“No, daddy is only joking,” said her mother.  “I guess we’ll have to go to the post office for letters.”

One day, when they had been in camp about a week, Bunny and Sue, with the others, returned from a walk in the woods.  As they came near the “dining-room tent,” as they called it, they saw a ragged boy spring up from the table with some pieces of bread and meat, and dash into the bushes.

“Hold on there!  Who are you?  What do you want?” cried Daddy Brown.  But the ragged boy did not stop running.  He wanted to hide in the bushes.

CHAPTER IX

TOM HEARS A NOISE

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, with their father, mother, Uncle Tad and Bunker Blue, hurried on toward the tent under which was set the dining table.  They could see where the ragged boy had made a meal for himself, taking the bread and meat from the ice box.  For a refrigerator had been brought to camp, and the iceman came on a boat, once a day, to leave ice.

“Who is he?” asked Bunny Brown, looking toward the bushes behind which the strange boy had run.

“What did he want?” Sue asked.

“I can answer you, Sue, but I can’t answer Bunny,” said Mr. Brown.  “That boy was hungry, and wanted something to eat, but who he is I don’t know.”

“Poor little chap,” said Mrs. Brown in a kind voice.  “He didn’t need to run away just because he wanted something to eat.  I would be glad to give him all he wanted.  I wouldn’t see anyone go hungry.”

“He looked like a tramp,” said Bunker.

“But he was only a boy,” remarked Uncle Tad.

“I wish he hadn’t run away,” said Mother Brown.  “I don’t believe he got half enough to eat.  He took only a little.”  She could tell that by looking in the ice box.

By this time Splash, the big dog, who had not come up with the others, now rushed into camp.  He sniffed around, and then, all of a sudden, he made a dash for a clump of bushes, and, standing in front of it began barking loudly.

“Oh, maybe the bear’s come back and is hiding in there!” cried Bunny.

“More likely it’s that ragged boy,” said Uncle Tad.  “That’s where he made a rush for as soon as we came up.”

Splash seemed about to go into the bushes himself, and drive, or drag, out whatever was hiding there.

But Mr. Brown called: 

“Here, Splash!  Come here, sir!”

The dog came back and then Bunny’s father, going over to the bushes, looked down among them.

“You’d better come out,” he said, to someone.  The children could not see who it was.  “Come on out,” said Mr. Brown, “we won’t hurt you.”

Out of the bushes came the ragged boy.  In his hand he still had some of the bread and meat he had taken from the ice box.

Bunny and Sue looked at him.

The boy’s clothes were very ragged, but they seemed to be clean.  He had on no shoes or stockings, but one foot was wrapped up in a rag, as though he had cut himself.  He limped a little, too, as he came forward.