Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove Part 1

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove.

by Laura Lee Hope.

CHAPTER I

THE BIG DOG

"Come on, Bunny, let's just have one more teeter-tauter!" cried Sue, dancing around on the gra.s.s of the yard. "Just one more!" and she raced over toward a board, put across a sawhorse, swaying up and down as though inviting children to have a seesaw.

"We can't teeter-tauter any more, Sue," objected Bunny Brown. "We have to go to the store for mother."

"Yes, I know we have to go; but we can go after we've had another seesaw just the same, can't we?"

Bunny Brown, who was carrying by the leather handle a black handbag his mother had given him, looked first at his sister and then at the board on the sawhorse, gently moving up and down in the summer breeze.

"Come on!" cried Sue again, "and this time she danced off toward the swaying board, singing as she did so:

"Teeter-tauter Bread and water, First your son and Then your daughter."

Bunny Brown stood still for a moment, looking back toward the house, out of which he and Sue had come a little while before.

"Mother told us to go to the store," said Bunny slowly.

"Yes, and we're going. I'll go with you in a minute--just as soon as I have a seesaw," said Sue. "And, besides, mother didn't say we were _not_ to. If she had told us _not_ to teeter-tauter I wouldn't do it, of course. But she didn't, Bunny! You know she didn't!"

"No, that's so; she didn't," agreed Bunny. "Well, I'll play it with you a little while."

"That's nice," laughed Sue. "'Cause it isn't any fun teetering and tautering all by yourself. You stay down on the ground all the while, lessen you jump yourself up, and then you don't stay--you just b.u.mp."

"Yes," agreed Bunny. "I've been b.u.mped lots of times all alone."

He was getting on the end of the seesaw, opposite that on which Sue had taken her place, when the little girl noticed that her brother still carried the small, black bag. Mother Brown called it a pocketbook, but it would have taken a larger pocket than she ever had to hold the bag.

It was, however, a sort of large purse, and she had given it to Bunny Brown and his sister Sue a little while before to carry to the store.

"Put that on the bench," called Sue, when she saw that her brother had the purse, holding it by the leather handle. "You can't teeter-tauter and hold on with that in your hand."

There was a bench not far away from the seesaw--a bench under a shady tree--and Mrs. Brown often sat there with the children on warm summer afternoons and told them stories or read to them from a book.

"Yes, I guess I can teeter better if I don't have this," agreed Bunny.

"Hold on, Sue, I'm going to get off."

"All right, I'm ready," his sister answered. You know if you get off a seesaw without telling the boy or girl on the other end what you are going to do, somebody is going to be b.u.mped hard. Bunny Brown didn't want that.

Sue put her fat, chubby little legs down on the ground and held herself up, while Bunny ran across the gra.s.s and laid the pocketbook on the bench. I suppose I had better call it, as Mrs. Brown did, a pocketbook, and then we shall not get mixed up. But, as I said before, you couldn't really put it in a pocket.

"Seesaw, Margery Daw!" sang Sue, as Bunny came back to play with her.

"Now we'll have some fun!"

And the children did. Up and down they went on the board their father had sent up from his boat dock for them to play with. He had also sent up the sawhorse. A sawhorse, you know, is made of wood, and, though it has legs, it can't run. It's just a sort of thin bench, and a seesaw board can easily be put across it.

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were gaily swaying up and down on the seesaw, and, for the time, they had forgotten all about the fact that their mother had sent them to the store to pay a bill, and also to get some groceries. They had not meant to stay so long, but you know how it is when you get to seesawing.

"It's just the finest fun ever!" cried Sue.

"I'm sorry for boys and girls that ain't got any seesaws," said her brother.

"Oh, I guess a lot of boys and girls have 'em, Bunny. Daddy said so, once."

"Did he? I didn't hear him."

Up and down, up and down went the children, laughing and having a splendid time. Sue felt so happy she began to sing a little song and Bunny joined in. It was the old ditty of the Cow that Jumped Over the Moon.

"We'd better go now, Sue!" called Bunny, after a while. "We can seesaw when we get back."

"Oh, just five more times up and down!" pleaded the little girl, shaking her curls and fairly laughing out of her eyes. "Just five more!"

"All right!" agreed Bunny. "Just five--that's all!"

Again the board swayed up and down, and when Sue was just sorrowfully counting the last of the five, shouting and laughter were heard in the street in front of the Brown house.

"Oh, there's Mary Watson and Sadie West!" cried Sue.

"Yes, and Charlie Star and Harry Bentley!" added Bunny. "Come on in and have a lot of fun!" he called, as two boys and two girls came past the gate. "We can take turns seesawing."

"That'll be fun!" said Charlie.

"Can't we get another board and make another seesaw?" asked Harry. "We can't all get on that one. It'll break."

"I guess we can find another board," said Bunny. "I'll go and ask my mother."

"No!" said Sue quickly. "You'd better not, Bunny!"

"Why?" asked her brother, in surprise.

"'Cause if you go in now mother will know we didn't go to the store, and she might not like it. We'd better go now and let Charlie and Harry and Sadie and Mary have the teeter-tauter until we come back," suggested Sue. "It'll hold four, our board will, but not six."

Bunny Brown thought this over a minute.

"Yes, I guess we had better do that," he said. Then, speaking to his playmates, he added: "We have to go to the store, Charlie, Sue and I.

You can play on the seesaw until we come back. And then, maybe, we can find another board, and make two teeters."

"I have a board over in my yard. I'll get that," offered Charlie, "if we can get another sawhorse."

"We'll look when we come back," suggested Sue. "Come on, Bunny."

Sue got off the seesaw, as did her brother, and their places were taken by Charlie, Harry, Mary and Sadie. Though Sue was a little younger than Bunny, she often led him when there was something to do, either in work or play. And just now there was work to do.