Bunny Brown and his sister Sue and their trick dog

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue and their trick dog, by Laura Lee Hope

Produced by: David Edwards, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone in the home of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. Ting-a-ling!

“I’ll answer it!” called Bunny, for he knew his mother was down in the kitchen, helping the maid get supper ready. It was almost supper time. Bunny could tell this, he said, “by the empty feeling in his little tummy.”

“I’m going!” fairly shouted Bunny, for he heard the footsteps of his sister Sue coming down the hall.

[2]“No, ’tisn’t! It’s mine!” and Bunny fairly yelled this, he was so excited.

“Children! Children!” gently called their mother, as she opened the kitchen door, thereby letting out the delicious smell of baking tarts, of which Bunny and his sister were very fond. “Gently, children!” begged Mrs. Brown. “I can’t have you answering the telephone if you are going to shout like that. Think what the person on the other end of the wire would say if they heard you.”

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! rang the bell again so loudly and so long that it seemed to mean some one was very impatient on the other end of the line, though of course the girl in the central office was doing the ringing.

“You may both go,” decided Mrs. Brown. “Sue, you may talk over the telephone that is down in the library. Bunny, you go upstairs and talk over the telephone in the sitting room.”

[3]Perhaps she knew that she would get to the telephone first, for Bunny had to run upstairs from the downstairs hall. And Sue was first. Taking the receiver off the hook she called:

“Yes, I’m here!” answered Bunny for himself, as by this time he had reached the upstairs telephone—an extension of the one from downstairs. Thus both children could talk to their father at once and he to them.

“Listen quietly, children, and don’t talk back until I ask you to,” cautioned Mr. Brown. “Are you listening?”

The children wondered what it could all be about. Why was their father so particular to have them listen carefully?

Mrs. Brown caught enough of the talk from Bunny and Sue to learn that it was her husband who was on the other end of the wire.[4] He often called up from the boat dock just before supper, to let her know he was on the way home. Bunny and Sue had taken such messages many times before, but this time seemed a bit different.

“I want to ask you a question,” said Mr. Brown, at his end of the wire. “Are you going to be at home this evening, Bunny?”

“That’s good,” said his father. “Are you going to be at home after supper, Sue?”

“Course I am, Daddy!” she replied, with a laugh. “What makes you ask such a funny question?”

“Because I want to know,” went on Mr. Brown, and Bunny was sure he could hear his father laughing back there in the office on the boat and fish dock. “Now don’t forget! Don’t go out after supper. And don’t go out until I come home. Tell mother I’ll be there soon.”

“But what for, Daddy?” asked Bunny. “Why don’t you want us to go out?”

“Are you going to take us to the movies?”[5] asked Sue. For sometimes Daddy Brown did this when there was a children’s play early in the evening.

“Well, we may go to the movies,” said Mr. Brown. “But perhaps you won’t care to go after you see what you’re going to see.”

“Oh, what are we going to see?” cried Bunny, catching at a new tone in his father’s voice.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Mr. Brown. “You can tell better after you see it. But I haven’t time to talk any more now. Yes, Bunker Blue, I’m coming,” he said in a side voice which Bunny and Sue could hear. Bunker Blue was a red-haired boy who worked at Mr. Brown’s boat and fish dock. Then their father ended with: “Now don’t forget, Bunny[6] and Sue. Don’t go out this evening. Wait for the surprise.”

They hung up the telephone receivers, and after that you could not have gotten them away from the house even if a lot of fire-engines had raced by outside.

“Well, children, what was it?” asked Mrs. Brown, as Bunny came sliding down the banister as the quickest way of reaching the first floor, while Sue ran out from the library. “Is daddy coming home soon?”

“And he’s going to bring a surprise!” burst out Sue. “A surprise! A surprise! Oh, Mother, what do you s’pose it is?” she asked, her eyes big with wonder.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” and Mrs. Brown smiled. “Maybe it’s a lollypop or a picture book.”

“But they’d be nice just the same!” Sue made haste to say, fearing that Bunny was not[7] grateful enough. “Picture books and lollypops are very nice.”

“But they’re not zactly surprises!” said Bunny. “I guess daddy has a better surprise than that.”

The children could hardly wait for their father to come home. Again and again they raced to the front door, thinking they heard him coming, but it was a “false alarm.” Then they went out on the front steps to look down the street and wait. After a while Mr. Brown came along.

“Maybe he has it in his pocket,” suggested Sue. Like her brother she had noticed that Mr. Brown carried nothing in his hands.

Down the street in the early summer evening raced Bunny Brown and his sister Sue to meet their father. Laughing, he caught them up in his arms, one on either side, and carried them along with him.

“Though you’re getting so big I’ll soon have[8] to stop this,” he said, with another laugh. “My, but you’re getting heavy!”

“No, I didn’t bring it. But it’s coming right after supper,” said Daddy Brown.

“Oh, now I can guess what it is! Toby, our Shetland pony, is coming back!” cried Bunny.

“No, that isn’t the surprise,” he answered, as he set the children down inside the fence in front of the house. “Now don’t try to guess any more, or you won’t be able to eat any supper. As soon as we have eaten the surprise will come.”

“No, it will be best to eat first and have the[9] surprise afterward,” their father said. “Otherwise you might not eat.”

Whether Daddy Brown told Mother Brown in a whisper what the surprise was, I do not know. I rather think he did before he sat down to supper. But the children were kept guessing, and you can imagine how impatient they were.

But finally the meal was over and as Mr. Brown looked at his watch and pushed back his chair there came a ring at the front doorbell.

“I’ll go,” said Daddy, as the maid started to answer. “No, you children sit still,” he ordered, shaking his finger at them. “If this is the surprise—and I think it is—I want to introduce you to it in the right way.”

So, more impatient than before, Bunny and Sue kept their seats while their father went into the front hall. They heard him open the door and then a man’s voice asked:

[10]“No, there is no one of that name on this street,” answered Mr. Brown. “What business is he in?” asked the children’s father. And as they rightly guessed this was not the visitor Mr. Brown expected and as it could not be the surprise, Bunny and Sue felt that they might take a peep at the front door. Their mother nodded her permission.

Bunny and Sue saw their father talking to an old and ragged man. He was almost as ragged as a tramp, and yet he did not seem to be a tramp.

“What does this Mr. Denton do that you are asking about?” inquired Mr. Brown.

“He’s in the circus business,” answered the old man, and Bunny and Sue felt sorry for him, he looked so sad and tired. “I used to know him. We were in the show business together. I was thinking he might help me——”

“Oh, no, thank you, I’m not quite as badly off as that—yet. Though I may be,” answered the old and ragged man in a sad voice. “If[11] I could find Mr. Denton he might help me to get back in the show business again. Some one told me he lived around here.”

“I don’t believe he does,” said Mr. Brown, as the children stood behind him in the hall. “I know all the men around here and there is no Mr. Denton who was in the circus business.”

“Well, then, I’ll have to search further,” said the weary old man. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Oh, it was no bother,” said Mr. Brown. “I thought you were some one I was expecting. Good-night!”

“Good-night,” echoed the old man, and Bunny and Sue felt very sorry for him as he went feebly down the steps and shuffled off.

“Well, that wasn’t the surprise after all,” said Mr. Brown, as he shut the door.

They all went back to the dining room. Mr. Brown was telling about the old man who was seeking a Mr. Denton in the circus business when again the front doorbell rang.

[12]“This is the surprise, I’m sure!” cried Daddy Brown. “Now stay here, children, until I call to you to open the door into the hall,” he warned.

Bunny and Sue, so impatient they could hardly keep still, waited. They heard the front door open. They heard their father talking. Then came a funny, squeaking, whining sound.

Bunny and Sue together turned the knob, and into the room stalked a funny little chap, wearing a red cap, a white coat, and blue trousers. In he stepped and began dancing around.

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were really surprised at Daddy Brown’s surprise. Never had they been so astonished. They watched the queer little chap with his red, white and blue suit dancing around the room.

“Do you want to keep him?” asked Mr. Brown, laughing at the surprise of his two children.

And while the children are trying to guess I will tell my new readers a little about Bunny and Sue so they will, I hope, be better friends from knowing them better.

Mr. and Mrs. Walter Brown lived with[14] Bunny and Sue—their only children—in the eastern city of Bellemere, on Sandport Bay, not far from the ocean. Mr. Brown owned a boat and fish dock, and Bunker Blue, the red-haired boy, was one who helped run it. Sometimes Uncle Tad, who had fought “in the war,” as Bunny told his chums, worked down at the dock, and often the old soldier would go on little trips with the children.

Mr. Brown rented boats, and he sold fish when the men he hired were lucky enough to catch any. He also sold clams, crabs, and lobsters. Bunny and Sue knew how to catch crabs. But to get lobsters the boats had to go far out to sea, and the children were not allowed to do this unless daddy was with them.

In the first book of this series, called “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue,” I related to you some of the many adventures of this pair. After the happenings related in that book, Bunny and Sue went to Grandpa’s farm, they played circus, they went to their Aunt Lu’s city home and to camp. After some adventures in the big woods, the children were[15] taken on an automobile trip, and when they came back, to their delight, their father bought them a Shetland pony.

Having a pony, Bunny thought it would be a good idea to give a “show,” so he and Sue did that, and on their next vacation they were taken to Christmas Tree Cove. A trip to the sunny South was taken just before the children helped Mrs. Golden, who owned a little grocery, and in the book just before the one you are now reading—a book named “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store”—I told you all the children did to aid Mrs. Golden.

And now we come to the present time, when Bunny and Sue were given a glad surprise by their father.

Around and around the room waltzed and danced the funny little chap in his red, white and blue clown suit, and Bunny and Sue kept asking:

Bunny was just going to guess that it was a monkey dressed up like a little dwarf when from beneath the cap came a sharp:

“Yes,” answered Mr. Brown. “He is your dog. Down, sir!” he commanded, and the dog dropped to all fours and stood looking at Mr. Brown as if for further orders.

“Is he a trick dog?” asked Sue. She wanted her father to tell her for sure. And Mr. Brown answered:

“I took him for a debt,” was the reply. “A Frenchman, who had trained this trick dog, owed me some money for fish and for boat hire. I had about given up all hope of ever[17] getting my money, for the Frenchman said he was so poor he thought he could not pay for a long time. Then he asked me if I had children and if they loved animals. And when I said I had, and when I told him, Bunny and Sue, how fond you were of your dog Splash, when you had him, and how you liked your Shetland pony, Toby, the man asked me to take this trick dog in place of the money he owed me.”

“Yes, I did,” admitted Mr. Brown. “It was the only way to get anything from the poor Frenchman. So I had him bring the dog to the dock this afternoon, and then he showed me how to make him go through some of his tricks. Then I telephoned to you about the surprise.”

“I left him for Bunker Blue to bring,” explained Mr. Brown. “And when that old man, who inquired about the circus, rang the bell, I thought that was Bunker. But he[18] came a little later. And now, do you like your new trick dog?”

“Oh, yes, the dog is quite friendly and tame,” said Mr. Brown, and soon Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had made friends with their new pet given up by the poor Frenchman in payment of his debt.

“What’s his name?” asked Bunny, as he took the cap off the dog’s head in order to see the animal better.

“Who’s, the Frenchman?” asked Mr. Brown. “His name is Jean Baptiste Foulard.”

“Oh, he has a long French name, which means, in our language, ‘the little dog who brings the milk bottle in every morning,’” said Mr. Brown, with a laugh.

“What a cute name!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “Couldn’t the children call him that?”

“I’m afraid it’s too long,” said her husband.[19] “That name would be a regular tongue-twister. They had much better call the dog some simpler name.”

“Yes, so the Frenchman said,” answered Mr. Brown. “The dog was taught to do that. Every morning, when his master opened the door, the dog would go out and lift in the bottle of milk. It was only a small bottle, and he could easily get the top in his mouth. Then he would lap some of the milk out of a saucer.”

“He will do that and many other tricks,” her father explained. “The Frenchman was very sorry to part with his dog, but he did not want to sell him to some one who might not be kind, and so he gave him to me, and now he does not owe me any more money.”

“I know what we can do with this trick dog,” said Bunny, after thinking it over for a moment.

[20]“What?” asked his mother. But before Bunny could answer Sue broke in to ask:

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that,” said Mr. Brown. “This Frenchman is honest. After he gave me the dog to pay his debt he would not take the animal back. Now I must show you what tricks the dog can do and you can practice putting him through them.”

Once again the dog marched around and danced. Then Mr. Brown gave him a stick which the dog carried like a gun, playing soldier. After that the dog rolled over, he turned a somersault, he “played dead,” and he “said his prayers,” by crouching in the seat of a chair and putting his forepaws on the back, with his head down between them.

“He can do other tricks,” said Mr. Brown. “But now, children, what are you going to call him? I think you had better take some other name than the long French one.”

“’Cause his feet patter so on the floor when he dances,” said Bunny. And truly the toenails of the dog did make a queer little “pattering” sound as he waltzed around.

“Then we shall call this trick dog Patter,” decided Mr. Brown. “I’ll have a collar made for him with his name on it.”

Sue clapped her hands in delight and Bunny looked pleased. They made Patter do more tricks, and really the Frenchman’s dog seemed very smart.

But just then, when Patter was doing the trick of pretending to be a soldier dog, there came another ring at the doorbell.

“I don’t know,” answered Sue. “I hope maybe it isn’t that Frenchman come to take his dog back,” she went on, with a look at her father.

“Oh, no,” answered Mr. Brown. “The Frenchman will not take your Patter back. I made him promise if I took the dog for the money that was owing to me that it would be mine forever. And the Frenchman agreed to this. You won’t lose your dog, Bunny and Sue.”

The children seemed relieved at this, but still they wondered who had rung the doorbell. Mary, the maid, had gone to see who was calling, and after Patter had marched around like a soldier dog, Mary came back in the dining room to say:

“He wouldn’t say. Called himself a stranger,” said Mary. “He said he wouldn’t keep you but a minute.”

Again Bunny and Sue looked worriedly at each other. In spite of what Daddy Brown said, this might, after all, be the Frenchman coming back after his trick dog. Certainly Patter was a dog that any one would want, he was so cute and wise.

“A stranger?” said Mr. Brown, and he seemed very thoughtful. “I can’t imagine who it can be. But I’ll see him.”

“Oh, I wonder——” began Mrs. Brown, and then she stopped. She was thinking perhaps it might be the old man who, earlier in the evening, had stopped to inquire about a Mr. Denton who was in the circus business. And, as it happened, while it was not this old man again, the stranger’s visit was about him.

Mr. Brown went out into the hall, and as[24] he left the door open Bunny, Sue and their mother could hear what was said.

“You wanted to see me?” said Mr. Brown, as he looked at the caller who, indeed, was a stranger to him.

“Yes,” was the answer. “My name is Merton. A little while ago I saw an old man come out of your house here as I was waiting for a friend on the street. Do you know who this old man is?”

“Because he was just now hurt—run down by an automobile,” said Mr. Merton. “I saw it happen. The police came and took the old man away in the ambulance. No one seemed to know who he was, and I remembered that he had come out of your house. So I told the police maybe you knew him, and if you did I’d find out about it.”

“No, I don’t know him,” said Mr. Brown. “I’m sorry he was hurt. He’s as much a stranger to me as you are, Mr. Merton. He came here to inquire about a Jim Denton who[25] used to be in the circus business; but I know no such man.”

“Neither do I,” said Mr. Merton. “Well, I won’t trouble you any further. I don’t suppose much can be done for the old man. He doesn’t seem to have any friends.”

“What hospital did they take him to?” asked Mr. Brown, for there were two not far from Bellemere. “I might go to see him, poor chap!”

Mr. Merton told what hospital it was and then left, for there was nothing more he could do, though he said he would inquire around and see if he could locate “Jim Denton,” or any one else who knew the old man.

“Poor fellow,” said Mrs. Brown, when her husband came back into the dining room, where Bunny and Sue were patting their new trick dog. “I wish we could do something for him.”

“I guess he doesn’t need money—not as long[26] as he is in the hospital, anyhow,” remarked their father. “I wonder who this Jim Denton, a circus man, can be. And I wonder why the old man wants to find him.”

“As he trained this dog to do tricks, he might know some circus people, for they have trained and trick dogs in a circus.”

“Yes, Patter is a good trick dog,” said Mr. Brown. “But I hardly think, my dear,” he added to his wife, “that Mr. Foulard would know anything about circus men. Anyhow, the Frenchman has gone many miles from here.”

In a way Bunny and Sue were glad to hear this, for they thought there would be less danger of the Frenchman coming back to take away Patter.

“So do I,” said her husband, “and I’ll go to see him in the hospital. I’ll try to find out where this circus man is whom he wants to find.”

The remainder of the evening was spent by Bunny and Sue playing with their trick dog. Patter loved children and was never happier than when performing for them. But even a trick dog may get tired, and Mr. Brown knew this for, after a while, he said:

“Now, children, it is time for you to go to bed, and Patter must have some sleep, also.”

“It is not good for dogs to sleep with boys and girls,” said Daddy Brown. “I will make a bed for Patter in the kitchen. He is used to sleeping in the kitchen, the Frenchman told me. Later on we’ll make a bed in the woodhouse.”

[28]Bunny and Sue were a bit disappointed, but they felt that Daddy knew best. So, after some good-night pats given their dog, the children went up to their rooms, and Patter was put in a bed in a snug corner of the kitchen. His clown suit of red, white and blue was taken off and put away for special occasions.

Downstairs Mr. and Mrs. Brown talked over what had happened that evening since the trick dog had come home.

“Patter will be a great pet for Bunny and Sue,” remarked their mother. “They miss Splash so, especially since Toby the pony had to be sent away.”

“That reminds me,” said Mr. Brown, “that I had a letter to-day from the farmer who is taking care of Toby. The pony may soon be back.”

“At what Sue says when she speaks about the pony,” answered Mr. Brown. “She says he was ‘sent away to cure something he had in his hair that fell out.’ I always laugh when I think of that.”

“Yes, it was queer,” said Mrs. Brown, with a smile. “But it was true—Toby’s hair did fall out.”

“The farmer says that is ended now, and that Toby is well again,” remarked Mr. Brown.

“I’m glad, for the sake of the children,” said Mrs. Brown. “And I do hope you may be able to do something for that poor old man.”

Then it was time to go to bed, and after seeing that Patter was all right in the kitchen, Mr. Brown turned out the lights.

“Bunny, what are you doing?” asked Mr. Brown, for sometimes the little boy plagued and teased his small sister.

“Yes, he is, too!” cried Sue. “He’s putting a cold sponge from the bathroom on my face. It’s a wet sponge! Make him stop, Mother! Make Bunny stop!” begged Sue.

“I’m not doing a thing to her! How can I when I’m in my own bed?” asked Bunny.

And Daddy Brown, getting up, found that this was so. Bunny was in his own little bed. But who was bothering Sue? Some one must be, for she kept crying:

Mr. Brown hurried into the little girl’s room, and what do you suppose he found there?

Yes, it was the trick dog, Patter! He had gone upstairs, and, standing on his hind feet at the side of Sue’s bed, he was licking her face with his cold, wet, red tongue.

[31]“Oh, Patter, I didn’t know it was you!” cried Sue, for she had called out about Bunny before opening her eyes. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Is Patter there?” cried Bunny, and he ran into his sister’s room. Then he hugged the dog and so did Sue until their father told them, early as it was, they had better get up, as he did not like a dog in the bedroom.

Bunny and Sue dressed quickly and ran out to play in the yard with Patter before breakfast. Then came the meal, and you may be sure Patter had his, a full plate in the corner of the kitchen.

“Now I’ll teach him some new tricks,” said Bunny, when he and Sue were again romping with the dog. “I’ll teach him to walk on his front legs. He walks on his hind legs fine, but I want him to walk on his front legs.”

“That’s harder,” said Sue, for they had tried to teach this to their other dog, Splash. “Maybe he’ll tip over.”

“Pooh! It’ll be only a somersault if he[32] does!” laughed Bunny. “Come on, Patter, learn to walk on your front legs!” he called.

He and Sue were holding up the hind legs of their trick dog, to make him learn how to walk on his front ones, when a voice from the street called:

“Yes,” answered Bunny, without looking up, for often delivery men asked that question.

Bunny Brown was so surprised by what his sister called, about Toby the pony coming back, that the little boy let go of Patter’s hind legs, which had been raised in the air to try to make him walk on his front legs.

Down fell Patter’s legs, so suddenly that if Patter had been a little boy or girl I’m sure he would have grunted, or perhaps he might even have cried. But as he was a dog, though a trick dog, Patter whined a little and then barked:

Perhaps that meant he didn’t like to be treated so. But Bunny did not stop to think about the new trick dog just then. Bunny ran after Sue, who was heading for the gate, outside of which stood a man with a pony and a cart.

