“But somebody yelled!” said Sue to herself.

Just then the voice shouted again.

“Help me down!  Help me down!”

“Oh, it’s Bunny!” exclaimed Sue, as she heard her brother’s voice.  “Where are you, and what’s the matter, Bunny?” she asked.

A moment later she looked toward the middle of the hayloft and saw the little boy swinging by his legs from the trapeze.

“Oh, Bunny Brown, are you doing circus tricks up here?” asked Sue.  “Mamma wouldn’t let you!  Oh, Bunny Brown!”

“Help me down, Sue!  Help me down!” shouted Bunny.  “I daren’t drop on the hay, and I want to get down!”

Sue took a step forward.  She did not know just what she was going to do, but she wanted to help Bunny.  And just then Sue’s feet seemed to drop out from under her, and down she went in a funny slide.

  [Illustration:  DOWN WENT SUE IN A FUNNY SLIDE.
    Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Giving a Show. Page 161]

Down and down and down, with a lot of hay all around her, and out of sight of Bunny Brown, who was still on the trapeze, went sister Sue.

CHAPTER XVIII

MR. TREADWELL’S WIG

Bunny Brown, swinging by his knees from the trapeze, had just one little look at his sister Sue, and then he didn’t see her again.  At first Bunny thought perhaps he had fallen asleep and had dreamed that he had seen Sue.  So many things had happened since he climbed up on the funny swing that it would not have surprised Bunny to have learned that he had fallen asleep and dreamed.

But a moment later he heard Sue’s voice, and then Bunny felt sure it was not a dream.  For as Sue slipped and fell down a deep hole, together with a lot of hay, she called: 

“Oh, oh!  Oh, Bunny!  Oh, Mother!  Oh, Daddy!”

She wanted all three of them to help her and she didn’t know which one she wanted most.

“Oh, Sue!  Sue!” cried Bunny, as soon as he felt sure it was his sister he had seen and not a dream.  “Sue!  Come and help me!”

“Somebody’s got to help me!” half sobbed Sue, and her voice seemed very faint and far away.

And no wonder!  For Sue had slipped down the little hole over the manger, or feed-box, in the stall of Toby, the Shetland pony.  In this barn, as perhaps you have seen in barns at your grandpa’s farm in the country, there is a little hole cut in the floor of the loft, or upstairs part, so hay can be pushed down from the mow into the stall of a horse or a pony.  There was a little hay covering this hole, so Sue did not see it when she went up to look for her doll.  And it was down this hole that Sue had fallen.

Right down she went, into the manger of the pony’s stall, but as the manger was filled with hay Sue didn’t get hurt a bit.  But the pony was very much surprised.  It was just as if, when you were eating your bread and milk at the table some day, the ceiling over your head should suddenly have a hole come in it, and down through the hole, from upstairs, should slide a little horse.