PATTER AND THE KITTEN
There is a great deal of work to be done whenever a church fair is
held. Bunny and Sue did not know this, but it is true. Mrs. Brown and
her friends were kept very busy, and when Bunny asked when he and Sue
could take Patter to the opera house, where the fair was to be held,
and make him stand up and hold the ticket basket, Mrs. Brown said:
“It will not be until next week.”
“Well, then I’m going to keep on teaching Patter and Wango to swing in
the trapeze,” said Bunny.
“Will you have the dog and the monkey do tricks at the church fair,
Mother?” Sue wanted to know.
“I hardly think so,” said Mrs. Brown. “I’m afraid it could not well be
done with the other things we have planned. I guess we’ll just have
Patter alone at the fair.”
“I’d rather it would be that way,” said Bunny. “’Cause if we do the dog
and monkey and trapeze trick at the fair, people wouldn’t want to come
and see it when we have a show of our own.”
“Oh, that’s right,” agreed Sue.
George and the other boys were a little disappointed when Bunny told
them the trapeze trick could not be done at the fair. But they shouted
with glee when told how Patter had held the basket and how it was
planned to make him do it at the door on the nights when the church
fair would be held.
“Well, if he’s going to do that we’d better make him practice now,”
suggested Charlie Star.
“All right,” agreed Bunny. “I’ll get a basket.”
He brought one out from the house, and no sooner did Patter see his
little master with the basket than the dog ran to him and gently took
it from Bunny’s hand. Then Patter sat up on his hind legs, as if
“begging.”
“Who taught him that trick?” asked Charlie Star.
“I don’t know,” Bunny answered. “But I guess it must have been that
Frenchman who gave the dog to my father. He must have taught Patter a
lot of tricks we don’t know anything about.”
“Well, as long as he holds up the basket, let’s pretend we’re ladies
at the church fair, and we’ll make believe put tickets in the basket,”
suggested George. “This will get Patter used to doing it.”
“How can we be ladies when we haven’t got long hair?” asked Charlie
Star, with a laugh.
“We haven’t got anything for tickets,” objected Harry.
“Use little stones for tickets,” suggested George. “And if any of you
want long hair to make believe you’re ladies, put on some of those
carpenter shavings for curls.”
He pointed to a corner where a carpenter had been doing some work at
the Brown house and had left a pile of curled shavings. With whoops of
delight the boys swooped down on these and fastened them up under their
caps so that the “curls” hung down on either side of their faces.
“Now we’re ladies at the church fair, and we must each drop a ticket in
the dog’s basket,” said George.
So the boys, with their false curls of shavings, marched in Indian file
up to Patter, sitting on his hind legs holding the basket. And as the
lads passed they each dropped a stone in as a ticket.
“He does it fine!” exclaimed George, when Patter never moved, but sat
there like a stone statue of a dog. “He’s a fine fellow, Bunny.”
“Yes, I like my trick dog very much,” said Bunny.
After each boy had put his “stone ticket” into the basket, Patter was
allowed to drop the basket and romp around a bit, so he would not get
tired of standing in one position too long.
“Maybe we’d better practice him a bit on the trapeze,” said Bunny,
after the ticket taking had been gone through with for the third time.
“It would be a good idea,” said George. “We ought to have the monkey,
though, to get Patter used to him.”
“Let’s go and see if we can get Wango,” suggested Harry.
The boys went over to the home of the old sailor. Usually Wango was
outside on the porch, if the weather was warm enough, and it was now,
for it was summer. But to-day no Wango could be seen. Miss Euphemia
Winkler, Jed’s sister, was there, however, and she seemed very busy
about something.
“What do you boys want?” she demanded rather crossly, as she saw them
stop just outside the fence.
“Please, Miss Winkler,” began Bunny, “could we take Wango a little
while? We’ll be sure to----”
“Don’t speak to _me_ about that horrid monkey!” cried Miss Winkler,
shaking her broom at the boys. “I never want to see him again. If he
were here you could take him and welcome, but he isn’t here!”
“Where’s he gone, if you please?” asked Bunny.
“Don’t ask me! I hope he’s gone back to China, or India, or wherever
it was my brother was foolish enough to bring him from! I never want to
see him again--the monkey I mean!” added Miss Winkler quickly. “Look at
the work he made me!”
“What did he do?” asked George.
“Why, when I was baking cookies he swooped down off the mantel and
grabbed both paws full,” said Miss Winkler, as she went on sweeping
dirt from the porch. “Then, when I chased him, he ran out here and
grabbed up two flower pots and threw them at me. The pots smashed and
the dirt flew all over! Oh, I never saw such a monkey!”
