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For a few seconds Bunny, Sue, Mart and Lucile looked over the shoulders of one another at the ticket which Charlie Star had brought to show them.
"I didn't know we were going to have real tickets!" exclaimed Bunny. "This is lots more fun than I thought."
"It's just like a real show, with real tickets an' everything!" exclaimed Sue.
"'Course that isn't a very good ticket, yet," explained Charlie. "I just got it set up and there's a couple mistakes in it. I'll have them fixed before the show."
"Yes, I guess it would be better to have the mistakes fixed before you print the tickets for the show," replied Mart, with a smile. He knew something about show tickets, and he could see more mistakes in the one Charlie had made than could the young printer himself.
"But it's very nice," said Lucile, not wanting Charlie's feelings to be hurt. "Only you aren'tgoing to charge twenty-five dollars to come to the show, are you?" she asked with a smile.
"Oh, no, that ought to be twenty-five cents," said Charlie, "only I made a mistake. Or else Harry Bentley did. He helped me set the type."
"Where did you get the printing press?" asked Mart.
"It's one my father had when he was a little boy," answered Charlie. "He had it put away in the attic, and he always said I could take it when I got old enough. So I asked him for it to-day.
"He said I wasn't quite old enough, but when I told him about the show we're going to have for the Blind Home he said he guessed I could print the tickets. So I set up the type. Harry helped me, and when we get it fixed right I'll print all the tickets for nothing."
"That will be very nice," said Mrs. Brown, who came in to look at what Charlie had brought over. "You did very well for the first time, I think."
I suppose you children can see where Charlie made the mistakes in setting up the type. But with the help of his father he corrected them,and when the tickets were printed for the show they were all right, even to the price to get in, which was twenty-five cents.
But of course I haven't really reached the show part of this story yet. I just thought I'd mention the tickets. There was still much to be done before Bunny, Sue, and the other children were ready for the first act of the play, "Down on the Farm."
Mr. Treadwell gave a great deal of his time to telling the boys and girls what to do, and in going over the little farm play. All the time he could spare away from Mr. Brown's office the actor gave to the show. If you have ever been in a play you know how often you must do the same thing over. Finally the time comes when you are as nearly perfect as possible. It was that way with Bunny and Sue. Sometimes they were tired of saying over and over again such things as: "Here come a tramp!" or "Let's call Snap, he'll make the tramp go away!"
Those were only two "lines" in the play, but these, as well as others, had to be said over and over again, until Mr. Treadwell was sure the children would not forget.
Mart and Lucile, also, had to practice their parts, but as the boy and girl actor and actress had been in plays before, it was not so hard for them. And though the two little strangers gave much of their time to getting ready for the performance they still had hours when they thought of their missing relations—Uncle Bill, Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie.
For, though many letters had been written by Mr. Brown and Mr. Treadwell, no answers had come, and at times Lucile and Mart were very sad.
But no one could be sad very long when they were near Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. These two were always doing such funny things and saying such funny things that Mart and Lucile laughed more often than they were sad.
"Do you think, we can have Mr. Winkler's monkey and Miss Winkler's parrot in the show?" asked Bunny of Mart one day.
"I guess we can if Mr. Treadwell will write parts for them," answered Mart. "But the trouble is, you can't be sure that Wango and the parrot will do the things you want them to. The parrot might speak at the wrong time, andWango might cut up by chasing his tail or hanging by his hind paws from the ceiling, and so make the audience laugh when we didn't want them to."
"That's so," agreed Bunny. "Then I guess we'll only just have our dog Splash in the play. He'll do whatever you tell him."
"He certainly chases after the tramp in a funny way," laughed Lucile. "I should think Mr. Treadwell would be afraid the dog would tear his coat."
"Oh, Splash only bites the old piece of cloth," said Mart. "It's a good trick."
A little while after this Bunny saw Mart going out to the garage with some ropes and straps under his arm. The garage was partly a barn, for the Shetland pony was kept in it and some hay for Toby, the pony, to eat was also stored in the same place.
"What are you going to do?" Bunny asked the boy acrobat.
"Practice a few of my new tricks that I'm going to do in the play," Mart answered. "There's a new kind of back somersault I want to turn, and a new kind of flipflop I want tomake. You know in the play I do some tricks in front of the stage barn to make the farmers laugh. I'm supposed to be a boy who has run away from a circus."
