"And he has sunk down!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "Get him out right away, Daddy! He may be smothered in the mud!"
"I'll get him!" cried Mun Bun's father.
Mr. Bunker took off his shoes and socks and, rolling up his trousers so they would not get muddy, waded out to where his little boy was. Truly Mun Bun was stuck in the middle of a big mud pie—at least that was what Margy called it. It was, however, the muddy bottom of the pond itself, which, at one end, was a regular bog, being fenced off so no cattle or horses could get in.
But Mun Bun had climbed in under the fence, and at once he found himself in soft mud. He had begun to sink down; so he called for help, and Margy ran to tell her mother.
"My, but you are a sight, Mun Bun!" cried his father, as he came to the side of the little boy and began pulling him out. And Mun Bun was stuck so fast in the mud that Mr. Bunker had to pull quite hard to loosen him. And when Mun Bun came up, his legs and feet making a funny, sucking sound as they were pulled out, he was covered with mud and water from his toes to his waist. Mud was splashed up on his face, too, and his hands—well, they didn't look like hands at all! They were just "gobs of mud," Margy said.
"How did it happen? What made you go in the mud?" asked the little boy's mother, as Daddy Bunker waded to shore with Mun Bun.
"Well, I made some mud pies in the sand," Mun Bun explained, "and then I thought maybe if I could find a mud turkle he'd eat the pies. So I crawled under the fence and went in the deep mud to look for a mud turkle."
Mun Bun meant a "turtle," of course.
"But I didn't find any," he went on, "and I went down deeper and deeper, and then I hollered like anything."
"And I heard him," said Margy. "I was going to wade in and get him, but my feet went down deep in the mud, so I ran for you."