[Illustration: PATTER LEANED BACK AND PULLED AS HARD AS HE COULD.
_Frontispiece_--(_Page 61_)]
BUNNY BROWN
AND HIS SISTER SUE AND
THEIR TRICK DOG
BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF
THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES, THE BOBBSEY
TWINS SERIES, THE SIX LITTLE
BUNKERS SERIES, MAKE
BELIEVE STORIES,
ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
WALTER S. ROGERS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA’S FARM
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU’S CITY HOME
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG
THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
THE BOBBSEY TWINS
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN CAMP
THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
(Nine Titles)
MAKE BELIEVE STORIES
(Twelve Titles)
GROSSET & DUNLAP New York
Copyright, 1923, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Trick Dog
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A GRAND SURPRISE 1
II PATTER’S TRICKS 13
III TOBY COMES BACK 22
IV TOBY AND PATTER 33
V A RUNAWAY 43
VI PLANNING A SHOW 56
VII IN THE BARN 66
VIII WHERE IS SUE? 76
IX THE CHURCH FAIR 89
X PATTER AND THE TICKETS 99
XI PATTER AND THE KITTEN 108
XII WHITEFEET’S TRICK 119
XIII PATTER AND THE CRAB 130
XIV ADRIFT IN A BOAT 143
XV AT THE HOSPITAL 154
XVI SOMETHING NEW 165
XVII PATTER AND THE COWS 172
XVIII SELLING TICKETS 182
XIX LOST DOG 188
XX LOOKING FOR PATTER 197
XXI LOST CHILDREN 204
XXII THE OLD FACTORY 214
XXIII BLACK BOBBY 221
XXIV THE RAGGEDY MAN 229
XXV A GREAT SUCCESS 240
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG
CHAPTER I
A GRAND SURPRISE
Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone in the home of Bunny Brown and his
sister Sue. Ting-a-ling!
“I’ll answer it!” called Bunny, for he knew his mother was down in the
kitchen, helping the maid get supper ready. It was almost supper time.
Bunny could tell this, he said, “by the empty feeling in his little
tummy.”
Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone again.
“I’m going!” fairly shouted Bunny, for he heard the footsteps of his
sister Sue coming down the hall.
“I want to answer it!” cried Sue. “It’s my turn, Bunny Brown!”
“No, ’tisn’t! It’s mine!” and Bunny fairly yelled this, he was so
excited.
“Children! Children!” gently called their mother, as she opened the
kitchen door, thereby letting out the delicious smell of baking tarts,
of which Bunny and his sister were very fond. “Gently, children!”
begged Mrs. Brown. “I can’t have you answering the telephone if you are
going to shout like that. Think what the person on the other end of the
wire would say if they heard you.”
Ting-a-ling-a-ling! rang the bell again so loudly and so long that it
seemed to mean some one was very impatient on the other end of the
line, though of course the girl in the central office was doing the
ringing.
“I’m going!” cried Bunny.
“I’m going!” exclaimed Sue.
“You may both go,” decided Mrs. Brown. “Sue, you may talk over the
telephone that is down in the library. Bunny, you go upstairs and talk
over the telephone in the sitting room.”
“All right!” agreed Bunny.
“This is fun!” laughed Sue.
Perhaps she knew that she would get to the telephone first, for Bunny
had to run upstairs from the downstairs hall. And Sue was first. Taking
the receiver off the hook she called:
“Hello!”
Back came a voice she well knew. It was her father speaking.
“Hello, Sue!” he cried, in his jolly tones. “Is Bunny there?”
“Yes, I’m here!” answered Bunny for himself, as by this time he
had reached the upstairs telephone--an extension of the one from
downstairs. Thus both children could talk to their father at once and
he to them.
“Listen quietly, children, and don’t talk back until I ask you to,”
cautioned Mr. Brown. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” answered Bunny Brown.
“Yes, I am, too!” said Sister Sue.
