Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods Part 30

"Maybe the boy I have asked over to play in the attic with you can,"

suggested Mrs. Preston.

"Oh, is there another boy coming?" asked Bunny eagerly.

"Yes. And a girl, too. They are Charlie and Rose Parker, and they live down the road a way. They are a new family that has just moved in, and they haven't an attic in their house, any more then you have in your tent. So I ask them over every rainy day, for I know that it is hard for children to stay in the house."

"Oh, I hope they come soon!" exclaimed Bunny. "I want to have some fun!"

"I think I hear them now," said Mrs. Preston, as a knock sounded at the back door. "Yes, here they are," she called to Bunny and Sue, who were sitting in the dining room. "Come now, young folks, get acquainted, and then go up to the attic to play."

Charlie and Rose Parker, being about the age of Bunny and Sue, did not take long to grow friendly. And the Brown children, having often met strangers, were not a bit bashful, so the four soon felt that they had known each other a long time.

"Now up to the attic with you, and have your fun!" directed Mrs.

Preston. "Use anything you want to play with, but, when you are through, put everything back where you found it."

"We will!" promised the children, and up the stairs they went, laughing and shouting.

"I hope we find some swords and guns to fight with," said Bunny to Charlie.

"Oh, there's a lot of them," Charlie answered. "I've been here before and I know where lots of guns are. Only they're awful heavy."

"Then we can pretend they are cannon!" cried Bunny.

"Yes, and we can make a fort of old trunks. There's a lot of them up here," Charlie said.

They were on their way up the attic stairs, Charlie leading the way, as he had often gone up before.

"Don't take all the trunks until we get out of them what we want to play with," begged Rose.

"What's in the trunks?" asked Bunny of his new friend.

"Oh, nothing but a lot of old dresses and things. Rose most always dresses up fancy in 'em and pretends she's a big lady," said Charlie.

"Then that's what Sue'll do," said Bunny. "She likes to dress up. But we'll play soldier."

Mrs. Preston's attic was the nicest one that could be imagined. In one corner were several trunks. In another corner was a spinning wheel, and hanging here and there from the attic beams were strings of sleigh bells, that sent out a merry jingle when one's head hit them.

Here and there, in places where there were no boards over the beams, were hickory nuts and walnuts that could be cracked on a brick and eaten.

"They'll be our rations," said Charlie, who liked to play soldier as well as did Bunny.

"But where are the swords and the guns?" Bunny asked.

"I'll show you," said Charlie. "They're just behind the chimney."

In the middle of the attic, extending up through the roof, was a big chimney. It could not be seen in the rest of the house, but here in the attic the bricks were in plain view, and Charlie said, on cold Winter days, when it snowed, it was warm in the attic because of the heat from the chimney.

Just now the boys were more interested in the guns and the swords, of which a goodly number were hanging on rafters and beams back of the chimney.

"Oh, what a lot of guns!" cried Bunny.

"And they shoot, too," added Charlie. "I mean you can pull the trigger and the hammer will snap down. Course we only use make-believe powder."

"Course," agreed Bunny. "But we can holler 'Bang!' whenever we shoot a gun."

"And we can each have a sword."

So the boys began to play soldier, sometimes both being on the same side, hunting Indians through the secret mazes of the attic, and again one being a white-settler soldier, and the other a red man.

Meanwhile Sue and Rose were playing a different game. They had found some old-fas.h.i.+oned and big silk dresses in some of the trunks, and they at once dressed themselves up in these and made believe pay visits one to the other. The two little girls talked as they imagined grown-up ladies would talk when "dressed up," and they had great fun, while on the other side of the attic Charlie and Bunny were bang-banging away at one another in the soldier game.

The children had been playing in the attic about an hour, the boys at their soldiering game and the girls at visiting, when Rose came to Bunny and Charlie with a queer look on her face.

"What's the matter?" asked Charlie. "Have you had a fuss and stopped playing?"

"No, but I can't find Sue anywhere."

"Can't find Sue!" exclaimed Bunny. "Where is she?"

"That's just what I don't know. I was playing I was Mrs. Johnson, and she was to be Mrs. Wilson and call on me. When she didn't come I went to look for her, but I couldn't find her in her house."

"Which was her house," asked Bunny.

"This big trunk," and Rose pointed to a large one in a distant corner of the attic.

"Sue! Sue! Are you in there? Are you in the trunk?" cried Bunny.

The children, listening, seemed to hear a faint call from inside the trunk. They looked at one another with startled eyes. What could they do?

CHAPTER XXII

THE HERMIT COMES FOR TOM

"Are you sure she came over here?" asked Bunny Brown.

"Sure," answered Rose. "You see this was her pretend house, and mine was over there under the string of sleigh bells." She pointed to where several small trunks had been drawn together to form a square. Some old bed quilts had been laid over to make a roof, and under this Rose received visits from her friend Sue, who went by the name of Mrs.

Wilson.

"When did you last see her?" asked Charlie. "Maybe she went downstairs."

"No, she didn't, for I saw her opening the big trunk and taking clothes out to dress up in. Besides she couldn't get downstairs, for you boys pulled two trunks in front of the stairs for a fort."

"So we did," said Charlie. "She couldn't have gone down without moving the trunks, and they haven't been moved."