"I am afraid Laddie's riddle is not as good as some he makes up," said Mother Bunker. "For you know, dogs have trunks as well as elephants."
Her eyes twinkled as she said it, for she knew she was going to puzzle her little brood. At once they all broke out with questions and exclamations. How could that be? They had seen, as Vi said, "oceans of dogs" and none of them had had a nose long enough to be called a trunk, like the elephants they had seen at the circus.
"Mother is just puzzling us," Laddie said. "How can a dog have a trunk when his nose is short and blunt? At least, most dogs' noses are short and blunt."
"Each dog has a trunk nevertheless," declared Mother Bunker, laughing. "And so have you, and so have I."
"I have a suitcase," announced Mun Bun gravely. "I don't have a trunk."
Mother Bunker swept Mun Bun into her arms then and kissed his chubby neck.
"Of course you have a trunk, honey-boy," she cried. "All your little body between your shoulders and your legs is your trunk. So you all have trunks, and so do the dogs."
The children laughed delightedly at this, but Laddie suddenly stopped laughing.
"Why!" he cried out in great glee, "then the elephant, Mother, has two trunks. I guess I can make a good riddle out of that, can't I?"
Russ and Rose took Alexis downstairs after that so that he would not be in the way. They wanted to see Sam again, anyway. And they asked him to dance for them.