Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, sitting down in the back part of the automobile, with the blanket around them, got through pretending they were asleep on a make-believe ship, and "woke up."
They had felt the car moving, but they thought nothing of this, for they imagined Mr. Reinberg was taking them to their house so they might ask their mother if they could go for a ride.
Bunny looked at Sue and said:
"It takes this auto a good while to get to our house."
"Yes," Sue agreed, "but maybe he is going around the block to give us a longer ride."
"Oh, maybe! That would be fun!"
Bunny stood up and looked over the side door of the back part of the car. He could not see his house, and, in fact, he could see no houses at all, for they were out on a country road.
"Why! Why!" exclaimed Bunny to his sister. "Look, Sue! We're lost again!"
"Lost?"
"Yes. We're away far off from our house. I don't know where we are; do you?"
"No," and Sue looked at the road along which they were moving in the automobile. "Oh, Bunny! Are we really lost again?"
Sue spoke so loudly that Mr. Reinberg, who was at the steering wheel, turned around quickly. Up to now Bunny and Sue had talked in such low voices, and the automobile had rattled so loudly, that the dry-goods man had not heard them. But when he did he turned quickly enough.
"Why, bless my heart!" he exclaimed. "You here—Bunny and Sue—in my automobile?" and he made the machine run slowly, so it would not make so much noise. He wanted to hear what Bunny and Sue would say.
"You here?" he asked again. "How in the world did you come here?"
"Why—why," began Bunny, his eyes opening wide. "You said we could have a ride, Mr. Reinberg. Don't you remember?"
"That's so. I do remember something about it," the man said. "I declare, I was so busy thinking about my store, and some post-office letters, that I forgot all about you. But I thought you were to ask your mother if you could have a ride."
"Why—why, we thought you would take us around to our house, in the automobile, so we could ask her," Bunny said.
Mr. Reinberg laughed.
"Well, well!" he cried. "This is a joke! You thought one thing and I thought another. After you spoke to me, and I went in the post-office, I supposed you had run home to ask your folks."
"No," said Bunny, "we didn't. We got in your auto 'cause we thought you wanted us to."
"Ha! Ha!" laughed the dry-goods-store man. "This is very funny! And when I came out of the post-office, and didn't see anything of you, I thought your folks wouldn't let you go, as you hadn't come back."
"And we were in your auto all the while!" exclaimed Sue, in such a queer little voice that Mr. Reinberg laughed again.
"And have you been in there ever since?" he asked.
"Yes," Bunny replied. "We were playing steamboat, and we lay down to go to sleep while we went over the make-believe ocean waves. Then, when we woke up, and couldn't see our house—"
"Or any houses," added Sue.
"Or any houses," Bunny went on, "why—why, we thought we were—"
"Lost!" exclaimed Sue. "We don't like to be lost!"
"You're not lost," Mr. Reinberg said, laughing again. "You're quite a way from home, though, for I have been going very fast. But I'll take care of you. Now let me see what I had better do. I have to go on to Wayville, and I don't want to turn around and go back with you youngsters. And if I take you with me your folks will worry.
"I know what I'll do. I'll telephone back to your mother, tell her that you're with me, and that I'll take you to Wayville, and bring you safely back again. How will that do?"
"Will you take us in the auto?" asked Bunny.
"Of course."
"Oh, what fun!" cried Sue. "We'll have a ride, after all, Bunny."
"Yes," agreed her brother. "Thank you, Mr. Reinberg."
The dry-goods man found a house in which there was a telephone, and he was soon talking to Mrs. Brown in her home. He told her just what had happened; how, almost by accident, he had taken Bunny and Sue off in his automobile. Then he asked if he might give them a longer ride, and bring them home later.
"Your mother says I may," Mr. Reinberg said, when he came back to the automobile, in which Bunny and Sue were waiting. "I'll take you on to Wayville."
"Our Uncle Henry lives there," Bunny told the dry-goods man.
"Well, I don't know that I shall have time to take you to see him, but we'll have a ride."
"We 'most went to Uncle Henry's once," said Sue. "On a trolley car, onlySplash couldn't come, and we had to go back and we got lost and—and—"
"Splash found the way home for us," finished Bunny, for Sue was out of breath.
"Well, we won't get lost this time," Mr. Reinberg said. "Now off we go again," and away went the automobile, giving Bunny and Sue a fine ride.
They soon reached Wayville, where Mr. Reinberg went to see some men.Bunny and Sue did not have time to pay a visit to their Uncle Henry, butMr. Reinberg bought them each an ice cream soda, so they had a fine timeafter all. Then came a nice ride home.
"Well, well!" cried Mrs. Brown, when Bunny and Sue, their cheeks red from the wind, came running up the front walk. "Well! well! But you youngsters do have the funniest things happen to you! To think of being taken away in an automobile!"
"But we didn't mean to, Mamma," protested Bunny.
