The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

  No one paid much attention to him, as it had been decided that they would all go into the dining-car at the first call, and they thought every one else was thinking of that, too.

  So the Bunkers and Grandpa Ford walked out of the coach in which they had been riding, to the second car ahead, where dinner was being served at little tables. It took more than two tables to seat the six little Bunkers, their father, their mother, and Grandpa Ford, but soon they were all settled, and the colored waiter, in spotless white, just like the one who had called out that dinner was ready, began to serve the hungry folks.

  You may be sure the six little Bunkers were hungry. In fact, they were always that way, except, perhaps, just after a meal, or when they were asleep. Though it was not the first time these little travelers had eaten in dining-cars, and on boats, they always liked the fun it was to sit and eat, and see the trees, fences, and telegraph poles seemingly go whizzing past the windows.

  "Have you had enough?" asked Daddy Bunker in about half an hour, as he looked around at his boys and girls. "Anybody want any more?"

  "Could I have more pie?" asked Russ.

  "Well, a small piece, yes," answered his mother.

  "I want a piece, too," declared Laddie. "I didn't have hardly any. Mun Bun reached over and took half of mine."

  "I'll have the waiter divide a piece between Russ and Laddie," said Mr. Bunker. And when this had been done, even the two hungry boys announced that they were satisfied. Then back to the other car the Bunkers and Grandpa Ford went.

  Now at home, almost always after dinner, the two youngest of the six little Bunkers went to sleep. Mother Bunker called it taking a "nap," and almost always Mun Bun and Margy, and sometimes Laddie and Violet had one.

  In a little while Mrs. Bunker noticed that the heads of Margy and Mun Bun were nodding as they sat in their seats.

  "I'm going to have those children lie down," she said. "Mun Bun, come over and sit with me. I'll cuddle you to sleep. Margy, you can go with Daddy."

  "I want to stay here," said Mun Bun. "I've got something in my seat, and I don't want anybody to take it."

  "I want to stay too!" exclaimed Margy. "I want to see what Mun Bun has."

  Mr. Bunker turned the seat in front of the two smaller children over so a sort of bed could be made for them with a pile of coats and valises. Soon Mun Bun and Margy, side by side, were having a fine sleep, and the train rumbled on.

  Margy's doll was perched up on the seat in front of her, and Margy said her doll was "sleeping" too. But this doll slept with her eyes open.

  Violet was looking at the picture book Laddie had finished with, and Laddie was trying to make a buzzer, as Russ had done. For Laddie had broken the one his brother had made for him.

  Rose and Russ were sitting together, and for the first time in some days, they had a chance to talk about the ghost at Great Hedge.

  "What kind do you s'pose it'll be?" asked Rose.

  "Oh, the regular, scary kind," Russ answered.

  "I hope it won't be too scary," said Rose.

  "I'll be with you when we try to find out what it is," went on Russ. "Boys are never afraid of ghosts or—or anything."

  "Oh, I won't be afraid—not if you're with me, anyway. Isn't it fun to have a secret? And they don't know we heard about it!" Rose added. "Won't they be s'prised if we find the ghost?"

  "I guess they will," agreed Russ. "Maybe they're talking about it now," he went on, for his father and mother, with Grandpa Ford, several seats back, were talking earnestly together, as Russ could see. Just what they were saying the two oldest Bunker children did not know.

  But, as a story-teller, or a writer of books, can sometimes be in two places at once, and listen to all sorts of talk, without the people who are talking knowing anything about it, I will tell you, as a special favor, that Mr. and Mrs. Bunker and Grandpa Ford really were talking about the "ghost," at Great Hedge.

  "So neither Mr. Ripley nor his daughter, whose horse nearly ran away when she came to see you, could tell what all the queer doings meant at Great Hedge, could they?" asked Daddy Bunker.

  "No. They said they never heard any queer noises when they lived at the place before they sold it to me," answered Grandpa Ford. "But your mother and I have heard many strange noises, and we can't account for them.

  "Of course," went on Grandpa Ford, "I don't believe in ghosts. But I know we hear the strange noises, and we don't know what they mean. Your mother is annoyed by them. She has an idea, too, that perhaps there is a secret way for some one to get into our house, and that perhaps some persons go in at night, after we are in bed, and make noises."

