Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jacks | Page 7

declared.
"Of course you do," Rose told him. "And if mother lets us go----"
Mother did. As long as Tad was along and knew the way, she was sure nothing would happen to her little Bunkers. At least, nothing worse than usual. Something was always happening to them, she told daddy, whether they stayed at home or not.
"Don't go into the swamp, that is all," said Mother Bunker.
"Why not?" asked Vi.
"I know a riddle about a swamp," said Laddie eagerly. "Why is a swamp like what we eat for breakfast?"
"Goodness!" cried Rose. "That can't be. I had an egg and two slices of bacon for breakfast, and that couldn't be anything like a swamp."
"But you ate something else," cried Laddie delightedly. "You ate mush. And isn't a swamp just like mush?"
"Huh! You wouldn't think so if you ever tasted swamp mud," said Tad.
"But I guess that is a pretty good riddle after all," Russ told the little boy kindly. "For the mush and the swamp are both soft."
"And--and mushy," said Margy. "I think that's a very nice riddle, Laddie. Why do we eat swamps for breakfast?"
"Goodness! We don't!" exclaimed Rose. "Now, come along. If we are going to the Dripping Rock, we'd better start."
It was not far--not even in the opinion of Mun Bun. They took a road that led right back from the shore, and you really would not have known the sea was near at all when once you got into that path. For there were trees on both sides, and for half the way at least there were no open fields.
"I hear somebody calling," said Russ suddenly, as he led the way with Tad.
"Somebody shouting," said Tad. "I wonder what he wants!"
"I hear it," cried Rose suddenly. "Is he calling for help?"
"Hurry up," advised Tad. "I guess somebody wants something, and he wants it pretty bad."
"Well," said Russ, increasing his pace, but not so much so as to leave Mun Bun and Margy very far behind, "if he wants help, of course he wants it bad. Oh! There's the swamp."
They came to the opening. There were a few trees here on either side of the road, which was now made of logs laid down on the soft ground. Grass grew between the logs. There were pools of water, and other pools of very black mud with only tufts of tall grass growing between them.
"Oh!" cried Rose, who had very bright eyes, "I see him!"
"Who do you see?" demanded Tad, who was turning around and trying to look all ways at once.
"There! Can't you see him?" demanded Rose, with growing excitement. "Oh, the poor thing!"
Just then an unmistakable "bla-a-at!" startled the other children--even Tad Munson. He brought his gaze down from the trees into the branches of which he had been staring.
"Bla-a-at!" was the repeated cry, which at first the children had thought had been "Help!"
"And sure enough," Russ said confidently, "he is saying 'help!' just as near as he can say it."
"The poor thing!" sighed Rose again.
CHAPTER IV
WHAT WAS STUCK IN THE MUD
Russ began to whistle a tune, as he often did when he was puzzled. It was not that he was puzzled about the thing he saw--and which Rose had seen first--but at once Russ felt that he must discover a way to get the blatting object out of the mud.
"What do you know about that!" cried Tad Munson. "That's John Winsome's red calf. See! He's sunk clear to his backbone in the mud."
"Oh, dear me!" cried Rose. "The poor thing!"
She had said that twice before, but everybody was so excited that none of them noticed that Rose was repeating herself. In fact, both Vi and Margy said the very same thing, and in chorus:
"Oh, the poor thing!"
"Is that a red calf, Tad Munson?" asked Laddie. "For if it is, it's a riddle. Its head and its neck and its tail are all splattered with mud."
"It was a red calf when it went into the swamp, all right," said Tad with confidence. "I know that calf, all right. And John Winsome told me only this morning that he had lost it."
"Who put it in that horrid swamp?" Vi demanded.
"I guess it just wandered in," said Tad.
"And it is sinking down right now," Russ tried. "See it?"
Indeed the poor calf--a well grown animal--was in a very serious plight. It was eight or ten feet from the edge of the road where the logs were. And the calf had evidently struggled a good deal and was now quite exhausted. It turned its head to look at the children and blatted again.
"Oh, dear!" said Margy, almost in tears, "it is asking us to help it just as plain as it can."
"I'm going to run and tell John Winsome--right now I am!" shouted Tad, and he turned around and ran back along