"DOWN ON THE FARM"
For a moment Mrs. Brown did not know whether to laugh at Bunny for
playing a joke or to tell him he must not do such things when there were
visitors at the house. But Bunny looked so serious that his mother
thought perhaps he did not mean to be funny.
"Who is it?" she asked again.
"General Washington," replied the little boy.
"Bunny Brown!" cried Mrs. Newton, "what do you mean?"
"Well, it's the man who made believe he was General Washington in the
Opera House show, anyhow!" declared Bunny. "'Course he doesn't look like
General Washington now, but----"
Lucile and Mart did not wait for Bunny to finish. Together they ran to
the front door.
"Bunny Brown, you aren't playing any jokes, are you?" asked his mother.
"No'm! Honest I mean it!" cried Bunny, his eyes shining with excitement.
"It's the same man who was General Washington and General Grant and a
lot of other people at the show in the Opera House! He's at our front
door now, and he wants to know if the Happy Day Twins are here."
"The Happy Day Twins?" exclaimed Mrs. Brown.
"That's the name the boy and girl went under on the programme, you
know," explained Mrs. Newton. "The same children you have been so kind
to--Lucile and Mart Clayton. They took the name of the 'Happy Day Twins'
on the stage you know. Did the impersonator want them, Bunny?" she
asked.
"I didn't see any 'personator," answered the little boy. "He was General
Washington, I tell you, only he wasn't dressed up."
"I must go and see," declared Mrs. Brown.
As she went down the hall she met the brother and sister coming back.
They seemed much excited.
"It's our friend, Mr. Treadwell," explained Mart. "He heard we had
started for this town, and he followed us. He heard about my climbing
the tree after the monkey, and some one told him my sister and I had
come to your house, Mrs. Brown. May I ask him in? It's Mr. Samuel
Treadwell, and he's a good friend of ours."
"Certainly, ask him in," said Mrs. Brown, with a smile. "Perhaps he is
hungry, too," she said to her friend Mrs. Newton, Mart having gone back
to the front door. "I've heard that actors are often hungry."
"But he's General Washington, too, isn't he?" demanded Bunny, following
Mart.
"Yes, he pretends to be all sorts of famous people--on the stage,"
kindly explained Mart to Bunny. "You'll like him, he can do lots of
tricks."
"Can he jiggle--I mean juggle?"
"Yes, but not as good as the other man in the play."
By this time Mrs. Brown had reached the door. On the steps stood an
elderly man, with a pleasant smile on his face. Mrs. Brown recognized
him at once as the impersonator, though of course he had on no wig or
costume now. He looked just like an ordinary man, except that his face
was rather more wrinkled.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, madam," said the man, "but I have been
looking for my little friends, the 'Happy Day Twins,' as they are
billed. Their real names are--well, I suppose they have told you," and
he smiled at Lucile and Mart, who were standing in the hall.
"Yes, we have been learning something about them, but we would be glad
to know more, so we could help them," said Mrs. Brown. "Won't you come
in? We have just been giving the children a little lunch, and perhaps,
if you have not eaten lately, you will be glad to do so now."
"More glad than you can guess, madam," said the man with a bow. "I am,
indeed, hungry. We have had bad luck, as perhaps Lucile and Mart have
told you."
"Yes, they spoke of it," said Bunny's mother. "And now please come in,
and while you are eating we can talk."
"Say, we could have a regular show here now!" whispered Bunny Brown to
his sister Sue. "We have three actors now, and you and I would make two
more."
"Oh, I don't want to be in a show now," said Sue. "I want to hear what
they're going to tell mother."
Bunny did also, and when Mr. Treadwell had seated himself at the table
the children listened to what followed.
"When you rang I was just telling Mart that perhaps my husband could
give him some work, so enough money could be earned for the trip to New
York," said Mrs. Brown. "Is it true that no one knows where these
children's uncle and aunt can be found?"
"Well, I guess it's true enough," said Mr. Treadwell. "There are two
uncles and one aunt, according to the story. William Clayton, who is a
brother of Mart's father, is blind, and in some home or hospital--I
don't know where, and I guess the children don't either," he added.
Lucile and Mart shook their heads.
"Simon Weatherby and his wife, Sallie, are brother and sister-in-law of
Mrs. Clayton's," went on the impersonator. "The last heard of them was
that they sailed for the other side--England, France or maybe Australia
for all I know. We theatrical folk travel around a good bit. Anyhow,
Simon Weatherby and his wife left in a hurry, and they gave the care of
the children over to Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.
"Now Mr. Jackson is all right, and a nice man, but he is careless, else
he wouldn't get into so much trouble, and he wouldn't have lost the
address of Mart's Uncle Simon. But that's how it happened. So the
children have some relations if we can only find them, and what they are
to do in the meanwhile, now that the show is scattered, is more than I
know."
"Well, I know one thing they're going to do, and that is stay right here
with me until they are sure of a home somewhere else," said Mrs. Brown.
"I'm glad to hear you say that!" exclaimed Mr. Treadwell, as he finished
his lunch. "I heard they left the boarding house, and that they had no
money. Well, I haven't any too much myself, but I followed them, hoping
I could find 'em and help 'em. Now I've found my little friends all
right," he said, looking kindly at Lucile and Mart, "but some one else
has helped them."
"They helped some one else first," said Mrs. Newton, with a smile. "Mart
got Mr. Winkler's monkey down out of a tree."
"I heard about that," returned Mr. Treadwell, with a laugh. "Well, now
that I have located you, I suppose I'd better travel on, though where to
go or what to do I don't know," he added with a sigh. "I'm not as young
as I once was," he added, "and there isn't the demand for impersonators
there once was. If I could get back to New York----"
He paused and shook his head sadly.
"Why don't you stay here and look for work, just as I'm going to do?"
asked Mart. "If you get to New York there won't be much chance. All the
theater places are filled now for the winter season."
"That's so!" agreed the impersonator. "But I don't know what sort of
work I could do here."
"You--you could be in our show!" interrupted Bunny, who, with Sue, had
been listening eagerly to all the talk. "We're going to have a show, and
you three could be in it!"
"Going to have a show, are you?" asked Mr. Treadwell, with a smile.
"Yes, a real one," declared Sue. "Once we had a circus, but this show is
going to be in the Opera House, maybe, and we'll give all the money we
make to our mother's Red Cross."
"That will be nice," said Mr. Treadwell, with a smile. "But I'm afraid
I'd be too big to fit into your show."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bunny. "We're going to have Bobbie Boomer in it, and
he's a big fat boy."
Mr. Treadwell laughed and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Newton joined in.
"What sort of play are you going to have?" asked Mr. Treadwell.
"Well, we were just talking about it, in our garage, when Tom Milton
told us that Mr. Winkler's monkey was loose," explained Bunny, "and we
didn't talk any more about it until just now. But the show is going to
be different from the circus."
"Where are you going to have it?" asked Mrs. Newton.
"I don't know," confessed Bunny. "Maybe my father will let us have it in
the boat shop. That's a big place."
A step was heard in the hall, and Bunny and Sue cried:
"There's our daddy now!"
Mr. Brown walked in, kissed the children and seemed quite surprised to
see three strangers present. Matters were quickly explained to him,
however, and he welcomed Mr. Treadwell, Lucile and Mart.
"Do you think you could find work for them?" asked Mrs. Brown, when the
stories had been told.
"Well, I might," slowly answered Mr. Brown. "I need some help down at
the dock and office to get things ready for winter."
"Don't make 'em work so hard they can't help in our show," begged Bunny.
"Oh, you're going to have another circus, are you?" asked his father,
with a smile.
"No, it isn't going to be a circus, it's going to be a regular Opera
House show!" cried Sue.
"What about?" her father wanted to know, as he caught her up in his
arms.
"We don't know yet," Bunny said. "But maybe the play will be about
pirates or Indians or soldiers."
"Why don't you have some nice quiet play that would be good for
Christmas?" asked Mr. Brown. "Why not have a play with a farm scene in
it? You have been down to Grandpa's farm, and you know a lot about the
country. Why not have a farm play and call it 'Down on the Farm'?"
"That's the very thing!" suddenly cried Mr. Treadwell. "Excuse me for
getting so excited," he said, "but when you spoke about a farm play I
remembered that we have some farm scenery in our show that failed. I
believe you could buy that scenery cheap for the children," he said to
Mr. Brown. "There are three scenes, one meadow, a barnyard with a barn
and an orchard; and the last had a house with it."
"Oh, Daddy! get us the farm theater things for our new play!" cried
Bunny Brown.