  "But why would any one do that?" asked Mrs. Bunker.

  "Well, it may be some folks who would like to scare me away so they could buy Great Hedge for themselves," said Grandpa Ford. "The place is valuable, and Mr. Ripley sold it to me very reasonably, because his wife and little boy died there and he did not like to stay in the place that reminded him of them so much. So he sold."

  "So he never heard the queer noises," said Mr. Bunker musingly.

  "He says not. And neither did his daughter, Mabel. But Grandmother Ford and I hear them often enough, and so I thought I'd come down, and get all you Bunkers, to have you help me either find out what it is, or drive the ghost away," and Grandpa Ford smiled.

  "Tell us, over again, what sort of noises they are," said Mother Bunker. "I have been so busy the last few days, getting ready to travel, that I hardly remember what you said. Were the noises like yells or groans? Or were they just hangings?"

  "Well," began Grandpa Ford, "on some nights the noises are like——"

  And just then there came a sudden pop, as of a pistol, and a loud cry from Margy. She sat up in her seat and fairly shouted:

  "Now you stop, Mun Bun! Stop shooting my doll! Mother, make Mun Bun stop!" cried the little girl. "He's got a gun, and he shot my doll, and he knocked her off the seat, and maybe she's killed."

  "Mun Bun with a gun! What do you mean?" cried Daddy Bunker, jumping up from his seat. "What are you doing, Munroe?" he asked, a bit sternly.

  The two youngest children had awakened while Grandpa Ford was telling about the ghost at Great Hedge. Of course they did not hear about it, nor did Rose and Russ.

  "I have a popgun, and it shoots a cork," explained Mun Bun, as he held up what he had aimed at Margy's doll. "It didn't hurt, 'cause it only shoots a cork," he said.

  "But you shooted my doll, and knocked her over, and maybe she's broken!" sobbed Margy.

  By this time Mrs. Bunker had reached the seat where the little girl and her brother had been sleeping. The mother picked the Japanese doll up from where it had fallen to the floor of the car, and said:

  "Don't cry any more, Margy. Your doll isn't hurt a bit. But Mun Bun mustn't shoot at her any more, with corks or anything else. Munroe Ford Bunker! where did you get the popgun?" his mother asked, as she saw that he really did have a small one.

  "Out of the basket," he answered. "When Margy and I went to get a drink of water I saw the popgun in the train boy's basket, and I took it out. I thought maybe I'd want to shoot at a snow man me and Grandpa are going to make, so I kept the gun. Daddy cangive the train boy a penny for it. I hid it in the seat. Then I saw Margy's doll on the seat in front, and she was asleep—Margy was—and I shot at the doll, but I didn't mean to make her fall."

  "Oh, dear! Such a boy!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "To take the gun without asking! Here comes the boy now. You must give it back."

  "Oh, let him keep it," said Grandpa Ford. "I'll buy it for him. We may want to shoot the snow man," he said with a laugh.

  So Mun Bun got his popgun after all, though, of course, he did not do right in taking it from the train boy's basket. Nor was it quite right, I suppose, to shoot Margy's doll. But Mun Bun was a very little boy.

  However, the train boy was paid, some other toys were bought, and then, as Grandpa Ford, some time later, looked from the train window, he exclaimed:

  "Ha! Here comes the
snow! I think we are in for a big storm!"

  And with great suddenness the train was, almost at once, shut in by a cloud of white snowflakes, like a fog. The swirling whitecrystals were blown all about, and tapped against the glass of the windows, as if they wanted to come in where the six little Bunkers were. But the glass kept them out.

  "How is it out—cold?" asked Grandpa Ford of a brakeman who came in an hour or so later, covered with white flakes.

  "Very cold, sir, and growing more so. I'm afraid we'll run into a bad storm before we reach Tarrington. It's snowing worse all the while."

  And so it was.

  "Is this the blizzard?" asked Violet.

  "Pretty close to it," answered Grandpa Ford.

  Just then the train gave a sudden jerk, rattling every one in his seat, and came to a stop.

  At Tarrington

  "Are we there?" cried Laddie, as he slid out of his seat and turned to Grandpa Ford. "Are we at Great Hedge?"