"We knew a boy who really ran away from a circus once," said Bunny. "And he was in our show when we had one down at grandpa's farm."
"Well, I'm going to do a few circus tricks, as well as I can, though I never was in a tent show," said Mart.
"Please, may I come and watch you?" asked Bunny.
"Yes," answered Mart kindly.
So the acrobat and Bunny went out to the little barn, and there, with ropes and straps, Mart made a trapeze, such as you have often seen on the stage or in a circus. On the floor of the barn Mart spread a pile of hay.
"Is that for our pony to come out and eat?" Bunny wanted to know.
"Oh, no," answered Mart. "That's to make something soft for me to fall on, in case I slip. In the circus the performers have nets under them to catch them in case they slip. But youcan't have nets in a garage very well, so I use the hay."
Bunny watched his friend swing to and fro, sometimes by his hands and sometimes by his toes, on the trapeze in the barn. And Mart was so sure and careful that he didn't slip once. So he didn't fall down on the hay.
"Did you ever fall?" asked Bunny, as he watched the young acrobat swing to and fro, with his head down.
"Oh, yes indeed! More than once. And once I broke my leg so I couldn't go on the stage for over a month."
"I don't want to break my leg," said Bunny.
"I hope you never do," answered Mart. "But, of course, as you aren't going on a trapeze you won't fall and break anything."
"I wish I could go on a trapeze," murmured Bunny. "I could do some of the things you do I guess."
"I'm afraid not," laughed Mart, with a shake of his head. "It isn't as easy as it looks, and you are not big enough. If you do your somersaults and part of a flipflop in the play, as you are going to do, you'll make a hit, Bunny."
"Do you mean I'll hit the floor?" asked the little boy.
"No," laughed Mart. "Though if you aren't careful that may happen. But when I say you'll make a 'hit' I mean that the audience will like the tricks you do and they'll clap."
"Like they did in the circus?" asked Bunny.
"Just like that," said Mart.
Bunny sat and watched his friend. It looked so easy when Mart swung to and fro on the rope, twisting and turning this way and that.
"I could do it," said Bunny to himself.
When Mart was called to the house by his sister he forgot to take down the ropes and straps that made the trapeze in the barn. They hung right before Bunny Brown's eyes.
"I believe I can do it!" said Bunny to himself, as he looked at the swinging trapeze. "Anyhow, if I do fall, there's some soft hay."
And then Bunny did what he should not have done. He pulled some boxes and rolled a barrel over to the middle of the barn floor until he had a sort of platform under the trapeze Mart had put up to practice on. Then Bunny climbed up, got hold of the swinging bar and swung hislegs over. Then something queer happened, for the first thing Bunny Brown knew, there he was, hanging upside down with his legs over the trapeze and his head pointing to the pile of hay in the middle of the barn floor.
Bunny Brown was at first so frightened, when he found himself swinging upside downside from Mart's trapeze, that he did not know what to do. He was too frightened even to call out, as he nearly always did when he found himself in trouble. Nearly always his first thought was of his father or mother. But this time he hardly knew what to do.
It had all happened so suddenly. He had not meant to get upside downside this way. All he wanted to do was to sit on the trapeze, as he had often sat in a swing, and sway to and fro. But something had gone wrong, something had slipped, and there Bunny was, hanging by his knees with his head toward the floor.
Then Bunny had a thought that he might let go with his clinging legs and drop to the pile of hay. That was what the hay was for—to fall on. It was a thick, soft pile, but, somehow or other, Bunny did not like to think of falling on it head first.
"If I could only land on it with my hands or feet it wouldn't be so bad,"thoughtthe little fellow to himself. "But if I hit on my head——"
And when he thought of that he clung with all his force to the wooden bar. He was still swinging to and fro, and on this first swing Bunny had knocked to one side the pile of boxes and the barrel with which he had made himself a sort of ladder so he could reach Mart's trapeze, which was several feet above the barn floor. So, now that the boxes by which he had climbed up were out of reach, Bunny could not get down by using them.
And he wanted, very much, to get down. He tried to wiggle around in such a way that he could reach the wooden bar with his hands, but he could not, and the more he wiggled the more it felt as though he might fall.
Then Bunny decided that he must call for help. He had hoped that Mart might come back, but the acrobatic boy was in the house helping his sister learn a new song Lucile was going to sing in the play. So Mart knew nothing of what was happening to Bunny.
"Mother! Daddy! Come and get me!" cried Bunny as he swung to and fro on the trapeze, head downward. "Come and get me! Mother! Daddy!"
Bunny might have called like this for some time, and neither his father nor his mother would have heard him. For Mr. Brown was down at his office on the dock, and Mrs. Brown was making a cake, beating up eggs with the egg beater.
An egg beater, you know, makes a lot of noise, and even if Bunny had been in the kitchen Mrs. Brown might not have heard him call out. And away out in the barn as he was, of course she couldn't hear him. I don't believe she could have heard him even if she hadn't been using the egg beater.
So poor little Bunny Brown swung by his legs on the trapeze in the upper part of the garage and he did not know how to get down nor how to stop himself.
"Daddy! Mother!" he called again, but no one heard him.
On a summer day, when the windows were open, Bunny's voice might have been heard from the barn to the house, but now no one heard him.
But, as it also happened, Sue was the means by which Bunny's trouble was discovered, though Sue, too, had an accident. Soon after Mart came to the house to help his sister, Sue heard the doorbell ring, and when she went to see who was there she saw Helen Newton, one of her little playmates who was to act in the show with Sue.
"Oh, Sue!" exclaimed Helen, "have you got a doll you could lend me? I have to have one in the play, and the only one I had isn't any good any more."
"Is your doll sick?" Sue wanted to know.
"She's worse than sick," said Helen. "Our puppy dog got hold of her the other day, and he dragged my doll all around the kitchen and all her clothes were torn off and she's chewed and she isn't fit to be seen. I can't have her in the play with me, though I did at first, before the puppy chewed her."
"I guess Sue can let you take one of her dolls," said Mrs. Brown, with a smile, as she came in from the kitchen where she had been doing herbaking. "What one do you think would be best for Helen, Sue?"
"Oh, I guess my unbreakable doll, Jane Anna, would be best for in the play," Sue answered. "If you drop her, Helen, it won't hurt."
"No, and it won't hurt much if our puppy dog gets hold of her," added Helen. "Course our dog won't come to the play and chew up any dolls, but he might get hold of one again when I'm practicing at home. I think the Jane Anna will be best."
"I'll get her for you," offered Sue. But when she went to look for the doll for Helen, Jane Anna could not be found.
"I wonder where it is!" exclaimed Sue.
"Maybe your dog Splash chewed her up," said Helen.
"No, he doesn't chew dolls," replied Sue. "He chews up my school books, and Bunny's, but he doesn't chew dolls."
"I wish my dog would chew books," went on Helen. "Then I wouldn't have to study. Maybe he will chew them after he finds there isn't any of my old doll left to bite."
Sue looked in different places in the house forher unbreakable doll, but could not find it. She asked Lucile and Mart about it, when the brother and sister took a rest from the song which Lucile was to sing, though her brother had a part in it.
"Lost your doll, have you, Sue?" asked Mart. "Well, maybe she is hiding under the umbrella plant!"
"Oh, you're teasing me!" said Sue, and that's just what Mart was doing. For though Mrs. Brown did have an umbrella plant, and a rubber plant also, Sue's doll was not under either one.
"The last time I saw you have your unbreakable doll was out in the hayloft of the barn," said Lucile. "Don't you remember? You were playing house with Sadie West."
"O, now I remember!" cried Sue. "I left Jane Anna asleep in the hay in the corner of the loft. I'll go out and get her for you, Helen. You wait here."
So Helen sat down in a chair in the dining room while Sue ran out to the barn to look for her doll. Mart and Lucile began practicing the song again.
Now all this while Bunny Brown was swinging by his legs, upside downside on the trapeze. It seems to him a long while since he had started to hang head downward, but, really, it was not very long. For though it takes me quite a little while to tell you about it, really it all happened in a short while.
So Bunny Brown had not been swinging very long, head downward, before Sue ran out to the barn, or garage, whichever you like to call it, to look for her doll. Up the stairs into the loft, where Mart had fastened the trapeze, went Sue. She had just reached the top step and was wondering if her doll were really there when, all at once, Sue heard some one cry:
"Help me down! Help me down!"
