And while Mr. Brown is listening to the letter left by the runaway boy, I'll tell my new readers something more about Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, and the things that happened to them in the books before this.
The first volume is named "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue," and it tells of what happened to the two children in their home town of Bellemere, on Sandport Bay, near the ocean. There the little boy and girl had fine times, and they took a trolley ride to a far city, getting lost.
The second book told of "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm," and you can imagine the fun they had there, getting lost in the woods and going to picnics. After that the two children played Circus in the book of that name, and they had real animals in their show, though you could not exactly call them wild.
"Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home," is the name of the fourth book, and in the big city Bunny and Sue had stranger adventures than ever.
After that Mr. Brown took the whole family to "Camp Rest-a-While." It was a lovely place in the woods and they lived in tents. Uncle Tad went with them, and ever so many things happened to the children there. Their dog Splash had good times too.
Camp Rest-a-While was near the edge of the big woods, and in the book called "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods," which is just before this one, you may read of the adventures with Bunny's train of electric cars, and of the fun Sue had with her electrical Teddy bear, which could flash its eyes when a button was pressed in his back—or rather, her back, for Sue had named her Teddy bear Sallie Malinda, insisting that it was a girl bear.
And now the Brown family was home again from the big woods, ready for other happenings. And that they were going to have adventures might be guessed from what Mr. Brown started to say about some news. But just now he was reading the letter Fred Ward had written to his parents.
"Hum! That is a strange note for a boy to leave," said Mr. Brown slowly. "He evidently doesn't intend to come home very soon."
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Ward, and commenced to weep once more.
"I tell her he may come home soon, for he has no money—or at least very little to live on," said the missing boy's father. "You see Fred has a high spirit, and he did not like it when I had to punish him. But I did it for his good. He must learn the value of money, and he must not spend when I tell him not to."