Transcriber’s Note
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[Illustration: THE HAY SLIPPED OFF ALONG WITH THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
AND ADAM.
_Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s._ _Frontispiece_—(_Page 152_)
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS
AT FARMER JOEL’S
BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF “SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL’S,”
“SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE’S,” “THE
BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES,” “THE BUNNY BROWN
SERIES,” “THE MAKE BELIEVE SERIES,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
WALTER S. ROGERS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
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
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN’S
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK’S
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE’S
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL’S
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 SUE 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
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG
THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
(Sixteen Titles)
THE MAKE BELIEVE SERIES
(Twelve Titles)
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
(Thirteen Titles)
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Copyright, 1923, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. RUSS IN DANGER 1
II. A LOAD OF FLOWERS 13
III. THE SECRET 24
IV. WHERE IS LADDIE? 36
V. OFF TO THE FARM 44
VI. SOMETHING IN THE STRAW 54
VII. AT FARMER JOEL’S 64
VIII. IN THE HAY 74
IX. WHEN THE COWS CAME HOME 85
X. BUZZING BEES 97
XI. MUN BUN’S GARDEN 106
XII. A STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE 118
XIII. THE SHOE-LACE BOY 128
XIV. THE SHORTCAKE COMES BACK 136
XV. AN EXCITING RIDE 147
XVI. OFF ON A PICNIC 155
XVII. THE ICE CAVE 163
XVIII. A BIG SPLASH 172
XIX. A FIGHT 184
XX. YELLOW AND WHITE 192
XXI. A MAD BULL 201
XXII. AFTER WILD FLOWERS 208
XXIII. A MEAN BOY 220
XXIV. STUNG 229
XXV. THE HONEY TREE 236
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL’S
CHAPTER I
RUSS IN DANGER
“Margy, will you look out on the porch and see if she’s there?”
“Yes, Vi, I will. But you ought to say please to me, ’cause mother
says——”
“All right then. _Please_ look and see if she’s there,” begged Vi,
otherwise Violet Bunker. There were six of the little Bunkers. The
other four will be out presently.
Margy, who had been looking at picture books with her year-older sister
in a room off the porch, kindly dropped her book and started for the
door.
“If she’s there bring her in—_please_.” Violet laughed a little as she
added the last word. She remembered what Margy had started to say
about politeness.
Violet was piling up the books, for she had just thought of something
new to play, when Margy came hurrying back into the room.
“She isn’t there!” gasped the smaller Bunker girl.
“She isn’t?” Violet fairly gasped out the words, and you could easily
tell that she was very much excited. “Are you sure, Margy?”
“No, she isn’t there, Vi! Maybe a tramp has taken her!”
“Oh!” cried Violet, in such a loud voice that Mrs. Bunker, having heard
part of the talk, came quickly from the room where she had been sewing.
“Who’s gone?” demanded the mother of the six little Bunkers. “Don’t
tell me Mun Bun is lost again!”
Mun Bun was the youngest of the six little Bunkers. His real name was
Munroe Ford Bunker, but that was entirely too long for the little
fellow, so he was called “Mun Bun.” It was a name he had made up for
himself.
“Where is Mun Bun? Is he lost again?” asked Mrs. Bunker, starting to
take off her apron to go in search of the “little tyke,” as she often
called him, for he certainly did get into mischief very many times.
“Mun Bun isn’t lost,” answered Violet, as she hurried out on the porch
with Margy. “He’s out in the yard with Laddie, digging a hole.”
“An’ he says he’s going to dig down to China,” added Margy.
“And I just put clean bloomers on him!” sighed Mrs. Bunker. “But who is
gone?” she asked again. “It can’t be Rose or Russ—they’re too old to be
taken by a tramp!”
There, now you have heard the names of all six of the little Bunkers,
though Russ, being nearly ten, I think, wouldn’t like to be called
“little.”
“No, it isn’t Russ or Rose,” said Margy. “I saw them going down the
street. Maybe they’re going to daddy’s office to ask him for some money
to buy candy.”
“Oh, they mustn’t do that!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. “This is the first
of the month and daddy is very busy. They shouldn’t have gone there.
Are you sure, Margy?”
