own were to see the children when
they came home!

"Don't you ever get lost again!" said Mamma Brown, as she undressed Sue
for bed.

"No'm, we won't," promised the little girl, and Bunny said the same
thing.

The family had become very much worried when Bunny and Sue did not come
back from having gone for berries. Supper time came, and no children.
Then Grandpa Brown, his hired men, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, Grandma Brown,
and even Bunker Blue, began to look for the lost ones.

They did not find Bunny and Sue, of course, for they were far away with
the kind hermit. Then the storm came and the family at the farmhouse
were more worried than ever.

They did not know what to do, but everything was all right when the
hermit came along through the storm, and said he had found the children.

Then Grandpa Brown hitched up a horse to a big carriage and he and Papa
Brown, taking the hermit with them, went to the cabin. Before that,
though, Splash had gone off by himself, and had found Bunny and Sue.
Then along came papa and Grandpa Brown, and that ended the little
adventure. Everything was all right.

"He is a nice man--that hermit," said Sue. "He gave me a piggy-back, and
once he had a little girl of his own, but she is in the sky now."

"Yes, he is a good old man," said Grandpa Brown. "I know him, though he
hardly ever comes to see me. He has lived in his cabin in the woods, all
alone, for many years. Once he had a wife and children, but they all
died, and he became very sad. So he went to live by himself. He hardly
ever speaks to any one, but he loves children. Bunny and Sue could not
have been cared for by any one better than old Mr. Wright, the hermit."

"And he knows where the Gypsies are that have your horses, Grandpa,"
said Bunny.

That was not just what the hermit had said, but it was as near as Bunny
could remember.

Grandpa Brown shook his head.

"I'm afraid I'll never see my horses again," he said. "But I'll ask Mr.
Wright where the Gypsies that he saw are camping. Then I'll have a look
for my horses."

This Grandpa Brown did next day. He went over to the hermit's cabin,
taking with him a nice basket of good things to eat, that grandma and
Mrs. Brown had put up.

"The children ate his bread and milk," said Mother Brown, "so we must
give him something else in place of it."

And I think Mr. Wright, the hermit, was very glad to get the basket of
good things, for of course a man, living all alone in the wood