"No, you never do," said Aunt Lu, smiling.
"Oh, Bunny!" Sue exclaimed a little later that day, "we didn't sell any tickets for the Punch and Judy show."
"Well, never mind," answered Bunny. "I guess enough will come anyhow."
You see he and Sue had such a good time on the automobile ride that they forgot all about the tickets they had set out to sell.
In three days more the Punch and Judy show would be held in the Brown barn. Everything was ready for it, Bunny had gone over his part again and again until he did very well indeed. Sue, also, was very, very good in what she did, so the other girls said. Sadie West, who was older, helped Sue.
By this time, of course, the grown folks knew that some sort of a show was going on in the Brown barn, and they had promised to come. And there were so many children who wanted to see what it was going to be like that Bunny and Sue did not know where they were all going to sit.
"And oh! what a lot of pins we'll have," said Sue, for all the children paid pins for their tickets.
But Bunker Blue and George Watson made seats by putting boards across some boxes, so no one would have to stand up.
Then came the day of the show. Bunny was dressed up in some old clothes, and so was Sue. She did not put hers on, though, until after she had helped take tickets, and sell them, at the barn door. Then Bunker Blue took her place, and Sue dressed to help Bunny.
Bunny was inside the little theatre that Bunker had made. It had a curtain that opened when Bunny pulled the string. He had his funny lobster claw with him.
"And am I to come in for nothing?" asked Aunt Lu, as she walked into the barn.
"Yes," said Bunny, putting his head out between the curtains, for he was not all dressed yet. "The show is for you, Aunt Lu. So you will not feel so sad."
"About your lost diamond ring," added Sue.
"Bless your hearts! What dear children you are!" said Aunt Lu, and something glistened in her eyes as bright as a diamond—perhaps it was a tear—but if so it was a tear of joy.
"All ready for the show now!" cried Bunker. "Please all sit down!"
Down they sat on the benches, some men and some ladies, but mostly children, friends of Bunny and Sue.
"Are you all ready, Bunny?" asked Bunker, going close to the little theatre.
"Yes, I'm all ready."
"Have you got your lobster claw on?"
"Yes. I'm going to open the curtain now."
The curtain opened in the middle, and there stood Bunny. You could only see down to his waist, but such a funny face as he had! The lobster claw, tied over his nose, made him look exactly like the pictures of Mr. Punch.
Bunny made a bow, and then, instead of saying some of the funny things that Mr. Punch in the show always says, Bunny sang a little song, while Bunker Blue played on a mouth organ. This is what Bunny sang:
"This little show is for Aunt Lu.Of course we're glad of others, too.We want to cheer, and make her glad,So she won't feel so very sad.We hope she finds her diamond ring,And this is all that I can sing!"
That was what Bunny sang, in his queer, "nosey" voice, to a queer little tune that Bunker played on the mouth organ. And, when Bunny had finished, he made a funny little bow, and said:
"I didn't make up that song. Bunker did!"
Then how everybody clapped their hands, and George Watson called out:
"Three cheers for Bunker Blue!"
Then began the real Punch and Judy show—that is, as much of it as Bunny and Sue could manage.
"I wonder where Mrs. Punch is?" asked Bunny, twisting his head around.
"Here I is!" cried Sue, and up she popped. She had been stooping down so she would not be seen until just the right time.
"And where is the baby?" asked Mr. Punch, looking first on one side and then the other, of his big lobster claw nose.
"Here she is!" and Sue held up one of her old dolls.
"Ah, ha! Ah, ha!" said Mr. Punch. "She is a bad baby, and I am going to whip her!"
And then, with a stick, he hit the doll until some of the sawdust came flying out.
"Don't do that!" begged Sue. "You mustn't spoil my doll, Bunny!"
"I've got to do it," said Bunny in a whisper. "I have to, Sue, it's part of the show." But Sue took her doll away from her brother.
"Don't, Sue, don't!" begged Bunny Brown. "I must have the doll. You saidI could take her," and he tried to pull the doll away from his sister.
But Sue did not want to give up even an old doll.
"You mustn't knock out all her sawdust," she said. "She'll get sick."
Bunny did not know what to do. It seemed as if his Punch and Judy show would be spoiled, and he did so want to make Aunt Lu feel jolly about it.
Sue had really said, at first, that he could beat her old doll with a stick, just as Mr. Punch does in the real show, but now Sue had changed her mind.
"Oh, dear!" said Bunny, and he said it in such a funny way that everyone laughed again.
"Let him take your doll, Sue dear," said her mother, from where she sat on a box in the barn. "If he spoils it I will get you a new one. It's only in fun, Sue," for Mrs. Brown did not want to see Bunny disappointed.
"All right. You can take her, but don't hit her too hard," said Sue.
"I won't," promised her brother. And then the little show went on.
