Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Illustrated by
Florence England Nosworthy
NEW YORK1916
"Bunny! Bunny! Wake up! It's time!"
"Wha—what's matter?" sleepily mumbled little Bunny Brown, making hiswords all run together, like molasses candy that has been out in the hotsun. "What's the matter, Sue?" Bunny asked, now that he had his eyesopen. He looked over the side of his small bed to see his sisterstanding beside it. She had left her own little room and had run intoher brother's.
"What's the matter, Sue?" Bunny asked again.
"Why, it's time to get up, Bunny," and Sue opened her brown eyes morewidely, as she tried to get the "sleepy feeling" out of them. "It's timeto get up!"
"Time to get up—so early? Oh, Sue! It isn't Christmas morning; is it,
Sue?" and with that thought Bunny sat up suddenly in his bed.
"Christmas? No, of course not!" said Sue, who, though only a little overfive years of age (a year younger than was Bunny), sometimes acted asthough older than the blue-eyed little chap, who was now as widely awakeas his sister.
"Well, if it isn't Christmas, and we don't have to go to thekindergarten school, 'cause it's closed, why do I have to get up soearly?" Bunny wanted to know.
Bunny Brown was a great one for asking questions. So was his sister Sue;but Sue would often wait a while and find things out for herself,instead of asking strangers what certain things meant. Bunny alwaysseemed in a hurry, and his mother used to say he could ask morequestions than several grown folks could answer.
"Why do you want me to get up so early?" Bunny asked again. He was wideawake now.
"Why, Bunny Brown! Have you forgotten?" asked Sue, with a queer look inher brown eyes. "Don't you remember Aunt Lu is coming to visit us to-day,and we're going down to the station to meet her?"
"Oh yes! That's so! I did forget all about it!" Bunny said. "I guess itwas because I dreamed so hard in the night, Sue. I dreamed I had a newrocking-horse, and he ran away with me, up-hill—"
"Rocking-horses can't run away," Sue said, shaking her head, the hair ofwhich needed brushing, as it had become "tousled" in her sleep.
"Well, mine ran away, in my dream, anyhow!" declared Bunny.
"They can't run up hill, even in dreams," insisted Sue. "Horses have towalk up hill. Grandpa's always do."