Mr. Trimble was smiling and laughing now.  Somehow or other he did not seem as mean and cross as he once had.  Bunny and Sue were beginning to like him now.  He was quite a different man from the one who had called at Camp Rest-a-While looking for Tom.

Splash eagerly drank the cool water, and then he rolled in the grass to get some of the mud off his coat.  Mrs. Trimble brought out some milk for Bunny and Sue, and also a plate of molasses cookies, which they were very glad to have.

“Sit down under this shady apple tree,” said Mrs. Trimble, “and help yourselves.  Maybe you’d like a glass of milk,” she said to Mr. Brown.

“Well, I don’t care much for milk, except in my tea and coffee,” he said.  “Thank you, just the same.”

“How about buttermilk?” asked Mr. Trimble.  “That’s what I like on a hot day, and she’s just churned.”

“Yes, I should like the buttermilk,” returned Bunny’s father, and soon he was drinking a large glass.

“What funny looking milk!” remarked Sue, as she helped herself to another molasses cookie from the plate in front of her.  “It’s got little yellow lumps in it, Daddy.”

“Those are little yellow lumps of butter,” said Mr. Brown.  “To make butter, you know, they churn the cream of sour milk.  And when the butter is all taken out in a lump, some sour milk is left, and they call that buttermilk.  Would you like to taste it, Sue?”

Sue, who had drunk the last of her glass of sweet milk, nodded her curly head.  But when Daddy Brown put his glass to her lips, and just let her sip the buttermilk he had been drinking, Sue made such a funny face that Bunny laughed aloud.

“Oh—­oh!  It—­it’s sour—­like lemons!” cried Sue.

“Yes, it is sour!” said Mr. Brown.  “But that is why I like it.”

“I like molasses cookies better,” said Sue, as she took a bite from one to cleanse away the sour taste in her mouth.  “You can make just as good cookies as my mother or my Aunt Lu can,” said Sue to Mrs. Trimble.

“Can I?  I’m glad to hear that,” said the farmer’s wife, with a smile.  “Have some to put in your pockets.”

“Oh, I’m afraid you’ve given them too many already,” objected Mr. Brown.

“Molasses cookies won’t hurt children; nor milk won’t either,” the farmer said.  “Any time you’re over this way stop in.  I’m sorry you can’t find that boy Tom.  And I’m sorry I was a bit cross with him, or maybe he’d be here yet.  But I haven’t seen him.”

Splash was rested now, and clean.  And he had had a good drink of cold water, so he was ready to start again.  The children, too, felt like walking, and, after having thanked the farmer and his wife, Mr. Brown set off once more with Bunny and Sue, Splash following behind.

“Come again!” Mrs. Trimble invited them.

“We will, thank you,” answered Daddy Brown.

“She’s real nice; isn’t she?” asked Bunny, when they were once more in the road.