RUSS MAKES A FOUNTAIN
The six little Bunkers, as well as their father and mother, waited while
Aunt Jo went to answer the telephone, which kept on ringing as though in
a hurry. Vi had asked "Who's ringing?" but of course nobody could tell
her until Aunt Jo answered the call.
"Yes! What is it?" asked Aunt Jo into the mouthpiece of the instrument,
which stood on a table in the sitting-room. "Oh, it's you, is it, Mr.
North?" she went on. "What's that? Did we lose anything? No, not that I
know of. One of my little guests _found_ something, but I haven't heard
of anything being lost. Wait a minute, though, until I count noses. I'll
see if all the six little Bunkers are here. I might have missed one and
not know it."
Laughing, Aunt Jo turned from the telephone to look at the children.
They were all there, from Russ the oldest to Mun Bun the youngest. Then
Aunt Jo spoke again into the instrument.
"No, we haven't lost anything," she said. "Oh, you'll bring it over,
will you, Mr. North? Thank you!"
"Was it something about the pocketbook?" asked Rose eagerly.
"No, it was nothing like that," answered her aunt. "The gentleman who
telephoned was Mr. North, my next-door neighbor. He says he has
something belonging to one of you children, and he is going to bring it
right over. Did any of you leave out any of your toys when you were
playing in the yard?"
"I didn't," said Russ, and none of his brothers or sisters could think
of anything of theirs that was missing. In a few minutes the door bell
rang, and when this was answered, Mr. North brought in what seemed to be
a bundle of rags.
"Your dog Alexis brought this over and left it on my door mat," he said
to Aunt Jo.
"Oh, it's my doll Sue!" cried Rose, as she ran forward to take it. "I
forgot all about her. I left her to sleep on the porch in the sun so
she would get nice and tanned, as I do when I go to the seashore, and
then I went downtown with mother and I forgot all about her."
"Well, I'm glad to bring her back to you," said Mr. North with a smile.
"I guess I must have been holding her upside down," and so he had. That
was what made Sue look so like a bundle of rags. Really she was a nice
doll when she was held right side up.
"It's queer Alexis brought her to your house, instead of in here to me,"
said Aunt Jo.
"Oh, Alexis and I are great friends," said Mr. North. "He often brings
me my paper when the boy leaves it at the front gate instead of walking
up to the porch with it, and perhaps your dog might have thought this
was a paper, though a very large one," and Mr. North smiled at Rose.
Mr. North had been introduced to the six little Bunkers, and also to
Daddy and Mother Bunker, when he entered, and he stayed some little
time, talking with them, for he liked children, though all his were
grown into big boys and girls now.
"I found a pocketbook," said Rose, when she had got over her first bit
of shyness sufficiently to talk to the visitor.
"Did you, indeed? Well, you are lucky!" said Mr. North. Then he was told
about the sixty-five dollars, and shown the sad letter in the
pocketbook.
"We are going to put an advertisement in the paper," said Aunt Jo. "And
if you hear of any poor woman who has lost this sum of money, or read
about any in the paper, I wish you would tell us."
"I will," promised Mr. North. "Well, Rose, you have had quite an
experience almost as soon as you come to Boston. What are you children
going to do the rest of your stay here?"
"I'm afraid I won't know how to provide fun for so many of them," said
Aunt Jo. "I want them to have a good time, and remember their visit
pleasantly, but I have no toys for girls and boys----"
"That's just what I was going to speak about," said Mr. North. "There is
an express wagon in my barn, and an old velocipede, as well as a
coaster wagon. They used to belong to my youngsters, but they have
outgrown them. If the six little Bunkers would like to play with those
toys they are very welcome."
"That will be splendid!" cried Aunt Jo. "I was just wondering what I
could do to amuse Russ and the others, for I haven't any things that
children like, and we can't go on sight-seeing trips or excursions all
the while, though we will go on some. The toys you have, Mr. North, will
be just the thing."
And indeed they did prove so. The next day Russ and his brothers and
sisters went over to Mr. North's barn. It was an old-fashioned one, the
kind horses and carriages used to be kept in before there were
automobiles. Mr. North also had a garage for his cars, but the old barn
stood far back in his yard, which was a large one next to Aunt Jo's, and
in it were the velocipede, the express wagon, a coaster wagon and other
things with which to have fun.
"Oh, we can have jolly good times now!" cried Russ.
"And I can give my doll a ride, after Alexis carried her in his teeth,"
put in Rose.
"Can't we have rides, too?" asked Vi.
"'Course you can," answered Russ. "I'll give you a nice ride."
And then, while Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker went to a Red Cross meeting
and while Daddy Bunker went downtown to put an advertisement in the
paper about the pocketbook Rose had found, the children played around
Mr. North's barn and Aunt Jo's yard.
