Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's

Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's

Laura Lee Hope

5.0
Comment(s)
29
View
25
Chapters

Trajectory presents classics of world literature with 21st century features! Our original-text editions include the following visual enhancements to foster a deeper understanding of the work: Word Clouds at the start of each chapter highlight important words. Word, sentence, paragraph counts, and reading time help readers and teachers determine chapter complexity. Co-occurrence graphs depict character-to-character interactions as well character to place interactions. Sentiment indexes identify positive and negative trends in mood within each chapter. Frequency graphs help display the impact this book has had on popular culture since its original date of publication. Use Trajectory analytics to deepen comprehension, to provide a focus for discussions and writing assignments, and to engage new readers with some of the greatest stories ever told."Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's" by Laura Lee Hope is part of the "Six Little Bunkers" series. The "Six Little Bunkers" series are about the adventures of the Bunker Family when they had no access to technology.

Chapter 1 "A THUNDER STROKE"

"Whew!" said Russ Bunker, looking out into the driving rain.

"Whew!" repeated Rose, standing beside him.

"Whew!" said Vi, and "Whew!" echoed Laddie, while Margy added "Whew!"

"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun last of all, standing on tiptoe to see over the high windowsill. Mun Bun could not quite say the letter "h"; that is why he said "W'ew!"

Such a September rain the six little Bunkers had never seen before, for the very good reason that they had never before been at the seashore during what Daddy Bunker and Captain Ben called "the September equinox."

"That is an awful funny word, anyway," Rose Bunker said.

"What's funny?" Violet asked.

"Can I make a riddle out of it?" added Laddie.

"It is a riddle," replied Rose, quite confidently. "For 'equinox' is just a rain and wind storm."

"That isn't a riddle," said Laddie promptly. "That's the answer to a riddle."

And perhaps it was, even if Rose had the equinox and the equinoctial storms a little mixed in her mind. At any rate, this was a most surprising storm to all the little Bunkers-the wind blew so hard, the rain came in such big gusts, flattening the white-capped waves which they could see, both from Captain Ben's bungalow and from this old house to which they had come to play. And now, as all six peered out of the attic window of the old house, there was an unexpected flash of lightning, followed by a grumble of thunder.

"Oh! just like a bad, bad dog," gasped Vi, not a little frightened by the noise. "I-I am afraid of thunder."

"I'm not," declared Laddie, her twin.

But perhaps, because he was a boy, he thought he must claim more courage than he really felt. At any rate, he winced a little, too, and drew back from the window.

"Maybe we'd better go back to Captain Ben's house-and mother," suggested Margy in a wee small voice.

"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun, the littlest Bunker, once more, but quite as bravely as before. Like Laddie (whose name really was Fillmore), Mun Bun wished to claim all the courage a boy should show.

"I guess we can't go back while it rains like this," said Russ, the oldest of the six.

"And Captain Ben thought it would maybe clear up and not rain any more, so we came," announced Rose. "Oh! There goes another thunder stroke."

The rumble of thunder seemed nearer.

"I guess," Russ said soberly, "that Norah or Jerry Simms would call this the clearing-up shower."

"But Norah and Jerry Simms aren't here," Vi reminded him. "Are they?"

"That doesn't make any difference. It can be the clearing-up shower of this equinox, just the same."

"Can it?" asked Vi.

She was always asking questions, and she asked so many that it was quite impossible to answer them all, so, for the most part, nobody tried to answer her. And this was one of the times when nobody answered Vi.

"We'd better keep on playing," Rose said, very sensibly. "Then we won't bother 'bout the thunder strokes."

"It is lightning," objected Russ. "I don't mind the thunder. Thunder is only a noise."

"I don't care," said Rose, "it's the thunder that scares you-- Oh! Hear it?"

"Does the thunder hit you?" asked Vi.

"Why, nothing is going to hit us," Russ replied bravely, realizing that he must soothe any fears felt by his younger brothers and sisters. Russ was nine, and Daddy Bunker and mother expected him to set a good example to Rose and Laddie and Violet and Margy and Munroe Ford Bunker, who, when he was very little, had named himself "Mun Bun."

"Just the same," whispered Rose in a very small voice, and in Russ's ear, "I wish we hadn't come over from Captain Ben's bungalow this morning when it looked like the rain had all stopped."

"Pooh!" said Russ, still bravely, "it thunders over there just as it does here, Rose Bunker."

Of course that was so, and Rose knew it. But nothing seemed quite so bad when daddy and mother were close at hand.

"Let's play again," she said, with a little sigh.

"What'll we play?" asked Violet. "Haven't we played everything there is?"

