A STRANGE BOY
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue stood on the shore of the little pond,
looking at the old hen, who was fluttering up and down, very much
excited, clucking and calling as loudly as she could.
And, paddling up and down in the water in front of her, where the hen
dared not go, for chickens don't like to get wet you know, paddling up
and down in front of the hen were some soft, fluffy little balls of
downy feathers.
"Oh, her chickens will all be drowned!" cried Sue. "We must get them
out, Bunny. Take off your shoes and stockings and wade in. I'll help you
save the little chickens for the poor old hen."
Sue sat down on the ground, and began to take off her shoes.
Bunny began to laugh.
"Why, what--what's the matter?" asked Sue, and she seemed rather
surprised at Bunny's laughter. "Don't you want to save the little chicks
for the hen?" Sue went on. "Maybe somebody threw them in the water, or
maybe they fell in."
"Those aren't little chickens, Sue!" exclaimed Bunny, still laughing.
"Not chickens? They aren't? Then what are they?"
"Little ducks! That's the reason they went into the water. They know how
to swim when they're just hatched out of the eggs. They won't get
drowned."
Sue did not know what to say. She had never before seen any baby ducks,
and, at first, they did look like newly hatched chickens. But as she
watched them she saw they were swimming about, and, as one little baby
duck waddled out on the shore, Sue could see the webbed feet, which were
not at all like the claws of a chicken.
"But Bunny--Bunny--if they're little ducks and it doesn't hurt them to
go in the water, what makes the old hen so afraid?" Sue asked.
"I--I guess she thinks they are chickens. She doesn't know they are
ducks and can swim," said Bunny. "I guess that's it, Sue."
"Ha! Ha! Yes, that's it!" a voice exclaimed behind Bunny and Sue. They
looked around to see their Grandpa Brown looking at them and laughing.
"The old hen doesn't know what to make of her little family going in
swimming," he went on. "You see, we put ducks' eggs under a hen to
hatch, Bunny and Sue. A hen can hatch any kind of eggs."
"Can a hen hatch ockstritches' eggs?" Sue wanted to know.
"Well, maybe not the eggs of an ostrich," answered Grandpa Brown. "I
guess a hen could only cover one of those at a time. But a hen can hatch
ducks' or turkeys' eggs as well as her own kind."
"So as we don't always have a duck that wants to hatch out little ones,
we put the ducks' eggs under a hen. And every time, as soon as the
little ducks find water, after they are hatched, they go in for a swim,
just as if they had a duck for a mother instead of a hen.
"And, of course, the mother hen thinks she has little chickens, for at
first she can't tell the little ducks from chickens. And when they go
into the water she thinks, just as you did, Sue, that they will be
drowned. So she makes a great fuss. But she soon gets over it."
"I guess she's over it now," said Bunny.
Indeed, the old mother hen was not clucking so loudly now, nor was she
rushing up and down on the shore of the pond with her wings all fluffed
up. She seemed to know that the little family she had hatched out, even
if they were not like any others she had taken care of, were all right,
and very nice. And she seemed to think that for them to go in the water
was all right, too.
As for the little ducklings, they paddled about, and quacked and
whistled (as baby ducks always do) and had a perfectly lovely time. The
old mother hen stood on the bank and watched them.
Pretty soon the ducks had had enough of swimming, and they came out on
dry land, waddling from side to side in the funny way ducks do when they
walk.
"Oh! How glad the old hen is to see them safe on shore again!" cried
Sue.
And, indeed, the mother hen did seem glad to have her family with her
once more. She clucked over them, and tried to hover them under her warm
wings, thinking, maybe, that she would dry them after their bath.
But ducks' feathers do not get wet in the water the way the feathers of
chickens do, for ducks feathers have a sort of oil in them. So the
little ducks did not need to get dry. They ran about in the sun,
quacking in their baby voices, and the mother hen followed them about,
clucking and scratching in the gravel to dig up things for them to eat.
"They'll be all right now," said Grandpa Brown. "The next time the
little ducks go into the water the old hen mother won't be at all
frightened, for she will know it is all right. This always happens when
we let a chicken hatch out ducks' eggs."
"And I thought the little chickens were drowning!" laughed Sue, as she
put on her shoes again.
"Well, that's just what the mother hen thought," said Grandpa Brown.
"But what have you children been doing?"
"Getting ready for a circus," answered Bunny Brown.
