BOOKS

By LAURA LEE HOPE

THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES

THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

CHAPTER I

"A THUNDER STROKE"

"Whew!" said Russ Bunker, looking out into the driving rain.

"Whew!" repeated Rose, standing beside him.

"Whew!" said Vi, and "Whew!" echoed Laddie, while Margy added "Whew!"

"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun last of all, standing on tiptoe to see over the high windowsill. Mun Bun could not quite say the letter "h"; that is why he said "W'ew!"

Such a September rain the six little Bunkers had never seen before, for the very good reason that they had never before been at the seashore during what Daddy Bunker and Captain Ben called "the September equinox."

"That is an awful funny word, anyway," Rose Bunker said.[2]

"What's funny?" Violet asked.

"Can I make a riddle out of it?" added Laddie.

"It is a riddle," replied Rose, quite confidently. "For 'equinox' is just a rain and wind storm."

"That isn't a riddle," said Laddie promptly. "That's the answer to a riddle."

And perhaps it was, even if Rose had the equinox and the equinoctial storms a little mixed in her mind. At any rate, this was a most surprising storm to all the little Bunkers—the wind blew so hard, the rain came in such big gusts, flattening the white-capped waves which they could see, both from Captain Ben's bungalow and from this old house to which they had come to play. And now, as all six peered out of the attic window of the old house, there was an unexpected flash of lightning, followed by a grumble of thunder.

"Oh! just like a bad, bad dog," gasped Vi, not a little frightened by the noise. "I—I am afraid of thunder."

"I'm not," declared Laddie, her twin.

But perhaps, because he was a boy, he thought he must claim more courage than he[3] really felt. At any rate, he winced a little, too, and drew back from the window.

"Maybe we'd better go back to Captain Ben's house—and mother," suggested Margy in a wee small voice.

"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun, the littlest Bunker, once more, but quite as bravely as before. Like Laddie (whose name really was Fillmore), Mun Bun wished to claim all the courage a boy should show.

"I guess we can't go back while it rains like this," said Russ, the oldest of the six.

"And Captain Ben thought it would maybe clear up and not rain any more, so we came," announced Rose. "Oh! There goes another thunder stroke."

The rumble of thunder seemed nearer.

"I guess," Russ said soberly, "that Norah or Jerry Simms would call this the clearing-up shower."

"But Norah and Jerry Simms aren't here," Vi reminded him. "Are they?"

"That doesn't make any difference. It can be the clearing-up shower of this equinox, just the same."

"Can it?" asked Vi.[4]

She was always asking questions, and she asked so many that it was quite impossible to answer them all, so, for the most part, nobody tried to answer her. And this was one of the times when nobody answered Vi.

"We'd better keep on playing," Rose said, very sensibly. "Then we won't bother 'bout the thunder strokes."

"It is lightning," objected Russ. "I don't mind the thunder. Thunder is only a noise."

"I don't care," said Rose, "it's the thunder that scares you—— Oh! Hear it?"

"Does the thunder hit you?" asked Vi.

"Why, nothing is going to hit us," Russ replied bravely, realizing that he must soothe any fears felt by his younger brothers and sisters. Russ was nine, and Daddy Bunker and mother expected him to set a good example to Rose and Laddie and Violet and Margy and Munroe Ford Bunker, who, when he was very little, had named himself "Mun Bun."

"Just the same," whispered Rose in a very small voice, and in Russ's ear, "I wish we hadn't come over from Captain Ben's bungalow this morning when it looked like the rain had all stopped."[5]

"Pooh!" said Russ, still bravely, "it thunders over there just as it does here, Rose Bunker."

Of course that was so, and Rose knew it. But nothing seemed quite so bad when daddy and mother were close at hand.

"Let's play again," she said, with a little sigh.

"What'll we play?" asked Violet. "Haven't we played everything there is?"

"I s'pose we have—some time or other," Rose admitted.

"No, we haven't," interposed Russ, who was of an inventive mind. "There are always new plays to make up."

"Just like making up riddles," agreed Laddie. "I guess I could make up a riddle about this old storm—if only the thunder wouldn't make so much noise. I can't think riddles when it thunders."

The thunder seemed to shake the house. The rain dashed against the windows harder than ever. And there were places in the roof of this attic where the water began to trickle through and drop upon the floor.

"Oh!" cried Mun Bun, on whose head a drop[6] fell. "It's leaking! I don't like a leaky house. Let's go home, Rose."

