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Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 8. The Doll In The Well |
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_ CHAPTER VIII. THE DOLL IN THE WELL Bunny Brown hung there on the ladder, swinging to and fro. On the barn floor below him, stood his sister Sue, watching, and almost ready to cry, for Sue was afraid Bunny would fall. "Oh, Bunny! Bunny!" she exclaimed. "Don't fall! Don't fall!" "I--I can't help it," Bunny answered. "My fingers are slipping off!" And indeed they were. He could not hold to the big round stick of the ladder as well as he could to the smaller broom-handle stick of his trapeze. Bunny Brown looked down. And then he saw something that frightened him more than had Sue's cries. For, underneath him was the bare floor of the barn, with no soft hay on which to fall--on which to bounce up and down like a rubber ball. "Oh, Sue!" cried Bunny. "I'm going to fall, and--and--" He did not finish what he started to say, but he wiggled his feet and legs, pointing them at the bare floor of the barn, over which he hung. But Sue saw and understood. "Wait a minute, Bunny!" she cried. "Don't fall yet! Wait a minute, and I'll throw some hay down there for you to fall on!" "All--all right!" answered Bunny. He did not want to talk much, for it took nearly all his breath and strength to hold on to the ladder. But he was glad Sue had thought of the hay. He was going to tell her to get it, but she guessed it herself. Putting her doll carefully in a corner, on a little wisp of hay, Sue ran to the edge of the mow, where there was a big pile of the dried grass, which the horses and cows eat. With both her chubby hands, Sue began to pull the hay out, and scatter it on the barn floor under Bunny. Her brother hung right over her head now, clinging to the ladder. "Haven't you got 'most enough hay there now, Sue?" asked Bunny. "I--I can't hold on much longer." "Wait just a minute!" called Sue, as she ran back to the mow. This time she managed to gather up a lot of hay in her two arms. This she piled on the other, and she was only just in time. "Look out!" suddenly cried Bunny. "Here I come!" And down he did come. Plump! Right on the pile of hay Sue had made for him. And it was a good thing the hay was there, or Bunny might have hurt his legs by his tumble. He did not try to turn a somersault as Ben did, the time he fell. Bunny was glad enough just to fall down straight. "Oh, Bunny! Bunny! Did you hurt yourself?" cried Sue, as she saw her brother sit down in the pile of hay. Bunny did not answer for a minute. He looked all around, as though he did not know exactly what had happened. Then he glanced up at the ladder to which he had clung. "That--that was a big fall," he said slowly. "I--I'm glad the hay was there, Sue. I'm glad you put it under me." "So'm I glad," declared Sue. "I guess you won't want to be in a circus, will you, Bunny?" "Sure I will. Men fall in circuses, only they fall in nets. But hay is better than a net, 'cept that it tickles you," and Bunny took from his neck some pieces of dried grass that made him wiggle, and "squiggle," as Sue called it. "Hello! What happened here?" asked a voice, and the children looked up to see, standing in the door of the barn, Grandpa Brown. "What happened?" asked the farmer. "Did you fall, Bunny?" I think he must have guessed that, from seeing the way Bunny was sitting on the little pile of hay. "Yes, I--I slipped off the ladder," said the little boy. "But I didn't get hurt." "'Cause I spread hay under him," said Sue. "I thought of it all by myself." "That was fine!" said Grandpa Brown. "But, after this, Bunny, don't you climb up on any ladders, or any other high places. If you are going to use my barn for your circus, you must not get hurt." "We won't!" Bunny promised. "Then keep off ladders. Your little low trapeze is all right, for you will fall in the hay if you slip off that. But no more ladder-climbing!" "All right, Grandpa." Bunny got up. Sue picked up her doll, and Grandpa Brown put back the hay into the mow, for he did not like his barn floor covered with the dried grass, though, of course, he was very glad Sue had put some there for Bunny to fall on. Bunny and Sue went out of the barn, and walked around to the shady side. It was only a little while after breakfast, hardly time to go in and ask for something more to eat, which the children did every day about ten o'clock. At that hour Grandma Brown generally had some bread and jam, or jelly tarts, ready for them. "What can we do until jam-time?" asked Sue, of her brother. "I don't know," he answered. "It's pretty hot." There was nothing more they could do about the circus just then. Bunker and Ben were to make some more trapezes, put other things in the barn, and make the seats. Several other boys and girls had been asked to take part in the "show," but they were not yet sure that their mothers and fathers would let them. So, for a few days, Bunny and Sue could do no more about the circus. "But we ought to do _something_," said Bunny. "It's so hot--" That gave Sue an idea. "We could go paddling in the brook, and get our feet cooled off," said Bunny's sister. "Yes, but we wouldn't be back here in time to get our bread and jam." "That's so," Sue agreed. It would never do to miss "jam-time." "My doll must be hot, too," Sue went on. "I wonder if we could give her a bath?" "How?" Bunny wanted to know. "Why, down in the well," suddenly cried Sue. "We could tie a string around her, and let her down in the well water. That would give her a bath. She's a rubber doll, and a bath won't hurt her. It will do her good." "We'll do it!" cried Bunny. The well was not far from the house. A little later, with a string he had taken from his kite, Bunny was helping Sue lower her rubber doll down the big hole, at the bottom of which was the cool water that was pulled up in a bucket. "Splash!" went the doll down in the well. By leaning over the edge of the wooden box that was built around the water-place, Bunny and Sue could see the rubber doll splashing up and down in the water far below them. "Oh, she likes it! She likes it!" cried Sue, jumping up and down in delight. "Doesn't she just love it, Bunny?" "I guess so," her brother answered. "But she can't talk and tell us so, of course." "Course not!" Sue exclaimed. "My dolls can't talk, 'ceptin' my phonograph one, and she says 'Mamma' and 'Papa,' only now she's broken, inside, and she can't do nothin' but make a buzzin' sound, but I like her just the same." "But if a doll can't talk, how do you know when she likes anything?" asked Bunny. "Why, I--I just know--that's all," Sue answered. "All right," agreed Bunny. "Now it's my turn to pull her up and down, Sue." There was a long string tied around the doll, and the two children were taking turns raising and lowering Sue's play-baby, so the rubber doll would splash up and down in the water. "All right. I'll let you do it once, and then it's my turn again," Sue said. "I guess she's had enough bath now. I'll have to feed her." "And we'll get some bread and jam ourselves, Sue." Just how it happened neither Bunny nor Sue could tell afterward, but Bunny either did not get a good hold of the string, or else it slipped through his fingers. Anyhow, just as Sue was passing the cord to him, it slipped away, and down into the well went doll, string and all. "Oh, Bunny! Bunny Brown!" cried Sue. "You've drowned my lovely doll! Oh, dear!" _ |
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