  "Well, if we are, the train must have run into it, and got stuck fast," answered the old gentleman with a smile.

  "What made it bump so?" asked Violet.

  "I think we must have hit a snow bank, or else some of the rails and switches are stopped up with snow," answered Daddy Bunker.

  It was getting quite dark, because of the snow clouds outside, and the electric lights of the train had been switched on. Every one in the car where the Bunkers rode, and, I suppose, in each of the other cars of the train, had been well shaken up when it stopped so suddenly. But no one had really been hurt.

  "Perhaps we had better see what it is," said Daddy Bunker to his stepfather. "Perhaps the train can't go any farther, and we can't get to Tarrington."

  "Oh, can't we go to Grandpa's?" asked Rose, looking as if she could not bear to have such a dreadful thing happen. "I want to go!"

  "If the train can't go we can get out and walk," suggested Russ. "I like to walk in the snow. If I had some lawn tennis rackets I could make snowshoes for all of us, and we could walk on them."

  "But you haven't any tennis rackets," observed Laddie. "And you can't get any on the train, lessen maybe the boy that had Mun Bun's popgun has some."

  "They don't play lawn tennis in winter," said Rose.

  "Hush, children, dear," begged Mrs. Bunker, for they were raising their voices as they talked. "We want to hear what the trainman says."

  "What happened that made us stop so quickly, and with such a bump?" asked Grandpa Ford, as the railroad man came incovered with the white flakes. "Was there an accident?"

  "A little one," the man answered. "But we'll soon be all right. The snow clogged and stopped up a switch, and the engineer was afraid he would get on the wrong track, so he put on the brakes quickly and made a short and sudden stop. But we are going to dig away the snow, and then, I think, we can go on again."

  "We want to go to Grandpa Ford's," spoke up Violet, as she stood close to the trainman. "Will the train take us there?"

  "It will if the snow will let us, little girl," was the answer, and many passengers in the train laughed at Vi's funny question.

  The brakeman hurried out, and some of the men passengers, putting on their heavy overcoats, went with him. It was too dark outside for any of the six little Bunkers to see anything that was going on. But by placing their faces close against the windows of the car and holding a hand on either side of the face to shut out the light in the car, they could see a little way into the darkness outside.

  "It's snowing hard," reported Russ.

  "I like it," said Rose. "We can have some sleigh rides, and coast downhill."

  "And build snow men," added Violet, giving a little wriggle of pleasure.

  "And snow forts, and have snowball fights!" exclaimed Laddie.

  Mun Bun and Margy were eating some cookies their mother had saved for them, so they didn't say anything, just then.

  "Could you ever make a snow man that would talk?" asked Vi, when she and the others had tired of looking out at the swirling flakes.

  "'Course not!" exclaimed Laddie. "That would be like a riddle."

  "I could make a snow man talk," declared Russ.

  "You could not! How could you?" asked Laddie.

  "I could scoop out a hollow place in his back and put a phonograph inside, and when I wound it up the snow man would talk."

  "The phonograph would freeze inside a snow man," said Laddie.

  "No, it wouldn't. If it did I could build a little fire and melt it," Russ went on. "Maybe I'll do it, too; that is, if I can find a phonograph."

  "But if you built a fire to thaw out the phonograph it would melt the snow man," said Rose.

  Russ seemed to be puzzled by this.

  "Well, I'd do it somehow," he declared. "I'd just build a little fire, and that wouldn't melt the snow man very much."

  Back into the car came trooping some of the men who had gone out to see the switch and rails clogged with the snow.

  "Are we able to go on?" asked Grandpa Ford of one of these men.

  "I think so," was the answer. "The snow has been shoveled away from the switch, and the engineer is going to try again. But it is a bad storm, and I doubt if we get through to-night."

  "Won't we get home to your place, Grandpa?" asked Laddie.

  "It's hard to tell," answered the old gentleman. "But, if worst comes to worst, we can stay on the train all night. We can sleep here and eat here, but perhaps we can get almost to Tarrington, and drive in a big sled the rest of the way."

  "Where can you get a sled?" asked Violet, always ready with a question.

