"Never mind, Jack. Mother's coming!"
This was just what Rose had often heard her mother say when there had been some scare in the night among the six little Bunkers.
"He's gone and done it again!" cried Bess, and she now clung to Rose's nightgown. Then from the room whence the thud of the fall had come, sounded another voice crying:
"I didn't mean to!"
"Well, this is getting more and more queer all the while!" thought Rose, rubbing her eyes to make herself more widely awake. "First it was Laddie who was calling about being pulled out of bed, but that wasn't Laddie who spoke last, nor Russ."
A moment later Russ appeared, coming from the room where he had been sleeping with his small brother Laddie. There was a strange look on Russ' face. As Rose looked at him she saw the little figure of Jack come out of the room behind Russ, even as Bess had followed her out of her room. And then came Laddie, making a procession of three little pajama-clad small boys.
At the other end of the hall Daddy Bunker appeared in his dressing gown, and then came Mrs. River and Mr. White.
"What's the matter?" asked Daddy Bunker.
"I don't know," Rose answered. "But this little girl—Bess—came into my room and woke me up. I didn't know what to do, and then I heard Laddie call about being pulled out of bed, and——"
"And I was pulled out of bed, too!" Laddie interrupted. "Somebody came into my room in the night and pulled all the covers off me, and then he pulled me, and it wasn't Russ, either!" he added.