"You stay where you are till I come back," he called. "You David, and
Juddy, keep the others where they are. I'll bet I've found him."

The Hatch children were fairly dancing to follow Jimmie, but they knew he
meant what he said. They sat down in the hay to wait.

One--two--three--four--five minutes passed. Then Jimmie stepped out on
the barn floor and grinned cheerfully up at the anxious group perched on
the edge of the haymow.

"It's all right," he said. "I've found him. He's out in the old dairy.
Now don't all come down at once--Jud, let the girls come first. Easy
there!"

The Hatch children came tumbling down, eager to see Sunny Boy. Sarah
stopped to pick up the baby, who had slept through all the excitement and
now merely opened two dark eyes, smiled, and went to sleep again. The
Hatch baby was used to being taken about and had the steady habits of an
old traveler.

They found Sunny absorbed in watching a mother duck and her ten little
ducklings who were swimming daintily about in a trough in the dairy.

"Well, where were you?" Juddy pounced on Sunny Boy. "You gave us an awful
scare."

"I've been right here all the time." Sunny was a bit aggrieved to find
such a fuss made over him. First Jimmie and now Juddy. "I haven't been
anywhere," he insisted.

"We thought you were lost!" David frowned at him severely.

"Well, I wasn't," retorted Sunny Boy briefly. "I was watching ducks.
Jimmie, do they sleep in water?"

"What, ducks?" said Jimmie. "Oh, no, they sleep under their mother just
like chickens at night, some place where it is warm and dry. Your
grandmother will be glad you found this duck--she's missed her for two
days. Guess she never thought of looking in the dairy."

This part of the barn had been used for the cows, you see, years before,
when Sunny's father was a little boy and a big herd of fine cows were
kept at Brookside. Now Mrs. Butterball and Butterette were the only cows,
and they lived in a box stall near Peter and Paul.

CHAPTER XII

APPLE PIES

Sunny Boy continued to look at the ducks till David could stand it no
longer.

"What happened to you?" he asked, jogging Sunny's elbow to make him look
at him. "How'd you get down here?"

"Fell down," said Sunny calmly. "Could I have a duck to play with,
Jimmie?"

"How'd you fall down?" persisted David, who usually got what he started
after.

Sunny Boy was exceedingly bored by these numerous questions, and he
wanted to be all