Grandpa Brown shook his head.
"I'm afraid I'll never see my horses again," he said. "But I'll ask Mr. Wright where the Gypsies that he saw are camping. Then I'll have a look for my horses."
This Grandpa Brown did next day. He went over to the hermit's cabin, taking with him a nice basket of good things to eat, that grandma and Mrs. Brown had put up.
"The children ate his bread and milk," said Mother Brown, "so we must give him something else in place of it."
And I think Mr. Wright, the hermit, was very glad to get the basket of good things, for of course a man, living all alone in the woods, can not make pies, and jam tarts and cake as good as mothers and grandmothers can.
The hermit showed Grandpa Brown the valley where the Gypsies had been seen, with their wagons shining with looking glasses. But the queer Gypsies were gone, though the ashes of their campfires showed where they had stopped. And of course there were no horses left behind.
"They don't stay very long in one place," said Grandpa Brown. "If they had my horses, they took them away. I guess I'll never see them again."
For several days, after getting lost, Bunny and Sue did not have any adventures. They played about the farmhouse, or in the barn, having much fun. Once they went fishing with Bunker Blue. Bunker did the fishing, and caught five or six, which Grandma Brown fried for supper.
One morning, when Bunny and Sue came down stairs, after a good night's sleep, they saw their mother and grandmother busy in the kitchen putting cake and pies, sandwiches, pickles, knives, forks, spoons, and other things, in baskets.
"What's that for?" asked Bunny.