Norah looked out in the yard.

“I see only five of ’em, ma’am,” she reported.

“Which one is gone?” asked Mrs. Bunker quickly.

“I don’t see Mun Bun,” said the cook.

Just then Rose came running into the house.

“Oh, Mother!” she cried.  “Guess where Mun Bun is!”

“I haven’t time to guess!” said Mrs. Bunker.  “Tell me quickly, Rose!  Has anything happened to him?”

“I—­I guess he’s all right,” answered Rose, who was out of breath from running.  “But he’s standing under a tree up the street, and he won’t come home.”

“He won’t come home?” repeated Mrs. Bunker.  “Why won’t he come home, Rose?”

“’Cause his balloon is caught.  He’s got hold of the string and his balloon is up in the tree and he won’t come home.  He says he’s going to take a ride up to the sky!”

“Oh, goodness me! what has happened now?” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker.  “Norah!” she called.  “Come!  Something is the matter with a balloon and Mun Bun!  We must go see what it is!”

One or the other of the six little Bunkers was always, so it seemed to their mother, in trouble of some sort, and she or Norah or Jerry Simms or their father had to drop anything they might be doing to rush to the help of the child who had gotten itself into something or some place it should not have got into.

CHAPTER VII

LADDIE’S NEW RIDDLE

Norah O’Grady, the cheerful cook for the six little Bunkers, saw their mother hurrying out of the house with Rose.

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Bunker?” asked Norah.  “Is there a fire, and are ye goin’ for a policeman?”

Firemen and policemen, aside from Jerry Simms, were Norah’s two chief heroes.

“No, there isn’t a fire, Norah” answered Mrs. Bunker.  “But Rose just told me that Mun Bun is caught up in a tree with a balloon, and I’ve got to go and get him down.  Maybe you’d better come, too.”

“Better come!  I should say I had!” cried Norah, quickly taking off her apron.  “The poor little lad caught up in a balloon!  The saints preserve us!  ’Tis probably one of them circus balloons, or maybe a German airship came along and caught him up!  The poor darlin’!”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Rose, as she trotted along with her mother and Norah, “Mun isn’t in a balloon.  His balloon is caught in a big tree and the little darlin’ won’t come away and——­”

“It couldn’t be much worse!” gasped Norah.  “We’ll have to get a fireman with a long ladder, ’tis probable, to get him down.”

“I don’t see how it could have happened,” said Mrs. Bunker.  “He was in the yard playing, a little while ago.  The next time I looked he was gone.  Where did the balloon come from, Rose?”

“Mun Bun bought the balloon!” said the little girl.

“He bought it?” cried Norah and Mrs. Bunker.

“Yes, it’s a five-cent one.  He had five cents that Jerry Simms gave him, Mun had, and he bought the balloon, and it had a long string to it, and it got caught up in a tree—­the balloon did—­and Mun Bun’s got hold of the string and he won’t come away, ’cause if he does he’ll maybe break the string and the balloon and——­”