SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
AT GRANDMA BELL'S
BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF "THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES," "THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES," "THE
OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS
By LAURA LEE HOPE
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents per volume._
=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
=THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES=
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 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 SUB 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
=THE OUTDOOR GIRL SERIES=
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
* * * * *
=GROSSET & DUNLAP=, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
* * * * *
Copyright, 1918, by GROSSET & DUNLAP
* * * * *
_Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's_
[Illustration: THEY SAW HIM LIFT FROM THE WATER A BIG FISH.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ALL UPSET 1
II. DADDY BUNKER'S WORRY 11
III. GRANDMA'S LETTER 22
IV. FOURTH OF JULY 32
V. THE TRAMP 42
VI. MUN BUN'S BALLOON 52
VII. LADDIE'S NEW RIDDLE 63
VIII. "WHERE IS MARGY?" 72
IX. ROSE'S DOLL 82
X. THE WRONG DADDY 92
XI. THE FUNNY VOICE 100
XII. RUSS COULDN'T STOP 109
XIII. THE RED-HAIRED MAN 121
XIV. THE DOLL'S BUTTONS 129
XV. LADDIE'S QUEER RIDE 139
XVI. MUN BUN SEES SOMETHING 150
XVII. A RED COAT 160
XVIII. LADDIE AND THE SUGAR 170
XIX. DOWN IN THE WELL 179
XX. THE DOG-CART 190
XXI. RUSS HEARS NEWS 197
XXII. OFF ON A TRIP 208
XXIII. THE LUMBERMAN'S CABIN 216
XXIV. THE OLD COAT 226
XXV. "HURRAY!" 236
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S
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 snatched 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!'"
"All right then. Toot! Toot!" cried Vi, and Margy and Mun, who had climbed
up together in a single chair beside Vi, began to laugh.
"I know another riddle," announced Laddie, as he took his place inside the
barrel, for he was going to be the fireman, and, of course, they always
rode away down inside the steamboat. "I know a nice riddle about a horse,"
went on Laddie. "What makes a horse's shoes different from ours?" he
asked.
"Oh, we haven't time to bother with riddles now, Laddie," said Rose. "You
can tell us some other time. We're going to make-believe steamboat a long
way across the deep water now."
"A horse's shoes aren't like ours 'cause a horse doesn't wear
stockings--that's the answer," went on Laddie.
"All aboard!" cried Russ again.
"All aboard!" repeated Laddie.
"Oh, let's sing!" suddenly said Rose. She was a jolly little girl and had
learned many simple songs at school.
"Let's sing about sailing o'er the dark blue sea," went on Rose. "It's an
awful nice song, and I know five verses."
"We'll sing it after a while," returned Russ. "We got to get started now.
All ready, fireman!" he called to Laddie, who was inside the barrel.
"Start the steam going. I'm going to steer the boat," and Russ took his
place astride the front end of the barrel, and began twisting on a stick
he had stuck down in one of the cracks. The stick, you understand, was the
steering-wheel, even if it didn't look like one.
"All aboard! Here we go!" cried Laddie from down inside the barrel, and he
began to hiss like steam coming from a pipe. Then he began to rock to and
fro, so that the barrel rolled from side to side.
"Here! What're you doing that for?" demanded Russ from up on top. "'You're
jiggling me off! Stop it! What're you doing, Laddie?"
"I'm making the steamboat go!" was the answer. "We're out on the rough
ocean and the steamboat's got to rock! Look at her rock!" and he swung the
barrel to and fro faster than ever.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Rose. "It's all coming apart! Look! Oh, dear! The barrel's
all coming apart!"
And that's just what happened! In another moment the barrel on which Russ
sat fell apart, and with a clatter and clash of staves he toppled in on
Laddie. Then the chairs, behind the barrel, where Rose, Vi and Margy and
Mun were sitting, toppled over. In another instant the whole steamboat
load of children was all upset in the middle of the playroom floor, having
made a crash that sounded throughout the house.