Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store Part 13

"No, not there! That water's all muddy. Come on down to a clean place."

This Sue did, sitting on the gra.s.sy bank and thrusting her feet and legs into the water up to her knees, splashing them up and down until most of the mud was washed from her stockings and shoes.

"Now we'll take you home," said Charlie.

"No!" exclaimed Sue. "I don't want to go home!"

"You don't want to go home?" repeated Bunny. "Why not? You have to get dry things on, Sue! Mother won't scold you for falling into the brook when it wasn't your fault!"

"I know she won't," Sue said. "But--but--I'm not going in the house looking all soaking wet! There's company--some ladies came to call on mother before we went out to play--and they'll see me if I go in the front door. I'm not going to have them laugh at me!"

"We'll take you in the side door then," offered Bunny.

"That'll be just as bad," whimpered Sue. "They can see me from the window."

"Well, then we'll go in the back way," Charlie proposed.

"No!" sobbed Sue. "If I go in the back way Mary'll see me, and she'll say, 'bless an' save us!' and make such a fuss that mother'll come out and it will be as bad as the front or side door!" complained the little girl. "I don't want to go home all wet!"

"But you'll have to!" insisted Bunny. "You can't stay out here till you get dry. You must go to the house, Sue!"

"Not the front way nor the side way nor the back way!" Sue declared.

"Then how are you going to get in?" asked Bunny. "Do you want to go in through the cellar?"

"I'd have to come up in the kitchen," objected Sue, "and Mary would see me just the same and she'd say, 'bless an' save us!'"

"Well, but how are you going to get in?" Bunny demanded. "There isn't any other way."

"Yes, there is!" suddenly exclaimed Charlie.

"How?" asked Bunny Brown.

"Up the painter's ladder," went on Charlie. "They're painting the roof of your sun parlor. And the ladder's right there. We can get Sue up the ladder to the roof of the sun parlor, and there's a second-story window she can get in so n.o.body can see her, and change her things."

"Oh! A ladder!" gasped Sue, when she heard how Charlie and her brother planned to get her into the house unseen by company. "A ladder!"

"Sure!" cried Bunny. "That's the best way! Charlie and I'll help you up."

"You won't let me fall?" asked Sue.

"Course not!" declared Charlie. "I've climbed lots of ladders!"

"So have I!" boasted Bunny Brown. "And so have you, Sue Brown!"

"And can't anybody see me if I go up the painter's ladder?" asked Sue, who was feeling most uncomfortable, being clammy and wet.

"n.o.body'll see you!" declared Charlie. "The ladder's away off on one side of the sun parlor. Mary can't see you from the kitchen, and your mother and the company can't see you."

"Is the painter there?" Sue went on. She was asking a good many questions and making a number of objections, I think.

"No, the painter isn't there," Charlie said. "I saw him going back to the shop after more paint when we came down here."

"All right then!" sighed Sue. "Help me up the ladder!"

Cautiously the children approached it. There the ladder stood, a big one, on a long slant leading from the ground to the roof of the one-story sun parlor. From the roof of this extension were several windows Sue could climb into, one opening from her own room.

No one was in sight, and the painter had not come back. Sue was just starting up the ladder, with Bunny going before her and Charlie following her, when the little girl happened to think of something else.

"S'posin' the roof's just been painted?" she asked. "How can I walk on it?"

This was a poser for a moment until Charlie exclaimed:

"If it is I'll get some boards and we can lay them down to walk on."

Sue had no further excuse for not going up the ladder, and she began to climb. She reached the top, and it was found that the painter had spread his red mixture on only part of the roof. There was room enough to walk on the unpainted part to her room window.

She was just climbing in, with the help of the boys, when she suddenly noticed something that made her exclaim:

"Oh, look! How did that happen?"

CHAPTER X

THE LEGACY

"What's the matter? What's happened?" asked Bunny Brown. "Are you going to fall, Sue?"

He was helping his sister on one side to climb in the window, and Charlie was on the other side of the little girl.

"No, I'm not going to fall," Sue answered. "But look at my dress! It's all red paint!"

And so it was! In addition to being wet and muddy her skirt was now covered with big blotches of red paint--the same kind of paint that was being put on the roof.

"How did it happen?" went on Sue, almost ready to cry again. "I didn't step in any paint, did I?"

"Even if you did I don't see how it got on your dress," said Charlie Star.

"There's some on me, too!" cried Bunny Brown. "There's some on my pants!"

"And I'm daubed just like you!" cried Charlie. "We're all three painted!"

And they were, only Sue had more of it on her dress than the boys had on their clothes.

"It must have been on the ladder," decided Charlie. "The painter man got some of his red stuff on the ladder and we got it on us."