"Mun Bun!" exclaimed the little boy's father.
"Did you go out in a boat again?" asked Mrs. Bunker.
"Oh, no'm, we didn't do that!" said Mun Bun quickly.
"We just waded over to the little island," said Margy. "But somebody poured water in the river, and it got high and we couldn't wade back again."
"They were marooned in the middle of Clam River for a fact! That's what they were!" said Mr. Burnett. "But I heard 'em yell, and I took 'em off. Here they are."
"You must never wade out like that again," said the father of Mun Bun and Margy. "This river isn't like ours at home. An island there is always an island, unless floods come, and you know about them. There is a tide here twice a day and what may seem a safe bit of sand on which to play at one time may be covered with water at another. So don't go wading unless you ask your mother or me first."
"We won't," promised Mun Bun and Margy.
Then Mr. Bunker thanked Mr. Burnett and after the lobster had been bought the fisherman puffed away in his boat, waving a good-bye to the children he had saved from being marooned on the island.
Mun Bun and Margy had to tell their story over again several times and they had to answer many questions from their brothers and sisters, about how they felt when they saw the water coming up.
Of course the two smallest of the six little Bunkers had been in some danger, though if Mr. Burnett had not seen them and rescued them, some one else might have done so. But it taught all the little Bunkers a lesson about the dangers of the rising tide, and if any of you ever go to the seashore I hope you will be careful. If you live at the shore, of course you know about the tides.