“Oh, they didn’t zactly _say_ they were going there,” announced Margy.
“But I thought maybe——”
“You mustn’t tell things you aren’t sure of,” said her mother. “But who
is——”
“Mother, why is daddy so busy the first of the month?” asked Vi,
forgetting for the moment all about what she had sent Margy to look
for. Violet Bunker was, as her father said, “a great girl for asking
questions.” Her mother knew this, and, fearing that Vi would get
started on a list of inquiries that would take some time to answer,
Mrs. Bunker said:
“Now don’t begin that, Vi, dear. I’ll answer just this one question,
but not any more. Your father is busy the first of the month more than
at other times because tenants pay their rents then, and he collects
the rents for a large number of people. That’s one thing a real estate
dealer, like your father, does. Now, don’t ask another question!” she
commanded, for she saw that Vi was getting ready, as Russ would say,
“to spring another.”
“I wasn’t going to ask a question,” said Vi, looking a little hurt in
her feelings. “I was going to say——”
“Wait until I find out what’s happened first,” broke in Mrs. Bunker.
“Who is missing? It can’t be any of you, for you’re all present or
accounted for, as they say in the army. Who is——”
“It’s Esmeralda!” exclaimed Violet. “I had her out on the porch playing
with Margy. Then we went in to look at the picture books, and I forgot
about Esmeralda and——”
“Russ says her name ought to be Measles ’cause she’s all spotted,” put
in Margy, with a shake of her dark, tousled hair. “But it’s only spots
of dirt.”
“Come on,” demanded Vi of Margy, taking her younger sister by the hand.
“We’ve got to find Esmeralda!”
“Oh, it’s your doll!” remarked Mrs. Bunker, with a sigh of relief. “I
thought one of you children was missing. I had quite a start. It’s only
your doll. That’s different.”
“Esmeralda is my _child_, even if she is _only_ a _doll_,” and Vi
marched away with Margy, her head held up proudly.
“Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t want to find your
missing play child,” called Mrs. Bunker quickly, for she realized that
a little girl’s feelings might be hurt by a slighting remark about even
a dirty and spotted doll. “I only meant that I was glad none of you
children was missing. I’ll help you look for Esmeralda.”
“She isn’t out on the porch. I looked,” said Margy.
“We left her there, didn’t we?” asked Vi, for sometimes there was so
much going on at the Bunker house that to remember where one of the
many dolls or other playthings was left became a task.
“Yes, we left Esmeralda out on the porch,” agreed Margy. “But she isn’t
there now. I looked. She’s—she’s gone!”
Margy felt almost as sad over the loss as did Vi, though Esmeralda, or
“Measles,” as Russ called her, belonged particularly to Violet.
“Do you s’pose a tramp would take my doll, Mother?” asked Violet, for
Mrs. Bunker was now walking toward the side porch with her two little
girls.
“No, my dear, I don’t believe so,” was the answer. “What would a tramp
want with a doll?”
This puzzled Vi for a moment, but she quickly had ready a reply.
“He—he might want to give her to his little girl,” Vi said.
“Tramps, as a rule, don’t have little girls,” remarked Mrs. Bunker. “If
they had they wouldn’t be tramps.”
This gave Vi a chance to ask another question. Eagerly she had it ready.
“Why don’t tramps have little girls?” she inquired of her mother. “Do
they run away? I mean do the little girls run away?”
“No, that isn’t the reason,” and Mrs. Bunker tried not to smile at Vi’s
eagerness. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. But show me where
you left your doll,” she added, as they reached the shady side porch.
“Esmeralda certainly isn’t here,” for a look around showed no doll in
sight.
“Oh, where can she be?” gasped Vi, now on the verge of tears. Margy,
seeing how her sister was affected, was also getting ready to weep, but
just then a merry whistle was heard around the corner of the house. It
was the merry whistle of a happy boy.
“Here comes Russ!” exclaimed Violet, for she knew her oldest brother’s
habit of being tuneful. “He’ll help me look for Esmeralda.”
“Maybe he took her,” suggested Margy.
“No. If he did he wouldn’t be coming back whistling,” decided Vi.
