THE MARSHMALLOW ROAST
When anything happened to Mun Bun or his sister Margy they always called
for Daddy or Mother Bunker. The other children did the same thing,
though of course Margy and Mun Bun, being the youngest, naturally called
the most, just as they were the ones who were most often in trouble that
needed a father or a mother to straighten out.
"Our island's getting terrible small," said Margy; "and the water's
gettin' deeper all around us."
"Yes," agreed Mun Bun, as he got in the middle of what was left of the
circle of sand and looked about. "The water is deep. I guess I'd better
call!"
"I'll help you," said Margy.
The two children stood in the center of the sandy island that was all
the while getting smaller because the tide was rising and covering it,
and they called:
"Daddy! Mother! Daddy Bunker! Come and get us!"
They called this way several times, and then waited for some one to come
and get them.
If you want to imagine how Margy and Mun Bun looked, marooned as they
were on an island in the middle of Clam River, with the tide rising,
just get a big, clean stone and put it down in the middle of your
bathtub. If you try this you had better put a piece of paper under the
stone, so it will not scratch the clean, white tub.
Then on the stone put two other little stones to stand for Margy and Mun
Bun. Now put the stopper in the tub and turn on the water. You will see
it begin to rise around the stone, and soon only a little of it will be
left sticking out of the water.
"Daddy! Mother! Daddy Bunker! Come and get us!"
Now Margy and Mun Bun did not have very strong voices, and, besides,
though they were not far from one part of the shore, it was quite a
distance to Cousin Tom's house, where their father and mother were at
that moment. Also, the wind was blowing their voices away, and over
toward the other shore of Clam River, where at this time no one lived.
But the two little Bunkers did not know this, and they kept on calling
for their mother or father to come to get them. But neither Daddy nor
Mother Bunker answered.
And the water kept on rising, for the tide was coming in fast, and it
was going to be high.
Now it happened, just about this time, that Mr. Oscar Burnett, the
lobster fisherman, was coming up the inlet in his motor-boat. He had
been out to sea to lift his lobster-pots and he had been waiting at the
entrance of Clam River for the tide to make the water deep enough for
him to come up. On days when the tide was not so low he could come up
all right, even at "slack water." But this time the channel was not deep
enough for his motor-boat and he had to wait.
And as he puffed up, steering this way and that so as not to run on
sand bars, he heard, faintly, the cries of Margy and Mun Bun.
Having good ears, and knowing the cries must be near him, Mr. Burnett
looked about.
He saw the place where the island was now almost hidden from sight
because of the rising waters, and he saw the two children, Margy and Mun
Bun, standing there, their arms around each other, crying for help, and
also crying real tears. For they were very much frightened.
"Well, I swan to goodness!" exclaimed the lobster fisherman. "There's
those two children again, and this time they're marooned 'stead of being
adrift! Yes, sir! They're marooned!"
I used that word once before and I forgot to tell you what it means, so
I'll do so now. It means, in sailor talk, being left alone on an island
without any way of getting off. Sometimes pirates used to capture ships,
take off the passengers and set them on an island without leaving a
boat. And the poor passengers were marooned. They could no more get off
than could Margy and Mun Bun.
"Marooned! That's what they are!" said Mr. Burnett. "I'll have to go
over and get 'em, just as I got 'em when they drifted down the inlet in
the boat. I never saw such children for getting into trouble!"
Not that Mr. Burnett thought it was too much trouble to go and get Margy
and Mun Bun off the island where they were marooned. Instead, he was
very glad to do it, for he loved children. So he steered his motor-boat
over toward what was left of the island--which was very little now, as
the tide was still rising. Then the lobster fisherman called:
"Don't be afraid, Mun Bun and Margy! I'll soon get you! Don't be afraid.
Just stand still and don't wade off into the deep water."
[Illustration: "DON'T BE AFRAID! I'LL SOON GET YOU!" SAID MR. BURNETT.
_Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's._--_Page 174_]
The island was shaped like a little hill, high in the middle, and Margy
and Mun Bun had kept stepping back until they now stood on the highest
part in the middle.
All about them was the water, deeper in some places than in others. And
you may be sure that the little boy and his sister did not try to get
off the high spot. There the water was only over their feet, but if
they stayed there much longer it might cover their heads.
However no such dreadful thing happened, for Mr. Burnett steered his
boat up to them until it grounded in the sand of the island that was now
under water.
"Now you're all right!" said the kind man. He shut off his motor and
jumped over the side of the boat. Right into the water he stepped, but
as he had on high rubber boots he did not get his feet wet.