"Do you want to go home to Pineville, Mun Bun?" shouted Russ, for he could not make his voice heard by the others just then without shouting.

"Well, no. But I'd rather be at that other house where mother is—and daddy," proclaimed the smallest boy when the noise of the thunder had again passed.

"I tell you," said Russ soberly, "we'd better go downstairs and play something till the thunder stops."

"What shall we play?" asked Vi again.

"I'll build an automobile and take you all to ride," said the oldest boy confidently.

"Oh, Russ! You can't!" gasped Rose.

"A real automobile like the one that we rode down here in from Pineville?" asked Laddie, opening his eyes very wide.

"Well, no—not just like that," admitted Russ. "But we'll have some fun with it and we won't bother about the thunder."

Rose looked a bit doubtful over that statement. But she knew it was her duty to help the younger children forget their fears. She[7] started down the steep stairs behind Russ. Laddie and Margy came next, while Vi was helping short-legged little Mun Bun to reach the stairway.

And it was just then that the very awful "thunder stroke" came. It seemed to burst right over the roof, and the flash of lightning that came with it almost blinded the children. There was even a smell of sulphur—just like matches. Only it was a bigger smell than any sulphur match could make.

The children's cries were drowned by the crash outside. The lightning had struck a big old tree that overhung the house. The tree trunk was splintered right down from the top, and before the sound of the thunder died away the broken-off part of that tree fell right across the roof.

How the old house shook! Such a ripping and tearing of shingles as there was! Rose could not stifle her shriek. She and Margy and Laddie came tumbling down the rest of the stairs behind Russ.

"Where's Vi and Mun Bun?" demanded the oldest of the six little Bunkers, staring up the dust-filled stairway.[8]

"Oh! Oh! Help me up!" shrieked Vi from the attic.

"Help me!" cried Mun Bun, very much frightened too. "Somebody is holding me down."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Rose, wringing her hands and looking at Russ. "That old roof has fallen in and Vi and Mun Bun are caught under it!"[9]

CHAPTER II

VERY EXCITING NEWS

The old house was still groaning and shaking under the impact of the lightning-smitten tree. It seemed, indeed, as though the whole roof was broken in and that gradually the house must be flattened down into the cellar. Dust and bits of broken wood and plaster were showering down the open stairway.

Although the house might be falling, Russ felt he had to go up those stairs to the aid of the shrieking Vi and Mun Bun. They were both caught under some of the fallen rubbish, and it was Russ Bunker's duty, if nothing more, to aid the younger children.

Russ did not often shirk his duty. Being the oldest of the six Bunker children, he felt his responsibility more than other boys of his age might have done. Anyway, when the[10] others needed help, Russ's first thought was to aid. He was that kind of boy, as all the readers of this series of stories know very well.

Almost always Russ Bunker was not far from a set of carpenter's tools, of which he was very proud, or from other means of "making things." His brothers and sisters thought him quite wonderful when it came to planning new means of amusement and building such things as play automobiles and boats and steam-car trains. It was quite impossible for Russ now, however, to think up any invention that would help his small sister and brother out of their trouble in the attic of the old house. He was quite helpless.

Nine-year-old Russ Bunker was an inventive, cheerful lad, almost always with a merry whistle on his lips, and quite faithful to the trust his parents imposed in him regarding the well-being of his younger brothers and sisters.

With Rose, who was a year younger than Russ, the boy really took much of the care in the daytime of the other little Bunkers. The older ones really had to do this—or else there would have been no fun for any of them. You see, if the older children in a family will not[11] care for the younger, and cheerfully look after them, there can never be so much freedom and fun to enjoy as these six little Bunkers had.

Rose was a particularly helpful little girl, and, being eight years old now, she could assist Mother Bunker a good deal; and she took pride in so doing. That she was afraid of "thunder strokes" must not be counted against her. Ordinarily she made the best of everything and was of a sunny nature.

The twins, Violet and Fillmore, came next in the group of little Bunkers. These two had their own individual natures and could never be overlooked for long in any party. Violet was much given to asking questions, and she asked so many and steadily that scarcely anybody troubled to answer her. Her twin, called Laddie by all, had early made up his mind that the greatest fun in the world was asking and answering riddles.

Margy's real name was Margaret, and, as we have seen, Mun Bun had named himself (just for ordinary purposes) when he was very small. Not that he was very large now, but he could make a tremendous amount of noise when he was—or thought he was—hurt, as he[12] was doing on this very occasion when he and Vi were caught by the crushing-in of the house roof.

