Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes | Page 8

do about the furnace, and the fire was most out, he said he'd fix it. So he's down there now with Parker and Alexis."
"Did Alexis come home?" cried Russ, who was very fond, as were all the Bunker children, of Aunt Jo's great Dane. "Can't we go down and see Alexis?"
"And see Sam again," said Margy. "Me and Mun Bun found him, you know."
It seemed to the little girl as though the colored boy had been quite taken away from her and from Mun Bun. They had what Mother Bunker laughingly called "prior rights" in Sam.
"Well, if he is a handy boy like that," said Aunt Jo, referring to the colored boy, "and can fix the furnace, we shall just have to keep him until William is well again. Has he finished his dinner, Annie?"
"Not yet, Ma'am. And indeed he was hungry. He ate like a wolf. But when he heard about us all being beat by that furnace, down he went. There! He's shaking the grate now. You can hear him. He said the ashes had to be taken out from under the grate or the fire never would burn. Yes'm."
"Well, then," said Mother Bunker, "you children will have to wait to see Sam--and Alexis--until he has finished eating."
"Annie," said Aunt Jo quickly, before the girl could go, "how does Alexis act toward this boy?"
"Oh, Ma'am! Alexis just snuffed of him, and then put his head in his lap. Alexis says he's all right. And for a black person," added the parlormaid, "I do think the boy's all right, Ma'am."
She went out and Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker laughed. The youngsters were suddenly excited at that moment by the stopping of a taxicab at the door. Vi had spied it from the window, for hard as it snowed she could see that.
"Here's Daddy! Here's Daddy!" she cried, dancing up and down.
Mun Bun and Margy joined in the dance, while the other three children entered upon a whirlwind rush down the stairway to meet Mr. Bunker at the front entrance.
He came in, covered with snow, and with his traveling bag. The children's charge upon him would surely have overturned anybody but Daddy Bunker.
"I scarcely dare come home at all," he shouted up the stairway to his wife and Aunt Jo, "because of these young Indians. You would think they were after my very life, if you didn't know that it was my pockets they want to search."
He shook off the clinging snow and the clinging children until he had removed his overcoat. Russ grabbed up the bag, and Rose and Laddie each captured an arm and were fairly carried upstairs by Mr. Bunker. He landed breathless and laughing with them in the middle of the big room which Aunt Jo had given up to the six little Bunkers as their playroom while they visited here in her Back Bay home.
"What is the news, Charles?" asked Mother Bunker, almost as eagerly as the children themselves might have asked the question.
"I've got to see Armatage personally--that is all there is about it, and Frank Armatage cannot come North."
"Then you are going?" said his wife, and the children almost held their several breaths to catch Daddy Bunker's reply.
Their father looked around upon the eager little faces. Then he glanced at his wife and smiled.
"What do you think?" he asked. "Had I better say before so many little pop-eyed, curious folk? I--don't--know----"
"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Rose.
"We want to go with you," breathed Russ.
"I want to go!" cried Vi. "Where is it?"
"If Vi goes, can't I go too?" Margy pleaded.
"I'm not going to stay here, Daddy, if the rest go," declared Laddie.
But Mun Bun just walked gravely over to his father and put up both his arms.
"Mun Bun go with Daddy," he said confidently.
"The blessed baby!" cried Aunt Jo.
"It doesn't look much as though they appreciated your hospitality, Josephine," said Daddy Bunker to his sister, smiling over the top of Mun Bun's head as he held the little fellow.
"Oh!" cried Rose instantly, "we have had an awfully nice time here. We always do have nice times here. But we want to go with Daddy, and so does Mother."
"Two words for yourself and one for me, Rose," laughed her mother. "But if it is going to take some time, Charles, I think we would all like to go along."
"I had Mr. Armatage on the long distance telephone," said Daddy Bunker, smiling. "He was in Savannah. His plantation is some distance from that city. And he has invited us all to spend the Christmas holidays with him at his country home. What do you think of that?"
It was pretty hard for Mother Bunker to say what she thought of it because of the gleeful shouts of the children. It did not much matter to Russ, and Rose, and