[34]The man had gotten out of the cart and was now looking at Bunny Brown and his sister Sue and their trick dog.

“If Mr. Brown lives here,” said the man, “I reckon this is his pony, for it’s where I was told to leave it.”

“It’s our pony,” said Bunny, “and thank you for bringing him back to us. His name is Toby.”

“So I was told,” said the man. “Well, here he is,” and he led the tiny horse in through the gate that Bunny and his sister opened.

“Is he all cured?” Sue wanted to know. “His hair won’t fall and come out any more, will it?”

“No,” answered the man, “his hair won’t fall out any more. He has been boarding at our farm for some time, and now he’s cured. Your father told me to leave him here for you. I just stopped at the office and he told me to bring the pony up. So here I am.”

“And we’re glad of it!” cried Sue. “Now we have a pony and a trick dog, and we’re going to give a show, maybe.”

[35]“Is that a trick dog?” asked the farmer’s hired man, for he it was who had brought Toby home.

“Yes, he does lots of tricks,” and Bunny held his arms in a circle so Patter could jump through them.

“Oh, I didn’t know he could do that!” exclaimed Sue, as she watched this trick.

“I didn’t, either,” admitted Bunny. “But Splash used to do this trick, and I thought I’d try it for Patter. And he did it.”

“Yes, indeed, little man, he did!” said the farmer’s man, with a laugh. “And now, if you’ll just call your mother, so I know it’s all right for me to leave the pony with you, I’ll be getting back.”

Mrs. Brown was on her way out to the yard, for she had seen the man driving up with the pony and cart. She now spoke to him and learned that he had already seen Mr. Brown at the dock office, where the children’s father had gone after breakfast.

“May we take a ride in the pony cart?” asked Bunny of his mother, when the farmer’s man had gone and it was afternoon.

[36]“Yes,” was the answer. “Toby is well and strong again, more healthy than before, the man said, and I guess he can pull you in the cart. But don’t go too far away.”

“We won’t!” promised Bunny and Sue. “May Patter come with us?” asked Bunny.

His mother said the trick dog might go, and soon the little boy and girl, with Patter sitting between them, were driving down a quiet street near the Brown home.

“We mustn’t run Toby too much at first,” said Bunny, who was holding the reins.

“No, ’specially after he just got over the falling-out-hair sickness,” agreed Sue. “Can I drive a little now, Bunny?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied her brother. “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to teach Patter to hold the lines in his mouth and drive Toby?” he asked.

“Lots of fun!” agreed Sue. “But we’d better not do that until Patter and Toby get to know each other better,” she added. “Let me drive now.”

So Bunny gave his sister the reins on a quiet street where automobiles seldom came.

“That’s one of the tricks I’m going to teach [37]Patter for the show we’ll have,” said Bunny, after a while.

“Oh, we’ll get up a performance,” said Bunny, as if nothing could be easier. “Maybe it’ll be a circus like the one we had once, or maybe we’ll give a show in the opera house. But we’ll do something to show off Patter, and I’ll teach him to drive Toby.”

The children had a good time riding around in the pony cart, and Toby seemed so fresh and strong, as if willing to trot for miles and miles, that Bunny and Sue really didn’t want to turn around and go back home. But they did at last, and to their surprise they saw their father at the gate.

“Oh, Daddy!” cried Bunny, as Sue guided the pony and cart through the gate, “what makes you come home so early?” For it was not time for supper yet, and the boy knew his father did not close the office on the boat and fish dock until nearly supper time.

“I came home to ask your mother if she had anything good to eat that she wanted to send the poor man in the hospital,” answered Mr.[38] Brown. “The old man who wants to find a circus,” he explained.

“Well, perhaps I’ll take you both,” said Mr. Brown. “As long as you have the pony cart out and while Toby seems so fresh and strong, I’m sure it will do no harm if I ride with you to the hospital in the cart. It isn’t far and it’s a level road the whole way.”

“Oh, we’ll all go to the hospital!” cried Sue, clapping her hands in joy. Of course, for a well person to go to the hospital is not as bad as when a sick person has to go. I think if Sue had been ill or hurt and had to go to the hospital she might not have been so jolly. “We’ll all go!” she said. “Bunny and Daddy and I and Patter!”

“He might make a disturbance,” said Mr. Brown. “Besides, Patter is a bit strange yet, and when you drive down the main streets of[39] the town he might jump out of the pony cart and run away. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

So Patter was made to get out of the pony cart, though he did not want to. Patter was shut up in the woodhouse for a time, and Mr. Brown took the place left vacant by the dog. Then with his two children Mr. Brown drove to the hospital where the old man had been taken after the accident.

Bunny and Sue would have gone right into the rooms where the sick and injured patients lay in their white beds, only their father thought it unwise. There are sad sights to see, and sad sounds to hear in a hospital, and it was not good for Bunny and Sue to see and hear them.

So they waited outside in the pony cart while their father went into the big red brick building, carrying the basket of good things Mrs. Brown had put up for the unknown man.

As it happened, however, Mr. Brown could not see the patient, who was badly hurt and out of his head, not knowing what he was saying.[40] So the basket of good things was left until such time as the dainties could be eaten.

Back home in the pony cart rode Daddy, Bunny and Sue, and Toby was so strong from his long rest on the farm that he easily pulled the man and children.

“Hello, Bunny!” “Hello, Sue!” called some boys and girls on the street, not far from the Brown house as the children were driving back. “Is that a new pony?” asked one boy.

“No, it’s just old Toby,” answered Bunny, and his father waved his hand at George Watson and Harry Bentley, who were playing with Mary Watson and Sadie West.

“Looks as if he’d just been painted!” and George laughed at the idea of painting a horse.

Mrs. Brown was waiting for her family when they returned in the pony cart, and at once asked about the old man.

“I’m sorry, but he was so ill I couldn’t see him,” explained her husband. “I’ll go again, however.”

Mr. Brown got out of the pony cart and[41] went back to his dock, but as it was yet early Bunny and Sue were allowed to ride around a bit longer, before it was time for supper and then bed.

“We’ll let Patter out now, as long as we are going to ride only around the block,” explained Bunny, and he opened the shed where the trick dog had been shut so that he wouldn’t follow after the pony cart.

With joyous barks Patter rushed out ahead of Bunny. Reaching the pony cart the dog began racing around it, barking excitedly. The dog did not like being shut up when the children went off to have a good time.

“Do you think he smells that Frenchman who might be sneaking around to get our dog away?” asked the little girl.

[42]He stopped racing about and stood for a moment at the side of the pony, while Bunny and Sue sat in the cart. Suddenly the trick dog made a spring, and leaped into the air.

Not knowing what trick it was, if such it should prove to be, that Patter planned to do next, Bunny could not answer his sister’s question. And then, as both children looked at the trick dog, Patter suddenly jumped to the broad, fat back of Toby, who was still hitched to the pony cart. Right on the pony’s back jumped the dog.

“That’s a fine trick!” said Bunny. “We must make him do that in the show we’re going to give. But I wonder why he did it? I didn’t tell him to.”

And indeed Patter did look “cute” on Toby’s back. But this was not all the trick. For suddenly the dog, instead of standing on[44] all four feet, gave a sort of flop and there he was, standing on his front feet with his hind paws up in the air.

Bunny and Sue were so surprised they hardly knew what to say. They just stood there, looking at Patter standing on his front paws upon the back of Toby, the Shetland pony.

As for Toby, he did not in the least seem to mind it. He turned his head a little way, glanced at the dog on his back, and then seemed to think it was all right, for he made no move toward shaking Patter off.

And that, really, was all there was to it. Patter had watched his chance and had leaped to the pony’s back. The trick dog did not long stand on his front paws. That is hard for any dog to do, and the best of them cannot keep it up for much more than a minute. Standing on the hind paws is easier.

“That’s the very trick you said you were[45] going to teach Patter to do, isn’t it, Bunny?” asked Sue of her brother.

“It is,” he answered. “But I didn’t have time to teach him. I guess he taught himself.”

“I’m going to call mother out to see,” said Sue. But before Mrs. Brown could reach the yard, where Patter had shown off his latest trick, the dog had become tired of standing on his front legs and had sat down on Toby’s back.

“I think,” answered his mother, “that Patter was taught the trick by his French master. This is the first time the dog had to show us that he could do it, and he jumped up as soon as Toby stood still.”

“He didn’t jump up on Toby’s back when he first saw our pony,” remarked Sue.

“No, I suppose Patter wanted to see what Toby was like before he tried the trick,” suggested Mrs. Brown. “But now you know[46] your pony and your new dog are good friends.”

“I wish we had Splash back,” sighed Bunny. “Then we’d have two dogs and a pony.”

“Are you going to give another circus?” asked his mother, for the children once did that, as I have related to you in one of these books.

“Yes, we’re going to have another circus and Patter and Toby will do tricks,” decided Bunny, while Sue nodded her head to show that she agreed with this.

“I’ll see if Patter will mind me now,” said Bunny. He called: “Come down, Patter!”

Down jumped the trick dog off Toby’s back. He wagged his tail, did Patter, and looked up into Bunny’s face as if asking what[47] other tricks the little master wanted performed.

“See if he’ll jump back again,” suggested Mrs. Brown. “If he does, you’ll know it is one of Patter’s regular tricks to get on a pony’s back. You’ll know it wasn’t just an accident.”

In a second up jumped Patter again, sitting calmly on Toby’s back and looking from Sue to Bunny as if asking:

This time the dog did not stand on his front legs. Perhaps he thought he had done enough of that hard trick.

The news that Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had a new trick dog soon spread all[48] through the neighborhood, and many boy and girl chums of the brother and sister called to see Patter. They also wanted to see Toby when Sue explained that the pony had a lot of new hair in place of the old that had fallen out in his sickness.

The other boys and girls were allowed to make Patter do some of his tricks, and two of the boys, George Watson and Charlie Star, told of tricks they had seen a dog do in a circus.

One of these tricks was to take a piece of wood in his mouth, the wood being fastened to a string and the string to a bell that was hung on the fence. When Patter thus pulled the stick he made the bell ring.

“We’ll make believe that’s the school bell and that Patter rings it to show us school is to start,” suggested Charlie.

It seemed to be all settled that Patter would take part in a show and be the main actor, though nothing was yet settled about where[49] the show would be held or what would be done with the money that was taken in—if any was.

“But we have all summer,” said Bunny, for this was only the beginning of the summer vacation.

Another trick that George Watson wanted Patter to do was to climb a ladder, stand on a little platform at the top, and jump off into a blanket held by four boys, one at each corner.

They tried their trick first by putting Patter up on the fence, pretending it was a ladder, and then Bunny called to the dog to jump off. Patter did it all right, landing in the blanket and so not getting hurt in the least.

But when they put the dog on top of the woodshed, George explaining that the ladder would be higher than this, then Patter seemed to be afraid. He cried, crouched down, and would not jump off.

“Then he isn’t going to jump!” decided Bunny. “Lift him down off the shed. I’m not going to have my dog afraid!”

[50]And the boys, being kind-hearted, did not make Patter jump from the roof of the high woodshed. The dog did not mind leaping from the fence, but the shed was too high for him, it seemed.

“Anyhow, he does a lot of dandy tricks, and we sure can have him in a show,” decided Charlie.

“We’ll have Toby in, too,” said Sue. The boys liked Sue and let her play with them as often as she wished. And as she and Bunny were nearly always together, the chums of one were the chums of the other.

One day when Bunny and Sue were playing with their dog in the yard their mother called to them, saying:

The store was so near at hand that it was not worth while to harness Toby to the pony cart. And so, hand in hand, with Patter running[51] along, now in front and now behind them, Bunny and Sue went to the grocery store.

“Hello, children!” called Mr. Gordon, who kept the store. “What will it be to-day?”

Often when the two children went to the store together they each remembered half of the things they were to get. To-day there were just two things—sugar and salt—and Bunny remembered one while Sue did not forget the other.

“Sugar and salt, is it?” laughed Mr. Gordon. “Well, don’t get them mixed, that’s all I have to say.” He went to get the articles and noticed, sitting in front of the counter, Patter, the trick dog.

“The reason I asked,” said Mr. Gordon, “was that a colored man was in here the other day, asking me if I’d seen a dog like that. It was just such a dog and just such a color, the darkey said.”

“This isn’t his dog!” cried Sue. “This is our dog. Daddy got him from a Frenchman.”

“Oh, I’m not saying he didn’t,” Mr. Gordon made haste to say. “But he’s like the colored man’s dog.”

“It’s a good trick!” declared the store man. “Here, I’ll try and see if your dog can do it.”

Mr. Gordon took a sweet cracker from a box and raised it up so Patter could see it.

And, to the surprise of the children, their dog did just that. He made a noise that sounded like an old man sneezing, and then he rolled over.

“That’s another trick for the show!” said Bunny, with a laugh. “Let me try to make him do it again, please, Mr. Gordon.”

“All right,” chuckled the grocer. This time he took out three crackers. “Here’s one for you, Bunny, one for Sue, and one for the dog,” he said, for Patter had quickly eaten the first cracker and was looking for more.

“Sneeze and roll over, Patter!” cried Bunny, snapping his finger on his thumb. He also held out the cracker where the dog could see it. Patter looked at it, cocked his head on one side and then he sneezed and rolled over.

“Oh, he did it for me! He did it for me!”[54] cried Bunny in delight, as he gave the dog the second cracker.

“I guess he knows more tricks than you think,” said Mr. Gordon, while Bunny and Sue ate their crackers.

“He’s the best dog we ever had!” declared Bunny. “Though of course we loved Splash. But we haven’t got him now.”

“Let’s see, what was it you wanted, vinegar and molasses?” asked the grocer.

“I knew it was something like vinegar, anyhow,” chuckled the grocer, as he wrapped up the packages.

Sue and Bunny hurried home to tell the news about the “sneeze-and-roll-over” trick their dog could do. They were so excited that Sue dropped the bag of salt, which burst and a lot spilled out.

“But, anyhow, it was better the salt should spill than the sugar,” said Mary, the maid. “Salt’s cheaper ’n sugar.”

The summer days passed, with Bunny and Sue having much fun with Patter, teaching him new tricks now and then. Bunny and[55] the boys often talked about the show they were going to have with Patter and Toby, but, as yet, they had done nothing about it.

One day Mrs. Brown sent Bunny and Sue in the pony cart down to their father’s dock. Of course Patter went along, for he knew his way about the town very well now, and would not get lost.

On their way home, when about half way back from their father’s dock, a big automobile truck came suddenly out of a side street, making such a noise that Toby, the usually gentle and quiet pony, jumped in fright and then started to gallop as fast as he could.

“Oh, Toby’s running away! He’s running away!” cried Sue, clinging to the side of the cart.

Bunny did not have a very tight hold of the reins when he was driving Toby, for generally the pony was so gentle that he needed but little guiding. And when the little horse gave a jump and started to run, after being frightened by the auto truck, the reins, or the “lines” as Sue sometimes called them, slipped over the dashboard and dangled around Toby’s heels.

For a moment her brother did not answer. He was as surprised as Sue at Toby’s strange action. Then, as Bunny saw that the reins had slipped away, he cried:

“Why not?” she asked, still holding to the side of the pony cart as it lurched from side to side of the street.

[57]“I can’t stop him ’cause I can’t pull on the reins,” Bunny answered. “I can’t reach ’em!”

“You—you’ve got to!” insisted Sue. “We don’t want to be runned away with and thrown out! Stop him, Bunny!”

Bunny knew that he would have to do something, and the best thing he could think of was to reach forward and grasp the reins. He started to do this, leaning over the dashboard.

But just then a strange dog ran out of a yard and began barking at Toby. Patter, who was running alongside the cart, not riding in it this time, barked and growled at the strange dog. This sound seemed to make the little horse go faster, and he dashed off so suddenly that, as Bunny leaned toward the dashboard, the little fellow almost went “overboard,” as he said later.

“Oh!” cried Bunny Brown. He, too, was frightened. He managed to get back again to the seat from which he had risen, and there he sat, safe for a little while, at least. And so[58] was Sue. She was on the seat across from Bunny.

“I—I’m not going to do that again!” gasped the boy. “I can’t reach those reins and I’m not going to try. They’re too far away.”

“But what—what are we going to do?” faltered Sue, almost ready to cry. “He’s runnin’ away, isn’t he, Bunny?”

“Oh, yes, he’s running away all right,” admitted Bunny. “He hasn’t done that for a long time, though. But he’s running away now.”

“Maybe he feels so good now, ’cause his hair doesn’t fall out any more, that he wants to run,” went on Sue.

Bunny agreed on this point, but how it was going to be done was another matter. Toby seemed to be going faster now. He was running away in earnest, and the reins, dangling around his hind feet, did not make him feel any better. In fact they scared him.

[59]The street was a quiet one, and up to now Bunny and Sue had met no other wagons, carriages or automobiles. And there were no persons in the street to run out and stop Toby, which might easily have been done, for the Shetland pony was not much bigger than a large Newfoundland dog.

As for Patter, he trotted alongside the runaway and seemed to think it was all in fun. Now and then he looked up at Bunny and Sue and barked, as much as to say:

“Why don’t you take me up there in the cart with you and give me a nice ride?”

But Bunny and Sue thought of nothing like this. Finally, as the small pony seemed to be running away faster, Sue exclaimed:

“I don’t care, Bunny Brown! I’m going to jump out! I’m not going to be runned away with and all mashed up against a tree! I’m going to jump out!”

“I can’t stop Toby! I can’t reach the reins!” replied Bunny. “But maybe Patter can stop him.”

“Patter can grab hold of the reins and pull back. And when Toby feels the reins being pulled back he’ll stop,” said Bunny.

Now this was a trick that Patter had never been asked to do. It was not really a trick at all. In fact it was more useful than doing some of the tricks Patter could perform. For if Patter could stop Toby from running away he might save Bunny and Sue from being hurt. At any rate Bunny was going to try.

Bunny snapped his fingers and pointed to Toby’s back. Perhaps he should have pointed to the trailing reins, but he did not. And Patter, pricking up his ears and looking at Bunny’s outstretched hand pointing to the pony, had but one thought in mind. This was to do the trick he had done before—that of jumping on Toby’s back.

And, in another instant, Patter leaped up,[61] landed on the pony’s back and sat there. He did not try the trick of standing on his front legs as he had done before.

“Yes,” said Bunny. “I didn’t mean for him to do that. I wanted him to grab the lines from the ground.”

“Oh, so he can!” exclaimed Bunny. “Grab the lines, Patter! Grab the lines!” cried the little boy.

Whether Patter, crouched on the pony’s broad, fat back, understood these words or not, he saw the gesture and he reached forward and caught hold of the reins in his teeth, near the place where they ran through two shiny rings on the middle part of the harness.

Patter leaned back and pulled as hard as he could. And as soon as Toby felt himself being pulled in, he did just what he always did when that happened. He slowed down. I think he had had enough of running away and thought it time to stop. And probably he thought it was Bunny pulling on the reins.[62] But it wasn’t. It was Patter, the trick dog.

Anyhow, Toby slowed down to a walk, and then, as Patter kept on pulling the reins, the pony stopped.

Just then around the corner of a street near which Toby had stopped, came Bunker Blue. The boy from Mr. Brown’s boat and fish dock had been on an errand. Seeing the two children, with Patter up on Toby’s back, Bunker Blue said:

“You two oughtn’t to be playing tricks like that out in the street here. It’s all right to make Patter do tricks, but not in the street.”

“We weren’t making him play tricks,” answered Bunny. “Toby ran away and Patter stopped him.”

“Oh, that’s all right! That was fine. But I’ll drive Toby back home for you, as he might get frisky again.”

[63]But the little horse did not, trotting along very quietly. And when Bunny and Sue reached home, and Mrs. Brown heard what had happened, she remarked:

“I’m afraid it won’t be safe for you children to go out with Toby alone any more. He is too frisky.”

“Oh, I guess it will wear off,” said Bunker Blue. “You see, he hasn’t had much exercise since he came back from the farm. He’ll be all right.”

And Toby was, for he did not again run away—at least not for a long time. Daddy Brown said Patter was a very smart dog to stop a runaway as he did. They were talking about it after supper, and then Mrs. Brown asked:

“No, except that he says his name is Jason Stern, and he says he has no friends left to help him unless he can find Jim Denton, the circus owner,” replied Mr. Brown. “But no one seems to know where Jim Denton is, and Mr. Stern is too ill to tell the hospital folks very[64] much. I think the old man came to the wrong town. He must mean some other Bellemere; there are a lot of them in this country. Well, I’ll go to see him again soon when he gets a little better.”

