“Chug-chug!” went the automobile.

“Bow-wow!” barked the dog Splash.

“Good-bye!” called Bunny and Sue to some of their little boy and girl friends who had gathered to wave farewell.  “Good-bye!  Good-bye!”

Then the big automobile rolled out into the road.  The Browns were off to camp.

CHAPTER VI

PUTTING UP THE TENTS

“How long will it take us to get to Lake Wanda, Mother?” asked Bunny Brown, as, with Sue and Uncle Tad, he and his mother sat in the back of the big car that rumbled along the road.

“Oh, we ought to get there about noon,” she answered.

“Just in time to eat,” said Uncle Tad.  “I suppose you children will be good and hungry, too.”

“I’m hungry now,” said Sue, “I wish I had a jam tart, Mother.”

“So do I!” put in Bunny.

“I’ll give you one in a few minutes,” Mrs. Brown said.  “We did have an early breakfast, and I suppose you are hungry now.”

“Will we have to cook dinner as soon as we get to camp?” Bunny wanted to know.

“If we do I’ll help,” said Uncle Tad with a smile.  “I can build a campfire.  When I was a soldier, in the army, down South, we used to build campfires, and roast potatoes when we couldn’t find anything else to eat.”

“Did they taste good, Uncle Tad?” asked Sue.

“Indeed they did, little girl.  And we had roast ears of corn, too.  They were even better than the potatoes.”

“I guess we’ll have to make Uncle Tad the camp cook,” said Mother Brown with a smile, as she brought out a basket of lunch for Bunny and Sue.  In the basket were some cakes, sandwiches and a few of the jam and jelly tarts that Aunt Lu used to make.  Only, as Aunt Lu had gone back to her city home, Mrs. Brown had learned to make the tarts, and Bunny and Sue were very fond of them.

As they rode along in the big automobile the children ate the little lunch, and enjoyed it very much.  Uncle Tad took some too, for he had gotten up early, with the others, and he was hungry.

“I wonder if Daddy and Bunker Blue wouldn’t like a tart,” murmured Sue, after a bit, as she picked up the last crumbs of hers.

“Perhaps they would,” said Mother Brown.  “But they are away up on the front seat, and I don’t see how we can pass them any.  There is too much in the auto, or I could hand it to them out of the little window back of the seat.  But I can’t reach the window.”

“I know how we could pass them a tart,” said Bunny.

“How?” asked his mother.

“Climb up on the roof of the auto, and lower the lunch basket down to them with a string.”

“Bunny Brown!  Don’t you dare think of such a thing!” cried his mother.  “The idea of climbing onto the roof of this big automobile when it’s moving!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean when it was moving,” Bunny said.  “I wouldn’t do that, for fear I’d be jiggled off.  I meant to wait until we stopped.  Then I could get up on the roof.”