"What did I tell you?" demanded Frane, Junior, from the bank. "You couldn't catch that cat."

"I know it!" jerked out Russ. "I know it now."

"Lawsy me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mammy June. "Is that the way you ketches catfish up Norf?"

The other little Bunkers did not understand this. Vi wanted to know at once if Russ had a kitty in the water with him. But n.o.body paid any attention to her questions.

"Here, you 'Lias and Henery!" commanded Mammy June to two of the older colored boys. "What you standin' there idle for? Go out on that bridge and haul that poor chile ash.o.r.e. What a state he is in, to be sure!"

It did not take long to help Russ up on to the log again. The water just poured off him; but it was not very cold and his teeth didn't chatter--much. Mammy June showed anxiety, however.

"You come right into de house, honey," she said to Russ. "Now, little Miss," she added to Rose, "yo' mustn't scold him now. Wait till we wring his clothes out and get him dry. Yo' 'Lias, bring some dry bresh and some good sticks. We'll want a hot fire."

Mammy June had no stove in her cabin, but a broad and smoke-blackened open fireplace. There was a small fire in it, over which her teakettle hung. In five minutes the negro boys made a roaring blaze. Then the old woman drove them all out of the cabin save Russ, whom she helped off with his wet clothes, rubbed dry with a big towel, and to whom she gave a shirt and trousers to put on while she wrung out his clothing and hung it all about the fire to dry.

"That shirt and them pants," she said, "b'longs to my Sneezer--my Ebenezer. If he was here this wouldn't have happened to yo', honey. He wouldn't have let no w'ite boy fall into that branch--no, sir. But these no-'count other young ones didn't know 'nough to tell yo' that that ain't the way to catch catfish."

"I found out myself," admitted Russ rather ruefully.

Rose came to the door and begged to know if Russ was all right.

"He's going to be just as soon as I get him made a hot drink," declared Mammy June.

"Has he got all over being drowned?" Margy demanded.

And even Mun Bun was a good deal troubled because Russ had got so wet.

"If you had any candy in your pocket, Russ," the little boy said, "it must be all soft now. It won't be good to eat."

"I didn't have any candy, Mun Bun," Russ told him. Russ was feeling a whole lot better now. Mammy June gave him a nice hot, sweet drink. He didn't mind if it was a little "stingy" too.

"Yo' all come in yere--yo' little w'ite folks," said Mammy June, "and we'll make some 'la.s.ses taffy. I got plenty sorgum 'la.s.ses. We can make it w'ile this catfish boy is getting dry."

She continued to call Russ "the catfish boy" and chuckled over his adventure. But she warned him, when his clothing was dry, that he must be more careful when he was playing about the water.

"An' yo' got to tell yo' mudder and daddy about it," she instructed Russ. "Don't never hide nothin' from 'em."

"Oh, we don't!" Rose broke in. "We always tell Mother and Daddy everything."

"That's what I tell my Philly and Ally and Frane, Junior. Always must tell they parents."

"And get scolded for it," said Phillis rather crossly.

"Well, then," said Mammy June cheerfully, "you mustn't do things to get scolded for. So I tell all these grandchildren of mine. Scat, you children!" for she saw several of the smaller colored boys and girls trying to steal in at the cabin door. "Ain't room for you in here noways. Yo' shall have yo' share of the 'la.s.ses candy when it's done."

That "taffy pull" was a famous one. The six little Bunkers thought they had never eaten such nice mola.s.ses candy as Mammy June made. Phillis Armatage made believe that she did a lot to help for she b.u.t.tered the pans. But it was Mammy June who really did it all.

"I think," confessed Rose to Alice, "that it is awfully nice to have both a mammy and a mother, as you girls have. Of course, a mammy can't be just what Mother Bunker is to us; but Mammy June is nice."

"She's lots better to us than our mother, in some ways," said Alice bluntly. "Mother doesn't want us to play noisy in the house. She has headaches and stays on the couch a lot. We have to step soft and can't talk loud. But Mammy June never has the fidgets."

