And just then there came a sudden pop, as of a pistol, and a loud cry from Margy. She sat up in her seat and fairly shouted:
"Now you stop, Mun Bun! Stop shooting my doll! Mother, make Mun Bun stop!" cried the little girl. "He's got a gun, and he shot my doll, and he knocked her off the seat, and maybe she's killed."
"Mun Bun with a gun! What do you mean?" cried Daddy Bunker, jumping up from his seat. "What are you doing, Munroe?" he asked, a bit sternly.
The two youngest children had awakened while Grandpa Ford was telling about the ghost at Great Hedge. Of course they did not hear about it, nor did Rose and Russ.
"I have a popgun, and it shoots a cork," explained Mun Bun, as he held up what he had aimed at Margy's doll. "It didn't hurt, 'cause it only shoots a cork," he said.
"But you shooted my doll, and knocked her over, and maybe she's broken!" sobbed Margy.
By this time Mrs. Bunker had reached the seat where the little girl and her brother had been sleeping. The mother picked the Japanese doll up from where it had fallen to the floor of the car, and said:
"Don't cry any more, Margy. Your doll isn't hurt a bit. But Mun Bun mustn't shoot at her any more, with corks or anything else. Munroe Ford Bunker! where did you get the popgun?" his mother asked, as she saw that he really did have a small one.
"Out of the basket," he answered. "When Margy and I went to get a drink of water I saw the popgun in the train boy's basket, and I took it out. I thought maybe I'd want to shoot at a snow man me and Grandpa are going to make, so I kept the gun. Daddy can give the train boy a penny for it. I hid it in the seat. Then I saw Margy's doll on the seat in front, and she was asleep—Margy was—and I shot at the doll, but I didn't mean to make her fall."
"Oh, dear! Such a boy!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "To take the gun without asking! Here comes the boy now. You must give it back."