Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bells | Page 3

doll," answered the little girl.
"I can't take her on a steamboat where the water is deep lessen I have a
bathing-suit for her. Wait a minute. I'll get one," and she ran over to a
corner of the room, where she kept her playthings.
"Shall I bring a red dress or a blue one?" Vi turned to ask her sister
Rose.
"Oh, bring any one you have and hurry up!" called Russ. "This

steamboat won't ever get started. All aboard! Toot! Toot!"
Vi snatched up what she called a bathing-dress from a small trunkful of
clothes belonging to her dolls, and ran back to the place where the
"steamboat" floated in the "ten-miles-deep water," in the middle of the
playroom floor.
"Now I'm all ready, an' so's my doll," said Vi, as she climbed up in one
of the chairs behind the big, empty flour barrel that Mother Bunker had
let Russ take to make his boat. "Gid-dap, Russ!"
"Gid-dap? What you mean?" asked Russ, stopping his whistling and
turning to look at his sister.
"I mean start," answered Vi. "Don't you know what gid-dap means?"
"Sure I know! It's how you talk to a horse. It's what you tell him when
you want him to start."
"Well, I'm ready to start now," said Vi, smoothing out her dress, and
putting the bathing-suit on her doll.
"Pooh! You don't tell a steamboat to 'gid-dap' when you want that to
start!" exclaimed Russ. "You say 'All aboard! Toot! Toot!'"
"All right then. Toot! Toot!" cried Vi, and Margy and Mun, who had
climbed up together in a single chair beside Vi, began to laugh.
"I know another riddle," announced Laddie, as he took his place inside
the barrel, for he was going to be the fireman, and, of course, they
always rode away down inside the steamboat. "I know a nice riddle
about a horse," went on Laddie. "What makes a horse's shoes different
from ours?" he asked.
"Oh, we haven't time to bother with riddles now, Laddie," said Rose.
"You can tell us some other time. We're going to make-believe
steamboat a long way across the deep water now."
"A horse's shoes aren't like ours 'cause a horse doesn't wear

stockings--that's the answer," went on Laddie.
"All aboard!" cried Russ again.
"All aboard!" repeated Laddie.
"Oh, let's sing!" suddenly said Rose. She was a jolly little girl and had
learned many simple songs at school.
"Let's sing about sailing o'er the dark blue sea," went on Rose. "It's an
awful nice song, and I know five verses."
"We'll sing it after a while," returned Russ. "We got to get started now.
All ready, fireman!" he called to Laddie, who was inside the barrel.
"Start the steam going. I'm going to steer the boat," and Russ took his
place astride the front end of the barrel, and began twisting on a stick
he had stuck down in one of the cracks. The stick, you understand, was
the steering-wheel, even if it didn't look like one.
"All aboard! Here we go!" cried Laddie from down inside the barrel,
and he began to hiss like steam coming from a pipe. Then he began to
rock to and fro, so that the barrel rolled from side to side.
"Here! What're you doing that for?" demanded Russ from up on top.
"'You're jiggling me off! Stop it! What're you doing, Laddie?"
"I'm making the steamboat go!" was the answer. "We're out on the
rough ocean and the steamboat's got to rock! Look at her rock!" and he
swung the barrel to and fro faster than ever.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Rose. "It's all coming apart! Look! Oh, dear! The
barrel's all coming apart!"
And that's just what happened! In another moment the barrel on which
Russ sat fell apart, and with a clatter and clash of staves he toppled in
on Laddie. Then the chairs, behind the barrel, where Rose, Vi and
Margy and Mun were sitting, toppled over. In another instant the whole
steamboat load of children was all upset in the middle of the playroom

floor, having made a crash that sounded throughout the house.
CHAPTER II
DADDY BUNKER'S WORRY
"Dear me! What's that? What happened?" called Mother Bunker from
the sitting-room downstairs. "Is any one hurt, children? What did you
do?" she asked, as she stood, with some sewing in her hands, at the foot
of the stairs, listening for some other noise to follow the crash. She
expected to hear crying.
"Is any one hurt?" she asked again. She was somewhat used to noises.
One could not live in the house with the six little Bunkers and not hear
noises.
"No'm, I guess nobody's hurt," answered Russ, as he climbed out from
the wreck of the barrel. "Get up," he added to his brother