Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Fords | Page 5

little fellow. "I'd rather be a door,
'cause a window always has a pane in it! Ha! Ha!"
"Well, that's pretty good," said Grandpa Ford with a smile. "I see you
haven't forgotten your riddles, Laddie."

"Now you ask me one," said the little boy. "I like to guess riddles."
"Wait until Grandpa has had a cup of tea," said Mrs. Bunker, who had
opened the front door that had been locked so long. "And then you can
tell us, Father," she went on, "why you had to come away from Great
Hedge. Is it something important?"
"Well, it's something queer," said Grandpa Ford. "But I'll tell you about
it after a while."
And while the Bunker home is being opened, after having been closed
for a long vacation, I will explain to my new readers who the children
are, and something about the other books in this series.
First, however, I'll tell you why Daddy Bunker called Grandpa Ford
"Father." You see Daddy Bunker's real father had died many years
before, and this was his stepfather. Mr. Bunker's mother had married a
gentleman named Munroe Ford.
So, of course, after that her name was Mrs. Ford, though Daddy Bunker
kept his own name and called his step-parent "Father."
Grandpa Ford was as kind as any real father could be; and he also loved
the six little Bunkers as much as if he had been their real grandfather,
which they really thought him to be.
Now to go back to the beginning. There were six little Bunkers, as I
have told you, Russ, Rose, Laddie, Vi, Margy, and Mun Bun. I have
told you their ages and how they looked.
They lived in the town of Pineville on Rainbow River, and Daddy
Bunker's real estate office was about a mile from his home. Besides the
family of the six little Bunkers and their father and mother, there was
Norah O'Grady, the cook, and there was also Jerry Simms, the man
who cut the grass, cleaned the automobile, and sprinkled the lawn in
summer and took ashes out of the furnace in winter.
The first book of this series is called "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma

Bell's." In that I told of the visit of the children to Lake Sagatook, in
Maine, where Mrs. Bunker's mother, Grandma Bell, lived. There the
whole family had fine times, and they also solved a real mystery.
After that the children were taken to visit another relative, and in the
second book, "Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's," you may find out all
that happened when they reached Boston--how Rose found a
pocketbook, and how, after many weeks, it was learned to whom it
belonged.
Next comes the book just ahead of this one, "Six Little Bunkers at
Cousin Tom's." The children came from there to find Grandpa Ford on
their porch.
Cousin Tom Bunker was Daddy Bunker's nephew, being the son of a
dead brother, Ralph. Cousin Tom had not been married very long, and
soon after he and his wife, Ruth, started housekeeping in a bungalow at
Seaview, on the New Jersey coast, he invited the Bunkers to visit him.
They went there from Aunt Jo's, and many wonderful things happened
at the seashore. Rose lost her gold locket and chain, a queer box was
washed up on the beach, Mun Bun and Margy were marooned on an
island, and there were many more adventures.
"Did you know Grandpa Ford was coming to visit us when we got
home?" asked Rose of her mother, as she helped set the table.
"Yes, that was what he told us in the letter that came the day Mun Bun
fell off the pier. It was Grandpa Ford's letter that made us hurry home,
for he said he would meet us here. But he came on sooner than we
expected, and got here ahead of us," said Mrs. Bunker.
By this time the house had been opened and aired, Norah had come
from where she had been staying all summer, and so had Jerry Simms,
so the Bunkers were really at home again. Grandpa Ford had been
shown to his room, and was getting washed and brushed up ready for
tea. The six little Bunkers, having changed into their old clothes, were
running about the yard, getting acquainted with the premises all over

again.
"Now I guess we're all ready to sit down," said Mother Bunker, for,
with the help of Rose and Norah, the table had been set, tea made and a
meal gotten ready in quick time. Norah and Jerry had been told, by
telegraph, to come back to help get the house in order.
"I'm terrible glad you came, Grandpa Ford," said Mun Bun, as he sat
opposite the old gentleman at the table.
"So'm I," said