"What's 'fidgets'?" asked Rose, quite shocked by the way Alice spoke of her mother.

"What ladies have," explained Alice. "Don't your mother have 'em?"

"I guess not. I never heard about them," Rose answered. "Then if your mother is sick, I don't suppose she can help it. It is lucky you have got a mammy."

That first afternoon ("evening" all these Southern folks called it) at Mammy June's was a very pleasant experience. Russ did not mind his ducking--much. He only grinned a little when Mammy June called him "the catfish boy."

"Serves me good and right," he confessed to Rose. "I ought not to have gone into that brook without a bathing suit. And, anyway, I guess a boy can't catch fish of any kind with his hands."

Mun Bun and Margy and the smaller colored children managed to spread the mola.s.ses taffy over face and hands to a greater or less degree; but they enjoyed the taffy pull as much as the older children did. Finally, after Mammy June had washed his face and hands, Mun Bun climbed up into her comfortable lap and went fast asleep.

The old woman, who loved children so dearly and was so kind to them, looked at one of her older grandsons, Elias, and ordered him to "get de boxwagon to take dis bressed baby home in."

A soapbox on a plank between two pairs of wheels being produced and the box made comfortable with a quilt and a pillow belonging to Mammy June, Mun Bun was laid, still fast asleep, in this vehicle, and Russ started to drag his little brother home.

"Yo' 'Lias!" exclaimed Mammy June, from the doorway of her cabin, "whar's yo' manners? Don't you let that w'ite visitor boy drag that boxwagon. You get busy, 'Lias."

Russ and the other Bunker children were not used to being waited on at every step and turn. But they became better used to it as the time pa.s.sed. The white folks on the Meiggs Plantation seemed to expect all this aid from the colored folks, and the latter seemed willing and eager to attend.

Russ was not scolded for his involuntary plunge into the branch. In fact his father laughed immensely at the tale. But Mother Bunker had to be a.s.sured that the stream was neither deep nor boisterous before she could laugh much.

The children had all had a lovely afternoon at Mammy June's and after that day they found most of their enjoyment in running down to her cabin and playing there. This delight was shared by the Armatages too. And the latter's father and mother seemed perfectly content if the children were in mammy's care.

The days pa.s.sed all too swiftly. Everybody, darkies and all, were on tiptoe about the coming festival of Christmas and New Year's. The six little Bunkers learned that these holidays were celebrated in different style on this Georgia plantation from what they were in the North.

CHAPTER XV

WHEN CHRISTMAS IS FOURTH OF JULY

Mun Bun and Margy were too little always to accompany the older children on their rambles; but the two smallest Bunkers could be trusted to invent plays of their own when they might be left out of the older one's parties. They had long since learned not to feel slighted if Mother Bunker decided that they were to stay near her.

There was sufficient mystery and expectation regarding the coming holiday celebrations at the Meiggs Plantation to excite the little folks in any case. There was to be no Christmas tree such as the Bunkers had had the previous Christmas in the North. Both Mun Bun and Margy could remember that tree very clearly.

But there was quite as much hiding of funny shaped packages until the gift day should arrive, and the house was being decorated, inside and out, for the coming celebration. Mun Bun and Margy watched the servants hanging Christmas greens and mistletoe, although, unlike the older little Bunkers, they could not go into the swamps with the men to gather these greens.

"We just ought to have a Christmas tree of our own," Margy said to Mun Bun. "I know where we can get a tree, and we'll beg some wreaths and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g from that nice colored man there."

"We can't," said Mun Bun, somewhat despondently. "We isn't got a house to put the tree in. And we had the Christmas tree last time in the house."

"I've found a house," whispered Margy. "But don't you tell anybody."

"Not even tell Muvver?" asked Mun Bun, looking almost scared. Yet the idea of a secret delighted him too.