dly.

"It isn't here," said Grandma Brown.

"Could the hired man have taken it?" asked Bunny's mother.

"Oh, no! He wouldn't do such a thing as that," replied Grandma Brown. "I
left his dinner in the kitchen, as I always do when we go away. No, some
one must have gotten in the house, while we were gone, and taken the
cake, besides some of my pies and other things."

"Was it--was they burglars?" asked Sue. She had often heard, at home, of
burglars getting into houses and taking money and other things.

"No, I don't believe it was burglars," said Grandma Brown. "But I see
how they got in. I left the pantry window open, though the shutters were
closed. They opened the shutters and climbed in. The shutters were tied
with a string, and the string has been cut--see!"

She showed Bunny and Sue, also Mother Brown, where the cut string hung
dangling from the edge of one shutter.

"They climbed in that window and took the cake," went on Grandma Brown.

"Oh, my lovely cake!" exclaimed Sue. "And I wanted some for supper!"

"So did I!" said Bunny Brown. "Is there any other kind of cake,
Grandma?"

"Oh, yes, I can give you cookies. But I would like to know who it was
got in my pantry. We don't generally trouble to lock our doors and
windows around here in the day time," she went on, "for none of us was
ever robbed before. But if this is going to happen I'll have to be more
careful."

She pushed open the shutters, which were partly closed, and looked out.
Then she called:

"Oh, here's a box they stepped on to get in the window. Look, children,
they brought a box from the barn, stepped up on it, and crawled in the
window. And see! One of them dropped his handkerchief!"

Bunny and Sue, looking under Grandma Brown's arms, one on each side of
her, saw, down on the ground, a red handkerchief. At the sight of it
Bunny Brown cried:

"Oh it was the tramps! It was the tramps that took our cake, Grandma!"

"How do you know, Bunny?"

"Because the tramps that scared us had red handkerchiefs on their necks
just like that one down there. I'm sure they were the same tramps,
Grandma."

The two children, grandma and Mother Brown went outside, under the
pantry window. There lay the red handkerchief on the ground, and it was
twisted up in just the way a handkerchief would be twisted if it had
been around any one's neck.

"Those tramps didn't get enough to eat out of our baskets," said Bunny
Brown, "so they came here and took grand