Mr. and Mrs. Punch had great times with the "baby," which was the sawdust doll. Then Sue stooped down, out of sight, and turned herself into a make-believe policeman, by putting on a hat, made out of black paper, with a golden star pasted on in front. George Watson had made that for her. Up popped Sue, the pretend policeman, to make Mr. Punch stop hitting the sawdust doll baby.
"Go 'way! Go 'way!" cried Bunny Punch, in his squeaky voice, as he tossed the doll out on the barn floor. "That's the way to do it! That's the way I do it!"
Then Sue sang a little song, that Bunker had made up for her, and he played the mouth organ. And next Bunny and Sue sang together. The children thought it was fine, and the grown folks clapped their hands, and stamped with their feet, which is what people do in a real theatre when they like the play.
When Bunny and Sue made their bow, after singing the song together, they both bobbed out of sight behind the curtain.
"Is that—is that all?" asked Tommie Tracy, in his shrill little voice, from where he sat in the front row.
"Yep. That's all," answered Bunny. "The show is over, and we hope you all like it; 'specially Aunt Lu."
"Oh, I just loved it," she answered. "And to think you got it all up for me! It was just fine!"
"Do it all over again!" said Tommie. "I liked it too, but I want some more. Do it again, Bunny!"
"I—I can't," Bunny answered, as he came out from inside the box that Bunker Blue had made into a theatre. Bunny had taken off his lobster claw nose, and held it dangling from the strings by which it had been tied around his head.
Suddenly one of the planks, across two boxes, broke, and some of the boys, who had been sitting on it, fell down in a heap. But no one was hurt.
Then all the children crowded around Bunny and Sue to look at the funny things the two children were wearing—old clothes, pinned up, and with make-believe patches on them.
"Let me take your funny nose, Bunny," begged Charlie Star. "I want to see how it looks on me."
Bunny handed over the lobster claw, but it dropped to the barn floor, and before either he or Charlie could pick it up, some one had stepped on it.
"Crack!" it went, for it was made of thin shell, not very strong. And there it lay in pieces on the floor.
"Oh, dear," cried Charlie. "I've broken your nose, Bunny!"
"Well, I'm glad it wasn't my real one," and Bunny put his hand up to his face, while Charlie stooped over to pick up the pieces of the lobster claw, hoping there was enough left to make a little nose for the next time.
And then suddenly Bunny, who was watching Charlie, gave a cry, and reached for something that glittered among the pieces of the red lobster claw.
"Oh, look! look!" fairly shouted the little fellow. "It's Aunt Lu's diamond ring. It was in the lobster claw, and it came out when the claw broke. Oh, Aunt Lu! I've found your diamond ring!"
Aunt Lu fairly rushed over to Bunny. She took from his hand the shiny, glittering thing he had picked up from the barn floor.
"Yes, it IS my lost diamond ring!" she cried. "Oh, where was it?"
"Down inside the lobster claw, that I had on my nose," Bunny said. "OnlyI didn't know it was there."
"And no one would have known it if it had not broken," said Mrs. Brown."How lucky to have found it."
Aunt Lu slipped the diamond ring on her finger. It glittered brighter than ever.
"I see how it all happened," she said. "That day when I was helping pick the meat out of the big lobster, my ring must have slipped from my hand, and fallen down inside the empty claw. It went away down to the small end, and there it was held fast, just as Bunny's foot was caught in the hollow tree one day."
"Are you glad, Aunt Lu?" asked Bunny.
"Glad? I'm more glad than I ever was in my life!" and she hugged and kissed him, and Sue also.
And everyone was glad Aunt Lu had found her ring. The show was over now, and the children and grown folks went out of the barn. They all said they had had a fine time.
That night Aunt Lu gave Bunny and Sue each a dollar, for she said Sue had done as much to find the ring as Bunny had.
"Oh, what a lot of money!" cried Sue, as she looked at her dollar."We're rich now; aren't we, Bunny? As rich as Old Miss Hollyhock?"
"We're richer!" answered Bunny.
"Well, save some of your money, and when you come to New York to visit me you can spend part of it in the city," said Aunt Lu.
"We will," promised Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.
But, before they visited Aunt Lu, the two children had other adventures. I will be glad to tell you about them in the next book, which will be named: "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm." In that you may read what the two children did in the country, how they had a long automobile ride, and how they saw the Gypsies.
Aunt Lu went home the day after the Punch and Judy show.
"Did you like it?" asked Bunny, as she kissed him and Sue good-bye at the station.
"Indeed I did, my dear!" she answered.
"I said we'd find your diamond ring, and we did," declared Sue.
"Yes," agreed Bunny, "but we didn't know it was in the lobster's claw."
"No one would ever have dreamed of its being there," said Aunt Lu. "But oh! I am so glad I have it!"
And then, with the diamond ring sparkling on her finger, Aunt Lu got on the train and rode away, waving a good-bye to Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. And we will say good-bye, too.
End of Project Gutenberg's Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, by Laura Lee Hope