CAVALLO AT LAST
The man with the earrings led the twins over the other track so that
they would be sufficiently far from the train. To his surprise the
engine began to slow down, the engineer and fireman waved their hands as
they leaned out of the window and door of the cab, and by and by the
train rumbled to a stop.
"That looks just like our train," Laddie announced confidently. "Only
ours was traveling on this nearer track. Maybe the two trains were
racing and our train got ahead in spite of the washout."
Vi stuck to her subject. She scarcely looked at the train when it first
stopped. Her gaze was fastened upon the flagman who had showed such
anxiety for her safety and that of Laddie.
"Say, please, Mister," she continued to ask, "what makes you wear
earrings?"
A Pullman coach had halted just opposite the spot where the twins and
the flagman stood. They saw several people at two of the windows, waving
to them. Then Russ Bunker popped out of the front door of the car and
down the steps.
"Look! Look! Here they are!" Russ shouted, as he ran toward his brother
and sister and the man who wore earrings.
"Why, Russ Bunker!" ejaculated Vi, "how did you come on that train? Were
you left behind, too?"
"Come on! Hurry up!" the oldest Bunker boy replied. "This is our train.
And the engineer will stop only a minute. Do you know, it costs three
dollars and thirty-three and a third cents every time the train stops?
The brakeman told me so."
"Why does it cost that much?" demanded Vi, forgetting the Italian
flagman and his earrings, as Russ hurried her toward the car steps. "Are
you sure about the third of a cent, Russ?"
Laddie looked back and waved his hand to the man who wore earrings.
"Good-bye!" he called to the man.
"Good-a-bye!" cried the flagman in return, smiling very broadly.
"Good-a-bye!"
"Why does he talk so funny?" asked Vi, panting, as Russ helped her up
the car steps and into the vestibule.
"He talks broken English," said Russ in return. "Come on, Laddie."
Vi remembered that answer, and later, when she was helping Laddie relate
the story of their adventure to Mother Bunker and daddy and the other
children, she declared that the man with the earrings was "a broken
Englishman," and would have it that Russ told her so.
It had been a very exciting time, both for the twins when they were lost
and for the rest of the family on the train. Vi and Laddie could not
stop talking about it. And, really, it had been a very important
adventure in their small experience.
"That man with the earrings thought he knew us, too," Vi said finally.
"Of course he didn't know you," Rose observed.
"He thought we were Mrs. Bam--Bam---- Laddie, whose little boy and girl
did that man think we were?"
Laddie did not understand her question at first; but finally he realized
what Vi meant.
"Oh, I know! 'Bambinoes.' That was the name. He asked us about our being
called 'Bambinoes.'"
"Oh, dear me!" laughed Mother Bunker. "That was his way of saying
'babies.' He called you babies in his mixture of languages."
"Is that the broken English for little boy and little girl?" scoffed Vi.
"I guess that man doesn't know very much, even if he _does_ wear
earrings."
There was quite a celebration over the return of Vi and Laddie to the
train, for the other passengers made a good deal of the two little lost
Bunkers. A lady and gentleman made a little party for them that
afternoon at their end of the car. There was milk bought in the buffet
car, and cakes. But Mun Bun declared he wanted ice-water. Nothing else
would satisfy his thirst.
The glasses brought from home were all in use at the time at the
"party"; so somebody had to go with Mun Bun to the ice-water tank at the
other end of the car and get him his drink.
"I'll go," said Margy. "I can reach the paper cups."
"Be careful and don't spill the water all over him," Mother Bunker said
to her, and the two smallest Bunkers went to the end of the car on that
errand.
Margy borrowed the porter's stool in the anteroom to climb up to the
rack where the waxed-paper cups were kept. Those cups pleased Mun Bun
greatly.
"Wouldn't they be nice to make dirt pies in, Margy?" suggested the
smallest Bunker longingly. "And puddings. If we only had 'em when we
were at home, wouldn't they be nice?"
"But we haven't any sand pile here," Margy pointed out. "So we can't
make dirt pies in them."
"We can fill them with water. There's lots of water. You push that
button again, Margy, and let some more water run."
"But you mustn't spill it on you. You know mother said you shouldn't,"
replied the little girl.
