I wonder if we keep on
growing if the ratio will remain the same?"
Russ knew what "ratio" meant, and he asked: "How can it keep that way if
we grow to be seven little Bunkers? You can't have three and a half
little Armatages, you know."
"That's a smart boy!" exclaimed the tall man, smiling. "He can see
through a millstone just as quick as any boy I know. We'll hope that
there will be no half-portions of Armatages. I want all my children to
have the usual number of limbs and body."
"If you have little girls, and one was only half a little girl," said
Rose, "she would be worse off than a mermaid, wouldn't she?"
"She certainly would," agreed the planter.
"Why?" demanded Vi, who did not understand.
"Because half of her would be a fish," said Russ, laughing. "And you
would have to have all your house under water, Mr. Armatage, or the
mermaid could not get up and down stairs."
"I declare, Charley!" exclaimed the visitor, "these young ones of yours
are certainly blessed with great imaginations. I don't believe our
children ever thought of such things."
The next day the party went out to the Meiggs Plantation. It was a
two-hours' ride on a branch railroad and a shorter and swifter ride in
an automobile over the "jounciest" road the children had ever ridden on,
for part of the way led through a swamp and logs were laid down side by
side to keep the road, as Mr.
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