CHAPTER XXIVSTUNG

CHAPTER XXIVSTUNG

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.

Still Russ was no coward. He never would have gone after Violet’s doll that day when the truck was about to run over it if he werea coward. So Russ made up his mind he must do something.

He couldn’t get the lunch back—he knew that—but he might punish the lad who had taken it. So Russ doubled up his fists, and Laddie, seeing him, did the same, for Laddie had an idea.

“If we both go at him at once we can fight him, Russ!” whispered Laddie. “You go at him on one side and I’ll go at him on the other.”

Of course this was the proper way for two small boys to fight one large one. But Russ did not like to fight—especially when Rose and the other children were there.

“You’re a mean coward, that’s what you are!” cried Russ. “You sneaked up and took our lunch when we weren’t there. You wouldn’t dare take it when we were around.”

And this was true. The peddler boy was a coward, and he had watched his chance to sneak up to the lunch when the six little Bunkers were some distance from it.

“Pooh! I don’t care! I got your lunch, anyhow, and it tasted good and you can’t get it back!” boasted the boy.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mun Bun, who didn’t quite understand what it was all about. “I’m hungry!”

“So’m I,” wailed Margy.

“I’m sorry,” said Rose, “but the mean boy ate up all the lunch.”

At last Laddie seemed unable to stand it any longer. He felt that he must do something.

“Come on, Russ!” he cried. “Let’s fight him!” And Laddie, all alone, rushed toward the boy, who was standing on the edge of the woods.

Russ knew it would not be wise to let Laddie get near the bigger boy. Laddie might be knocked down as Russ was, so Russ started after Laddie. This looked to the peddler as though he were going to be attacked. And though he boasted of not being afraid, he was. He felt that if Russ and Laddie, to say nothing of Violet and Rose, all went at him together, big and strong as he was, he would be knocked down and beaten.

“Ho! Ho! You can’t catch me!” he cried, turning to run. “I ate all your lunch! Ho! Ho! I ate all your lunch!”

Away he ran, toward the woods.

“Coward! You’re a coward!” shrieked Violet tauntingly.

“Come on! Let’s run after him!” begged Laddie.

Russ looked toward the fleeing boy.

“No, Laddie,” he said, “it wouldn’t be any good chasing after him. He’d get away. But he’s a coward just the same.”

“He’s horrid mean—that’s what I say!” declared Rose. “To take our nice picnic lunch! Now we’ll have to go home.”

“I’m going to tell Farmer Joel about him,” announced Russ.

“Maybe he’ll have him arrested,” suggested Violet.

Suddenly Laddie pointed to the boy and exclaimed:

“Look how funny he’s acting!”

“What makes him do that?” asked Vi.

“Oh, listen to him yell!” ejaculated Russ.

Indeed, the peddler lad was acting strangely. He was in the woods now and he was jumping up and down, waving his arms about, slapping his hands on his head and legs, and at the same time crying aloud.

“What’s he saying?” asked Rose.

“Hark!” advised Russ.

They all listened, and from the jumping boy came the words:

“Oh, I’m stung! I’m stung! Take ’em away, somebody! Take ’em away! I’m stung!”

Then Rose cried:

“Bees! Bees! A lot of bees are after him!”

“Yes, and there are some buzzing around here!” said Russ quickly. “He must have run into a hornet’s nest or something, and some of ’em are flying around here. I heard ’em buzz!”

“So did I!” added Violet.

“But they aren’t hornets,” said Laddie. “Look! There’s one,” and he pointed to a yellow-banded insect lazily flying in the air above them. “That’s a honey bee, like those Farmer Joel has.”

“And look at the lot of ’em around that boy!” cried Rose. “Oh, what a lot of bees!”

She pointed to the woods where the rascally lad was still leaping about, slapping himselfwith his hands, and now and then lying down in the dried leaves to roll about.

“Come on! We’d better run!” advised Russ. “These are honey bees all right, but they sting as badly as hornets. A swarm must have gotten away from Farmer Joel’s and this boy ran right into ’em. Come on, we’ll go before they get after us.”

As yet only one or two bees had flown toward the six little Bunkers, but they started away, nevertheless, for there was no fun remaining at a picnic if they had no lunch to eat.

“Oh, look! There he goes, running!” cried Laddie, pointing toward the peddler boy who was darting away into the woods as fast as he could go, followed by the cloud of bees.

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