Their father looked around upon the eager little faces. Then he glanced at his wife and smiled.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Had I better say before so many little pop-eyed, curious folk? I--don't--know----"

"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Rose.

"We want to go with you," breathed Russ.

"I want to go!" cried Vi. "Where is it?"

"If Vi goes, can't I go too?" Margy pleaded.

"I'm not going to stay here, Daddy, if the rest go," declared Laddie.

But Mun Bun just walked gravely over to his father and put up both his arms.

"Mun Bun go with Daddy," he said confidently.

"The blessed baby!" cried Aunt Jo.

"It doesn't look much as though they appreciated your hospitality, Josephine," said Daddy Bunker to his sister, smiling over the top of Mun Bun's head as he held the little fellow.

"Oh!" cried Rose instantly, "we have had an awfully nice time here. We always do have nice times here. But we want to go with Daddy, and so does Mother."

"Two words for yourself and one for me, Rose," laughed her mother. "But if it is going to take some time, Charles, I think we would all like to go along."

"I had Mr. Armatage on the long distance telephone," said Daddy Bunker, smiling. "He was in Savannah. His plantation is some distance from that city. And he has invited us all to spend the Christmas holidays with him at his country home. What do you think of that?"

It was pretty hard for Mother Bunker to say what she thought of it because of the gleeful shouts of the children. It did not much matter to Russ, and Rose, and Violet, and Laddie, and Margy, and Mun Bun where they went with Daddy Bunker. It was just the idea of going to some new place and to have new adventures.

"Well," said the gentleman finally, "the boat sails day after to-morrow.

Believing that you would approve, Amy, and knowing Jo couldn't go, I have already secured reservations for us eight Bunkers--two big staterooms. The boat is the _Kammerboy_, of the Blue Pennant Line."

The six little Bunkers were so delighted by this news and the prospect of a boat journey into warmer waters than those that ebb and flow about Boston, that they almost forgot the colored boy whose entry into the house had been brought about by Margy and Mun Bun.

But the latter, sitting in Daddy's lap, a little later began to prattle about his "black snowman," and so the story of Sam came out.

By that time the steampipes were humming and the whole house was warm and cozy again.

"And we can thank Sam for that, Charles," said Mother Bunker. "William is ill, and you would have had to go down and fight that furnace if this boy had not come along and proved himself so handy."

"Maybe we'd all better go down and thank him," said Rose soberly.

Daddy Bunker laughed. "I guess you want to get better acquainted with this wonderful Sam," he said. "A right nice boy, is he, Mother Bunker?"

"He seems to be," agreed Mother Bunker. "And he certainly needed friends. I think Jo will keep him for a while. At least, as long as William is laid up."

A little later the children all trooped down to the big kitchen. The good-natured cook did not mind their presence. And Alexis, the great Dane, showed plainly that he was delighted to see his young playfellows.

Alexis was a very intelligent dog and it was no wonder that the servants and Aunt Jo considered that anybody of whom the dog approved must be "all right." Alexis had approved of Sam.

Sam had recovered from his weariness, and, no longer hungry and his next few meals in prospect, his spirits had rebounded from their low ebb to cheerfulness. The kindness shown him, and the praise the women had heaped upon him because of his mastery of the difficult furnace, delighted Sam.

"I'm sure obliged to you child'en for as'in' me into this yere house,"

he said, grinning at Margy and Mun Bun. "Dis is sure just as fine folks as we have down Souf. Dey done fed de hongry an' clothed de naked. An'

mighty good clo'es, too."

He had on the suit Aunt Jo had found for him and almost new shoes, while an overcoat and a hat which he was to wear when he went out hung behind the cellar door. There was a small room off the kitchen in which Sam was to sleep. To the colored boy's mind he was "right good fixed."

"Let me have dat mouf organ, little boy," said Sam, observing Laddie's harmonica. "I show yo' sumpin'. Now, cl'ar de way. I's goin' to work de mouf organ and dance fo' yo'."

The women stopped in their work to watch him, as well as the children.

Sam slid out into the middle of the floor, began to jerk a tune out of the harmonica, and commenced a slow dance--a sort of double shuffle.

But he soon pivoted and slid much faster, all in time with the sounds he drew from the harmonica. Annie and Parker applauded his unexpected steps, and the children began to shriek in delight.

"Now we has it!" exclaimed Sam, removing the instrument from between his lips, and panting from his exertions. "Now we skates down de floor. Now, turn again and back-along. I's a-comin', child'en--I's a-comin'. See me dance Jim Crow! Here I comes and dere I goes! Now, de pigeon-wing----"

He cut a most surprising figure, both hands flapping in the air and his slim body bent and twisted at a curious angle. With a resounding slap of the sole of his shoe on the floor he brought the dance to an end and fell panting into his chair.

"You're some dancer, Sam," cried the eager Annie. "Ain't he, Parker?"

"What do you call that figure?" demanded Parker. "A pigeon-wing?"

"Dat's what it is," breathed Sam, smiling widely. "My own particular invention, dat is. n.o.body can't do dat like I can. No, suh!"

Just then their Mother called the six little Bunkers upstairs, and they had to leave the kitchen. But they would all have liked to see Sam cut that pigeon-wing again.

CHAPTER V

OFF FOR SUMMER SEAS

How busy the six little Bunkers were on the next day you can easily imagine. Such a packing of bags and steamer trunks! Though of course Mother Bunker did most of that, although Rose helped some. And such a running about the bedrooms and upper halls of Aunt Jo's house asking if this thing shouldn't be put in, or that thing shouldn't be left out!

The little people could think of more articles that might be needed down South than ten grown-ups could imagine! Laddie was sure they would need their bathing suits that they had had at Captain Ben's. Mun Bun, who had been playing with Margy in the yard making big s...o...b..a.l.l.s, came in to ask his mother if they couldn't take just one of the biggest s...o...b..a.l.l.s with them in one of the trunks, because Sam, the colored boy, said there wouldn't be any snow down South.

"But, my dear!" exclaimed Mother Bunker, laughing, "we are going down South just to escape the snow and the cold. Why carry it with us?"

"But maybe the little boys and girls down there will want to see some real snow," said Mun Bun, who could almost always find an answer for any question like this.

"Then they will have to come up North to see it," declared his mother decidedly. "We cannot take snow along on the boat, that is sure."

Violet found at least a hundred brand new questions to ask about the preparations for the trip. Mother Bunker finally called her a "chatterbox" and begged her to stop.

"How do you suppose I can attend to a dozen different things at once, Violet, and answer your questions, too?"