Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour Part 18

it stuck fast, because the water was not deep enough just there.

"Push!" cried Bunny. "Push hard, Sue!"

Sue pushed so hard that, all of a sudden, her pole broke, and she fell off the raft into the water.

"Oh dear!" she cried. "Oh dear!"

For a moment Bunny did not know what to do. Then he saw that the water was not more than up to Sue's knees and he knew she would not drown.

But, as she had fallen in backwards, she was wet from top to toe. Sue began to cry as she got up, choking and gasping, for she had swallowed a little water.

"Don't cry!" begged Bunny. "Let's pretend you're a swimmer on the beach and went out too far."

"Wha-what good would that do, me pre-pre-tendin' that?" half-sobbed Sue.

"Well, then I'll pretend I'm a life-guard, and I'll swim out and pull you to sh.o.r.e," said Bunny.

By this time Sue had managed to stand up firmly on her feet, though she was very wet.

"There's no use in you're pretending you're a life-guard and getting all wet like me, when I can just as well get on the raft myself," said Sue practically.

"Oh, I want to be a life-guard," said Bunny. "Here I come!" and with that he jumped off the raft feet first, landing near Sue with a splash.

"Oh, now you've got _yourself_ all wet, for it went over your boots,"

said the little girl. "Mother will scold."

"Well, now I can take half the scolding, for I'm half as wet as you,"

said Bunny. "Anyhow she won't scold much. For you couldn't help falling in, Sue, and she'll be glad I pretended to be a life-guard to help you out." With that he put Sue on the raft again.

By this time the raft had floated free of the little hill of mud in the meadow lake where it had gone aground, and Bunny and Sue poled it toward the road. When their mother saw how wet they were she did not scold them. That is, not much. For, after all, part of it could not be helped.

Dix and Splash enjoyed the flood, for they both liked to be in the water. They swam about, playing their sort of "tag" and racing after sticks which Bunny and Sue threw for them.

A few days after this, when the flood had all gone down, and having waited for the roads to dry, Mr. Brown once more set off with his family in the big machine. For two or three days they traveled along. Once, when they stopped for their noon-day lunch under a big oak tree, Uncle Tad built a small fire of twigs and Bunny and his sister roasted marshmallows at the blaze.

At a number of places Mr. Brown asked about Fred Ward, the missing boy, but no trace of him could be found, nor was anything more heard of the traveling medicine show with the colored banjo player.

It was one evening at dusk, when the automobile had come to a stop for the night, and the family were all sitting out under the tree near the road, that Uncle Tad, looking down the highway, said:

"Isn't that a fire over there?" He pointed toward a neighboring farmhouse.

"Do you mean a campfire or a bonfire?" asked Bunny.

"Neither one. I mean a real fire," said Uncle Tad.

"It is a fire!" suddenly cried Mr. Brown. "A shed near that barn is blazing. See the men running to put it out!"

"We'd better go to help," said Uncle Tad.

"Let us come, too!" begged Bunny and Sue.

CHAPTER XIII

DIX AND THE CAT

Uncle Tad and Mr. Brown did not stop to answer the children's plea to be allowed to go to the fire. On the men rushed, and Bunny and Sue turned to their mother.

"Please mayn't we go?" they begged. "It isn't far, and it's early yet.

Besides, we know enough to keep away from fires."

"Well----" said Mrs. Brown slowly. Then she stopped as she saw Uncle Tad running back, while Mr. Brown kept on toward the blaze in a shed near some farmer's barn.

"What's the matter, Uncle Tad?" asked Bunny. "Aren't you going?"

"Yes. But I came back to get the fire extinguishers that we carry on the auto. This blaze hasn't much of a start yet, and we may be able to put it out with our extinguishers."

Uncle Tad darted into the automobile. Sue and Bunny remembered about the extinguishers now. They were red things, like fire crackers, and hung near the seat behind the steering wheel.

Once, to show Bunny and Sue how easily the extinguishers put out a fire, Mr. Brown had started one in the back yard. Then, from the red thing, he had squirted a liquid and the fire sizzled and went out.

"Oh, we want to see daddy put out the fire!" cried Bunny.

"The children are teasing to go," said Mrs. Brown, as Uncle Tad came out again with an extinguisher under each arm. "Do you suppose it would do them any harm?"

"Not at all!" cried Uncle Tad. "But you come with them. I don't believe the fire will be a very big one, but a lot of the country people are running to it. Bring the children along. Daddy Brown won't care."

"Whoop!" cried Bunny. "That's great!"

"I wouldn't whoop," observed Sue, shaking her finger at her brother.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because this isn't a bonfire. Somebody's shed is burning up; and though it looks nice it isn't any fun for them. We ought to be sorry."

"Well I am," said Bunny. "I'm sorry for them, but I'm glad for myself that I'm going to see the fire. Is that all right, Momsie?"

"I guess so," answered Mrs. Brown, and then she hurried on to the fire with the children, while Uncle Tad raced ahead with the red fire-cracker extinguishers.

Over the fields, from other farmhouses, people came running. Men and women, and boys and girls. They, also, wanted to see the fire. As Bunny and Sue, with their mother, hurried on they saw that the blaze was in a low shed, and from this shed came wild squeals.

"They sound like pigs!" said Bunny.

"I guess it is the pig-pen on fire," replied Mother Brown.

Bunny and his sister, with their mother, were at the fire almost as soon as Daddy Brown and Uncle Tad. Then they saw for sure that what was blazing was a big pig-pen built on the side of a barn. The barn had not yet caught fire.