OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS
How busy the six little Bunkers were on the next day you can easily
imagine. Such a packing of bags and steamer trunks! Though of course
Mother Bunker did most of that, although Rose helped some. And such a
running about the bedrooms and upper halls of Aunt Jo's house asking if
this thing shouldn't be put in, or that thing shouldn't be left out!
The little people could think of more articles that might be needed down
South than ten grown-ups could imagine! Laddie was sure they would need
their bathing suits that they had had at Captain Ben's. Mun Bun, who had
been playing with Margy in the yard making big snowballs, came in to ask
his mother if they couldn't take just one of the biggest snowballs with
them in one of the trunks, because Sam, the colored boy, said there
wouldn't be any snow down South.
"But, my dear!" exclaimed Mother Bunker, laughing, "we are going down
South just to escape the snow and the cold. Why carry it with us?"
"But maybe the little boys and girls down there will want to see some
real snow," said Mun Bun, who could almost always find an answer for any
question like this.
"Then they will have to come up North to see it," declared his mother
decidedly. "We cannot take snow along on the boat, that is sure."
Violet found at least a hundred brand new questions to ask about the
preparations for the trip. Mother Bunker finally called her a
"chatterbox" and begged her to stop.
"How do you suppose I can attend to a dozen different things at once,
Violet, and answer your questions, too?"
"Never mind the things, Mother," Vi replied. "Just tell me----"
"Not another question!" exclaimed Mother Bunker. "Stop it!"
And then she put out her hand for something to put in the trunk she was
packing, and actually squealed when her hand unexpectedly met Alexis's
cold, damp nose.
"Goodness me!" cried Mother Bunker. "That dog is a nuisance. That is the
third time, at least, that I have tried to pack his nose in this trunk.
Every time I reach out for something he thinks I want to pet him."
This delighted Margy and Mun Bun very much. The idea of packing the
great Dane in a steamer trunk was really quite ridiculous. Violet did
not venture any more questions immediately however; but Laddie suddenly
broke out with a new riddle.
"Oh, Mother! Mother!" he cried. "Do you know the difference between a
dog and an elephant?"
"I should hope so!" Mother Bunker said, chuckling. "But I suppose you
want me to give the riddle up so that you can have the pleasure of
telling me what the difference is between Alexis and an elephant."
"Not just Alexis; any dog," urged Laddie. "And, of course, it would be
real polite of you if you said you didn't know," added the little boy.
"Very well; what is the difference between an elephant and a dog,
Laddie?"
"Why," cried Laddie very eagerly, "an elephant owns a trunk of his very
own; and a dog only wants to get into a trunk. There now!"
"But all dogs don't want to get into trunks," objected Vi. "Do they? Do
they, now, Mother?"
"I am afraid Laddie's riddle is not as good as some he makes up," said
Mother Bunker. "For you know, dogs have trunks as well as elephants."
Her eyes twinkled as she said it, for she knew she was going to puzzle
her little brood. At once they all broke out with questions and
exclamations. How could that be? They had seen, as Vi said, "oceans of
dogs" and none of them had had a nose long enough to be called a trunk,
like the elephants they had seen at the circus.
"Mother is just puzzling us," Laddie said. "How can a dog have a trunk
when his nose is short and blunt? At least, most dogs' noses are short
and blunt."
"Each dog has a trunk nevertheless," declared Mother Bunker,
laughing. "And so have you, and so have I."
"I have a suitcase," announced Mun Bun gravely. "I don't have a trunk."
Mother Bunker swept Mun Bun into her arms then and kissed his chubby
neck.
"Of course you have a trunk, honey-boy," she cried. "All your little
body between your shoulders and your legs is your trunk. So you all have
trunks, and so do the dogs."
The children laughed delightedly at this, but Laddie suddenly stopped
laughing.
"Why!" he cried out in great glee, "then the elephant, Mother, has two
trunks. I guess I can make a _good_ riddle out of that, can't I?"
Russ and Rose took Alexis downstairs after that so that he would not be
in the way. They wanted to see Sam again, anyway. And they asked him to
dance for them.
