PATTER LEANED BACK AND PULLED AS HARD AS HE COULD.
Frontispiece—(Page [61])

BUNNY BROWN
AND HIS SISTER SUE AND
THEIR TRICK DOG

BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF
THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES, THE BOBBSEY
TWINS SERIES, THE SIX LITTLE
BUNKERS SERIES, MAKE
BELIEVE STORIES,
ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
WALTER S. ROGERS

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America

Books by Laura Lee Hope

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA’S FARM
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU’S CITY HOME
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG

THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES

THE BOBBSEY TWINS
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN CAMP

THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

(Nine Titles)

MAKE BELIEVE STORIES

(Twelve Titles)

Grosset & Dunlap New York

Copyright, 1923, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Trick Dog

CONTENTS

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS
SISTER SUE AND THEIR
TRICK DOG

CHAPTER I
A GRAND SURPRISE

Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone in the home of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. Ting-a-ling!

“I’ll answer it!” called Bunny, for he knew his mother was down in the kitchen, helping the maid get supper ready. It was almost supper time. Bunny could tell this, he said, “by the empty feeling in his little tummy.”

Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone again.

“I’m going!” fairly shouted Bunny, for he heard the footsteps of his sister Sue coming down the hall.

“I want to answer it!” cried Sue. “It’s my turn, Bunny Brown!”

“No, ’tisn’t! It’s mine!” and Bunny fairly yelled this, he was so excited.

“Children! Children!” gently called their mother, as she opened the kitchen door, thereby letting out the delicious smell of baking tarts, of which Bunny and his sister were very fond. “Gently, children!” begged Mrs. Brown. “I can’t have you answering the telephone if you are going to shout like that. Think what the person on the other end of the wire would say if they heard you.”

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! rang the bell again so loudly and so long that it seemed to mean some one was very impatient on the other end of the line, though of course the girl in the central office was doing the ringing.

“I’m going!” cried Bunny.

“I’m going!” exclaimed Sue.

“You may both go,” decided Mrs. Brown. “Sue, you may talk over the telephone that is down in the library. Bunny, you go upstairs and talk over the telephone in the sitting room.”

“All right!” agreed Bunny.

“This is fun!” laughed Sue.

Perhaps she knew that she would get to the telephone first, for Bunny had to run upstairs from the downstairs hall. And Sue was first. Taking the receiver off the hook she called:

“Hello!”

Back came a voice she well knew. It was her father speaking.

“Hello, Sue!” he cried, in his jolly tones. “Is Bunny there?”

“Yes, I’m here!” answered Bunny for himself, as by this time he had reached the upstairs telephone—an extension of the one from downstairs. Thus both children could talk to their father at once and he to them.

“Listen quietly, children, and don’t talk back until I ask you to,” cautioned Mr. Brown. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” answered Bunny Brown.

“Yes, I am, too!” said Sister Sue.

The children wondered what it could all be about. Why was their father so particular to have them listen carefully?

Mrs. Brown caught enough of the talk from Bunny and Sue to learn that it was her husband who was on the other end of the wire. He often called up from the boat dock just before supper, to let her know he was on the way home. Bunny and Sue had taken such messages many times before, but this time seemed a bit different.

“I want to ask you a question,” said Mr. Brown, at his end of the wire. “Are you going to be at home this evening, Bunny?”

“Why, of course I’m going to be at home!” answered the little boy.

“That’s good,” said his father. “Are you going to be at home after supper, Sue?”

“Course I am, Daddy!” she replied, with a laugh. “What makes you ask such a funny question?”

“Because I want to know,” went on Mr. Brown, and Bunny was sure he could hear his father laughing back there in the office on the boat and fish dock. “Now don’t forget! Don’t go out after supper. And don’t go out until I come home. Tell mother I’ll be there soon.”

“But what for, Daddy?” asked Bunny. “Why don’t you want us to go out?”

