d it
got caught up in a tree--the balloon did--and Mun Bun's got hold of the
string and he won't come away, 'cause if he does he'll maybe break the
string and the balloon and----"

Rose had to stop, she was so out of breath, but she had told all there was
need to tell.

Mrs. Bunker and Norah, who had reached the street and could look down and
see Mun Bun standing under a tree not far away, came to a sudden stop.

"And then the little darlin' isn't caught up by a German airship?" asked
the cook.

"No. It's just a balloon he bought with the five cents Jerry gave him,"
explained Rose, "and it's caught in a tree, and----"

"I see how it is," said Mrs. Bunker, and she laughed. "Mun Bun doesn't
want to come away without his toy balloon. We must get it for him, Norah!"

"Sure, that we will! The saints be praised he isn't flyin' above the
clouds this blessed minute!" and with Norah, now laughing also, the three
of them went to where Mun stood under the tree. Caught on one of the
branches overhead was a big red balloon. It was fast to a string, and the
little boy held the other end of the cord.

"I can't get it down!" he exclaimed.

"Well, it's a good thing you didn't climb up after it," said his mother.
"We'll get it down for you, Mun."

She took hold of the string, and Norah, finding a long stick, carefully
poked it up among the tree branches until she had loosed the toy balloon.
Then it floated free, and Mun Bun could walk along with it floating on the
end of the string above his head.

"It's a awful nice balloon," he said. "If it was bigger I could have a
ride in it like Jerry did in the one when he was in the army."

"Well, I'm glad it isn't any bigger," said Mrs. Bunker. "Small as it is,
you gave us enough trouble with it, Mun."

"But Mun Bun's all right! Norah was scared about him," said the girl,
hugging the little boy close to her as they all walked back toward the
house.

"Where did you get the balloon?" asked Mrs. Bunker.

"Down at Mrs. Kane's store," answered Mun, mentioning a little toy and
candy shop on the block on which the six little Bunkers lived. They spent
all their spare pennies there.

And it was in bringing his toy balloon home, on the end of a long string,
letting it float in the air over his head that Mun Bun had had the
accident at the tree when the blown-up rubber bag got caught in the
branch. He wouldn't leave it, of course, and Rose ran to tell her mother.
That's how it all happene