A MAD BULL
Violet almost dropped her basket of eggs, she was so excited.
“Oh! Oh!” she cried. “Maybe Margy’s getting the chicken pox or
something like that. All yellow and white! Oh, dear!”
“It isn’t chicken pox,” said Mrs. Bunker, trying not to laugh. “Though
I think it has something to do with chickens—and eggs. You say Margy is
all yellow and white, Mun Bun?” she asked.
“Yes’m, but the yellow shows most. It’s all over her face and her
dress——”
“The poor thing!” murmured Violet.
“I’ll go and help her,” offered Laddie, not stopping to make a riddle
this time, though he said later that he had one about a chicken and an
egg if he could only think of it.
“She’s right around here—under the barn,” went on Mun Bun, leading the
way from the hen-house.
“Under the barn?” asked Mrs. Bunker. “Is she caught fast there?”
“No, Mother,” replied Mun Bun. “She’s just all whites and yellows. She
crawled under the barn to get some eggs, and when she came out with ’em
in her dress, why—now—she—she slipped and she fell down and—and—the
eggs all busted and——”
“There she is now!” interrupted Violet, as they came within sight of
the unfortunate Margy. Well might Violet murmur: “Poor dear!”
Margy seemed covered with the whites and yellows of broken eggs from
her head to her feet. And, as Mun Bun said, the “yellow showed the
most.”
“Oh, you poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, trying not to laugh. “Come
to the house and I’ll wash you clean. Poor Margy! Never mind, dear!”
for Margy was crying.
“I—I didn’t—mean—to break the—the—eggs!” she sobbed. “You s’pose Farmer
Joel—you s’pose he’ll be very mad?”
“Of course not!” Mrs. Bunker hastened to say. “He doesn’t mind a few
eggs. The hens will lay more.”
“If she’d had on a rubber apron it would have been all right,” said
Laddie, as they went on toward the house.
“How do you mean?” Violet, as usual, asked a question.
“Why, if Margy had had on a rubber apron the whites and yellows of the
eggs wouldn’t ‘a’ soaked out and she could carry ’em to the kitchen
and Norah could make a cake. She says broken eggs are just as good for
cakes as other eggs.”
“Yes,” agreed Violet. “’Cause you have to break eggs, anyhow, to get
them into a cake. But even if Margy had these in a rubber apron,
there’d be a lot of shells.”
“That’s so,” agreed Laddie. “I guess even a rubber apron wouldn’t be
much good. The best way is not to break eggs. Now I’m going to make a
riddle about them.” And he did. He himself said afterward it wasn’t a
very good riddle. Laddie would ask:
“How can you get an egg out of the shell without breaking it?”
And after every one had given up he would answer:
“You can’t.”
Sometimes Laddie made up better riddles than that.
Margy was washed and a clean dress was put on her, and by this time the
men and Russ and Rose came in from the apple orchard and it was almost
time for supper.
Norah had cooked a good meal, and it was well that she had, for every
one had a hearty appetite. Working in the apple orchard and gathering
eggs made them all hungry.
It was several days after this that, when Mrs. Bunker was taking the
four smaller children for a walk through the fields, a distant rumbling
sound was heard.
“Is that thunder?” asked Violet, looking toward the sky.
“I think not,” her mother answered. “If it is, the storm is a distant
one and will not break until we get home.”
“It isn’t thunder,” announced Laddie, after the rumbling sound was
heard again.
“What is it?” Mun Bun wanted to know.
“It’s Farmer Joel’s bull,” said Laddie. “I can see him down in that
field,” and he pointed to a distant pasture in which, all alone, was
the big bull, roaming around, pawing the ground, shaking his head, and
now and then uttering the low, rumbling bellow, which sounded like
distant thunder.
“Oh, so it is the bull,” remarked Mrs. Bunker, when, from a distant
hill, they had watched the powerful animal running about.
“I hope the fence is good and strong so he can’t get loose,” said
Violet.
“I guess Farmer Joel wouldn’t turn the bull into a field unless the
fence was good and strong,” replied Mrs. Bunker.
“Mother, what would we do if the bull got loose and chased us?” Margy
asked.
“The best thing to do, I suppose,” said Mother Bunker, “would be to run
and get on the other side of a strong fence, if it could be done. Or
climb a tree. Bulls can’t go up trees.”
“But after you got up into the tree he might hit the tree with his head
and knock you out and hook you, mightn’t he?” asked Violet.
“Well, he might,” replied her mother. “Perhaps it would be best not to
go anywhere near the bull. But if he should come after you—run away
somewhere or get behind a fence or something.”
“He’s terrible strong, isn’t he?” observed Mun Bun, as he watched the
bull hitting his head against the fence as if trying to knock it over.
“He is, indeed. Bulls are very strong,” said his mother. “I should
think Farmer Joel would be afraid this one would knock the fence down.
But perhaps it is all right.”
However, the fence was not all right, or else the bull was stronger
than was supposed, for a few days later something very alarming took
place.
Russ and Rose had been left in charge of the four smaller Bunkers while
their father and mother went visiting a distant farmer whom Mr. Bunker
had known some years before.
“Let’s go down and look at the water wheel,” suggested Russ, for
Laddie, Violet, Mun Bun and Margy never seemed to tire of this.
“Will that old peddler boy come and hit you again?” Mun Bun wanted to
know.
“No, I guess he’s gone away,” answered Russ.
Down to the brook they went, a merry, happy group of children. They
threw stones into the water, set little bits of wood afloat, pretending
they were boats, and had a good time watching the splashing water wheel.
Suddenly Laddie, who had wandered off a little way to gather some brown
cattails growing in a swampy place, came running back, fear showing on
his face.
“He—he’s coming!” gasped Laddie.
“Who? That peddler boy?” demanded Russ, clenching his fists.
“No! The mad bull! He’s coming! Look out!” shouted Laddie.