"I s'pose we have-some time or other," Rose admitted.

"No, we haven't," interposed Russ, who was of an inventive mind. "There are always new plays to make up."

"Just like making up riddles," agreed Laddie. "I guess I could make up a riddle about this old storm-if only the thunder wouldn't make so much noise. I can't think riddles when it thunders."

The thunder seemed to shake the house. The rain dashed against the windows harder than ever. And there were places in the roof of this attic where the water began to trickle through and drop upon the floor.

"Oh!" cried Mun Bun, on whose head a drop fell. "It's leaking! I don't like a leaky house. Let's go home, Rose."

"Do you want to go home to Pineville, Mun Bun?" shouted Russ, for he could not make his voice heard by the others just then without shouting.

"Well, no. But I'd rather be at that other house where mother is-and daddy," proclaimed the smallest boy when the noise of the thunder had again passed.

"I tell you," said Russ soberly, "we'd better go downstairs and play something till the thunder stops."

"What shall we play?" asked Vi again.

"I'll build an automobile and take you all to ride," said the oldest boy confidently.

"Oh, Russ! You can't!" gasped Rose.

"A real automobile like the one that we rode down here in from Pineville?" asked Laddie, opening his eyes very wide.

"Well, no-not just like that," admitted Russ. "But we'll have some fun with it and we won't bother about the thunder."

Rose looked a bit doubtful over that statement. But she knew it was her duty to help the younger children forget their fears. She started down the steep stairs behind Russ. Laddie and Margy came next, while Vi was helping short-legged little Mun Bun to reach the stairway.

And it was just then that the very awful "thunder stroke" came. It seemed to burst right over the roof, and the flash of lightning that came with it almost blinded the children. There was even a smell of sulphur-just like matches. Only it was a bigger smell than any sulphur match could make.

The children's cries were drowned by the crash outside. The lightning had struck a big old tree that overhung the house. The tree trunk was splintered right down from the top, and before the sound of the thunder died away the broken-off part of that tree fell right across the roof.

How the old house shook! Such a ripping and tearing of shingles as there was! Rose could not stifle her shriek. She and Margy and Laddie came tumbling down the rest of the stairs behind Russ.

"Where's Vi and Mun Bun?" demanded the oldest of the six little Bunkers, staring up the dust-filled stairway.

"Oh! Oh! Help me up!" shrieked Vi from the attic.

"Help me!" cried Mun Bun, very much frightened too. "Somebody is holding me down."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Rose, wringing her hands and looking at Russ. "That old roof has fallen in and Vi and Mun Bun are caught under it!"

* * *

Continue Reading

Other books by Laura Lee Hope

More

You'll also like

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Dorine Koestler
4.1

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

The Ghost Wife's Billion Dollar Tech Comeback

The Ghost Wife's Billion Dollar Tech Comeback

Huo Wuer
5.0

Today is October 14th, my birthday. I returned to New York after months away, dragging my suitcase through the biting wind, but the VIP pickup zone where my husband’s Maybach usually idled was empty. When I finally let myself into our Upper East Side penthouse, I didn’t find a cake or a "welcome home" banner. Instead, I found my husband, Caden, kneeling on the floor, helping our five-year-old daughter wrap a massive gift for my half-sister, Adalynn. Caden didn’t even look up when I walked in; he was too busy laughing with the girl who had already stolen my father’s legacy and was now moving in on my family. "Auntie Addie is a million times better than Mommy," my daughter Elara chirped, clutching a plush toy Caden had once forbidden me from buying for her. "Mommy is mean," she whispered loudly, while Caden just smirked, calling me a "drill sergeant" before whisking her off to Adalynn’s party without a second glance. Later that night, I saw a video Adalynn posted online where my husband and child laughed while mocking my "sensitive" nature, treating me like an inconvenient ghost in my own home. I had spent five years researching nutrition for Elara’s health and managing every detail of Caden’s empire, only to be discarded the moment I wasn't in the room. How could the man who set his safe combination to my birthday completely forget I even existed? The realization didn't break me; it turned me into ice. I didn't scream or beg for an explanation. I simply walked into the study, pulled out the divorce papers I’d drafted months ago, and took a black marker to the terms. I crossed out the alimony, the mansion, and even the custody clause—if they wanted a life without me, I would give them exactly what they asked for. I left my four-carat diamond ring on the console table and walked out into the rain with nothing but a heavily encrypted hard drive. The submissive Mrs. Holloway was gone, and "Ghost," the most lethal architect in the tech world, was finally back online to take back everything they thought I’d forgotten.

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Madel Cerda
5.0

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch—a titan of industry and my best friend’s father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book