Now it is a funny thing, but very often if one little boy or girl in a crowd of others begins to cry, why two or three more will do the same thing. And, no sooner had John begun to sob, than Tillie Simpson, Nellie Hadden, Flo Benson, Tommie Jones and Harry Kennedy all began to cry, too. About the only ones who were not crying were Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, and Sue had some tears all ready to let fall out of her eyes.
But Sue watched to see what Bunny would do. She did not want him to call her a "cry-baby" afterward, though Bunny hardly ever called his sister names, except maybe in fun.
"You let us alone! Let my basket alone! Let John's basket alone! Go on away from here!"
The big tramp, who was eating what was left in Bunny's basket, looked up and laughed.
"You're a spunky little chap," he said, "but we're not going away until we get something to eat. We're hungry!"
"That's what we are," said the small tramp, who had picked up the basket that had rolled from the hand of John. Out of this the small tramp was eating pieces of cake and sandwiches as fast as he could. John, who had stopped crying now, sat up and looked on, his eyes wide open.
"We haven't had anything to eat all day!" went on the big tramp, who was also eating fast. "We're terrible hungry! You children have had enough. We'll take the rest."
"Yes, and then maybe we'll take some of them," said the small tramp, blinking his eyes and looking around. Of course he was only fooling, but the children did not know this, and some of the little girls screamed, and ran away.
But Bunny Brown was not so frightened as were the others. He was older, and then, too, he felt that he must look after his sister. So he cried out again:
"Go on away from here, you—you bad tramps!"