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Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 11. Going Crabbing |
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_ CHAPTER XI. GOING CRABBING Russ Bunker looked up at his brother Laddie and smiled. Still he made no move toward helping gather the driftwood for the bungalow they were going to make. "Well, why don't you help get wood?" asked Laddie again. "Think we're going to do all the work and have you sit there?" "Say, I'm a pirate, ain't I?" asked Russ, not getting his words just right, though his brother and sisters understood what he meant. "Didn't you say I was to be the pirate?" "Yes, 'cause we don't want to be," retorted Rose. "Well, all right then, I'm going to be the pirate," went on Russ. "But you've got to get us good things to eat," said Vi. "We're the prisoners, an' you said they had good things to eat." "I'll get good things to eat if Cousin Ruth'll give 'em to me," promised Russ. "But I'm the pirate, and pirates don't ever work. They just boss the prisoners. Now come on, prisoners, and build me the bungalow!" and Russ leaned back on a pile of sea weed and looked very lazy and comfortable. "Don't pirates _ever_ work?" asked Laddie. "Nope! Not the kind I ever heard Mother read about in books," went on Russ. "They just tell the prisoners what to do, 'ceptin', of course, when there's any fighting. Pirates are 'most always fighting, but we won't play that part, 'cause Mother doesn't like that. I'll be a good pirate, and I'll let you prisoners build the bungalow." "But you've got to get us something to eat," said Vi again. "I'll do that," promised Russ. "I'll go up now and ask Cousin Ruth for some, and you prisoners can be getting a lot of wood." The plans Russ made came out all right. Cousin Tom's pretty young wife was very glad to give the children some crackers and cookies to take down on the beach to eat, and when Russ got back with the bag of good things he found that Rose, Laddie and Violet had collected a large pile of driftwood. "Now we'll make the bungalow," decided Russ. "I'll help work at that, 'cause the pirates want it made just so. But you prisoners have got to help." "Can't we eat first, 'fore we make the bungalow?" asked Violet. "I'm as hungry as anything!" "Yes, I guess we could eat first. I'm hungry, too," returned the "pirate." Then the "pirate" and his "prisoners" sat down on the sand together, as nicely as you please, leaning against bits of driftwood covered with seaweed, and ate the lunch Cousin Ruth had given them. It did not take very long. Probably you know what a very short time cookies last among four hungry children. "Well, now we'll start to build," said Russ, when the last cookie and cracker had been eaten. "First we'll stick up four posts in the sand, one for each corner of the bungalow." The children had made playhouses before, not only at their home in Pineville, but while they were at Grandma Bell's house, near Lake Sagatook, Maine; so they knew something of what they wanted to do. Of course the bungalow was rather rough. It could not be otherwise with only rough driftwood with which to make it. But then it was just what the children wanted. When the four posts were set deep in the sand, in holes dug with clam shells, the children placed boards from one to the other, sometimes making them fast, by driving in, with stones for hammers, the rusty nails which were found in some pieces of the wood. Other boards or planks they tied together with bits of string. Over the top they placed sticks, and on top of the sticks they spread seaweed. "We don't want the roof very heavy," said Russ, "'cause then if it falls in on us, as our snow house roof did once, it won't hurt us. All we want is something to keep off the sun." "Won't it keep the rain out, too?" asked Rose. "No, I don't guess it will," answered Russ, as he looked up and saw several holes in the roof. "Anyhow we won't play out here when it rains. Mother wouldn't let us." The pirate bungalow was soon finished; that is, finished as much as the children wanted it, and then they began playing in it. Russ pretended that he was the pirate, and that the others were his prisoners. He made them dig little holes in the sand, and bring in shells and stones as well as seaweed. This last he made believe was hay for a make-believe elephant. "Do pirates have elephants?" asked Violet. "Sometimes maybe they do," her brother said. "Anyhow I can make believe that just for fun." "Are we going to eat any more?" asked Laddie. "Or is that only make-believe, too?" "I'll see if I can get some more from Cousin