Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus | Page 3

their hands were
small and they could not do much. Besides, they liked to play, and you
cannot play and work at the same time. But children need to play, so
that's all right.
Leaving Bunny and Sue under the tree he had showed them, where they
might pick their own peaches, Grandpa Brown walked on a little farther,
looking for a place where he might fill his basket.
"Oh, there's a nice red peach I'm going to get!" exclaimed Sue, as she
reached up her hand toward it. But she found she was not quite tall
enough.
"I'll get it for you," offered Bunny, kindly.
He got the peach for Sue, and she began to eat it.
"Oh, Bunny!" she cried. "It's a lovely sweet one. I hope you get a nice
one."
"I will," Bunny said. Then as he looked at his sister he cried: "Oh, Sue!
The juice is running all down your chin on your dress."
"Oh-oh-o-o-o!" said Sue, as she looked at the peach juice on her dress.

"Oh-o-o-o!"
"Never mind," remarked Bunny. "We can wash it off in the brook."
"Yes," said Sue, and she went on eating her peach. "We'll wash it."
Bunny was looking up into the tree for a peach for himself. He wanted
to get the biggest and reddest one he could find.
"Oh, I see a great big one!" Bunny cried, as he walked all around the
tree.
"Where is it?" asked Sue. "I want a big one, Bunny."
"I'll get you another one. I see two," and Bunny pointed to them up in
the tree.
"You can't reach 'em," asserted Sue. "They're too high, Bunny."
"I--I can climb the tree," said the little boy. "I can climb the tree and get
them."
"You'll fall," Sue said.
"No, I won't, Sue. You just watch me."
The peach tree was a low one, with branches close to the ground. And,
as Bunny Brown said, he did know a little bit about climbing. He found
a box in the orchard, and, by standing on this he got up into the tree.
Up and up he went, higher and higher until he was almost within reach
of the two peaches he wanted. Grandpa Brown was busy picking
peaches at a tree farther off, and did not see the children.
"Look out, Sue. I'm going to drop a peach down to you," called Bunny
from up in the tree.
"I'll look out," said Sue. "I'll hold up my dress, and you can drop the
peach in that. Then it won't squash on the ground."

She stood under the tree, looking up toward her brother. Bunny reached
for one of the two big, red peaches, but he did not pick it. Something
else happened.
A branch on which the little boy was standing suddenly broke, and
down he fell. He turned over, almost like a clown doing a somersault in
the circus, and the next moment Bunny's two feet caught between two
other branches, and there he hung, upside down, his head pointing to
the ground.
CHAPTER II
LET'S HAVE A CIRCUS!
"Bunny! Bunny! What are you doing?" cried Sue, as she saw her
brother hanging, head down, in such a funny way from the peach tree
branches. "Don't do that, Bunny! You'll get hurt!"
"I--I didn't mean to do it!" cried Bunny, and his voice sounded very
strange, coming from his mouth upside down as it was. Sue did not
know whether to laugh or cry.
"Oh, Bunny! Bunny, is you playing circus?" she asked.
"No--no! I'm not playing circus!" and Bunny wiggled, and wiggled
again, trying to get his feet loose. Both of them were caught between
two branches of the peach tree where the limbs grew close together.
And it is a good thing that Bunny could not get his feet loose just then,
or he would have wiggled himself to the ground, and he might have
been badly hurt, for he would have fallen on his head.
"Oh, Bunny! Bunny! You is playing circus!" cried Sue again. She had
finished her first peach, and now, dropping the stone, from which she
had been sucking the last, sweet bits of pulp, she stood looking at her
brother, dangling from the tree.
"No, I'm not playing circus!" and Bunny's voice sounded now as

though he was just ready to cry. "Run and tell grandpa to help me down,
Sue!" he begged. "I--I'm choking--I can't hardly breathe, Sue! Run for
grandpa!"
Bunny was almost choking, and his face, tanned as it was from the sun
and wind, was red now--almost as red as the boiled lobster, the hollow
claw of which Bunny once put over his nose to make himself look like
Mr. Punch, of the Punch and Judy show. For when boys, or girls either,