"And, of course, it would be
real polite of you if you said you didn't know," added the little boy.
"Very well; what is the difference between an elephant and a dog,
Laddie?"
"Why," cried Laddie very eagerly, "an elephant owns a trunk of his very
own; and a dog only wants to get into a trunk. There now!"
"But all dogs don't want to get into trunks," objected Vi. "Do they? Do
they, now, Mother?"
"I am afraid Laddie's riddle is not as good as some he makes up," said
Mother Bunker. "For you know, dogs have trunks as well as elephants."
Her eyes twinkled as she said it, for she knew she was going to puzzle
her little brood. At once they all broke out with questions and
exclamations. How could that be? They had seen, as Vi said, "oceans of
dogs" and none of them had had a nose long enough to be called a trunk,
like the elephants they had seen at the circus.
"Mother is just puzzling us," Laddie said. "How can a dog have a trunk
when his nose is short and blunt? At least, most dogs' noses are short
and blunt."
"Each dog has a trunk nevertheless," declared Mother Bunker,
laughing. "And so have you, and so have I."
"I have a suitcase," announced Mun Bun gravely. "I don't have a trunk."
Mother Bunker swept Mun Bun into her arms then and kissed his chubby
neck.
"Of course you have a trunk, honey-boy," she cried. "All your little
body between your shoulders and your legs is your trunk.
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