Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store
L >> Laura Lee Hope >> Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping StoreAfter a period of study Miss Bradley called the first class in spelling.
Bunny and Sue were in this division, and they went up to the front seats
where Miss Bradley heard all recitations.
"Sadie West, please spell church," called Miss Bradley. Sadie spelled
the word right.
"Sue Brown, please spell horse," called the teacher, and Sue did not
make a miss.
"Now, Bunny, it is your turn," said the teacher, with a smile. "Your
word is cracker."
Bunny paused a moment.
"C--r--a----" he began.
Then suddenly, sounding throughout the school room, a harsh voice cried:
"Cracker! Cracker! Give me a cracker!"
Miss Bradley hurriedly stood up beside her chair. What pupil had thus
dared to speak aloud in school?
CHAPTER VI
A BUSY BUZZER
Bunny, Sue and the other children were just as much surprised as was
Miss Bradley when that strange, harsh voice called out. And it needed
but a look at the faces of her pupils to show the teacher that none of
them had broken one of the rules of the classroom.
Bunny still held his mouth open, for he was half way through the
spelling of the word "cracker." He was about to keep on, when once more
the voice called:
"Cracker! Cracker! Polly wants a cracker!"
The sound came from the cloak closet on one side of the classroom.
"It's a parrot!" cried Charlie Star. "A poll parrot!"
"Yes, I believe it is," said Miss Bradley.
"You didn't bring a parrot to school to-day, did you, Bunny?" she asked.
"Oh, no, Ma'am!" he exclaimed, so earnestly that of course Miss Bradley
believed him.
"But I know whose parrot it is," said Sue, eagerly.
"Whose?" asked the teacher.
"Mr. Winkler's! He's got a parrot and a monkey. They're always getting
loose. Maybe the monkey's in the cloakroom, too, only the monkey can't
talk like Polly," went on Sue.
"Keep your seats, children!" said Miss Bradley. "I'll look in the
cloakroom. There is no need to be excited. A parrot will hurt no one,
nor a monkey, either. Keep your seats!"
As she opened the cloakroom door the harsh voice again sounded more
loudly than before.
"Bow! Wow! Wow!" it barked. "Cracker! Cracker! Polly wants a cracker!
Let's have a song! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Then it began what I suppose the bird thought was singing.
The children laughed, and so did the teacher.
Out of the cloakroom flew the parrot, fluttering up on the teacher's
desk. There it perched, preening its feathers with its big beak and
thick, black tongue, now and then uttering harsh squawks and making
remarks, some of which could not be understood.
"Is this the parrot you meant, Sue?" asked Miss Bradley.
"Yes'm, that's Mr. Winkler's," answered Sue. "I can take it back to him
if you want me to. Polly knows me."
"And he knows me, too!" exclaimed Bunny.
"And me!" eagerly added Charlie Star. "Let me and Bunny take him home,
please?" he begged.
"Is that the way to say it?" remarked the teacher, for the room was more
quiet now. "What should you have said, Charlie?"
"Let Bunny and me," corrected Charlie.
"That's right. Always speak of yourself last. It is more polite. Well, I
think you and Bunny may take the parrot back to Mr. Winkler," went on
the teacher. "Certainly we don't want him in our class, though he seems
a bright bird."
"You ought to see Wango, the monkey, climb!" cried fat Bobbie Boomer,
and all the other children laughed. "He's great!"
"Well, I think a parrot is enough for one day," remarked Miss Bradley,
with a smile. "Take Polly home, Bunny and Charlie."
"Just see, Teacher, he's tame and he knows me," Bunny said, stroking
Polly's head, a caress the parrot seemed to like. Polly perched herself
on Bunny's shoulder, and then he and Charlie went out, envied by the
other pupils.
"Oh that bird! Out again!" cried Miss Winkler, when Polly was restored
to her. "I declare, I'll make Jed get rid of her and Wango! They're more
bother than they're worth!"
"I'll take 'em if you don't want 'em!" offered Charlie Star.
"So will I!" said Bunny.
But as Miss Winkler usually made this threat three or four times a week
(or every time the monkey or parrot got loose), and as Mr. Winkler had
never yet given them away, it did not seem likely that he would do so
now. So Bunny and Charlie had small hopes of owning either pet.
The boys went back to school, passing, on their way, the store of Mrs.
Golden.
"Let's go in," suggested Charlie. "I want to buy a top!"
"All right," agreed Bunny.
"Well, boys, what can I sell you to-day?" asked Mrs. Golden, coming out
from the little back room where she generally sat when there were no
customers to wait on.
"Got any tops?" asked Charlie.
