CHAPTER XXIV
STUNG
For a moment or two the six little Bunkers could hardly believe this dreadful news. In fact the two youngest did not quite understand what the peddler boy said. Then Rose exclaimed:
“Oh, you couldn’t! You couldn’t eat all our lunch!”
“Ha! Ha!” chuckled the mean peddler boy. “Yes, I did! I was terribly hungry, and I ate it all! You took your strawberry shortcake away from me, but you can’t take this lunch away, because I ate it all up! Ha! Ha!”
“You horrid boy!” cried Rose. She said afterward she just couldn’t help calling him that name, even though it was not very polite. But, then, he wasn’t polite himself, that peddler boy wasn’t.
“You—you——” began Laddie, spluttering somewhat, which he often did when he was excited. “Did you take my apples?” For Laddie had put up in the lunch a special little basket of apples.
“I have the apples in my pocket!” boasted the shoe-lace boy. “I ate one of ’em, and I’ll eat the others when I get home. But I ate all the rest of your lunch. I haven’t any of that in my pockets.”
“Look here, you—you rascal!” cried Russ. He didn’t know what the peddler’s name was, but “rascal,” seemed the right thing to call him. “I’m going to tell my father and Farmer Joel on you, and they’ll have you arrested!” threatened Russ.
“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” boasted the peddler, though he had run once before when told that this would happen to him.
Russ did not know what to do. The shoe-lace boy was larger and stronger. Once Russ had been knocked down by the lad, and Russ did not want this to happen again.