"Oh, my!" was the little girl's first thought, "can that by my doll?"
Then she knew it couldn't be. For, though some dolls have inside them a little phonograph that can say words, Sue's Jane Anna had nothing like this.
"But somebody yelled!" said Sue to herself.
Just then the voice shouted again.
"Help me down! Help me down!"
"Oh, it's Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, as she heardher 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.
DOWN WENT SUE IN A FUNNY SLIDE.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.
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 Bunnythoughtperhaps 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 sobbedSue, 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 Suedidn'tget hurt a bit. But the pony was very much surprised. It was just as if, when you were eating yourbreadand 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 bump, or thud, over her head. That bump 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 bumpity-bump 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. IthoughtI 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. "Weboth 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 theshow 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 snowballs 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.
"Oh, yes!" cried Sue.
"Can't we go in the pony sled?" Bunny asked. "There's enough snow to make it slip easy now."
"Yes, I guess we could go in the pony sled," agreed Mart. "And we can stop at Mr. Winkler's and ask Mr. Treadwell, if he's at home, if he wants us to come to rehearsal to-night."
Soon Bunny, Sue, Mart, and Lucile were riding down the street in the pony sled, having a fine time in the snow storm. It was quite a heavy fall of snow, but the weather was not very cold.
After mailing the letter the four children drove to the home of Mr. Winkler.
"I hope the monkey does something queer," said Bunny.
"I wish the parrot would sing a funny song!" exclaimed Sue.
"Something seems to be the matter, anyhow," said Lucile, as they got out of the little sled and walked toward the front door of Mr. Winkler's house, where the actor boarded. "Look at Miss Winkler running around," and she pointed to the sister of the old sailor. Miss Winkler could be seen hurrying about the room from one window to another.
"Do you want us all to come to practice to-night, Mr. Treadwell?" asked Mart, as he and the children entered the house and saw the actor hurrying around after Miss Winkler.
"Come to practice? Oh, I don't know!" was the answer. "I can't talk to you right away, Mart. Something has happened!"
"What is it?" asked Lucile. "Have you heard anything about——?"
"Oh, it isn't about your kin, I'm sorry to say," was the actor's answer. "It's just that one of my best wigs is missing—the one I wear when I dress up like General Washington. Those wigsare scarce, and I hardly ever let it out of my box. But now it is gone!"
"And I've searched high and low for it all over this house, but I can't find it!" said Miss Winkler.
Bunny and Sue did not know quite what to make of all the excitement over the lost wig which Mr. Treadwell wore on his head in certain parts of the play. So they stood to one side while the search went on. Sue looked in the sitting room, while Mr. Treadwell and Miss Winkler went into the parlor that was hardly ever opened.
Something that Bunny saw in a chair in front of the kitchen stove made him call out:
"Oh, Miss Winkler! there's a funny old man in your kitchen, and he's trying to open the cupboard door where you keep the cookies. Come and see the funny old man!"
"What's that, Bunny Brown?" called Miss Winkler, stepping to the door of the parlor, in which Mr. Treadwell was looking for his missing wig. "What's that you said about an old man?"
"There's one in your kitchen now," added Sue, for she was now looking at the funny "old man" in the kitchen.
"One what in my kitchen?" asked Miss Winkler, in surprise.
"A funny old man," said Bunny again. "And he's after some of your nice sugar cookies." Bunny knew Miss Winkler's sugar cookies were nice because she sometimes gave him and Sue some. Not too often, but once in a while.
"An old man after my cookies, is there?" cried the sailor's sister. "Well, I'll see about that!"
Down the hall she hurried, leaving Mr. Treadwell to look for the wig himself, and this he was doing.
"I suppose it's some tramp!" exclaimed Miss Winkler. "Wait until I take the broom stick to him! The idea of taking my cookies! I'd rather give 'em to you children than to an old tramp. I wish your dog was here, Bunny Brown!"
"Oh, so do I!" cried Bunny. "Splash would hang on to the tramp the way he hangs to Mr. Treadwell's coat in the play. Oh, Sue, let's go home and get our Splash, and sic him on the tramp!"