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue continued to have a lot of fun with the trick dog and their pony. One day some of his boy chums came over to see Bunny.

“Say,” asked Charlie Star, “when are we going to have that show you were talking of, Bunny?”

“That’s right,” added Harry Bentley. “We want to get up a show with your trick dog and your pony. We can get some other animals, too.”

“All right,” agreed Bunny. “Let’s go out to our barn now and talk about it. If we have the show it will be in our barn.”

To this the other boys agreed, and they strolled out to the barn where in times past they had had many good times.

Near the barn was a little brook of water, and Bunny and the boys began throwing stones in this to hear the splashes. As Bunny threw[65] his second stone his cap dropped off and the wind carried it into the brook. It fell in the middle of the stream.

But no sooner had Patter seen the cap in the water than in he plunged and began swimming toward it.

“He’s a regular cap dog! He’s going to bring your cap to shore!” exclaimed Harry.

“That’s a fine trick!” said Bunny with delight, as he watched Patter swim out to the middle of the brook, and then, having taken the cap in his teeth, swim back to shore with it. “That’s as good a trick as standing on his front legs on Toby’s back.”

“That isn’t any trick!” called another voice, and George Watson came through the bushes just as Patter laid the cap, dripping wet, at Bunny’s feet.

“Aw, ’tis so a trick!” cried Harry. “You[67] haven’t got any dog that’ll do such a trick, George Watson.”

“I know I haven’t. I haven’t any dog at all. But that isn’t a trick, just the same. I don’t mean to say your dog isn’t a good one, Bunny,” went on George, who was a little older than the other boys; “but that isn’t any more of a trick than bringing a stick to shore is a trick. Any dog will jump in the water and bring a stick to shore.”

“Yes, I know he will,” admitted Bunny. “But not every dog would bring a cap to shore like Patter did for me.”

“He thought your cap was a stick,” said George, who seemed to like to have a little dispute with his chums. “He’d bring anything to shore that you threw into the water. Here, I’ll show you.”

George picked up a stick and threw it out into the middle of the brook. Patter did not go in after it. The dog, after having shaken himself to get rid of the water on his shaggy coat, simply looked at the stick floating in the stream.

“Ah, ha! Will he go in and get a stick? I[68] guess not!” cried Bunny. “Sure, he’s a trick dog! He’s a cap dog but not a stick dog!”

“That’s ’cause you didn’t tell him to go in after it,” said George. “If you tell him to go get the stick he will. He won’t mind me, that’s all,” for George had told Patter to get the stick when it was first thrown in, but the dog would not. “Lots of dogs won’t mind any but the fellow that owns them,” explained George. “Course that makes ’em all the better dog. But if you tell Patter to bring out my stick, Bunny, he’ll do it same as he would your cap.”

“All right, I’ll tell him,” said Sue’s brother. The stick was slowly floating down stream.

“Go get it, Patter! Go get it!” ordered Bunny, snapping his fingers and pointing, as he did whenever he wanted the dog to do any of his tricks, such as leaping on Toby’s back or walking on his hind legs.

But Patter, though he wagged his tail to show he was friendly, would not make a move toward leaping into the brook after the stick. He simply sat on the bank and looked at it.

“Go on! Good dog! Get the stick!” cried George. The other boys added their voices to the orders, but, Bunny declared, Patter just simply seemed to smile as though he said:

“I don’t want to be mean, but I don’t know what you are talking about. Sticks mean nothing to me.”

Finally, after Bunny had thrown another stick in the stream, at George’s suggestion, thinking perhaps Patter would not bring out a stick that another lad had tossed in, the boys began to get the opinion that Patter was a queer dog.

“He’ll bring out a cap but he won’t bring out sticks,” said Charlie.

Once more he tossed his cap into the water—purposely this time. In an instant Patter jumped in and brought it to shore, and he paid no attention to sticks that were floating in the brook near it.

[70]“Let’s all throw our caps in!” cried Charlie. “If he only pulls caps out we’ll let him do that.”

“One at a time! One at a time!” exclaimed Bunny. “We don’t want to give him too much to do.”

And when one boy’s cap after another was tossed into the brook, Patter brought them safe to shore. The boys wore old caps and a little water, more or less, did them no harm. Patter seem delighted to swim out and get them.

“I guess it’s true, what you said, Harry,” remarked George. “He’s a cap dog all right. But I never heard of a dog that would bring out caps but not sticks. I never did.”

Still it was true. Later Bunny learned that the dog’s master, the Frenchman who had taught Patter a number of tricks, had taught him never to bother with sticks, but always to bring out caps or hats. It was quite an odd thing, the boys thought, and Bunny was more proud than ever of Patter.

For some time the boys amused themselves, and gave fun to Patter by throwing their caps[71] into the water and watching him bring them out. Patter seemed to enjoy it as much as the boys did.

“Well, let’s go on to the barn and talk more about the show,” suggested Harry.

“What show is that? Can I come?” asked George, who had not heard the remarks about the proposed performance.

“Bunny’s going to give a show, as he did before, with his new trick dog and his pony,” explained Charlie.

“My uncle sent him to me from Florida. He’s two feet long and he eats raw meat.”

“No, my alligator!” and George also chuckled. “But are you really going to give a show, Bunny?”

Once before, as told of in the book of that name, Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue had given a show. It was really gotten up by the ladies of the town in aid of the Red Cross, but Bunny and Sue and some other boys and girls helped. Toby, the pony, was in the show, and so was Splash, the dog, who had been sent away to be cured of a disease, but who had never come back. Bunny and Sue feared Splash was dead, and their father and mother said little about the old dog for fear of making the children feel sad. Then, too, in the show was Jed Winkler’s monkey named Wango. You’ll hear more about that monkey later on in this book.

“Yes, it’ll be fun to have another show,” decided George, when told that he could be in it with his alligator.

“Oh, I know how we can have a dandy act in the show!” exclaimed Bunny, as he and the[73] other boys sat about the Brown barn talking matters over.

“With the hat and stick trick,” went on Bunny. “One of you boys can dress up like a clown, and we’ll have a tank of water in the show.”

“Do you mean for one of us to push the clown into the tank of water?” asked George.

“No, I don’t mean that,” said Bunny. “Listen! We’ll put a tank of water in the show, which we can have here in our barn, I guess. Then the clown, who’ll be one of you boys, can come out and throw a stick into the tank of water. He’ll want Patter to go in and bring out the stick, but Patter won’t, just as he wouldn’t to-day.”

“Wait,” went on Bunny. “I’ll come along dressed up like a tramp, and when I see that Patter won’t bring out the stick for the clown, I’ll laugh and say I can make him bring it out.”

[74]“But he wouldn’t bring out the stick for you to-day,” objected George.

“No, but I can make him,” said Bunny. “While I’m dressed up like a tramp, and while one of you is a clown, we’ll have a make-believe quarrel about who can make the dog bring out a stick. Then when the clown can’t, I’ll take a stick, put it inside my cap and throw the cap into the tank, and Patter will bring out my cap and the stick too.”

The three boys, in turn, cried these opinions to Bunny Brown, and Bunny felt rather proud of having thought of such a funny bit of work all by himself.

The boys ran out to the brook again, and once more tossed in sticks. As before, Patter would not bring them out. Then Bunny[75] tossed his cap in, and the dog brought that out.

Next Bunny wrapped a stick in his cap, and threw both into the brook. Patter brought them both out.

So they fixed on that as one of the “acts” in the show they were going to get up. Then they wandered around the barn planning other acts and tricks.

In turn George, Harry and Bunny shouted these words at Charlie Star when they heard him call from the old haymow that he had found something.

“If there’s eggs in the nest don’t break ’em!” called Bunny. “But maybe it’s a groundhog,” he added.

“No, it isn’t eggs and it isn’t a groundhog,” said Charlie. It might easily have been either one, since the hens often laid eggs in the hay, and groundhogs, or woodchucks, were plentiful in the fields about the Brown home. Though the boys did not see them very often, for woodchucks are shy.

The Brown barn was not used now as much[77] for a stable as it had been in years past. Mr. Brown formerly kept a number of horses to help in the boat and fish business. But when automobiles became common he sold his horses and bought autos. He kept one horse, however, to haul the fishing boats up the beach out of the water and away from the rising tide, and this horse was kept in the barn, as was Toby.

When you keep a horse you have to feed him on hay and that is why there was a mow, or place for storing hay, for the horse. There were also oat-bins and places for other fodder, though these were not as full as when a number of horses were kept.

“What’ve you found, Charlie?” asked Bunny, as the other boys climbed up to the haymow, which was reached by a short ladder from the main floor of the barn. “Where is it?”

“I’ve found a dandy trapeze,” answered the boy. “Look, it’s got ropes and a cross piece and everything! And it’s fastened up to the roof beam with iron rings, just like a regular circus.”

Bunny did not think this likely, for if Bunker had done anything of the sort he would have told Bunny and would have wanted Bunny to see him perform on the swinging trapeze.

But later, on asking his father about it, Bunny learned that the trapeze had been put in place by a hired man who used to work for Mr. Brown. It was some years before and the trapeze had been forgotten.

It was in a space back of a pile of hay, and not easily seen unless one climbed in the far end of the mow, as Charlie had done. The boys clustered around the swinging ropes to the ends of which a cross piece of wood was fastened, making the trapeze bar.

[79]“Let me try a swing on it,” begged Bunny. The other boys were moving away to give him “first whack,” for it was in Bunny’s barn, when Charlie cried:

“Better let George swing on it first. He’s heaviest and if it holds him it will hold any of us.”

“Better pull some hay under it so if the ropes break you won’t get hurt,” suggested Bunny. “My father wouldn’t like it if any of you boys got hurt in our barn.”

He could just reach the trapeze bar by jumping up with outstretched hands, and, once having hold of it, he boldly swung to and fro. The ropes did not break and George did not fall, somewhat to the disappointment of the other lads, who rather hoped something like this would happen.

And, to speak the truth, it would not. The hay would have made a soft cushion. Then,[80] to make sure it was safe, George and Charlie hung on the trapeze together. The ropes held and then it was decided it would be safe for any of them to perform on it.

Just as they were about to start, however, there was a whining, crying sound in the main part of the barn.

“I guess it’s Patter,” said Bunny. “We left him down below when we climbed up the ladder to come here. I’ll get him.”

Leaving the other boys to play on the trapeze, Bunny went back to the top of the ladder that led up to the haymow. Below on the floor in the main part of the barn, was poor Patter, whining and crying and whimpering because he was lonesome. He had waited some time, hoping the boys would come back to him, but when they did not he called to them in the only way dogs can talk.

[81]At first Bunny was going down the ladder to get his dog. But he happened to think that he could hardly climb up the ladder again and carry Patter with him. Then Bunny had another idea.

“Bow-wow!” again barked the trick dog. This might mean that he could or couldn’t, whichever way you took it. But Bunny seemed to think it meant that Patter could climb up the ladder to the haymow, for Bunny held his hands down invitingly and called:

Again Patter whined and cried, and then, as Bunny called again, the wise dog put his two front paws on the first round of the ladder and then pulled himself up so that he could reach the second round from the floor with his front paws, and get his hind paws on the first round.

“Oh, good, Patter! That’s great!” shouted Bunny. “You are learning another trick!”

The ladder was built straight up against[82] the side of the haymow, and did not slant out like the ladder the painter uses.

Calling to his dog, and snapping his fingers, Bunny urged Patter to make his way slowly up the ladder. And then, with a joyful bark, the dog flung himself from the top of the ladder to the pile of hay where Bunny was waiting and tried to lick his little master’s face.

This did not mean just what it seems to. George did not really skin a cat. But he turned himself through his arms as he hung by his hands on the trapeze bar. This is called “skinning the cat,” and I have no doubt you boys have often done it.

“I’ll be there in a minute!” Bunny said, “But you ought to see what Patter did just now!”

“Did he find a hen’s nest and roll in the[83] eggs?” asked Harry. Once Bunny’s other dog, Splash, had done this, and when he came out he looked “just like an omelet,” Bunker Blue had said.

“No, Patter didn’t roll in any eggs,” laughed Bunny. “But he climbed up the haymow ladder to me.”

Leaving the trapeze, the other boys hurried over the hay to Bunny, where the little boy sat on the pile of dried fodder with Patter.

He climbed down the ladder and then called to Patter. It was too much to expect the dog to go down the ladder as he had climbed up, so Bunny made a pile of hay on the floor near where he stood.

The dog whined a little, looked about as if to find another way to join his beloved young[84] master, and then leaped down to the pile of hay. Of course he wasn’t hurt.

“You stay there and I’ll call him to climb up here again,” suggested Charlie.

But Patter would not climb the ladder on the invitation of any of the other boys. He remained at Bunny’s side.

He started up the ladder, and Patter whined to see him go. But Bunny called back:

When Bunny reached the top of the ladder and stepped off on to the hay he leaned down and called to Patter to climb up as he had done at first.

Patter whined a little, but bravely started up, putting first one paw then another on the cross-pieces of the ladder. In a few minutes he was once more beside Bunny on the hay.

“Oh, you’re a fine dog!” cried Bunny, and he hugged his pet, while the other boys patted[85] him. Patter wagged his tail and seemed very glad.

“I wonder if he just learned it, or whether that Frenchman taught him?” said George.

As none of the boys could tell, they guessed at it, some of them saying Bunny had really taught Patter the trick, and the others thinking the Frenchman must have taught the trick to the dog.

“It’s a good trick, all right,” declared George. “And it will work in with another I’ve just thought of. I know a dandy one we can have Patter do in the show.”

“It’s to have your dog swing on the trapeze!” cried George. “We could make a little trapeze for him, and have him get up on it by a little ladder, same as he did to-day. Then he can swing and the people will clap like anything.”

“Yes, they can, too! I’ve seen ’em in a theater!” boasted George. “All you have to do is to hang their front legs over like this,” and he pointed to the place where Patter’s front legs joined his body.

“We can tie a piece of leather to the bar of the trapeze and have Patter hold it in his teeth,” said Charlie. “Dogs have got an awful strong grip in their teeth. Patter can hold on by his teeth to the trapeze.”

While the boys were getting ready to put the trick dog on the trapeze, a voice was heard calling in the main part of the barn:

[87]“Where are you, Bunny?” went on Sue. “Don’t you hide away from me now!” she went on. “Mother said you were out here and she said I could play with you. Where are you?”

When Sue saw her brother and the other boys with the dog and the trapeze, she wanted to know what it was all about, so they told her.

“Oh, it’ll be fun if Patter swings on a trapeze in the show!” cried Sue, clapping her hands.

Then the boys tried different ways of having Patter hang to and swing from the trapeze. They were so busy at this that they forgot about Bunny’s little sister. They did not think of her again until a little later that afternoon when Mrs. Brown came out to the barn and called:

Bunny Brown and his boy chums stopped what they were doing toward making it possible for Patter to swing on the trapeze. They had found that the dog could not hang by his paws, as they hung by their hands, and Bunny had said:

“Let’s make a little platform, like a seat, on the trapeze bar, and Patter can sit on that as he sits on Toby’s back. Then we can swing him and it will be as good as if he hung by his legs.”

After a little talk the boys decided on this and that is what they were doing when Mrs. Brown came to the barn and asked about Sue.

The trapeze, with the seat for Patter partly finished, was left hanging by its swaying ropes, and the boys scattered through the barn calling Sue’s name and looking for her. Mrs. Brown also looked, and so did Patter.

But for all their looking and for all their calling, Sue could not be found. They tossed aside the hay, for once Sue had gone into the barn to play with Bunny, and she had fallen asleep. Some hay was scattered over her, and it was a long time before she was found. Mrs. Brown had been very anxious then and Bunny was so frightened that he cried.

“So this time we must first make sure that Sue isn’t under the hay,” said the little girl’s mother.

The boys searched and tossed the hay this way and that, even looking under the pile they had put on the floor for Patter to jump upon. But Sue was not there.

Now, as there was only Toby, the pony, and[91] only one old horse, used to haul the boats up on the beach, not many oats were needed, and only a few were kept in the big bin that, formerly, was filled. The bin made a good hiding place and Bunny and Sue often used it when playing games.

The cover was raised, and the boys and Sue’s mother peered into the big box, hoping to see the little girl. But Sue was not there.

“Patter found the caps we threw into the water,” said Charlie. “So he ought to find Sue.”

“Go find her, Patter!” ordered Bunny, snapping his fingers. “Go find Sue!”

Patter seemed to understand. He pricked up his ears and cocked his head on one side. Then, with a bark, he ran to different parts of the barn, poking his nose into all sorts of[92] odd places. Bunny had taught him this trick, which, in a way, was like playing hide-and-seek.

Once, when he was running around this way, looking for little lost Sue, Patter stopped near a hole and began barking loudly.

They all hurried to the place where Patter was barking at the hole. Mrs. Brown, reaching the spot first, said:

And, truly, a big brown rat ran out of the hole and scurried across the barn floor.

“My sister isn’t afraid of white rats,” declared Bunny, “cause when we had our circus she picked a white rat right up in her hands.”

“They is so! Aren’t some girls afraid of white rats, Mother?” asked Bunny.

[93]“I think so, yes, my dear. But don’t bother about rats now. We must find Sue.”

“Here’s a place where we didn’t look very well,” said George, and he pointed to a heap of hay near a small outside door of the barn, close to the ground. Mr. Brown had had this door made when he kept a cow, and it was opened when he wanted to take hay out of the barn for the cow, and did not want to open the big doors. This door was open now, swinging to and fro in the wind.

As this heap of hay had been forgotten and not turned over in the other search, Mrs. Brown thought perhaps Sue might be under it, having fallen asleep, not hearing the calls that were given.

Bunny and his chums tossed this hay aside with their hands. They had not gone down very far in it when, all of a sudden, something moved under the pile of dried grass fodder.

But when a little more of the hay had been[94] pushed aside, instead of seeing Sue Brown, her mother and the boys saw the queer, wizened face of Mr. Winkler’s monkey, whose name was Wango.

“Unless she’s turned into a monkey,” added Harry, who was fond of reading fairy stories.

“She couldn’t turn into this monkey, ’cause he’s Mr. Winkler’s Wango,” said Bunny.

“Oh, dear! I’m afraid something has really happened!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “Sue, where are you?” She called this last out loudly.

“Were we looking for you, child? Well, I should say we were!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “Where in the world have you been?”

“I went over to get Wango,” answered Sue. “But he ran away from me,” and then, in through the low door came Sue herself, her[95] dress torn and dirty and with streaks of mud on her face. But she was safe and sound, and when she saw Wango, who was sitting on the pile of hay looking at the boys, Sue exclaimed:

“Oh, there you are, you bad monkey! You ran away from me, didn’t you? And you tore my dress and made me all muddy!”

“Sue, why did you run away?” asked her mother. “We have been looking everywhere for you!”

“Well, I came out here to play with the boys, and they were making a trapeze for Patter to do tricks on,” said Sue, and she looked at her dog and the monkey, who had quickly made friends. “Then I thought maybe it would be nice if we could have Wango and Patter on the same trapeze, so I went over to get the monkey.”

“Did Mr. Winkler say you could take him?” asked Mrs. Brown. Sometimes the old sailor who owned Wango let the children play with his pet.

[96]“No, he wasn’t at home, and I knew it wouldn’t be any use to ask his sister,” went on Sue. “She doesn’t like the monkey, anyhow.”

This was very true. Miss Euphemia Winkler, sister of the old sailor, who kept house for him, did not like Wango. She often said she wished he would run away and never come back.

“Oh, the monkey was sitting out on the porch, chained to a post, so I unchained him and started over here with him,” said Sue. “But he pulled his collar loose and got away. Then I chased after him and he ran across the brook on the little plank bridge. I ran after him, and I almost caught him, but he got away and I fell down and I tore my dress and I got muddy.”

“I see you did,” said Mrs. Brown. But she knew children must play and get a bit dirty, so she did not scold Sue for that.

“So I thought maybe Wango would run over here, and he did,” went on Sue. “And I came and here he is and that’s all.”

“Quite enough I should say!” exclaimed[97] Mrs. Brown. “Now, Sue, you must come in and wash.”

“Can’t I stay and help the boys put Wango and Patter on the trapeze?” begged Sue.

“It’ll take us quite a while to fix up the platform, anyhow,” said George. “We’ll let you see it when we get it fixed so Wango and Patter swing on it.”

“Oh, Mrs. Brown, there are a lot of ladies in the parlor waiting to see you. They’re from the church.”

“Goodness! I forgot that they were coming,” said Mrs. Brown. “They said they would call to talk about the church fair.”

“One we are getting up,” her mother answered. “We are trying to raise money for the poor, and we are going to have a fair and entertainment in the opera house. I must go in and talk to the ladies about it.”