“Are you going to take us to the movies?” asked Sue. For sometimes Daddy Brown did this when there was a children’s play early in the evening.

“Well, we may go to the movies,” said Mr. Brown. “But perhaps you won’t care to go after you see what you’re going to see.”

“Oh, what are we going to see?” cried Bunny, catching at a new tone in his father’s voice.

“That’s a secret!” replied Mr. Brown.

“Oh, a secret!” cried both children.

“Tell me!” begged Sue.

“I will when I come home,” her father promised.

“Is it a nice secret?” Bunny wanted to know.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Mr. Brown. “You can tell better after you see it. But I haven’t time to talk any more now. Yes, Bunker Blue, I’m coming,” he said in a side voice which Bunny and Sue could hear. Bunker Blue was a red-haired boy who worked at Mr. Brown’s boat and fish dock. Then their father ended with: “Now don’t forget, Bunny and Sue. Don’t go out this evening. Wait for the surprise.”

“I will!” promised Bunny Brown.

“I will!” promised his sister Sue.

They hung up the telephone receivers, and after that you could not have gotten them away from the house even if a lot of fire-engines had raced by outside.

“Well, children, what was it?” asked Mrs. Brown, as Bunny came sliding down the banister as the quickest way of reaching the first floor, while Sue ran out from the library. “Is daddy coming home soon?”

“He’ll be here right away,” said Bunny.

“And he’s going to bring a surprise!” burst out Sue. “A surprise! A surprise! Oh, Mother, what do you s’pose it is?” she asked, her eyes big with wonder.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” and Mrs. Brown smiled. “Maybe it’s a lollypop or a picture book.”

“Pooh! They wouldn’t be surprises!” scoffed Bunny.

“But they’d be nice just the same!” Sue made haste to say, fearing that Bunny was not grateful enough. “Picture books and lollypops are very nice.”

“But they’re not zactly surprises!” said Bunny. “I guess daddy has a better surprise than that.”

The children could hardly wait for their father to come home. Again and again they raced to the front door, thinking they heard him coming, but it was a “false alarm.” Then they went out on the front steps to look down the street and wait. After a while Mr. Brown came along.

“I see him!” shouted Bunny.

“I see him!” cried Sue, like an echo.

“But he hasn’t got any surprise,” said Bunny, a bit sorrowfully.

“Maybe he has it in his pocket,” suggested Sue. Like her brother she had noticed that Mr. Brown carried nothing in his hands.

Down the street in the early summer evening raced Bunny Brown and his sister Sue to meet their father. Laughing, he caught them up in his arms, one on either side, and carried them along with him.

“Though you’re getting so big I’ll soon have to stop this,” he said, with another laugh. “My, but you’re getting heavy!”

“Daddy! Daddy! Where’s the surprise?” asked Bunny.

“Didn’t you bring it? You promised!” said Sue.

“No, I didn’t bring it. But it’s coming right after supper,” said Daddy Brown.

“Oh, now I can guess what it is! Toby, our Shetland pony, is coming back!” cried Bunny.

The pony had been sent away to the doctor’s some time before this.

“Is Toby coming back?” asked Sue. “Is that the surprise, Daddy?”

“No, that isn’t the surprise,” he answered, as he set the children down inside the fence in front of the house. “Now don’t try to guess any more, or you won’t be able to eat any supper. As soon as we have eaten the surprise will come.”

“Oh, couldn’t we have it first?” asked Bunny.

“Please!” begged Sue.

“No, it will be best to eat first and have the surprise afterward,” their father said. “Otherwise you might not eat.”

“Oh, what can it be?” wondered Sue.

“It surely is a big surprise!” declared Bunny.

Whether Daddy Brown told Mother Brown in a whisper what the surprise was, I do not know. I rather think he did before he sat down to supper. But the children were kept guessing, and you can imagine how impatient they were.

But finally the meal was over and as Mr. Brown looked at his watch and pushed back his chair there came a ring at the front doorbell.

