Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus | Page 7

can't put any paint stripes on my half."
"No, I won't, Sue. Now let's go out to the barn and look to see where we can put up the trapezes and rings and things like that, and where I can hang by my feet and by my hands."
"Oh, Bunny! Are you going to do that?"
"Sure!" cried the little boy, as though it was as easy as eating a piece of strawberry shortcake. "You just watch me, Sue."
"Well, I don't want to do that," said Sue. "I'm just going to be a pretty lady and ride a white horse."
"But grandpa hasn't any white horses, Sue. They're brown."
"Well, I can sprinkle some talcum powder on a brown horse and make him white," said the little girl. "Can't I?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Bunny. "That will be fine! But it will take an awful lot of talcum powder to make a big horse all white, Sue."
"Well, I'll just make him spotted white then. I've got some talcum powder of my own, and it smells awful good. I guess a horse would like it; don't you, Bunny?"
"I guess so, Sue. But come out to the barn."
Grandpa Brown had two barns on his farm. One was where the horses and cows were kept, and the other held wagons, carriages and machinery. It was in the horse-barn where the children went--the barn where there were big piles of sweet-smelling hay.
"I can fall on the hay, 'stead of falling in a net, like the circus men do," said Bunny.
"Anyhow, we haven't any circus net," suggested Sue.
"No," agreed Bunny. "But the hay is just as bouncy. I'm going to jump in it!"
He climbed up on the edge of the hay-mow, or place where the hay is kept, and jumped into the dried grass. For hay is just dried grass, you know.
Down into the hay bounced Bunny, and Sue bounced after him. The children jumped up and down in the hay, laughing and shouting. Then they played around the barn, trying to pretend that they were already having the circus in it.
"Oh, it will be such fun!" cried Sue.
"Jolly!" cried Bunny.
"Let's go and ask mother now," said Sue.
The children started for the house. On the way they had to pass a little pond of water. On the edge of it stood a hen, clucking and making a great fuss. She would run toward the water and then come back again, without getting her feet wet.
"Oh, the poor old hen!" cried Sue. "What's the matter? Oh, see, Bunny! All her little chickens are in the water. Oh, Bunny! We must get them out for her. Oh, you poor old hen!"
CHAPTER IV
A STRANGE BOY
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue stood on the shore of the little pond, looking at the old hen, who was fluttering up and down, very much excited, clucking and calling as loudly as she could.
And, paddling up and down in the water in front of her, where the hen dared not go, for chickens don't like to get wet you know, paddling up and down in front of the hen were some soft, fluffy little balls of downy feathers.
"Oh, her chickens will all be drowned!" cried Sue. "We must get them out, Bunny. Take off your shoes and stockings and wade in. I'll help you save the little chickens for the poor old hen."
Sue sat down on the ground, and began to take off her shoes.
Bunny began to laugh.
"Why, what--what's the matter?" asked Sue, and she seemed rather surprised at Bunny's laughter. "Don't you want to save the little chicks for the hen?" Sue went on. "Maybe somebody threw them in the water, or maybe they fell in."
"Those aren't little chickens, Sue!" exclaimed Bunny, still laughing.
"Not chickens? They aren't? Then what are they?"
"Little ducks! That's the reason they went into the water. They know how to swim when they're just hatched out of the eggs. They won't get drowned."
Sue did not know what to say. She had never before seen any baby ducks, and, at first, they did look like newly hatched chickens. But as she watched them she saw they were swimming about, and, as one little baby duck waddled out on the shore, Sue could see the webbed feet, which were not at all like the claws of a chicken.
"But Bunny--Bunny--if they're little ducks and it doesn't hurt them to go in the water, what makes the old hen so afraid?" Sue asked.
"I--I guess she thinks they are chickens. She doesn't know they are ducks and can swim," said Bunny. "I guess that's it, Sue."
"Ha! Ha! Yes, that's it!" a voice exclaimed behind Bunny and Sue. They looked around to see their Grandpa Brown looking at them and laughing.
"The old hen doesn't know what to make of her little family going in swimming," he went on. "You see,