"I dess wanted to sleep," murmured Mun Bun, holding up his spoon.
"Next time you want your watch below," said Captain Briggs, shaking his head, "you report to me first. Do you hear?"
"Yes, Ma'am," said Mun Bun, quite sure that he had said the right thing although they all laughed at him.
Mother Bunker kept the little fellow close to her thereafter; but Vi and Laddie followed the two older children out on deck. There was a comfortably filled passenger list on the Kammerboy; but the wind was rather heavy that afternoon and many of them remained in the cabins. But the four children had a great game of hide and seek all over the forward deck.
Finally Daddy Bunker appeared from aft to make sure that none of the quartette was lost. He took Laddie and Vi below with him after a time and the two older children were left alone. They found seats in the lee of what the ship's men called "the house" and sat down to rest and talk. But every now and then one of them jumped up to look astern to see if the land had disappeared, as Daddy Bunker said it would.
"It's a long time going," said Rose.
"Well, there is a lot of it to go. Don't you remember," said Russ, "how big the North American continent is in the geography?"
"Oh! Is that it?" cried Rose.
"Yes. We've got to lose the whole top part of North America," her confident brother declared.
There was some sort of officer (he had brass buttons and wore a cap, so Russ and Rose knew he must be an officer) pacing the deck, back and forth, not far from their chairs. Every time he came near he threw a pleasant word to the brother and sister. Russ and Rose began to ask him questions and sometimes trotted beside him as he paced his lookout watch. Violet would have delighted in this man, for he seemed to know almost everything about ships and the sea and was perfectly willing to answer questions.