ma's things. Let's go after 'em!
I'll get Splash and----"

Bunny Brown started to run after his dog, that had gone out to the barn
with Bunker Blue. But his mother caught the little boy by the arm.

"You had better stay right here," she said. "You are too small to go
chasing off after tramps, even with Splash. We'll let Papa Brown and
grandpa find the bad men, if they are still here."

Daddy Brown and grandpa came back from the barn, where they had been
putting away the horses, and they were told of the missing cake, pies
and crullers. Then they looked at the red handkerchief, lying where one
of the tramps must have dropped it.

"Yes, I should not be surprised if the same tramps who scared the
children came here and took your things, Mother," said Papa Brown. "They
must have been frightened, and have run off in a hurry, to have dropped
their handkerchief this way. We'll ask the hired man."

But the hired man had been working in the garden, some distance away
from the house, and he had seen nothing of any tramps. He had come in to
his dinner, and he said he had looked in the pantry then, and had
noticed that the big cake was all right.

"Then the tramps came here after dinner, and after they were at the
picnic grounds," said Grandpa Brown. "I must look around. They may be
hiding in my barn, and sometimes tramps smoke in the hay, and set it on
fire. We'll look for them."

But no tramps were found.

"Maybe they heard Splash barking, and ran away in such a hurry that they
dropped their handkerchief," said Bunny.

"Maybe," agreed his mother. "Well, it's better to have them take the
crullers, the pie and the cake instead of a cow or a horse."

"Indeed it is!" said Grandpa Brown. "I don't want to lose any more
horses."

"I can bake you another cocoanut-custard cake, children," said Grandma
Brown. "I'll make it to-morrow. To-night you will have to eat cookies
with your milk."

And the cookies were very good, as was everything Grandma Brown made, so
Bunny and Sue were not hungry after all.

That night Grandpa Brown went all around the house, to make sure that
all the doors and windows were locked.

"For we don't want any tramps coming here in the middle of the night,
waking us up from our sleep," he said.

And nothing happened. Probably the tramps ran a good way off with the
fine big cocoanut-custard cake. They must have had a good feast on that,
and on the pies and crullers.

For two or three days after the