Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods | Page 8

get the milk it will be too dark to see to chase
squirrels," said Sue. "It's getting dark now; come on, Bunny."
The two children started down the road toward the camp, and as they
did so they heard a crackling in the bushes on the side of a hill that led
up from the road.
"Oh, here comes that milk dog back again!" cried Sue, and she
snuggled up close against her brother, though the sinking sun was still
shining across the highway.
"I won't let him hurt you," said Bunny. "Wait until I get a stone or a
stick."
"Oh, you mustn't do anything to strange dogs!" cried the little girl. "If
you do they might jump at you and bite you. Just don't notice him or
speak to him, and he'll think we're--we're stylish, and he'll pass right
by."
"Oh well, if you want me to do that way," said Bunny, looking up
toward the place the sound came from, "why I will, only----"
He stopped speaking suddenly, and pointed up the hill. Sue looked in
the same direction. They saw coming toward them, not a dog, but an
old man, dressed in rather ragged clothes. He looked like what the
children called a tramp, though since they had arrived at the camp they
had come to know that not all persons who wore ragged clothes were
tramps. Some of the farmers and their helpers wore their raggedest
garments to work in the dirt of the fields.

This man might be a farmer. He had long white hair that hung down
under the brim of his black hat, and though he did not have such a nice
face as did the children's father, or their Uncle Tad, still they were not
afraid of him.
"Going after milk, little ones?" asked the old man, and his voice was
not unpleasant.
"No, sir; we've just been," said Bunny.
"Well, I'm afraid you'll spill your milk if you swing your pail that way,"
went on the old man, for Bunny was moving the pail to and fro, with
wide swings of his arms.
"It would spill, if there was any in the pail," said Sue.
"But there isn't," added Bunny.
"It's spilled already and we don't know where to get any more,"
explained Sue.
"It wasn't _'zactly_ spilled," Bunny added, for he and Sue always tried
to speak the exact truth. "A dog drank it up."
"While we were chasin' a squirrel," added his sister.
"But I would have driven him away if I'd seen him in time," Bunny
declared positively. "He put his nose right in the pail and licked up all
the milk, and what he didn't eat he spilled and then he ran away."
"And the lady at the farmhouse hasn't any more milk," Sue explained.
"And there isn't any at the camp and----"
"Mother can't make the pudding," finished Bunny.
"Oh dear!" wailed Sue.
"My, you have a lot of troubles!" said the ragged man. "But if you'll
come with me maybe I can help you."

"Where do you want us to come?" asked Bunny, remembering that his
mother had told him never to go anywhere with strangers, and never to
let Sue go, either.
"If you'll come up to my little cabin in the woods I can let you have
some milk," said the ragged man. "I keep a cow, and I have more milk
than I can use or sell. It isn't far. Come with me," and he held out his
hands to the children.
CHAPTER IV
A NOISE AT NIGHT
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were not sure whether or not they
should go with the old man. They remembered what their mother had
said to them about walking off with strangers, and they hung back.
But when Bunny looked at the empty milk pail and remembered that
there was no milk in camp for supper, and none with which his mother
could make the pudding he and his sister liked so much, he made up his
mind it would be all right to go to the little cabin in the woods.
"Come on," urged the old man.
"Do you sell milk?" asked Sue.
"Oh, yes, little girl. Though my cow with the crumpled horn does not
give such a lot of milk, there is more than I use. I sell what I can, but
even then I have some left over. I have plenty to sell to you."
"We only want a quart," said Bunny. "That's all we have money for.
Mother gave us some extra pennies when we went for milk to the
farmhouse, but we have only six cents left. Will that buy a quart of
milk?"
"It will here in the woods and the country," answered the old man, "but