By this time Miss Winkler had reached the kitchen door. Bunny and Sue, with Lucile and Mart, stood to one side, so the sailor's sister could go in and stop the funny old man from taking her cookies.
Into the kitchen hurried Miss Winkler. There, surely enough, with his gray head just showing over the back of a hall chair on which he was standing, was what seemed to be an old man. He had on a black coat, and one hand appeared to be reaching up into the cookie closet.
"Hi there! Get down out of that!" cried Miss Winkler. "The idea of you daring to take my cookies! Get out of here! You tramp!"
And the green parrot, in his cage hanging in the kitchen, cried in his shrill voice:
"No tramps allowed! Out you go! Sic him, Towser! Bow wow!"
Bunny, Sue, Mart, and Lucile hurried into the kitchen after Miss Winkler. They saw her quickly take a broom from a corner.
And then, as the sailor's sister ran around in front of the chair, on which the old man tramp seemed to be standing, she gave a scream.
"Wango! You good-for-nothing monkey you!" cried Miss Winkler. "The idea of pretending you were a tramp! I've a good notion to take this broom to you, anyhow!"
There was a chatter from the chair and the gray head dropped down out of sight.
"Oh, was it Wango?" cried Bunny Brown.
"Indeed it was!" said Miss Winkler. "The idea of his fooling us all like that!"
"But he looked just like an old man with gray hair," said Sue.
"Indeed he did," chimed in Mart and Lucile Clayton.
Just then Mr. Treadwell came through the hall into the kitchen.
"It's no use, Miss Winkler," he said. "I can't find my big wig anywhere. If I use one like if in the play I'll have to send to New York for another. My wig is lost."
"No, it isn't, either!" exclaimed Miss Winkler. "There it is—on Wango!"
She pointed to the monkey, which, just then, ran around from behind the chair on which he had been standing. And, surely enough Wango had on the big, white wig for which Mr. Treadwell and Miss Winkler had been searching so long. The wig made Wango look like an old man.
"And he has on one of my jackets, too!" exclaimed the actor. "It's one I use in some of my stage plays, children, where I have to have a very short, little jacket. No wonder you thought a tramp was in Miss Winkler's kitchen! Wango, are you trying to be an impersonator, such as I used to be?" asked Mr. Treadwell, laughing and shaking his finger at Mr. Jed Winkler's monkey.
Wango made a funny little chattering noise, and took off the wig, which he held out to the actor.
"See, he's saying he's sorry!" exclaimed Lucile.
Next Wango took off the jacket. It was one of the costumes Mr. Treadwell used on the stage.
"I guess he won't dress up again," said Mart. "I didn't know he was such a performer."
"Oh, Wango is a regular pest for playing tricks!" said Miss Winkler. "I tell Jed, every day, that I won't have the monkey around any longer, but I always give in and let him stay. Now if he was as nice and quiet as the parrot it would be all right."
And just then the parrot began to screech and to cry:
"No tramps allowed! Sic 'em, Towser!"
Really the parrot made more noise than Wango, but Miss Winkler did not seem to think so.
"Well, I'm glad to get back my wig, anyhow," said Mr. Treadwell, as he took that and the jacket from Wango. "This little monkey must have gone in my room, found that I left my trunk open, and then he took out what he wanted."
"Do you really think he knew he was dressing up like a tramp?" asked Lucile.
"You never know what Wango thinks he's doing," said Miss Winkler. "But I'm glad I caught him in time. There wouldn't have been a cookie left if he had got his paws in the jar."
"Are there any cookies left now, Miss Winkler?" asked Bunny, with a funny little side look at his sister.
"Oh, yes, there's a whole jar full," answered the sailor's sister.
"Are you—aren't you going to give Wango any?" asked Bunny.
"Give Wango any? Give my good sugar cookies to that monkey? Well, I guess not!" cried Miss Winkler. Then, as she looked at Bunny and Sue, a more gentle look came over her face.
"But I guess I'll give you children some," she said. "If it hadn't been that you saw Wango he might have cleaned out my cupboard. Yes, I'll give you children some cookies."
So she brought the jar from the cupboard, and not only gave some of her cookies—which were really very good—to Bunny and Sue, but alsoto Mart and Lucile. And even Mr. Treadwell had some.