“I’ll go,” said Daddy, as the maid started to answer. “No, you children sit still,” he ordered, shaking his finger at them. “If this is the surprise—and I think it is—I want to introduce you to it in the right way.”

So, more impatient than before, Bunny and Sue kept their seats while their father went into the front hall. They heard him open the door and then a man’s voice asked:

“Does Mr. Jim Denton live here?”

“No, there is no one of that name on this street,” answered Mr. Brown. “What business is he in?” asked the children’s father. And as they rightly guessed this was not the visitor Mr. Brown expected and as it could not be the surprise, Bunny and Sue felt that they might take a peep at the front door. Their mother nodded her permission.

Bunny and Sue saw their father talking to an old and ragged man. He was almost as ragged as a tramp, and yet he did not seem to be a tramp.

“What does this Mr. Denton do that you are asking about?” inquired Mr. Brown.

“He’s in the circus business,” answered the old man, and Bunny and Sue felt sorry for him, he looked so sad and tired. “I used to know him. We were in the show business together. I was thinking he might help me——”

“Are you hungry?” asked Mr. Brown kindly. “If you want food——”

“Oh, no, thank you, I’m not quite as badly off as that—yet. Though I may be,” answered the old and ragged man in a sad voice. “If I could find Mr. Denton he might help me to get back in the show business again. Some one told me he lived around here.”

“I don’t believe he does,” said Mr. Brown, as the children stood behind him in the hall. “I know all the men around here and there is no Mr. Denton who was in the circus business.”

“Well, then, I’ll have to search further,” said the weary old man. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Oh, it was no bother,” said Mr. Brown. “I thought you were some one I was expecting. Good-night!”

“Good-night,” echoed the old man, and Bunny and Sue felt very sorry for him as he went feebly down the steps and shuffled off.

“Well, that wasn’t the surprise after all,” said Mr. Brown, as he shut the door.

“When will it come?” asked Bunny.

“Soon now, I think,” was the answer.

They all went back to the dining room. Mr. Brown was telling about the old man who was seeking a Mr. Denton in the circus business when again the front doorbell rang.

“This is the surprise, I’m sure!” cried Daddy Brown. “Now stay here, children, until I call to you to open the door into the hall,” he warned.

Bunny and Sue, so impatient they could hardly keep still, waited. They heard the front door open. They heard their father talking. Then came a funny, squeaking, whining sound.

“Oh, what can it be?” murmured Sue.

Then came a knock on the door leading from the dining room into the hall.

“You may open!” called their father.

Bunny and Sue together turned the knob, and into the room stalked a funny little chap, wearing a red cap, a white coat, and blue trousers. In he stepped and began dancing around.

“There’s your surprise!” cried Daddy Brown.

CHAPTER II
PATTER’S TRICKS

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were really surprised at Daddy Brown’s surprise. Never had they been so astonished. They watched the queer little chap with his red, white and blue suit dancing around the room.

“Who is he?” cried Bunny.

“Where did you get him?” Sue wanted to know. “Is he for us to keep?”

“Do you want to keep him?” asked Mr. Brown, laughing at the surprise of his two children.

“Oh, he’s lovely!” cried Sue.

“But who is he?” asked Bunny again.

And while the children are trying to guess I will tell my new readers a little about Bunny and Sue so they will, I hope, be better friends from knowing them better.

Mr. and Mrs. Walter Brown lived with Bunny and Sue—their only children—in the eastern city of Bellemere, on Sandport Bay, not far from the ocean. Mr. Brown owned a boat and fish dock, and Bunker Blue, the red-haired boy, was one who helped run it. Sometimes Uncle Tad, who had fought “in the war,” as Bunny told his chums, worked down at the dock, and often the old soldier would go on little trips with the children.

