ed 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
trimming 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.

"Not till we get it all done. Then we will show her how fine it is,"
said Margy.

"Where is your house?" asked Mun Bun.

"You come along and I'll show you. I found it all by myself."

She led Mun Bun by the hand out behind the big house and toward the
quarters. In a sheltered place, behind a hedge, was a little house, sure
enough. And it was not so very little after all, for when they went into
it they could both stand upright.

"There isn't any window," said Mun Bun. "This isn't a regular house."

"Of course, it's a house," Margy declared. "It's got a doorway, and----"

"It hasn't got any door,