gran'fathah!" He watched her scramble through the hole in the fence.
Then he turned his horse's head slowly homeward.

A scrap of white lying on the grass attracted his attention as he neared
the gate.

"It's the lost sunbonnet," he said, with a smile. He carried it into the
house, and hung it on the hat-rack in the wide front hall.

"Ole marse is crosser'n two sticks," growled Walker to the cook at
dinner. "There ain't no livin' with him. What do you s'pose is the
mattah?"




CHAPTER IV.


Mom Beck was busy putting lunch on the table when the Little Colonel
looked in at the kitchen door.

So she did not see a little tramp, carrying her shoes in one hand, and a
basket in the other, who paused there a moment. But when she took up the
pan of beaten biscuit she was puzzled to find that several were missing.

"It beats my time," she said, aloud. "The parrot couldn't have reached
them, an' Lloyd an' the dog have been in the pa'lah all mawnin'.
Somethin' has jus' natch'ly done sperrited 'em away."