Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's Part 12

CHAPTER IX

AT TARRINGTON

"Are we there?" cried Laddie, as he slid out of his seat and turned to Grandpa Ford. "Are we at Great Hedge?"

"Well, if we are, the train must have run into it, and got stuck fast,"

answered the old gentleman with a smile.

"What made it b.u.mp so?" asked Violet.

"I think we must have hit a snow bank, or else some of the rails and switches are stopped up with snow," answered Daddy Bunker.

It was getting quite dark, because of the snow clouds outside, and the electric lights of the train had been switched on. Every one in the car where the Bunkers rode, and, I suppose, in each of the other cars of the train, had been well shaken up when it stopped so suddenly. But no one had really been hurt.

"Perhaps we had better see what it is," said Daddy Bunker to his stepfather. "Perhaps the train can't go any farther, and we can't get to Tarrington."

"Oh, can't we go to Grandpa's?" asked Rose, looking as if she could not bear to have such a dreadful thing happen. "I want to go!"

"If the train can't go we can get out and walk," suggested Russ. "I like to walk in the snow. If I had some lawn tennis rackets I could make snowshoes for all of us, and we could walk on them."

"But you haven't any tennis rackets," observed Laddie. "And you can't get any on the train, lessen maybe the boy that had Mun Bun's popgun has some."

"They don't play lawn tennis in winter," said Rose.

"Hush, children, dear," begged Mrs. Bunker, for they were raising their voices as they talked. "We want to hear what the trainman says."

"What happened that made us stop so quickly, and with such a b.u.mp?"

asked Grandpa Ford, as the railroad man came in covered with the white flakes. "Was there an accident?"

"A little one," the man answered. "But we'll soon be all right. The snow clogged and stopped up a switch, and the engineer was afraid he would get on the wrong track, so he put on the brakes quickly and made a short and sudden stop. But we are going to dig away the snow, and then, I think, we can go on again."

"We want to go to Grandpa Ford's," spoke up Violet, as she stood close to the trainman. "Will the train take us there?"

"It will if the snow will let us, little girl," was the answer, and many pa.s.sengers in the train laughed at Vi's funny question.

The brakeman hurried out, and some of the men pa.s.sengers, putting on their heavy overcoats, went with him. It was too dark outside for any of the six little Bunkers to see anything that was going on. But by placing their faces close against the windows of the car and holding a hand on either side of the face to shut out the light in the car, they could see a little way into the darkness outside.

"It's snowing hard," reported Russ.

"I like it," said Rose. "We can have some sleigh rides, and coast downhill."

"And build snow men," added Violet, giving a little wriggle of pleasure.

"And snow forts, and have s...o...b..ll fights!" exclaimed Laddie.

Mun Bun and Margy were eating some cookies their mother had saved for them, so they didn't say anything, just then.

"Could you ever make a snow man that would talk?" asked Vi, when she and the others had tired of looking out at the swirling flakes.

"'Course not!" exclaimed Laddie. "That would be like a riddle."

"I could make a snow man talk," declared Russ.

"You could not! How could you?" asked Laddie.

"I could scoop out a hollow place in his back and put a phonograph inside, and when I wound it up the snow man would talk."

"The phonograph would freeze inside a snow man," said Laddie.

"No, it wouldn't. If it did I could build a little fire and melt it,"

Russ went on. "Maybe I'll do it, too; that is, if I can find a phonograph."

"But if you built a fire to thaw out the phonograph it would melt the snow man," said Rose.

Russ seemed to be puzzled by this.

"Well, I'd do it somehow," he declared. "I'd just build a little fire, and that wouldn't melt the snow man very much."

Back into the car came trooping some of the men who had gone out to see the switch and rails clogged with the snow.

"Are we able to go on?" asked Grandpa Ford of one of these men.

"I think so," was the answer. "The snow has been shoveled away from the switch, and the engineer is going to try again. But it is a bad storm, and I doubt if we get through to-night."

"Won't we get home to your place, Grandpa?" asked Laddie.

"It's hard to tell," answered the old gentleman. "But, if worst comes to worst, we can stay on the train all night. We can sleep here and eat here, but perhaps we can get almost to Tarrington, and drive in a big sled the rest of the way."

"Where can you get a sled?" asked Violet, always ready with a question.

"Oh, I can hire one, if I can't get my own," said Grandpa Ford. "I told one of my men to meet us at the depot with a big carriage. But when he sees it snowing, as it is now up at Great Hedge, he'll take out the sled, I'm sure."

"I like to ride in a sled," said Rose. "It's such fun to cuddle down in the fur robes."

"Have you got fur robes, Grandpa?" Vi inquired.

"Oh, yes, plenty of them," he answered. "But I hope we'll get to Tarrington," he added in a low voice to Mr. and Mrs. Bunker. "I would not want to drive in an open sled through this cold storm with the children."

"They wouldn't mind it," said Daddy Bunker. "If they were well-wrapped they would like it."

"I suppose I should have waited until warmer weather to bring you to Great Hedge," went on Grandpa Ford. "But I wanted to have the children with me, and so did their grandmother. She hasn't seen them all together for some time. So I just thought I'd bring you in the winter, and not wait for summer."

"And I'm glad you did," said Mother Bunker. "We'll be all right, once we get there."

"Another reason why I wanted you at Great Hedge," went on Grandpa Ford, "is that I want you to help me find out about those queer noises, and what makes them. If there's a----"

But just then Grandpa Ford saw Rose and Russ looking at him in a queer and interested way and as if they wanted to hear what was being said, so he stopped with: