Chapter 1. "Look At The Skylight!"

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_ CHAPTER I. "LOOK AT THE SKYLIGHT!"

With a joyful laugh, her curls dancing about her head, while her brown eyes sparkled with fun, a little girl danced through the hall and into the dining room where her brother was eating a rather late breakfast of buckwheat cakes and syrup.

"Oh, Bunny, it's doing it! It's come! Oh, won't we have fun!" cried the little girl.

Bunny Brown looked up at his sister Sue, holding a bit of syrup-covered cake on his fork.

"What's come?" he asked. "Has Aunt Lu come to visit us, or did Wango, the monkey, come up on our front steps?"

"No, it isn't Mr. Jed Winkler's monkey and Aunt Lu didn't come, but I wish she had," answered Sue. "But it's come--a lot of it, and I'm so glad! Hurray!"

Bunny Brown put down his fork and looked more carefully at his sister.

"What are you playing?" he asked, thinking perhaps it was some new game.

"I'm not playing anything!" declared Sue. "I'm so glad it's come! Now we can have some fun! Just look out the window, Bunny Brown!"

"But what has come?" asked the little boy, who was a year older than his sister Sue. He was a bright chap, with merry blue eyes and they opened wide now, trying to see what Sue was so excited about.

"What is it?" asked Bunny Brown once more.

"It's snow!" cried Sue. "It's the first snow, and it's soon going to be Thanksgiving and Christmas and all like that! And we can get out our sleds, and we can go skating and make snow men and--and--and----"

But she just had to stop. She was all out of breath, and she didn't seem to have any words left with which to talk to Bunny.

"Oh! Snow!" exclaimed Bunny, and he said; it in such a funny way that Sue laughed.

Just then in came her mother from the kitchen where she had been baking more cakes for her little boy.

"Oh, it's you, is it, Sue?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Do you want some more breakfast?"

"No, thank you, Mother. I had mine. I just came in to tell Bunny it's snowing. And we can have a lot of fun, can't we?"

"Well, you children do manage to have a lot of fun, one way or another," said Mrs. Brown, with a smile.

"Is it snowing, Mother?" asked Bunny, too excited now to want to finish his breakfast.

"Yes, it really is," answered Mrs. Brown. "I was so busy getting enough cakes baked for you that I didn't notice the snow much. But, as Sue says, it is coming down quite fast."

"Hurray!" cried Bunny, even as Sue had done. "Do you think there will be lots of the snow?"

"Well, it looks as though there might be quite a storm for the first snow of the season," replied the mother of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. "It's a bit early this year, too. It's almost two weeks until Thanksgiving and here it is snowing. I'm afraid we're going to have a hard winter."

"With lots of snow and ice, Mother?" asked Bunny.

"Yes. And with cold weather that isn't good for poor folks."

"Oh, I'm glad!" cried Bunny. "Not about the poor folks, though," he added quickly, as he saw his mother look at him in surprise. "But I'm glad there'll be lots of ice. Sue and I can go skating."

"And there'll be lots of ice for ice-cream next summer," added Sue.

Mrs. Brown laughed. Then, as she saw Bunny racing to the window with Sue, to push aside the curtains and look out at the falling white flakes, she said:

"Come back and finish your breakfast, Bunny. I want to clear off the table."

"I want to see the snow, first," replied the little boy. "Anyhow, I guess I've had enough cakes."

"Oh, and I just brought in some nice, hot, brown ones!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown.

"I'll help eat 'em!" offered Sue, and though she had had her breakfast a little while before, she now ate part of a second one, helping her brother.

It was Saturday, and, as there was no school, Mrs. Brown had allowed both children to sleep a little later than usual. Sue had been up first, and, after eating her breakfast and playing around the house, she had gone to the window to look out and wish that Bunny would get up to play and have fun with her.

Then she had seen the first snow of the season and had run into the dining room to find her brother there eating his late meal.

"May we go out in the snow and play?" asked Bunny, when he had finished the last of the brown cakes and the sweet syrup.

"Yes, if you put on your boots and your warm coats. You don't want to get cold, you know, or you can't go to the play in the Opera House this afternoon."

"Oh, we've got to see that!" cried Bunny. "I 'most forgot; didn't you, Sue?"

"Yes," replied the little girl, "I did. Maybe it will snow so hard that they can't have the show, like once it rained so hard we couldn't play circus in the tent Grandpa put up for us in the lot."

"Yes, it did rain hard," agreed Bunny. "And it's snowing hard," he added, as he squirmed into his coat and again looked out of the window. "Will it snow so hard they can't give the show, Mother?" he asked.

"Oh, I think not," answered Mrs. Brown. "This play isn't going to be in a tent, you know. It's in the Opera House, and they give shows there whether it rains or snows. I think you may both count on going to the show this afternoon."

"Oh, what fun!" cried Bunny.

"Lots of fun!" echoed Sue.

Then out they ran to play amid the swirling, white flakes; and it is hard to say whether they had more fun in the first snow or in thinking about the play they were to see in the Opera House that afternoon.

At any rate Bunny Brown and his sister Sue certainly had fun playing out in the yard of their house and in the street in front. At first there was not snow enough to do more than make slides on the sidewalk, and the little boy and girl did this for a time. They made two long slides, and men and women coming along smiled to see the brother and sister at play. But these same men and women were careful not to step on the slippery slides made by Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, for they did not want to slip and fall.

As for Bunny and Sue, they did not mind whether they fell or not. Half the time they were tumbling down and the other half getting up again. But they managed to do some sliding, too.

"Come on!" cried Bunny, after a bit. "There's enough now to make snowballs!"

"Could we make a snow house, too?" asked his sister.

"No, there isn't enough for that. But we can make snowballs and throw 'em!"

"Don't throw any at me!" begged Sue. "'Cause if you did, an' the snow went down my neck, it would melt and I'd get wet an' then I couldn't go to the show an' you'd be sorry!"

This was rather a long sentence for Sue, and she was a bit out of breath when she had finished.

"No, I won't throw any snowballs at you," promised Bunny.

"Oh, here come Harry Bentley and Charlie Star!" exclaimed Sue.

"I'll throw snowballs at them!" decided Bunny. "Hi!" he called to two of his boy chums. "Let's throw snowballs!"

"We're with you!" answered Charlie.

"I'm not going to play snowball fight," decided Sue. "I see Mary Watson and Sadie West. I'm going to play with them."

So she trotted off to make little snow dolls with her girl friends, while Bunny, with Charlie and Harry, threw soft snowballs at one another. The children were having such fun that it seemed only a few minutes since breakfast when Mrs. Brown called:

"Bunny! Sue! Come in and get washed for lunch. And you have to get dressed if you're going to the play!"

"Oh, we're going, sure!" exclaimed Bunny. "Are you?" he asked Charlie and Harry.

"Yes," they replied, and when Sue ran toward her house with Bunny she told her brother that Sadie and Mary were also going to the play that afternoon in the town Opera House.

"Oh, we'll have a lot of fun!" cried Bunny. "Will it be a funny play?" he asked Uncle Tad, who had promised to take the two children.

"Well, I guess it'll be funny for you two youngsters," was the answer of the old soldier. "But I guess it isn't much of a theatrical company that would come to Bellemere to give a show so near the beginning of winter. But it will be all right for boys and girls."

"It's a show for the benefit of our Red Cross Chapter," said Mrs. Brown. "That's why I asked you to take the children, Uncle Tad. I have to be with the other ladies of the committee, to help take tickets and look after things."

"Oh, I'll look after Bunny and Sue!" exclaimed Uncle Tad. "I'll see that they have a good time!"

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were so excited because of the first snow storm and because of thinking of the play they were to see, that they could hardly dress. But at last they were ready, and they set off in the family automobile, which Uncle Tad drove. Mrs. Brown went along also, but Mr. Brown had to stay at the office. The office was at the dock where he owned a fish and boat business.

It was still snowing, and the ground was now quite white, when the automobile drew up at the Opera House, which was where all sorts of shows and entertainments were given in Bellemere, the home of the Brown family.

"We can have a lot more fun in the snow to-morrow!" whispered Sue, as she and her brother passed in, Uncle Tad handing the tickets to Mrs. Gordon, who smiled at them. She was one of the committee of ladies who, like Mrs. Brown, were helping with the entertainment. There were to be speeches by some of the men of Bellemere, but what would be more enjoyable to the young folks was the performance of a number of vaudeville actors and actresses, said to come all the way from New York.

"There's a jiggler who holds a cannon ball on his neck," whispered Charlie Star to Bunny, when the Brown children had found their seats, which were near those of some of their friends.

"He means a juggler," said George Watson.

"Yes, that's it--a juggler," agreed Charlie.

"And there are a little boy and girl who do tricks and sing," added Mary Watson. "I saw their pictures."

"Oh, it'll be lovely!" sighed Sue. "I wish it would begin!"

The boys, girls and grown folks were still coming in and taking their seats. The curtain hid the stage. And how the children did wonder what was going on behind that piece of painted canvas! The musicians were just beginning to "tune up," as Uncle Tad said. The ushers were hurrying to and fro, seating the late-comers. One of the men who worked in the Opera House, sweeping it out, attending to the fires in winter, and sometimes selling tickets, got a long pole to open a skylight ventilator, to let in some fresh air.

Just how it happened no one seemed to know, but suddenly the long pole slipped and there was a crash and tinkle of glass. Nearly every one jumped in his or her seat, and some one cried:

"Look at the skylight! It's going to fall!"

Bunny Brown, his sister Sue, and every one else looked up. True enough, something had gone wrong with the skylight the man had tried to open. It seemed to have slipped from its place in the frame where it was fastened in the roof, and the big window of metal and glass looked as though about to fall on the heads of the audience directly under it.

"Oh, Bunny, let's run!" cried Sue. "It's going to drop right on us!"

And truly it did seem so. Slowly the big skylight was slipping from its fastenings, and several in the audience screamed. _

Read next: Chapter 2. "Let's Give A Show!"


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