when Mun Bun leaned against it the strip of fence fell right over on to the gra.s.s of the goose yard.

"Now see what you've done, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy.

"Why--oh--I didn't mean to," sputtered Mun Bun.

"What do you s'pose Mr. Armatage will say?"

"He won't say anything," said Mun Bun briskly. "For he won't see it. And now, Margy, we can throw the corn to those gooseys and ganders much better. See!"

He grabbed a handful of sh.e.l.led corn out of the dish and scattered it as far as he could toward the flock. At once the gray birds became interested. They stretched their long necks and the big gander uttered a questioning "honk!"

"It's corn--it's real corn!" cried Mun Bun. "Don't be afraid, goosey-goosey-gander," and he shouted with laughter.

Margy threw a handful of corn too. At once the geese drew nearer. When they reached the first kernels they began grabbing them up with that strange shoveling motion with their bills that all geese and ducks make.

The children watched them with delight.

But as the geese waddled nearer the old gander began to wiggle his head from side to side and to hiss softly. Margy and Mun Bun looked at each other, and both drew back.

"I don't like that one much," said Margy. "Do you, Mun Bun?"

"I don't like him at all," confessed the little fellow. "I guess we'd better go back. Maybe Mother will be wanting us."

Margy turned as quickly as he did. She had not thrown out all the corn, but as she turned away a few kernels scattered from the dish. Instantly the gander saw this. With a long hiss he started after the two children, and many of his flock kept right behind their leader.

"Oh! Come quick, Mun Bun!" gasped Margy.

Mun Bun seized her hand. As they ran up the slope the corn scattered from the dish. This was enough to keep the flock following. But the big gander did not chase the little boy and girl because of the scattered corn. He was really angry!

The chubby legs of Mun Bun and Margy looked good to that old gander. He ran hissing after them and began to flap his wings. One stroke of one of those wings would knock down either of the children.

CHAPTER XXI

ROSE HAS AN IDEA

It was just like a nightmare, and both Margy and Mun Bun knew what nightmares were. Those are dreams that, when you are "sleeping them,"

you get chased by something and your feet seem to stick in the mud so that you can't run. It is a very frightful sort of dream. And this adventure the little ones had got into was surely a frightful peril.

The hissing gander, his neck outstretched and his bill wide open, followed the two children with every evidence of wishing to strike them.

His flapping wings were as powerful, it seemed, as those of the big sea-eagle that had been caught aboard ship coming down from Boston, and Mun Bun and Margy remembered that creature very vividly.

Others of the flock of geese came on, too. As long as the grains of corn kept dropping from Margy's dish, the ravenous geese would follow, even if they were not savage, as their leader was.

The chubby legs of the two children hardly kept them ahead of the gander's bill. They shrieked at the top of their voices. But for once none of the innumerable colored folks was in sight. Even their friend, the gardener, had disappeared since Mun Bun and Margy had come down to the goose pen.

"Help! Help us!" cried Margy, looking to the world in general to a.s.sist.

"Muvver! Muvver!" cried Mun Bun, who held an unshaken belief that Mother Bunker must be always at hand and able to rescue him from any trouble.

Mun Bun thought he felt the cold, hard bill of the gander at his bare legs. He ran so hard that he lost his breath, somewhere. He couldn't even pant, and as for calling out for help again, that was impossible!

Margy dragged him on a few steps, for she was quite strong for a little girl. But she knew that she was overtaken. There was no help for it. The goosey-goosey-gander was going to eat them up!

But if no human being heard the two children in their distress, there was a creature that did. Bobo, the big old hound, who was only chained to his house at night or when Mr. Armatage did not want him following the mules about the plantation, came out of his kennel and stared down the hill. He observed the running and screaming children, and he likewise saw the gander who was his old enemy. They had had many a tilt before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock meant mischief.

Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps.

Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him.

Margy's corn went spinning about her and the geese fairly scrambled over the two crying children to get at the corn. Perhaps this helped Mun Bun and his sister some, although they did not think so at the moment. At least, while his family scrambled for the grains of corn the gander could not get at the brother and sister to strike them.

And then great Bobo appeared. He bounded into the middle of the flock and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any more. He "honked" for help.

Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them.

"The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you I wouldn't let him bite you."

Whether his sister was much impressed by this statement or not, is not known. However that might be, she fondled Bobo and got upon her feet as quickly as Mun Bun arose.

"Isn't he a good old dog?" cooed Margy.

"He's pretty good I think. But--but let's come away from that goosey-goosey-gander."

Bobo gave a jump and a bark at the gander, and the latter, which had now climbed to its webbed feet, scurried away, the flock following him. It was then, while the two children were fondling Bobo, who liked to have his long ears pulled by a gentle hand, that Russ and Rose Bunker came upon the scene.

Russ and Rose had been down to the burned cabin and had brought away all their letters to Sneezer Meiggs. If the colored boy had never learned to read writing, there was no use in leaving the notices there. So Russ had said, and Rose agreed with him.

"Oh, my dears!" Rose cried out when she saw the little ones so mussed up and with tear-stained faces, "what has happened to you?"

"Don't be afraid of Bobo," said Russ, running too. "He won't hurt you."

"He hurted the goosey-goosey-gander," declared Mun Bun confidently. "He dug his head under the goosey-goosey-gander and flunged him right over on his back."

"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.

"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."

"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow, flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."

"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing at us now."

"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.

"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."

"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."