“I’m going out to see that the tent ropes are all right,” said Mr. Brown.

“Going out?  What for?” called Mrs. Brown.  “You musn’t go out in this storm.  It’s terrible!”

“Oh, but I must go!” answered Daddy Brown with a laugh.  “I don’t mind the thunder, lightning and rain.  If some of the tent pegs come loose, the ropes will slip off, and the tent will blow over.  Bunker Blue and I will go out and make sure everything is all right.”

“I could go with you,” said Uncle Tad from his cot.  “Shall I?”

“No, you stay where you are,” Daddy Brown said.  “You might get the rheumatism if you got wet.”

“I used to get wet enough when I was in the army,” returned the old soldier.  “Many a time, when it stormed, I used to get up to fix the tent.”

“Well, Bunker and I will do it now, thank you,” Mr. Brown went on.  By this time Bunker Blue had on his rubber boots and coat.  Then, taking a lantern with them, Mr. Brown and Bunker went outside.

“Fasten the tent door after us, Tom,” called Mr. Brown to the city boy, “or everything will blow away inside.  Tie the tent flaps shut with the ropes, and you can open them for us when we want to come in again.”

Out in the storm went Daddy Brown and Bunker Blue.  As they opened the flaps, or front door of the tent, a big gust of wind came in, and dashed rain in Bunny’s face, so that he covered his head with the bed clothes.  He had one look at a bright flash of lightning, and he could see the ground outside all covered with water.

“I’m glad I don’t have to go out in the storm,” he thought, and he felt sorry for his father and Bunker Blue.

But Mr. Brown had often been out on the ocean in worse storms than this, and so had Bunker, so they did not mind.  With their lantern they walked all around the sleeping-tent, making sure that all the ropes were fast to the pegs, which were driven into the ground.  Some of the wooden pegs were coming loose, and these Mr. Brown and Bunker hammered farther into the dirt.

All the while the wind blew, and the rain pelted down, while the lightning flashed brighter, and the thunder rumbled so loudly that it scared Sue.

“I—­I don’t like it!” she sobbed, and she crept into bed with her mother.  “Please make it stop, Mother!”

“No one can make the thunder stop, Sue, dear,” said Mrs. Brown.  “But the thunder won’t hurt you, and the storm is almost over.”

Just then there came a very loud clap.

“Oh, dear!” cried Sue.  “I’se afraid!”

Bunny heard his sister, and called out: 

“That sounded just like Fourth of July; didn’t it, Sue?  When the big boys fired the cannon on top of the hill.”

“Isn’t you afraid, Bunny?” asked Sue.

“No, I—­I like it,” Bunny answered.

He tried to make himself believe he did, so Sue would not be so frightened.

“Well, if you isn’t afraid I isn’t goin’ to be, either,” said Sue, after a moment.  And she stopped crying at once, and lay quietly in her mother’s cot-bed.  And then the storm seemed to go away.  It still rained very hard, but the wind did not howl so loudly, and the lightning was not so scary, nor the thunder so rumbly.