Mr. Brown rented boats, and he sold fish when the men he hired were lucky enough to catch any. He also sold clams, crabs, and lobsters. Bunny and Sue knew how to catch crabs. But to get lobsters the boats had to go far out to sea, and the children were not allowed to do this unless daddy was with them.

In the first book of this series, called “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue,” I related to you some of the many adventures of this pair. After the happenings related in that book, Bunny and Sue went to Grandpa’s farm, they played circus, they went to their Aunt Lu’s city home and to camp. After some adventures in the big woods, the children were taken on an automobile trip, and when they came back, to their delight, their father bought them a Shetland pony.

Having a pony, Bunny thought it would be a good idea to give a “show,” so he and Sue did that, and on their next vacation they were taken to Christmas Tree Cove. A trip to the sunny South was taken just before the children helped Mrs. Golden, who owned a little grocery, and in the book just before the one you are now reading—a book named “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store”—I told you all the children did to aid Mrs. Golden.

And now we come to the present time, when Bunny and Sue were given a glad surprise by their father.

Around and around the room waltzed and danced the funny little chap in his red, white and blue clown suit, and Bunny and Sue kept asking:

“Who is he? What is he?”

Bunny was just going to guess that it was a monkey dressed up like a little dwarf when from beneath the cap came a sharp:

“Bow-wow!”

“Oh, it’s a dog!” cried Sue.

“Is it a dog, Daddy?” asked Bunny.

“It sounds like one,” laughed Mr. Brown.

“And is he ours to keep?” the little boy questioned.

“Yes,” answered Mr. Brown. “He is your dog. Down, sir!” he commanded, and the dog dropped to all fours and stood looking at Mr. Brown as if for further orders.

“Dead dog!” cried the children’s father.

Instantly the dog stretched out as if he had lost all life.

“Oh, he’s a trick dog!” cried Bunny.

“Is he a trick dog?” asked Sue. She wanted her father to tell her for sure. And Mr. Brown answered:

“Yes, he is a trick dog, and rather valuable I think.”

“Where did you get him, Daddy?” asked Bunny.

“I took him for a debt,” was the reply. “A Frenchman, who had trained this trick dog, owed me some money for fish and for boat hire. I had about given up all hope of ever getting my money, for the Frenchman said he was so poor he thought he could not pay for a long time. Then he asked me if I had children and if they loved animals. And when I said I had, and when I told him, Bunny and Sue, how fond you were of your dog Splash, when you had him, and how you liked your Shetland pony, Toby, the man asked me to take this trick dog in place of the money he owed me.”

“And you did,” said Bunny.

“Yes, I did,” admitted Mr. Brown. “It was the only way to get anything from the poor Frenchman. So I had him bring the dog to the dock this afternoon, and then he showed me how to make him go through some of his tricks. Then I telephoned to you about the surprise.”

“It’s a lovely surprise,” said Sue.

“Who brought the dog up from the dock?” Bunny asked.

“I left him for Bunker Blue to bring,” explained Mr. Brown. “And when that old man, who inquired about the circus, rang the bell, I thought that was Bunker. But he came a little later. And now, do you like your new trick dog?”

“Oh, I love him!” cried Sue.

“So do I!” declared Bunny. “May I pat him?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, the dog is quite friendly and tame,” said Mr. Brown, and soon Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had made friends with their new pet given up by the poor Frenchman in payment of his debt.

“What’s his name?” asked Bunny, as he took the cap off the dog’s head in order to see the animal better.

“Who’s, the Frenchman?” asked Mr. Brown. “His name is Jean Baptiste Foulard.”

“No, I mean the dog’s name,” said Bunny.

“Oh, he has a long French name, which means, in our language, ‘the little dog who brings the milk bottle in every morning,’” said Mr. Brown, with a laugh.

“What a cute name!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “Couldn’t the children call him that?”

“I’m afraid it’s too long,” said her husband. “That name would be a regular tongue-twister. They had much better call the dog some simpler name.”

