Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus | Page 2

to make a peach shortcake for supper. So I have to get the peaches."
"Oh, may we come?" asked Sue, dropping the doll with which she had been playing.
"I'll help you pick the peaches," offered Bunny, and he put down some sticks, a hammer and nails. He was trying to make a house for Splash, the big dog, but it was harder work than Bunny had thought. He was glad to stop.
"Yes, come along, both of you," replied Grandpa Brown. "I don't believe you can reach up to pick any peaches, but you can eat some, I guess. You know how to eat peaches, don't you?" he asked, smiling again at Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.
"Oh, I love peaches!" said Sue.
"And I do, too--and peach shortcake is awful good!" murmured Bunny.
"Well, come along then. It's nice and shady and cool in the peach orchard."
Grandpa Brown put the basket over his arm, and gave Bunny one hand to clasp, while Sue took the other. In this way they walked down the path, through the garden, and out toward the orchard.
"Bunny! Sue! Where are you going?" called their mother to the children. Mrs. Brown had come out on the side porch.
"With Grandpa," answered Bunny.
"I'll look after them," said Grandpa Brown.
Bunny and his sister, with their papa and mamma, were spending the summer on the farm of Grandpa Brown away out in the country. The children liked it on the farm very much, for they had good fun. A few days before they had gone to the circus, and had seen so many wonderful things that they talked about them from morning until night, and, sometimes, even after they got to bed.
But just now, for a little while, they were not talking or thinking about the circus, though up to the time when Grandpa Brown came around the house with the basket on his arm, Bunny had been telling Sue about the man who hung by his heels from a trapeze that was fast to the top of the big tent. A trapeze, you know, is something like a swing, only it has a stick for a seat instead of a board.
"I could hang by a trapeze if I wanted to," Bunny had said to Sue.
"Oh, Bunny Brown! You could not!" Sue had cried.
"I could if I had the trapeze," he had said.
Then along had come Grandpa Brown.
"How many peaches do you think you can eat, Bunny?" asked Grandpa, as he led the children toward the orchard.
"Oh, maybe seven or six."
"That's too many!" laughed Grandpa Brown. "We should have to have the doctor for you, I'm afraid. I guess if you eat two you will have enough, especially with shortcake for supper."
"I can eat three," spoke up Sue. "I like peaches."
"But don't eat too many," said Grandpa. "Now I'll see if I can find a little, low tree, with ripe peaches on it, so you children can pick some off for yourselves."
They were in the orchard now. It was cool and shady there, and the children liked it, for the sun was shining hot outside the orchard. On one edge of the place, where grew the peach trees, ran a little brook, and Bunny and Sue could hear it bubbling as it rippled over the green, mossy stones. The sound of running water made the air seem cooler.
A little farther off, across the garden, were grandpa's beehives, where the bees were making honey. Sue and her brother could hear the bees buzzing as they flew from the hives to the flowers in the field. But the children did not want to go very close to the hives, for they knew the bees could sting.
"Now here's a nice tree for you to pick peaches from," said Grandpa Brown, as he stopped under one in the orchard.
"You may pick two peaches each, and eat them," went on the childrens' grandfather.
"And don't you want us to pick some for you, like ockstritches' eggs, an' put them in the basket?" asked Sue.
"Well, after you eat your two, perhaps you can help me," answered Grandpa Brown with a smile. But I think he knew that by the time Bunny and Sue had picked their own peaches he would have his basket filled. For, though Bunny and Sue wanted to help, 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