THEY BEHELD A HUT OF DRIFTWOOD AND PALM LEAVES.

Frontispiece—(Page [174])

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on the Rolling Ocean.

BUNNY BROWN
AND HIS SISTER SUE ON
THE ROLLING OCEAN

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
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT A SUGAR CAMP
BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON THE ROLLING OCEAN

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 CAMPING OUT
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AND BABY MAY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS KEEPING HOUSE

SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

(Eleven Titles)

MAKE BELIEVE STORIES

(Twelve Titles)

Grosset & Dunlap New York

Copyright, 1925, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on the Rolling Ocean

CONTENTS

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS
SISTER SUE ON THE
ROLLING OCEAN

CHAPTER I
THE RUNAWAY HORSE

Bunny Brown stood behind a long board which was laid across two boxes in the front yard. On the board were some piles of white stones and little heaps of red pebbles. There were also clam shells, a few filled with white sand and others with brown sand.

On one end of the board were some pieces of paper cut into squares and near them was a ball of string. On the other end of the board, balanced on a small box, was a shingle. This shingle moved up and down like the scales in a grocery store. In fact, this shingle and the box were Bunny Brown’s scale. He was “playing store.”

“Well, I wonder if anybody is coming to buy anything at my store to-day,” said Bunny, as he paced up and down behind the counter.

Just then a little girl, carrying a doll under one arm, walked up to the shade tree under which the play store was. She went to the counter and looked at the piles of sand, pebbles, and the clam shells. But Bunny Brown did not seem to think she was a little girl. He bowed to her and asked:

“What will it be to-day, Mrs. Anderson?”

“Oh, Bunny! You sound just like Mr. Gordon in the real grocery store!” laughed Sue, clapping her hands. As she did this her doll fell down on the grass. “You’re just like Mr. Gordon!” cried the little girl again.

Bunny Brown frowned, wrinkling his forehead until it looked like a wash-board from the laundry.

“Look here!” he exclaimed, coming out from behind the counter. “I’m not going to play store if you do that!”

“Do what?” asked Sue, for it was Bunny Brown’s sister Sue who had come to the store. Bunny had called her “Mrs. Anderson,” but all the same, she was Sue Brown. “What did I do, Bunny?” asked Sue.

“There you go again!” cried Bunny. “Stop calling me by my right name! If we’re going to play store I’m Mr. Gordon and you’re Mrs. Anderson!”

“Yes, I know, Bunny, but—”

“Oh, will you stop it?” cried the little boy, dancing up and down in his excitement. “I’m Mr. Gordon keeping the store!” he explained.

“Yes, I know you are,” admitted Sue. “I said you sounded just like Mr. Gordon when mother goes in and he says what will it be to-day, Mrs. Brown. You sounded just like him, and—”

“Well, then, you must call me Mr. Gordon!” insisted Bunny. “Now start over again.”

“Oh, all right, Bun—I mean Mr. Gordon!” and Sue quickly corrected herself. “Wait a minute.”

She picked up her doll from the grass and, imitating as nearly as she could the manner of a grown woman, walked out of the store. Of course the store was out of doors, in the front yard of the Brown home, under the trees. But to Bunny the store was very real, indeed. Bunny could “pretend” much harder than could Sue, because, possibly, he was a year older.

Sue—or Mrs. Anderson—having gone out, turned about to come in again. Bunny was once more behind the counter, looking at the clam shells, the piles of pebbles, and the sand, at his wrapping paper and twine and at the swaying shingle on a box—his scales.

“Good morning, Mrs. Anderson, what will it be to-day?” again asked the little boy storekeeper as he bowed to his sister.

“Oh, good morning, Mr. Gordon,” replied Sue, and she did not even smile as she gave her brother the pretend name. This showed that Sue was now playing the game in real earnest. “Have you any sugar this morning, Mr. Gordon?”

“Yes, Mrs. Anderson, I have some nice fresh sugar that just came in,” Bunny answered, acting so much like Mr. Gordon, the real grocer, that Sue nearly smiled at him. But she remembered just in time and her face grew serious.

“Do you wish white sugar or brown, Mrs. Anderson?” asked Bunny. I can call him that without getting into trouble, you know.

“I’ll have a pound of white sugar, and two pounds of brown,” answered Sue, or Mrs. Anderson.

