Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods Part 6

"Well, how did your electric train go?" asked Bunny's father.

"Fine! It's the best ever."

"And my Teddy is just lovely," said Sue.

"Well, be careful of your toys," said Mr. Brown. "Better bring in the tracks and the engine and cars right after supper."

"I will," Bunny promised, "after I've played with them a bit."

It was dusk when he and Sue took up the s.h.i.+ny track and carried the batteries and other parts of the toy railroad into the sleeping tent, for Bunny said he wanted it near him.

The children sat up a little later than usual that night, as they always did when their father had come to the camp from the city. Bunny talked of nothing but his railroad, planning fun for the morrow, while Sue said she was going to get some little girls, who lived in a near-by farmhouse, and have a party for her Teddy bear.

"Time to go to Slumberland now," called Mrs. Brown, when it was nearly nine o'clock. "Go to bed early and you'll get up so much the earlier."

So off to their little cots, behind the hanging curtains, went Bunny and Sue, and soon after saying their prayers they were asleep, one to dream he was a conductor on a big electric train, while the other dreamed of carrying a big, crying Teddy bear upside down through the woods with a milk pail hanging to its nose.

Just what time it was Bunny and Sue did not know, but they were both suddenly awakened by feeling the tent, on the side nearest to which they slept, being pushed in. The canvas walls bulged as though some one were trying to get through them.

"Oh, Daddy!" cried Sue, as she saw the tent move in the light of a lantern that burned dimly beyond the curtains behind which she and Bunny slept. "Oh, Daddy, something is after us."

"Yes, and it's an elephant!" cried Bunny, as he, too, saw the tent sway.

"It's an elephant got loose from the circus, and he's after us!"

With that he bounded out of bed, and, waiting only long enough to clasp each other by the hand, the two children burst into that part of the tent where Mr. and Mrs. Brown slept.

CHAPTER V

BUNNY ROLLS DOWN HILL

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Brown, thrusting his head out from between the two curtains behind which his wife and he had their cots.

"Why are you two children up at this time of night?"

"We--we couldn't sleep in our part of the tent," explained Sue, snuggling up closer to Bunny.

"Couldn't sleep, my dear? Was it the mosquitoes?" asked Mrs. Brown.

"No'm. It was an elephant," explained Bunny.

"A burglar elephant," added Sue.

"He poked his head into the tent right over our bed," went on Bunny.

"But we didn't stay," added Sue. "We came out to see if you and daddy were all right. Burglar elephants aren't nice at all."

"What in the world are they talking about?" asked Mr. Brown. "A burglar elephant? What does it mean?"

"It must have been some sound they heard outside the tent," said Mrs.

Brown. "Or perhaps they dreamed something."

"No'm, we didn't dream," cried Bunny, while his sister Sue nodded her head to show that she thought as he did. "It was something as big as an elephant and it most shook the tent down."

"I felt something move the tent from the outside," said Mrs. Brown, "but I thought it was the wind."

"I'll soon see what it was!" cried Mr. Brown. "You two kiddies jump into bed with your mother, and I'll take a look outside."

He put on his dressing gown and slippers, and while Bunny and his sister Sue went behind the curtains to snuggle down in the bed with their mother, Mr. Brown, taking a lantern, started for the outside of the tent.

He had just reached the flaps, the ropes of which he was loosening, and Bunny and his sister were hardly in their mother's cot--a tight fit for three--when the canvas house was violently shaken and within the very tent itself sounded a loud:

"Moo! Moo!"

"Oh, it's a cow!" cried Bunny.

"And I can see it!" cried Sue, poking her head out between the curtains nearest her mother's bed. "I can see it."

"Is it an elephanty cow?" eagerly asked Bunny from his side of the cot.

"No, it's a cow with a crumpled horn--two crumpled horns--and daddy's pus.h.i.+ng its face out of the tent," added Sue.

"Let me see!" cried Bunny, and, in spite of his mother's call to get back into bed, out he popped to stand near the curtains that hung down in front of his mother's cot.

"Yes, it's only a cow--a crumpled-horn cow," Bunny announced after he had taken a look.

"But it pushed hard enough to be an elephant, didn't it?" asked Sue.

"That's what it did. I thought the tent would come down," agreed Bunny.

"What makes you say it was a crumpled-horn cow?" asked Mrs. Brown, as she too looked through the crack of the curtain and saw her husband pus.h.i.+ng the animal outside.

"'Cause it's got crumpled horns like the ragged man's cow. The man that gave us milk after the dog drank ours," said Bunny. "Only his cow had only _one_ crooked horn and this cow has _two_. Hasn't it, Sue?"

"Yes. But it looks like a nice cow."

"Well, we don't want cows in our sleeping tent at night," said Mr.

Brown. "I'll start this one down hill, and in the morning some one who comes for it will have to hunt for it. We haven't anything here with which to feed cows."

"What's the matter up there?" called a voice, and the children knew it was that of Uncle Tad, who slept in a little tent by himself, near the one where the cooking was done.

"What's the matter up there?" he called.

"Oh, a cow tried to take up quarters with us," explained Mr. Brown. "I'm trying to shove her out of the tent, but she seems to want to stay."

"I'll lead her away and tie her," said Uncle Tad.