“Where’s daddy?” asked Bunny.

“Oh, he had an early meal and said he was going fishing out in the lake,” said Mrs. Brown.

“He promised to take me the next time he went,” said the little boy.

“He’s coming back in a little while to get you both,” said their mother.  “He wanted to have some good fishing by himself while it was nice and quiet in the early morning hours.  When you children go with him, you laugh and chatter so, and get your lines so tangled up that your father can’t fish himself in comfort.

“But he likes to take you, and as soon as he has a chance to catch some fish himself, he’ll come back and take you out in the boat.”

“Oh, that’ll be great!” cried Bunny.  “I’m going to get my fish pole and line ready.”

“I don’t want to catch any fish,” said Sue.  “I don’t like to have ’em bite on the sharp hook.  I’ll go and get one of my dolls and give her a boat ride.  But I wish I had my Teddy bear.”

“He’d catch fish,” said Bunny, winding up his line on the little spool, called a reel, on his pole.

“She’s a she.  And anyway, Teddy bears can’t catch fish,” said Sue.

“No, but real bears can.  Our teacher told us.  They lean over the edge of a river and pull the fish out with their claws.  Bears likes fish.”

“But my Sallie Malinda isn’t a real bear,” said Sue.

“You could make believe he was,” insisted Bunny.  “And if you put his paw in the water, and sort of let it dingle-dangle, a fish might bite at it.”

“She,” sighed Sue.  “But just as if I’d let a fish bite my nice Teddy bear!  Besides, I haven’t got her.”

“No, that’s so,” agreed Bunny.  “Well, I guess you’ll have to take a regular doll then.”

“And don’t you let her make believe fall into the water, either, and get her sawdust all wetted up,” said Sue.

“I won’t,” promised Bunny.

Then the children began to get ready for their father’s return with the boat, and when Sue’s doll was laid out in a shady place on the grass, and Bunny’s pole and line were where he could easily find them, the little boy said: 

“Let’s walk down to the edge of the lake, and maybe we can see daddy quicker.”

“All right—­let’s,” agreed Sue, and the two were soon walking, hand in hand, down the slope that led to the water.

“Where are you going?” called Mother Brown.

“Oh, just down to the shore,” answered Bunny.

“Very well; but don’t go into the water, and don’t step into any of the boats until daddy comes.”

“We won’t,” promised Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.  Their mother could always depend on them to keep their promises, though sometimes the things they did were worse than those they promised her not to do.  They were just different, that was all.

Sue and Bunny went down to the edge of Lake Wanda.  They could not see their father’s boat, so they walked along the shore.  Before they knew it they had gone farther than they had ever gone before, and, all at once, in the side of the hill, that led down to the beach of the lake, they saw a hole that seemed to go away back under the hill.