"I want to do something!" complained Vi.
"So do I," added Laddie. "If I don't do something I'm goin' to think up another riddle. I know one about——"
"No, you don't!" cried Russ, with a laugh. "No more riddles until we get the steamboat started. Here, you bring over some of the bigger footstools, Laddie. And Vi can help you. Now we're all working—all six of us;" and as Russ spoke he began dragging out of the corners of the attic some chairs and light boards, with which he intended to build the "steamboat."
Of course it was not a regular vessel, nor did it sail on water. In fact, there was no water in the attic of the house where the six little Bunkers lived. There was no water even when it rained, for the roof had no holes in it, and the attic made a lovely place for the children to play.
It was not raining now, and, if they had wished, the children could have had fun out in the yard. But they had just returned from a jolly vacation spent in the open on Uncle Fred's ranch in the West, and perhaps they felt that to play indoors would be a welcome change. They were as brown as berries from having been so much out in the sun and the wind.
"All aboard! All aboard the steamboat!" called Russ, when the boards, chairs, footstools, spinning wheel and other things had been put in place near the center of the attic. "All aboard! Toot! Toot! Don't anybody fall into the water! Hand me that bundle, Rose, please," said Russ to his sister nearest him in age.
"Has it got life preservers in it?" asked Violet. "If it has, can I put one on, and will you let me make-believe fall in the water, Russ? And will you pull me out, and——"
"There you go again! As bad as ever!" laughed Russ. "No, these aren't life preservers! They're sugar cookies, and I got them for us to eat on the steamboat! All aboard! Toot! Toot!"
"Oh, sugar cookies! I'm glad!" cried Mun Bun. "I likes sugar cookies, don't you, Margy?" he asked, as he sat close to his little sister on the footstool.
"I 'ikes any kind," she lisped, a form of talk she had not altogether gotten over since her "baby" days.