“Please have a seat while I weigh it for you,” the little storekeeper went on.

In front of the counter there was a small box. Pretending that this was a stool, such as they sometimes have in real stores, Sue sat down on it.

Then Bunny, taking up a stone for a weight, put it on one end of the shingle scales. On the other end of the shingle he piled up some white sand, and when the shingle balanced, that was a pound. He put the white sand in one of the pieces of paper and tied a string around it.

“There is your white sugar, Mrs. Anderson,” he said to his sister. Sue took it but cried:

“Oh, Bunny, there’s a hole in the paper and all the sand is running out! Look!”

Bunny Brown raised his hands in the air.

“There you go again!” he cried. “Didn’t I tell you to call me Mr. Gordon and not Bunny? And that isn’t sand—it’s sugar! If you aren’t going to play right—”

“Oh, Bunny—I mean Mr. Gordon—I forgot!” gasped Sue. “Truly, I did! Come on and play!” she begged, for Bunny started to walk out from behind the counter. “I won’t do it again! Really, I won’t, Bun—I mean Mr. Gordon! And I don’t care if this san—I mean if the sugar spills. I have lots of money and I can buy more,” and she looked in her pocket where a mass of green leaves from the lilac bush took the place of money.

“Well, all right,” said Bunny slowly, after a moment. “But if you forget again I’m not going to play!”

“I won’t forget,” promised Sue.

She placed the paper of sand-sugar down on the counter in front of her, brushed some of the grains off her doll’s dress and said:

“Now I’ll have some brown sugar, Mr. Gordon.”

“Yes, Mrs. Anderson,” said Bunny. “This brown sugar is very sweet. Just taste it!”

He held some of the brown sand out to his sister. She looked at him in a funny way, and Bunny cried:

“Go on—taste it!”

Thereupon Sue wet the end of her finger and dipped it in the sand Bunny held out to her on the end of a little board. Then Sue put the sand on the tip of her tongue.

“Burr-r-r! Ugh! Oh, yes, it is very sweet sugar!” she exclaimed, making a funny face as she spluttered until the sand was out of her mouth. “I think I’ll have two pounds of that, Mr. Gordon.”

Bunny never smiled at the funny face his sister made when she tasted the sand. When Bunny played anything he was very much in earnest, as I have told you.

He put another stone on the weight end of the shingle scale. He then dipped out twice as much brown sand as he had of the white and wrapped this up in a paper which he tied with a piece of string.

“There is the brown sugar, Mrs. Anderson,” he said. “And now what else will there be to-day?”

Bunny Brown acted so much like Sam Gordon, the real grocer, and even imitated his talk and manners so well, that Sue felt like laughing. But she knew that if she did so her brother would not play any more, so she kept as straight a face as she could and said:

“Have you any fresh eggs, Mr. Gordon?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Anderson, some very fresh ones. They were picked just this morning!”

“Oh, Bunny Brown, you don’t pick eggs! They grow in the chicken coop!” giggled Sue. And Bunny, knowing that he had made a mistake, did not find fault this time with Sue for calling him Bunny instead of Mr. Gordon.

“I mean,” corrected the little boy, “that the eggs were laid fresh this morning.”

“Then I’ll take a dozen,” said Sue, getting her face straight again.

Bunny picked up twelve of the larger white pebbles and put these in an old cracker box, of which he had several under the counter.

“Be careful not to break the eggs, Mrs. Anderson,” he said, handing Sue the box. “Is there anything else?”

“I think that’s all,” said Sue gravely, as she had heard her mother say. “How much is it?”

Bunny pretended to be adding up the cost of the pound of white sand-sugar, the two pounds of the brown sand-sugar, and the price of the dozen white-pebble-eggs.

“That’s a dollar and fifty-seven cents,” he finally said.

Sue took out a large green leaf and two smaller ones. And Bunny gave her back, in change, two red petals from a rose.

“Come again, Mrs. Anderson,” he called as Sue, tucking her doll under one arm and her packages under the other, started away from the play store. She walked across the grass and down toward the bushes that grew as a sort of hedge in front of the house.

As she neared the gate, Sue saw something which caused her to cry out:

“Oh, look, Bunny! Look! Quick!”

“Say, didn’t I tell you I’m Mr. Gordon, the grocer, and you mustn’t call me Bunny?” cried the little boy. “Now I’m not going to play store any more!”

