“Who took it?” demanded Rose.
“I didn’t! You needn’t look at me!” declared Laddie quickly. He sometimes did play jokes like this—if you call them jokes.
“Are you sure we left it on this stump?” asked Russ.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Rose. “Look, you can see some of the crumbs. Oh, Russ, some one has eaten the lunch!”
“Maybe it was a bear!” suggested Violet, with a little shiver of mixed delight and fear.
“There are no bears here,” Russ replied impatiently.
“Then maybe it was a squirrel,” suggested Laddie.
“A squirrel couldn’t carry away the boxes, baskets, and everything!” declared Rose.
Suddenly, from behind the bushes, came a chuckle in a boy’s voice. At first Russ thought perhaps Ralph Watson and his dog Jimsie had come along, and that Ralph had hidden the lunch for fun. But a moment later the ugly face of the peddler boy looked out from the bushes.
“I took your lunch!” he said. “I ate it! I ate it all up!”