While the six little Bunkers were gathered around the basket, in which the big crab Mun Bun had caught was crawling about, Daddy Bunker and his wife were reading the letters Russ had handed them.

“Then we’ll have to go back home at once,” Mrs. Bunker said.

“Yes, I think so,” agreed her husband.  “We were going at the end of the week, anyhow, but, since getting this letter, I think we had better start at once, or by to-morrow, anyhow.”

“Oh, are we going home?” cried Rose.

“Yes, dear.  Daddy thinks we had better.  He just had a letter——­ Be careful, Mun Bun!  Do you want to fall in again?” she cried, for the little fellow, still wet from his first bath, had nearly slipped off the edge of the pier once more, as he jumped back when the big crab again climbed to the top of the peach basket.

“Come!  I must take you up to the house and get dry clothes on you,” said Mun Bun’s mother to him.  “Then we must begin to pack and get ready to go home.  Our visit to Cousin Tom is at an end.”

“Oh, dear!” cried the six little Bunkers.

But children, especially as young as they were, are seldom unhappy for very long over anything.

“We can have a lot of fun at home,” said Russ to Rose.

“Oh, yes, so we can.  It won’t be like the seashore, but we can have fun!”

There was much excitement in Cousin Tom’s bungalow at Seaview the next day, for the Bunkers were packing to go back to their home in Pineville, Pennsylvania.

“We are very sorry to see you go,” said Cousin Tom.

“Indeed we are,” agreed his pretty wife, Ruth.  “You must come to see us next summer.”

“We will,” promised Mr. Bunker.  “But just now we must hurry back home.  I hope we shall be in time.”

Russ and Rose, who heard this, wondered at the reason for it.  But they did not have time to ask for, just then, along came the automobile that was to take them from Cousin Tom’s house to the railroad station.

Good-byes were said, there was much laughter and shouting; and finally the six little Bunkers and their father and mother were on their way home.

It was a long trip, but finally they reached Pineville and took a carriage from the depot to their house.

“How funny everything looks!” exclaimed Russ, for they had been away from home visiting around, for some time.

“Yes, it does look funny,” agreed Rose.  “Oh, I see our house!” she called, pointing down the street.  “There’s our house!”

“Yes,” answered Russ.  “And oh, look!  Daddy!  Mother!  There’s a man on our porch!  There’s a man asleep on our porch!”

The six little Bunkers, and Daddy and Mother Bunker looked.  There was, indeed, an elderly man asleep in a rocking-chair on the porch.

Who could he be?

CHAPTER II

GRANDPA FORD

Eagerly peering from the carriage in which they had ridden from the Pineville station, the six little Bunkers looked to see who the man was on their porch.  He seemed to be asleep, for he sat very still in the rocking-chair, which had been forgotten and left on the porch when the family had gone away.