"A few," Mrs. Golden answered, "but not many. I'm going to have a new
lot in next week. Good day, Bunny," she went on. "Did your mother like
that baking powder?"
"I guess so," Bunny answered. Then he and Charlie began looking at the
tops. But the kind Charlie wanted was not in the case, and after looking
at several Charlie decided not to buy any.
"Here's a tin automobile I'm selling cheap," said Mrs. Golden, taking a
red toy out from another case. "It's the last one I have, and I'll sell
it to you for what it cost me--twenty-five cents. The regular price
would be fifty cents. See, I'll wind it up for you."
This she did, setting it down on the floor. With a whizz and a buzz the
auto darted across the store, bringing up with a bang against the low
part of the opposite counter.
"Say, that's a dandy!" exclaimed Charlie. "I'd like to own that!"
"So would I!" agreed Bunny. "Only I haven't twenty-five cents."
"I have!" Charlie said. "I was going to spend only ten cents for a top,
but I guess I'll buy this buzzer auto for a quarter."
"It's in good order," said Mrs. Golden. "I'm not going to keep such
expensive toys after this. I'm getting too old to run a toy store as
well as groceries and notions. I'm giving up most of my toys. But this
is a good auto, Charlie."
"Yes'm, I'll take it," said the little boy, and he bought the auto.
"You can't take it to school with you," said Bunny, as he and his chum
left Mrs. Golden's store.
"Yes, I can," answered Charlie.
"If teacher sees it she'll take it away."
"Well, she won't see it. I can put it in my coat pocket." This Charlie
did, after a struggle, for the pocket was rather small and the toy auto
rather large.
"It sticks out and shows," Bunny said, after the toy had been crowded
in.
"I'll stuff my handkerchief over it," Charlie decided, and this was
done.
Then the two boys went on to school, arriving just as it was time for
recess, so they did not have to go back to their lessons right away.
"And I didn't have to spell!" laughed Bunny. "Though I did know how to
spell cracker."
"Come on!" called Charlie. "We'll have some fun with my new auto! I'll
let it run around the yard."
This he did to the delight of the other boys. As for the girls, they
gathered on the other side of the school yard for their own particular
recess fun.
Sue, Mary Watson, Sadie West, Helen Newton and some others raced about,
playing tag and jumping rope.
"Oh, I know what we can do!" suddenly cried Helen, when they were all
tired from having romped about playing tag.
"What?" asked Sue.
"Let's go down to the end of the yard where the men are digging, and see
how big the hole is," suggested Helen.
"Oh, teacher said we mustn't!" exclaimed Sadie.
"Well, we won't go very close," went on Helen. "She just told us to be
careful not to fall in. But if we don't go too close we can't fall in."
This seemed a safe way of looking at it, and the girls were curious to
see what the workmen had done at the far end of the school yard. The
laborers had been digging for some days, fixing water pipes, and had
made a deep trench, so deep that when a man stood down in it only his
head showed above.
Just now none of the men was near the hole, all having gone away to get
other tools, and as the boys were busy playing at the other end of the
yard, or watching Charlie's auto, the girls could explore the digging by
themselves.
"It's nothing but a hole!" said Sue, in some disappointment, as they
approached as near as they dared and looked in.
"I'd like to go down in it!" exclaimed Helen, who was rather daring.
"Oh!" cried Sue. "Come back! Don't go too close!"
But Helen did not heed. She went up to the very edge of the long, deep
trench, and was looking in when suddenly her feet slipped out from under
her, and down she went, sliding right into the hole!
"Oh! Oh!" she cried.
"Oh! Oh!" screamed the other girls, and in such excited voices that Miss
Bradley came running out of the classroom and the boys crowded down to
the end of the yard.
"What has happened?" asked the teacher.
"Helen Newton fell into the big hole!" cried Sadie West.
"Did the dirt cave in on her?" asked Miss Bradley.
Fortunately, it had not. The walls of the trench were firm and solid,
and the only thing that had happened was that Helen was down in the
deep trench, and could not get up by herself. She was crying now.
"Don't cry," said Miss Bradley. "You're all right. We'll soon get you
out. Now you other boys and girls keep back from the edges, or you'll
cause the sides to cave in and they'll cover Helen! Keep back, Bunny,
Sue, every one!"
This was good advice, and as the other children moved back away from the
trench there was less danger. Miss Bradley was just going to send one of
the boys to call the janitor when two workmen came back. They broke into
a run as they saw the crowd about their digging place, for they had told
the teacher to keep the children away from it.
"There's been an accident!" said one man.
