“Sure they can’t help it if you made it!” chuckled Jerry, who was exceedingly fond of Norah.

“Go ’long with you!” she told him, laughing.

“It does look just like thunder, it’s so dark!” said Russ, biting into a slice of the cake.

“And where’s the lightning?” asked Rose.

“That’s the pink part,” answered the cook.  “You see I take some chocolate-cake dough, and mix it up with white-cake dough, and then I put in some dough that I’ve colored pink, and mix that through in lines and streaks, and that’s the lightning,” explained Norah.

And when the cake had been baked in this way, and cut, each slice showed a white part, a dark brown part and a pink, jagged streak here and there, as lightning is sometimes seen to streak through the dark clouds.

“Oh, it’s awful good!” cried Laddie, as he took a second slice to eat with the home-made ice cream.

“Will it make a noise like a fire-cracker?” asked Vi, who always had some sort of question ready.

“It won’t make a noise unless you drop it, darlin’,” said Jerry with a laugh.  “Then it’ll go ‘thump!’”

“Don’t you dare talk that way about my cake!” said Norah.  “The idea of sayin’ it would make a noise if it fell.”

“I was only joking” rejoined the former soldier.  “The cake is so light, Norah, that I’ll have to tie strings to it to keep it from goin’ up to the sky like a balloon!”

“Go ’long with you!” laughed Norah, but she seemed pleased all the same.

“We’re going to see balloons to-night at the fireworks,” remarked Rose.  “Did you ever see any, Jerry?”

“Yes, we had ’em in the army.”

“Did you ever go up in one?” asked Russ eagerly.

“Once,” said the former soldier.

“Oh, tell us about it!” begged Laddie, and Jerry did, while the six little Bunkers sat about him, finishing the last of their cream and cake.

Then Jerry had to go to get some gasolene for the automobile, as Mr. Bunker kept a machine, as well as a horse and carriage, and the children were left to themselves.  They were thinking about the fireworks they were to see in the evening, and talking about the fun they would have at Grandma Bell’s, when Russ, who got up to go down on the grass and turn a somersault, suddenly stopped and looked at a man coming up the side path.

The man was a very ragged one, and he shuffled along in shoes that seemed about to drop off his feet.  He had on a battered hat, and was not at all nice-looking.

“Oh, look!” whispered Rose, who saw the ragged man almost as soon as Russ did.

“I see him!” Russ answered.  “That’s a tramp!  I guess it’s the one daddy gave his coat to with the papers in.  Maybe he’s come to give ’em back.  Oh, wouldn’t that be good!”

CHAPTER VI

MUN BUN’S BALLOON

Six little Bunkers looked at the ragged man coming up the walk toward the porch.  He was a tramp—­of that even Mun Bun, the smallest of the six, was sure.