" he added, as he
picked it up off the floor. Every button had been pulled off in the
machine.

"Oh, dear!" sighed his sister. "She's spoiled!"

"Oh, no. I'll help you make her look like a messenger again, Rose," said
her mother "But you boys had better keep away from the corn-shelling
machine. You might be hurt."

Russ and Laddie promised. They had not really meant to annoy Rose, but
they had just not stopped to think. They did so want to see the yellow
shoe buttons pulled off their sister's doll. And that's just what
happened. The doll was shaped something like an ear of corn, and the
yellow buttons stuck out like kernels. And so the doll was "shucked."

After a while Rose got over feeling bad, and the next day all the yellow
buttons were sewed back on the doll. And Tom kept the corncrib locked, so
Laddie and Russ could not get into it again.

"But it was lots of fun seeing the yellow buttons drop out the spout,"
said Russ.

"And I could almost make up a riddle about it," added Laddie.

"I don't want any riddles about my doll," objected Rose. "She's too nice.
I'm going to sew some yellow buttons on now, and black ones too, 'cause
you lost some of the yellow ones."

"Well, we won't shuck her any more," promised Russ.

These were happy days at Grandma Bell's. Something new could be played by
the children all the while. They loved it in the woods, and on the shores
of beautiful Lake Sagatook.

"When are you going to get the boat, Daddy, and take us out?" asked Russ
one afternoon, when they had seen the red-haired fishermen once more. He
came close to the sandy point, and talked to the six little Bunkers, but
he said he had not yet found the lumberman who had been given the ragged
coat with Mr. Bunker's papers in the pocket.

"I'll get a boat next week," promised Mr. Bunker. "Then we can all go for
a row."

"And fish, too?" asked Russ.

"Yes, we'll fish also," said his father.

But, as it happened, Laddie got tired waiting for the boat, and made one
himself. At least he made a sort of raft.

He nailed some boards and pieces of wood together, and when he pushed the
raft into the shallow water, near the shore of Sandy Point, as the
children called their play-spot, Laddie found that he could stand up on
his raft and push himself along. The raft floated with him on it, as
though it were a boat. Of course the water came up over the top, but as
Laddie went barefooted this did not matter.

One day he went do