“Oh!  Oh!” cried Sue, in surprise.  Of course the Shetland pony didn’t say anything, but he was surprised just the same.

Sue wasn’t hurt a bit, and soon she scrambled out of the manger and ran out of the stall.  As she did so the little girl heard a bump, or thud, over her head.  That bump made her think of Bunny, and how he was swinging on the trapeze.

“Oh, Bunny!” cried Sue, running up the stairs again.  “Did you see me slide down the hay hole?”

“Yes,” answered Bunny, “I did.  And did you hear me fall on the pile of hay under the trapeze?”

“I heard a bumpity-bump sound!” said Sue.

“That was me,” explained Bunny.  “I couldn’t hold on any longer, so I had to let go.  But I fell in the hay and I didn’t hurt myself at all.  I thought I would hurt myself, or I’d have let go before this.  Now I’m all right.  I can do a trapeze swing almost as good as Mart.  I’m all right now!”

Certainly he seemed so to Sue, who by this time had got to the top of the stairs and was looking across the loft at her brother.  Bunny wasn’t hurt—­the hay on which he had fallen was just like a feather bed.

“Well, we better go in now,” said Sue.  “We both falled down but we both didn’t get hurt.”

Bunny stood looking up at the trapeze.  He was thinking of getting on it again, but as he remembered how frightened he was he made up his mind that he had better let Mart do those risky tricks.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” exclaimed Sue, as she and Bunny were going out of the barn toward the house.  “I forgot my Jane Anna for Helen.  I was coming out to get her when I heard you holler.”

“I yelled a lot of times before anybody heard me,” said Bunny, and he told Sue how he had climbed up on the pile of boxes, and how they had fallen so he could not get down off the trapeze.

“Well, you’re down now,” said Sue.

Mrs. Brown guessed that something was the matter when she saw Bunny and Sue coming back from the barn, looking rather excited, and she soon had the whole story.  Then she told Bunny he must not get on Mart’s trapeze again, as he was too little for that sort of play.

“Even if there’s a lot of hay under it can’t I get on?” asked Bunny.

“No, not even if there’s a lot of hay under it,” answered Mrs. Brown.

So that ended Bunny’s hopes of becoming a trapeze performer in the show.  But Mart still kept on practicing, and soon he could do a number of good tricks.  Lucile, too, practiced her songs, and those who heard the children at their rehearsals said the show, which had first been thought of by Bunny and Sue, would be a good one.

Charlie Star fixed the mistakes in the tickets he was printing for the farm play and soon they were ready to be sold.  All the fathers and mothers of the children who were to be in the play bought tickets, and so did other persons in Bellemere.  The tickets were put on sale in the hardware store, in the drug store, in the grocery of Mr. Sam Gordon, and in other places about town.