“Mother, if you have a church fair we could have Patter do tricks at it and that would make a lot of money for you!” went on Bunny. “Couldn’t we have the trick dog at the fair?”

The boys shouted and hurrahed and Patter barked while Wango chattered: “Yip! Yip! Yip!” and there was great excitement for a minute.

“We’ll talk a little later about the monkey and the dog at the fair,” promised Mrs. Brown. “Just now I must go in and see the ladies.”

Bunny and his boy chums were so excited they hardly knew what to do. So many things had happened.

There was the trick Patter did of bringing the caps from the brook. Then came the making of the trapeze, the finding of Sue and the monkey, after Sue had been thought to be lost, and lastly the idea of having the dog and the monkey at the church fair.

Mrs. Brown went to the house with Sue, to have Mary put a clean dress on the little girl while Mrs. Brown went in to see the ladies about the church fair. Bunny and the boys kept on making the platform for the swinging trapeze.

They tried several times before they could get the board to stay on the crossbar of the trapeze. But at last George managed to tie it on.

[100]“Now put Patter up on it and see if he’ll stay there and swing,” suggested Charlie.

They made a pile of boxes near the trapeze, and Bunny got his dog to get up on the boxes. Then, pointing to the trapeze, Bunny called:

The dog jumped, but the board was smooth and his toenails, not being sharp, like those of a cat, just slid off, so that Patter fell down on a pile of hay on the other side of the trapeze. He did not hurt himself—in fact he thought it was fun—but the trick was spoiled.

“Try it again,” said George, while Wango, Mr. Winkler’s pet monkey, sat in the hay chewing a stem of dried grass and looking like a little old man who had come to see what was going on.

Again Patter jumped, and again he slid off the smooth board into the pile of hay. And then Bunny had an idea.

“If we put a piece of carpet on the board so it won’t be slippery, just as we put carpet on our sleds, Patter won’t slide off,” said Sue’s brother.

Bunny found a piece of carpet and the boys fastened it with ropes to the board that was tied to the trapeze bar. The next time Patter jumped from the pile of boxes to the board he did not slide off, but remained there, slowly swinging to and fro and looking at the boys as much as to say:

“Well, I did it all right that time. Why didn’t you think of the carpet in the first place?”

“The best dog I ever saw, even if he won’t bring sticks from the brook,” admitted George. “Now we’ll see if we can’t get Wango to sit in the trapeze with Patter.”

The monkey knew and liked the boys, who were kind to him, so he did not make a fuss when they lifted him up beside Patter. Then the monkey and dog swung to and fro on the same carpet-covered trapeze board.

“The next thing to do is to teach Wango to[102] jump up the way Patter does,” suggested George. “We’ll do this next.”

So they began on that part of the trick which Bunny and his chums hoped to produce later in some sort of show, or circus.

“It would be great if we could have this at the church fair,” suggested Harry.

“People would pay more to see tricks like this than they would to hear a lot of girls singing,” said Harry. “I hate girls’ singing, anyhow.”

It is a good thing Sue did not hear the boys talking like this, or she might have said something sharp. And I suppose she could have pointed out things that the boys did which she and the other girls did not like. She might not have liked to hear them sing, though they did not seem to think of this.

But Sue was not there and Bunny and his chums kept on teaching Wango to leap from the pile of boxes and sit beside Patter on the[103] trapeze. After a while the monkey did it fairly well.

“Well, I guess this is enough for the first day,” said Bunny, after a while. “If we make Patter do tricks too much he’ll get tired.”

“Who’s going to take Wango back?” asked Charlie. “Mr. Winkler will want him, even if his sister doesn’t.”

Wango was willing to be led along by George, and the boy and the monkey, followed by Harry and Charlie, went their ways, while Bunny started for the house with Patter.

As Bunny walked up the front steps Mrs. Brown came out with the ladies. They had been talking over the church fair, and had made most of their plans.

“That’s our trick dog,” said Sue to the ladies, as Bunny came along with Patter. “He does lots of tricks.”

Just then one of the ladies dropped a basket she was carrying. As quick as a flash Patter[104] rushed forward, picked it up and then sat up, holding the basket in his mouth, as if he were waiting for something to be put into it.

“That’s a new trick!” exclaimed Bunny. “Oh, how many tricks our dog can do! But this is a new one!”

The ladies from the church looked at Patter sitting up with the basket in his mouth.

“And it gives me an idea,” said another. “Bunny, how long do you think your dog could sit up that way holding the basket?”

“Not an hour at a time,” replied Mrs. Brown. “But if he had a rest in between, he might do it. He has been trained to sit up that way,” she added. “But I never saw him hold a basket before.”

“Why did you want to know how long he could do that trick, Mrs. Jones?” inquired another lady.

[105]“I was thinking that we need something new and novel at our church fair,” answered Mrs. Jones. “Generally we have a man at the door taking tickets. But if we could have Bunny’s and Sue’s dog stand at the door, holding a basket for the people to drop tickets in, it would be something new and something amusing.”

“And people would come to the fair to see the dog taking tickets,” added Mrs. Smith.

“That’s just my idea,” went on Mrs. Jones. “It will be a sort of advertisement for us. Bunny, do you think your dog would take tickets at the door for our fair?”

“But he might want Bunny or me there by his side to make him stay sitting up,” added Sue.

“Oh, I intended to have you two children,” said Mrs. Jones, with a laugh. “You and your dog will be the combined attraction. Did any of you ladies ever hear of a dog taking tickets in a basket at a church fair?” she asked.

“Then we’ll try it at our fair,” went on Mrs. Jones. “I think Patter is the cutest and nicest dog I ever saw!”

Patter wagged his tail that was stretched out on the ground, and as he did so he brushed aside some sand and gravel from the walk.

“I wish I had him in my house,” remarked Mrs. Nelson, with a laugh. “He could dust my furniture. I’ve been so busy since I started working for the church fair that I haven’t had time to do much dusting.”

By this time Patter thought he had held the basket long enough. He dropped down to all four feet and walked over to Bunny with the basket in his mouth, as if asking what he should do with it.

“It’s my basket, if you please, Patter,” said Mrs. Jones. “I’ll take it now, but I’ll get you another in which to take tickets at the door when we have our fair. Give me the basket please.”

[107]As if he understood, Patter walked over and let Mrs. Jones take the basket from his mouth.

And then, while Bunny and Sue romped with their trick dog, the ladies talked to Mrs. Brown about having Patter take tickets at the fair.

There is a great deal of work to be done whenever a church fair is held. Bunny and Sue did not know this, but it is true. Mrs. Brown and her friends were kept very busy, and when Bunny asked when he and Sue could take Patter to the opera house, where the fair was to be held, and make him stand up and hold the ticket basket, Mrs. Brown said:

“Well, then I’m going to keep on teaching Patter and Wango to swing in the trapeze,” said Bunny.

“Will you have the dog and the monkey do tricks at the church fair, Mother?” Sue wanted to know.

“I hardly think so,” said Mrs. Brown. “I’m afraid it could not well be done with the[109] other things we have planned. I guess we’ll just have Patter alone at the fair.”

“I’d rather it would be that way,” said Bunny. “’Cause if we do the dog and monkey and trapeze trick at the fair, people wouldn’t want to come and see it when we have a show of our own.”

George and the other boys were a little disappointed when Bunny told them the trapeze trick could not be done at the fair. But they shouted with glee when told how Patter had held the basket and how it was planned to make him do it at the door on the nights when the church fair would be held.

“Well, if he’s going to do that we’d better make him practice now,” suggested Charlie Star.

He brought one out from the house, and no sooner did Patter see his little master with the basket than the dog ran to him and gently took it from Bunny’s hand. Then Patter sat up on his hind legs, as if “begging.”

“I don’t know,” Bunny answered. “But I guess it must have been that Frenchman who gave the dog to my father. He must have taught Patter a lot of tricks we don’t know anything about.”

“Well, as long as he holds up the basket, let’s pretend we’re ladies at the church fair, and we’ll make believe put tickets in the basket,” suggested George. “This will get Patter used to doing it.”

“How can we be ladies when we haven’t got long hair?” asked Charlie Star, with a laugh.

“Use little stones for tickets,” suggested George. “And if any of you want long hair to make believe you’re ladies, put on some of those carpenter shavings for curls.”

He pointed to a corner where a carpenter had been doing some work at the Brown house and had left a pile of curled shavings. With whoops of delight the boys swooped down on these and fastened them up under their caps[111] so that the “curls” hung down on either side of their faces.

“Now we’re ladies at the church fair, and we must each drop a ticket in the dog’s basket,” said George.

So the boys, with their false curls of shavings, marched in Indian file up to Patter, sitting on his hind legs holding the basket. And as the lads passed they each dropped a stone in as a ticket.

“He does it fine!” exclaimed George, when Patter never moved, but sat there like a stone statue of a dog. “He’s a fine fellow, Bunny.”

After each boy had put his “stone ticket” into the basket, Patter was allowed to drop the basket and romp around a bit, so he would not get tired of standing in one position too long.

“Maybe we’d better practice him a bit on the trapeze,” said Bunny, after the ticket taking had been gone through with for the third time.

“It would be a good idea,” said George.[112] “We ought to have the monkey, though, to get Patter used to him.”

The boys went over to the home of the old sailor. Usually Wango was outside on the porch, if the weather was warm enough, and it was now, for it was summer. But to-day no Wango could be seen. Miss Euphemia Winkler, Jed’s sister, was there, however, and she seemed very busy about something.

“What do you boys want?” she demanded rather crossly, as she saw them stop just outside the fence.

“Please, Miss Winkler,” began Bunny, “could we take Wango a little while? We’ll be sure to——”

“Don’t speak to me about that horrid monkey!” cried Miss Winkler, shaking her broom at the boys. “I never want to see him again. If he were here you could take him and welcome, but he isn’t here!”

“Don’t ask me! I hope he’s gone back to[113] China, or India, or wherever it was my brother was foolish enough to bring him from! I never want to see him again—the monkey I mean!” added Miss Winkler quickly. “Look at the work he made me!”

“Why, when I was baking cookies he swooped down off the mantel and grabbed both paws full,” said Miss Winkler, as she went on sweeping dirt from the porch. “Then, when I chased him, he ran out here and grabbed up two flower pots and threw them at me. The pots smashed and the dirt flew all over! Oh, I never saw such a monkey!”

The boys watched her for a few seconds and then Bunny said in a low voice to the others:

“There’s no use waiting for Wango to come back. He won’t come as long as he sees Miss Winkler there with a broom. He’ll think she wants to beat him.”

“Oh, I guess he’s hiding around in the trees,” Bunny answered. “That’s where he[114] runs to when Miss Winkler takes after him. Come on, we’ll go back and make Patter do his trapeze trick alone.”

On their way back the boys looked up in the trees they passed for a sight of Wango, but they saw nothing of the pet monkey. Then they turned toward Bunny’s house to go out to the barn and give Patter some practice on the trapeze.

When nearly at his house Bunny and his chums saw Bunker Blue driving along the street in one of Mr. Brown’s delivery autos.

“I’m going to see a sick old man,” went on Bunker. “He’s the one who came to your house the night you got the trick dog, Bunny,” explained the dock boy. “Your father is sending him some nice fresh fish, for he is better now and can sit up and eat. If I wasn’t going[115] to the hospital I’d ride you boys home,” said Bunker.

“Maybe we could go to see the old man and take Patter along and have him do some tricks,” suggested Charlie Star. “It would cheer the old man up.”

“I’ll ask him if he wants to see you,” promised Bunker Blue, as he kept on in the automobile.

The boys went to the barn and there Patter was dressed up in the clown suit of red, white and blue that he wore when he first did tricks for Bunny and Sue. The boys had some trouble putting it on Patter, but finally managed to do it.

“Yes,” agreed Bunny, “I guess maybe he was in a circus before the Frenchman had him.”

Patter did not object to being dressed in his clown suit, nor did he mind jumping up on the trapeze board and swinging there. In[116] fact he was a very good-natured dog, doing all the tricks he knew cheerfully, and as many times as he was asked.

“If he takes tickets in the church fair, your dog ought to have a different suit, Bunny,” said Charlie.

“He ought to be dressed in orange and black, or something like that,” added Harry. “Sort of a Hallowe’en, you know.”

When this matter was spoken of to Mrs. Brown she said that some of the ladies of the church were making a new suit for the dog.

A few days later came the time for the church fair. It was to be held in the opera house. At first none of the boys or girls who were Sue’s or Bunny’s friends had intended to go, but when it became known that Patter would be there, more young folks said they would attend. They wanted to see the dog take tickets.

As Mrs. Brown had said, two of the ladies on the committee had planned a new suit for Patter, and the day before the fair they[117] brought it home. It was yellow and black and had spangles on it that glittered in the light.

“Oh, this is a fine suit for our dog!” cried Bunny. “Could we keep it for him until we have our own show?”

The ladies said the suit was Patter’s to keep forever, and it would belong to Bunny and Sue just as the dog did.

Whether it was the news that Patter would “take tickets” at the church fair or whether it was some other attraction, I do not know, but it is true that a large crowd made its way toward the opera house the night the fair opened.

At the door, in his new suit, holding in his mouth a basket for the tickets, sat Patter. Near him were Bunny and Sue to make sure that Patter would not drop the basket.

Person after person came to the fair, looked at the dog holding the basket, and then, with a laugh, dropped in his admission ticket.

The basket was nearly full and Bunny was thinking of emptying it when Sue gave a sudden cry and pointed to something coming in[118] one of the opened windows. For the part of the opera house where the church fair was held was on the ground floor. Shows and entertainments took place upstairs.

“It doesn’t make much difference what kind of feet she has,” said Bunny quickly. “But if that’s a kitten she’d better not let Patter see her. He doesn’t like cats.”

As Bunny spoke this word “cats,” Patter pricked up his ears as if he knew what was said. Then he looked around and saw the pussy on the window sill, inside the church-fair hall. In another moment Patter dropped the basket of tickets, which scattered all about, and the dog, with a loud bark, raced across the room to get the kitten.

When Patter barked the kitten made a big mistake. Instead of jumping off the window sill to the ground outside, for the window was open, the little black cat with white feet leaped down inside the room where the fair was being held.

This was just what Patter wanted for now he could chase the little cat as much as he liked, and he raced after her as fast as he could run. In and out among the chairs and tables ran Patter, barking and whining, so eager he was to catch Whitefeet, which was the cat’s name.

But Whitefeet did not want to be caught. She, also, ran in and out among the tables and chairs, her back slightly arched up and her tail fluffed out and as big as a small sausage.

Men and women, boys and girls rushed here[120] and there after the dog and the kitten, calling to them, screaming and shouting.

“Patter! Patter! Come here! Stop it!” cried Bunny. He had picked up the basket his trick dog had been holding in his mouth to collect the tickets those coming to the fair had dropped into it. As for the tickets, they were scattered all over the room. “Patter, stop it! Come here!” cried Bunny again and again.

But though the dog generally minded very well, this time he did not mind. He paid no attention to Bunny Brown or to Sue. For Sue also called to her pet.

“Something must be done!” cried Mrs. Jones, one of the ladies managing the affair. “Won’t some one catch that dog?”

“Somebody ought to catch the cat, and then the dog would stop running,” said Mrs. Star. “Don’t try to catch your dog, Bunny,” she went on. “See if you can’t get the cat!”

“Whose cat is it, anyhow?” asked Bunker[121] Blue. He had been sent to the church fair by Mr. Brown, and Bunker was to help dish out the ice cream and do things like that.

“It’s a new cat,” said Bunny, as he ran around the room after his dog. “I never saw her before.”

There was a regular race to catch Patter and Whitefeet, though by this time it was mostly the boys who were running around—Bunny and his chums Charlie, George, and Harry, with a few others. Most of the women were laughing so hard they could not do much chasing, and the men were also chuckling at the sides of the room. The girls, too, except Sue, had given up trying to catch either the dog or the cat, but Sue ran around with Bunny, for she wanted to help him.

Suddenly the little black cat with the white feet made a quick turn and darted beneath a table on which were some artificial paper flowers that a lady and her daughter had made to sell for the aid of the church. It was not a very heavy table, and as the cat ran under it Patter tried to follow.

Now Patter was much larger than the cat,[122] and though Whitefeet could slip between the legs of the table, the dog could not. Patter tried it, but “he got stuck,” as Bunny said afterward, and upset the table. Over it went, the paper flowers scattering all about.

One wreath fell right around Patter’s neck and remained there, and as he leaped out from beneath the table he had flowers twined about him, looking like some prize-decorated dog.

But Patter did not mind this at all. On he ran, barking and whining in his eagerness to get the cat. Whitefeet was now headed for a table on which cups of tea had been set out for those who wished to buy this to drink.

All the committee ladies, standing around the walls of the room, knowing they could not reach the table in time to save it, gasped with fear as they saw Whitefeet headed for the tea table. If the cat ran under that and Patter followed there would be a great crash of china cups and saucers, as well as a great spilling[123] of hot tea. Upsetting the flower table was not so bad, but to upset the tea table would be dreadful!

However, almost at the last second, the black cat with the white feet turned aside and did not run under the table. Patter also turned and did not hit the table legs. The cat now ran down the long room.

But Patter was not to be fooled this way. On he kept after the cat, and behind the two animals came four or five boys, led by Bunny. The little Brown chap was sorry his dog acted this way. He had never seen Patter chase cats before, but of course it was natural for a dog to do it.

“Patter! Patter!” cried Bunny again and again. But Patter did not heed his master’s voice, this time, at any rate. Nor did Sue have any better luck when calling Patter to her.

At the upper end of the room, toward which the cat was now headed with Patter after her, was a table of fancy cakes. It was almost as small and light a table as that on which the paper flowers had been piled. Behind it stood an elderly lady who had made most of[124] the cakes herself, intending to sell them for the benefit of the church. This elderly lady saw the dog and the cat and the crowd of chasing boys coming toward her table of cakes, and she cried:

“Stop! Stop! Don’t come a bit closer! I won’t have my table upset! Stop!”

She might just as well “have talked to the wind,” said Bunker Blue, afterward. For the cat did not stop, nor did Patter, and of course on came Bunny Brown and his boy chums, hoping to catch Patter or the cat before more damage was done.

But it was too late. Under the table shot the cat. Patter again tried to follow, but he became tangled up in the table legs. Over went the table, cakes and all, the cakes scattering all over the floor. And as some of the cakes were round they rolled into far corners.

“Oh, my goodness! Oh, this is terrible!” exclaimed the elderly lady who had baked the cakes.

[125]Out from under the upset table of cakes crawled Patter, to keep on after Whitefeet. Some of the ladies hurried to right the fallen table, and others began to pick up the scattered cakes.

“We could help do that,” said George to Harry. “Maybe if we picked up all the cakes they’d give us some to eat for nothing. There’s no use chasing that cat and dog any longer.”

“Maybe they won’t want any of ’em back, as long as they’ve been on the floor, and we can keep ’em all,” suggested George.

So the two boys began to pick up the fallen cakes, but Bunny, Sue and Charlie raced on after the dog and the cat.

However, the chase soon came to an end now. By some mistake Whitefeet darted into a part of the room where there were no tables or chairs under which she could run. It was a corner, and Patter had her cornered there. Seeing nothing ahead of her but solid walls the[126] cat suddenly turned and faced the dog, her back arched higher than ever and her tail bigger than before. Also she began to hiss.

“Look out, Patter! Look out!” cried Bunny. “She’ll scratch your nose!”

But Patter did not intend to get his nose scratched. He must have known more about cats than either Bunny or Sue supposed. For when he saw that Whitefeet could not run any farther he did not rush up to her and bite her. Instead, he just sat up on his hind legs in front of the cat, as he had sat up when he held the basket for tickets.

“Did you ever see such a cute, queer dog!” remarked Mrs. Marshall. “He seems to be begging the cat’s pardon.”

“Oh, Bunny, he’s doing a trick!” cried Sue. And, as it turned out, this is what Patter wanted to do. After he had stood up on his hind legs for a moment in front of the cat, whining softly as if he wanted to speak to her, the dog got down on all fours and turned his[127] back toward Whitefeet. Then he stood as if waiting for something to happen.

The cat seemed surprised that she was not bitten or taken up in the dog’s mouth and shaken. It was something new for her, evidently, not to be badly treated by dogs. True, this dog had chased her, but that was all. He did not bite her.

Then the cat seemed to lose her fear. Her tail became smaller and the arch went down out of her back. She no longer hissed. But Patter was acting in a strange manner. He whined, he wagged his tail, and he kept looking around at Whitefeet.

“I don’t know,” Bunny answered, as much puzzled as the rest. “He acts that way sometimes before I have him do a trick, but——”

Just then Mr. Brown pushed his way through the crowd that stood in front of Patter and Whitefeet in the corner. Mr. Brown had just arrived at the church fair.