"I'm going to learn how to cut that pigeon wing," Russ declared. "You do
it again, please, Sam. I ought to be able to learn it if I see you do it
often enough."
However, Russ did not succeed in this ambition. There really was not
time for him to learn the trick, for the next morning, very early, the
Bunker family started for the boat. The snowstorm had long since ceased,
and the streets had been cleaned. William had recovered from his attack
of neuralgia and drove them in the big closed car to the dock where the
_Kammerboy_ lay.
[Illustration: IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS.
_Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes._ _Page_ 46]
It was a great white steamer with three smoke stacks and a wireless
mast. There was so much to see when they first went aboard that the six
little Bunkers could not possibly observe everything with only two eyes
apiece! They wanted to be down in the saloon and in the staterooms that
Daddy Bunker had engaged and out on the deck all at the same time. And
how were they to do that?
Russ and Rose, however, were allowed to go out on deck and watch the
ship get out of the dock and steam down the harbor. But Mother Bunker at
first kept the four smaller children close to her side.
"I never knew Boston was so big," said Rose, as they looked back at the
smoky city. "I guess Aunt Jo never showed us all of it, did she, Russ?"
"I don't suppose if we lived there a whole year we should be able to
see it all," declared her brother wisely. "Maybe we could see it better
from an airplane. I'd like to go up in an airplane."
"No, no! Don't do that, Russ! Maybe the engine would get stalled like
the motor-car engine does, and then you couldn't get down," said Rose,
very much worried by this thought.
"Well, we could see the city better."
"We can see it pretty well from here," said Rose. "And see the islands.
There is a lighthouse, Russ. Would you like to live in a lighthouse?"
"Yes, I would, for a while," agreed her brother. "But I'd rather be
right on this boat, sailing out into the ocean. Just think, Rose! We've
never been away out at sea before."
"There was lots of ocean at Captain Ben's," said the girl. "I suppose
the ocean is all the same everywhere. Just water. I hope it stays flat."
"Stays flat?" repeated Russ, opening his eyes very wide.
"Yes," said Rose gravely. "I don't like water when it's bumpy. It makes
me feel funny in my stomach when it's that way."
"Oh! It won't be rough," said Russ, with much assurance. "I heard Daddy
say we were going to sail into summer seas. And that must be warm and
pleasant water. Don't you think so?"
Rose was looking over the rail now. She pointed.
"That doesn't look as though the water was warm," she cried. "See the
lumps of ice, Russ? It must be ice water. Where do you suppose the
summer seas are?"
"We are going to them," declared her brother with confidence. "Daddy
said so. He said we would go out to a place he called the Gulf Stream
and that the water would be warm there and the air would be warmer,
too."
"What do you think of that?" gasped Rose. "A stream in an ocean? I guess
he was joking."
"Oh, no, he wasn't. He said it real serious. He told Aunt Jo about it."
"But how can a stream--that means a river--be running in the ocean?
There wouldn't be any banks!" declared the doubtful Rose.
"Let's go and ask him about it," suggested Russ. "And we'll want to keep
on the lookout for that Gulf Stream too. I wouldn't want to go past it
without seeing it."
They were just about to hunt for Daddy Bunker in the crowd on deck when
Laddie came running to them. He was very much excited and he could
hardly speak when he reached his older brother and sister.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped the smaller boy.
"What is the matter, Laddie?" demanded Russ.
"If it is another riddle, Laddie, take your time. We'll stop and listen
to it."
"It isn't a riddle--Yes, it is, too! I guess it's a sort of riddle,
anyway," said Laddie. "Have you seen him?"
"That sounds like a riddle," said Rose. "And of course we haven't seen
him. What is the answer?"
"Who is it that you are asking your riddle about?" demanded Russ.
"Mun Bun," declared Laddie, breathing very hard, for he had run all the
way from the stateroom.
"Mun Bun isn't a riddle," said his sister. "He can't be."
"Well, he's lost," declared Laddie. "We can't find him. He was there one
minute, and just the next he was gone. And Mother can't find him, and
Vi's gone to hunt for Daddy, and--and--anyhow, Mun Bun has lost himself
and we don't any of us know what has become of him."