ed us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo
saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing
at us now."

"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.

"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down
to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."

"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy
Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."

"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was
a teeny bit scared myself."

The children--all nine of them--spent much of their time in Mammy June's
room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping them interested and
quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother
Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.

Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad,
just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them.
Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to
relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what
they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and
how much she wanted to see him.

Russ and Rose Bunker were quite used to thinking things out for
themselves. Of course, there were times when Russ had to go to Daddy
Bunker for help and his sister had to confess to Mother Bunker that she
did not know what to do. For instance, that adventure of Russ's with the
sailor-boy aboard the steamship.

But this matter of helping Mammy June's son to find his mother, if by
chance he came back to the site of the burned cabin, was solely their
own affair, and Russ and Rose realized the fact.

"We ought to be able to do something about it ourselves," declared Russ
to his sister. "I'm going to ask Mammy June again if she is sure Sneezer
can't read a word of writing."

This he did. Mammy June shook her head somewhat sadly.

"Dat boy always have to wo'k," she said. "When first he went away he
sent me back money by mail. The man he wo'ked for sent it. Then Sneezer
losed his job. But he never learnt to read hand-writin'. Much as he
could do to spell out the big print on the front of the newspapers.
That's surely so!"

Rose suddenly thought of something--and perhaps it was not a foolish
idea at that.

"Oh, Mammy!" she cried, "can your boy read newspaper print?"

"Sure can. De big print. What yo' call de haidlines in big print. Sure
ca