CHAPTER XXII

ACT I

“What’s that?  Isn’t Bunny here?” asked Mr. Brown, who was busy talking to Mr. Treadwell about the play.

“This is the first I knew he wasn’t here,” answered Mrs. Brown.  “Did any one see him go out?”

No one had.

“Perhaps he is upstairs,” said Lucile.

“No, he wouldn’t go up to bed without telling me,” said Mrs. Brown.  “Besides, he’s been teasing me all evening to get his stockings ready to hang up, and he wouldn’t go without them.  Where can he be?”

“He isn’t in the kitchen,” said Sue, for she had gone out to look, and had come back again.

“Perhaps he is hiding away from you, just for fun,” said Mart.

“He sometimes does play tricks,” remarked Mr. Brown.  “I’ll take a look.”

They all looked, and they called, but Bunny could not be found.  He did not seem to be in the house.  Mr. Brown even opened the back door and shouted, thinking perhaps Bunny had gone out to see that the Shetland pony was all right, as he sometimes did.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown, “where can he be?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” said her husband.  “It’s early yet, even if it is dark, and maybe he went out to play in the snow, though of course he shouldn’t at this hour.”

“It’s snowing, too,” said Mrs. Brown, as she stood in the back door beside her husband.  “Snowing hard!  There’s going to be a big storm, and if Bunny is out in it—­I wish Bunny would not do such things!”

“Oh, will he get freezed?” cried Sue, her eyes opening big and round.

“No, dear, he’ll be all right,” replied her mother.  “But he must be found.”

“Maybe he went out with Bunker Blue,” suggested Mart.

Bunker Blue, the boy, or rather, young man, who worked for Mr. Brown at the fish and boat dock, had been at the house shortly after supper, and later had said he was going back to the office to make sure it was locked, for it would not be open on Christmas Day.

“Perhaps Bunny did go back with Bunker,” said Mr. Brown.  “Though he shouldn’t have done that.  But he was so excited about the play there is no telling what he might do.”

“Bunker ought to be at the office about this time,” said Mrs. Brown, looking at the clock.  “Call him on the telephone,” she begged her husband, “and ask him if Bunny is there.  I hope he is.”

Bunker Blue answered the telephone a few minutes later, when Mr. Brown had called him on the wire.

“No, Bunny didn’t come out with me,” said Bunker.  “But I saw him in the kitchen with his cap, coat, and rubber boots on when I left.  He seemed to be getting ready to go out.”

“Then he’s gone off somewhere without telling us anything about it!” cried Mrs. Brown.  “Maybe he went over to Charlie Star’s house, to make sure there would be enough tickets for the show.  Oh, I wish he hadn’t gone out!”