But it was not so bad as he feared, and he and his companion soon lifted
Helen out on solid ground again, a rather frightened little girl, but
not in the least hurt.
"I told you to stay away from that hole!" said Miss Bradley, rather
severely. "I was afraid something like this might happen. It is
fortunate it was no worse. Who started it?"
There was a moment's pause, and then Helen raised her hand. She had been
crying.
"If--if you please, Teacher, I went there first," she stammered.
"Well, I think your fright has been punishment enough for you," said
Miss Bradley kindly, "and we will say nothing more about it. But if any
of you go near that hole again he or she will be kept in after school.
It isn't that I mind your seeing what the workmen are doing, it is just
that it would be dangerous for even grown folks to go too near the edge
of the trench, and much more so for you little folk. So keep away from
the hole. I hope the pipes will be in this week, and the hole closed up.
Now do you all promise to keep away?" she asked. "Raise your hands!"
Every hand went up, for the boys and girls were fond of their teacher
and did not want to cause her worry.
It was a solemn moment, for they all felt that something dreadful might
have happened to Helen had the dirt caved in on her.
"Hands down," said Miss Bradley, and down they went.
Just then the bell rang. Recess was over, and the lines of boys and
girls marched into the schoolhouse once again.
Charlie Star reached for his handkerchief, which he had again stuffed
over his toy automobile after he had crowded that toy into his pocket
when going back into school after recess. As he pulled out his
handkerchief the auto came with it and fell to the floor.
Suddenly there was a strange buzzing sound in the room. Neither the
teacher nor the girls knew what it was, but Bunny and the boys knew it
was Charlie Star's new toy automobile which he had bought from Mrs.
Golden.
With a buzz the busy auto ran from Charlie's desk straight down the
aisle toward Miss Bradley, who was standing in front of her platform.
CHAPTER VII
THE BARN STORE
For a second or two Miss Bradley seemed to pay no attention to the
buzzing sound which Bunny, Charlie, and some of the other pupils heard
only too plainly. The teacher was busy thinking whether she had done
enough talking to make sure her boys and girls would not again go near
the deep hole in the school yard.
"I wouldn't want any of them to get hurt," thought Miss Bradley. "I had
better scare them a little now than have any of them harmed the least
bit."
She was thinking what else she might say, to impress on the pupils the
danger of the hole, when she seemed to hear, for the first time, the
buzzing of Charlie's auto.
"What's that?" asked Miss Bradley.
No one answered, except that, here and there in the room, a boy or girl
snickered.
There was one queer thing about Charlie's new toy auto. It made a great
deal of buzzing as the wheels whirred around when the wound-up spring
made them do this, but the machine itself did not go very fast. It
seemed to make a great fuss about getting anywhere, but it took its own
time in doing it.
This was the reason why the auto, though it had been pulled out of
Charlie's pocket with his handkerchief and had fallen into the aisle
down which it ran, did not very soon get where Miss Bradley could see
it. She could hear the buzzing sound, but she did not know what it was.
"Who is making that noise?" she asked again.
No one answered, for, truth to tell, neither a boy nor a girl in the
room was causing the noise; though of course Charlie was to blame, in a
way.
Miss Bradley was looking over the room, into the faces of her pupils.
The buzzing sound kept up. It seemed to be coming nearer and nearer. The
windows were open, and she thought a bee or a wasp might have flown in.
But it would be a very large wasp or bee, indeed, which would make so
loud a buzzing sound as this.
"Children----" began Miss Bradley, and then she suddenly stopped, for
something struck her on the foot. And it was right near her foot that
the buzzing noise sounded. But as she had walked a little way down from
her platform, and her foot was partly under the first desk--that of fat
Bobbie Boomer--Miss Bradley could not see what had struck her.
"Oh!" she cried, as she jumped back, rather startled.
Charlie Star and Bunny Brown could not help laughing right out loud.
They knew what had caused all this excitement.
A moment later Miss Bradley knew also. For Charlie's buzzing auto,
having struck her foot, turned aside and rolled out on the floor in
front of her teaching platform, in plain sight. There the little red toy
came to a stop, for its spring was fully unwound.
Charlie and Bunny stopped their laughing suddenly as the teacher looked
down at them.
"Whose is this?" asked Miss Bradley, in a voice she hardly ever used in
the classroom, for her pupils were generally very orderly. "Who owns
this automobile?" she asked, sternly.
Timidly Charlie Star raised his hand.
"If you please, Teacher, it's mine," he said. And such a weak little
voice as it was! Not at all like the loud, hearty tones Charlie used
when he called to Bunny, "first shot agates!"