As for Wango—well, I'll tell you a little secret. He had some of the cookies, too. For when Miss Winkler wasn't looking, Bunny and Sue fed the jolly little monkey some bits of their cake. Wango was very fond of sweet things.
And so the lost wig was found, and Miss Winkler didn't have to drive the gray-haired tramp out of her kitchen with a broom, for which I suppose she was very glad.
Mr. Treadwell had time, now, to talk to Mart and the other children about the farm play, and he told them there would have to be a number of rehearsals, or practices, yet, before they would be ready to give a performance Christmas afternoon.
The children were drilled over and over again in their parts, until at last, a few days before Christmas, the actor said:
"Well, now I am satisfied. I think we are ready for the show!"
And, oh, how glad Bunny, Sue, and the others were! All their hard work would amount to something now.
One night, about three days before Christmas, Mr. Brown came home from the dock office one evening with Mr. Treadwell and Mart, who had finished their work.
"I had a letter from the Home for the Blind to-day," said Mr. Brown, as they sat at the supper table, for Mr. Treadwell had been invited to share the meal. "The superintendent would like to have me call, so he can tell me something about the work of the home and the poor people who have to stay there in the darkness. He thinks if I tell the audience that comes to see the children's play something about the Home for the Blind more people will be glad to help."
"I think they would," said Mrs. Brown. "Why don't you go over?"
"I will," answered Mr. Brown. "There isn't much to do to-morrow, so I'll go and take Bunny and Sue with me. Would you like to go?" he asked Mart and Lucile.
They said they would, and the next day the five of them went over in Mr. Brown's automobile. Mr. Treadwell was invited, but he said he had to go to the hall to make sure all the scenery for the play was ready.
The Home for the Blind was in a big red brick building on the side of a hill about two miles across the valley from Bellemere. It did not take long to get there in the automobile, for though there was snow on the ground the roads were good.
Mr. Harrison, the superintendent of the home, welcomed Mr. Brown and the children.
"Now please don't think this is a sad place," said Mr. Harrison. "Though the men and women and the boys and girls here can not see, they get along very well, considering. So don't think it's too sad.
"Of course it is sad enough, but it might be worse. That's what all our blind folk have come to think—that it might be worse. They have ways of 'seeing,' even if they have eyes that are no longer any use to them. I just want you to go over our place, and then you will be more glad than ever, I hope, that you are going to help us with your little play. For we need many things. We need books, printed in the kind of type that the blind can read, and we need many things so that our blind men and women can work and make articles to sell. Themoney you are going to give us from your play will help to buy these things."
Then, indeed, Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were very glad they had decided to have a play, and they saw men and women and boys and girls who did not seem to be without their sight, for they went about almost as quickly as Bunny and Sue did.
"That's because they have learned their way," said Mr. Harrison. "Our blind folks know their way around here just as you can walk around some parts of your house in the dark."
He led them toward the music room, for there was one where the blind inmates played and sang, and as Mr. Brown and the children went through the door Lucile uttered a low cry at the sight of a man who was just getting up from the piano.
"Uncle Bill!" cried Lucile. "Uncle Bill! Oh, we have found you at last!"
Bunny Brown, who had been listening to the piano music of the blind man, looked quickly at Lucile as she cried out about Uncle Bill. For Bunny remembered how much the actress girl and her brother had wanted to find their blind uncle, so he might tell them where their other uncle and aunt were.
Sue just said: "O-oh!"
"Uncle Bill!" cried Mart, in the same sort of wondering voice as had his sister. "Yes, that's our Uncle Bill!" he went on, as the blind man, who had been playing, came over toward them. There was a strange look on his face, and except for a queer look about his eyes, one would hardly have known he was blind.
"Who is calling me?" he asked. "I seem to know those voices, though I have not heard them for a long time. Who is it?"
Lucile and Mart stepped forward. Mr. Brown was right behind them, and Bunny and Sue were near their father. Mr. Harrison, whowas in charge of the Home, looked on in surprise.
"Do you know Mr. Clayton?" he asked Lucile and Mart.
"Yes, he is our uncle," Mart answered in a low voice, but, low as it was, the blind piano player heard. Holding out his hands toward the young theatrical players he cried,
"Now I know those voices. Lucile! Mart! I have found you at last!"
