“No, Mother,” replied Mun Bun. “She’s just all whites and yellows. She crawled under the barn to get some eggs, and when she came out with ’em in her dress, why—now—she—she slipped and she fell down and—and—the eggs all busted and——” “There she is now!” interrupted Violet, as they came within sight of the unfortunate Margy. Well might Violet murmur: “Poor dear!” Margy seemed covered with the whites and yellows of broken eggs from her head to her feet. And, as Mun Bun said, the “yellow showed the most.” “Oh, you poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, trying not to laugh. “Come to the house and I’ll wash you clean. Poor Margy! Never mind, dear!” for Margy was crying. “I—I didn’t—mean—to break the—the—eggs!” she sobbed. “You s’pose Farmer Joel—you s’pose he’ll be very mad?” “Of course not!” Mrs. Bunker hastened to say. “He doesn’t mind a few eggs. The hens will lay more.” “If she’d had on a rubber apron it would have been all right,” said Laddie, as they went on toward the house. “How do you mean?” Violet, as usual, asked a question. “Why, if Margy had had on a rubber apron the whites and yellows of the eggs wouldn’t ‘a’ soaked out and she could carry ’em to the kitchen and Norah could make a cake. She says broken eggs are just as good for cakes as other eggs.” “Yes,” agreed Violet. “’Cause you have to break eggs, anyhow, to get them into a cake. But even if Margy had these in a rubber apron, there’d be a lot of shells.” “That’s so,” agreed Laddie. “I guess even a rubber apron wouldn’t be much good. The best way is not to break eggs. Now I’m going to make a riddle about them.” And he did. He himself said afterward it wasn’t a very good riddle. Laddie would ask: “How can you get an egg out of the shell without breaking it?” And after every one had given up he would answer: “You can’t.” Sometimes Laddie made up better riddles than that. Margy was washed and a clean dress was put on her, and by this time the men and Russ and Rose came in from the apple orchard and it was almost time for supper. Norah had cooked a good meal, and it was well that she had, for every one had a hearty appetite. Working in the apple orchard and gathering eggs made them all hungry. It was several days after this that, when Mrs. Bunker was taking the four smaller children for a walk through the fields, a distant rumbling sound was heard. “Is that thunder?” asked Violet, looking toward the sky. “I think not,” her mother answered. “If it is, the storm is a distant one and will not break until we get home.” “It isn’t thunder,” announced Laddie, after the rumbling sound was heard again. “What is it?” Mun Bun wanted to know. “It’s Farmer Joel’s bull,” said Laddie. “I can see him down in that field,” and he pointed to a distant pasture in which, all alone, was the big bull, roaming around, pawing the ground, shaking his head, and now and then uttering the low, rumbling bellow, which sounded like distant thunder.