The children wondered what it could all be about. Why was their father
so particular to have them listen carefully?
Mrs. Brown caught enough of the talk from Bunny and Sue to learn that
it was her husband who was on the other end of the wire. He often
called up from the boat dock just before supper, to let her know he
was on the way home. Bunny and Sue had taken such messages many times
before, but this time seemed a bit different.
“I want to ask you a question,” said Mr. Brown, at his end of the wire.
“Are you going to be at home this evening, Bunny?”
“Why, of course I’m going to be at home!” answered the little boy.
“That’s good,” said his father. “Are you going to be at home after
supper, Sue?”
“Course I am, Daddy!” she replied, with a laugh. “What makes you ask
such a funny question?”
“Because I want to know,” went on Mr. Brown, and Bunny was sure he
could hear his father laughing back there in the office on the boat and
fish dock. “Now don’t forget! Don’t go out after supper. And don’t go
out until I come home. Tell mother I’ll be there soon.”
“But what for, Daddy?” asked Bunny. “Why don’t you want us to go out?”
“Are you going to take us to the movies?” asked Sue. For sometimes
Daddy Brown did this when there was a children’s play early in the
evening.
“Well, we may go to the movies,” said Mr. Brown. “But perhaps you won’t
care to go after you see what you’re going to see.”
“Oh, what are we going to see?” cried Bunny, catching at a new tone in
his father’s voice.
“That’s a secret!” replied Mr. Brown.
“Oh, a secret!” cried both children.
“Tell me!” begged Sue.
“I will when I come home,” her father promised.
“Is it a nice secret?” Bunny wanted to know.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Mr. Brown. “You can tell better after you see it. But
I haven’t time to talk any more now. Yes, Bunker Blue, I’m coming,” he
said in a side voice which Bunny and Sue could hear. Bunker Blue was a
red-haired boy who worked at Mr. Brown’s boat and fish dock. Then their
father ended with: “Now don’t forget, Bunny and Sue. Don’t go out this
evening. Wait for the surprise.”
“I will!” promised Bunny Brown.
“I will!” promised his sister Sue.
They hung up the telephone receivers, and after that you could not have
gotten them away from the house even if a lot of fire-engines had raced
by outside.
“Well, children, what was it?” asked Mrs. Brown, as Bunny came sliding
down the banister as the quickest way of reaching the first floor,
while Sue ran out from the library. “Is daddy coming home soon?”
“He’ll be here right away,” said Bunny.
“And he’s going to bring a surprise!” burst out Sue. “A surprise! A
surprise! Oh, Mother, what do you s’pose it is?” she asked, her eyes
big with wonder.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” and Mrs. Brown smiled. “Maybe it’s a lollypop
or a picture book.”
“Pooh! They wouldn’t be surprises!” scoffed Bunny.
“But they’d be nice just the same!” Sue made haste to say, fearing that
Bunny was not grateful enough. “Picture books and lollypops are very
nice.”
“But they’re not zactly _surprises_!” said Bunny. “I guess daddy has a
better surprise than that.”
The children could hardly wait for their father to come home. Again and
again they raced to the front door, thinking they heard him coming, but
it was a “false alarm.” Then they went out on the front steps to look
down the street and wait. After a while Mr. Brown came along.
“I see him!” shouted Bunny.
“I see him!” cried Sue, like an echo.
“But he hasn’t got any surprise,” said Bunny, a bit sorrowfully.
“Maybe he has it in his pocket,” suggested Sue. Like her brother she
had noticed that Mr. Brown carried nothing in his hands.
Down the street in the early summer evening raced Bunny Brown and his
sister Sue to meet their father. Laughing, he caught them up in his
arms, one on either side, and carried them along with him.
“Though you’re getting so big I’ll soon have to stop this,” he said,
with another laugh. “My, but you’re getting heavy!”
“Daddy! Daddy! Where’s the surprise?” asked Bunny.
“Didn’t you bring it? You promised!” said Sue.
