CHAPTER XXIII

IN THE CABIN

“Whoa!  Whoa there, ponies!” cried Grandpa Ford, as he jumped off the seat and held tightly to the reins.  “Whoa!”

Grandpa’s horses were kind and gentle and well-trained.  They did not try to run away, but stood still after the sled was upset in the snow bank.

Russ was one of the first to get to his feet.  He rolled out of the drift, shook himself as a dog does coming out of the water, and then looked about him.

“See if the others are all right!” called his grandfather to him.  “I’ll hold the horses.  Get out Margy and Mun Bun and the others.”

Russ, though not very big, was a sturdy young chap, and, seeing Mun Bun’s legs sticking out from under a pile of blankets, he pulled on them.  And, as Mun Bun was still fast to his legs, when Russ pulled on them he pulled his little brother out into view.

“Hi!  Quit that!  What you doin’?” Mun Bun wanted to know.

“I had to get you out,” said Russ.  “Where’s Margy?”

Margy did not answer in words, but she did by crawling out from where she had been sitting next to Mun Bun.

Then out came Laddie, Vi and Rose, and all the six little Bunkers were accounted for.

“That drift was deeper than I thought it was,” said Grandpa Ford.  “The sled went up one side of it and just toppled over.  It spilled you all out nice and easy.”

And that is just what had happened.  The sled had gone over on one side so slowly and gently that no one was caught under it.  The six little Bunkers had been toppled out, still wrapped in the blankets in which they had ridden from Great Hedge.

“What are we going to do?” asked Russ.  “How are we going to get home, Grandpa?”

“Well, I’ll see about that in just a minute,” answered Grandpa Ford.  “I don’t believe anything is broken.  But I’ll have to get help to lift the sled right side up again.  Whoa, now, ponies!”

The horses, which Grandpa Ford called “ponies,” just for fun, were turning to look at the overturned sled.  The six little Bunkers stood in a row, also looking at what had happened.

“It wasn’t the ponies’ fault, was it, Grandpa?” asked Violet.

“No, dear.  It was mine.  I shouldn’t have driven them into the bank of snow.  But I thought it was soft so the sled runners would sink down in it.  However, it was hard, and upset us.  But we’ll soon be all right.  Whoa, now, ponies!”

The big basket of things Grandpa Ford had bought at the store for his wife had been spilled out of the sled when the upset came.  However, nothing was damaged, and the children helped him pick up the scattered things, while Russ held the horses.

The animals had not fallen down when the sled upset, and were not tangled in the harness, so they did not try to run away.  The reason for this was that the front runner of the sled, to which was fastened the tongue, or long pole, on either side of which the horses ran—­the front runner, I say, remained straight on the ground.  The sled seemed to have broken off from this front part in turning on its side.