"What"s that? Isn"t Bunny here?" asked Mr. Brown, who was busy talking to Mr. Treadwell about the play.
"This is the first I knew he wasn"t here," answered Mrs. Brown. "Did any one see him go out?"
No one had.
"Perhaps he is upstairs," said Lucile.
"No, he wouldn"t go up to bed without telling me," said Mrs. Brown.
"Besides, he"s been teasing me all evening to get his stockings ready to hang up, and he wouldn"t go without them. Where can he be?"
"He isn"t in the kitchen," said Sue, for she had gone out to look, and had come back again.
"Perhaps he is hiding away from you, just for fun," said Mart.
"He sometimes does play tricks," remarked Mr. Brown. "I"ll take a look."
They all looked, and they called, but Bunny could not be found. He did not seem to be in the house. Mr. Brown even opened the back door and shouted, thinking perhaps Bunny had gone out to see that the Shetland pony was all right, as he sometimes did.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, "where can he be?"
"Oh, he"s all right," said her husband. "It"s early yet, even if it is dark, and maybe he went out to play in the snow, though of course he shouldn"t at this hour."
"It"s snowing, too," said Mrs. Brown, as she stood in the back door beside her husband. "Snowing hard! There"s going to be a big storm, and if Bunny is out in it--I wish Bunny would not do such things!"
"Oh, will he get freezed?" cried Sue, her eyes opening big and round.
"No, dear, he"ll be all right," replied her mother. "But he must be found."
"Maybe he went out with Bunker Blue," suggested Mart.
Bunker Blue, the boy, or rather, young man, who worked for Mr. Brown at the fish and boat dock, had been at the house shortly after supper, and later had said he was going back to the office to make sure it was locked, for it would not be open on Christmas Day.
"Perhaps Bunny did go back with Bunker," said Mr. Brown. "Though he shouldn"t have done that. But he was so excited about the play there is no telling what he might do."
"Bunker ought to be at the office about this time," said Mrs. Brown, looking at the clock. "Call him on the telephone," she begged her husband, "and ask him if Bunny is there. I hope he is."
Bunker Blue answered the telephone a few minutes later, when Mr. Brown had called him on the wire.
"No, Bunny didn"t come out with me," said Bunker. "But I saw him in the kitchen with his cap, coat, and rubber boots on when I left. He seemed to be getting ready to go out."
"Then he"s gone off somewhere without telling us anything about it!"
cried Mrs. Brown. "Maybe he went over to Charlie Star"s house, to make sure there would be enough tickets for the show. Oh, I wish he hadn"t gone out!"
"I can telephone to Mr. Star and ask," suggested Mr. Brown. But when he had done this, and no Bunny Brown was there, they all began to get quite excited.
"I"ll get on my coat and rubbers and go out with you," said Mart, as Mr.
Brown began to put on his overcoat. "He might be in the barn, practicing some of the tricks he is going to do in the play to-morrow."
"Oh, I don"t believe Bunny would go out to the barn alone after dark,"
said Mrs. Brown.
Her husband and Mart were just starting out into the storm to look for the missing Bunny when the tramp of feet was heard on the porch.
"Here comes somebody!" cried Sue. "I hope it"s Bunny!"
But it was not. Instead it was Bunker Blue, and he was covered with snow flakes. His nose was red, too, even if his name was Bunker Blue.
"Has Bunny come back yet?" asked Bunker, as he stamped his feet on the porch, to get the snow off.
"No, he hasn"t," answered Mr. Brown. "We are getting very anxious about him, too, though the worst that can happen is that he may get cold. He shouldn"t have gone out!"
"Well, I didn"t see anything of him," said Bunker Blue. "I was quite surprised at what you told me, over the telephone, about his not being in the house in this storm."
"Oh, maybe he"ll never come back, and then we can"t have our nice Christmas play!" exclaimed Sue.
"Oh, Bunny will come back all right--don"t worry about that," said her father gently. "If he doesn"t come we"ll go and get him. In fact, now that you are here, Bunker, we three might as well set out and look for the little fellow. He"s got something on his mind, or he wouldn"t go out as he did."
"I"m sure I can"t see what made him go out," said Mrs. Brown. "It"s snowing very hard, too," she added, as she shaded her eyes from the light in the room and looked out of the window.
"But it isn"t very cold, that"s one good thing," her husband added. "Of course I wish Bunny hadn"t gone out, but, since he has, we must go out and find him."
"Could he, by any chance, be hiding somewhere in the house?" asked Mart.
"We"ll look," decided Mr. Brown, "although we looked before."
He and Mart, as well as Bunker Blue, were dressed to go out into the storm to look for Bunny, who was so strangely missing, but when Mart said this Mr. Brown decided that it would be better to go over the house once more, to make sure Bunny was not hiding away.
"We"ll take Sue with us to help search," said her father, as he took off his overcoat, for he did not know how long he would stay in the house.
"Bunny and Sue play hide-and-go-seek games in the different rooms," went on Mr. Brown, "and Sue knows lots of hiding places; don"t you, Sue?"
"Yes, we hide in lots of places," the little girl answered. "But I don"t guess Bunny is hiding now."
"Oh, well, maybe he is, just to fool us," returned her father. "Come now, we"ll begin the search."
And while the storm was getting more and more wild outside, with the wind blowing harder and the snowflakes coming down more and more thickly, Mr. Brown, Bunker, and Mart, with Sue and Mrs. Brown to help them, began searching through the house after Bunny. It was a good thing they took Sue with them, for she knew many "cubby holes" in which she and her brother often took turns hiding. And some of these even her mother had forgotten about, though Mrs. Brown thought she knew every nook and cranny of the house.
But Bunny was in none of these places, and though they looked and called his name and called again, from attic to cellar, there was no sign of the little fellow.
"He surely must have gone out!" decided Mr. Brown. "Very likely he"s gone to see some of the boys to talk about the play."
"Then let"s go and find him!" cried Bunker Blue, putting on his coat again.
"That"s what I say!" came from Mart. "This is no night for a little boy to be out. It"s snowing harder than ever."
So Mr. Brown, Bunker, and Mart started out to look for Bunny. They went first to one house and then to another, and there were many houses where Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were in the habit of calling. At most of the places were boys and girls with whom Bunny and Sue played, or who were to take part in the Christmas show. But none of these boys or girls had seen Bunny.
"Well, this is certainly strange!" declared Mr. Brown, when they had stopped at the last place where they thought it likely Bunny would be.