Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

A QUEER HUNT

"Let me count noses now, to see if you're all here," said Mother Bunker with a laugh, as her flock of children gathered around her.

"Don't you want some help?" asked Grandma Bell. "Can you count so many boys and girls all alone, Amy?"

"Oh, I think so," answered Mother Bunker. "You see I am used to it. I count them every time we come to the woods, and each time I start for home, to be sure none has been left behind. Now then, children! Attention! as the soldier captain says."

Six little Bunkers, who were getting ready to run off into the woods to frolic and have a good time at a good-bye picnic, laughed and shouted and finally stood still long enough for their mother to "count noses," as she called it.

"And I'll help," said Grandma Bell, at whose country home in Maine, near Lake Sagatook, the six little Bunkers were spending part of their summer vacation.

"Russ and Rose!" called Mother Bunker.

"Here we are!" answered Russ, and he pointed to his sister.

"Vi and Laddie!" went on Mrs. Bunker.

"We're here, but we're going to run now," said Laddie. "I'm going to think of a riddle to guess when we get to the woods."

"Where are you going to run to?" asked Vi, or Violet, which was her right name, though she was more often called Vi. "Where you going to run to, Laddie?" she asked again. But Laddie, her twin brother, did not stop to answer the question. Indeed it would take a great deal of time to reply to the questions Vi asked, and no one ever stopped to answer them all, any more than they tried to answer all the riddles—real and make-believe—that Laddie asked.

"Well, that's four of them," said Grandma Bell with a laugh.

"Yes," said Mother Bunker. "And now for the last. Margy and Mun!"

"We's here!" said Margy, who, as you may easily guess, was, more properly, Margaret. "Come on, Mun Bun!" she called. "Now we can have some fun."

And for fear you might be wondering what sort of creature Mun Bun was, I'll say right here that he was Margy's little brother, and his right name was Munroe Ford Bunker; but he was called Mun Bun for short.

"They're all here," said Grandma Bell, with a smile.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Bunker, as she saw the six children running across the field toward the woods. "They're all here now, and I hope they'll all be here when we start back."

"Oh, I think they will," said Grandma Bell with a smile. "I'm sorry this is your last picnic with me. I certainly have enjoyed your visit here—yours and the children's."

The two women walked slowly over the field and toward the woods, in which the six little Bunkers were already running about and having fun. The woods were on the edge of Lake Sagatook, and not far from Grandma Bell's house.

"Come on, Rose!" called Russ to his sister. "We'll have a last ride on the steamboat."

"I want to come, too!" shouted Laddie, dropping a bundle of pine cones he had picked up.

"So do I," added Vi. "I want a ride."

"Say, we can't all get on the steamboat at once!" Russ cried. "It'll sink if we do."

"Then we can play shipwreck," proposed Rose....