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Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 7. "Down On The Farm" |
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_ CHAPTER VII. "DOWN ON THE FARM" For a moment Mrs. Brown did not know whether to laugh at Bunny for playing a joke or to tell him he must not do such things when there were visitors at the house. But Bunny looked so serious that his mother thought perhaps he did not mean to be funny. "Who is it?" she asked again. "General Washington," replied the little boy. "Bunny Brown!" cried Mrs. Newton, "what do you mean?" "Well, it's the man who made believe he was General Washington in the Opera House show, anyhow!" declared Bunny. "'Course he doesn't look like General Washington now, but----" Lucile and Mart did not wait for Bunny to finish. Together they ran to the front door. "Bunny Brown, you aren't playing any jokes, are you?" asked his mother. "No'm! Honest I mean it!" cried Bunny, his eyes shining with excitement. "It's the same man who was General Washington and General Grant and a lot of other people at the show in the Opera House! He's at our front door now, and he wants to know if the Happy Day Twins are here." "The Happy Day Twins?" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "That's the name the boy and girl went under on the programme, you know," explained Mrs. Newton. "The same children you have been so kind to--Lucile and Mart Clayton. They took the name of the 'Happy Day Twins' on the stage you know. Did the impersonator want them, Bunny?" she asked. "I didn't see any 'personator," answered the little boy. "He was General Washington, I tell you, only he wasn't dressed up." "I must go and see," declared Mrs. Brown. As she went down the hall she met the brother and sister coming back. They seemed much excited. "It's our friend, Mr. Treadwell," explained Mart. "He heard we had started for this town, and he followed us. He heard about my climbing the tree after the monkey, and some one told him my sister and I had come to your house, Mrs. Brown. May I ask him in? It's Mr. Samuel Treadwell, and he's a good friend of ours." "Certainly, ask him in," said Mrs. Brown, with a smile. "Perhaps he is hungry, too," she said to her friend Mrs. Newton, Mart having gone back to the front door. "I've heard that actors are often hungry." "But he's General Washington, too, isn't he?" demanded Bunny, following Mart. "Yes, he pretends to be all sorts of famous people--on the stage," kindly explained Mart to Bunny. "You'll like him, he can do lots of tricks." "Can he jiggle--I mean juggle?" "Yes, but not as good as the other man in the play." By this time Mrs. Brown had reached the door. On the steps stood an elderly man, with a pleasant smile on his face. Mrs. Brown recognized him at once as the impersonator, though of course he had on no wig or costume now. He looked just like an ordinary man, except that his face was rather more wrinkled. "I'm sorry to trouble you, madam," said the man, "but I have been looking for my little friends, the 'Happy Day Twins,' as they are billed. Their real names are--well, I suppose they have told you," and he smiled at Lucile and Mart, who were standing in the hall. "Yes, we have been learning something about them, but we would be glad to know more, so we could help them," said Mrs. Brown. "Won't you come in? We have just been giving the children a little lunch, and perhaps, if you have not eaten lately, you will be glad to do so now." "More glad than you can guess, madam," said the man with a bow. "I am, indeed, hungry. We have had bad luck, as perhaps Lucile and Mart have told you." "Yes, they spoke of it," said Bunny's mother. "And now please come in, and while you are eating we can talk." "Say, we could have a regular show here now!" whispered Bunny Brown to his sister Sue. "We have three actors now, and you and I would make two more." "Oh, I don't want to be in a show now," said Sue. "I want to hear what they're going to tell mother." Bunny did also, and when Mr. Treadwell had seated himself at the table the children listened to what followed. "When you rang I was just telling Mart that perhaps my husband could give him some work, so enough money could be earned for the trip to New York," said Mrs. Brown. "Is it true that no one knows where these children's uncle and aunt can be found?" "Well, I guess it's true enough," said Mr. Treadwell. "There are two uncles and one aunt, according to the story. William Clayton, who is a brother of Mart's father, is blind, and in some home or hospital--I don't know where, and I guess the children don't either," he added. Lucile and Mart shook their heads. "Simon Weatherby and his wife, Sallie, are brother and sister-in-law of Mrs. Clayton's," went on the impersonator. "The last heard of them was that they