"Where are you going?" asked Laddie.
"Off to the woods for a little picnic. Bill Johnson is going to put us up a little lunch, and we will stay all day and have fun in the woods."
"Oh, yes, we'll go!" cried Russ. "We can ride our ponies some other time," he added to his brother.
"All right," Laddie agreed. "Maybe I can think of a riddle in the woods."
"What makes them call it a 'woods,' Mother?" asked Vi later, when the lunch baskets were ready and the picnic party was about to set off. "Why don't they call it a 'trees' insteads of a woods? There's a lot of trees there."
"You may call it that, if you like," said Mother Bunker. "We'll go to the 'trees' and have some fun. Come on all my six little Bunkers!"
And away they went to the woods or the trees, whichever you like. There was a large clump of trees not far from the house on Three Star Ranch, and in that the children had their picnic. They played under the green boughs, had games of tag and ate their lunch. Then they rested and, after a while, Russ called:
"Come on! Let's have a game of hide-and-go-seek! I'll be it, and I'll blind and all the rest of you can hide."
"Oh, that'll be lots of fun!" said Rose.
So they played this game. Russ easily saw where Margy and Mun Bun hid themselves, behind bushes near the tree where he was "blinding," but he let them "in free." Then he caught Rose, and she had to be "it" the next time. Violet came in free, for she had picked out a good hiding-place.