“I ate only about forty-’leven berries,” confessed Margy.
“An’ I ate six-fourteen,” admitted Mun Bun. “They is awful good, these berries is, an’ maybe Rose wouldn’t make a cake, anyhow, an’——”
“I see!” laughed Russ. “They were afraid they wouldn’t get their share of berries if they waited, so they’re taking them now.”
“It’s all right, my dears,” said their mother, for Margy and Mun Bun did not like to be laughed at. “Eat as many berries as you wish. They are ripe and fresh and very tempting. We’ll get enough for Rose’s cake, I think.”
So while the younger ones ate the lovely fruit, the older ones dropped the berries they picked into the baskets until they had a sufficient quantity—more than two quarts.
Once, while they were picking, the six little Bunkers heard a roaring, bellowing sound off behind a second hill.
“Oh, maybe that’s the old bull who has gotten loose—Ralph’s bull!” cried Violet, as she ran toward her mother.
“I hardly think so,” Mrs. Bunker answered. But the noise sounded again, very much like the bellow of a bull.
“Russ, get a club and some stones!” cried Rose. “There isn’t any fence here to jump over. Get a stick and drive away the bull!” Russ caught up a short club—not a very heavy one if it was to be used against a bull. Mrs. Bunker stood up and looked around. Then she laughed.
“Don’t be afraid, children,” she said. “It isn’t a bull at all. It’s the whistle of an engine on a distant train. There it goes!” and she pointed to the railroad, about a mile off over the hill. A train was going along, very slowly, it seemed, but probably it was speeding faster than it appeared to be. And as the Bunkers looked they saw a puff of white steam from the locomotive. A little later they heard the whistle. When they had been stooping down the whistle had sounded like the distant bellow of a bull.