"'Course you can," answered Russ. "I'll give you a nice ride."

And then, while Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker went to a Red Cross meeting
and while Daddy Bunker went downtown to put an advertisement in the
paper about the pocketbook Rose had found, the children played around
Mr. North's barn and Aunt Jo's yard.

"Will it be all right to leave them while we go out?" asked Aunt Jo of
Mrs. Bunker.

"Oh, yes, as long as your man, William, and your cook, Parker, and your
housemaid, Anne, are around to sort of look after them. I often leave
them with our Norah and Jerry Simms."

So the six little Bunkers were left to themselves. And you can easily
imagine that they had all sorts of good times. There was a stone walk
around Aunt Jo's house, as well as around Mr. North's, and there Russ
and his brothers and sisters rode in the express wagon, on the
velocipede and on the coaster. They laughed and shouted, and every now
and then there would be an upset, but no one was hurt and they all
seemed to like it.

Now and then Parker or William or Anne would come out from the house or
the garage to look and see that the six little Bunkers were coming to no
harm, and when they found the children were all right they smiled, for
it was fun to watch them play.

"I know what we can do," said Russ to Laddie, after they had taken turns
riding on the velocipede and coaster. Just at this time Margy and Mun
Bun had the coaster and were playing steam-car with it.

"What can we do?" asked Laddie, always ready to have fun with his older
brother.

"We can make a harness for Alexis, and hitch him to the express wagon,"
went on Russ.

"Oh, that'll be lots of fun!" cried Laddie. "But what'll we make a
harness of? Aunt Jo hasn't any horses and Mr. North hasn't either."

"We can make it of string," said Russ. "It doesn't need to be very
strong, for we aren't very heavy to pull."

So Russ and Laddie begged pieces of string from Parker, not telling what
they were going to make.

"If it's a cat's cradle you have cord enough for a dozen," said the
good-natured cook, as she handed out the pieces of string she had saved
from the grocery packages.

"No, we're not going to make cats' cradles," answered Russ. "You can see
it when we get finished."

It was no very hard matter to catch Alexis and fasten a lot of pieces of
string around him, as nearly like a harness as the two little boys could
manage. The dog loved children, and asked nothing better