"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.
"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."
"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow, flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."
"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing at us now."
"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.
"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."
"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."
"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was a teeny bit scared myself."
The children—all nine of them—spent much of their time in Mammy June's room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping them interested and quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.
Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad, just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them. Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and how much she wanted to see him.