Bunny found an old bag that had held corn for the chickens.  He nailed this bag to a stick, and fastened the stick up straight in a crack in the barn door, which lay down flat on the ground.  Then he and Sue managed to get the door in the duck pond, on the edge of which it had been placed over a mud puddle.

“There!” cried Bunny.  “Get on the boat, Sue.”

Bunny and Sue, who had taken off their shoes and stockings, stood up on the big door.  It floated nicely with them.  A little wind blew out the bag sail, and away they went.

CHAPTER XV

SPLASH IS LOST

“Bunny!  Oh, Bunny!  We’re sailing!  We’re sailing!” joyfully cried Sue, as she felt the barn-door raft moving through the water.

“Of course we’re sailing,” Bunny answered, as he stood up near the mast, which is what the stick that holds the sail is called.  The mast Bunny had made was only a piece of a lima bean pole, and the sail was only an old bag.  But the children had just as much fun as though they were in one of their father’s big sail boats.

The duck pond was not very wide, but it was quite long, and when Bunny and Sue had sailed across it to the other side, they turned around to go to the upper end.

Bunny had found a piece of board, which he had nailed to another short length of bean pole, and this made a sort of oar.  This he put in the water at the back of the raft to steer with.

Bunny Brown knew something about steering a boat, for he had often been out with his father or Bunker Blue.  And Bunny was quick to learn, though he was not much more than six years old.

Harder blew the wind on the bag-sail, and faster and faster went Bunny and Sue to the upper end of the pond.  There were many ducks swimming on the water, or putting their heads down below, into the mud, to get the weeds that grew there.  Sometimes they found snails, which some ducks like very much.

But when the ducks saw the barn-door raft sailing among them, they were afraid, and, quacking loudly, they paddled out of the way.

“Oh, Bunny!” cried Sue, as they sailed along, “there’s the little ducks that were hatched out by the hen mother.”

“So they are!” exclaimed the little boy.  The little ducks were swimming in the water, and the hen mother was clucking along shore.  She would not go in the water herself, but stayed as near to it as she dared, on shore.  Perhaps she wanted to make sure the little ducks would not drown.  Of course they would not, unless a big fish pulled them under water, for ducks are made on purpose to swim.  And there were no big fish in the pond, only little minnows, about half as big as a lollypop stick.

“Oh, Bunny!” cried Sue, as she saw the hen mother watching the little ducks paddle about, “Oh, Bunny, I know what we can do.”

“What?”

“We can give the hen mamma a ride on our boat.  Poor thing!  She never can go paddling or swimming with her family.  Let’s take her on our boat, and she can sail with her little ducks then, and not get wet.”