"And we have found you!" cried Lucile. "Oh, how wonderful!"
"Can you tell us where Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie are?" asked Mart. "We've lost track of them, and we were stranded after the show failed. We didn't know where to find you, and——"
"Say, your trouble all came together, didn't it?" cried the blind man. "But now, perhaps, it is all over. Let me sit down with you, and then we'll have a long talk."
"But do you know where Aunt Sallie Weatherby is?" asked Lucile.
"Yes, of course! I have her address," said the blind Mr. Clayton.
By this time he had managed to walk up to Mart, clasping his hands. Then he found Lucile and kissed her. For, though he was blind, Mr. Clayton could tell by the sound of a person's voice just where they stood in a room, and walk over to them.
"Oh, how glad I am to find you again!" he said, as he felt around for a chair and sat down. "I have been waiting for a letter from Mr. Jackson so I might find you, but he has been a long time writing, and since my last letter to him I came to this place."
"We don't know where Mr. and Mrs. Jackson are," said Lucile. "They left us, after the company broke up, and we haven't heard from them since. But we didn't know you were here!"
"You weren't the last time we inquired," added Mart. "We knew you were in some such place as this, but Mr. Brown asked and no one here had heard of you."
"That's because I only came the other day," said the blind Mr. Clayton. "You see I am thinking of going back on the stage again, doing a funny piano act. I can play pretty well, evenif I am blind," he said, turning toward Mr. Brown, for he seemed to know just where the children's father sat. "And as I don't like to sit around doing nothing I've decided to go back on the stage again."
"We're going on the stage!" cried Bunny, who, with Sue, had been waiting for a chance to get in a word or two.
"We're going to have a real play on a farm," said Sue. "And you ought to see our dog Splash hang on to Mr. Treadwell."
"Treadwell? Is that the impersonator?" asked Mr. Clayton.
"Yes," answered Mart. "He is helping us with the little play."
"And maybe you could be in it and play the piano!" cried Bunny. "We heard you play the piano terrible nice!"
"Well, I'm glad you liked it," said Mr. Clayton, with a laugh, "but I'm afraid I'm not quite ready to start a performance yet. I need more practice. Oh, but I am glad you have found me, and that I have found you!"
"Mr. Clayton only came to this Home a few days ago," explained Mr. Harrison to Mr.Brown. "I had forgotten that you had asked about some one of his name, or I would have sent you word before that the children's blind uncle was here."
"And if I had known they were so near me, and had been looking so long for me, I'd have sent them word," said Uncle Bill. "And now tell me all that happened, Mart and Lucile."
Their story was soon told, just as I have written it here—how they were "stranded" when the show broke up, and how Mr. Brown took care of them. The story of Mr. Treadwell was also told to Mart and Lucile's Uncle Bill, and how the impersonator had written the little play.
"And once he lost his wig and Wango the monkey had it!" cried Sue.
"Indeed! Wango must be a funny monkey!" said Mr. Clayton.
"He's funny, and so's Miss Winkler," said Bunny.
They all laughed at this, and then Mr. Clayton told his story.
He had been an actor as were many of his relatives, including Mart and Lucile. He had been stricken blind some years before, and hadbeen in many Homes and hospitals, trying to get cured. But at last he had given up hope, and settled down to make the best of life.
He often wrote to Lucile and Mart, and also to their Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie. But of late he had lost the address of the boy and girl actor, and they had also lost his. They all traveled around so much that one did not know where the other was, except that Lucile and her brother always stayed together, of course.
"But where is Aunt Sallie?" asked Mart.
Mr. Clayton said that she and her husband were many miles away, in a far country, traveling about and acting. But he knew their address, and he would at once send them word that Lucile and Mart wanted to hear from them. Mr. Clayton had not heard from the Weatherbys for several months, he remarked.
"Very likely they've been trying as hard to find you as you have to find them," said Mr. Clayton. "They'll be glad to know that I have found you."
"And we're glad we've found you!" cried Lucile, as she kissed her blind uncle again. "Oh, it's so good to have folks!"
"We would be glad to have you come over to our house and stay with us," said Mr. Brown to the blind man.
"Thank you," he answered, "but I must stay here and finish learning to play the piano for the act I am to do. Of course I'll come over and see Lucile and Mart, though. I call it 'seeing' them, but of course I can't use my eyes," he added. "However, I've grown used to that, and I don't seem to mind being in the dark."
