SPLASH IS LOST
"Bunny! Oh, Bunny! We're sailing! We're sailing!" joyfully cried Sue, as
she felt the barn-door raft moving through the water.
"Of course we're sailing," Bunny answered, as he stood up near the mast,
which is what the stick that holds the sail is called. The mast Bunny
had made was only a piece of a lima bean pole, and the sail was only an
old bag. But the children had just as much fun as though they were in
one of their father's big sail boats.
The duck pond was not very wide, but it was quite long, and when Bunny
and Sue had sailed across it to the other side, they turned around to go
to the upper end.
Bunny had found a piece of board, which he had nailed to another short
length of bean pole, and this made a sort of oar. This he put in the
water at the back of the raft to steer with.
Bunny Brown knew something about steering a boat, for he had often been
out with his father or Bunker Blue. And Bunny was quick to learn, though
he was not much more than six years old.
Harder blew the wind on the bag-sail, and faster and faster went Bunny
and Sue to the upper end of the pond. There were many ducks swimming on
the water, or putting their heads down below, into the mud, to get the
weeds that grew there. Sometimes they found snails, which some ducks
like very much.
But when the ducks saw the barn-door raft sailing among them, they were
afraid, and, quacking loudly, they paddled out of the way.
"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, as they sailed along, "there's the little ducks
that were hatched out by the hen mother."
"So they are!" exclaimed the little boy. The little ducks were swimming
in the water, and the hen mother was clucking along shore. She would not
go in the water herself, but stayed as near to it as she dared, on
shore. Perhaps she wanted to make sure the little ducks would not
drown. Of course they would not, unless a big fish pulled them under
water, for ducks are made on purpose to swim. And there were no big fish
in the pond, only little minnows, about half as big as a lollypop stick.
"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, as she saw the hen mother watching the little
ducks paddle about, "Oh, Bunny, I know what we can do."
"What?"
"We can give the hen mamma a ride on our boat. Poor thing! She never can
go paddling or swimming with her family. Let's take her on our boat, and
she can sail with her little ducks then, and not get wet."
"That's what we'll do!" Bunny cried. "I'm glad you thought of it, Sue.
We'll give the old hen a sail, and the ducks can paddle around with us."
Bunny steered the raft over to the shore where the hen was clucking
away, calling to her ducklings to come to dry land. Perhaps she thought
they had been in bathing long enough.
"Can we catch her?" asked Sue. "You know it's hard work to catch a
chicken. You couldn't catch the old rooster."
"Oh, this is easier," Bunny said. "The hen mother won't run away from
her little ducks."
And, for a wonder, Bunny was right. But then, as Grandma Brown told him
afterward, the old hen was a very tame one, and was used to being picked
up and petted.
So when Bunny and Sue reached the shore the hen did not run away. She
let Bunny pick her up, and she only clucked a little when he set her
down in a dry place on the door raft.
"Now we'll go sailing again," Bunny said, as he pushed off from the
shore.
The old hen clucked and fluttered her wings. She was calling to her
little ducks. And they came right up on to the raft, too. Perhaps they
wanted to see what sailing was like, and then, too, they may have had
enough of swimming and paddling for a time. At any rate, there the old
mother hen and her little ducks were on the raft, with the two children.
"Now we'll give them a fine ride!" cried Sue. "Aren't they cute,
Bunny?"
"Yes," said Bunny. He steered the raft, while Sue picked up one of the
little ducks and petted it in her hand.
"Oh, you dear, cute, sweet little thing!" murmured Sue. "I wish I had
you for a doll!"
On and on sailed Bunny and Sue, and I think it was the first time the
old hen mother ever went sailing with her family of ducks. She seemed to
like it, too, Bunny and Sue thought.
Finally, when the raft was in the middle of the pond, the little ducks
gave some quacks, a sort of whistle and into the water they fluttered
one after the other.
"Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!" went the hen mamma, fluttering her wings.
"Cluckity-cluck-cluck!"
I suppose that meant, in hen talk:
"Come back! Come back! Stay on the boat and have a nice ride!"
But the little ducks wanted to swim in the water. And they did.
"Never mind," said Sue. "We'll keep on sailing, Bunny, and we'll sail
right after the little ducks, so the hen mamma can watch them."
And this the children did. The little ducks paddled around in the water
at the edge of the raft, and on the middle of it, in a dry place,
perched the hen mother. It was great fun, and Bunny and Sue liked it
very much.
"She is just like a trained hen," said Bunny. "If we have another and
bigger circus, Sue, we can have this hen in it."
"Are we going to have another circus?"
