nd down so when the car bumps?" she wanted to
know. "You and mother don't bounce the way Mun Bun and Margy and Rose
and I do. Why do we?"

"Because you are not as heavy as your mother and I. Therefore you cannot
resist the jar of the car so well."

"But why does the car bump at all? Our car at home doesn't bump--unless
we run into something. Why does this car of Mr. Cowboy Jack's bump?"

"The road is not smooth. That is why," said her father, trying to
satisfy that thirst for knowledge which sometimes made Violet a good
deal of a nuisance.

"Why isn't this road smooth?" promptly demanded the little girl.

"Jumping grasshoppers!" ejaculated the ranchman, greatly amused, "can't
that young one ask 'em, though?"

At once Vi's active attention was drawn to another subject.

"Mr. Cowboy Jack," she demanded, "why do grasshoppers jump?"

"Fine!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "You brought it on yourself, Jack.
Answer her if you can."

"That's an easy one," declared the much amused ranchman.

"Well, why do they jump?" asked the impatient Vi.

"I'll tell you," returned Cowboy Jack seriously. "They jump because
their legs are so long that, when they try to walk, they tumble over
their own feet. Do you see how that is?"

"No-o, I don't," said Vi slowly. "But if it is so, why don't they have
shorter legs?"

"Jump--Never mind!" ejaculated Cowboy Jack. "You got me that time. I
reckon I'll let your daddy do the answering. You fixed me, first off."

So Vi never did find out why grasshoppers had such long legs that they
had to jump instead of walk. It puzzled her a good deal. She asked
everybody in the car, and nobody seemed able to explain--not even Daddy
Bunker himself.

"Well," murmured Vi at last, "I never _did_ hear of such--such
iggerance. There doesn't seem to be anybody knows anything."

"I should think you'd know a few things yourself, Vi, so as not to be
always asking," criticized her twin.

Daddy Bunker was much amused by this. But the next moment the wheels on
one side of the car jumped high over a clod of hard earth, and daddy had
to grab quick at Mun Bun or he might have been jounced completely out of
the car.

"What are you trying to do, Mun Bun?" demanded daddy sharply.

"I'm flying my kite," answered the little fellow calmly. "But I 'most
lost it that time, Daddy."

Before getting into the automobile Mun Bun had found a large piece of
stiff brown paper and had tied a string of some length to it. Althoug