"You can't ever see anybody make faces at you—if they ever do—can you?" asked Sue, as she patted his hand.
"No indeed!" laughed Mr. Clayton. "I never thought of that. But I suppose some bad people like to make faces at me, and, as you say, if ever they do I sha'n't see them."
"I don't guess anybody would make faces at you when you play on the piano," said Bunny Brown.
"I don't guess so, either," added Sue.
There was more talk, and then it was time for Mr. Brown and the children to go back home. Mr. Clayton promised to write a telegram to Lucile's other uncle and aunt. He could writeeven though he was blind, and Mr. Harrison, at the Home for the Blind, promised to send the message.
"Then you'll hear from Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie soon," said the blind man.
"I hope we hear before the play!" exclaimed Lucile. "It will make me so much happier when I sing."
"Perhaps you'll come over to the hall the night or the performance," suggested Mr. Brown to Mr. Clayton. "You can hear what goes on."
"I'll try to come," agreed the blind man.
Very happy, now that they had found their uncle, Mart and Lucile went home with Mr. Brown, Bunny, and Sue, promising to come often again to see Mr. Clayton.
"Wasn't it queer," said Mart, "that, after all, he should come to the same Home we're going to help with the farm play?"
"Very strange, indeed," said Mr. Brown.
"And now, if we can only get word from Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie, how happy we'll be!" exclaimed Lucile.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll hear soon, my dear,"said Mrs. Brown when they had reached home and told her the good news.
Then followed a time of anxious waiting, with Lucile and Mart looking almost every hour for a message from their uncle and aunt so far away. And they and the other children were kept busy getting ready for the play. For it was almost Christmas and time for the great performance.
The tickets had been printed, and all the mistakes corrected in the type that Charlie Star had set up. Many tickets had been sold, and it looked as though everything would be all right.
"I do hope we won't make any mistakes," said Bunny to his sister one day, as they were talking about the coming play.
"I hope so, too," she answered. "Wouldn't it be terrible if we got on the stage and forgot what we were going to say?"
"Yes, it would," agreed Bunny. "I'm going to keep on saying my lines over and over again all the while. Then I won't forget."
"Don't be too anxious, my dears," said Mrs. Brown, as she heard the children talking this way. "Sometimes the more you try to remember things like that, the more easily you forget. Just do your best, put your whole mind on it, and I'm sure you will remember the right words to say, and the right actions to do."
"It's easier to remember what to do than what to say," declared Bunny. "Mr. Treadwell tells us to act just as we would if we weren't on the stage, but of course we can't say anything we happen to think of—we have to say the right words."
"I remember once, when I was a little girl," remarked Mrs. Brown, as she threaded her needle, for she was mending one of Sue's dresses, "I had to speak a piece in school, and I didn't know it at all well."
"Oh, tell us about it, Mother!" begged Sue.
"Please do!" cried Bunny Brown. For there was a funny little smile on his mother's face, and whenever the children saw that they knew there was a story back of it.
"Well, it was this way," went on Mrs. Brown. "When I was a little girl I lived in the country, and I went to school in a little red brick schoolhouse about half a mile down the road from our house. We had a very nice teacher, and oneday she said we must all learn a piece to speak for the next Friday afternoon.
"Well, of course we children were all excited. Some of us had spoken pieces before, and some of us had not. And I was one that never had, but I was pleased to think I should get up in front of the whole school and speak a piece.
"When I went home that night I asked my mother what I should learn as my recitation. She got down a book that she had used when she was a little school girl, and in it were a number of nice pieces. There was one about Mary and her little lamb, but I thought that was too young for me to take, so I picked out one about a ship being wrecked at sea. There were about ten verses to the piece, and they told how a great storm came up and drove the vessel on the rocks."
"I'd like to see a big storm!" exclaimed Bunny.
"Please keep quiet!" begged Sue. "Mother can't tell about her speaking in school if you're going to talk all the while."
"I won't talk any more," promised Bunny Brown. "Please go on, Mother. I'll be quiet."
So Mrs. Brown continued:
"I began to learn this piece about the wreck. I don't remember now, how it all went, but I know the first two lines were like this: