“I guess so.  We’ll tell her about it, anyhow.  But we’ll have to get some other boys and girls to help us.  And we’ll have to make a cage to keep Splash in.  He’s going to be the wild tiger, you know.”

“Oh, but I don’t want Splash shut up in a cage!” cried Sue.  “I sha’n’t let you put my half of him in a cage!  And I do own half of him, right down the middle; half his tail is mine, too.  You can’t put my half of him in any old cage!”

Bunny did not know what to say.  It was easy enough to put make-believe tiger stripes on one side, or on half a dog, but it was very hard to put half a dog in a cage, and leave the other half outside.  Bunny did not see how it could be done.

“Oh, it won’t hurt Splash,” said the little boy.  “Come on, Sue.  Please let me put your half with my half of Splash in a cage.”

“No, sir!  Bunny Brown!  I won’t do it!  You can’t put my half of Splash in a cage.  He won’t like it.”

“But, Sue, it’s only a make-believe cage, just as he’s a make-believe tiger.”

“Oh, well, if it’s only a make-believe cage, then, I don’t care.  But you mustn’t hurt him, and you can’t put any paint stripes on my half.”

“No, I won’t, Sue.  Now let’s go out to the barn and look to see where we can put up the trapezes and rings and things like that, and where I can hang by my feet and by my hands.”

“Oh, Bunny!  Are you going to do that?”

“Sure!” cried the little boy, as though it was as easy as eating a piece of strawberry shortcake.  “You just watch me, Sue.”

“Well, I don’t want to do that,” said Sue.  “I’m just going to be a pretty lady and ride a white horse.”

“But grandpa hasn’t any white horses, Sue.  They’re brown.”

“Well, I can sprinkle some talcum powder on a brown horse and make him white,” said the little girl.  “Can’t I?”

“Oh, yes!” cried Bunny.  “That will be fine!  But it will take an awful lot of talcum powder to make a big horse all white, Sue.”

“Well, I’ll just make him spotted white then.  I’ve got some talcum powder of my own, and it smells awful good.  I guess a horse would like it; don’t you, Bunny?”

“I guess so, Sue.  But come out to the barn.”

Grandpa Brown had two barns on his farm.  One was where the horses and cows were kept, and the other held wagons, carriages and machinery.  It was in the horse-barn where the children went—­the barn where there were big piles of sweet-smelling hay.

“I can fall on the hay, ’stead of falling in a net, like the circus men do,” said Bunny.

“Anyhow, we haven’t any circus net,” suggested Sue.

“No,” agreed Bunny.  “But the hay is just as bouncy.  I’m going to jump in it!”

He climbed up on the edge of the hay-mow, or place where the hay is kept, and jumped into the dried grass.  For hay is just dried grass, you know.

Down into the hay bounced Bunny, and Sue bounced after him.  The children jumped up and down in the hay, laughing and shouting.  Then they played around the barn, trying to pretend that they were already having the circus in it.