“Patter wants the cat on his back, that’s what he wants,” said Bunny’s father. “It’s one of his tricks. He used to perform with a[128] trained cat, and one trick was that a cat would sit on his back and Patter would march around that way. I got a letter from the Frenchman to-day. In it he told me this was one of the tricks he forgot to mention. Try it, Bunny. Put the cat on Patter’s back.”

That was the point. Would Whitefeet allow herself to be put on Patter’s back? The trick dog seemed ready to do his part.

“Here, better let me do it,” said Mr. Brown. “The cat might scratch you, Bunny.”

Mr. Brown spoke gently to the black kitten with the white feet and picked her up. He stroked her softly, rubbed her under her ears, at which she tilted her head and stretched out her neck as if she loved to be petted that way. Then Mr. Brown taught Whitefeet her first trick. He set her on Patter’s back.

The little cat remained there a moment, but just as Patter started to walk around, as he had been in the habit of doing, Whitefeet jumped down.

Once more he put Whitefeet up on Patter’s back, and this time the cat remained. She settled down as if contented and comfortable.

“Oh, isn’t that cute!” and “Just look at that!” cried the people who were watching the trick dog and the little cat.

Patter now seemed to have matters just as he wanted them. He had gotten his wish—that is if dogs ever wish—for he had the little black cat, with her four white feet, up on his back. And, once he had her there, he began marching around. Later on Bunny and Sue learned that this is just what Patter used to do in the show where the Frenchman exhibited him.

Down the long room, lined on either side with the church-fair tables, marched the dog with the cat on his back. Patter seemed rather proud of what he was doing, and the cat appeared to like it—that is, as much as cats like anything of the sort. Cats are not as fond of doing tricks as dogs are. They are, Bunker Blue used to say, “rather stuck-up.”

[131]But, though Whitefeet might seem proud and “stuck-up,” she did not offer to jump off Patter’s back. Perhaps she had been taught to do this by some boy or girl where she formerly lived. As I have told you, the cat was a strange one in the neighborhood of the opera house. None of the boys or girls remembered to have seen her before.

Perhaps the cat had been trained to sit on some boy’s or girl’s shoulder and be carried around the room this way, as I once had a cat do. And after finding out that Patter was not going to harm her, this cat may have thought she was riding on the shoulder of some one.

At any rate, she did not offer to get off the dog’s back, and those at the church fair saw the novel sight of Patter parading around with Whitefeet.

“If we had known he was going to do a trick like that we could have advertised it,” said Mrs. Jones.

“Well, maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t,” said Mrs. Nelson. “If we had, Patter might not have done it or the cat might have scratched him.”

[132]“That’s so,” agreed Mrs. Jones. “Anyhow, Patter was very cute when he held the basket of tickets.”

“And I think we’d better have him do it again,” said Mrs. Nelson. “More people are coming to the fair, and we want them to see what we promised—a dog taking tickets at the door.”

“In that case, we’ll have to get the cat off his back,” remarked Mrs. Jones.

“And we’ll have to straighten up the cake and flower tables,” commented Mrs. Watson. “This place is a sight!”

Indeed, the once orderly room where the church fair was being held was now in confusion, especially where the boys were trying to pick up the scattered cakes. The tossed-about paper flowers had been gathered up, not much the worse for the accident, except the wreath that had fallen about Patter’s neck.

The dog still had this gay ornament on him, and was walking along with one end dragging on the floor while Whitefeet still sat on his back. People crowded around to look at the odd sight.

[133]Then Whitefeet seemed to have done her trick long enough. For, with a gentle “meow” she leaped down to the floor, though she did not try to run away. Patter turned, looked at her and barked a little as if inviting her to get on his back once more, but Whitefeet would not do this.

“I’m going to take that kittie home!” declared Sue, as she picked Whitefeet up in her arms. The kitten did not seem to mind, and as no one else claimed the pet Sue was allowed to keep her.

“We’ll have her ride around on Patter’s back when we get up our show,” said Bunny.

“That will be great!” exclaimed Charlie Star. “Lots of people will come to see that.”

“Bunny, do you think you could make your dog hold the ticket basket again?” asked Mrs. Jones.

“No, leave the wreath on him,” suggested Mrs. Jones. “It looks cute. That is, if he’ll let it stay.”

“Oh, he doesn’t seem to mind it,” said[134] Bunny. “Come on, Patter,” he called. “You have to be ticket-taker again.”

Patter seemed to have had enough of riding Whitefeet on his back, at least for a time, so the trick dog willingly went with Bunny to the door and again sat up on his hind legs, the wreath of paper flowers around his neck, holding in his mouth the basket into which people dropped tickets.

The room, which had been upset by the dog and cat chase, was put in order, the flower table being prettily arranged again. As for the cakes—well, some of them were sadly broken.

“And I stepped on one,” said Harry. “I couldn’t help it, but I guess if you scrape off the top part it’ll be all right. Maybe nobody will see it.”

“Thank you, boys, for picking up the cakes,” said Mrs. Pallin, who had charge of that table. “But I don’t want them back. You may have them. I couldn’t sell cakes that had been on the floor.”

Other boys began searching for the cakes, some of which had rolled into far corners. Luckily most of the dainties had been in baskets, which had tipped over when the table had upset, and not all had spilled out. So there were still plenty that were clean and unbroken left to be sold. The accident was not so bad as had seemed at first.

Order was now once more restored. Patter was at his place, taking tickets at the door, and Sue and some of her girl friends were petting Whitefeet in one corner of the room. The church fair was well under way.

“We never had such a success, Mrs. Brown,” said Mrs. Jones to the mother of Bunny and Sue. “Your children have been very helpful, and as for Patter—he is invaluable!”

“Yes, even then,” said Mrs. Jones. “For it made excitement, and a lot of people, who wouldn’t otherwise have come in, entered[136] from the street to see what it was all about. And now we have them here we’ll make them spend money for the church,” she added, with a laugh. “That’s what church fairs are for.”

After a while, when it was seen that few more were coming in with tickets, Patter was allowed to give up his basket, for they did not want to tire him by making him sit up too long. But he had proved a great “attraction,” as a Bellemere newspaper said the next day.

Bunny and his chums, after eating the cleanest of the cakes that had been toppled to the floor, went off by themselves into a side room and began putting Patter through some of his tricks.

“Let’s get the cat again and see if he’ll let her get up on his back,” suggested Charlie. “If he’s going to do it in our show we’d better have him practice.”

Sue brought in Whitefeet, and the dog and cat resumed friendship at once, the cat even rubbing up against Patter.

[137]Bunny put the cat on the dog’s back. She curled up there as if she liked the warm, shaggy coat of hair, and Patter walked around again with Whitefeet on his back.

“Don’t make her do it too long or she’ll get tired and cross,” suggested Sue. So they gave her back the little cat, and then the boys got Patter to do some of the tricks he had often done for them as they romped through the fields.

As the boys were doing this Mr. Martin, one of the men who was helping with the fair, looked into the room and saw Patter marching around like a soldier, with a stick over his shoulder.

“That’s pretty good,” said Mr. Martin. “Will your dog do tricks before an audience, Bunny?”

“Will you please bring him upstairs to the stage? I want him to do some tricks on the stage.”

“No matter,” replied Mr. Martin. “He’ll[138] do as he is. That orange and black suit is fine! One of the performers who was going to sing is late, and I want to amuse the audience while there’s a wait. Your dog will just do for that. Bring him up on the stage.”

“Well, it isn’t the first time,” said George, for they all remembered the show Bunny and Sue had given.

Up to the opera house proper went Bunny and Patter. Mr. Martin went out in front of the curtain and explained to the audience that while they were waiting for the singer, Bunny Brown and his trick dog would amuse them.

Up went the curtain and out stepped Bunny and Patter. There was not a very large audience, for many persons were still in the lower room, buying things at the church fair. But there was enough of a crowd, and many it in[139] knew Bunny Brown. They clapped their hands when he made his bow, and when Patter also bowed there was more clapping.

Bunny put his dog through a few simple tricks, and these seemed to please the men and women. Of course if Bunny had practiced and had known he was going to give a performance with his dog, it would have been much better. But it was very well as it was, Mr. Martin said, and served to make the people laugh and the time pass until the belated singer appeared.

“Thank you very much, Bunny, for helping us,” said Mr. Martin, when the boy and dog went off the stage.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Bunny, with a smile. “Pretty soon I’m going to give a regular show—Sue and some of the fellows and I. And Patter is going to be in that.”

“Then I’ll come to see it and bring as many friends as I can,” promised Mr. Martin.

As the church fair would last rather late and as Mrs. Brown did not want Bunny and Sue to lose too much sleep, she sent them home with Bunker Blue at about half past nine[140] o’clock. Patter went with Bunny, and Sue insisted on carrying Whitefeet to the automobile, in which the trip home was made.

And no one did. Where the dear little black kitten, with her four white feet had come from, no one seemed to know. She had “just growed, like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” decided Sue when several days had passed and no one came to take Whitefeet away.

The church fair was a great success, and Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, to say nothing of their pet dog, had a large share in it. The newspaper said so, and that ought to prove it if anything could.

It was several days after the fair that Bunny and his boy chums were roaming over the fields with Patter.

“Let’s go up Turtle River and catch some[141] crabs,” suggested George. “Hard crabs are running fine now, and we can sell ’em and make some money.”

“All right,” agreed Charlie. “But let’s go to my house and get the lines, some bait, and a net. Can’t catch crabs without a net.”

The boys stopped at Charlie’s house, got some strong lines and bits of old meat, which makes the best crab bait. They also got a long-handled net with which to lift the crabs from the water and a peach basket in which to keep the crabs if they caught any.

In fishing for crabs you don’t use a hook on your line. A piece of meat, dangling on a string, is all that is needed. The crab swims up to the meat, grasps it in strong claws and starts to eat. Then if the line is lifted gently from the water the crab is lifted up with it. Slip the net under him before he lets go, and you have caught Mr. Crab.

Turtle River, into which the salt sea water from Sandport Bay flowed, was a fine place for crabs, and soon the boys had caught the[142] peach basket nearly full. The crabs clashed and clattered their hard shells in the basket, pinching one another and sticking their claws out through the cracks in the basket. Patter sat on the bank near the basket, wisely watching Bunny and his chums.

In lifting up one large crab in the net Bunny’s hands slipped and, before he knew it, the crab had fallen out on the ground near the spot where Patter sat. At once Patter leaped up and began barking at the crab, and pawing at it.

“Let that crab alone, Patter!” cried Bunny. “He’ll pinch you. Let it alone!”

But the warning was too late! With a snap of its claws the crab fastened on Patter’s paw, and the next moment Patter gave forth a howl and began rushing around on three legs.

“Patter! Patter! I told you to keep away from the crab!” shouted Bunny Brown, when he saw what had happened to his trick dog.

“Wow! Wow!” howled Patter, limping along and holding up the paw to which the crab—a large one—had fastened itself. “Bow-wow!”

Charlie, Harry and George cried this advice to Bunny as he ran along after Patter, seeking to help his pet.

Crabs can pinch very hard, as any of you knows who has been unlucky enough to be nipped by one. I have had even a small one[144] draw blood when he closed his pinchers on my thumb.

And as this crab was a large one, with powerful claws, it had a good grip on poor Patter’s paw. Luckily the dog’s paw was tough, and was covered with hair which was like a cushion, or a glove, so the crab did not break the skin or draw blood.

But it pinched hard enough to make Patter howl, and Bunny was afraid his trick dog might run away and be lost. So the boy raced after his four-legged chum calling:

“Wait a minute, Patter! Wait a minute and I’ll take the crab off your paw!”

“Better not do that,” advised George. “Knock the crab off with a stick. If you try to pull it off you’ll get pinched, too.”

“Sit up!” commanded Bunny, as he knew if the dog did this it would be easier to knock off the pinching crab.

Patter did as he was told. Even though howling from pain he obeyed his master’s[145] voice. Then, when he was sitting on his hind legs with the paw to which the crab was fastened held pitifully out, Bunny swung his stick and hit the hard shell of the crab a resounding blow.

The result was that the one claw, by which the crab was then hanging, was broken off. Crabs’ claws are easily broken, and it does not seem to hurt the creature. There is a saying that crabs’ claws will grow back on again, but I am not certain of this. I have caught a great many crabs with only one claw—large crabs, too—and it seems to me that if they were going to grow a new claw, in place of the one they have lost, a little claw would have started growing. And this I have never seen.

Anyhow, by knocking the crab from Patter’s paw the claw of the sea-creature was broken off and left hanging on the dog’s foot, though it no longer pinched. The one-clawed crab scuttled off sideways, which is the way crabs “walk” on dry land, and also the way they often swim, though sometimes they dart backward in the water.

[146]“Catch the crab!” cried George. “Don’t let it get away! It’s a big one and full of meat!”

“I’ll get it,” offered Charlie, while Bunny began taking the loose claw from Patter’s leg.

There is a certain way to pick up a crab in your hand so he cannot pinch you, and Bunny and his chums, being “salt water boys,” knew how to do this.

Charlie first put one foot lightly on the crab, hard enough to hold the crawling creature from moving, but not hard enough to crush the upper shell, with its sharp, sticking points. Charlie then reached down and took hold, between his thumb and one finger, of one of the hind “flippers” or swimming legs of the crab, close to where it joined the shell. Held thus, the crab could not reach around with its one remaining claw to pinch Charlie. The boy lifted the crab from under his shoe and tossed the squirming creature into the basket with the other crabs.

[147]“Yes, I got it off,” was the answer. “But it was stuck pretty tight.”

Even after a crab’s claw is torn from its body the claw will still cling, for it has sharp points that lock like a spring trap.

Patter stopped howling and began to lick his slightly injured paw. Bunny watched his pet trick dog anxiously.

“I hope he won’t be lame,” he said. “If he’s lame he can’t do his tricks so well.”

Patter limped a little when he put his pinched paw down on the ground, but this soon wore off and a little later he was romping around as if nothing had happened.

But the next time one of the crabs got out of the net and began to scramble around on the ground, Patter took care to be far away. He barked and whined at the crab, but he did not put a paw near it. He had learned a lesson.

It was not as easy to sell hard-shelled crabs in Bellemere as it would have been in a town farther away from the seacoast, for in Bellemere[148] those who wished this form of sea food generally caught their own crabs. Still the boys had peddled crabs before.

Putting a stick through the slots in the sides of the peach basket and covering the crabs with wet seaweed to keep them alive—for it is dangerous to one’s health to cook and eat a dead crab—the chums started off on their peddling trip, followed by Patter.

“Want to buy any crabs, Mrs. Jones?” asked George, as the boys appeared at the back door of the lady who had helped to get up the church fair.

“Thank you, no,” she answered, with a smile. “They’re too much trouble. If you had some soft crabs now, I’d take a dozen. Mr. Jones is very fond of soft-shelled crabs on toast.”

“We’ll try to get you some soft crabs this afternoon,” offered Bunny. “But they’re scarce, I heard Bunker Blue say.”

“I suppose that’s why my husband wants some,” went on Mrs. Jones. “People often[149] want strawberries in January and soft crabs when they’re hard to get. Well, if you find any bring them to me. But I can’t use the hard kind.”

I might explain that a soft crab is one that has just shed its hard shell. Soft crabs are delicious fried in butter and put on a piece of toast. The only way to cook hard crabs is to boil them alive and pick out the meat, which is quite a lot of work. But, as Bunny had said, soft crabs were scarce. They are also much harder to catch than hard crabs.

When a hard crab grows, it finds its shell too small for it. The creature then bursts out from its horn-like casing. Once it is out it is soft and flabby. It hides away under the seaweed and only sharp eyes can find it. Soft crabs are scooped up in a net, as their claws are so flabby they cannot cling to the bait or piece of meat on a string.

“Well, we’ll have to try somewhere else,” said Bunny, as they walked out of Mrs. Jones’ yard with the basket.

[150]After many calls the boys at last succeeded in selling the basket of hard crabs to Mrs. Hampton for fifty cents. This gave them twelve and a half cents each, and they were quite satisfied with their work.

“It was fun, anyhow,” said Bunny, as they divided the money; buying candy with the odd two cents and passing that around.

Sue was a little worried that evening when Bunny told her that the crab had pinched Patter. But when she had looked at the dog’s paw and could see no wound, she felt better.

And as Patter did them as well as ever, his little friends knew he was all right again.

“Yes,” agreed Sue. “And I’ll make a new suit for Patter. I’ll make it of silver and gold—like a fairy suit.”

“That will do for one suit, besides the Hallowe’en and his clown dress,” observed Bunny. “But I think it would look different if he had a tramp suit.”

[151]“I mean—I mean—well, in a circus or a show lots of times a man comes all dressed up like a ragged tramp, but he can do good tricks. Maybe we could have one act where Patter wore a ragged and torn suit like a tramp dog, and people would be surprised.”

“Oh, that will be fun!” agreed Sue. “I’ll make a tramp suit, too, Bunny.”

“No, I’ll make that,” said the boy. “You mightn’t make it torn and ragged enough. You make the gold and silver suit and I’ll make the tramp suit.”

So it was agreed, and plans were made for several new tricks it was hoped Patter would perform. Each day he seemed to learn something new, but the trick Bunny and his boy chums liked best of all was where Patter swung on the trapeze with Wango the monkey.

This trick was practiced whenever they could coax or borrow Wango from Mr. Winkler, and this was pretty often. The trick of having Whitefeet also ride on Patter’s back was not forgotten.

“I’ll make him do that trick when we have[152] the show, ’cause Whitefeet is my kittie,” declared Sue.

One day Mrs. Brown sent Bunny and Sue down to the boat and fish dock with a note to her husband. He had gone out for a little while, but Bunker Blue said he would be back soon and advised Bunny and his sister to wait.

There were many boats drawn up on the shore of Sandport Bay near Mr. Brown’s dock, and some boats were already in the water. Bunny and Sue got in one that was floating, and Patter scrambled in after them. Quite a little wind was blowing, and the children moved about in the boat, putting Patter through some of his tricks.

That meant the boat had become loosened and was floating away. Already it was some distance out in the bay, and there were no people near in other boats to go to the rescue[153] of the children. As there were no oars in their boat they could not row back to shore, though had there been oars Bunny or Sue could have handled them.

“Oh, what are we going to do?” cried Sue, as the wind became stronger and stronger, drifting them farther and farther from the shore and their father’s dock.

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were not afraid of being on the water in a boat. They knew how to swim, and they had paddled and rowed around Sandport Bay often enough to know how to handle a small boat.

But it was different—this being out in a boat with no oars. Bunny or Sue would never have done that of their own accord, for they knew how easy it was to drift away. And, if they had known the boat was not well fastened, they would have seen to that before they got in, for their father had taught them how properly to tie a knot that would not slip, one that would hold a boat securely and yet one which was easy to loosen.

The boat that Bunny and Sue had gotten in did not belong to their father, but to another[155] fisherman, though the children knew he would not mind their playing in his craft.

“But we didn’t know the boat would come loose!” said Sue, as they drifted out farther and farther.

He had often heard his father say that when some other fisherman’s boats became loose and drifted away.

“What are we going to do, Bunny?” asked his sister, and it sounded as if the little girl might cry, as indeed she was almost ready to do.

“I’ll see if I can’t paddle back to shore with my hands,” said Bunny, and he leaned over the side of the boat.

“I won’t,” said Bunny. But he soon found it was not very easy to paddle with his hands. The wind blew him, his sister, and Patter farther out from shore all the while, and by this time the Brown boat and fish dock was some distance down the bay.

[156]“We’d better call,” suggested Sue. “Then maybe Bunker will come and get us, or maybe daddy will.”

They shouted as loudly as they could, and if the wind had been blowing in the right direction probably they would have been heard on their father’s dock, or by some of the men in the fish house. But, as it was, the wind was blowing the wrong way and carried the voices of the children out to sea.

Just at this time, for some reason or other, there were no other boats around Bunny and Sue, though at most times there were plenty of crafts coming and going. A fisherman, a lobsterman, or any one who had seen the drifting children and dog could soon have rowed after them and brought them to shore.

The children soon gave up trying to shout and make their voices carry to their father’s dock. They knew enough about winds to feel that they never could be heard the way it was now blowing.

“There’s a man on shore. Maybe he’ll hear us,” suggested Sue, pointing toward an old[157] fisherman who was spreading his nets out to dry.

Again they shouted. But either the man was deaf and did not hear them or, if he heard the voices of the little boy and girl, he thought they were just playing, or “cutting up,” as he might have called it.

So this was of no use, and Bunny and Sue began to feel a bit frightened. Still it was early in the day, and though the wind blew rather hard there was no sign of a storm. And the children knew that before they drifted out to sea some one would row out after them.

