There was Mr. Bixby, the hermit, sitting on a box just outside the tent, talking very earnestly to Mr. Brown, who had just come from town in the small automobile. It had stopped raining.
"Well, I've decided not to let him go back to you," Mr. Brown was saying. "I don't think you have treated him right, and I am going to complain to the authorities about it."
"And I tell you, Mr. Brown, not meaning to be impolite, that I'm entitled to that boy an' I'm going to have him. He's bound out to me for the Summer."
"What does he want, Mother?" whispered Bunny.
"Hush, my dear. Daddy will attend to it all. Mr. Bixby came here a little while ago and he wants to take Tom back. Tom doesn't want to go on account of the 'needle pricks' as he calls them. But Mr. Bixby wants him, and your father is not going to let Tom go."
"Oh, I'm glad of that!" exclaimed Sue in a whisper. "I like Tom, and I don't care if I was locked in a trunk and 'most smothered if we can keep Tom."
CHAPTER XXIII
TRYING TO HELP TOM
"You were locked in a trunk and almost smothered!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, looking first at Sue and then at Mr. Bixby, as though she thought he might have had some hand in the matter.