ainly acquiring a
number of new words, much to his mother's worry. "I guess that water's as
cold as--as our icebox at home."

With one wet foot and one dry foot he finished his journey and landed
safely on the other side of the brook. He was hungry by then, and so sat
down to eat the gingerbread under a large tree whose roots had grown far
out over the water.

"Tick-tack! Tick-tack! Tick--t-a-c-k!" scolded some one directly over his
head.

"Don't be cross, Mr. Squirrel!" said Sunny Boy politely. "Grandpa says
when you make a noise like that you're either frightened or want folks to
go away and not bother you. I'm going in a minute."

Throwing the crumbs of the gingerbread into the brook for the little fish
to enjoy, Sunny Boy marched straight for the woods. He had never been
there alone, and somehow they seemed darker and deeper than he remembered
them when Grandpa or Daddy had been with him.

"I'll begin to look now," said Sunny, talking to himself for company. And
how small his voice sounded, and thin, under those tall, silent trees!

"Maybe I'll see a Brownie," Sunny continued. "I think Bruce might have
come all the way. What was that?"

A twig snapped under his foot with a sharp noise. Noises are always
creepy when one is alone in a strange place. Sunny sat down to rest a
minute, on a half-buried tree-stump.

A black beetle came out, ran along a weed-stalk, climbed up to the top
and sat there, regarding Sunny steadily.

"Do you like living here?" asked Sunny politely. "I wish you could talk,
Mr. Beetle. Maybe you've seen the Lib'ty Bonds somewhere an' you'd tell
me just where to look."

The beetle winked his beady eyes rapidly, but of course he didn't say a
word.

Presently a striped chipmunk appeared on a stump opposite the one where
Sunny sat, and he, too, stared at Sunny intently.

"I'm going! I'm going right away!" Sunny assured the chipmunk hastily.
"Daddy says you wood folks like to be alone. I wouldn't hurt you, but I
s'pose you don't know that."

He trotted along, eating the bananas as he went. There were so many
things to look at and think about that sometimes he almost forgot the
Liberty Bonds. Almost, but not quite.

"'Cause I just have to find 'em," he told a blue jay that sat up in a
tree and listened sympathetically. "I'm mose sure Grandpa didn't look in
the right place. An' won't he like it when I come home with them in my
pocket!"

Sunny was so pleased with this idea that he gave