“I’m going to chase after that shoe-lace boy and make him give back the strawberry shortcake!” cried Russ.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SHORTCAKE COMES BACK
Before his father could stop him Russ had run out on the porch. Laddie, too, left his seat and started after his brother.
“Charles!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, “are you going to let them go after that boy? He’s big and might hurt them!”
“I guess Russ and Laddie together are a match for that mean little peddler,” answered Mr. Bunker. “But perhaps I’d better trail along after them to see that they don’t get hurt,” he added, getting up. “I hardly believe, however, that they can catch that peddler. He must be a long way off by this time.”
The two oldest Bunker boys were already out in the road, looking up and down for a sight of the shoe-lace peddler.
“Which way do you think he went, Russ?” asked Laddie.
“I don’t know,” was the answer, for the boy who it was thought had taken Rose’s strawberry shortcake was not in sight. “But here comes a man driving a team,” Russ went on. “We’ll ask him if he saw this peddler down the road.”
A neighboring farmer who was known to Russ and Laddie just then approached Farmer Joel’s house. Mr. Bunker, who was slowly following his two sons, heard Russ ask:
“Did you see anything of a shoe-lace peddler down the road, Mr. Harper?”