“’Cause I got to get a bathing-dress for my doll,” answered the little girl.  “I can’t take her on a steamboat where the water is deep lessen I have a bathing-suit for her.  Wait a minute.  I’ll get one,” and she ran over to a corner of the room, where she kept her playthings.

“Shall I bring a red dress or a blue one?” Vi turned to ask her sister Rose.

“Oh, bring any one you have and hurry up!” called Russ.  “This steamboat won’t ever get started.  All aboard!  Toot!  Toot!”

Vi snatched up what she called a bathing-dress from a small trunkful of clothes belonging to her dolls, and ran back to the place where the “steamboat” floated in the “ten-miles-deep water,” in the middle of the playroom floor.

“Now I’m all ready, an’ so’s my doll,” said Vi, as she climbed up in one of the chairs behind the big, empty flour barrel that Mother Bunker had let Russ take to make his boat.  “Gid-dap, Russ!”

“Gid-dap?  What you mean?” asked Russ, stopping his whistling and turning to look at his sister.

“I mean start,” answered Vi.  “Don’t you know what gid-dap means?”

“Sure I know!  It’s how you talk to a horse.  It’s what you tell him when you want him to start.”

“Well, I’m ready to start now,” said Vi, smoothing out her dress, and putting the bathing-suit on her doll.

“Pooh!  You don’t tell a steamboat to ‘gid-dap’ when you want that to start!” exclaimed Russ.  “You say ‘All aboard!  Toot!  Toot!’”

“All right then.  Toot!  Toot!” cried Vi, and Margy and Mun, who had climbed up together in a single chair beside Vi, began to laugh.

“I know another riddle,” announced Laddie, as he took his place inside the barrel, for he was going to be the fireman, and, of course, they always rode away down inside the steamboat.  “I know a nice riddle about a horse,” went on Laddie.  “What makes a horse’s shoes different from ours?” he asked.

“Oh, we haven’t time to bother with riddles now, Laddie,” said Rose.  “You can tell us some other time.  We’re going to make-believe steamboat a long way across the deep water now.”

“A horse’s shoes aren’t like ours ’cause a horse doesn’t wear stockings—­that’s the answer,” went on Laddie.

“All aboard!” cried Russ again.

“All aboard!” repeated Laddie.

“Oh, let’s sing!” suddenly said Rose.  She was a jolly little girl and had learned many simple songs at school.

“Let’s sing about sailing o’er the dark blue sea,” went on Rose.  “It’s an awful nice song, and I know five verses.”

“We’ll sing it after a while,” returned Russ.  “We got to get started now.  All ready, fireman!” he called to Laddie, who was inside the barrel.  “Start the steam going.  I’m going to steer the boat,” and Russ took his place astride the front end of the barrel, and began twisting on a stick he had stuck down in one of the cracks.  The stick, you understand, was the steering-wheel, even if it didn’t look like one.