“No tramps allowed!” said the bird again.

“I hope my parrot didn’t spoil the play,” said Miss Winkler to Mr. Treadwell and the children.

“Oh, no,” answered the actor.  “We didn’t know he was in here, and when he began talking I thought it was one of the boys or girls speaking out of turn.  But he did no harm.”

“I’m glad of that,” said the elderly woman.  “A parrot is a heap sight better than a monkey, I tell Jed.  He ought to teach Wango to talk, and then he’d be of some use!”

The children laughed as she went downstairs with the parrot on her finger, and Sue said: 

“A monkey would be funny if he could talk, wouldn’t he?”

“I should say so!” exclaimed Mr. Treadwell.  “But now, children, we’ll get on with the play.”

Miss Winkler took her parrot home and shut him, or her, up in a cage.  Sometimes “Polly” was called “him,” and again “her.”  It didn’t seem to matter which.  The bird had got out of an open window when Miss Winkler was busy in another room, and, like the monkey, had gone to the store of Mr. Raymond, not far away.

I need not tell you about the practice for the play, as it took so long for each boy and girl to learn his or her part, and how to come on and go off the stage at the right time.  At the proper place I’ll tell you all about the play, but just now I’ll say that for several days there was hard practice with Mr. Treadwell, Mart, and Lucile to help, or “coach,” as it is called, the children.

“Do you think we’ll be ready by Christmas?” asked Bunny one day.

“Oh, surely,” answered the actor.  It was planned to have the play, “Down on the Farm,” given Christmas afternoon, and the money was to go to the Home for the Blind in Bellemere, and not the Red Cross.

“Oh, it’s snowing again!” cried Bunny Brown, as he ran into the house one afternoon, when he and Sue came home from school.  “May we take our sleds out, Mother?”

“Yes, I think so,” answered Mrs. Brown.

“Where’s Lucile?” asked Sue.  “Can’t she come and sleigh ride with us?”

“She and Mart are out in the pony stable,” answered Sue’s mother.  “Your father let Mart come home early from the office, and he and his sister have been out in the barn ever since.  I can’t say what they’re doing.  Maybe you’d better go and see.”

“Come on, Sue!” cried Bunny Brown.  “Maybe they’re practicing some new acts for the play.”

But when Bunny and his sister entered the stable where the Shetland pony was kept, a sound of hammering was heard.

“Are you here, Mart?” called Bunny.

“Yes,” was the answer.  “Come and see what Lucile and I have made for you and Sue!”

Bunny and his sister hurried into the room where the little pony cart stood, and there they saw something that made them open their eyes in delight.

CHAPTER XIII