Mr. Burnett picked up Margy and set her down in his boat.
"Oh, look at the big lobsters!" cried the little girl. "Will they pinch
me?"
Well might she ask that question, for the bottom of the boat was filled
with lobsters with big claws, some of which were moving about, the
pinching parts opening and shutting.
"They won't hurt you," said Mr. Burnett with a laugh. "Just keep up on
the seat, Margy, and you won't get pinched."
The seats in the lobster boat were broad and high, and on one of them
Margy and Mun Bun, who was soon lifted off the island to her side, were
safe from the lobsters, which Mr. Burnett had taken from his pots, some
miles out at sea.
"How did you come to go on the island when the tide was rising?" asked
the fisherman, as he started his boat once more.
"The water was low, and we waded out barefoot," explained Margy.
"We were goin' to dig clams," added Mun Bun.
"But we couldn't find any," continued Margy. "And then when we went to
wade back home the water got deep and we were afraid."
"I should think you would be!" replied the lobster fisherman. "Well, I'm
glad I heard you call. It wouldn't be very nice on your island now."
The children looked back. Their island was out of sight. It was
"submerged," as a sailor would say, meaning that it was under the water.
For the tide had risen and covered it.
"Will you take us home?" asked Margy.
"That's what I will," said the lobster fisherman. "I'll take you right
up to Mr. Bunker's pier. I guess your folks don't know where you are,
nor what trouble you might have been in if I hadn't come along just when
I did."
And this was true, for neither Daddy nor Mother Bunker, nor Cousin Tom
nor his wife, nor any of the other little Bunkers had heard the cries of
Mun Bun and Margy.
But as the motor-boat went puffing up to the little wharf the noise it
made was heard by Mr. and Mrs. Bunker, who ran down from the cottage to
see it, as they wanted to buy a fresh lobster and they had been told
that Mr. Burnett might soon come back from having gone to lift his pots.
"Well, I had pretty good luck to-day," said the old fisherman, as he
stopped his boat at the pier, and pointed to Margy and Mun Bun. "See
what I caught!"
"Margy!" cried her mother, in great surprise.
"Mun Bun!" exclaimed the little boy's father.
"Did you go out in a boat again?" asked Mrs. Bunker.
"Oh, no'm, we didn't do that!" said Mun Bun quickly.
"We just waded over to the little island," said Margy. "But somebody
poured water in the river, and it got high and we couldn't wade back
again."
"They were marooned in the middle of Clam River for a fact! That's what
they were!" said Mr. Burnett. "But I heard 'em yell, and I took 'em off.
Here they are."
"You must never wade out like that again," said the father of Mun Bun
and Margy. "This river isn't like ours at home. An island there is
always an island, unless floods come, and you know about them. There is
a tide here twice a day and what may seem a safe bit of sand on which to
play at one time may be covered with water at another. So don't go
wading unless you ask your mother or me first."
"We won't," promised Mun Bun and Margy.
Then Mr. Bunker thanked Mr. Burnett and after the lobster had been
bought the fisherman puffed away in his boat, waving a good-bye to the
children he had saved from being marooned on the island.
Mun Bun and Margy had to tell their story over again several times and
they had to answer many questions from their brothers and sisters, about
how they felt when they saw the water coming up.
Of course the two smallest of the six little Bunkers had been in some
danger, though if Mr. Burnett had not seen them and rescued them, some
one else might have done so. But it taught all the little Bunkers a
lesson about the dangers of the rising tide, and if any of you ever go
to the seashore I hope you will be careful. If you live at the shore, of
course you know about the tides.
As the August days went on, the children played in the sand and had many
good times. Often they would pretend to be digging for gold, as they had
heard Sammie Brown tell of his father having done, but they had given up
hoping to find any.
"But we might find my locket," said Rose.
"And we might find that queer box the tide washed away before we could
see what was in it," said Russ. "I wish we could find that."
Often he would walk along the beach looking at the driftwood and other
things cast up by the waves and hope for a sight of the mysterious box.
"If we'd only seen what was in it we wouldn't feel so bad," said Rose.
"But it's like a puzzle you never can guess."
One evening Daddy Bunker came home from the village with some round tin
boxes.
"What's in 'em?" cried Violet, always the first to ask a question.
"Let's guess!" proposed Laddie. "Maybe I can make up a riddle about
'em."
"I know what's in them," said Russ. "I can read it on the box. It's
marshmallow candies."
"Oh, are we going to have a marshmallow roast on the beach?" cried Rose.
"Yes, that's what we are going to have," her father said.
"Oh, hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" cried the six little Bunkers.