ROSE HAS AN IDEA
It was just like a nightmare, and both Margy and Mun Bun knew what
nightmares were. Those are dreams that, when you are "sleeping them,"
you get chased by something and your feet seem to stick in the mud so
that you can't run. It is a very frightful sort of dream. And this
adventure the little ones had got into was surely a frightful peril.
The hissing gander, his neck outstretched and his bill wide open,
followed the two children with every evidence of wishing to strike them.
His flapping wings were as powerful, it seemed, as those of the big
sea-eagle that had been caught aboard ship coming down from Boston, and
Mun Bun and Margy remembered that creature very vividly.
Others of the flock of geese came on, too. As long as the grains of corn
kept dropping from Margy's dish, the ravenous geese would follow, even
if they were not savage, as their leader was.
The chubby legs of the two children hardly kept them ahead of the
gander's bill. They shrieked at the top of their voices. But for once
none of the innumerable colored folks was in sight. Even their friend,
the gardener, had disappeared since Mun Bun and Margy had come down to
the goose pen.
"Help! Help us!" cried Margy, looking to the world in general to assist.
"Muvver! Muvver!" cried Mun Bun, who held an unshaken belief that Mother
Bunker must be always at hand and able to rescue him from any trouble.
Mun Bun thought he felt the cold, hard bill of the gander at his bare
legs. He ran so hard that he lost his breath, somewhere. He couldn't
even pant, and as for calling out for help again, that was impossible!
Margy dragged him on a few steps, for she was quite strong for a little
girl. But she knew that she was overtaken. There was no help for it. The
goosey-goosey-gander was going to eat them up!
But if no human being heard the two children in their distress, there
was a creature that did. Bobo, the big old hound, who was only chained
to his house at night or when Mr. Armatage did not want him following
the mules about the plantation, came out of his kennel and stared down
the hill. He observed the running and screaming children, and he
likewise saw the gander who was his old enemy. They had had many a tilt
before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock
meant mischief.
Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to
rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it
sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps.
Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him.
Margy's corn went spinning about her and the geese fairly scrambled over
the two crying children to get at the corn. Perhaps this helped Mun Bun
and his sister some, although they did not think so at the moment. At
least, while his family scrambled for the grains of corn the gander
could not get at the brother and sister to strike them.
And then great Bobo appeared. He bounded into the middle of the flock
and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his
muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he
lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any
more. He "honked" for help.
Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust
his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two
little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing
that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them.
"The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you
I wouldn't let him bite you."
Whether his sister was much impressed by this statement or not, is not
known. However that might be, she fondled Bobo and got upon her feet as
quickly as Mun Bun arose.
"Isn't he a good old dog?" cooed Margy.
"He's pretty good I think. But--but let's come away from that
goosey-goosey-gander."
Bobo gave a jump and a bark at the gander, and the latter, which had now
climbed to its webbed feet, scurried away, the flock following him. It
was then, while the two children were fondling Bobo, who liked to have
his long ears pulled by a gentle hand, that Russ and Rose Bunker came
upon the scene.
Russ and Rose had been down to the burned cabin and had brought away all
their letters to Sneezer Meiggs. If the colored boy had never learned to
read writing, there was no use in leaving the notices there. So Russ had
said, and Rose agreed with him.
"Oh, my dears!" Rose cried out when she saw the little ones so mussed up
and with tear-stained faces, "what has happened to you?"
"Don't be afraid of Bobo," said Russ, running too. "He won't hurt you."
"He hurted the goosey-goosey-gander," declared Mun Bun confidently. "He
dug his head under the goosey-goosey-gander and flunged him right over
on his back."
"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.
"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to
bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."
"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow,
flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."
"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo
saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing
at us now."
"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.
"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down
to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."
"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy
Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."
"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was
a teeny bit scared myself."
The children--all nine of them--spent much of their time in Mammy June's
room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping them interested and
quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother
Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.
Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad,
just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them.
Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to
relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what
they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and
how much she wanted to see him.
Russ and Rose Bunker were quite used to thinking things out for
themselves. Of course, there were times when Russ had to go to Daddy
Bunker for help and his sister had to confess to Mother Bunker that she
did not know what to do. For instance, that adventure of Russ's with the
sailor-boy aboard the steamship.
But this matter of helping Mammy June's son to find his mother, if by
chance he came back to the site of the burned cabin, was solely their
own affair, and Russ and Rose realized the fact.
"We ought to be able to do something about it ourselves," declared Russ
to his sister. "I'm going to ask Mammy June again if she is sure Sneezer
can't read a word of writing."
This he did. Mammy June shook her head somewhat sadly.
"Dat boy always have to wo'k," she said. "When first he went away he
sent me back money by mail. The man he wo'ked for sent it. Then Sneezer
losed his job. But he never learnt to read hand-writin'. Much as he
could do to spell out the big print on the front of the newspapers.
That's surely so!"
Rose suddenly thought of something--and perhaps it was not a foolish
idea at that.
"Oh, Mammy!" she cried, "can your boy read newspaper print?"
"Sure can. De big print. What yo' call de haidlines in big print. Sure
can."
"Oh!" murmured Rose, and she dragged Russ away to confer with him in
secret.