“Yes, I think it best to get something,” agreed Daddy Bunker.  “I’ll go and see what there is to eat.”

Daddy Bunker started toward the lunch counter, but at that moment there was a loud crash, a breaking of glass, and a voice cried: 

“Now you’ve gone and done it!  You busted it, an’ spilled ’em all!”

CHAPTER X

GREAT HEDGE AT LAST

“Oh, what has happened now?” exclaimed Mother Bunker as she looked around the depot to see if any of the children was in mischief.  She noticed Rose and Russ, Laddie and Vi, and Margy.  But Mun Bun was not in sight.

“Did he fall out of a window?” asked Violet.

“Mercy!  I hope not,” cried Mrs. Bunker.

Then they all heard Mun Bun’s voice saying, rather tearfully: 

“I—­I didn’t mean to do it.  I only wanted a cake!”

“Well, you busted it, an’ now somebody’s got to pay for it!” came another voice, and one that was rather angry.

Daddy Bunker hurried around to the other side of the ticket office, and the others, including Grandpa Ford, followed.  There, standing near the lunch counter, with a broken bowl at his feet, and cakes scattered around him, stood Mun Bun.  In front of him was the young man who had charge of the station lunch counter.

“Oh, Mun Bun!” sighed his mother.

“Why, Mun Bun! what happened?” asked his father.

“He happened—­that!” exclaimed the young man.  “He pulled it over, off the counter, and it smashed.  And look at the cakes—­all spoiled.”

“Not all spoiled,” said Mun Bun.  “I can eat ’em, an’ so can Margy.  We’re both hungry!”

“Did you pull over the bowl of cakes?” asked Mr. Bunker.

“Yes,” admitted Mun Bun, “I did.  I reached up to get one, and the bowl tipped over on me and they all spilled.”

“And the bowl broke,” said the lunch-counter young man.

“I’ll pay for it, Tom,” said Grandpa Ford, who seemed to know the young man.  “That’ll be all right.  I’ll pay for the bowl and the cakes, too.  Some of them are all right.  They fell on this newspaper.”

And this was true.  Mun Bun had reached up, standing on his tip-toes, to get a cake out of the bowl.  As he said, he was hungry, and while Daddy Bunker and Grandpa Ford were talking about getting the children something to eat, Mun Bun had wandered off by himself, found the lunch counter, and started to help himself.  But he was not quite tall enough, and the glass bowl had fallen with a crash.

The cakes had scattered out, but, as Grandpa Ford had said, some of them had fallen on a clean newspaper which some one had dropped on the depot floor just before the accident.

Grandpa Ford, Daddy Bunker and Tom, the lunchman, picked up the clean cakes and put them in another bowl.  The broken pieces of the smashed bowl and the cakes that had gone on the floor were also picked up.