But it was not pleasant to feel that they were drifting away, and Bunny and Sue wanted to get to shore, or to their father’s dock, as soon as they could.

“Oh, I know!” suddenly cried the little girl. “We can send Patter to shore to get somebody to come after us.”

“Why,” went on Sue, “don’t you remember how Patter used to jump into the water after your cap?”

“Then throw your cap into the water now,” said Sue. “It’s an old one and won’t be hurt.”

“But what good will it do?” asked Bunny. “He’ll jump in and bring my cap back to me here in the boat.”

“I don’t believe he’ll do that,” said Sue. “Did he ever bring your cap to you in a boat, Bunny?”

“And I guess he’ll do that now,” went on Sue. “He’s used to taking caps to shore and not to boats. If you throw your cap in he’ll jump in after it and swim to the shore with it. And then he’ll bark and maybe Bunker Blue or somebody will hear him, and then they can come out and get us.”

He took off his cap—an old one—and threw it as far from the boat as he could toss it. Almost as soon as it fell into the water, Patter leaped overboard and swam toward the cap.

Now he was almost up to it—now he had reached it. But would he turn and swim back to the boat with it or would he carry it to shore as Bunny and Sue hoped? Eagerly they watched him.

Then it was Patter showed his training. Never having been taught to take a cap to a boat, he kept on swimming toward shore, as he had always done when he leaped from the bank of a stream and swam out to get the cloth head-covering.

Naturally you would have thought that Patter would swim back to where Bunny was, whether on shore or in a boat. But the dog did not. He seemed to think shore was the proper place for caps that he took from the water, and to shore he went.

Climbing out on the sandy beach, Patter gave himself a shake to get rid of as much[160] water as possible, and then he laid the cap down and began barking. Long and loud barked Patter.

Now, it is a strange thing about the bark of a dog. It can be heard farther than most other sounds. Balloonists, carried high into the air, say that the bark of a dog is the last sound they can hear from the earth they are leaving.

And so, as it happened, Patter’s barking was heard when the calls of Bunny and Sue had not been. Besides, Patter was on shore and nearer the dock than the drifting boat.

Bunker Blue heard the dog’s barking cries. At first the red-haired fish boy paid little attention to the barking, but when Patter kept it up for some time Bunker said:

“Why don’t you go out and see,” suggested one of the other men on the dock. Mr. Brown had not yet come back.

As he went out on the dock he looked up the beach and saw Patter standing near Bunny’s[161] cap and barking. At first Bunker did not see Bunny and Sue in the boat, which had, by this time, drifted farther out. But Bunker knew the trick dog, and he felt sure something was wrong, for Bunny and Sue were never far away from their pet.

Bunker ran up the beach toward Patter, and then the fish boy saw Bunny’s cap. He knew it at once.

“My goodness, I hope nothing has happened to those children!” thought Bunker Blue. “I hope they haven’t fallen overboard! Where are they, Patter?” he asked. “Where are Bunny and Sue?”

Patter’s only answer was to bark more loudly. Then Bunker Blue looked across the bay. He saw the drifting boat and his sharp eyes made out in it the figures of two children.

In a few minutes Bunker was rowing rapidly out toward the drifting boat. Patter jumped in with the fish boy, taking Bunny’s wet cap with him. In about five minutes[162] Bunker had reached the drifting boat and had made it fast to his own.

“What in the world did you two want to come away out here for without any oars?” he asked. “You ought to know better than that!”

“We didn’t come—we were drifted out,” said Bunny, telling exactly what had happened, if not explaining very fully.

“Well, you ought to look and make sure a boat is fast before you get into it to play,” scolded Bunker, as he began to row back to shore.

So the adventure ended happily, though there might have been danger had no one seen the children and gone after them. When Mr. Brown came back to the dock and heard what had happened, he made Bunny and Sue promise to be more careful.

The children gave their father the message sent by their mother and then, as the day was still young, Mr. Brown said:

“I’m going to the hospital to see Jason Stern. Do you children want to come with me?”

“He is the old man who came to our house the night you got Patter,” her father said. “He’s in the hospital from an accident that happened to him. I’m going to see him to try to cheer him up.”

“Maybe if he could see Patter do some tricks he’d cheer up more,” suggested Bunny.

“Maybe he would,” agreed his father. “So come along to the hospital with me. The old man seems to have no friends, and I take an interest in him.”

Mr. Brown and the children were soon at the hospital, going in an automobile with Patter riding on the back seat as naturally as if he belonged there.

“We’d like to see Mr. Stern,” said Daddy Brown, when they entered the office of the hospital.

“He means to make the dog do tricks,” said Sue, as if afraid the nurse in the office might think Mr. Stern had to do tricks.

[164]“Yes, since Mr. Stern is now in the sun parlor, and not in any of the wards or rooms, it will be all right to take your dog up,” said the nurse, with a smile. “I’m sure I hope you can cheer him,” she added in a low voice to Mr. Brown. “He doesn’t take any interest in life, and he must, if he is to get well.”

Through the hospital halls and corridors went Bunny Brown and his sister Sue and their trick dog, Mr. Brown coming along behind and directing them which way to go, as he had been in that part of the hospital before. In the sun parlor were a number of patients who were able to be out of bed, but who were not yet well enough to go to their homes or elsewhere.

“There he is, over in the corner by himself,” said Mr. Brown to his children, when he had looked around and had seen Mr. Stern. And by the very fact that the poor old and ragged man was thus sitting by himself, it showed how much he needed cheering.

The other patients were grouped together, listening to one who was telling them a story and some happenings of his life, it seemed.

“Oh, I’m about the same,” was the low-voiced answer. “Not much better. I guess I’m never going to get any better. But it doesn’t matter. I’m no good to anybody.”

“You mustn’t talk that way,” said Mr. Brown cheerfully. “You’ll be out of here soon, and then we’ll see what can be done for you.”

“Nothing much can be done for me,” went on Mr. Stern, in sad tones. “If I could find Jim Denton he might start me in the show business again. But he’s gone.”

“Perhaps I could find work for you at my fish dock,” suggested Mr. Brown. And just then Patter went silently up to the old man and touched a cold nose to Mr. Stern’s hand.

“Eh? What’s that? Is that you, Tanza?” Mr. Stern cried, and he seemed to have aroused to new life. For the first time he looked up at Mr. Brown, and then he looked down at Patter.

“Oh, nothing. But for a moment I thought—but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”

Bunny and Sue, young as they were, felt that something was wrong with the old man—something strange and mysterious, it seemed. And Mr. Brown wondered what he meant by speaking that strange name “Tanza.”

“I brought my children and their dog to cheer you up a little,” went on Mr. Brown.

“Yes, yes! It’s very good of you,” said the old man. He was not ragged, as he had been at first, since he was now wearing some garments supplied by the hospital.

“Good tricks, too,” added Sue. “And once he chased a cat and she had four white feet and she rides on Patter’s back.”

“Yes, yes! That’s very nice, my little ones,” said the old man, and he smiled at the children—not much of a smile, just a trace, but it showed that he had been aroused from his sad thoughts.

[168]By this time Patter in the sun parlor had attracted the attention of the other patients. There was a boy with a broken arm and a girl who had something the matter with her leg and could not walk. And these children were delighted to see Patter. Nurses wheeled them in chairs close to the dog.

“Oh, yes, we’ll be glad if you will,” she said. “The patients here don’t get much amusement.”

So Patter was put through his tricks. He walked on his hind legs and on his front paws. He sat up and then “said his prayers” on the back of a chair.

“Oh, he’s a lovely dog!” cried the little girl. “My dollie says her prayers just like that!”

Just then Patter gave a bark, as he always did when he had finished his “prayers.”

Then Patter did more of his tricks. At the one where he marched around with a stick for a gun, Mr. Stern smiled and asked:

“Well, if he can do that I think he can drive your pony hitched to the cart,” said the old man. “Try it some day. Put the dog up on the seat and tie the lines in a loop around his neck. Then teach him to put his right paw on the right rein when he wants the pony to turn to the right, and to put his left paw on the left rein, to pull on that when he wants Toby to turn to the left.”

“I’m sure it can,” answered the old man.[170] “When I had my Tanza—but what’s the use of talking about that?” and he sighed and seemed more gloomy than at first.

However, Bunny and Sue did not notice this very much and their father was glad, for he did not want them to see the gloomy side of hospital life.

Bunny put Patter through a few more tricks, to the delight of the patients in the sun parlor, and then it was time to go.

“I’ll come again in a few days and see how you are,” said Mr. Brown to Mr. Stern, when taking leave. “And when you are able to work I’ll see that you get a place.”

“I don’t believe I’m good for much except the circus or show business,” was his reply.

“And maybe I’ll have my doll when you come next time,” said the little lame girl. “Then I’ll show you how she says her prayers. But she doesn’t bark like a dog,” she added, with a laugh at Mr. Brown.

That Bunny, at least, knew there was something strange about Mr. Stern was evident, because on the way home Bunny asked his father:

However, the visit to the hospital gave Bunny something new to think about—and this was the trick of having Patter drive Toby from the seat of the pony cart.

“He never can do it!” declared George when Bunny spoke of it to his boy chums the next day.

“Maybe he can,” said Charlie. “Let’s try. It will be a dandy trick for the show if he’ll do it.”

Toby, the Shetland pony, was peacefully eating in his stable. He stopped chewing hay to listen as he heard the sound of many feet rushing into the barn. Then Toby whinnied with pleasure as he heard the voice of Bunny Brown. For Toby loved Bunny and Bunny loved Toby.

“We’ll take Toby out and see if Patter will do the trick of driving him,” said Bunny.

“If he does it will be dandy for the show,” said George. “But I don’t believe he will.”

“You said that when Bunny told us some other tricks his dog could do,” remarked Charlie.

“Well, maybe I did, but I don’t believe a dog can drive a horse—not really drive and guide him,” declared George.

“We can soon tell,” Bunny went on, as he[173] opened the door of the part of the barn where the pony was kept.

Toby heard the talk, but of course he did not know what it all meant. However, he knew enough to make sure that he was going to be taken out into the sunshine and fresh air. When Toby heard the voice of Bunny or Sue it nearly always meant that he was to give them a ride on his back or pull the cart. And Toby was glad to do this, for it was no fun to remain in the stable all day.

The little pony was led out into the stable yard, and Patter, as usual, was waiting there. As soon as Patter saw Toby the dog jumped up on the pony’s back.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Patter!” cried Bunny, with a laugh. “We don’t want you to do that trick to-day. We want you to do a new one.”

“Well, half of him is. What are you doing with my half?” asked Sue. “Course you can do what you like with your half,” she went on. “But you can’t hurt my half.”

Toby stood still, except for the switching of his tail to drive away flies, until Bunny and the boys had him hitched to the cart. And twice, while this was going on, Patter leaped up on Toby’s back and sat there.

“You mustn’t do that, Patter!” cried Bunny, calling his dog down. “We don’t want you to do that trick now. Wait a minute.”

“I guess I’d better hold him for you. As long as Toby is here, Patter will think you want him up on his back. I’ll hold the dog.”

“I think I know how we can teach Patter to pull on the right rein or the left rein to guide Toby,” he said.

“I’ll show you,” answered George. He was beginning to think that, after all, the trick might work.

When Toby was harnessed to the cart, Patter was told to jump up on one of the side seats and made to sit up there, in a begging position. The reins were fastened around the dog’s neck, and then with the boys and Sue standing and looking on, Toby was started straight down the drive.

“Except he doesn’t make Toby go to the right or the left,” objected Harry.

“Oh, I forgot!” exclaimed Bunny. “Mr. Stern said to put his right paw over the right rein and his left paw over the left one. We must do that.”

This was done, but still Patter did not pull[176] on either rein, and all Toby did was to walk straight ahead. It looked as though the dog was driving, but he was not guiding the horse as they wished him to do.

“Now I’ll show you what I thought of doing,” said George. “Here, Bunny, you stand on one side of the drive, part way down.”

Toby was turned around and made to stand at the beginning of the long driveway that led out to the street from the barn. Patter still remained on the seat, with the reins around his neck. But instead of just putting his paws on top of the reins, the boys made loops of pieces of clothes line and slipped the dog’s paws through them. So his paws were held in position.

“I’ll show you in a minute,” George answered. Then he said to Sue: “You go down and stand opposite Bunny—on the other side of the drive, you know.”

[177]“Now then,” went on George, “I’ll start Toby down the drive. When he has gone a little way, Bunny, you call Patter by his name. But don’t call him enough so he’ll jump off the seat.”

“Well,” said George, “I think when Bunny, standing on the left side of the driveway calls Patter’s name, the dog will turn to him, and that will make him press a little on the left rein and Toby will go that way. Then if Sue calls Patter from the right hand side of the drive, Patter will turn to look at her, and his right paw will press on the right rein and Toby will turn that way.”

So they tried it. First, though, when Bunny called to the dog, Patter jumped right off the seat and ran to his little master.

Also when Sue called, Patter did the same thing—he jumped down off the seat. But finally they got him to remain in place, with[178] his paws through the rope loops on the leather reins that guided Toby.

“Patter!” suddenly called Bunny, on the left side. The dog gave a little bark, turned his head toward the boy but did not jump off the seat. And then, just as George had said, the slight pull on the left rein made Toby turn that way.

“Now let me try!” begged Sue. So she called Patter’s name and the dog turned toward her, and also guided Toby in that direction.

“Now we have a real trick!” exclaimed George, and all the boys, as well as Sue, thought George was very smart to think of it. They made Toby and Patter do this new trick several times to make sure it would work all right. Then they let Patter get out of the cart and Bunny gave his two pets—the pony and the dog—some sweet crackers. For when animals do tricks they expect to be rewarded.

[179]“I guess we’ve got almost enough tricks now to start the show,” said Bunny, a little later.

“Sure!” agreed George. “We fellows will bring all our pets and all the animals and things we can get.”

“They’ll be nice—I mean the people will like to look at them, but we’ll have to keep ’em in a cage,” said George. “I’ll get my alligator.”

After Toby was put back in the barn the boys roamed over the fields, taking Patter with them. And they talked about the coming show.

Mr. Brown was delighted when told that evening after supper of how Toby and Patter had done the driving trick suggested by the poor old man in the hospital.

Then the children told her how the poor man in the hospital had spoken that name, but would not say what it meant. If Mr. Brown could guess who it was he did not say.

The next day preparations for the show, in which Patter was to play a big part, began. Bunny’s chums came over every day to help build seats in the barn and do other things to make ready for the show.

One day when Bunny and his boy chums were going across the fields to see another boy who had a trained rooster they wanted in the show, they saw a farmer running along as if very much excited.

“Matter enough,” was the answer. “Look up on that hill! See all the cows in my corn! They’ll ruin my field if I don’t get ’em out[181] soon, and it’s a long way to that hill—I can never get there in time. Oh, look at ’em!”

From where he and the boys stood they could look up on a distant hill, across a canal used to float boats into Sandport Bay. On the hill, in a field of corn, were many cows.

“They broke through the fence,” said Mr. Boardman. “If I don’t get them out soon I’ll have no corn left, and it’s a long way around to the bridge over the canal.”

“How can you?” asked the farmer. “It’s as far for the dog to go as it is for me, and it will take you just as long.”

Bunny’s chums, as well as the farmer, waited for the answer. What could Patter do to the cows, far from them as he was and with a deep canal of water between?

Though it was perhaps half a mile from where Bunny and his chums and the farmer stood to the field of corn where the cows were causing such trouble, still the animals were in plain sight, for they were up on top of a hill. They could be seen walking in among the rows of corn, tramping down much of it, and eating what they wanted.

Bunny stooped down, took hold of Patter’s head and turned it so the dog could look straight at the distant cows in the corn. Then Bunny spoke, while all the others kept silent.

“Patter, go drive those cows out! Chase ’em out!” said Bunny. “Go chase the cows!”

Patter barked once or twice, fixed his eyes sharply on the cows, and then, breaking away from Bunny, ran to the canal, jumped in, and swam across.

[183]As soon as the dog was on the other side of the water he began racing up the hill, barking loudly all the while. From where they stood, the boys and the farmer could watch Patter plainly.

The dog ran the half mile distance much more quickly than the boys or Mr. Boardman could have done, even if they had swum over the canal. Reaching the field of corn, Patter rushed in, snapped at the legs of the cows, and so barked at them and worried them, but without hurting them, that they were glad to amble out of the cornfield into the meadow where they belonged.

“Well, that’s a pretty smart trick!” exclaimed the farmer. “I never saw a dog like that before. He’d be valuable to me. What will you sell him for, Bunny?”

“How did you make him drive out the cows? I never saw him do it before!” exclaimed George.

[184]“Well, my mother told me about a dog her father used to own when she was a little girl,” said Bunny, as he and the boys walked along with Mr. Boardman, who was going to mend the fence so the cows couldn’t get out again. “And this dog my grandfather had would chase pigs out of a field when he saw them, even if he was a long way off. So I thought maybe if that dog would chase pigs, my dog would chase cows—and he did.”

“He certainly did! I never saw a dog do better!” chuckled the farmer. “Any time you want to sell him, Bunny, I’ll buy him from you.”

“Both of us,” answered Bunny. “So is my sister Sue, and our pony Toby, too.”

“We’re all going to be in the show,” added Charlie. “We’re going to do tricks and there’ll be an alligator and white rats——”

“I’ll take a ticket right now!” exclaimed the farmer, putting one hand in his pocket. “In fact I’ll take two tickets and bring my wife. It was worth more’n twenty cents to have the cows driven out of my corn.”

“But we’ll be selling them in a few days, and then we’ll bring you some,” added George.

The boys went with him up to the cornfield on the hill, where Patter was still on guard keeping out the cows. Then the fence was mended so the animals could not again get out of their pasture.

“Thanks, a whole lot, boys, for what you and the dog did,” called Mr. Boardman, as Bunny and his chums started away. “And don’t forget—I want two show tickets.”

“We must get the tickets ready,” said George to his chums, as they walked down the hill.

[186]“Maybe we could have ’em printed like real tickets,” suggested Harry.

“Pete Gordon has a printing press,” announced Bunny. “I guess he’d print ’em for us, ’cause we buy most of our groceries from his father.”

Pete Gordon was the son of the grocery store owner, and when the boys explained to him what they wanted he kindly promised to print the tickets for them. When they were ready the tickets looked like this:

GRAND SHOW
IN
BUNNY BROWN’S BARN

See the Trick Dog
See the Trick Pony.
SEE SISTER SUE
————
ADMISSION $10

That dollar sign in front of the 10 was a mistake, Pete said, and he had not noticed it until all the tickets were struck off. But, as[187] he explained to the boys, it didn’t really make any difference.

“And maybe it’s a good thing you did make that mistake,” said George. “When folks get a ten dollar ticket for ten cents they’ll think it’s a bargain!”

So they started out to sell tickets for the show, in which Patter was to play a principal part with Toby, the Shetland pony. But, somehow or other, the tickets did not sell very well. Many persons on whom the boys called with them laughed and said, kindly enough:

Finally, after many had refused to buy, the boys got together in Bunny’s barn to talk matters over.

Everyone had a different idea as to how the tickets could best be sold, and when there are half a dozen or more boys all talking at once it is hard to get anything straight. Besides Bunny and his three particular chums—George, Harry and Charlie—a number of other lads had been asked to help with the performance. They had also tried to sell tickets, but no one had had much luck.

Mr. Boardman took the two he had promised to buy, but if the boys wanted to make money from the show—and of course they did—twenty cents was not much.

So, as I have mentioned, the boys talked the matter over, and each one had a different idea of how to bring success. They talked so much and said so many things that I have not room for a quarter of it.

[189]Finally George, being the oldest of the boys, seemed to hit on the right idea.

“I tell you what it is, fellows,” he said, “we’ll have to give this show for somebody.”

“What do you mean—give it for somebody?” asked Charlie. “Aren’t we giving it for ourselves—for the fun of it, and to show people what fine tricks Bunny’s dog and pony can do?”

“That’s just it,” went on George. “We must give the show for somebody else. You know, when they had the fair, it was for the church, and a lot of people came and spent money when they wouldn’t go to the moving pictures for fun. When Bunny and Sue gave a show once before it was for Red Cross, and lots of people came ’cause they knew their money would go to Red Cross. And now——”

“Oh, I see what you mean!” cried Bunny, so eager that he did not beg pardon of George for interrupting. “People think the money is for us kids and they think we don’t need it.”

“That’s my idea!” said George. “Now if we could say this show was for the benefit of[190] the Red Cross, or something like that, people would buy a lot of tickets.”

“Come into the house and talk to my mother,” suggested Bunny. “She knows a lot, my mother does.”

