Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jacks | Page 5

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 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.
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 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?"
"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 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