  "Oh, I can hire one, if I can't get my own," said Grandpa Ford. "I told one of my men to meet us at the depot with a big carriage. But when he sees it snowing, as it is now up at Great Hedge, he'll take out the sled, I'm sure."

  "I like to ride in a sled," said Rose. "It's such fun to cuddle down in the fur robes."

  "Have you got fur robes, Grandpa?" Vi inquired.

  "Oh, yes, plenty of them," he answered. "But I hope we'll get to Tarrington," he added in a low voice to Mr. and Mrs. Bunker. "I would not want to drive in an open sled through this cold storm with the children."

  "They wouldn't mind it," said Daddy Bunker. "If they were well-wrapped they would like it."

  "I suppose I should have waited until warmer weather to bring you to Great Hedge," went on Grandpa Ford. "But I wanted to have the children with me, and so did their grandmother. She hasn't seen them all together for some time. So I just thought I'd bring you in the winter, and not wait for summer."

  "And I'm glad you did," said Mother Bunker. "We'll be all right, once we get there."

  "Another reason why I wanted you at Great Hedge," went on Grandpa Ford, "is that I want you to help me find out about those queer noises, and what makes them. If there's a——"

  But just then Grandpa Ford saw Rose and Russ looking at him in a queer and interested way and as if they wanted to hear what was being said, so he stopped with:

  "Well, you know what I mean."

  "Yes," said Daddy Bunker. "We know."

  "I know what they were talking about," said Russ in a whisper to Rose, a little later.

  "What?"

  "About the ghost. Grandpa has a ghost at Great Hedge, and he wants to find it. We'll find it for him, Rose."

  "Yes, but we mustn't tell any one else about it," and Rose nodded toward Mun Bun and the others.

  "No, we won't tell them," agreed Russ. "We'll hunt all by ourselves, and s'prise Grandpa and Grandma."

  The passengers were now settled in their seats again, and pretty soon the train started off once more. It did not go as fast as at first, because there was so much snow on the tracks. But there were no more sudden stops, and soon a brakeman came through the coach and said he thought everything would be all right.

  "Will we get to Tarrington?" asked Daddy Bunker.

  "Yes, I am pretty sure we shall," was the answer.

  The train did get to Tarrington, though not without some trouble and one or t
wo more stops to clear snow out of the switches. And when Tarrington was reached it was quite late. It was dark, and cold, and snowing hard.

  "I don't know about going on to my place to-night," said Grandpa Ford with a shake of his head as he looked at the six little Bunkers. "I'm afraid it will be a long, cold drive for them."

  "Wrap them up in robes and we'll try it," said Daddy Bunker. "Is your sled here?"

  "Yes, my man is here with a strong team of horses and the big bob sled. He says the roads are pretty good, but it is very cold. Well, we'll try. And, if we can't make it, we'll come back and stay at the hotel here all night."

  They were in the Tarrington station now, where it was nice and warm and light. Outside it was dark and cold and snowing hard. But the children did not mind.

  "We'll soon be at Grandpa's!" chanted Laddie.

  "And have some bread and jam!" added Violet. "What's jam made of?" she asked quickly. "Has it got honey in to make it sweet?"

  "No time for questions now," said Mother Bunker. "Save them until we get to Grandpa's."

  "I'm hungry!" wailed Margy. "I want something to eat!"

  "So do I!" added Mun Bun.

  "There's a lunch counter in this station," said Grandpa Ford. "If you want to we can get the children something to eat here, and perhaps we'd better, before we start on the long, cold drive. It may be late before we get to Great Hedge."

  "Yes, I think it best to get something," agreed Daddy Bunker. "I'll go and see what there is to eat."

  Daddy Bunker started toward the lunch counter, but at that moment there was a loud crash, a breaking of glass, and a voice cried:

  "Now you've gone and done it! You busted it, an' spilled 'em all!"

  Great Hedge At Last

  "Oh, what has happened now?" exclaimed Mother Bunker as she looked around the depot to see if any of the children was in mischief. She noticed Rose and Russ, Laddie and Vi, and Margy. But Mun Bun was not in sight.

  "Did he fall out of a window?" asked Violet.

  "Mercy! I hope not," cried Mrs. Bunker.

  Then they all heard Mun Bun's voice saying, rather tearfully: