Laddie and Vi had taken off their shoes and stockings before going down to paddle in the water, and after a while Russ, stopping in his work of hammering the box to look for more nails, heard Laddie calling out in a loud voice: 

“Oh, Vi! what made the boat sink?  What made the boat sink?”

At the same time Vi gave a loud shriek.

Russ dropped his hammer and started to run toward the brook.

“What’s the matter?” called his mother, who saw him running.

“I don’t just know,” answered Russ, over his shoulder, “but I guess Laddie has a new riddle.  He’s hollering about why does a boat sink.  But Vi’s crying, I think.”

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, again stopping in her work of packing a trunk.  “I hope those children haven’t fallen into the brook!”

CHAPTER VIII

“WHERE IS MARGY?”

Led by Russ, Mrs. Bunker and Norah hurried down to the brook that ran through the green meadow.  It was just like the time they ran when Rose called them about Mun’s balloon.

“Did you see anything happen, Russ?” asked his mother.

“No’m, I didn’t,” he answered.  “I was making a box to take some of my things to Grandma Bell’s, and I heard Vi yell and Laddie asking a riddle.”

“Asking a riddle?”

“Well, it sounded like a riddle,” Russ answered.  “He kept saying:  ’What made the boat sink?  Oh, Vi, what made the boat sink?’”

“I hope it was only a riddle, and that nothing has happened,” said Mrs. Bunker.

“Maybe it’ll be no worse than Mun and his balloon,” said Norah.  “Anyhow, I can see the two children!” and she pointed across the green meadow to the brook.  “They seem to be all right.”

There, on the grassy bank, was Laddie jumping up and down, and pointing to something in the water.  And the something was Vi though she appeared to be out in the middle of the brook, in a part where it was deep enough to come over the knees of Russ.

“What’s the matter, Laddie?” asked his mother.  “Has anything happened to Vi?”

“She’s in the boat, and it’s sunk,” was the answer.  “Oh, what made the boat sink?”

“Silly boy!  Stop asking riddles at a time like this!” cried Mrs. Bunker.  “What do you mean, Laddie?”

“It isn’t a riddle at all,” he answered.  “The boat did sink and Vi is in it.  What made it?”

“A boat!  Sure there’s no boat on the brook, unless the boy made one himself,” said Norah.

“I did make one—­out of a box, and Vi was riding in it, but it sank,” said Laddie.  “What made it sink?”

Then Mrs. Bunker, Norah and Russ came near enough to the shore of the brook to see what had happened.  Out in the middle, standing in a soap box, was Violet.  The little girl was crying and holding out her hands to Laddie, who seemed quite worried and excited.

“She’s sunk!  She’s sunk!” he said over and over again.