GENERAL WASHINGTON
Mart Clayton, the boy who had climbed the tree to get down Mr. Winkler's
monkey, looked first at funny Bunny Brown, who was trotting downstreet,
and then he looked at Bunny's mother.
"Shall I run after him and bring him back?" asked Mart.
"O, no. Bunny will come back if I call him," was the answer. "But I
wonder why he is in such a hurry to see Mr. Winkler? I'll find out," she
went on. Then, making her voice louder, she called: "Bunny, come back
here, please, come back."
"But, Mother, I've got to see Mr. Winkler!" exclaimed Bunny, as he
paused and turned around. "It's about our show."
"That will keep until later," said Mrs. Brown with a smile. "I want you
to come back with me now and help entertain the company," and she smiled
and nodded to Mart and Lucile Clayton.
"Oh, yes. I--I didn't mean to be impolite," said Bunny, as he walked
slowly back. "But I wanted to ask Mr. Winkler if we could have his
monkey in our show."
"Oh, are you going to have a show?" asked Lucile, as she walked along
with Sue, while Mrs. Brown, Bunny and Mart followed.
"Yes!" exclaimed Bunny, who heard the question. "We had a circus once,
and we made some money. And after we saw the Opera House show you were
in, we wanted to have one ourselves. So we're going to get one up. Sue
can sing and I can turn somersaults. Not as good as you, of course," he
said to Mart. "And one boy has some trained white mice and if we could
get Mr. Winkler's monkey and----"
"And his parrot! He's got a parrot, too!" exclaimed Sue.
"Yes, if he'll let us have the parrot we could have a dandy show!"
agreed Bunny.
"I hope it will be a better show than the one we were in," said Mart,
with a sad little smile. "It isn't any fun to go traveling with a troupe
and then have it 'bust up' on the road as ours did."
"Aren't you children very young to be traveling alone?" asked Mrs.
Brown. "Haven't you any--well, any folks at all?"
She did not like to mention "father or mother," for fear both parents
might be dead and to speak of them might cause sorrow to Mart and
Lucile. But surely, Mrs. Brown thought, the boy and girl ought to have
some one to look after them.
"Oh, we weren't exactly alone," said Lucile, who was not as old as her
brother. "We were like one big family until the show failed. Mr. and
Mrs. Jackson were in charge, and Mrs. Jackson was very good to us. But
people didn't seem to like our performance, and we didn't make enough
money to keep on playing."
"I liked your show," said Bunny.
"So did I!" exclaimed his sister Sue. "It was grand."
"Yes, if we had done as well everywhere as we did in this town I guess
we'd have been all right," said Mart. "But we didn't. We got stranded in
Wayville--that's the next largest town to this, I heard some one say,
and we couldn't go any farther. Some of our baggage had to go to pay
bills. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson left us at a boarding house while they went
to New York to see if they could raise money."
"But I guess they couldn't," added his sister. "Anyhow they didn't come
back, and we didn't have any money. So the boarding house lady kept what
few things we had left, and Mart and I came away."
"I made up my mind I'd have to do something," went on the climbing boy,
as Bunny and Sue thought of him. "I'm strong, and if I could get work
I'd soon earn enough money to take me and my sister back to New York.
Perhaps you could tell me where I could get a job," he added to Mrs.
Brown.
"We'll talk about that after you get warm and have had something to
eat," said she.
"Yes, maybe that would be better," agreed Mart. "It makes you feel sort
of funny not to eat."
"I know it does," put in Bunny. "Once Sue and I went to Camp
Rest-a-While, and we got lost in the woods, and we didn't have anything
to eat for a terrible long while."
"It was 'most all day," sighed Sue. "And we were terrible glad when
daddy and mother found us!"
"I should say you were--well, very glad," laughed her mother. "But here
we are at our house. Now come in, Lucile and Mart, and make yourselves
at home."
"And after you get warm, and have had something to eat, maybe you'll
tell us about how to get up a show in a theater--not one in a tent like
a circus," suggested Bunny.
"Yes, we'll help you all we can," promised Lucile.
Mrs. Newton, coming to the Brown house ahead of the others, had got a
nice lunch ready, and from the way Mart and his sister sat down to it
and ate it was evident that they were very hungry. It was nice and warm
in the Brown house, too, and the children from the vaudeville troupe
seemed to like to be near the fire.
"Now if you have had enough to eat, perhaps you will tell me a little
bit more about yourselves," suggested Mrs. Brown, when the two visitors
were ready to leave the table. "I want to help you," she went on, "and I
can best do that if I know more about you. My husband is in the boat
and fish business here in Bellemere," she said, "and though he is not as
busy in winter as he is in summer, he may find work for you," she added
to Mart.
"I hope he can!" said the boy. "Well, I'll tell you about myself and my
sister. You see we come of a theatrical family. Our father and mother
were in the show business up to the time they died."
"Oh, then your father and mother are dead?" asked Mrs. Brown kindly.
"Yes," went on Lucile. "We hardly remember them as they died when we
were little. We were brought up by our uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie. They
were in the show business, too, and they traveled under several
different names.
"Sometimes we traveled with them, and again we'd be off on the road by
ourselves. But whenever we went alone that way Uncle Simon would always
get some one, like Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, to look after us and take
charge of us. So we didn't have it so hard until Uncle Simon and Aunt
Sallie went away."
"Went away!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "Where did they go?"
"That's what we can't find out," answered Mart "They left their address
for us with Mr. Jackson, but he lost it, and now we don't know where our
uncle and aunt are."
"But surely some one knows!" said Mrs. Newton.
"Well, yes, I guess Uncle Bill knows, but we can't find him," said Mart.
"You seem to belong to a lost family!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, with a
smile. "Who is Uncle Bill, and where is he?"
"We don't know where he is, but he's blind," put in Lucile. "The last we
heard of him he was going to some Home for the Blind, or to some
hospital to be cured. But we don't know where he is. If we could find
him he'd have Uncle Simon's address, for Uncle Simon used to always
write to Uncle Bill. Of course Uncle Bill had to get some one to read
the letters to him. But we haven't seen either of our uncles for a long
time."
"You poor children!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "This is too bad! We must see
what we can do to help you. Where do you think your Uncle Simon and Aunt
Sallie went to?" she asked.
"It was over to England or France, or some place like that," answered
Mart. "It was just before the war started, and maybe their ship was
sunk. Anyhow, we haven't heard from them since then, and Mr. Jackson
lost their address," he added.
"But your Uncle Simon knew where Mr. Jackson was, didn't he?" asked Mrs.
Newton with interest.
"Well, maybe he did and maybe he didn't," answered Mart. "You see Mr.
Jackson and his wife travel about a lot. Lots of times letters get lost,
so Uncle Simon may have written about us, and Mr. Jackson might never
have got the letter."
"Yes, that's so," agreed Mrs. Brown. "Well, when my husband comes home
we'll talk with him and see what is best to do. You had better stay here
until then and make yourselves at home. Hark! There's the doorbell."
"Who do you suppose that is, Mother?" asked Sue.
"I can't tell that, Sue, from here."
"I'll go and see who it is, Mother," offered Bunny, as he ran through
the hall. The others heard the front door open and the sound of a man's
voice mingling with that of Bunny's. In a moment the little fellow came
running back.
"Who is it?" asked his mother.
"General Washington," was the surprising answer.