sailed for the other side--England, France or maybe Australia for all I know. We theatrical folk travel around a good bit. Anyhow, Simon Weatherby and his wife left in a hurry, and they gave the care of the children over to Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. "Now Mr. Jackson is all right, and a nice man, but he is careless, else he wouldn't get into so much trouble, and he wouldn't have lost the address of Mart's Uncle Simon. But that's how it happened. So the children have some relations if we can only find them, and what they are to do in the meanwhile, now that the show is scattered, is more than I know." "Well, I know one thing they're going to do, and that is stay right here with me until they are sure of a home somewhere else," said Mrs. Brown. "I'm glad to hear you say that!" exclaimed Mr. Treadwell, as he finished his lunch. "I heard they left the boarding house, and that they had no money. Well, I haven't any too much myself, but I followed them, hoping I could find 'em and help 'em. Now I've found my little friends all right," he said, looking kindly at Lucile and Mart, "but some one else has helped them." "They helped some one else first," said Mrs. Newton, with a smile. "Mart got Mr. Winkler's monkey down out of a tree." "I heard about that," returned Mr. Treadwell, with a laugh. "Well, now that I have located you, I suppose I'd better travel on, though where to go or what to do I don't know," he added with a sigh. "I'm not as young as I once was," he added, "and there isn't the demand for impersonators there once was. If I could get back to New York----" He paused and shook his head sadly. "Why don't you stay here and look for work, just as I'm going to do?" asked Mart. "If you get to New York there won't be much chance. All the theater places are filled now for the winter season." "That's so!" agreed the impersonator. "But I don't know what sort of work I could do here." "You--you could be in our show!" interrupted Bunny, who, with Sue, had been listening eagerly to all the talk. "We're going to have a show, and you three could be in it!" "Going to have a show, are you?" asked Mr. Treadwell, with a smile. "Yes, a real one," declared Sue. "Once we had a circus, but this show is going to be in the Opera House, maybe, and we'll give all the money we make to our mother's Red Cross." "That will be nice," said Mr. Treadwell, with a smile. "But I'm afraid I'd be too big to fit into your show." "Oh, no!" exclaimed Bunny. "We're going to have Bobbie Boomer in it, and he's a big fat boy." Mr. Treadwell laughed and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Newton joined in. "What sort of play are you going to have?" asked Mr. Treadwell. "Well, we were just talking about it, in our garage, when Tom Milton told us that Mr. Winkler's monkey was loose," explained Bunny, "and we didn't talk any more about it until just now. But the show is going to be different from the circus." "Where are you going to have it?" asked Mrs. Newton. "I don't know," confessed Bunny. "Maybe my father will let us have it in the boat shop. That's a big place." A step was heard in the hall, and Bunny and Sue cried: "There's our daddy now!" Mr. Brown walked in, kissed the children and seemed quite surprised to see three strangers present. Matters were quickly explained to him, however, and he welcomed Mr. Treadwell, Lucile and Mart. "Do you think you could find work for them?" asked Mrs. Brown, when the stories had been told. "Well, I might," slowly answered Mr. Brown. "I need some help down at the dock and office to get things ready for winter." "Don't make 'em work so hard they can't help in our show," begged Bunny. "Oh, you're going to have another circus, are you?" asked his father, with a smile. "No, it isn't going to be a circus, it's going to be a regular Opera House show!" cried Sue. "What about?" her father wanted to know, as he caught her up in his arms. "We don't know yet," Bunny said. "But maybe the play will be about pirates or Indians or soldiers." "Why don't you have some nice quiet play that would be good for Christmas?" asked Mr. Brown. "Why not have a play with a farm scene in it? You have been down to Grandpa's farm, and you know a lot about the country. Why not have a farm play and call it 'Down on the Farm'?" "That's the very thing!" suddenly cried Mr. Treadwell. "Excuse me for getting so excited," he said, "but when you spoke about a farm play I remembered that we have some farm scenery in our show that failed. I believe you could buy that scenery cheap for the children," he said to Mr. Brown. "There are three scenes, one meadow, a barnyard with a barn and an orchard; and the last had a house with it." "Oh, Daddy! get us the farm theater things for our new play!" cried Bunny Brown. _ |
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