A STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Mrs. Bunker, seeing the group of children gathered about Mun Bun,
hurried across the garden to see what it was all about.
“I hope nothing has happened to him,” she said.
“Probably the worst that has happened is that he’s dirty and you’ll
have to scrub him before he can come to the supper table,” chuckled
Daddy Bunker.
“That wouldn’t be so bad,” replied his wife. “I’m used to dirt, and I
expect the children to get grimy. That will wash off.”
“I’ll walk over with you and see what it’s about. Something is going
on, that’s sure!” said Mr. Bunker.
Mr. and Mrs. Bunker found five little Bunkers grouped about the sixth,
and youngest, little Bunker.
“Oh, Mother, look what Mun Bun’s doing!” cried Violet.
“What is he doing?”
“He’s making the funniest kind of a bed in the garden!” laughed Rose.
“A bed!” cried Mr. Bunker. “I hope he isn’t going to sleep out here!”
“No, it’s a bed like a flower bed or a cabbage bed,” explained Russ.
“Only he’s planting——”
“Bones!” burst out Laddie. “Oh, I could make a funny riddle about it if
I could think of it.”
“Mun Bun, what in the world are you doing with those bones?” asked his
mother.
“Plantin’ ’em,” answered the little fellow coolly, as he dropped some
of the chicken bones into the hole he had dug and covered them with
earth.
“Why in the world are you planting bones?” asked his father.
“So more bones will grow,” answered Mun Bun, in a matter-of-fact way.
“Farmer man plants seeds to make things grow, an’ I plant bones so more
bones will grow.”
“Who for?” asked Russ.
“For Jimsie, the dog,” answered the little fellow. “Ralph said his dog
never had enough bones, so I’m going to plant bones and then more bones
will grow, an’ Jimsie can come over here an’ pick off the bones when
they’re ripe an’——”
“Oh, you dear, foolish little boy!” cried his mother, gathering him up
in her arms and kissing and hugging him, dirty as he was. “Don’t you
know bones don’t grow?” she asked.
“Oh, don’t they?” asked Mun Bun, in surprise.
“Of course not!” chimed in Russ. “Only seeds grow.”
“Um,” remarked Mun Bun, his face all rosy where his mother had kissed
him. “Den I plant to-morrer some bird seed.”
“Why bird seed?” asked Daddy Bunker.
“So some birds will grow,” Mun Bun answered.
Then how the other Bunkers laughed, especially Daddy and Mother Bunker
and Rose and Russ, for they saw what a mistake Mun Bun was making!
Margy, Laddie and Violet laughed also, but more because the others
did. And then Mun Bun laughed himself.
“I’m hungry!” he announced.
“Maybe if you plant a knife and fork and plate you’ll get something to
eat!” chuckled Russ.
They had many a good laugh over the queer garden bed Mun Bun made when
he thought that if you planted bones a plant would spring up with more
bones on for Jimsie, the dog. Then they all went in to supper.
“To-morrer,” said Mun Bun, as he was taken off to bed later in the
evening, “I’ll plant some flowers for Jimsie to smell.”
Early the next day Mrs. Bunker was seen in the kitchen with a sunbonnet
on, while on the table near her were a number of small baskets.
“Are we going on a picnic?” asked Russ, who came in to get a string to
fix something on the water wheel that he and Laddie were constantly
“fussing over,” as Norah called it.
“A sort of picnic,” answered his mother. “Farmer Joel told me about a
wild strawberry patch beyond his south meadow, and I thought we could
all go there and pick the berries. There is a basket for each of us
except daddy, who isn’t going, and if we get enough berries——”
“I’ll make a strawberry shortcake!” cried Rose. “Excuse me for
interrupting you, Mother,” she went on, for it was impolite to do
that. “But I just couldn’t wait. May I make a shortcake if we get any
berries?”
“Yes, I think so,” answered Mrs. Bunker. “Come, children,” she called
to the others who flocked into the kitchen, “we’ll have a good time
picking strawberries.”
“We’ll have a better time when we eat the shortcake,” laughed Russ.
“I know a riddle about a shortcake,” said Laddie, wrinkling up his
forehead. “I mean I just made it up. Here it is. How can you make a
strawberry shortcake last the longest?”
“That isn’t a very good riddle,” objected Rose.
“Well, let’s see you answer it,” challenged her small brother. “How can
you make a strawberry shortcake last longest?”
“Put it away in a safe,” guessed Violet.
“Nope!” answered Laddie, and before any one else could make a guess he
cried: “Don’t eat it. That’s how to make a strawberry shortcake last
longest—don’t eat it!”
