Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus Part 10

"Oh, he'll let you stay," Bunny said. "I'll tell him we want you in our circus."

"All right," laughed Ben. "Bunker and I will practise some trapeze acts for your show."

For a little while longer Bunny and Sue played about in the barn. Bunny found an old strawberry crate, with a cover on.

"This will make a wild animal cage," he said. "The slats are just like the bars of a cage, and the animal can look through."

"What wild animal will you put in there?" asked Bunker.

"Oh, I guess I'll put in Splash. He is going to be half a blue striped tiger."

"No! No!" cried Sue. "That crate isn't big enough for Splash. You'll squash him all up. I'm not going to have my half of Splash all squashed up, Bunny Brown!"

"Well, then I'll get a bigger cage for Splash. We can get a little dog, and put him in here."

Two or three days after this Bunny and Sue again went out to the barn to look at the circus trapezes, and play. Bunker Blue and Ben were not with them this time, as the two older boys were weeding the garden for Grandpa Brown.

Bunny swung on his little, low trapeze, and then, after he had jumped off into the hay as Ben had taught him, the little fellow began climbing the ladder to the beam on which was fastened the big and high trapeze.

"Oh, Bunny! Where you going?" asked Sue.

"Up here. I want to see how high it looks."

"Oh, Bunny Brown! You come right down, or I'll go and tell mamma! She said you weren't to climb up high."

"I--I'm not going very high, Sue."

Bunny was half way up the ladder. And, just as he spoke to Sue, his foot slipped, and down he fell, in between two rounds of the ladder.

"Oh! oh!" cried Sue. "Oh, Bunny! You're going to fall!"

But Bunny did not fall all the way. As he slipped, his hands caught hold of a round of the ladder, and there he clung, just as if he had hold of the bar of his swinging trapeze.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DOLL IN THE WELL

Bunny Brown hung there on the ladder, swinging to and fro. On the barn floor below him, stood his sister Sue, watching, and almost ready to cry, for Sue was afraid Bunny would fall.

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny!" she exclaimed. "Don't fall! Don't fall!"

"I--I can't help it," Bunny answered. "My fingers are slipping off!"

And indeed they were. He could not hold to the big round stick of the ladder as well as he could to the smaller broom-handle stick of his trapeze.

Bunny Brown looked down. And then he saw something that frightened him more than had Sue's cries.

For, underneath him was the bare floor of the barn, with no soft hay on which to fall--on which to bounce up and down like a rubber ball.

"Oh, Sue!" cried Bunny. "I'm going to fall, and--and--"

He did not finish what he started to say, but he wiggled his feet and legs, pointing them at the bare floor of the barn, over which he hung.

But Sue saw and understood.

"Wait a minute, Bunny!" she cried. "Don't fall yet! Wait a minute, and I'll throw some hay down there for you to fall on!"

"All--all right!" answered Bunny. He did not want to talk much, for it took nearly all his breath and strength to hold on to the ladder. But he was glad Sue had thought of the hay. He was going to tell her to get it, but she guessed it herself.

Putting her doll carefully in a corner, on a little wisp of hay, Sue ran to the edge of the mow, where there was a big pile of the dried gra.s.s, which the horses and cows eat.

With both her chubby hands, Sue began to pull the hay out, and scatter it on the barn floor under Bunny. Her brother hung right over her head now, clinging to the ladder.

"Haven't you got 'most enough hay there now, Sue?" asked Bunny. "I--I can't hold on much longer."

"Wait just a minute!" called Sue, as she ran back to the mow. This time she managed to gather up a lot of hay in her two arms. This she piled on the other, and she was only just in time.

"Look out!" suddenly cried Bunny. "Here I come!"

And down he did come. Plump! Right on the pile of hay Sue had made for him. And it was a good thing the hay was there, or Bunny might have hurt his legs by his tumble. He did not try to turn a somersault as Ben did, the time he fell. Bunny was glad enough just to fall down straight.

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny! Did you hurt yourself?" cried Sue, as she saw her brother sit down in the pile of hay.

Bunny did not answer for a minute. He looked all around, as though he did not know exactly what had happened. Then he glanced up at the ladder to which he had clung.

"That--that was a big fall," he said slowly. "I--I'm glad the hay was there, Sue. I'm glad you put it under me."

"So'm I glad," declared Sue. "I guess you won't want to be in a circus, will you, Bunny?"

"Sure I will. Men fall in circuses, only they fall in nets. But hay is better than a net, 'cept that it tickles you," and Bunny took from his neck some pieces of dried gra.s.s that made him wiggle, and "squiggle," as Sue called it.

"h.e.l.lo! What happened here?" asked a voice, and the children looked up to see, standing in the door of the barn, Grandpa Brown. "What happened?" asked the farmer. "Did you fall, Bunny?"

I think he must have guessed that, from seeing the way Bunny was sitting on the little pile of hay.

"Yes, I--I slipped off the ladder," said the little boy. "But I didn't get hurt."

"'Cause I spread hay under him," said Sue. "I thought of it all by myself."

"That was fine!" said Grandpa Brown. "But, after this, Bunny, don't you climb up on any ladders, or any other high places. If you are going to use my barn for your circus, you must not get hurt."

"We won't!" Bunny promised.

"Then keep off ladders. Your little low trapeze is all right, for you will fall in the hay if you slip off that. But no more ladder-climbing!"