Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jacks | Page 2

a little mixed in her mind. At any rate, this was a most
surprising storm to all the little Bunkers--the wind blew so hard, the
rain came in such big gusts, flattening the white-capped waves which
they could see, both from Captain Ben's bungalow and from this old
house to which they had come to play. And now, as all six peered out
of the attic window of the old house, there was an unexpected flash of
lightning, followed by a grumble of thunder.
"Oh! just like a bad, bad dog," gasped Vi, not a little frightened by the
noise. "I--I am afraid of thunder."
"I'm not," declared Laddie, her twin.
But perhaps, because he was a boy, he thought he must claim more
courage than he really felt. At any rate, he winced a little, too, and drew
back from the window.
"Maybe we'd better go back to Captain Ben's house--and mother,"
suggested Margy in a wee small voice.
"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun, the littlest Bunker, once more, but quite as
bravely as before. Like Laddie (whose name really was Fillmore), Mun
Bun wished to claim all the courage a boy should show.
"I guess we can't go back while it rains like this," said Russ, the oldest
of the six.

"And Captain Ben thought it would maybe clear up and not rain any
more, so we came," announced Rose. "Oh! There goes another thunder
stroke."
The rumble of thunder seemed nearer.
"I guess," Russ said soberly, "that Norah or Jerry Simms would call this
the clearing-up shower."
"But Norah and Jerry Simms aren't here," Vi reminded him. "Are
they?"
"That doesn't make any difference. It can be the clearing-up shower of
this equinox, just the same."
"Can it?" asked Vi.
She was always asking questions, and she asked so many that it was
quite impossible to answer them all, so, for the most part, nobody tried
to answer her. And this was one of the times when nobody answered
Vi.
"We'd better keep on playing," Rose said, very sensibly. "Then we
won't bother 'bout the thunder strokes."
"It is lightning," objected Russ. "I don't mind the thunder. Thunder is
only a noise."
"I don't care," said Rose, "it's the thunder that scares you---- Oh! Hear
it?"
"Does the thunder hit you?" asked Vi.
"Why, nothing is going to hit us," Russ replied bravely, realizing that
he must soothe any fears felt by his younger brothers and sisters. Russ
was nine, and Daddy Bunker and mother expected him to set a good
example to Rose and Laddie and Violet and Margy and Munroe Ford
Bunker, who, when he was very little, had named himself "Mun Bun."

"Just the same," whispered Rose in a very small voice, and in Russ's ear,
"I wish we hadn't come over from Captain Ben's bungalow this
morning when it looked like the rain had all stopped."
"Pooh!" said Russ, still bravely, "it thunders over there just as it does
here, Rose Bunker."
Of course that was so, and Rose knew it. But nothing seemed quite so
bad when daddy and mother were close at hand.
"Let's play again," she said, with a little sigh.
"What'll we play?" asked Violet. "Haven't we played everything there
is?"
"I s'pose we have--some time or other," Rose admitted.
"No, we haven't," interposed Russ, who was of an inventive mind.
"There are always new plays to make up."
"Just like making up riddles," agreed Laddie. "I guess I could make up
a riddle about this old storm--if only the thunder wouldn't make so
much noise. I can't think riddles when it thunders."
The thunder seemed to shake the house. The rain dashed against the
windows harder than ever. And there were places in the roof of this
attic where the water began to trickle through and drop upon the floor.
"Oh!" cried Mun Bun, on whose head a drop fell. "It's leaking! I don't
like a leaky house. Let's go home, Rose."
"Do you want to go home to Pineville, Mun Bun?" shouted Russ, for he
could not make his voice heard by the others just then without
shouting.
"Well, no. But I'd rather be at that other house where mother is--and
daddy," proclaimed the smallest boy when the noise of the thunder had
again passed.

"I tell you," said Russ soberly, "we'd better go downstairs and play
something till the thunder stops."
"What shall we play?" asked Vi again.
"I'll build an automobile and take you all to ride," said the oldest boy
confidently.
"Oh, Russ! You can't!" gasped Rose.
"A real automobile like the one that we rode down here in from
Pineville?" asked Laddie, opening his eyes very wide.
"Well, no--not just like that," admitted Russ. "But we'll have some fun
with it and we won't bother about the