“That’s right!” cried the boys. I believe they felt this same way about their own mothers.

“My! what’s all this about? A raid on the pantry?” cried Mrs. Brown, smiling, when she saw Bunny leading his boy friends toward the house.

“But if you have any cookies I guess we’d like them, too,” said Bunny, with a laugh.

“All right,” agreed his mother. “Perhaps I can give you both. I am sure I can give you cookies,” she went on, as she asked Mary to bring out a large plate filled with sugar and molasses disks. “As for advice, what kind do you want?”

“It’s about the show,” explained Bunny. “The tickets aren’t selling, and we want to make money for some benefit.”

“I see,” remarked his mother. “Well, as[191] it happens, some ladies have just called on me to ask me to help in raising money for a Home for Crippled Children. We thought of giving a fair, but if you boys want to give your show for the benefit of the Home, I’m sure the ladies would be glad to do all they could to help you sell the tickets, since they would raise money that way.”

“Hurray!” shouted Bunny. “I knew mother could think of something!” he added.

And so it was arranged. Mrs. Brown called on the telephone the ladies who had been to see her, and they were very glad to have the show of Bunny and Sue under their charge. They at once appointed a committee which would help sell the tickets.

“I guess maybe we’d better have new ones printed,” suggested Bunny, when told that the ladies would help. “That ten dollar mistake on ’em doesn’t look very nice.”

“No, leave the tickets just as they are,” said his father. “It’s a ‘kid’ show and people will only laugh at the mistake. Besides, some men I know will be glad to pay the price as it[192] stands on the ticket—I’ll make ’em,” he added, with a laugh.

“They will when they know it is to help the poor, crippled children,” answered his father.

And this proved to be true. More than one man, whom Mr. Brown knew and spoke to about the matter, gave a ten dollar bill gladly for the crudely printed ticket, and some took more than one, though they did not all intend to come to the show.

Now that the boys could say the barn performance was to be for the benefit of the Home for Crippled Children the tickets sold more quickly.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” asked one lady who at first had said she did not care for tickets. “If it’s for the Home, of course I’ll take one. Better give me three,” and so the sale was made.

Then Bunny discovered another way to make the tickets sell more quickly. He and Sue, or perhaps some of the boys, would go to a house and explain about the tickets. Nearly[193] always the person spoken to would agree to take at least one ticket.

“But where is it?” they would ask, when Bunny or Sue made no motion toward handing over the ticket.

Then he would give a whistle and around the corner of the house would rush Patter with the ticket in his mouth. The dog would sit up on his hind legs in front of the one who wanted the ticket and hold it out to be taken.

“Oh, how cute!” was the general exclamation. “I’ll take another ticket if your dog will bring it to me in that way!”

Then Patter would go back around the corner of the house, and when Bunny whistled, Patter would come dashing back with another ticket in his mouth. So, often, two were sold where, had it not been for this trick, only one would have been taken.

Of course it was just another of Patter’s tricks. Some time before this Bunny and Sue[194] had discovered that if one of them kept Patter out of sight of the other, and gave him something to hold in his mouth, when a whistle was heard Patter would dash to find Sue or Bunny—whoever whistled.

The children used to take Patter around the corner of the barn. Bunny would hide himself, and Sue would hold Patter by the collar, after giving him something to hold in his mouth. Then, at Bunny’s call, the dog would rush away as soon as Sue let go his collar.

So when they wanted him to help sell admissions for the show, they just put a ticket in his mouth. They would do that before knocking on the door or ringing the bell, and then of course, when Bunny whistled, around the corner would come rushing Patter with the ticket.

While the ticket-selling was going on the boys did not forget to make Patter, Wango, and Toby practice their tricks. The monkey seemed to like to swing on the trapeze with the dog, and Mr. Winkler was glad to have[195] his pet do something for the aid of the Home for Crippled Children.

As for Toby, he was always willing to do what Bunny and Sue got him to do. And no dog ever enjoyed tricks more than did Patter.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could put Toby up on the trapeze and have Wango and Patter both on his back,” said George in the barn one day, after a practice.

“Why, Toby would break our trapeze! It isn’t strong enough to hold him,” objected Bunny.

“Nothing like that! It would be dangerous to get Toby up on a swing or a trapeze. It’s all right for the dog and the monkey, as they’re not so heavy—but not Toby.”

At last all was in readiness for the show, which was but two days off now. Most of the tickets had been sold, the seats had been put in the barn, Bunny and Sue’s Uncle Tad, the old[196] soldier, helping all he could. Patter and Toby had been put through their tricks again and again until they were nearly perfect. A new clown suit and the silver and gold suit had been made for Patter, and Bunny had also sewed what he called the tramp suit. Certainly it was very ragged.

One morning Bunny went out to the shed where Patter slept each night, but could not see his dog.

“Children! Children! Come in to breakfast!” called Mrs. Brown, as she heard Bunny and Sue out in the woodshed.

“Nonsense! He isn’t lost! I guess he’s just hiding from you for fun,” said Mr. Brown, who was already sitting down to the table, as he was in a hurry to get down to his dock. The lobster boats were expected in that morning.

“Patter is lost!” exclaimed Bunny. “I locked him in here last night, and when I opened the door this morning he wasn’t here. He’s gone!”

Catching the note of tears in Bunny’s voice and knowing that if Bunny cried Sue would[198] do the same, also feeling that something might have happened, Mr. Brown went out to the shed.

As Bunny had reported, there was no trick dog there to greet his friends. Whitefeet, the pet kitten that Sue had adopted as her own, rubbed up against the legs of the children as if asking where Patter could be, but no dog was in sight.

“Are you sure you locked the door last night, Bunny?” his father asked him, as Sue picked up Whitefeet to pet her.

“Oh, yes,” was the answer. “I’m sure, ’cause it was locked this morning. Anyway, I remember dropping the key after I took it out of the lock last night.”

Mr. Brown looked all around the shed which was used to store kindling for the fires. Then he stepped over to the window in the back wall of the place and tried it. The window was of the swinging type, hinged at the top, like those in your cellar.

“Was this window fastened from the inside last night, Bunny?” asked Mr. Brown.

“Why—I don’t know,” was the answer. “I[199] guess I don’t ever fasten that window. Patter couldn’t get out there; could he?”

“Oh, he’s a fine jumper,” said Sue. “You ought to see him jump up on Toby’s back.”

“Is it any higher from there to the window than from the ground to Toby’s back?” he asked.

“Then,” continued his father, “if Patter could jump that far, why couldn’t he jump out of the window?”

“But the window isn’t open very wide,” objected Bunny. “It’s open only a crack, and if Patter tried to jump up and go through the crack he’d bump his head.”

“He would unless some one held the window open from the outside so he could jump through and out,” said Mr. Brown.

“Oh! Do you think somebody took our nice dog, Daddy?” asked Sue, with anxious eyes fixed on her father.

“That’s what we have to find out,” said Mr. Brown. “Come in now and eat your breakfast Then I’ll help you look for Patter.”

“Is their dog really gone?” asked Mrs. Brown, as the three entered the house.

“That’s so—I’d forgotten about the show!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Let’s see—when is it?”

“What can you do if you don’t get Patter back?” Mrs. Brown asked, as she passed the breakfast oranges to Bunny and Sue.

“We’ll have to postpone the show, I guess,” her husband replied. “It wouldn’t be much[201] of a performance without Patter. He’s the chief performer.”

As you may imagine, neither the little boy nor his sister had very good appetites for breakfast. They were too worried about their lost dog. Patter truly was gone—there was no doubt of it.

After breakfast, even though he was in a hurry to get to his fish dock to see about the lobsters coming in, Mr. Brown remained around the house long enough to help Bunny and Sue search for their pet.

They looked in places where he had hidden before, but he did not pop out at them with joyous barks. They went over the fields and lots near the house, but no Patter answered to their calls and whistles.

Mr. Brown looked outside under the window of the shed, through which it seemed that Patter must have jumped to get away.

“I was seeing if there were any footprints[202] there that might tell me who had been there in the night,” answered Mr. Brown.

“That’s like detectives do, isn’t it?” asked Bunny, in a thrilled whisper.

“Yes,” agreed his father. “But I guess I’m not much of a detective, for I can’t see anything except marks of the shoes of a lot of you boys.”

“Will you tell the police?” asked Mrs. Brown, when her husband was ready to go to work, though a little late.

“I think I’d better,” he agreed. “It may be that some strolling band of Gypsies took Patter away, and the police keep pretty sharp watch over these strollers. They’ll know where they camp, and if any are around we’ll go have a look and maybe find Patter.”

But no Gypsy bands had been around Bellemere for some time, the police reported, so it could not have been any of these wanderers that had taken Patter. Of course the dog may have wandered off and joined them, but this did not seem possible. Patter was too happy[203] with Bunny and Sue to want to run away.

News of the lost dog quickly spread, especially among the boys and girls who were helping Bunny and Sue get ready for the show.

All day long the search for the lost Patter was kept up, but the trick dog could not be found. Even some of the police and firemen helped to look, when they were not on regular duty. For the story of the tricks Patter was going to do at the show in aid of the Home for Crippled Children had spread all over Bellemere, and many were anxious to help in the search.

All about boys and girls were asking every one they met, even strangers on the street:

Night came and Bunny and Sue, who had[205] been out in turn with George, Charlie and Harry, came back to their home. They were tired and discouraged.

“Oh, yes, I think so,” was the answer. “Your father is going to put a notice in the paper offering a reward to whoever finds Patter and brings him home.”

“But if we don’t find him, what about the show?” asked Bunny. “We have to have it soon.”

“The show will have to be postponed if Patter isn’t found,” said Mrs. Brown.

“No, it means it will be put off and given later. But don’t fret. Eat your suppers and go to bed, and perhaps in the morning Patter will be here.”

At supper Bunny and Sue ate a little better than at breakfast because they had been outdoors all day in the fresh air. After supper they sat up a while before going to bed, hoping some good news might come in over the telephone.

[206]But none came, though twice, when the doorbell rang, the children rushed into the hall, thinking it was some one coming with the lost dog.

The first ring, however, was by a man looking for a new family who had just moved on the street, and the second time it was a woman who called to return a pattern she had borrowed of Mrs. Brown that morning.

“Nonsense!” laughed their father. “Don’t be so gloomy! You’ll have your dog back soon.”

But there was no news and no sign of the trick dog the next morning, though Bunny ran to the shed as soon as he could slip out of bed and downstairs.

“I dreamed in the night that he’d come back,” said Sue, and she was much disappointed when she found out the dream had not come true.

After breakfast and after Mr. Brown had telephoned to the police, only to find[207] they had no trace of the dog, Mrs. Brown asked:

“What had we better do about the children’s show? Some of the ladies on the committee have been calling me up.”

“Well,” said Mr. Brown slowly, “even if we got Patter back now, he might be so frightened over being lost that he would not do his tricks well, and he’d spoil the performance. I think the safest plan would be to call the show off for a while. It can easily be given later.”

So this was done, and an advertisement was put in the paper, stating that because Patter was lost the performance for the Home for Crippled Children would take place later; just when was not known, but there would be a notice in the paper.

“Will the people want their ticket money back?” asked Bunny, for quite a goodly sum had been taken in from the sale of admissions.

“I think not,” his mother said. “People don’t take back money they have given to charity.”

And this proved to be the case. Though[208] the boys offered to return it, no one asked to have his money refunded, even though the show was postponed.

The search for Patter went on for several day without any result. At last one morning Bunny whispered to Sue right after breakfast:

“Off to find Patter. I think we can find him alone by ourselves better’n all the others. They make so much racket looking around and yelling that maybe Patter is afraid to come out.”

“Oh, he must be, Sue, else he’d have answered some of my calls and whistles. He’s hiding, or some one has hidden him. Come on—let’s go and look for him—just you and me.”

“All right,” agreed Sue. She usually agreed with whatever Bunny said, and she was quite willing to join in a search for the[209] missing dog. “What are you going to do?” she asked, as she saw Bunny rummaging around in the pantry.

“Yes, maybe we’ll be out looking for Patter until away late this afternoon, and we’ll get hungry,” explained Bunny. “So I’m going to take something along.”

Bunny did. He took some cookies and cakes, though it would have been better if he had taken some bread and peanut butter sandwiches. But the cakes and cookies were easier to carry.

“Come on now, we’ll go,” said Bunny, stuffing the cookies and cakes into his pockets. “But don’t make any noise.”

“’Cause! You think I want somebody to see us and stop us? If they hear us they’ll say[210] we oughtn’t to go and look for Patter all by ourselves. But I guess we can find him.”

Quietly the children went out the side door to a porch that was not often used, and then they scurried through the back yard to the lots and vacant fields beyond.

“No. But I guess maybe he’d go where there was a lot of other dogs,” suggested Bunny. “Maybe he was lonesome or he wanted to learn new tricks for the show, and so he went where he could talk to other dogs.”

“Well, they almost can,” asserted her brother. “Anyhow, they can waggle their tails and it looks like talking. So I think Patter went to find other dogs. And do you know where most of the dogs are in this town?”

[211]“Once daddy brought mother and me up from the shore and we rode in the auto through River Street. It was dirty, and such a lot of dirty persons live there. There was a lot of dogs, too.”

“Yes,” agreed Bunny. “Maybe dirty people always have a lot of extra dogs around. Anyhow, down in River Street is the best place to look. We can walk there, all right.”

River Street, as Sue had said, was the worst section of Bellemere, and not a very safe place after dark, as bad characters lived there, down among the factories. But, as Bunny had remarked, there were many dogs there, and Patter might have taken it into his head to pay them a visit. Or he might have been stolen away and taken there.

So Bunny and Sue started for River Street. It took them some little time to reach it, and when they did they saw many dogs strolling around. Once they thought they saw Patter and they called and whistled.

[212]“No,” answered Bunny. “I thought he was, but he isn’t. My dog is a trick dog.”

Bunny described Patter and then the strange boy, who was quite ragged and dirty, said:

“Why, I think I know the very dog you’re looking for. I saw him going down that street a while ago.”

“Did you really see their dog?” asked another ragged urchin of the one who had spoken to Bunny and Sue.

“Just to have some fun. We’ll see how long they chase around looking for a trick mut!”

The boy had played a mean trick, for fun, as he thought. But it made trouble for Bunny and Sue.

The children searched the River Street section and attracted much attention because[213] they were well dressed—much better than the boys and girls playing on the sidewalks. But for all they walked and looked, no Patter could they find.

They started out the right street, as they thought, but they took so many twists and turns they could not be sure. At last they found themselves in a narrow, dirty and unpleasant alley between high buildings.

“Oh, I don’t know,” was his weary answer. “I’m all turned around. I guess we came the wrong way.”

Sue Brown stopped short and looked at her brother Bunny. A strange look was in the eyes of the little girl.

“Oh, Bunny Brown! What’d you want to go and get me lost for?” wailed Sue. “What’d you get me lost for?”

[215]“We won’t be lost very long,” promised Bunny, as he took out his handkerchief and tried to wipe away Sue’s tears. “I’ll take you back home.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Bunny, drawing back. “I’m trying to sop up your tears.”

“Well, you’re wiping ’em all over my face, an’ I don’t like it. I can sop up my own tears!”

“Oh, all right!” and Bunny acted as if his feelings were hurt. Then Sue felt sorry for being a bit cross—as she was—and she said:

“Oh, all right, Bunny, you can sop up my tears if you want to. But I guess I won’t cry any more. Anyway, not if you can find the way home.”

“I’ll find it all right,” declared the little boy. “Here, I’ll take hold of your hand, ’cause maybe you can’t see very well, and I’ll lead you.”

“I can see all right as soon as the tears dry up out of my eyes,” said Sue. “I’m all right now, but I was scared at first for being lost.”

“I was scared a little, too,” admitted[216] Bunny. “But I’m not scared now. Come on, I guess we go this way to go home.”

Bunny thought he knew how to get out of the alley between the big brick buildings and find his way home, but he didn’t. It was a part of Bellemere he had never before visited, and it was strange to him. He walked to one end of the alley and saw another, almost like it.

“I guess we go down here,” said Bunny to his sister. Trustfully holding his hand, she stepped along at his side. It was still and quiet down among those big factory buildings. Bunny knew they were factories, though what had once been made in them he did not know. Nothing was made there now, for the buildings were deserted. Many windows were broken, and doors were swinging to and fro on half their hinges as the wind blew them.

Down the second alley walked the children. They were not so frightened now. Hope was in both their beating hearts, for they thought they would come out on some street that would lead them home, or at least to some path by which they could reach their father’s office.

[217]But, to the surprise of Bunny and Sue, when they reached the end of the second alley, instead of finding that it led into a regular street, they discovered that it turned into still another alley.

“It’s like—now it’s like—a puzzle,” said Sue, trying to find just the right word to describe it.

“Yes, it is like a puzzle—or like that funny thing—a maze I guess they call it—where daddy took us once when we went to the big fair,” said Bunny.

They turned the next corner they reached, and then they both stopped short in surprised disappointment.

“We’re right back in the same place from which we started!” went on Bunny.

“Yep, the very same,” agreed Sue. “I can tell by that pile of old tin cans,” and she[218] pointed to it at the side of the deserted factory.

And that is just what had happened. The children had gone around in a perfect square, walking through alleys that were on all four sides of the old factory, and they had come back to the same place whence they started. It was very strange. It was worse than that—it was frightening. Sue acted as if she were going to cry again, and Bunny got out his handkerchief.

“You—you needn’t—I—I’m not going to make any more tears,” said Sue, fighting to keep them back.

“No, don’t,” begged Bunny. “You don’t need to cry. I’ll take you home.”

“Well, I wish you would—right away!” exclaimed Sue. “I don’t like it here and I’m hungry and I don’t think Patter is here at all!”

“No, Patter isn’t here,” agreed Bunny. “If he was here he could show us the way out pretty quick, I guess. But he isn’t here.”

For a few moments the little boy and girl stood still, hardly knowing what to do. It seemed of no use to walk along the alleys[219] again, for they would only wander around and around the old, deserted factory building.

Suddenly a loud banging sound startled both Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue. Sue took a tighter hold of her brother’s hand.

Just then the sound came again. But Bunny happened to be watching, and he saw a door swinging in the wind. It was the old door, slamming, that had made the banging noise.

“Oh,” murmured Sue, and then she had an idea. “Oh, Bunny,” she exclaimed, “maybe if we went in the door—in the factory you know—we could get out on the other side to a street and go home that way.”

“Maybe,” agreed Bunny. He was pretty sure they would never get home by wandering in the alley that led around and around. “All right, Sue,” said her brother. “We’ll go in the factory. I’d like to see what’s in it, anyhow.”

[220]Still hand in hand the two children passed through the wind-swayed door. It was a heavy one and the bottom hinge seemed to be broken, for the door was tilted.

Once inside the children found the place gloomy at first, but they walked on. They were in a large room, which did not seem to have any other doors or windows in it. But there was a flight of stairs.

“I guess we have to go up those,” said Bunny. “Then we can get out. Don’t be afraid, Sue.”

Luckily the stairs in the old factory were in good shape. If they had been broken or so shaky that they would not have held up Bunny and Sue, the children might have fallen and been hurt.

But, as it was, Bunny and Sue reached the top and found themselves in a hallway. As there was no door leading from this, as far as Bunny and Sue could see, they kept on walking along the corridor. They made a turn and found themselves in a small room which had in it only one window.

“Well,” he slowly answered, as he looked around. “I guess we got in the wrong place. We can’t seem to get out of here. We’ll go back downstairs.”

[222]But as Bunny and Sue turned to do this there came a puff of wind which swept through the old factory where so many windows were broken. The door of the room in which the children now were standing suddenly blew shut with a loud slam.

“It’s only the door,” explained Bunny. “I’ll open it and we’ll go back downstairs.”

He walked to the door and pulled on the handle. It did not open the first time and Bunny pulled again, harder this time. Still the door did not open.

“I’ll help,” offered Sue. But even with her aid Bunny could not pull it open. “I guess maybe it’s locked,” went on Sue.

Still they did not give up. Again and again Bunny and Sue pulled on the handle until it became very certain that the door was[223] locked. It was not merely stuck from tightness—it was locked. Afterward the children found that there was a spring lock on the outside of the door and when it had blown shut it became securely fastened. It could only be opened from the outside.

It did not take Bunny and Sue very long to know that they were locked in—locked in that small room of the old, deserted factory. They had made a mistake coming up the stairs, for now they could not get out. There was no other door in the room.

Bunny turned to this as soon as he had found out for a certainty that he could not open the door. Like many other windows in the factory, this one had most of its panes of glass broken out. Part of the sash was also gone, leaving an opening large enough for the boy and girl to step through without being cut on the jagged edges of the broken panes.