“Well, if I made a cake I wouldn’t want it to last very long,” laughed
Rose. “I should want people to eat it and tell me how good it was.”
“I’ll eat some,” offered Mun Bun.
“So will I!” added Margy.
“That’s very kind of you!” laughed Rose again, and then the six little
Bunkers and their mother started for the strawberry patch. The berries
grew wild on a warm, sunny hillside, and soon little fingers were busy
turning over the green leaves to find the scarlet fruit beneath.
Into the baskets the berries were dropped one at a time. Wild
strawberries are much smaller than the cultivated variety you buy in
the market, and it takes longer to fill a basket with the wild ones.
But gradually the bottom of the basket Mrs. Bunker carried was covered
with a layer of the delicious fruit. Then she looked into the baskets
of Margy and Mun Bun.
“Is that all you’ve picked?” she asked, in surprise, for Margy had
three berries in her basket and Mun Bun had two in his, and yet they
had been in the berry patch half an hour. “Don’t you know how to find
the berries, my dears?” asked their mother. “See, you must turn over
the leaves——”
“Excuse me, Mother,” broke in Rose, first asking pardon for
interrupting, “but I guess Margy and Mun Bun eat the berries as fast as
they pick them. That’s what they’ve been doing—eating the berries, I
saw them put only a few in their baskets.”
“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Bunker, “we don’t expect them to pick many. We
older ones will have to get you enough for your cake, Rose.”
“I ate only about forty-’leven berries,” confessed Margy.
“An’ I ate six-fourteen,” admitted Mun Bun. “They is awful good, these
berries is, an’ maybe Rose wouldn’t make a cake, anyhow, an’——”
“I see!” laughed Russ. “They were afraid they wouldn’t get their share
of berries if they waited, so they’re taking them now.”
“It’s all right, my dears,” said their mother, for Margy and Mun Bun
did not like to be laughed at. “Eat as many berries as you wish. They
are ripe and fresh and very tempting. We’ll get enough for Rose’s cake,
I think.”
So while the younger ones ate the lovely fruit, the older ones dropped
the berries they picked into the baskets until they had a sufficient
quantity—more than two quarts.
Once, while they were picking, the six little Bunkers heard a roaring,
bellowing sound off behind a second hill.
“Oh, maybe that’s the old bull who has gotten loose—Ralph’s bull!”
cried Violet, as she ran toward her mother.
“I hardly think so,” Mrs. Bunker answered. But the noise sounded again,
very much like the bellow of a bull.
“Russ, get a club and some stones!” cried Rose. “There isn’t any fence
here to jump over. Get a stick and drive away the bull!” Russ caught up
a short club—not a very heavy one if it was to be used against a bull.
Mrs. Bunker stood up and looked around. Then she laughed.
“Don’t be afraid, children,” she said. “It isn’t a bull at all. It’s
the whistle of an engine on a distant train. There it goes!” and she
pointed to the railroad, about a mile off over the hill. A train was
going along, very slowly, it seemed, but probably it was speeding
faster than it appeared to be. And as the Bunkers looked they saw a
puff of white steam from the locomotive. A little later they heard the
whistle. When they had been stooping down the whistle had sounded like
the distant bellow of a bull.
“I’m glad it wasn’t,” said Rose.
“If it had ‘a’ been I’d ‘a’ hit it with a club,” boasted Russ.
“An’ I could throw a stone!” declared Mun Bun.
“Mother, did you notice how funny the whistle was?” asked Rose. “First
we saw the smoke puff up, and then we heard the sound. Why was that?”
“Because light, or sight, travels faster than sound,” said Mrs. Bunker.
“You can see something much quicker than you can hear it. If you
should ever stand far off and see a gun shot off, you would first see
the flash and the smoke, and, some seconds later, you would hear the
report. Sight and sound travel in what are called waves, almost like
the waves of the ocean, except that the sound waves are made of air
instead of water. Light waves are different from air or water waves,
and travel much faster—almost as fast as electricity.”
“And electricity is terribly fast,” said Russ. “Once I took hold of a
battery and as soon as I touched the handles I felt a shock.”
After this the picking of strawberries went on until enough had been
gathered. Then they all ate some and went home, and Rose made the
shortcake, Norah helping her.
“I’ll set the shortcake in the back pantry to cool for supper,” said
Norah, when Rose had finished making it, and very proud the little girl
was.
The shortcake was put away and the little Bunkers were wondering how
next they could have some fun when there came a knock on the kitchen
door.
“I wonder who that can be?” said Norah.