After we got acquainted with the Bunker family at home in Pineville, Pennsylvania, they all started on a most wonderful vacation which took them first to the children's mother's mother's house. So, you see, that story is called "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's."

From that lovely place in Maine the six little Bunkers went to their Aunt Jo's, then to Cousin Tom's, afterward to Grandpa Ford's, then to Uncle Fred's. They had no more than arrived home at Pineville after their fifth series of adventures, than Captain Ben, a distant relative of Mother Bunker's, and recently in the war, came along and took the whole Bunker family down with him to his bungalow at the seashore, the name of that sixth story of the series being "Six Little Bunkers at Captain Ben's."

And the six certainly had had a fine time at Grand View, as the seashore place was called, until this very September day when an equinoctial storm had been blowing for twenty-four hours or more and the lightning-struck tree[13] had fallen upon the roof of the old house in which the six little Bunkers were playing.

But now none of the little Bunkers thought it so much fun—no, indeed! At the rate Vi and Mun Bun were screaming, the accident which held them prisoners in the attic of the old house seemed to threaten dire destruction.

Russ Bunker, when he had recovered his own breath, charged up the dust-filled stairway and reached the attic in a few bounds. But the floor boards were broken at the head of the stairs, and almost the first thing that happened to him when he got up there into the dust and the darkness—yes, and into the rain that drove through the holes in the roof!—was that his head, with an awful "tunk!" came in contact with a broken roof beam.

Russ staggered back, clutching wildly at anything he could lay his hands on, and all but tumbled backwards down the stairs again.

But in clutching for something to break his fall Russ grabbed Vi's curls with one hand. He could not see her in the dark, but he knew those curls very well. And he was bound to recognize Vi when the little girl stammered:

"What's happened? Did the house fall on[14] my legs, Russ? Must you pull my hair off to get me out?"

Mun Bun was bawling all by himself, but near by. He seemed to be quite as immovable as Vi. And perhaps Russ would have been unable to get out either of the unfortunates by himself.

Just then there came a shout of encouragement from outside, and the rapid pounding of feet. The door below burst open and Daddy Bunker's welcome voice cried out:

"Here I am, children! Here I am—and Captain Ben, too! Where are you all?"

In the dusky kitchen it was easy enough to count the three little Bunkers who remained there. But Daddy Bunker was heartily concerned over the absent ones.

"Where are Russ and Vi and Mun Bun?" cried Daddy Bunker.

"They're upstairs—under that old thunder stroke," gasped Margy. "But I guess they're not all dead-ed yet."

"I guess not!" exclaimed Captain Ben, who was a very vigorous young man, being both a soldier and a sailor. "They are all very much alive."[15]

That was proved by the concerted yells of the three in the attic. Both men hurried to mount the stairs. The dust had settled to some degree by this time, and they could see the struggling forms. Russ had almost got Vi loose, and he had not pulled out her hair in doing so.

Daddy Bunker saw that Mun Bun was only caught by his clothing. Captain Ben took Vi from Russ and Daddy Bunker released Mun Bun. Then they all came hurriedly down the stairs.

Mun Bun was still weeping wildly. Laddie looked at him in amazement.

"Why—why," he said, "you're a riddle, Mun Bun."

"I'm not!" sobbed the littlest Bunker.

"Yes, you are," said Laddie. "This is the riddle: Why is Mun Bun like a sprinkling cart?"

"That is too easy!" laughed Captain Ben, setting Vi down on the floor. "It's because Mun Bun scatters water so easily out of his eyes."

They all laughed at that—even Mun Bun himself, only he hiccoughed too. It did not[16] take much to make the children laugh when the danger was over.

"Why did the old thunder stroke have to do that?" asked Vi. "Why did it pin me down across my legs?"

Daddy Bunker hurried them all out of the old house. He was afraid it might fall altogether.

"And then where should we be?" he asked. "I couldn't go away out West to Cowboy Jack's and leave my little Bunkers under that old house, could I?"

At this Russ and Rose immediately began to be excited—only for a reason very different from the effects of the storm. They looked at each other quite knowingly. That was what Daddy Bunker and Mother Bunker were talking about so earnestly the night before!

"Oh, Daddy!" burst out Rose, clinging to his hand, "are you going so far away from us all? Aren't you going to take us to Cowboy Jack's?"

"Why do they call him that?" asked Vi. "Is he part cow and part boy?"

But Daddy Bunker replied to Rose's question quite seriously:

"That is a hard matter to decide. It is a[17] long journey, and you know school will soon begin at Pineville. And you must not miss school."

