"Oh!" murmured Rose, and she dragged Russ away to confer with him in secret. CHAPTER XXII THE STRANGE CRY Rose Bunker's idea was too good to tell in general. Some ideas are too good to keep; but Russ and Rose decided that this one was not in that class. They determined to tell nobody--not even Mammy June or Daddy or Mother Bunker--about what they proposed to do to help the old colored woman. They had tried once, and failed. And Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, had laughed at them. Now they proposed to do what Rose had thought of, and keep it secret from everybody. "Of course," Rose said, "nothing may come of it." "But that won't be your fault, Rose," said her brother. "It is a perfectly scrumptious idea." "Do you think so?" asked Rose, much pleased by this frank praise. "Sure I do. And we'll do it to-night. Then the Armatages won't know and--and laugh at us." For they had found Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, rather trying. Not having their childish imaginations so well developed as the six little Bunkers had, the children of the plantation were altogether too matter-of-fact. Many childish plays that the Bunkers enjoyed did not appeal to their little hosts at all. For instance, when Russ invented some brand new and charming, simple play for all to join in, Philly and Alice and Frane just drifted away and would have nothing to do with it. They were too polite to criticize; but Russ knew that the Armatage children felt themselves "too grown up" to be interested in the building of a steamboat or the driving of an imaginary motor-car. His little brothers and sisters, however, were constantly teasing Russ to make something new. They enjoyed traveling in reality so much, did the six little Bunkers, that, as Daddy laughingly said, traveling in a wheelbarrow would have amused them. So this day when Russ made a whole freight train with empty chicken coops, with a caboose at the end and a big engine in front, only Frane took an interest in it aside from the Bunkers themselves. And perhaps his interest was, only held because Russ agreed to make him the engineer while Laddie was fireman. As for Russ himself, he was the conductor at the end of the long train. He had to explain very plainly that of course a freight train had a conductor. Every train had to have a "skipper" just like a boat. A railroad man had explained all that to Russ Bunker when the family was on its way to Cowboy Jack's early in the autumn. "And you-all," said Russ, copying Frane's speech, speaking to the little ones and Rose, "must stay back here with me and be brakemen. When we need the handbrakes, I'll tell you, and you run forward over the coops--I mean the cars--and set the brakes." "But suppose we get flung off?" asked Vi. "That you must not do," said her older brother sternly. "If the train is going fast you might get a broken leg. Or if it is going around a curve it would be worse. You must be careful."