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Servants in the South seldom sleep in "the big house." And perhaps Mother Bunker forgot this fact. At any rate, when she came to look for her brood late in the evening she found the four little ones fast asleep in their beds, as she had expected them to be. But Rose was not with Phillis and Alice Armatage, and Russ's bed was likewise empty. "Where are those children?"
As Russ and Rose started down the hill the three Armatage children came out of the front door of the big house and ran after them, screaming as well. Then appeared a host of small colored folk Russ and Rose never could imagine where they all came from. They seemed to spring right up out of the ground when anything exciting happened.
Because the Armatage children went and came as they wished, the little Bunkers began to do likewise. The house was so big, too, that the children might be playing a long way from the room in which their mother and father and Mr. Frane Armatage and his wife sat. The servants who were supposed to keep some watch upon the children were now all in the quarters.
There was nobody really more daring than Vi. The two Armatage girls tried to coax Rose away from the "train"; but Rose liked to play with her brothers and sisters, and she knew that Mother Bunker expected her to. So she excused herself to Philly and Alice. Unfortunately they took some offense at this. That evening after supper Rose found herself ignored by Phillis and Alice Armatage.
"Let us ask Mammy. Rose and Russ may be with her," suggested Mrs. Armatage. Upstairs went the two ladies and into Mammy June's room. There was a night light burning there, but nobody was with the old woman. "Lawsy me!" exclaimed the old nurse when Mrs. Bunker asked her. "I ain't seen them childern since I had my supper. No'm. They ain't been here."
When they went down to the quarters the evening of the party Russ determined to try to dance as well as Frane, Junior, and the negro boys. Mammy June was much better now, and she was up and about. To please her Mr. Armatage had a phaeton brought around and the old nurse was driven to the scene of the celebration.
"What is the news, Charles?" asked Mother Bunker, almost as eagerly as the children themselves might have asked the question. "I've got to see Armatage personally that is all there is about it, and Frank Armatage cannot come North." "Then you are going?" said his wife, and the children almost held their several breaths to catch Daddy Bunker's reply.
To tell the truth, the Armatage children had associated so much with the colored folks about the plantation that they were inclined to believe that there might be such things as "ha'nts." The little Bunkers had heard of "ghosts"; but they looked on such things as being like fairies something to half-believe in, and shiver about, all the time knowing that they were not real.
But we will let you guess, with Russ and Rose and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, where the next exciting adventures of the half dozen youngsters from Pineville will take place. Then came the time to leave the plantation. The children had many little keepsakes to take home with them and they promised to send other keepsakes to the Armatage children as soon as they got back to Pineville.
All this troop came streaming down the hill, and very quickly Vi found herself surrounded. Russ demanded: "What's the matter with you? Has something bitten you?" "They are biting Laddie!" wailed the twin sister. "How silly!" exclaimed Phillis Armatage. "Laddie isn't here." "Yes, he is, so now!" cried Vi. "Oh! Oh!" screamed Alice. "I see his legs!"
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