Miss Bradley stooped over and picked up the toy. She placed it on her
desk, and then, turning to face the children, she said:
"I am very sorry about this. I thought, after what had happened to
Helen, that you were going to settle down and study your lessons. Why
did you bring this auto to school, Charlie? And why did you take it
out?"
Charlie was silent a moment, and then he answered, saying:
"I--I didn't exactly take it out, Miss Bradley. It came out when I took
out my handkerchief. I--I didn't mean to do it."
"Very well then, you didn't," the teacher agreed, with a little smile,
for she knew Charlie was telling the truth. "But why did you bring the
auto to school at all?"
Then Charlie told of having bought the toy that morning, on his way to
school with Bunny Brown.
"I didn't have time to go home with it after I bought it," he said, "so
I put it in my pocket. We played with it at recess, and I forgot and
wound it up and stuck it in my pocket. I didn't mean to let it get out
and run down the aisle."
Miss Bradley wanted to smile, but she knew it would not be just the
thing to do. So she said:
"Well, Charlie, I will excuse you this time. But please don't bring any
more toys into the schoolroom. And now, as we have lost much time from
our lessons, we must study extra hard to make it up. Come to me after
school, Charlie, and I'll give you back your auto."
Miss Bradley put the toy in her desk for safe keeping, and went on with
the lessons. But it was rather hard for the pupils to get their minds
back on their studies, because so much had happened that day from the
time the parrot had screeched "Cracker! Cracker!" in the cloakroom
until Charlie's auto fell out of his pocket and went buzzing down the
aisle to bang into the teacher's foot.
However, the day came to an end at last, and then, talking and laughing,
the boys and girls ran out of doors. Charlie stayed after the others,
and walked shyly up to the desk at which Miss Bradley sat, looking over
some examination papers. The room was very still and quiet after the
noise and excitement of the children's outgoing.
"Yes, Charlie. What is it?" asked Miss Bradley, as she saw him standing
near her desk.
"If you please--my auto----"
"Oh, yes," and she opened her desk and handed it to him. "It is a cute
little toy," and she smiled at Charlie.
"You ought to see it go!" he exclaimed eagerly, for Miss Bradley was
really a friend to her pupils, and she knew how to make kites and spin
tops almost as good as a boy.
"Here! I'll show you!" Charlie went on. "It's a dandy!"
Quickly he wound up the auto and set it down on the floor. The wheels
buzzed and the little red car spun across the schoolroom floor.
Bunny Brown and George Watson, waiting outside for Charlie, wondered
what was keeping their chum. They knew he had stayed in to get his
plaything.
"Maybe she's going to make him stay in half an hour," suggested George.
"She didn't say she was," replied Bunny. "But maybe she's giving him
a--a leshure." What Bunny meant was lecture.
"Let's look in," suggested George.
On tiptoes they went to a window whence they could see into the room.
There they saw Miss Bradley winding up Charlie's auto, and they heard
Charlie saying:
"You try it now, Miss Bradley! See how nice it runs!"
And as the surprised watchers looked on, their teacher started the toy
across the floor as Charlie had done. For, following the first showing
of his plaything, Charlie had offered to let his teacher wind it, and
she had agreed.
"Yes, it is a cute toy," said the teacher, as the auto banged into a
side wall and stopped. "But we mustn't play with it in school hours."
"Oh, no'm!" agreed Charlie, and then he hurried outside, where Bunny and
George were waiting for him.
"Say, you ought to see!" exclaimed Charlie, half breathless. "She ran
the auto herself!"
"We saw her," said Bunny.
"She's a dandy teacher all right!" declared George.
One Saturday morning Bunny and Sue came downstairs to breakfast at the
same hour as on other days. Usually this did not happen, for on
Saturdays they were allowed to remain in bed a little longer than on
days when they had to go to school.
"Well, what does this mean?" asked Uncle Tad, who was finishing his meal
and reading the paper at the same time. "This is Saturday, isn't it?
Unless I have on the wrong glasses!" he added, as he looked at the
calendar on the wall.
"Yes, it's Saturday," said Bunny.
"Then why are you up so early?" asked Uncle Tad.
"'Cause a lot of the boys and girls are coming over, and we're going to
play store out in our barn," explained Sue. "You can come and buy
something if you want to, Uncle Tad."
"Thanks! Maybe I will!" chuckled the old soldier. "Are you going to sell
any inside outside cocoanuts flavored with saltmint?" he asked.
"What are those?" Bunny inquired.
"Oh, he's only joking!" declared Sue, as she saw a twinkle in the eyes
of Uncle Tad. And of course he was joking.