"Will it be all right to leave them while we go out?" asked Aunt Jo of
Mrs. Bunker.
"Oh, yes, as long as your man, William, and your cook, Parker, and your
housemaid, Anne, are around to sort of look after them. I often leave
them with our Norah and Jerry Simms."
So the six little Bunkers were left to themselves. And you can easily
imagine that they had all sorts of good times. There was a stone walk
around Aunt Jo's house, as well as around Mr. North's, and there Russ
and his brothers and sisters rode in the express wagon, on the
velocipede and on the coaster. They laughed and shouted, and every now
and then there would be an upset, but no one was hurt and they all
seemed to like it.
Now and then Parker or William or Anne would come out from the house or
the garage to look and see that the six little Bunkers were coming to no
harm, and when they found the children were all right they smiled, for
it was fun to watch them play.
"I know what we can do," said Russ to Laddie, after they had taken turns
riding on the velocipede and coaster. Just at this time Margy and Mun
Bun had the coaster and were playing steam-car with it.
"What can we do?" asked Laddie, always ready to have fun with his older
brother.
"We can make a harness for Alexis, and hitch him to the express wagon,"
went on Russ.
"Oh, that'll be lots of fun!" cried Laddie. "But what'll we make a
harness of? Aunt Jo hasn't any horses and Mr. North hasn't either."
"We can make it of string," said Russ. "It doesn't need to be very
strong, for we aren't very heavy to pull."
So Russ and Laddie begged pieces of string from Parker, not telling what
they were going to make.
"If it's a cat's cradle you have cord enough for a dozen," said the
good-natured cook, as she handed out the pieces of string she had saved
from the grocery packages.
"No, we're not going to make cats' cradles," answered Russ. "You can see
it when we get finished."
It was no very hard matter to catch Alexis and fasten a lot of pieces of
string around him, as nearly like a harness as the two little boys could
manage. The dog loved children, and asked nothing better than to be with
them. So he stood very still, just hanging his tongue out of his mouth,
as the day was hot, while Laddie and Russ tied the cord around him. Then
they fastened the ends to the express wagon, tying a number of knots.
"We've got to have lines to drive him with," said Laddie. "Else we can't
guide him the way we want him to go."
"Yes, I'll make some lines," said Russ. He tied two strings around the
neck of Alexis, one for the left-hand side and the other for the right.
"I can't put a bit in his mouth, as I could if he was a horse," said
Russ, "'cause Alexis holds his mouth open so much, to cool off his
tongue, that the bit would fall out."
"That's right," said Laddie. "Anyhow, we don't want a bit. Now can we
have a ride?"
"I guess so," said Russ.
There was quite a collection of strings tied around Alexis and made fast
to the little express wagon.
"We'll get in now," said Russ, when he had the cord reins in his hands,
"and we'll drive around the walk where Rose and Vi are playing with
their dolls," for the two girls were having a party, with cookies and
sugar water, which had been given to them by Parker.
Into the wagon got Russ and Laddie. Alexis, harnessed to the little
wagon, turned his head to look at them, as if to make sure they were all
right.
"Gid-dap!" called Russ, as he would to a horse.
"Bow-wow!" barked the dog, meaning, perhaps: "I will!"
Then he started to walk off.
Now, when I tell you that Alexis was a big, strong dog, and that Laddie
and Russ in the express wagon made quite a heavy load, and when I say
that the string harness was not very strong, you can easily imagine what
happened. Alexis had not taken more than two steps before----
Snap! went the string harness, and it broke in several places.
"Whoa! Whoa!" called Russ. "Whoa there, Alexis!"
But Alexis never "whoaed" a bit. He kept on walking, and he walked right
off with the bits of the string harness clinging to him, leaving the
express wagon with the two little boys in it on the walk at the side of
the house.
"Come on back and give us a ride!" called Laddie.
"I guess we'll have to make a stronger harness," said Russ with a laugh.
"I guess so, too," agreed Laddie.
Anyhow, Alexis didn't come back. Just outside Aunt Jo's fence he saw
another dog which he knew, and he ran up to have a "talk" with him, in
bow-wow language, of course.
"Well, we didn't get a ride," said Laddie.
"No," agreed Russ, "we didn't. But I know what else we can do."
"What?" asked Laddie.
Russ did not answer for a moment. He was looking at a shovel lying in
the back part of the yard, where William had been spading for a late
flower bed. Then Russ saw the hose with which the man had been washing
the automobile.
"We can make a fountain, Laddie!" exclaimed Russ.
"A fountain! How?"
"Come on, I'll show you!" said Russ.
Then he and his brother began to make a fountain. And I suppose you
wonder how they did it.