“And did he really bring the milk bottle in every morning?” asked Bunny.

“Yes, so the Frenchman said,” answered Mr. Brown. “The dog was taught to do that. Every morning, when his master opened the door, the dog would go out and lift in the bottle of milk. It was only a small bottle, and he could easily get the top in his mouth. Then he would lap some of the milk out of a saucer.”

“Oh, I wish we could see him do it!” cried Sue.

“He will do that and many other tricks,” her father explained. “The Frenchman was very sorry to part with his dog, but he did not want to sell him to some one who might not be kind, and so he gave him to me, and now he does not owe me any more money.”

“I know what we can do with this trick dog,” said Bunny, after thinking it over for a moment.

“What?” asked his mother. But before Bunny could answer Sue broke in to ask:

“Where is the Frenchman now, Daddy?”

“He has gone away,” Mr. Brown replied. “Why do you ask, Sue?”

“’Cause I thought maybe he might come back and take our trick dog away.”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that,” said Mr. Brown. “This Frenchman is honest. After he gave me the dog to pay his debt he would not take the animal back. Now I must show you what tricks the dog can do and you can practice putting him through them.”

Once again the dog marched around and danced. Then Mr. Brown gave him a stick which the dog carried like a gun, playing soldier. After that the dog rolled over, he turned a somersault, he “played dead,” and he “said his prayers,” by crouching in the seat of a chair and putting his forepaws on the back, with his head down between them.

“He can do other tricks,” said Mr. Brown. “But now, children, what are you going to call him? I think you had better take some other name than the long French one.”

Bunny thought for a moment and then said:

“We can call him Patter!”

“Why?” asked his mother.

“’Cause his feet patter so on the floor when he dances,” said Bunny. And truly the toenails of the dog did make a queer little “pattering” sound as he waltzed around.

“I think that’s a nice name,” said Sue.

“Then we shall call this trick dog Patter,” decided Mr. Brown. “I’ll have a collar made for him with his name on it.”

Sue clapped her hands in delight and Bunny looked pleased. They made Patter do more tricks, and really the Frenchman’s dog seemed very smart.

“I’ll teach him more tricks,” said Bunny.

But just then, when Patter was doing the trick of pretending to be a soldier dog, there came another ring at the doorbell.

CHAPTER III
TOBY COMES BACK

“Who you s’pose that is?” asked Bunny.

“I don’t know,” answered Sue. “I hope maybe it isn’t that Frenchman come to take his dog back,” she went on, with a look at her father.

“Oh, no,” answered Mr. Brown. “The Frenchman will not take your Patter back. I made him promise if I took the dog for the money that was owing to me that it would be mine forever. And the Frenchman agreed to this. You won’t lose your dog, Bunny and Sue.”

The children seemed relieved at this, but still they wondered who had rung the doorbell. Mary, the maid, had gone to see who was calling, and after Patter had marched around like a soldier dog, Mary came back in the dining room to say:

“There’s a man out in the hall who wants to see you, Mr. Brown.”

“What’s his name?” asked the children’s father.

“He wouldn’t say. Called himself a stranger,” said Mary. “He said he wouldn’t keep you but a minute.”

Again Bunny and Sue looked worriedly at each other. In spite of what Daddy Brown said, this might, after all, be the Frenchman coming back after his trick dog. Certainly Patter was a dog that any one would want, he was so cute and wise.

“A stranger?” said Mr. Brown, and he seemed very thoughtful. “I can’t imagine who it can be. But I’ll see him.”

“Oh, I wonder——” began Mrs. Brown, and then she stopped. She was thinking perhaps it might be the old man who, earlier in the evening, had stopped to inquire about a Mr. Denton who was in the circus business. And, as it happened, while it was not this old man again, the stranger’s visit was about him.

Mr. Brown went out into the hall, and as he left the door open Bunny, Sue and their mother could hear what was said.

“You wanted to see me?” said Mr. Brown, as he looked at the caller who, indeed, was a stranger to him.