"But, Daddy," said Russ, very gravely, "you know you take us 'most everywhere you go. It—it wouldn't be fair to Cowboy Jack not to take us to see him, would it?"

Mr. Bunker laughed very much at this suggestion, and hurried them all through the rain toward Captain Ben's bungalow.[18]

CHAPTER III

THE SILVER LINING

One might think that the accident at the old house would have been excitement enough for the six little Bunkers for one forenoon. But Russ and Rose, at least, and soon all the other children, were bubbling with the thought of Daddy Bunker's going West again to look into a big ranch property to which one of his customers had recently fallen heir.

To travel, to see new things, to meet wonderfully nice and kind people, seemed to be the fate of the six little Bunkers. Russ and Rose were sure that no family of brothers and sisters ever had so much fun traveling and so many adventures at the places they traveled to as they did. Russ and Rose were old enough to read about the adventures of other children—I mean children outside of nursery books—and so far[19] the older young Bunkers quite preferred their own good times to any they had ever read about.

"Why!" Russ had once cried confidently, "we have even more fun than Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. Of course we do."

"Yes. And they had goats," admitted Rose thoughtfully.

The thought of daddy's going away from them, in any case, would have excited the children. But the opening of their school had been postponed for several weeks already, and Russ and Rose, at least, thought they saw the possibility of their father's taking Mother Bunker and all the children with him to the Southwest.

"Only," Russ said gravely, "I don't much care for the name of that man. He sounds like some kind of a foreign man—and you know how those foreign men were that built the railroad down behind our house in Pineville."

"What makes 'em foreign? Their whiskers?" asked Vi, her curiosity at once aroused. "Do all foreigners have whiskers? What makes whiskers grow, anyway? Daddy doesn't have whiskers. Why do other folks?"[20]

"Mother doesn't have whiskers, either," said Margy gravely.

"Say! Why?" repeated Violet insistently.

"Daddy shaves every morning. That is why he doesn't have whiskers," said Rose, trying to pacify the inquisitive Violet.

"Well, does mother shave, too?" immediately demanded Vi. "I never saw her brush. But I've played with daddy's. I painted the front steps with it."

"And you got punished for it, you know," said Russ, grinning at her. "But we were not talking about whiskers—nor shaving brushes."

"Yes we were," said the determined Vi. "I was asking about them."

"Is that man father is going to see an awful foreigner, Russ?" Rose wanted to know.

"I guess not. Father says he's a nice man. He has met him, he says. But his name—oh, it's awful!"

"What is his name?" asked Vi instantly.

If there was a possible chance of crowding in a question, Vi had it on the tip of her tongue to crowd in. This was an hour after the "thunder stroke" had caused such damage to the old[21] house, and Vi was quite her inquisitive little self again.

"His name——" said Russ.

Then he stopped and began to search his pockets. The others waited, but Violet was not content to wait in silence.

"What's the matter, Russ? Do you itch?"

"No, I don't itch," said the boy, with some irritation.

"Well, you act so," said Vi. "What are you doing then, if you're not itching?"

"She means scratching!" exclaimed Rose, but she stared at Russ, too, in some curiosity.

"Oh! I know!" cried Laddie. "It's a riddle."

"What's a riddle?" asked his twin sister eagerly.

"What Russ is doing," said the little boy. "I know that riddle, but I can't just think how it goes. Let's see: 'I went out to the woodpile and got it; when I got into the house I couldn't find it. What was it?'" and Laddie clapped his hands delightedly to think that he had asked a real riddle.

"Oh, I know! I know!" shouted Margy eagerly.[22]

"You do?" asked Laddie. "What is it, then?"

"My Black Dinah dolly that I lost somewhere and we never could find."

"That isn't the whole of that riddle, Laddie," said Russ. "You ought to say: 'And I had it in my hand all the time.' Then you ask 'What was it?'"

"Well, then," said Laddie, rather disappointed to think he had made a mistake in the riddle after all. "What was it, Russ?"

"It was a splinter," said Russ, now drawing a scrap of paper from one pocket. "And here it is——"

"Not the splinter?" gasped Rose.

"No. It was this piece of paper I was hunting for. I wasn't scratching, either. Here it is. This is that foreign man's name."

"What man's name?" asked Vi, who by this time had forgotten what the main subject of the discussion was.

"Cowboy Jack's name!" cried Rose.

"Has he got more names than that?" asked Vi. "Isn't Cowboy Jack enough name for him?"