Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's Part 21

"Whoa!" echoed Mun Bun, and he smiled at the officer.

"Where are you going?" asked Mr. Mulligan.

"I'm having a ride," said Mun Bun. "The junkman is at my Aunt Jo's house, and I got up on the seat and I'm having a ride!"

"Land love us! And look at the size of him!" murmured the cook, who had followed the policeman.

"He is little," said the policeman. "But you'd better get down, my little man. You might fall off."

"I had a nice ride, anyhow," said Mun Bun, as the policeman lifted him down from the wagon.

"But now I've got to find out where you live, and who owns this rig,"

went on the officer.

"The idea of him drivin' off with it all alone--the likes of him!"

murmured the wondering cook.

"Oh, he's a smart little chap!" said the policeman, smiling at Mun Bun.

"But, unless I'm mistaken, here comes the real junkman. He looks worried, too."

Around the corner of the street came the man who had been talking to William in Aunt Jo's yard. He was running hard, and his hat had fallen off.

"My horse! My wagon!" he cried. "Somebody ran away with them!"

"No, they didn't, Ike!" said the policeman, who had seen the junk collector before. "Your horse just walked away with this boy, and it's lucky the little chap didn't fall off the seat. Get on now, and drive back where you came from. Where does this boy belong?"

"How should I know?" asked the junkman. "I never saw him before."

"Well, he must have got on the wagon at the last place you stopped,"

said the officer. "Where was that?"

"Oh, sure! I know what you mean!" exclaimed the junkman. "I know the lady's house. Her automobile man often sells me old papers. I can tell you," and he did, mentioning Aunt Jo's house.

"I'll just take the boy back," said the policeman.

His hand in that of the big policeman, Mun Bun went back gladly enough, and just in time, too, for his mother, looking out and "counting noses"

had not seen him with the other children, and, fearing he had wandered away, she was just starting out to look for him.

"Where have you been?" she cried, as she saw Mun Bun with a policeman.

"Oh, I had a nice ride," answered the little boy.

"He was on the junk wagon," Mr. Mulligan explained.

"Oh, ho! So it was you who ran with Ike's rig, was it?" asked William.

"Well, well! He was frightened when he didn't see his horse out in front where he had left it. How do you like the junk business, Mun Bun?"

"I like the horse, and I did drive him, I did!" said the little fellow proudly.

"Well, don't do it again," sighed Mrs. Bunker.

"No'm, I won't!" promised Mun Bun.

The six little Bunkers always promised this whenever they did anything they ought not to have done. But the trouble was that they did something different the next time, and not the same thing they were told not to do.

"I wish I'd had a ride with you," said Margy, as her little brother, after the policeman had gone, told what had happened.

"Well, I don't!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker.

So Mun Bun got safely back home again, and the rest of the day his mother saw to it that he played in the yard and around the house with his brothers and sisters.

"Did anybody ever come for the pocketbook and the sixty-five dollars?"

asked Rose one day, after breakfast, when the six little Bunkers were wondering what to do to have fun.

"No, we haven't yet found an owner," said her father. "But there is time enough yet."

"And you didn't find my doll that the balloons took away, did you?"

"Not yet, Rose. I'm afraid Lily is gone forever," answered her mother.

"Some day I'll get you a new doll."

"Yes; but she wouldn't be Lily," said Rose, and she felt quite bad about what had happened.

Out in the yard went the children to play. Russ was making what he said was going to be a kite, and Laddie and Violet were playing in the sand.

Rose was watching Parker bake a cake and Margy and Mun Bun walked up and down the porch, pulling two little rubber dolls in a thread box, which they pretended was a big automobile.

Pretty soon, down the street came a two-wheeled cart, pushed by a man who had gold rings in his ears, and the cart made a cheerful whistling sound.

"Oh, listen!" cried Mun Bun.

"It's like a choo-choo car!" said Margy.

"Let's go and look at it!" cried Mun Bun.

"All right," agreed his sister.

Leaving the thread-box automobile and the two little dolls on the porch, the two small children ran down to the front gate to look at the whistling wagon.

CHAPTER XV

LADDIE'S FUNNY RIDDLE

"Doesn't it make a nice noise?" asked Mun Bun of Margy.

"Terrible nice," agreed the little girl. "What makes it?"