Six Little Bunkers at Mammy Junes | Page 2

for just a moment giving the
twins her attention.
"Why--ee!" cried Vi. "Aunt Jo said he had!"
"She didn't," returned Rose rather shortly and not at all politely.
"She did so!" rejoined Vi instantly, for although she and Rose loved
each other very much they were not always in agreement. Vi's gray
eyes snapped she was so vexed. "Aunt Jo said that a window got broke
in--in the neu-ral-gi-a and William had to drive a long way yesterday
and the wind blew on him and he got the croup."
"Was that the way of it?" said Laddie, thoughtfully. "Wait a minute, Vi.
I've most got it----"
"You're not going to have the croup!" declared his twin. "You never
had it! But I have had the croup, and I didn't catch it the way William
did."
"No-o," admitted Laddie. "But--but I'm catching a new riddle if you'd
only wait a minute for me to get it straight."
"Pooh!" said Vi. "Who cares anything about your old riddle? Br-r-r! it's
cold in this room. Maybe we'll all get the croup if we can't have a better
fire."
"It isn't the croup you mean, Vi," put in Rose again, but without
stopping to explain to her smaller sister where and how she was wrong

about William's illness.
"Say, Russ, why don't the steampipes hum any more?" broke in the
voice of Margy, the next to the very littlest Bunker, who was playing
with that latter very important person at one of the great windows
overlooking the street.
Russ chuckled. He had just put the very last crooked piece of the puzzle
into place.
"You don't expect to see humming birds in winter, do you, Margy?" he
asked.
"Just the same, winter is the time for steampipes to hum," said Rose,
shivering a little. "Oh! See! It's beginning to snow!"
"So 'tis," cried Russ, who was the oldest of the six. "Supposing it
should be a blizzard, Rose Bunker?"
"S'posing it should!" repeated his sister, quite as much excited as Russ
was at such a prospect.
"Buzzards fly and eat dead things. We saw 'em in Texas at Cowboy
Jack's," announced Laddie, forgetting his riddle-making for the
moment.
"That is right, Laddie," agreed Rose kindly. "But we're not talking
about buzzards, but about blizzards. Blizzards are big
snowstorms--bigger than you ever remember, I guess."
"Oh!" said Laddie doubtfully. "Were we talking about--about
blizzards?"
"No, we weren't!" exclaimed Vi, almost stamping her foot. "We were
talking about William's croup----"
"He hasn't got the croup, I tell you, Vi," Rose said wearily.
"He has. Aunt Jo----"

"In the first place," interrupted Rose quite decidedly, "only children
have croup. It isn't a grown-up disease."
This announcement silenced even Violet for the moment. She stared at
her older sister, round-eyed.
"Do--do diseases have to grow up, too?" she finally gasped.
"Oh, dear me, Vi Bunker!" exclaimed Rose, "I wish you didn't ask so
many questions."
"Why not?" promptly inquired the smaller girl.
"We-ell, it's so hard to answer them," Rose frankly admitted. "Diseases
don't grow up, I guess, but folks grow up and leave diseases like croup,
and measles, and chicken-pox, behind them."
"And cut fingers and bumps?" asked Laddie, who had almost forgotten
the riddle about William's croup that he was striving to make.
But Vi did not forget the croup. One could trust Vi never to forget
anything about which she once set out to gather information.
"But how did William catch the croup through a broken window in the
neu-ral-gi-a?" she demanded. "When I had croup I got my feet wet
first."
"He hasn't got the croup!" Rose cried again, while Russ began to laugh
heartily.
"Oh, Vi!" Russ said, "you got it twisted. William caught cold driving
Aunt Jo's coupé with the window broken in it. He's got neuralgia from
that."
"And isn't there any croup about it?" Laddie demanded rather sadly.
"Then I'll have to start making my riddle all over again."
"Will that be awful hard to do, Laddie?" asked his twin. "Why! making
riddles must be worse than having neu-ral-gi-a--or croup."

"Well, it's harder," sighed her brother. "It's easy to catch--Oh! Oh! Russ!
Rose! I got it!"
"You haven't neuralgia, like poor William," announced Rose with
confidence.
"Listen!" announced the glowing Laddie. "What is it that's so easy to
catch but nobody runs after?"
"Huh! is that a riddle?" asked Russ.
"Course it's a riddle."
"A wubber ball," guessed Mun Bun, coming from the window against
the panes of which the snow was now beating rapidly.
"No," Laddie said.
"A coupé!" exclaimed Violet.
"Huh! No!" said her twin in disdain.
Margy asked if he meant a kittie. She had been chasing one all over the
house that morning while Russ and Rose had been to market with their
aunt, and she did not think