“Yes,” was the answer. “My name is Merton. A little while ago I saw an old man come out of your house here as I was waiting for a friend on the street. Do you know who this old man is?”

“No, I don’t even know his name,” said Mr. Brown. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he was just now hurt—run down by an automobile,” said Mr. Merton. “I saw it happen. The police came and took the old man away in the ambulance. No one seemed to know who he was, and I remembered that he had come out of your house. So I told the police maybe you knew him, and if you did I’d find out about it.”

“No, I don’t know him,” said Mr. Brown. “I’m sorry he was hurt. He’s as much a stranger to me as you are, Mr. Merton. He came here to inquire about a Jim Denton who used to be in the circus business; but I know no such man.”

“Neither do I,” said Mr. Merton. “Well, I won’t trouble you any further. I don’t suppose much can be done for the old man. He doesn’t seem to have any friends.”

“What hospital did they take him to?” asked Mr. Brown, for there were two not far from Bellemere. “I might go to see him, poor chap!”

Mr. Merton told what hospital it was and then left, for there was nothing more he could do, though he said he would inquire around and see if he could locate “Jim Denton,” or any one else who knew the old man.

“Poor fellow,” said Mrs. Brown, when her husband came back into the dining room, where Bunny and Sue were patting their new trick dog. “I wish we could do something for him.”

“I could give him some money from my bank,” offered Bunny.

“So could I!” chimed in Sue.

“I guess he doesn’t need money—not as long as he is in the hospital, anyhow,” remarked their father. “I wonder who this Jim Denton, a circus man, can be. And I wonder why the old man wants to find him.”

“You might ask the Frenchman who gave you the dog,” said Mrs. Brown.

“How would he know?” inquired her husband.

“As he trained this dog to do tricks, he might know some circus people, for they have trained and trick dogs in a circus.”

“We had one in ours, when we played circus!” said Bunny.

“But Patter is a better trick dog than Splash ever was,” added Sue.

“Yes, Patter is a good trick dog,” said Mr. Brown. “But I hardly think, my dear,” he added to his wife, “that Mr. Foulard would know anything about circus men. Anyhow, the Frenchman has gone many miles from here.”

In a way Bunny and Sue were glad to hear this, for they thought there would be less danger of the Frenchman coming back to take away Patter.

“Well, I feel sorry for the old man,” went on Mrs. Brown.

“So do I,” said her husband, “and I’ll go to see him in the hospital. I’ll try to find out where this circus man is whom he wants to find.”

The remainder of the evening was spent by Bunny and Sue playing with their trick dog. Patter loved children and was never happier than when performing for them. But even a trick dog may get tired, and Mr. Brown knew this for, after a while, he said:

“Now, children, it is time for you to go to bed, and Patter must have some sleep, also.”

“Oh, Daddy, could he sleep with me?” begged Bunny.

“No, I want him to sleep with me—my bed is bigger!” cried Sue.

“It is not good for dogs to sleep with boys and girls,” said Daddy Brown. “I will make a bed for Patter in the kitchen. He is used to sleeping in the kitchen, the Frenchman told me. Later on we’ll make a bed in the woodhouse.”

Bunny and Sue were a bit disappointed, but they felt that Daddy knew best. So, after some good-night pats given their dog, the children went up to their rooms, and Patter was put in a bed in a snug corner of the kitchen. His clown suit of red, white and blue was taken off and put away for special occasions.

“We’ll see you in the morning, Patter!” called Bunny.

“An’ we’ll have you do some more tricks,” said Sue.

“An’ I’ll teach you some new ones,” concluded Bunny.

Downstairs Mr. and Mrs. Brown talked over what had happened that evening since the trick dog had come home.

“Patter will be a great pet for Bunny and Sue,” remarked their mother. “They miss Splash so, especially since Toby the pony had to be sent away.”

