune. "It doesn't go 'round?"

"Oh, I got a riddle! I got a riddle!" suddenly cried Laddie, who was as fond of asking riddles as Vi was of giving out questions. "What kind of a wheel doesn't go 'round? That's a new riddle! What kind of a wheel doesn't go 'round?"

"All wheels go around," declared Russ, who, now that he had the footstool fixed where he wanted it, had started his whistling again.

"What's the riddle, Laddie?" asked Vi, shaking her curly hair and looking up with her gray eyes at her brother, whose locks were of the same color, though not quite so curly as his twin's.

"There she goes again! Asking more questions!" exclaimed Rose, who had come back from putting away the broom, and was ready to play the steamboat game with her older brother.

"But what _is_ the riddle?" insisted Vi. "I like to guess 'em, Laddie!

What is it?"

"What kind of a wheel doesn't go 'round?" asked Laddie again, smiling at his brothers and sisters as though the riddle was a very hard one indeed.

"Pooh! _All_ wheels go around--'ceptin' _this_ one, maybe," said Russ.

"And this is only a make-believe wheel. It's the nearest like a steamboat paddle-wheel I could find," and he gave the footstool a little kick. "But all kinds of wheels go around, Laddie."

"No, they don't," exclaimed the little fellow. "That's a riddle! What kind of a wheel doesn't go 'round?"

"Oh, let's give it up," proposed Rose. "Tell us, Laddie, and then we'll get in the make-believe steamboat Russ has made, and we'll have a ride.

What kind of a wheel doesn't go around?"

"A wheelbarrow doesn't go 'round!" laughed Laddie.

"Oh, it does _so_!" cried Rose. "The _wheel_ goes around."

"But the _barrow_ doesn't--that's the part you put things in," went on Laddie. "_That_ doesn't go 'round. You have to push it."

"All right. That's a pretty good riddle," said Russ with a laugh. "Now let's get on the steamboat and we'll have a ride," and he began to whistle a little bit of a new song, something about down on a river where the cotton blossoms grow.

"Where is steamboat?" asked Margy, aged five, whose real name was Margaret, but who, as yet, seemed too little to have all those letters for herself. So she was just called Margy. "Where is steamboat?" she asked. "Is it in the kitchen on the stove?" and she opened wide her dark brown eyes and looked at Russ.

"Oh, you're thinking of a steam _teakettle_, Margy," he said, as he took hold of her fat, chubby hand. "The teakettle steams on the kitchen stove,"

went on Russ. "But we're making believe this is a steamboat in here," and he pointed to the barrel, the boxes, the chairs and the footstool, which he and Rose had piled together with such care. For it was a rainy day and the children were having what fun they could in the big playroom.

"I want to go on steamboat," spoke up the sixth member of the Bunker family a moment later.

"Yes, you may have a ride, Mun Bun," said Rose. "You may sit with me in front and see the wheels go around."

Mun Bun, I might say, was the pet name of the youngest member of the family. He was really Munroe Ford Bunker, but it seemed such a big name for such a little chap, that it was nearly always shortened to Mun. And that, added to half his last name, made Mun Bun.

And, really, Munroe Ford Bunker did look a little like a bun--one of the light, golden brown kind, with sugar on top. For Mun, as we shall call him, was small, and had blue eyes and golden hair.

"Come on, Mun Bun!" called Russ, who was the oldest of the family of six little Bunkers, and the leader in all the fun and games. "Come on, everybody! All aboard the steamboat!"

"Oh, wait a minute! Wait a minute!" suddenly called Vi. "Is there any water around your steamboat, Russ?"

"Water? 'Course there is," he answered. "You couldn't make a steamboat go without water."

"Is it deep water?" asked Vi, who seemed started on her favorite game of asking questions.

Russ thought for a minute, looking at the playroom floor.

"'Course it's deep," he answered. "'Bout ten miles deep. What do you ask that for, Vi?"

"'Cause I got to get a bathing-dress for my doll," answered the little girl. "I can't take her on a steamboat where the water is deep lessen I have a bathing-suit for her. Wait a minute. I'll get one," and she ran over to a corner of the room, where she kept her playthings.

"Shall I bring a red dress or a blue one?" Vi turned to ask her sister Rose.

"Oh, bring any one you have and hurry up!" called Russ. "This steamboat won't ever get started. All aboard! Toot! Toot!"

Vi s.n.a.t.c.hed up what she called a bathing-dress from a small trunkful of clothes belonging to her dolls, and ran back to the place where the "steamboat" floated in the "ten-miles-deep water," in the middle of the playroom floor.

"Now I'm all ready, an' so's my doll," said Vi, as she climbed up in one of the chairs behind the big, empty flour barrel that Mother Bunker had let Russ take to make his boat. "Gid-dap, Russ!"

"Gid-dap? What you mean?" asked Russ, stopping his whistling and turning to look at his sister.

"I mean start," answered Vi. "Don't you know what gid-dap means?"

"Sure I know! It's how you talk to a horse. It's what you tell him when you want him to start."

"Well, I'm ready to start now," said Vi, smoothing out her dress, and putting the bathing-suit on her doll.

"Pooh! You don't tell a steamboat to 'gid-dap' when you want _that_ to start!" exclaimed Russ. "You say 'All aboard! Toot! Toot!'"