THE MAN ON THE PORCH

“Oh, Daddy, come and take him off!  He’s a terrible big one, and he’s winkin’ one of his claws at me!  Come and take him off!”

“All right, Mun Bun.  I’ll be there in just a second.  Hold him under water so he won’t let go, and I’ll get him for you.”

Daddy Bunker, who had been reading the paper on the porch of Cousin Tom’s bungalow at Seaview, hurried down to the little pier that was built out into Clam River.  On the end of the pier stood a little boy, who was called Mun Bun, but whose real name was Munroe Ford Bunker.  However, he was almost always called Mun Bun.

“Come quick, Daddy, or he’ll get away!” cried Mun Bun, and he leaned a little way over the edge of the pier to look at something which was on the end of a line he held.  The something was down under water.

“Be careful, Mun Bun!  Don’t fall in!” cried his father, who, having caught up a long-handled net, was now running down a little hill to the pier.  “Be careful!” he repeated.

“I will,” answered the little boy, shaking his golden hair out of his blue eyes, as he tried to get a better view of what he had caught.  “Oh, but he’s a big one, and he winks his claws at me!”

“Well, as long as the crab doesn’t pinch you you’ll be all right,” said Daddy Bunker.

There!  I meant to tell you before that Mun Bun was catching crabs, and not fish, as you might have supposed at first.  He had a long string, with a piece of meat on the end, and he had been dangling this in the water of Clam River, from Cousin Tom’s boat pier.

Then a big crab had come along and, catching hold of the chunk of meat in one claw, had tried to swim away with it to eat it in some hole on the bottom of the inlet.

But the string, to which the meat was tied, did not let him.  Mun Bun held on to the string and as he slowly pulled it up he caught sight of the crab.  As the little fellow had said, it was a big one, and one of the claws was “winkin’” at him.  By that Mun Bun meant the crab was opening and closing his claw as one opens and closes an eye.

“Hold him under water, Mun Bun, or he’ll let go and drop off,” called Daddy Bunker.

“I will,” answered the golden-haired boy, and he leaned still farther over the edge of the pier to make sure the crab was still holding to the piece of meat.

“Be careful, Mun Bun!” shouted his father.  “Be careful!  Oh, there you go!”

And there Mun Bun did go!  Right off the pier he fell with a big splash into Clam River.  Under the water he went, but he soon came up again, and, having held his breath, as his father had taught him to do whenever his head went under water, Mun Bun, after a gasp or two, was able to cry: 

“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, don’t let him get me!  Don’t let the crab pinch me!”

Daddy Bunker did not answer for a moment.  He was too busy to talk, for he dropped the long-handled crab net, ran down to the pier and, jumping off himself, grabbed Mun Bun.