Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jos | Page 9

"cellar," of the steamer, which would soon start for Boston.
Margy, from the upper deck, might have seen this work going on, and
have stepped out of sight to watch.
"Come on, Russ, we'll find her," said Mr. Bunker.
Many people were now coming on board the steamer. There were some
boys and girls, and certainly a number of them were tired and sleepy.
As Mrs. Bunker went down the stairs with the four little Bunkers, she
looked at every other child she saw, hoping it might be Margy. But she
did not see her smallest daughter.
Russ and his father walked around the upper deck. They met several
men who worked on the steamer, and asked them if they had seen a
little girl about five years old, with dark hair and eyes, for that is how
Margy looked.
Each of the men Mr. Bunker asked said he had not seen the little lost
girl, and then Mr. Bunker said:
"Well, Russ, we'll go down on the next deck. Maybe she is there."
There were several decks to the steamer, just as there are several floors

in a large house. Russ and his father went downstairs, and as they
started to look on the lower deck they met a man who had shiny gold
braid on the sleeves of his coat, and also on his cap.
"Are you looking for some one?" asked this man, who was a mate, or
helper, to the captain.
"We are looking for my little girl," said Mr. Bunker. "She has
wandered away since we came on board."
"Was she a very little girl?" asked the mate.
"Rather small," answered Daddy Bunker.
"And did she have dark hair?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Russ eagerly. "Oh, have you seen her? She's my
sister Margy."
"Well, I just happened to pass a stateroom, where I chance to know no
little girl belongs on this trip. The door was open, and I looked in,"
went on the mate. "On the bunk, which is what we call the beds on a
steamer," he told Russ, "I saw a little girl with dark hair curled up in a
heap. She seemed to be asleep, and there was a little white poodle dog
with her."
"A little white poodle dog!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "Then I'm afraid it
can't be my little girl. We have no white poodle dog."
"Maybe Margy found one, Daddy, and that's why she didn't come with
us," said Russ.
"Better take a look at this little girl," went on the mate. "She seems to
be all alone in this stateroom, and she may be yours."
"We'll look," said Mr. Bunker. "But I hardly think it can be Margy."
He followed the mate, holding Russ by the hand so the little boy would
not get lost, though Russ was almost too big for this.

"Here she is," said the mate, as he came to a stop at an open door of a
stateroom. And there, on the clean, white bunk, curled up with one arm
around a white poodle dog was a little girl, whose dark hair mingled
with the white coat of the poodle.
"Oh, it is Margy!" exclaimed Russ.
"Yes, so it is," said Mr. Bunker. "Thank you," he added to the captain's
helper. "Now we are all right. We have found our lost little girl."
"I was wondering to whom she belonged," said the mate. "And I was
going to tell the captain about her. Now I won't have to."
When Mr. Bunker and Russ went into the room, the little poodle dog
raised up his head, opened one eye, and wagged his little stump of a tail,
as if he were saying:
"It's all right. You don't need to worry. I'm taking care of Margy and
she's taking care of me."
And it was Margy asleep in the bunk! Poor, tired, sleepy little Margy
Bunker.
"My dear little girl," said Daddy Bunker softly, as he took her up in his
arms. "We were so worried about you. Where have you been?"
"I--I founded a little dog," said Margy sleepily, as she put her head
down on her father's shoulder. "He was a little white dog an' I loved
him an' I went with him an' we went to--went to--we----"
And then Margy herself went to where she was trying to tell her daddy
she had gone--to sleep.
"We'll ask her about it in the morning," said Mr. Bunker. "I'll carry her
to her mother now, so she won't be anxious any more."
Margy was in slumberland once more, and so was the little white
poodle dog. He just looked up, with one eye, when he saw Mr. Bunker
carrying his little girl away, and then doggie went to sleep again also.

"Aren't you glad we found Margy?" asked