Russ Bunker, next to his father the “man” of the family, swung around
the path at the side of the house. Following him was Rose, his sister,
a year younger, a pretty girl, with light, fluffy hair. And, very
often, Rose had a merry song on her lips. But as Russ was now whistling
Rose could not sing. She always said Russ whistled “out of tune,” but
Russ declared it was her singing that was off key.
“Oh, Russ!” exclaimed his mother, “you didn’t go to daddy’s office and
bother him to-day, did you, when it’s the first of the month? And he is
so busy——”
“No, Mother, I wasn’t at daddy’s office,” Russ answered. “Rose and I
just went to the store for some nails. I’m making a seesaw, and——”
“Oh, can I be on it?” begged Margy. “I love to teeter-totter! Please,
Russ, can’t I——”
“I want a ride, too!” put in Vi.
“All right! All right!” agreed Russ, with a laugh. “You can all have
rides—Mun Bun and Laddie too—as soon as I get it made. But it’s a lot
of work and it’s got to be done right and——”
Russ paused. He could see that something was wrong, as he said
afterward. Russ was a quick thinker. Also he was always making things
about the house. These were mostly things with which to play and have
a good time, though once he built a bench for his mother. The only
trouble was that he didn’t make the legs strong enough, and when Norah
O’Grady, the cook, set a tub of water on the bench the legs caved in
and there was a “mess” in the kitchen.
“Has anything happened?” asked Russ, for he could see that his mother
and his two small sisters had come out on the porch with some special
idea in mind.
“Violet’s doll is gone,” explained Mrs. Bunker. “She left it on the
porch, and she feels sad over losing it. If you know anything about
it, Russ——”
“You mean that old Measles doll?” asked the oldest Bunker boy, laughing.
“She hasn’t the measles at all—so there!” and Violet stamped her foot
on the porch.
“Well, she looks so—all spotted,” added Russ, with another laugh.
Then, as he saw that Violet was ready to cry and that Margy was going
to follow with tears, Russ added: “I guess I know where your doll is.
Henry Miller just told me——”
“Oh, did he take her?” cried Violet. “If he did I’ll never speak to him
again and——”
“Now, wait a minute!” advised Russ. “You girls always get so excited!
I didn’t say Henry took your doll. I just met him and he said he saw a
dog running out of our yard with something in his mouth. Maybe it was
the dog that took your doll, Violet.”
“Oh! Oh!” cried the little girl, and she was now sobbing in real
earnest.
“Oh, the dog will eat up Esmeralda!” and Margy added her tears to those
of Violet.
“I’ll go down the street and look for her,” quickly offered Russ. He
was a kind boy that way. Of course he didn’t care for dolls, and he
was anxious to start making the seesaw, nails for which he and Rose had
gone after. But Russ was willing to give up his own pleasure to help
his little sister.
“I’ll get your doll,” he said. “I guess that dog wouldn’t carry her far
after he found out she wasn’t a bone or something good to eat.”
“She—she—she’s a nice doll, anyhow, so there!” sobbed Violet. “An’—an’
I—I want her!”
“I guess I can find her,” offered Russ. “Here, Rose, you hold the
nails.”
Russ started on a run toward the front gate. Mrs. Bunker and the three
girls followed. As yet Laddie and Mun Bun had not heard the excitement
over the missing doll, for they were still in the back yard, “digging
down to China.”
Russ reached the gate, looked down the road in the direction Henry
Miller had told him the dog had run with something in its mouth, and
then Russ cried:
“I see her! I see your doll, Vi! The dog dropped her in the street!
I’ll get her for you.”
Russ started on the run toward a small object lying in the dust of the
road. Before Russ could reach the doll a big automobile truck swung
around the corner and came straight for poor Esmeralda.
“Oh, she’ll be run over!” screamed Violet. “My child!”
But Russ had also seen the truck and, knowing there would be little
left of the doll if one of the heavy wheels went over her, he ran
a little faster and darted directly in front of the big lumbering,
thundering automobile.
“Russ! Russ! Be careful!” called his mother.
“Look out there, youngster!” yelled the man who was driving the truck.
On came the heavy automobile, bearing down on Russ who was now in the
middle of the street, stooping over to pick up Esmeralda.