Bunny walked over to the window. Sue followed him and asked what he was going to do. For a moment her brother did not answer. Then he said:

Built on the outside brick wall of the factory was an iron balcony fire escape. One could easily step out of the window to the platform, which had a square hole in the center. The platform was made of strips of iron.

“We can just go down this even if the door is locked,” said Bunny. “Come on, Sue.”

“There’s a ladder,” said Bunny. “Fire escapes don’t have stairs; they have ladders.”

“All right,” said Sue. “I can go up and down a ladder. I go up and down the one in our barn.” She had done this many times when playing with Bunny and his chums or her own girl friends.

Bunny stepped carefully out on the fire escape. He had seen that the factory was old and he thought perhaps the iron fire escape might be so rusted as to fall with him. But it bore his weight and seemed solid.

But when Bunny looked for the ladder that should lead to the ground below, he was much[225] disappointed not to see it. The ladder was gone!

“What’s the matter?” asked Sue, who was still inside the factory near the window.

“It’s too far,” answered Bunny. “Maybe I can get the door open now. I’ll try again.”

He did try, but the door was still locked. Then, almost ready to cry, the children went out on the fire escape and looked around. They could see a factory yard, littered with broken machinery and old tins, and around it all was a high fence. They could see no one to whom to call for help.

Sue was just going to cry and Bunny was trying to think of some way of jumping or climbing down to go for help, leaving Sue on the platform, when suddenly a man’s voice called:

Bunny looked down and saw a man in the factory yard. He seemed to be a watchman[226] or a caretaker, as, later, he proved to be. Once more he called:

“We’re lost,” explained Bunny. “We’re looking for our trick dog, and we came in here and a door slammed shut and there’s no ladder to get down this fire escape.”

“Oh, I see,” said the man. “Yes, I know about that door. It has a very strong lock on it and I can’t get the key. But if you’ll wait there a minute I’ll get you down.”

“I’ll get a ladder and put it up to the fire escape. That’s easier than trying to open the inside door. Wait a minute, I’ll soon have you down.”

The man hurried away, and Bunny and Sue feared he might not come back. But he did, and in a minute or two, carrying a ladder which he put up to the fire escape platform. Then he carried Bunny and Sue to the ground, and very thankful they were to reach it again.

Bunny and Sue told about setting off in[227] search of the lost Patter, relating how they had wandered into the old factory.

“Well, I’m glad I happened to come here to-day,” said the man. “I’m hired by the owners to keep a sort of watch over this place; but I don’t come very often, for there isn’t much left to take away. But I happened to be passing just now and I thought I’d take a look around. Now where do you want to go?”

“We want to find Patter,” said Sue. “Do you think you’ve seen our dog?”

The children started to tell about their trick pet, but they had mentioned only a few things about him when the man, whose name was Jacob Ward, exclaimed:

“Say, I believe I know where your dog is! I saw him this morning. Or, if it isn’t Patter, it’s a dog very much like him.”

“A colored boy they call Black Bobby. I know where he lives. He’s one of the chaps that like to throw stones and break these factory windows. Only there aren’t many more[228] left to break,” chuckled Mr. Ward. “But come on, I’ll take you to Black Bobby and maybe he has your Patter.”

Their hearts filled with hope, Bunny and Sue, holding Mr. Ward’s hands and eating the cookies they had brought with them, went out of the factory yard. Mr. Ward had no trouble in getting out of the maze of alleys, and soon Bunny and Sue saw the familiar bay, on the shore of which was their father’s dock.

“There’s where Black Bobby lives,” said Mr. Ward, pointing to a ramshackle and tumble-down house. “And here comes Black Bobby himself,” he added, as a tall colored boy, in ragged clothes, shuffled from the yard into the street.

“Hello, Bobby!” exclaimed Mr. Ward, who seemed to know the colored boy. “What are you doing?”

“That’s what you’re generally doing,” chuckled Mr. Ward. “But say, Bobby, you have a dog, haven’t you? A dog you found the other day?”

“Ya’as, I got a dog,” answered Black Bobby. “An’ he’s my dog, too. Nobody’s goin’ to take him away.”

“Well, somebody took away a dog belonging to this little girl and boy,” went on Mr. Ward, “and they thought maybe their dog was the one you found. We’d like to look at him.”

“I ain’t got their dog,” mumbled Black Bobby, and he started to shuffle away.

[230]“Just a minute now! Wait!” commanded Mr. Ward so sharply that Black Bobby turned and halted.

“We want to see that dog you say you found,” answered Mr. Ward. “He may be Patter, the trick dog that belongs to Bunny and Sue here. And if it’s their dog they can take it.”

“’Tain’t their dog and they can’t have it!” snapped Black Bobby. “This dog don’t do any tricks.”

“Our dog does!” declared Sue, who was keeping close to Mr. Ward, for she was a little afraid of Black Bobby, not because his face was black, but because he seemed so unpleasant.

Black Bobby stood sullenly, digging one toe of his black foot into the sand. He looked up and down the street as if getting ready to run away, but as at one end of the street he saw a policeman and as Mr. Ward stood ready to grab him if he tried to dart off, Black[231] Bobby seemed to think better of his idea of escaping.

“Well, we’ll take a look at him and make sure,” said Mr. Ward. “Where is he, Bobby? Now don’t try to fool me,” he added sharply. “I know you and you know me. And if I were to tell the police who broke windows in the old factory, why, maybe, Bobby, they might come looking for you, the police might. Where’s the dog you found?”

“Well, maybe he found him,” went on Mr. Ward. “Come now, where is the dog?”

“Come on,” said Mr. Ward to Bunny and Sue. “I know where your yard is, Bobby. Once I found in it some machinery that had been stolen from the factory.”

[232]“Well, maybe you didn’t,” admitted the caretaker. “But show us the dog.”

After that Bobby seemed a little afraid, and he led the way into the yard behind the ramshackle old house where several colored families lived. Bunny and Sue had never been here before.

As soon as they entered the yard a dog came rushing from an old kennel in one corner. But the dog did not come very far, for he was held by a chain fastened to his collar.

“That’s Patter! Oh, you dear Patter, we’ve found you again!” cried Sue, and before any one could stop her she had run forward and was hugging the dog around his neck. Then Bunny went to him, and it seemed the dog would wag off his tail, so happy was he.

“That ain’t your dog—he’s mine!” insisted Black Bobby. “You can’t take him away,[233] either! He’s mine—a fellah guv him to me an’ I’m goin’ to keep him!”

“Just a minute now,” said Mr. Ward. “I’m not saying some other boy didn’t give you this dog, Bobby, but, even if he did, he may have had no right to. This seems to be Bunny’s dog.”

“Yes, and Sue’s,” agreed Mr. Ward. “Of course they may be mistaken, Bobby,” he went on, “for a great many dogs look alike. But from the way this dog shows his joy on seeing this little boy and girl, and from the fact that he didn’t make any fuss over you, I’d say this was the lost Patter.”

“Well, that doesn’t prove anything,” went on the watchman. “Now look here, Bobby, if this is your dog he can do some tricks for you. Call him to you. Take the chain off and call him to you.”

[234]“All right! I’ll show you he’s my dog!” insisted the colored boy. He took the chain from the dog’s collar, but instead of going to the colored boy when he whistled, the dog remained with Bunny and Sue.

“It looks as if he were their dog,” said Mr. Ward. “But we’ll have another test. Can you make that dog do any tricks, Bobby?”

“Sure he can,” said her brother. “Here, I’ll make him do some. Say your prayers, Patter!”

There was an old, broken chair in the yard, and up in this jumped Patter. He put his head down between his paws, as he had been taught to do, and remained thus until Bunny called:

[235]“Nawthin’,” drawled the colored boy. “But he’s my dog jest th’ same!”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed the watchman. “Can you make your dog do any other tricks?” he asked Bunny.

“He’s going to do a pile of tricks in the show,” said Sue. And then she added: “Oh, Bunny, now we have Patter back we can give the show!”

“Yes,” agreed Bunny. “Here, I’ll make Patter march like a soldier, and that’ll show he’s our dog,” he said.

With a stick for a gun, Patter marched around the yard. Then Bunny and Sue put him through some of his other tricks until Mr. Ward exclaimed:

“That’s enough! I’m sure he’s your Patter, and you can take him away.”

“Now look here, Bobby,” said Mr. Ward sharply, “if you don’t give this dog up quietly I’ll call the policeman in from the end of the street. You know this dog isn’t yours, and it[236] didn’t belong to the boy who gave it to you, so he had no right to give it away. Now shall I call the police?”

“Oh, take th’ ole dog!” growled Bobby, and he turned aside as Bunny and Sue went out of the yard, followed by the happy and frisking Patter.

“You were good to us, and I’ll tell my mother and my daddy and they’ll thank you,” added Sue.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Mr. Ward, with a smile. “I’m glad I could help you. But do you know your way home now?”

“No, that won’t do,” declared Mr. Ward, seeing how uncertain the children were. “I’d go with you myself, but I haven’t time. I don’t want you to get lost again. I’d better find a telephone and let your father know where you are. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll telephone.”

“Oh, look!” suddenly exclaimed Bunny,[237] pointing to a ragged man across the street some distance away from the ruined factory. “He’ll take us home! He knows where we live. It’s Mr. Stern, and he was in the hospital where we went.”

Indeed it was Mr. Stern, and his clothes were rather ragged, even though they were some that had been given him at the hospital. He had been cured and was allowed to go. He did not want to stay there any longer, being a trouble, he said. And so, without letting Mr. Brown know, the poor old man had slipped away by himself.

Now, as he heard the cries of Bunny and Sue, he looked across the street at them and smiled. His eyes, too, rested lovingly on Patter.

“Do you know where these children live and could you take them home?” asked Mr. Ward. “I would, but I haven’t time.”

“Yes, I can take them home,” said Mr. Stern. “I’ll be glad to, as they were very kind to me.”

On the way home Bunny and Sue told all that had happened—how they had become lost in searching for Patter and how they were locked in the old factory. Whether Patter had been stolen or had just jumped out and wandered away was never found out.

“Well, I’m glad you have your dog back,” said Mr. Stern. “He is a good dog, and valuable.”

He went as far as the children’s corner with them, and when they were within sight of their house he would have left them. But Bunny and Sue caught hold of his hands and would not let him go.

Just then Mrs. Brown came out, looking for her children, as they had been gone a long time. She saw Mr. Stern, she heard the story, and she insisted that he come into the house.

“There’s only one kind of work I’m good for,” said Mr. Stern, with a sigh. “That is in the show business. If I could find Jim Denton—but I guess it’s of no use.”

“Well, you stay here until my husband comes home,” said the children’s mother.

“And can’t you stay for our show?” asked Bunny. “Now that we have Patter back we’ll give the show!”

News of the finding of Patter soon spread, and a crowd of boys and some girls came to the Brown house to see the dog.

“We’ll let him rest awhile and then we’ll practice him on his tricks and give the show,” said Bunny. And this plan was carried out.

It was the day of the “Great Show!” The “ten dollar show,” as some of Mr. Brown’s business friends called it because of the mistake on the tickets. The barn had been fixed up with seats, and there was a stage over which had been erected the trapeze taken from the haymow.

In cages around the barn had been placed various animal pets of the boys and girls who were chummy with Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. These were not all trick animals. There was a trained rooster though, about which I shall tell you. And there were quite a number of white mice and rats, as well as one alligator, brought by George.

But the main part of the show was to be the tricks done by Patter, Toby, and Wango, the monkey.

At last all was in readiness, and after many[241] whisperings behind it the curtain was finally pulled aside. The curtain was made by some old feed bags sewed together, but it answered very well.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began George Watson, who had been chosen for stage manager, “we will now start the great show with a parade, and after that Bunny Brown will do a lot of tricks.”

“And so will Patter! He’ll do tricks!” cried the voice of Sue from back of the end folds of the bag curtain. There was laughter in the audience at this.

“All ready now!” called George, and then out from the side, to the stage, which Bunker Blue had built, marched Toby with Patter on his back. And Toby drew a little cart in which sat Wango, dressed up in a red suit and a cap and a feather.

The people clapped at this, but there was more to come. Bunny, dressed in a “tramp” suit, followed the monkey cart, and then came Sue, dressed as a fairy princess. Charlie Star and Harry Bentley, who were to help with the tricks, came out dressed like twins, and[242] George followed, carrying Whitefeet on a big sofa cushion. There was more applause at this sight.

After the procession the show proper began. Bunny, dressed as a tramp, pretended he was going to take Patter and Toby away, but Sue rushed out and waved her fairy wand. Then the ragged clothes fell off Bunny, for they had been put on loosely for this purpose, and he stood up in red tights, just like a real circus actor. Mr. Stern had suggested this to the children and they did this new trick almost at the last moment.

Then Bunny put Patter, Toby, and Whitefeet through their tricks. I have told so much about the tricks all through this book that I will not take the time to go over them again, as there were no new ones.

But the people in the audience had not seen the tricks before and they were much pleased with them. After Patter, wearing his different suits, had sat up and begged, had rolled over, had pretended he was a soldier, had said his prayers and walked on his front feet, the trapeze was swung into place.

[243]On the board fastened to the crossbar Patter and Wango swung to and fro while the audience laughed and clapped. Next Whitefeet was put on Patter’s back, and the kitten remained there as contentedly as she had on the cushion when George carried her. Then came the trick of Patter taking caps from the tank of water.

The stage was now cleared so Patter could do the trick of driving Toby hitched to the pony cart. The dog sat up, his forepaws through the rope loops of the reins. And when Bunny on one side called, Patter guided Toby that way. Then when Sue on the other side called, Patter guided Toby that way, much to the surprise of the audience who thought the horse and dog were very smart indeed.

In order not to have too many animal tricks, Charlie and Harry did what they called “acrobatic stunts.” They turned somersaults holding to each other’s wrists and ankles, they turned cartwheels, and did other things that brought them applause.

Sue, too, was allowed to be on the stage[244] alone with Patter, and she put the dog through some of his best tricks, all of which made a “hit,” as the paper said afterward.

The show was much enjoyed by all who saw it, and it had a funny, jolly ending. Sam Cooper tried to do a trick with what was supposed to be the trained rooster. Only the rooster got wild, or frightened, or something, and flew off the stage, out into the audience, and lighted on the bald head of Mr. Gordon, the grocer.

Perched on Mr. Gordon’s head, the rooster uttered a loud crow! And you should have heard the people laugh.

“But, anyhow, that was a good way to bring the show to an end,” said George, as he pulled the bag curtain over. “It made ’em all laugh.”

The show was a great success, and quite a large sum was taken in for the aid of the Home for Crippled Children. Bunny, Sue and their boy and girl chums who had helped, were much pleased.

[245]“Bunny, you have a wonderful trick dog there,” said Mr. Gordon, as he went out, rubbing his bald head where the rooster had scratched him a little.

“Indeed he is a valuable dog,” said Mr. Stern, who had witnessed the show. “If I had had Tanza here——”

“No, she was one of some trick dogs I once owned,” said Mr. Stern, rather sadly. “I earned my living by exhibiting my trick dogs. Tanza was the best, but she died, and so did all the others. Then I had no way of making a living and I got hurt and became ill. I thought if I could find Mr. Denton he might give me a place in his show. But I can’t locate him, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

This talk took place after the show, when Bunny and Sue were helping to clear up the barn.

“Thank you,” murmured the old man, “but I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to do that[246] kind of work. If I only had a trick dog I could go around as I used to. But I suppose it’s of no use.”

A strange feeling came over Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. They both had the same idea at the same time. They looked at one another and then at Patter, who was letting Whitefeet rub up against him.

“Yes,” answered Bunny. “We want to give our trick dog to Mr. Stern so he can go around and earn a living again. Don’t we, Sue?”

Sue did not answer for a moment, and when she did there was just a little tear in each eye.

“Don’t we now—don’t we want to give Patter to Mr. Stern?” asked Bunny again.

“Ye—ye—yes!” burst out Sue, and then, after hugging Patter very hard, she ran out of the barn. I think you can guess why.

Bunny said afterward that he “squeezed[247] back” his tears as he led Patter up to Mr. Stern and said:

“Now, Patter, you belong to him and you can do your tricks for him and help him earn money.”

“Oh, but I can’t take the children’s dog! I wouldn’t dream of it!” cried the ragged man.

But in the end he was made to do this, since it was the best way in which he could care for himself, now that he was well from the automobile accident. He was given some money by the man whose car had struck him, and with this Mr. Stern bought some new clothes and was able to fit himself out so he could travel around the country giving little shows with Patter.

Of course Bunny and Sue felt very sad at first, in giving up their trick dog, for they had grown to love him very much.

“But,” said Bunny, “maybe we’ll see him again when Mr. Stern gives his show here.”

“And,” added Sue, “we have to be good an’ make sackkelfices, like we learned in Sunday school.”

“’Tis not!” exclaimed Sue. “A sackkelfice is what makes you feel good inside when you don’t want to do it.”

At any rate, Mr. Stern took Patter away, though I must admit that the parting with Bunny and Sue was a tearful one. But then the children had other pets to console them. And Mr. Stern was able to earn his living by showing off Patter and his tricks.

And so we have come to the end of the story of the children and their trick dog, which came to them so strangely, was lost, found, and gone from them again. But this is not the end of the adventures of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, for they have many others in store.

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CHAPTER	PAGE
I	A Grand Surprise	1
II	Patter’s Tricks	13
III	Toby Comes Back	22
IV	Toby and Patter	33
V	A Runaway	43
VI	Planning a Show	56
VII	In the Barn	66
VIII	Where is Sue?	76
IX	The Church Fair	89
X	Patter and the Tickets	99
XI	Patter and the Kitten	108
XII	Whitefeet’s Trick	119
XIII	Patter and the Crab	130
XIV	Adrift in a Boat	143
XV	At the Hospital	154
XVI	Something New	165
XVII	Patter and the Cows	172
XVIII	Selling Tickets	182
XIX	Lost Dog	188
XX	Looking for Patter	197
XXI	Lost Children	204
XXII	The Old Factory	214
XXIII	Black Bobby	221
XXIV	The Raggedy Man	229
XXV	A Great Success	240

BUNNY BROWN
AND HIS SISTER SUE AND
THEIR TRICK DOG

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
A GRAND SURPRISE

CHAPTER II
PATTER’S TRICKS

CHAPTER III
TOBY COMES BACK

CHAPTER IV
TOBY AND PATTER

CHAPTER V
A RUNAWAY

CHAPTER VI
PLANNING A SHOW

CHAPTER VII
IN THE BARN

CHAPTER VIII
WHERE IS SUE?

CHAPTER IX
THE CHURCH FAIR

CHAPTER X
PATTER AND THE TICKETS

CHAPTER XI
PATTER AND THE KITTEN

CHAPTER XII
WHITEFEET’S TRICK

CHAPTER XIII
PATTER AND THE CRAB

CHAPTER XIV
ADRIFT IN A BOAT

CHAPTER XV
AT THE HOSPITAL

CHAPTER XVI
SOMETHING NEW

CHAPTER XVII
PATTER AND THE COWS

CHAPTER XVIII
SELLING TICKETS

CHAPTER XIX
LOST DOG

CHAPTER XX
LOOKING FOR PATTER

CHAPTER XXI
LOST CHILDREN

CHAPTER XXII
THE OLD FACTORY

CHAPTER XXIII
BLACK BOBBY

CHAPTER XXIV
THE RAGGEDY MAN

CHAPTER XXV
A GREAT SUCCESS

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I A GRAND SURPRISE

CHAPTER II PATTER’S TRICKS

CHAPTER III TOBY COMES BACK

CHAPTER IV TOBY AND PATTER

CHAPTER V A RUNAWAY

CHAPTER VI PLANNING A SHOW

CHAPTER VII IN THE BARN

CHAPTER VIII WHERE IS SUE?

CHAPTER IX THE CHURCH FAIR

CHAPTER X PATTER AND THE TICKETS

CHAPTER XI PATTER AND THE KITTEN

CHAPTER XII WHITEFEET’S TRICK

CHAPTER XIII PATTER AND THE CRAB

CHAPTER XIV ADRIFT IN A BOAT

CHAPTER XV AT THE HOSPITAL

CHAPTER XVI SOMETHING NEW

CHAPTER XVII PATTER AND THE COWS

CHAPTER XVIII SELLING TICKETS

CHAPTER XIX LOST DOG

CHAPTER XX LOOKING FOR PATTER

CHAPTER XXI LOST CHILDREN

CHAPTER XXII THE OLD FACTORY

CHAPTER XXIII BLACK BOBBY

CHAPTER XXIV THE RAGGEDY MAN

CHAPTER XXV A GREAT SUCCESS