"Maybe--a big one, in two tents. Bunker Blue and Ben are talking about
it."
"Oh, that would be fun!" cried Sue, clapping her hands.
And then, all at once, as soon as Sue did this, the little ducks took
fright, and hurried toward the shore. Perhaps they thought Sue was
shooing them away, as her grandmother sometimes shooed the hens out of
the garden.
Anyhow, the little ducks, half swimming and half flying, rushed for the
shore, and no sooner had the hen mother seen them go, than with a loud
cluck she raised herself up in the air, and flew to shore also. She had
had enough of sailing, and she wanted to be with her little duck
family.
"Oh, I didn't mean to scare them," said Sue.
"Never mind," Bunny comforted her. "I guess they had ride enough. Now
we'll sail down to the other end of the pond."
But the wind was quite strong now. It blew very hard on the bag-sail,
and the raft went swiftly through the water.
All at once there was a cracking sound, and the raft turned to one side.
"Oh, dear!" cried Sue. "What's the matter?"
Something flew down over her head, covering her eyes, and she could see
nothing.
"Stop! Stop!" cried the little girl. "Is that you, Bunny?"
But Bunny did not answer. Sue pulled the thing off her head. When she
could see she noticed that it was the bag sail. The beanpole mast had
broken off close to where it was stuck in a crack in the barn door, and
the sail had fallen on Sue.
But where was Bunny Brown?
Sue looked all around and then saw her brother, off the raft, standing
up in the water behind her.
"What--what's the matter, Bunny?" asked Sue. "Don't you want to sail any
more? What makes you be in the water? Oh, you're all wet!" she cried, as
she saw that he had fallen in, right over his head.
"I--I couldn't help it," said Bunny. "I slipped in when the wind broke
the sail. I--I fell on my back, and a lot of water got in my nose and
mouth, but--but I got on my feet, and I'm all right now, Sue."
Bunny's father had taught him a little about swimming, and Bunny knew
that the first thing to do, when you fall in water, is to hold your
breath. Then, when your head bobs up, as it surely will, you can take a
breath, and stand up, if the water isn't too deep.
So Bunny stood up, with the muddy water dripping from him, looking at
Sue who was still on the raft, all alone.
"Oh, Bunny!" cried the little girl. "What shall I do? I--I'm afraid!"
"You're all right," Bunny answered bravely. "I'll come and push you to
shore. I'm all wet so I might as well stay wading now."
The duck pond was not very deep, and Bunny was soon wading behind the
raft, pushing it, with Sue on it, toward shore. So his sister did not
get more than her feet wet, and, as she had on no shoes or stockings,
that did not matter.
"Oh, Bunny! What happened?" asked his mother, when she saw how wet he
was, as, a little later, the two children came to the farmhouse. "What
happened, Bunny?"
"Oh, Mamma. We gave the old hen a ride, so she could be with her little
ducks," said Sue, "and the wind broke our sail, and it fell on me, and
the ducks flew away and so did the hen mother, and Bunny fell in. That's
what happened!"
"Mercy me, sakes alive! I should think that was enough!" cried Grandma
Brown.
"Yes, perhaps you had better keep away from the duck pond after this,"
said Mother Brown. "Now I'll have to change all your clothes, Bunny."
Bunny was sorry his mother had so much work to do for him, but, as he
said, he could not help it.
Washed and clean, Bunny and Sue, a little later, went down the road to
the house of Nellie Bruce.
"We'll take Splash with us," said Bunny. "Where is he? Here, Splash!
Splash!" he called.
"I didn't see him all to-day," said Sue. "Maybe he didn't like being a
blue-striped tiger in a circus, and he's gone back to our home by the
ocean."
"He wouldn't go that far," said Bunny. "Besides, he liked being in the
circus. He wagged his tail 'most all the while, and when he does that
he's happy. Here, Splash!" he called again.
But Splash did not come, even when Sue called, and the two children went
off to play without him. For a time they did not think about their dog,
as they had such fun at the home of Nellie Bruce. They played tag, and
hide-and-go-seek, as well as teeter-tauter, and bean-bag.
Then Mrs. Bruce gave them some cookies and milk, and they had a little
play-party. But, when it came time for Bunny and Sue to go home, they
thought of Splash again.
"I wonder if he'll be there waiting for us," said Sue, as they came
within sight of their Grandpa Brown's house.
"I hope so," said Bunny.
But no Splash was there, and he had not been seen since early morning,
before Bunny and Sue went sailing on the duck pond.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Sue. "Splash has run away. He's lost!"
"Dogs can't get lost!" Bunny declared.
"Yes, he is too lost," and tears came into Sue's eyes.