“That reminds me,” said Mr. Brown, “that I had a letter to-day from the farmer who is taking care of Toby. The pony may soon be back.”

“Is he cured?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Brown, and he laughed a little.

“What are you laughing at?” asked his wife.

“At what Sue says when she speaks about the pony,” answered Mr. Brown. “She says he was ‘sent away to cure something he had in his hair that fell out.’ I always laugh when I think of that.”

“Yes, it was queer,” said Mrs. Brown, with a smile. “But it was true—Toby’s hair did fall out.”

“The farmer says that is ended now, and that Toby is well again,” remarked Mr. Brown.

“I’m glad, for the sake of the children,” said Mrs. Brown. “And I do hope you may be able to do something for that poor old man.”

“I’ll try,” promised her husband.

Then it was time to go to bed, and after seeing that Patter was all right in the kitchen, Mr. Brown turned out the lights.

Early the next morning Mr. and Mrs. Brown were awakened by hearing Sue call:

“Now stop, Bunny Brown! Mother, make Bunny stop!”

“Bunny, what are you doing?” asked Mr. Brown, for sometimes the little boy plagued and teased his small sister.

“I’m not doing anything,” Bunny answered.

“Yes, he is, too!” cried Sue. “He’s putting a cold sponge from the bathroom on my face. It’s a wet sponge! Make him stop, Mother! Make Bunny stop!” begged Sue.

“I’m not doing a thing to her! How can I when I’m in my own bed?” asked Bunny.

And Daddy Brown, getting up, found that this was so. Bunny was in his own little bed. But who was bothering Sue? Some one must be, for she kept crying:

“Stop! Stop!”

Mr. Brown hurried into the little girl’s room, and what do you suppose he found there?

I think you have guessed.

Yes, it was the trick dog, Patter! He had gone upstairs, and, standing on his hind feet at the side of Sue’s bed, he was licking her face with his cold, wet, red tongue.

“Oh, Patter, I didn’t know it was you!” cried Sue, for she had called out about Bunny before opening her eyes. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Bow-wow!” barked the trick dog, wagging his tail for joy.

“Is Patter there?” cried Bunny, and he ran into his sister’s room. Then he hugged the dog and so did Sue until their father told them, early as it was, they had better get up, as he did not like a dog in the bedroom.

Bunny and Sue dressed quickly and ran out to play in the yard with Patter before breakfast. Then came the meal, and you may be sure Patter had his, a full plate in the corner of the kitchen.

“Now I’ll teach him some new tricks,” said Bunny, when he and Sue were again romping with the dog. “I’ll teach him to walk on his front legs. He walks on his hind legs fine, but I want him to walk on his front legs.”

“That’s harder,” said Sue, for they had tried to teach this to their other dog, Splash. “Maybe he’ll tip over.”

“Pooh! It’ll be only a somersault if he does!” laughed Bunny. “Come on, Patter, learn to walk on your front legs!” he called.

He and Sue were holding up the hind legs of their trick dog, to make him learn how to walk on his front ones, when a voice from the street called:

“Does Mr. Brown live here?”

“Yes,” answered Bunny, without looking up, for often delivery men asked that question.

The next moment, however, Sue cried:

“Oh, Toby has come back! Toby has come back!”

CHAPTER IV
TOBY AND PATTER

Bunny Brown was so surprised by what his sister called, about Toby the pony coming back, that the little boy let go of Patter’s hind legs, which had been raised in the air to try to make him walk on his front legs.

Down fell Patter’s legs, so suddenly that if Patter had been a little boy or girl I’m sure he would have grunted, or perhaps he might even have cried. But as he was a dog, though a trick dog, Patter whined a little and then barked:

“Bow-wow-wuff!”

Perhaps that meant he didn’t like to be treated so. But Bunny did not stop to think about the new trick dog just then. Bunny ran after Sue, who was heading for the gate, outside of which stood a man with a pony and a cart.

