“’Cause it folds its claws when it doesn’t want to bite you?” asked Violet.

“Nope!”

“Tell us,” suggested Russ.

“Well, a crab is like a newspaper, ’cause when it’s red it can’t bite or pinch,” Laddie said.  “See?”

“Huh!  Yes, I see,” murmured Russ.  “A crab is like a newspaper because when it’s red.  Oh, I know!  You mean when a newspaper is r-e-a-d.  That’s a different red from reading.  But it’s a good riddle all right, Laddie.”

“I didn’t think of it all,” said the little boy.  “Rose helped.”

“Oh, well, you made a riddle out of it,” his sister told him.  “Here comes Cousin Ruth.  I’m going to watch her clean the crabs.”

It was quite a lot of work to take the sweet, white meat out of the crab-shells, but Cousin Ruth knew the best way to do it.

In about an hour she had a large bowl full of the picked-out meat, and the children—­all except Mun Bun and Margy, who were too little to be allowed to eat any—­said the crabs were better than fish.  Daddy and Mother Bunker liked them, too.

“Some of the crabs have awful big claws,” remarked Russ after dinner, as he looked at a pile of the legs and claws.  “I guess they could dig in the sand with ’em, the crabs could.  They could dig deep holes.”

“I wish one would dig down and find my lost locket,” said Rose with a sorrowful sigh.

For, though they had all searched the sand near the bungalow beach over and over, there was no sign of the missing gold locket.

“I guess we’ll never find it,” Rose went on with another sigh.  “Not even if a crab could dig down deep.”

“Well, I’ll dig some more,” promised Laddie.  “Vi and I are going to make some holes in the sand to play a new game, and maybe we’ll find your locket that way.”

But they did not, and Rose, though she herself searched and dug in many places, could not find the ornament.

There were many happy August days for the six little Bunkers at Cousin Tom’s.  They played in the sand, went crabbing and fishing, wading and swimming.

One hot afternoon, when it was too warm to do more than sit in the shade, Mrs. Bunker, who had been lying on the porch in a hammock reading, laid aside her book and looked up.

“Where has Mun Bun gone?” she asked Rose, who was playing jackstones near by.  “And did Margy go with him?”

“I don’t know, Mother,” Rose answered.  “They were here a minute ago.  I’ll go and look for them.”

Just as Rose got up and as Mrs. Bunker arose from the hammock, a voice down near the shore of the inlet called: 

“Come back.  Get out of that boat!  Mother, Margy and Mun Bun are in the boat, and it’s loose, and they’re riding down the inlet and the tide’s going out!  Oh, Mother, hurry!”

CHAPTER XIV

VIOLET’S DOLL

You can easily believe that Mrs. Bunker did hurry on hearing what Russ was calling about Mun Bun and Margy.  She almost fell out of the hammock, did Mrs. Bunker, she was in such haste.