CHAPTER I

WHAT DADDY BROUGHT

“Sue!  Sue!  Where are you?” called a lady, as she stood in the opening of a tent which was under the trees in the big woods.  “Where are you, Sue?  And where is Bunny?”

For a moment no answers came to the call.  But presently, from behind a clump of bushes not far from the tent, stepped a little girl.  She held her finger over her lips, just as your teacher does in school when she does not want you to say anything.  Then the little girl whispered: 

“Sh-h-h-h, Mother.  I can’t come now.”

“Then let Bunny come.  He can do what I want.”

“Bunny can’t come, either.”

“Why not?” and Mrs. Brown smiled at her little girl, who seemed very much in earnest as she stood in front of the bushes, her finger still across her lips.

“Bunny can’t come, ’cause we’re playing soldier and Indian,” said Sue.  “Bunny’s been shot by an Indian arrow and I’m his nurse.  He’s just got over the fever, same as I did when I had the measles, and he’s asleep.  And it’s awful dangerous to wake anybody up that’s just got to sleep after a fever.  That’s what our doctor said, I ’member.”

“Oh, Bunny is just getting over a fever, is he?” asked Mrs. Brown.

“Of course it’s only a make-believe fever, Mother,” said the little girl.  “We’re only pretendin’ you know”; and she cut her words short, leaving off a “g” here and there, so she could talk faster I suppose.

“Oh, if it’s only a make-believe fever it’s all right,” said Mother Brown with a laugh.  “How long do you think Bunny will sleep, Sue?”

“Oh, not very long.  Maybe five minutes.  ’Cause, you see, when he wakes up he’ll be hungry and I’ve got some pie and cake and some milk for him to eat.  Sick folks gets awful hungry when their fever goes away.  And it’s real things to eat, too, Mother.  And when Bunny got make-believe shot with an Indian arrow he said he wasn’t going to play fever more’n five minutes ’cause he saw what I had for him to eat.”

“Oh well, if he’s going to be better in five minutes I can wait that long,” said Mrs. Brown.  “Go on and have your fun.”

“What do you want Bunny to do—­or me?” asked Sue, as she turned to go back behind the bush where she and Bunny were having their game.

“I’ll tell you when you’ve finished playing,” said Mrs. Brown with a smile.  She sometimes found this a better plan than telling the children just what she wanted when she called them from some of their games.  You see they were so anxious to find out what it was their mother wanted that they hurried to finish their fun.

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were at Camp Rest-a-While with their father and their mother.  They had come from their home in Bellemere to live for a while in the forest, on the shore of Lake Wanda, where they were all enjoying the life in the open air.