Just then the voice shouted again.
"Help me down! Help me down!"
"Oh, it"s Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, as she heard her brother"s voice.
"Where are you, and what"s the matter, Bunny?" she asked.
A moment later she looked toward the middle of the hayloft and saw the little boy swinging by his legs from the trapeze.
"Oh, Bunny Brown, are you doing circus tricks up here?" asked Sue.
"Mamma wouldn"t let you! Oh, Bunny Brown!"
"Help me down, Sue! Help me down!" shouted Bunny. "I daren"t drop on the hay, and I want to get down!"
Sue took a step forward. She did not know just what she was going to do, but she wanted to help Bunny. And just then Sue"s feet seemed to drop out from under her, and down she went in a funny slide.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWN WENT SUE IN A FUNNY SLIDE.
_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Giving a Show._ _Page 161_]
Down and down and down, with a lot of hay all around her, and out of sight of Bunny Brown, who was still on the trapeze, went sister Sue.
CHAPTER XVIII
MR. TREADWELL"S WIG
Bunny Brown, swinging by his knees from the trapeze, had just one little look at his sister Sue, and then he didn"t see her again. At first Bunny thought perhaps he had fallen asleep and had dreamed that he had seen Sue. So many things had happened since he climbed up on the funny swing that it would not have surprised Bunny to have learned that he had fallen asleep and dreamed.
But a moment later he heard Sue"s voice, and then Bunny felt sure it was not a dream. For as Sue slipped and fell down a deep hole, together with a lot of hay, she called:
"Oh, oh! Oh, Bunny! Oh, Mother! Oh, Daddy!"
She wanted all three of them to help her and she didn"t know which one she wanted most.
"Oh, Sue! Sue!" cried Bunny, as soon as he felt sure it was his sister he had seen and not a dream. "Sue! Come and help me!"
"Somebody"s got to help me!" half sobbed Sue, and her voice seemed very faint and far away.
And no wonder! For Sue had slipped down the little hole over the manger, or feed-box, in the stall of Toby, the Shetland pony. In this barn, as perhaps you have seen in barns at your grandpa"s farm in the country, there is a little hole cut in the floor of the loft, or upstairs part, so hay can be pushed down from the mow into the stall of a horse or a pony. There was a little hay covering this hole, so Sue did not see it when she went up to look for her doll. And it was down this hole that Sue had fallen.
Right down she went, into the manger of the pony"s stall, but as the manger was filled with hay Sue didn"t get hurt a bit. But the pony was very much surprised. It was just as if, when you were eating your bread and milk at the table some day, the ceiling over your head should suddenly have a hole come in it, and down through the hole, from upstairs, should slide a little horse.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Sue, in surprise. Of course the Shetland pony didn"t say anything, but he was surprised just the same.
Sue wasn"t hurt a bit, and soon she scrambled out of the manger and ran out of the stall. As she did so the little girl heard a b.u.mp, or thud, over her head. That b.u.mp made her think of Bunny, and how he was swinging on the trapeze.
"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, running up the stairs again. "Did you see me slide down the hay hole?"
"Yes," answered Bunny, "I did. And did you hear me fall on the pile of hay under the trapeze?"
"I heard a b.u.mpity-b.u.mp sound!" said Sue.
"That was me," explained Bunny. "I couldn"t hold on any longer, so I had to let go. But I fell in the hay and I didn"t hurt myself at all. I thought I would hurt myself, or I"d have let go before this. Now I"m all right. I can do a trapeze swing almost as good as Mart. I"m all right now!"
Certainly he seemed so to Sue, who by this time had got to the top of the stairs and was looking across the loft at her brother. Bunny wasn"t hurt--the hay on which he had fallen was just like a feather bed.
"Well, we better go in now," said Sue. "We both falled down but we both didn"t get hurt."
Bunny stood looking up at the trapeze. He was thinking of getting on it again, but as he remembered how frightened he was he made up his mind that he had better let Mart do those risky tricks.
"Oh, I almost forgot!" exclaimed Sue, as she and Bunny were going out of the barn toward the house. "I forgot my Jane Anna for Helen. I was coming out to get her when I heard you holler."
"I yelled a lot of times before anybody heard me," said Bunny, and he told Sue how he had climbed up on the pile of boxes, and how they had fallen so he could not get down off the trapeze.
"Well, you"re down now," said Sue.
Mrs. Brown guessed that something was the matter when she saw Bunny and Sue coming back from the barn, looking rather excited, and she soon had the whole story. Then she told Bunny he must not get on Mart"s trapeze again, as he was too little for that sort of play.
"Even if there"s a lot of hay under it can"t I get on?" asked Bunny.
"No, not even if there"s a lot of hay under it," answered Mrs. Brown.
So that ended Bunny"s hopes of becoming a trapeze performer in the show.
But Mart still kept on practicing, and soon he could do a number of good tricks. Lucile, too, practiced her songs, and those who heard the children at their rehearsals said the show, which had first been thought of by Bunny and Sue, would be a good one.
Charlie Star fixed the mistakes in the tickets he was printing for the farm play and soon they were ready to be sold. All the fathers and mothers of the children who were to be in the play bought tickets, and so did other persons in Bellemere. The tickets were put on sale in the hardware store, in the drug store, in the grocery of Mr. Sam Gordon, and in other places about town.
Mr. Treadwell also made some big posters, telling about the show. These posters were hung in the window of the barber shop, and one was tacked up in the railroad station and another on Mr. Brown"s dock office.
Everything was being made ready for the show which would be given Christmas afternoon. The children could hardly wait for the time to come, but, of course, they had to. Meanwhile, they had as much fun as they could when they were not at school or practicing their parts in the new hall built over the hardware store.
"How happy we could be living here and going to take part in a nice play if we only knew where our people were," said Lucile to her brother Mart one day.
"Yes, that"s all we need to make us quite happy," said he. "But I guess we"ll never see our uncles or Aunt Sallie again. Why, we haven"t even heard from Mr. Jackson since our vaudeville show busted up.
"Well, I"m going to write just one more letter," went on Mart, and he got out pen, ink, and paper. "I"m going to write to that man in New York who used to act in the same play with Uncle Simon. Mr. Treadwell found that man"s address the other day, and I"m going to write to him. He may know where Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie are."
"Does he know where Uncle Bill is?" asked. Lucile.
"I don"t know. I"ll ask him," decided Mart.
When the letter had been written Bunny and Sue came in from school. It was snowing again, and the ground was white with the beautiful flakes.
The coats of Bunny and Sue were also covered, for they had been throwing s...o...b..a.l.l.s at one another. Their cheeks were red and their eyes sparkling.
"Want to walk down the street with me while I mail this letter?" asked Mart of the two children.