BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG

BY LAURA LEE HOPE AUTHOR OF THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES, THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES, THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES, MAKE BELIEVE STORIES, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER S. ROGERS

NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Made in the United States of America

Books by Laura Lee Hope

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA’S FARM BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU’S CITY HOME BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG

THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES

THE BOBBSEY TWINS THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN CAMP

THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

(Nine Titles)

MAKE BELIEVE STORIES

(Twelve Titles)

Grosset & Dunlap New York

Copyright, 1923, by GROSSET & DUNLAP

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Trick Dog

CHAPTER I A GRAND SURPRISE

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.”

Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone again.

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

“I want to answer it!” cried Sue. “It’s my turn, Bunny Brown!”

[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.

“I’m going!” cried Bunny.

“I’m going!” exclaimed Sue.

“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.”

“All right!” agreed Bunny.

“This is fun!” laughed Sue.

[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:

“Hello!”

Back came a voice she well knew. It was her father speaking.

“Hello, Sue!” he cried, in his jolly tones. “Is Bunny there?”

“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?”

“Yes,” answered Bunny Brown.

“Yes, I am, too!” said Sister Sue.

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?”

“Why, of course I’m going to be at home!” answered the little boy.

“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.

“That’s a secret!” replied Mr. Brown.

“Oh, a secret!” cried both children.

“Tell me!” begged Sue.

“I will when I come home,” her father promised.

“Is it a nice secret?” Bunny wanted to know.

“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.”

“I will!” promised Bunny Brown.

“I will!” promised his sister Sue.

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?”

“He’ll be here right away,” said Bunny.

“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.”

“Pooh! They wouldn’t be surprises!” scoffed Bunny.

“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.

“I see him!” shouted Bunny.

“I see him!” cried Sue, like an echo.

“But he hasn’t got any surprise,” said Bunny, a bit sorrowfully.

“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!”

“Daddy! Daddy! Where’s the surprise?” asked Bunny.

“Didn’t you bring it? You promised!” said Sue.

“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.

The pony had been sent away to the doctor’s some time before this.

“Is Toby coming back?” asked Sue. “Is that the surprise, Daddy?”

“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.”

“Oh, couldn’t we have it first?” asked Bunny.

“Please!” begged Sue.

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

“Oh, what can it be?” wondered Sue.

“It surely is a big surprise!” declared Bunny.

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:

“Does Mr. Jim Denton live here?”

[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——”

“Are you hungry?” asked Mr. Brown kindly. “If you want food——”

“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.

“When will it come?” asked Bunny.

“Soon now, I think,” was the answer.

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.

“Oh, what can it be?” murmured Sue.

Then came a knock on the door leading from the dining room into the hall.

“You may open!” called their father.

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.

“There’s your surprise!” cried Daddy Brown.

CHAPTER II PATTER’S TRICKS

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.

“Who is he?” cried Bunny.

“Where did you get him?” Sue wanted to know. “Is he for us to keep?”

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

“Oh, he’s lovely!” cried Sue.

“But who is he?” asked Bunny again.

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:

“Who is he? What is he?”

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:

[16]“Bow-wow!”

“Oh, it’s a dog!” cried Sue.

“Is it a dog, Daddy?” asked Bunny.

“It sounds like one,” laughed Mr. Brown.

“And is he ours to keep?” the little boy questioned.

“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.

“Dead dog!” cried the children’s father.

Instantly the dog stretched out as if he had lost all life.

“Oh, he’s a trick dog!” cried Bunny.

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

“Yes, he is a trick dog, and rather valuable I think.”

“Where did you get him, Daddy?” asked Bunny.

“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.”

“And you did,” said Bunny.

“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.”

“It’s a lovely surprise,” said Sue.

“Who brought the dog up from the dock?” Bunny asked.

“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, I love him!” cried Sue.

“So do I!” declared Bunny. “May I pat him?” he asked.

“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.”

“No, I mean the dog’s name,” said Bunny.

“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.”

“And did he really bring the milk bottle in every morning?” asked Bunny.

“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.”

“Oh, I wish we could see him do it!” cried Sue.

“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:

“Where is the Frenchman now, Daddy?”

“He has gone away,” Mr. Brown replied. “Why do you ask, Sue?”

“’Cause I thought maybe he might come back and take our trick dog away.”

“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.