hey get so hungry at
times that they forget to be polite, I guess.

The smaller tramp, for one was much bigger and taller than the other,
looked around to see what he could find. He saw little John Boland
holding tightly to a basket. It still had some good things to eat in it,
for John had not eaten all his lunch.

"Here, give me that!" cried the tramp.

"No! No!" John exclaimed, and he turned to run away, for he did not like
the tramps, any more than did Bunny Brown, or Sue, or any of the others.
But, as John turned, his foot caught in a root of a tree, and down he
went, striking the ground quite hard. His lunch basket bounced out of
his hand, and rolled to one side.

"Ha! That's what I want!" said the tramp. "I don't want you, little boy.
All I want is something to eat."

But John, I suppose, thought the tramps might take him away, as some
people think Gypsies will take children away (only they won't) and John
began to cry.

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