Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel's

Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel's

Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel's, by Laura Lee Hope, follows the six young Bunker children of Pineville as they spend a summer on Farmer Joel Todd's farm in Cedarhurst. Charles and Amy Bunker take their brood — inventive Russ, motherly Rose, question-asking Violet and riddle-loving Laddie (twins), round little Margy, and toddler Mun Bun — to stay with the kindly bachelor farmer, since his sister Miss Lavina Todd, who usually keeps house for him, is away on a long visit. Mrs. Bunker, the housekeeper Norah, and hired man Adam North come along to help run the household. The novel opens with the excitement of Violet's lost doll Esmeralda, nearly crushed by a truck when Russ dashes into the road to save her, and the truck driver's delivery of flowers from Farmer Joel that reveals the summer plan. The family travels to the farm by truck and touring car, encountering a runaway colt along the way and adopting Farmer Joel's friendly hired man, Adam North, as a guide. Once settled, the six children fill their days with rural adventures and mishaps typical of the series: Margy and Mun Bun get stuck in a hay chute and later Margy is drenched in broken eggs; Russ and Laddie build a water wheel and toy mill at the brook, and Laddie repeatedly falls in while damming it; the family befriends neighbor boy Ralph Watson and his dog Jimsie, and the children help hunt for lost cows in the pasture; Violet and Laddie are nearly frightened by cows they mistake for dangerous animals. Farmer Joel teaches the children about bees, showing how a swarm departs with its queen, and a valuable fifty-dollar queen bee is lost when a hive swarms away into the woods. A recurring antagonist is a rude, thieving peddler boy who steals Rose's strawberry shortcake (recovered after the children confront him) and later steals the children's picnic lunch, boasting about it — until he blunders into the very swarm of runaway bees from Farmer Joel's hives and is badly stung, leading Farmer Joel to track the bees to a hollow tree and recover his lost queen and hive, plus fifty pounds of honey. Other episodes include haymaking, with Russ dangerously riding a hay fork up to the barn loft; churning butter; a night scare when Laddie sneaks off to a police station to research a riddle; a thunderstorm picnic that leads the family to shelter in a summer ice cave, from which they harvest ice to make ice cream; a church sociable with wild-flower gathering; and a frightening chase by an escaped bull, from which the children take shelter in an old henhouse. Mun Bun's comic literal-mindedness (planting chicken bones for the dog, planting bird seed to "grow" birds) and Laddie's constant riddle-making run throughout as light comic relief. The book closes as summer ends: Farmer Joel gives the children a ripe pumpkin for a jack-o'-lantern parade, and the family prepares to return home to Pineville, reflecting that it was one of the happiest summers they ever spent — with the next volume in the series to follow their further adventures.

By Laura Lee Hope · First published 1923 · Genre: Children's Literature, Adventure, Family Fiction · 25 chapters · 61,265 words

First lines

"Margy, will you look out on the porch and see if she's there?"

"Yes, Vi, I will. But you ought to say please to me, 'cause mother / says -- "

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Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel's is listed on Textopian as a novel by Laura Lee Hope, dated 1923 CE.

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children's literature · adventure · farm setting · family · siblings · rural setting · pastoral · wholesome · classic literature · domestic fiction · series fiction · coming-of-age

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More by Laura Lee Hope