"A circus!" exclaimed grandpa, in surprise.
"Yes," explained Sue. "Bunny is going to get a trapeze, and fall down in
the hay, where it doesn't hurt. And he's going to paint his half of our
dog Splash, so Splash will look like a tiger, and we're going to have a
horse, and Bunker Blue is going to hold me on so I can ride
and--and----"
But that was all Sue could think of just then.
Grandpa Brown looked surprised and, taking off his straw hat, scratched
his head, as he always did when thinking.
"Going to have a circus; eh? Well, where abouts?"
"In your barn," said Bunny. "That is, if you'll let us."
Grandpa Brown thought for a little while.
"Well," he said slowly, "I guess I don't mind. I s'pose it's only a
make-believe circus; isn't it?"
"Yes," answered Bunny. "Just pretend."
"Oh, well, go ahead. Have all the fun you like, but don't get hurt. Are
you two going to be the whole circus?"
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bunny. "We're going to have Tom White and Ned
Johnson----"
"And Nellie Bruce and Sallie Smith," added Sue.
"All the children around here; eh?" asked grandpa. "Well, have a good
time. I used to have a trained dog once. He would do finely for your
circus."
"What could he do?" Bunny wanted to know.
"Oh, he could pretend to say his prayers, make believe he was dead, he
could turn somersaults and climb a ladder."
"Oh, if we only had him for our circus!" cried Bunny.
"Where is that dog now, Grandpa?" asked Sue.
"Oh, he died a good many years ago. But I guess you can get your dog
Splash to do some tricks. Have a good time, but don't get into
mischief."
"We won't!" promised Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. And they really
meant what they said. But you just wait and see what happens.
The rest of that day Bunny and Sue talked about the circus they were
going to have. Grandma Brown, as well as father and Mother Brown, said
she did not mind if a circus was held in the barn, but she wanted Bunny
to be careful about going on the trapeze.
"Oh, if I fall I'll fall in the hay," said the little fellow with a
laugh.
"And what are you going to use to put stripes on your half of Splash?"
asked his mother.
"Paint, I guess," said Bunny.
"Oh, no. Paint would spoil Splash's nice, fluffy hair. I'll mix you up
some starch and water, with a little bluing in, that will easily wash
off," promised Mother Brown.
"Blue stripes!" cried Bunny. "A tiger doesn't have blue stripes, and my
half of Splash is going to be a tiger."
"You can pretend he is a new sort of tiger," said Grandma Brown, and
Bunny was satisfied with that.
That afternoon Bunny and Sue went to the homes of the neighboring
children to tell them about the circus. Nearly all the children said
they would come, and take part in the show in the barn.
"Oh, we'll have a fine circus!" cried Bunny Brown that night when they
were all sitting on the porch to cool off, for it was quite hot.
"Yes, I guess we'll all have to come and see you act," said Daddy Brown.
"Hark! What's that?" suddenly asked Grandma Brown. They all listened,
and heard some one knocking at the back door.
"I'll go and look," said grandpa. "Maybe it's a tramp. There have been
some around lately."
Bunny and Sue thought of the tramps who had taken the big
cocoanut-custard cake, about which I told you in the book before this
one. Perhaps those tramps had gotten out of jail and had come to get
more cake. Bunny and Sue sat close to mother and father while grandpa
went around the corner of the house to see who was knocking at the back
door.
They all heard grandpa speaking to some one. And the answers came in a
boy's voice.
"What do you want?" asked grandpa.
"If--if you please," said the strange boy's voice, "I--I'm very hungry.
I haven't had any dinner or supper. I'm willing to do any work you want,
for something to eat. I--I----"
And then it sounded as though the strange boy were crying.
"That isn't a tramp!" exclaimed Grandma Brown, getting up. "It's just a
hungry boy. I'm going to feed him."
They all followed Grandma Brown around to the back stoop. There was a
light in the kitchen, and by it Bunny and Sue could see a boy, not quite
as big as Bunker Blue, standing beside grandpa. The boy had on clothes
that were dusty, and somewhat torn. But the boy's face and hands were
clean, and he had bright eyes that, just now, seemed filled with tears.
"What is it?" asked Grandma Brown.
"It's a hungry boy, Mother. A strange, hungry boy!" said grandpa. "I
guess we'll have to feed him, and then we'll have him tell us his
story."