The boys watched her for a few seconds and then Bunny said in a low
voice to the others:
“There’s no use waiting for Wango to come back. He won’t come as long
as he sees Miss Winkler there with a broom. He’ll think she wants to
beat him.”
“Where do you s’pose Wango is?” asked Harry.
“Oh, I guess he’s hiding around in the trees,” Bunny answered. “That’s
where he runs to when Miss Winkler takes after him. Come on, we’ll go
back and make Patter do his trapeze trick alone.”
On their way back the boys looked up in the trees they passed for a
sight of Wango, but they saw nothing of the pet monkey. Then they
turned toward Bunny’s house to go out to the barn and give Patter some
practice on the trapeze.
When nearly at his house Bunny and his chums saw Bunker Blue driving
along the street in one of Mr. Brown’s delivery autos.
“Oh, Bunker, give us a ride home!” called Bunny.
“Can’t!” answered the red-haired lad.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to the hospital.”
“Are you sick, or is it the auto?” asked George.
“I’m going to see a sick old man,” went on Bunker. “He’s the one who
came to your house the night you got the trick dog, Bunny,” explained
the dock boy. “Your father is sending him some nice fresh fish, for
he is better now and can sit up and eat. If I wasn’t going to the
hospital I’d ride you boys home,” said Bunker.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Bunny.
“Hospitals come first,” said Harry.
“Maybe we could go to see the old man and take Patter along and have
him do some tricks,” suggested Charlie Star. “It would cheer the old
man up.”
“I’ll ask him if he wants to see you,” promised Bunker Blue, as he kept
on in the automobile.
The boys went to the barn and there Patter was dressed up in the clown
suit of red, white and blue that he wore when he first did tricks for
Bunny and Sue. The boys had some trouble putting it on Patter, but
finally managed to do it.
“He looks just like a circus dog,” said Charlie.
“Yes,” agreed Bunny, “I guess maybe he was in a circus before the
Frenchman had him.”
Patter did not object to being dressed in his clown suit, nor did he
mind jumping up on the trapeze board and swinging there. In fact he
was a very good-natured dog, doing all the tricks he knew cheerfully,
and as many times as he was asked.
“If he takes tickets in the church fair, your dog ought to have a
different suit, Bunny,” said Charlie.
“He ought to be dressed in orange and black, or something like that,”
added Harry. “Sort of a Hallowe’en, you know.”
“I’ll ask mother to make him a new suit,” offered Bunny.
When this matter was spoken of to Mrs. Brown she said that some of the
ladies of the church were making a new suit for the dog.
A few days later came the time for the church fair. It was to be held
in the opera house. At first none of the boys or girls who were Sue’s
or Bunny’s friends had intended to go, but when it became known that
Patter would be there, more young folks said they would attend. They
wanted to see the dog take tickets.
[Illustration: PATTER ACTED AS TICKET-TAKER.
_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Trick Dog._ _Page 117_]
As Mrs. Brown had said, two of the ladies on the committee had planned
a new suit for Patter, and the day before the fair they brought it
home. It was yellow and black and had spangles on it that glittered in
the light.
“Oh, this is a fine suit for our dog!” cried Bunny. “Could we keep it
for him until we have our own show?”
The ladies said the suit was Patter’s to keep forever, and it would
belong to Bunny and Sue just as the dog did.
Whether it was the news that Patter would “take tickets” at the church
fair or whether it was some other attraction, I do not know, but it is
true that a large crowd made its way toward the opera house the night
the fair opened.
At the door, in his new suit, holding in his mouth a basket for the
tickets, sat Patter. Near him were Bunny and Sue to make sure that
Patter would not drop the basket.
Person after person came to the fair, looked at the dog holding the
basket, and then, with a laugh, dropped in his admission ticket.
The basket was nearly full and Bunny was thinking of emptying it when
Sue gave a sudden cry and pointed to something coming in one of the
opened windows. For the part of the opera house where the church fair
was held was on the ground floor. Shows and entertainments took place
upstairs.
“Look! Look!” cried Sue. “There’s a black kitten with white feet.”
“It doesn’t make much difference what kind of feet she has,” said Bunny
quickly. “But if that’s a kitten she’d better not let Patter see her.
He doesn’t like cats.”
As Bunny spoke this word “cats,” Patter pricked up his ears as if he
knew what was said. Then he looked around and saw the pussy on the
window sill, inside the church-fair hall. In another moment Patter
dropped the basket of tickets, which scattered all about, and the dog,
with a loud bark, raced across the room to get the kitten.