Margy was, however, quite as pleased with the wax-paper cups as Mun Bun
was. When one cup was full, Mun Bun took it and set it carefully down
on the floor. Then he reached for another. He actually forgot he was
thirsty he was so much interested in filling and stationing the cups in
a long line on the floor.
The porter had left his station in the anteroom and did not see what the
two children were doing. And the rest of the Bunker family were so much
engaged at the other end of the car they quite forgot Margy and Mun Bun
for the time being.
"Get another! Get another, Margy!" Mun Bun kept saying.
Margy reached down the cups until there was not another one in the rack.
And by that time the ice-water dripped very slowly from the faucet. The
tank was just about empty.
"I guess we have got it all, Mun Bun," said the little girl. "They are
all full."
"And I didn't spill a drop on me," declared the little boy virtuously.
"So mother will say I am a good boy, won't she?"
Just what Mrs. Bunker might have said had she come upon the little
mischief-makers we cannot know. For it was the colored porter who was
first to discover what the smallest Bunkers were doing. He came back
from the other end of the car, smiling broadly at Mun Bun and Margy
when he saw them. The two stood to one side and looked rather seriously
at the tall colored man. Somehow they felt that perhaps their play would
not entirely meet his approval.
Suddenly Mun Bun saw where the pleasant colored man was about to step.
He cried out:
"Oh, don't! Look out! All our puddin' dishes!"
"What's that, little boy?" demanded the porter.
"Look out! You'll splash----"
Margy tried to warn him too. But she was too late. The porter stepped
right into the first of the filled waxed-paper cups, and then went
plowing on, almost falling over them!
"My haid and body!" gasped the porter, stumbling on until he had
overturned and stepped on the complete array of waxed-paper cups. "What
you chilluns been a-doin' here, eh?"
"Now you spilled 'em," cried Mun Bun. "Look, Margy, how he's spilled
'em."
There could be no doubt of that fact. The passage was a-flood with
ice-water! The porter was sputtering, and the two children were
inclined to be somewhat tearful when Daddy Bunker came along to see what
they were up to.
"These yere pestiferous chilluns!" exclaimed the colored man, trying to
mop up the flood. "And dem cups was near 'nough to las' me clear to
Texas."
"All right--all right, Sam!" rejoined Daddy Bunker, giving the colored
man a generous tip. "You get some more cups and some more ice, and call
it square. I expect I'd better tie a halter to each one of my children
for the rest of the journey so as to keep track of them. I can't trust
them out of my sight any more."
It was not quite as bad as that, although daddy was really annoyed by
what Mun Bun and Margy had done. They were old enough to know mischief
from play, and he told them so. Mun Bun looked pretty sober when he got
back to the party.
"Aren't we going to get to that wanch-place pwetty soon, Muvver?" he
asked Mrs. Bunker. "'Cause if we ain't, I'd rather go back home. There
aren't any nice plays here on this train. And I'm tired of it."
"I suppose you are tired of it, dear," his mother said, taking him upon
her lap. "We are all pretty tired of it. But after another night's sleep
we shall be near our journey's end."
This news was eagerly received by all the little Bunkers. Even Russ and
Rose were tired of traveling by train. After a certain time, riding in
the steam cars grew very wearisome. The Bunker children were active by
nature, and Russ liked to build things. He missed the attic and the
woodshed at home.
The train rocked on into the Southwest, and while the children slept it
covered several hundred miles. After they got up and were washed and
dressed and had breakfasted, the bags were packed, for they did not
expect to open them again until they reached Cavallo.
They stared out of the windows, watching the prairie country slide past,
now and then passing small herds of cattle, as well as many little towns
at which the train did not halt.
"I suppose Cowboy Jack will come with ponies and we'll all have to ride
horseback," said Rose. "I don't know that I can stick on very well."
"You did at Uncle Fred's," Russ told her.
"But maybe I have forgotten how," his sister said doubtfully.
But Rose need not have worried about riding pony-back on this occasion.
When the train stopped at Cavallo and they all got out there were no
horses waiting for the Bunkers at all. The town did not look like a
cattle-shipping place. And there was not a cowboy in sight!