Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store | Page 2

a gentle smile. And when their mother smiled that way the children knew she meant what she said.
"Now, go ahead, Bunny Brown!" called Sue. "Let's see you make a flat nose!"
Bunny drew his face back from the window. His little nose was quite white where he had pressed it--white because he had kept nearly all the blood from flowing into it. But soon his little "smeller," as sometimes Bunny's father called his nose, began to get red again. Bunny began to rub it.
"What you doing?" Sue wanted to know, thinking her brother might not be playing fair in this little game.
"I'm rubbing my nose," Bunny answered.
"Yes, I know. But what for?"
"'Cause it's cold. If I'm going to make my nose flatter'n yours I have to warm it a little. The glass is cold!"
"Yes, it is a little cold," agreed Sue. "Well, go ahead now; let's see you flat your nose!"
Bunny took a long breath. He then pressed his nose so hard against the glass that tears came into his eyes. But he didn't want Sue to see them. And he wouldn't admit that he was crying, which he really wasn't doing.
"Look at me now! Look at me!" cried Bunny, talking as though he had a very bad cold in his head.
Sue took a look.
"Yes, it is flat!" she agreed. "But I can flatter mine more'n that! You watch me!"
Sue ran to her window. She made up her mind to beat her brother at this game. Closing her teeth firmly, as she always did when she was going to jump rope more times than some other girl, Sue fairly banged her nose against the window pane.
Her little nose certainly flattened out, but whether more so than Bunny's was never discovered. For Sue banged herself harder than she had meant to, and a moment later she gave a cry of pain, turned away from the window, and burst into tears.
"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Brown, hurrying in from the next room: "Who's hurt?"
Sue was crying so hard that she could not answer, and Bunny was too surprised to say anything for the moment. Mrs. Brown looked at the two children. She saw Sue holding her nose in one hand, while Bunny's nose was turning from white to red as the blood came back into it.
"Have you children been bumping noses again?" she asked. This was a game Bunny and Sue sometimes played, though they had been told not to.
"No, Mother; we weren't 'zactly banging noses," explained Bunny. "We were just seeing who could make the flattest one on the window, and Sue bumped her nose too hard. I didn't do anything!"
"No, it--it wasn't Bun--Bunny's fault!" sobbed Sue. "I did it myself! I was trying to--to flatter my nose more'n his!"
"You shouldn't play such games," said Mother Brown. "I'm sorry, Sue! Let me see! Is your nose bleeding?" and she gently took the little girl's hand down.
"Is--is--it?" asked Sue herself, stopping her sobs long enough to find out if anything more than a bump had taken place.
"No, it isn't bleeding," said Mrs. Brown. "Now be good children. You can't go out in the rain, so don't ask it. Play something else, can't you?"
"Could we play store?" asked Bunny, with a sudden idea. It was not altogether new, as often before, on other rainy days, he and Sue had done this.
"Oh, yes, let's keep store!" cried Sue, forgetting all about her bumped nose.
"That will be nice," said Mother Brown. "Tell Mary to let you have some things with which to play store. You may play in the kitchen, as Mary is working upstairs now."
"Oh, now we'll have fun!" cried Sue, clapping her hands.
"Could we have Splash in?" asked Bunny.
"The dog? Why do you want him?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"We could tie a basket around his neck," explained Bunny, "and he could be the grocery delivery dog!"
"Oh, yes!" laughed Sue.
"No," said Mother Brown, with a gentle shake of her head, "you can't have Splash in now. He has been splashing through mud puddles and he'd soil the clean kitchen floor. Play store without Splash."
There was one nice thing about Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. If they couldn't have one thing they did very well with something else. So now Bunny said:
"Oh, all right! We can take turns sending the things out ourselves, Sue."
"Yes, and we'll take turns tending store," added Sue. "'Cause I don't want to be doing the buying all the while."
"Yes, we'll take turns," agreed Bunny.
Soon the children were in the kitchen, keeping store with different things from the pantry that Mary, the cook, gave them to play with. Unopened boxes of cinnamon, cloves and other spices; some cakes of soap in their wrappers just as they had come from the real store, a few nuts, some coffee beans, other beans, dried peas