The man had gotten out of the cart and was now looking at Bunny Brown and his sister Sue and their trick dog.

“If Mr. Brown lives here,” said the man, “I reckon this is his pony, for it’s where I was told to leave it.”

“It’s our pony,” said Bunny, “and thank you for bringing him back to us. His name is Toby.”

“So I was told,” said the man. “Well, here he is,” and he led the tiny horse in through the gate that Bunny and his sister opened.

“Is he all cured?” Sue wanted to know. “His hair won’t fall and come out any more, will it?”

“No,” answered the man, “his hair won’t fall out any more. He has been boarding at our farm for some time, and now he’s cured. Your father told me to leave him here for you. I just stopped at the office and he told me to bring the pony up. So here I am.”

“And we’re glad of it!” cried Sue. “Now we have a pony and a trick dog, and we’re going to give a show, maybe.”

“Is that a trick dog?” asked the farmer’s hired man, for he it was who had brought Toby home.

“Yes, he does lots of tricks,” and Bunny held his arms in a circle so Patter could jump through them.

“Oh, I didn’t know he could do that!” exclaimed Sue, as she watched this trick.

“I didn’t, either,” admitted Bunny. “But Splash used to do this trick, and I thought I’d try it for Patter. And he did it.”

“Yes, indeed, little man, he did!” said the farmer’s man, with a laugh. “And now, if you’ll just call your mother, so I know it’s all right for me to leave the pony with you, I’ll be getting back.”

Mrs. Brown was on her way out to the yard, for she had seen the man driving up with the pony and cart. She now spoke to him and learned that he had already seen Mr. Brown at the dock office, where the children’s father had gone after breakfast.

“May we take a ride in the pony cart?” asked Bunny of his mother, when the farmer’s man had gone and it was afternoon.

“Yes,” was the answer. “Toby is well and strong again, more healthy than before, the man said, and I guess he can pull you in the cart. But don’t go too far away.”

“We won’t!” promised Bunny and Sue. “May Patter come with us?” asked Bunny.

His mother said the trick dog might go, and soon the little boy and girl, with Patter sitting between them, were driving down a quiet street near the Brown home.

“We mustn’t run Toby too much at first,” said Bunny, who was holding the reins.

“No, ’specially after he just got over the falling-out-hair sickness,” agreed Sue. “Can I drive a little now, Bunny?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied her brother. “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to teach Patter to hold the lines in his mouth and drive Toby?” he asked.

“Lots of fun!” agreed Sue. “But we’d better not do that until Patter and Toby get to know each other better,” she added. “Let me drive now.”

So Bunny gave his sister the reins on a quiet street where automobiles seldom came.

PATTER LOVED CHILDREN AND WAS DELIGHTED TO PERFORM FOR THEM.

Bunny Brown and His Sister and Their Trick Dog. Page [27]

“That’s one of the tricks I’m going to teach Patter for the show we’ll have,” said Bunny, after a while.

“What show?” Sue wanted to know.

“Oh, we’ll get up a performance,” said Bunny, as if nothing could be easier. “Maybe it’ll be a circus like the one we had once, or maybe we’ll give a show in the opera house. But we’ll do something to show off Patter, and I’ll teach him to drive Toby.”

The children had a good time riding around in the pony cart, and Toby seemed so fresh and strong, as if willing to trot for miles and miles, that Bunny and Sue really didn’t want to turn around and go back home. But they did at last, and to their surprise they saw their father at the gate.

“Oh, Daddy!” cried Bunny, as Sue guided the pony and cart through the gate, “what makes you come home so early?” For it was not time for supper yet, and the boy knew his father did not close the office on the boat and fish dock until nearly supper time.

“I came home to ask your mother if she had anything good to eat that she wanted to send the poor man in the hospital,” answered Mr. Brown. “The old man who wants to find a circus,” he explained.

“Are you going to the hospital?” asked Sue. “May I come?”