"Well, maybe I'll look in and see what you do have to sell in your barn
store," he said, as he left the table.
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were not long in finishing their
breakfast, and then they hurried out to the barn where they were to keep
store. Bunny and Sue had found some boards and boxes out there which
would make fine shelves for a pretend store.
"We'll put the shelves up before the others get here," said Bunny.
"Yes," she agreed. "But what kind of store are you going to play? Are
you going to have washboilers and tin pans?"
"No, I guess not," said Bunny, after thinking about it a moment. "We'll
keep a store like Mrs. Golden's."
"Yes, that will be nice," agreed Sue. "Here, Splash!" she cried. "Get
out of there! That box isn't for you to sleep in!" For the big dog had
crawled into one of the boxes that were to form the store shelves.
Splash was curling up most comfortably.
"We'll use him for a delivery dog," said Bunny. "We'll tie a basket on
his neck and he can take the groceries and things to different places."
"Oh, that will be fun!" laughed Sue, clapping her hands. "Here comes
Helen!" she cried a moment later, and then, with joyous shouts and
laughter, a number of children came running into the Brown yard, ready
to play barn store.
CHAPTER VIII
IN A HOLE
"What things are you going to sell?"
"Who's going to tend store?"
"I want to be cashier!"
These were some of the things the boys and girls shouted as they ran
into the barn where Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were waiting for them
to play store. Charlie Star, Helen Newton, fat Bobbie Boomer, Harry
Bentley, George and Mary Watson and Sadie West were among the boys and
girls who came crowding into the barn, for the day before Bunny and his
sister had invited them to spend Saturday in having fun.
"We'll take turns tending store," explained Bunny, after he had shown
his playmates the shelves and boxes that were to be used for shelves.
"And we're going to have our dog Splash deliver things with a basket on
his neck," explained Sue.
"I should think it would be more fun to hitch up your pony Toby to the
basket cart and have him to deliver things," remarked Helen.
"We thought of that," replied Bunny. "But Bunker Blue has taken Toby
down to the boat dock. He has to do some errands for my father, so we
can't have Toby."
As Bunny and his sister had played this game more than the others, they
were allowed to lay out the plans. Bunny showed the boys how the boards
were to be put across the boxes to make shelves, and Sue took the girls
down to the brook to gather little pebbles and the shells of fresh water
mussels which were to be used for money, as there were going to be so
many "customers" for the barn store that Mrs. Brown's buttons would not
be enough to make change.
"What things are we going to sell?" asked Charlie, as he began pulling
something from his pocket.
"Oh, we'll get stones, sand, gravel, some leaves, pieces of bark,
twigs, and things like that," Bunny explained. "But what you got in your
pocket, Charlie?"
"My wind-up auto. I thought maybe we could use it in the store."
"How?"
"Well, it could be like a cash register. You see," Charlie went on,
"somebody's got to be the cashier just as in a big store. We'll have
different clerks, and when anybody buys anything they must pay the money
to whoever is clerk."
"Yes," agreed Bunny, who understood thus far.
"Then," went on Charlie, "the clerk must put the money the customer pays
into my auto, and send it on a plank up to the cashier's desk. The
cashier will make change and send it back in the auto."
"Oh, that'll be great!" cried Bunny. "And I guess you ought to be the
cashier for thinking it up, Charlie."
"Well, maybe I ought, 'cause it's my auto," Charlie said. He had been
hoping for this all along. "Now I'll make myself a place to be
cashier," he went on, "and I'll fix up a long plank for the auto to run
back and forth on. One winding will bring it up to me and back to the
clerk."
When the other children heard this plan they were much delighted. Soon
the store was ready for business. Boards had been placed across the
boxes and a tier of shelves made, the top one so high that a long box
had to be used like a stepladder to reach it. On the shelves were placed
different things picked up around the barn, in the yard, and in the
patch of woods not far away, or brought from the shore of the brook.
Then the boys and girls divided themselves up, some were to be customers
to buy things in the store, while others were to be clerks to wait on
the customers. Charlie took his place at the end of the tier of shelves
to act as cashier. From the end of the shelves to his box ran a long
narrow plank on which the auto change-carrier was to run.
Finally everything was ready, even to torn pieces of newspaper in which
the things bought were to be wrapped. Splash was on hand with a basket
tied to his neck to deliver the goods. And each customer had picked out
a certain part of the barn as his or her "home" where the things were to
be delivered.
"All ready!" called Bunny Brown. He and Sue were to be clerks in the
store at first; afterward they would take a turn at being customers.
"I want a pound of sugar!" ordered Sadie West, coming up to Bunny,
standing behind his part of the front counter.