“No, I didn’t bring it. But it’s coming right after supper,” said Daddy
Brown.
“Oh, now I can guess what it is! Toby, our Shetland pony, is coming
back!” cried Bunny.
The pony had been sent away to the doctor’s some time before this.
“Is Toby coming back?” asked Sue. “Is that the surprise, Daddy?”
“No, that isn’t the surprise,” he answered, as he set the children down
inside the fence in front of the house. “Now don’t try to guess any
more, or you won’t be able to eat any supper. As soon as we have eaten
the surprise will come.”
“Oh, couldn’t we have it first?” asked Bunny.
“Please!” begged Sue.
“No, it will be best to eat first and have the surprise afterward,”
their father said. “Otherwise you might not eat.”
“Oh, what can it be?” wondered Sue.
“It surely is a big surprise!” declared Bunny.
Whether Daddy Brown told Mother Brown in a whisper what the surprise
was, I do not know. I rather think he did before he sat down to supper.
But the children were kept guessing, and you can imagine how impatient
they were.
But finally the meal was over and as Mr. Brown looked at his watch and
pushed back his chair there came a ring at the front doorbell.
“I’ll go,” said Daddy, as the maid started to answer. “No, you children
sit still,” he ordered, shaking his finger at them. “If this is the
surprise--and I think it is--I want to introduce you to it in the right
way.”
So, more impatient than before, Bunny and Sue kept their seats while
their father went into the front hall. They heard him open the door and
then a man’s voice asked:
“Does Mr. Jim Denton live here?”
“No, there is no one of that name on this street,” answered Mr. Brown.
“What business is he in?” asked the children’s father. And as they
rightly guessed this was not the visitor Mr. Brown expected and as it
could not be the surprise, Bunny and Sue felt that they might take a
peep at the front door. Their mother nodded her permission.
Bunny and Sue saw their father talking to an old and ragged man. He was
almost as ragged as a tramp, and yet he did not seem to be a tramp.
“What does this Mr. Denton do that you are asking about?” inquired Mr.
Brown.
“He’s in the circus business,” answered the old man, and Bunny and Sue
felt sorry for him, he looked so sad and tired. “I used to know him. We
were in the show business together. I was thinking he might help me----”
“Are you hungry?” asked Mr. Brown kindly. “If you want food----”
“Oh, no, thank you, I’m not quite as badly off as that--yet. Though I
may be,” answered the old and ragged man in a sad voice. “If I could
find Mr. Denton he might help me to get back in the show business
again. Some one told me he lived around here.”
“I don’t believe he does,” said Mr. Brown, as the children stood behind
him in the hall. “I know all the men around here and there is no Mr.
Denton who was in the circus business.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to search further,” said the weary old man. “I’m
sorry I bothered you.”
“Oh, it was no bother,” said Mr. Brown. “I thought you were some one I
was expecting. Good-night!”
“Good-night,” echoed the old man, and Bunny and Sue felt very sorry for
him as he went feebly down the steps and shuffled off.
“Well, that wasn’t the surprise after all,” said Mr. Brown, as he shut
the door.
“When will it come?” asked Bunny.
“Soon now, I think,” was the answer.
They all went back to the dining room. Mr. Brown was telling about the
old man who was seeking a Mr. Denton in the circus business when again
the front doorbell rang.
“This is the surprise, I’m sure!” cried Daddy Brown. “Now stay here,
children, until I call to you to open the door into the hall,” he
warned.
Bunny and Sue, so impatient they could hardly keep still, waited. They
heard the front door open. They heard their father talking. Then came a
funny, squeaking, whining sound.
“Oh, what can it be?” murmured Sue.
Then came a knock on the door leading from the dining room into the
hall.
“You may open!” called their father.
Bunny and Sue together turned the knob, and into the room stalked a
funny little chap, wearing a red cap, a white coat, and blue trousers.
In he stepped and began dancing around.
“There’s your surprise!” cried Daddy Brown.