a bed--where she was putting her doll to
sleep--saw a tall boy walking up the path.

"There's Bunker!" went on Sue to her brother, Bunny, at the same time
pointing. "Maybe he's come to take us for a ride in one of daddy's
fishing boats!"

"Have you, Bunker?" asked Bunny, standing up and brushing some shavings
from his little jacket, for he had been using a dull kitchen knife,
trying to whittle out a wooden boat from a piece of curtain stick. "Oh,
Bunker, have you?"

"Have I what?" asked the tall boy, who worked on the dock where Mr.
Brown, the father of Bunny and Sue, carried on a boat and fish business.
"Have I what?" Bunker asked again, and he stood still and gazed at the
two small children who were anxiously looking at him.

"Have you come to take us for a ride?" asked Bunny.

"In one of daddy's boats?" added Sue, who generally waited for her
brother to speak first, since he was a year older than she.

"Not this time, messmates," answered Bunker Blue with a laugh, calling
the children the name one sailor sometimes gives to another. "Not this
time messmates. I've come up to get the ark."

"Oh, the ark!" cried Bunny. "Did you hear that, Sue? Bunker has come up
to get the ark!"

"Oh! Oh!" and Sue fairly squealed in delight. "Then we'll have a nice
ride in that. Wait, Bunker, till I put my doll away, and I'll come with
you. Wait for me!"

"And I'll come, too," added Bunny. "I can bring my boat with me. 'Tisn't
all done yet," he added, "but I can whittle on it when we ride along,
and then I can sail it when we get to the dock."

"Now avast there and belay, messmates!" cried Bunker Blue with a laugh,
using some more of the kind of talk he heard among the sailors that came
to Mr. Brown's dock with boats of fish. "Wait a minute! I didn't say I
had come to give you a ride in the ark. I just came to get it."

"But you will let us ride, won't you, Bunker?" asked Bunny, smiling at
the tall boy.

"'Cause we'll sit just as still as anything," added Sue.

"And I won't touch the steering wheel--not once!" promised Bunny.

"I guess you'd better not--not after you once got almost run away with
in the big ark," said Bunker. "I should say not!"

"Oh, please let us come with you!" begged Sue. "We want awful much to
ride in the ark, Bunker!"

While the two children were talking to the tall boy another little girl
had crawled under the fence from the street, and was now standing near
Bunny and his sister. She was Sadie