Ruth," promised Russ. Once more he made a trip up to the real bungalow, and Cousin Ruth, with laughter, filled another bag with cookies. This time Margy and Mun Bun, tired of playing with the shells and pebbles, went down on the beach to the driftwood pirate bungalow. It was rather a tight squeeze to get all six of the little Bunkers inside, and not have the place burst and fall apart. But they managed it, and then they sat under the seaweed roof and ate the cookies, having a fine time. "My, this is cozy!" cried Cousin Tom, as, with Daddy Bunker, he came down to see what the children were doing. "And you've had something to eat, too!" he went on, as he saw some crumbs scattered about. "Yes, we had some," said Russ, "but it's all gone now. But if you are hungry I can get some more," and he started from the bungalow. "Oh, no!" laughed Daddy Bunker, who had been told by his wife of Russ' two visits to Cousin Ruth's kitchen. "I guess we don't feel hungry now. Anyhow dinner will soon be ready." The children played in the pirate bungalow all the remainder of the day, stopping only for dinner and supper. The seaweed roof kept off the hot August sun, and, as it did not rain, the holes in the covering did not matter. Rose and Violet took their dolls down and played with them there. Russ, after a while, gave up being a pirate, and said his "prisoners" could all go, but they seemed to like staying around the driftwood house. "If we had a door on it we could stay in it all night," said Vi. "Why didn't you make a door, Russ?" "Too hard work," he answered. "Anyhow we don't want to stay down here all night." "The waves might come up and wash us away," said Rose. Laddie, who had been smoothing the sand in one corner of the pirate bungalow, now stopped and seemed to be thinking hard. "What's the matter?" asked Russ. "I have a new riddle," was the answer. "It's about a door." "Is it why does a door swing?" asked Violet. "'Cause if it is, I can answer that one. I've heard it before. A door swings because it isn't a hammock." "Nope! 'Tisn't that," said Laddie. "This is my new riddle. What goes through a door, but never comes into the room?" "Say it again," begged Russ, who had not been listening carefully. "What goes through the door, but never comes into the room?" asked Laddie again. "It's a good riddle, and I made it up all myself." "Does it go out of the room if it doesn't come in?" asked Rose. "Nope," answered Laddie, shaking his head. "It doesn't do anything. It just goes through the door, but it doesn't come in or go out." "Nothing can do that," declared Russ. "If a thing goes through the door it's got to come in or go out, else it doesn't go through." "Oh, yes, it does," said Laddie. "Do you give up?" "Is it a cat?" asked Vi. "Nope." "A dog?" "Nope." "A turtle?" guessed Mun Bun, who didn't quite know what it was all about, but who wanted to guess something. "Nope!" said Laddie, laughing. "I'll tell you. It's the keyhole!" "The keyhole?" cried Russ. "No!" "To be sure!" answered his small brother. "Doesn't a keyhole go all the way through the door? If it didn't you couldn't get the key in. The keyhole goes through the door, but it doesn't come into the room nor go out. It just stays in the door. Isn't that a good riddle?" "Yes, it is," answered Rose. "I'd never have guessed it." "I thought it up all myself while you were talking about a door to this bungalow," said Laddie. "What goes through the door but doesn't come in the room? A keyhole," and he laughed at his own riddle. The next day Cousin Tom went down to the beach, where once more Russ, Rose and the others were playing in the driftwood bungalow, and called: "How many of you would like to go crabbing?" "I would!" cried Russ. "So would I," said Rose. "What is it like?" asked Vi, who, you might know, would ask a question the first thing. "Well, it's like fishing, only it isn't quite so hard for little folk," said Cousin Tom. "Come along, if you're through playing, and I'll show you how to go crabbing." "Are Daddy and Mother going?" asked Rose. "Yes, we'll all go. Come along." The six little Bunkers followed Cousin Tom up the beach to the inlet. There, tied to a pier not far from Cousin Tom's bungalow, was a large boat. Near it stood Mother and Father Bunker and Cousin Ruth. Cousin Ruth had some peach baskets, two long-handled nets and some strings to the ends of which were tied chunks of meat. "Are we going to feed a dog?" asked Russ. "No, that is bait for the crabs," said Cousin Tom. "Come, now, get into the boat, and we'll go for a new kind of fishing." _ |
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