Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jacks | Page 6

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.
"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?"
"His name," said Russ, reading what he had scribbled down on the
paper, "is 'Mr. John Scarbontiskil.' That's foreign."
"Oh!" gasped Rose. "I shouldn't think Daddy Bunker would want to go
to see a man with a name like that."
"I don't suppose," said Russ, "that he can help his name being that."
"Couldn't he make his own name--and make it a better one?" demanded
Vi. "You know, Mun Bun made his name for himself."
"I could not pronounce that name at all," said Rose to Russ. "I guess,
after all, maybe we'd better not go to that place."
"What place?"
"Where daddy is going. To that--that Cowboy Jack's place."
"Why not?" asked Russ, almost as promptly as Vi might have asked it
had she heard Rose's speech.
"Because," said Rose, who was a thoughtful girl, "of course they don't
call him Cowboy Jack to his face, and I should never be able to say
Scar--Scar--Scar--whatever it is to him. Never!"
"Nonsense! You can learn to say anything if you try," declared Russ
loftily.
"No," sighed Rose, who knew her limitations, "I can't. I can't even learn
to say Con-stan-stan-stan-ple--You know!"
"Con-stan-ti-no-ple!" exclaimed Russ with emphasis.
"Yes. That's it," Rose said. "But, anyway, I can't say it."

"I'd like to know why not?" demanded her brother scornfully.
"'Cause I get lost in the middle of it," declared Rose, shaking her head.
"It's too long, Russ."
"Well, 'Mr. John Scarbontiskil' is long," admitted Russ. "But if you
practise from now, right on----"
"But what is the use of practising if we are not going there with
daddy?"
"But maybe we'll go," said Russ hopefully.
"We have got to go to school. I don't mind," sighed Rose. "Only I do so
love to travel about with daddy and mother."
"You can practise saying it on the chance of our going," her brother
advised.
But Rose did not really think there was much use in doing that. She
said so. She was not of so hopeful a disposition as Russ. He believed
that "something would turn up" so that the six little Bunkers would be
taken with daddy and mother to the far Southwest. Grandma Bell often
spoke of a "silver lining" to every cloud, and Russ was hoping to see
the silver lining to this cloud of Daddy Bunker's going away.
At any rate, the fact that Mr. Bunker had to go to Cowboy Jack's (we'll
not call him Mr. Scarbontiskil, either, for it is too hard a name) was
quite established that very afternoon. Daddy received another letter
from his Pineville client, and he at once said to Mother Bunker:
"That settles it, Amy." Mrs. Bunker's name was Amy. "Golden is
determined that nobody but me shall do the job for him. He offers such
a good commission--plus transportation expenses--that I do not feel
that I can refuse."
"Oh, Charles," said Mrs. Bunker, "I don't like to have you go so far
away from us. It really is a great way to that town of Cavallo that you

say is the nearest to Cowboy Jack's ranch."
"I'll take you all home to Pineville first. Then you will not be quite so
far away from me," Daddy Bunker said reflectively.
So daddy and mother were no more happy at the prospect of his being
separated from the family than were the children themselves. The six
talked about the prospect of daddy's going a good deal. But, of course,
they did not spend all their time bewailing this unexpected separation.
Not at all! There was something happening to the