Read Ebook: Bunny Brown and his sister Sue on the rolling ocean by Hope Laura Lee Rogers Walter S Illustrator

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Ebook has 1556 lines and 45030 words, and 32 pages

Bunny Brown acted so much like Sam Gordon, the real grocer, and even imitated his talk and manners so well, that Sue felt like laughing. But she knew that if she did so her brother would not play any more, so she kept as straight a face as she could and said:

"Have you any fresh eggs, Mr. Gordon?"

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Anderson, some very fresh ones. They were picked just this morning!"

"Oh, Bunny Brown, you don't pick eggs! They grow in the chicken coop!" giggled Sue. And Bunny, knowing that he had made a mistake, did not find fault this time with Sue for calling him Bunny instead of Mr. Gordon.

"I mean," corrected the little boy, "that the eggs were laid fresh this morning."

"Then I'll take a dozen," said Sue, getting her face straight again.

Bunny picked up twelve of the larger white pebbles and put these in an old cracker box, of which he had several under the counter.

"Be careful not to break the eggs, Mrs. Anderson," he said, handing Sue the box. "Is there anything else?"

"I think that's all," said Sue gravely, as she had heard her mother say. "How much is it?"

Bunny pretended to be adding up the cost of the pound of white sand-sugar, the two pounds of the brown sand-sugar, and the price of the dozen white-pebble-eggs.

"That's a dollar and fifty-seven cents," he finally said.

Sue took out a large green leaf and two smaller ones. And Bunny gave her back, in change, two red petals from a rose.

"Come again, Mrs. Anderson," he called as Sue, tucking her doll under one arm and her packages under the other, started away from the play store. She walked across the grass and down toward the bushes that grew as a sort of hedge in front of the house.

As she neared the gate, Sue saw something which caused her to cry out:

"Oh, look, Bunny! Look! Quick!"

"Say, didn't I tell you I'm Mr. Gordon, the grocer, and you mustn't call me Bunny?" cried the little boy. "Now I'm not going to play store any more!"

"I don't want to play store!" exclaimed Sue, who was much excited. "Look, Bunny! It's a runaway horse and he's coming right this way!"

This made Bunny forget all about being a grocer. Out from behind the counter he ran to join his sister near the gate. He saw, coming down the street, a galloping horse on the back of which was a man who either had lost the bridle or who did not know how to manage the animal.

"Oh, Sue, it is a runaway!" gasped Bunny, and for the first time since the store game had begun he called his sister by her right name. "I wonder whose it is?"

"I guess it's that man's," said Sue. "Look! He's coming right for us! I'm going to run!"

"He won't come here!" said Bunny. "He can't jump over the bushes, Sue."

The man on the back of the horse seemed either frightened or excited. He was now leaning forward, his arms around the neck of the animal, and he cried:

"Avast there! Belay! Drop your anchor! Pull up at the dock! I want to go ashore!"

Bunny thought this was a funny way to talk to a horse.

"He should say 'whoa' or 'back' to him," thought Bunny. "He's talking just like Bunker Blue or one of the sailors down at daddy's dock."

But neither Bunny Brown nor his sister Sue had time to think much more or do much more. All of a sudden the horse came up on the sidewalk near the Brown gate. Then, just outside the hedge of bushes, the horse came to a sudden stop.

Off his back shot the man, up into the air, over the bushes in a curve, and then he fell to the ground with a groan.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Bunny's sister Sue.

A STRANGE STORY

Bunny Brown was as much excited and frightened as his sister, but he did not scream and call out as Sue did. Instead, Bunny looked at the man, lying so still and quiet on the grass. At first the little boy thought the rider of the runaway horse had been killed when he had been flung in such a queer way over the fence.

But as Bunny looked he saw that the strange man had landed on a pile of grass that had been cut and raked up that morning by Bunker Blue, a boy who worked at Mr. Brown's fish and boat dock.

"The pile of grass was like a cushion," thought Bunny to himself, remembering how once he had fallen on a pile of hay in a field when he and his sister were in the country on Grandpa's farm. Bunny had not been hurt by his fall, and he was hoping the man was not much hurt by his tumble.

That the man was not dead was proved a moment later when he moved slightly, groaned and opened his eyes.

"Hello, what's your name? Are you much hurt?" asked Jed Winkler, who was in the crowd that had rushed up the street after the runaway.

"He's a sailor, just as I used to be!" exclaimed old Jed Winkler, whom Bunny Brown and his sister knew very well. "He's badly hurt, too. He'll have to lay up in the sick bay a spell, I reckon! Catch hold of him, somebody, and we'll lift him!"

While Bunny Brown and Sue looked on, their mother and Uncle Tad, an old soldier who lived with the Brown family, came out of the house.

"Bring the poor man into our house," ordered Mrs. Brown. "I have telephoned for the doctor."

"Oh, Mother! He fell off his horse right in front of Bunny and me!" exclaimed Sue, running toward her mother. "We were playing store!"

"He flew right over the bushes," added Bunny.

"Yes, my dears," said Mrs. Brown. "But run out of the way now until Uncle Tad and Mr. Winkler carry the poor man into our house."

While this is being done I will take just a moment to tell my new readers something of the two children who are to take part in this story.

Their names, as you have already been told, were Bunny and Sue Brown. Their father's name was Walter Brown. He owned a boat and fish business in the seacoast town of Bellemere. He owned a pier which extended out into Sandport Bay, and to this pier were brought the fish which his men caught in nets off the coast.

The fish were packed in barrels of ice and shipped to New York and other cities. Mr. Brown also hired rowboats, sailing craft and motor launches to those who wanted them. He had men to help him, and also a chap named Bunker Blue, who was a big, kindly lad, very fond of Bunny and Sue. You first met the children in the book called "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue," which tells of the funny adventures they had. After that, in other books, you were told how the children went to Grandpa's farm, how they camped, and of their visit to Aunt Lu, after which they went to the big woods, then took an auto tour.

Once Bunny and Sue had had a Shetland pony, and later a trick dog. You may guess that they were fond of playing store, and once they helped in a real store. Just before this story opens, as related in the book, "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at a Sugar Camp," the children had gone to the woods toward the end of winter and had seen how maple sugar was made.

Now it was summer again, and Bunny and Sue were ready for more adventures. But they were hardly prepared for seeing a man tossed off the back of a runaway horse, over their hedge, and almost at their feet.

"Oh, Bunny, do you s'pose he's dead?" whispered Sue to her brother as Uncle Tad, Mr. Winkler, and another man lifted the unconscious man who had said his name was Philip Pott.

"I guess he's not dead," Bunny answered. "He couldn't talk if he was dead."

"Well, anyhow, maybe he's hurt," went on Sue.

"Yes, I guess he is hurt," agreed Bunny.

The children started to go into the house, following the men who were carrying the injured sailor. Some other men and boys in the street caught the runaway horse, which had stopped as soon as it had tossed the man from his back.

"Whose horse is it?" some one asked.

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