"What would that mean?" asked Aunt Sallie, rather startled.
"It would mean that a bear came up, put his paws in through the window, knocked the pan cover off and took the pudding," was the answer.
"Well, I'm not so much afraid of bears as I am of tramps," said Aunt Sallie, with a smile. "I almost wish it was a bear!"
But it was not. In the light covering of newly fallen snow under the pantry window, through which the pudding had been taken, were the marks of a man's feet. Big feet they were, with heavy shoes, for the prints of the hob nails could be seen in the snow.
Uncle Toby looked at the marks for several minutes. He and Aunt Sallie and the children could see where the man, whoever he was, had come out of the woods, walked up to the open window, and, after standing about and tramping to and fro, had marched back to the woods again.
"It looks as if he came here, looked in, saw the pudding, and started away without taking it," said Uncle Toby, as he looked closely at the big footprints in the snow. "Then he turned back, because he was so hungry he just couldn't leave that pudding there in plain sight, I suppose. He took it and went back to the woods with it to eat it."
"Who was he?" asked Tom.
"That I don't know," Uncle Toby replied. "He must be a stranger around here, for anybody else would ask for something to eat if he were hungry. And most of the folks around here are well enough off to get their own Thanksgiving dinner. They don't have to take other folks' pudding."
"That's so," said Aunt Sallie. "I wish it hadn't happened, even though I don't mind a poor hungry man having my nice pudding."
"Is your dog a bloodhound?" asked Harry of Ted, as the boys remained looking at the footprints in the snow, after the girls had gone back into the house with Aunt Sallie.