“Please mayn’t we go?” they begged.  “It isn’t far, and it’s early yet.  Besides, we know enough to keep away from fires.”

“Well——­” said Mrs. Brown slowly.  Then she stopped as she saw Uncle Tad running back, while Mr. Brown kept on toward the blaze in a shed near some farmer’s barn.

“What’s the matter, Uncle Tad?” asked Bunny.  “Aren’t you going?”

“Yes.  But I came back to get the fire extinguishers that we carry on the auto.  This blaze hasn’t much of a start yet, and we may be able to put it out with our extinguishers.”

Uncle Tad darted into the automobile.  Sue and Bunny remembered about the extinguishers now.  They were red things, like fire crackers, and hung near the seat behind the steering wheel.

Once, to show Bunny and Sue how easily the extinguishers put out a fire, Mr. Brown had started one in the back yard.  Then, from the red thing, he had squirted a liquid and the fire sizzled and went out.

“Oh, we want to see daddy put out the fire!” cried Bunny.

“The children are teasing to go,” said Mrs. Brown, as Uncle Tad came out again with an extinguisher under each arm.  “Do you suppose it would do them any harm?”

“Not at all!” cried Uncle Tad.  “But you come with them.  I don’t believe the fire will be a very big one, but a lot of the country people are running to it.  Bring the children along.  Daddy Brown won’t care.”

“Whoop!” cried Bunny.  “That’s great!”

“I wouldn’t whoop,” observed Sue, shaking her finger at her brother.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because this isn’t a bonfire.  Somebody’s shed is burning up; and though it looks nice it isn’t any fun for them.  We ought to be sorry.”

“Well I am,” said Bunny.  “I’m sorry for them, but I’m glad for myself that I’m going to see the fire.  Is that all right, Momsie?”

“I guess so,” answered Mrs. Brown, and then she hurried on to the fire with the children, while Uncle Tad raced ahead with the red fire-cracker extinguishers.

Over the fields, from other farmhouses, people came running.  Men and women, and boys and girls.  They, also, wanted to see the fire.  As Bunny and Sue, with their mother, hurried on they saw that the blaze was in a low shed, and from this shed came wild squeals.

“They sound like pigs!” said Bunny.

“I guess it is the pig-pen on fire,” replied Mother Brown.

Bunny and his sister, with their mother, were at the fire almost as soon as Daddy Brown and Uncle Tad.  Then they saw for sure that what was blazing was a big pig-pen built on the side of a barn.  The barn had not yet caught fire.

“Make a bucket brigade!” called one of the farmers who had run to the fire.  “We must dip water from the brook, pass it along in pails, and throw it on the fire.”

“Wait a minute!” cried Mr. Brown.  “I have a better way than that, and surer, I think.  First some of you rip out a side of the pen, so the pigs can get loose, and then we’ll put out the fire for you.”