Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lus City Home | Page 4

to go to bed, down back of the hills where the clouds would cover it up until morning. And it was time also, for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue to go to bed. All the little folk of the town of Bellemere were getting sleepy.
How long Bunny and Sue slept they did not know. But Bunny was dreaming he had turned into a fish, and was going to flop into the water, and Sue was dreaming that she and her doll were having a fine ride in a motor boat, when both children were awakened by the loud ringing of a bell.
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" went the bell.
"Is that our door bell?" asked Sue of Bunny, who slept in the room next to hers, the door being open between.
"No, I guess it's a church bell," said Bunny, half awake.
Then he and his sister heard their father moving around his room.
"What is it, Walter?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"It's a midnight alarm," he answered. "I guess it must be a fire, though it's the church bell that's ringing. I can't see any blaze from my window, but it must be a fire, or why would they ring the bell?"
"And why should they ring the church bell, when we have a fire bell?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"I don't know," answered her husband. "I guess I'd better get up, and see what it is. I wouldn't want any of my boats to burn up."
CHAPTER II
BUNNY AND SUE GO OUT
Bunny Brown, in his little room, and Sue Brown, in hers, jumped out of bed and ran to the window. They could hear the ringing of the church bell more plainly now.
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" it sounded through the silence of the night. It was not altogether dark, for there was a big, bright moon in the sky, and it was almost as light as a cloudy day.
"Can you see any blaze?" Bunny and Sue heard their mother ask their father.
"No, not a thing. But it's funny that that bell should ring. I'm going out to see what it is."
"I'll come with you," said Mrs. Brown. "I'll just put on my slippers, a bath robe and a cloak, and come along. It's so warm that I'll not get cold."
"All right, come along," said Mr. Brown. "The children are asleep and they won't miss us."
Bunny and Sue felt like laughing when they heard this. They were not asleep, but their father and mother did not know they were awake. Pretty soon Mr. and Mrs. Brown slipped quietly down the stairs and out of the house--out into the moonlit night. The church bell was still ringing loudly, and Bunny and Sue could hear the neighbors, in the houses on either side of them, talking about it. Everyone wondered if there was a fire.
"Oh, Bunny!" called Sue in a whisper to her brother, when daddy and Mother Brown had gone out. "Is you awake, Bunny?"
"Yep, course I am! Are you?"
"Yep. Say, Bunny, let's go to the fire; will you?"
"Yep. I'll just put on my bath robe and slippers."
"An' I will too. We'll go and see what it is. Daddy and mother won't care, and we can come home with them."
Now while Bunny Brown and his sister Sue are getting ready to go out to see what that midnight alarm means, I'll tell you a little bit about the children, and the other books, of Which this is one in a series.
The first book was called "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue." In that I told you that Bunny and Sue lived with their father and mother in Bellemere, near the ocean. Mr. Brown was in the boat business, and he had a big boy, Bunker Blue, as well as other men and boys, to help him. But of them all Bunny and Sue liked Bunker Blue best.
In the first book I told how Bunny's and Sue's Aunt Lu came from the city of New York to pay them a long visit, how she lost her diamond ring, and how Bunny found it in the queerest way.
In the second book, named "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm," I told how the Brown family went on a trip in a big automobile. It was a regular moving van of an automobile, and so large that Bunny and Sue, Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Bunker Blue could eat and sleep in it. They camped out during the two or more days they were making the trip to grandpa's.
And what fun the children had in the country! You may read in the book all about how they saw the Gypsies, how they were frightened by tramps at the picnic, how they were lost, and what jolly times they had with their dog Splash.
Then, too, Bunny and Sue helped find grandpa's horses, that the Gypsies