“I don’t want to play store!” exclaimed Sue, who was much excited. “Look, Bunny! It’s a runaway horse and he’s coming right this way!”

This made Bunny forget all about being a grocer. Out from behind the counter he ran to join his sister near the gate. He saw, coming down the street, a galloping horse on the back of which was a man who either had lost the bridle or who did not know how to manage the animal.

“Oh, Sue, it is a runaway!” gasped Bunny, and for the first time since the store game had begun he called his sister by her right name. “I wonder whose it is?”

“I guess it’s that man’s,” said Sue. “Look! He’s coming right for us! I’m going to run!”

“He won’t come here!” said Bunny. “He can’t jump over the bushes, Sue.”

The man on the back of the horse seemed either frightened or excited. He was now leaning forward, his arms around the neck of the animal, and he cried:

“Avast there! Belay! Drop your anchor! Pull up at the dock! I want to go ashore!”

Bunny thought this was a funny way to talk to a horse.

“He should say ‘whoa’ or ‘back’ to him,” thought Bunny. “He’s talking just like Bunker Blue or one of the sailors down at daddy’s dock.”

But neither Bunny Brown nor his sister Sue had time to think much more or do much more. All of a sudden the horse came up on the sidewalk near the Brown gate. Then, just outside the hedge of bushes, the horse came to a sudden stop.

Off his back shot the man, up into the air, over the bushes in a curve, and then he fell to the ground with a groan.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Bunny’s sister Sue.

CHAPTER II
A STRANGE STORY

Bunny Brown was as much excited and frightened as his sister, but he did not scream and call out as Sue did. Instead, Bunny looked at the man, lying so still and quiet on the grass. At first the little boy thought the rider of the runaway horse had been killed when he had been flung in such a queer way over the fence.

But as Bunny looked he saw that the strange man had landed on a pile of grass that had been cut and raked up that morning by Bunker Blue, a boy who worked at Mr. Brown’s fish and boat dock.

“The pile of grass was like a cushion,” thought Bunny to himself, remembering how once he had fallen on a pile of hay in a field when he and his sister were in the country on Grandpa’s farm. Bunny had not been hurt by his fall, and he was hoping the man was not much hurt by his tumble.

That the man was not dead was proved a moment later when he moved slightly, groaned and opened his eyes.

“Hello, what’s your name? Are you much hurt?” asked Jed Winkler, who was in the crowd that had rushed up the street after the runaway.

“My name is Pott—Philip Pott,” was the faint answer. “I was coming here to look for my son. He’s lost—my son Harry is lost. At least, so they say—went down with the schooner Mary Bell. The treasure is lost too—the treasure is gone! Oh, if I could only find my lost son!” Then the man closed his eyes and lay very quiet.

“He’s a sailor, just as I used to be!” exclaimed old Jed Winkler, whom Bunny Brown and his sister knew very well. “He’s badly hurt, too. He’ll have to lay up in the sick bay a spell, I reckon! Catch hold of him, somebody, and we’ll lift him!”

While Bunny Brown and Sue looked on, their mother and Uncle Tad, an old soldier who lived with the Brown family, came out of the house.

“Bring the poor man into our house,” ordered Mrs. Brown. “I have telephoned for the doctor.”

“Oh, Mother! He fell off his horse right in front of Bunny and me!” exclaimed Sue, running toward her mother. “We were playing store!”

“He flew right over the bushes,” added Bunny.

“Yes, my dears,” said Mrs. Brown. “But run out of the way now until Uncle Tad and Mr. Winkler carry the poor man into our house.”

While this is being done I will take just a moment to tell my new readers something of the two children who are to take part in this story.

Their names, as you have already been told, were Bunny and Sue Brown. Their father’s name was Walter Brown. He owned a boat and fish business in the seacoast town of Bellemere. He owned a pier which extended out into Sandport Bay, and to this pier were brought the fish which his men caught in nets off the coast.

The fish were packed in barrels of ice and shipped to New York and other cities. Mr. Brown also hired rowboats, sailing craft and motor launches to those who wanted them. He had men to help him, and also a chap named Bunker Blue, who was a big, kindly lad, very fond of Bunny and Sue. You first met the children in the book called “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue,” which tells of the funny adventures they had. After that, in other books, you were told how the children went to Grandpa’s farm, how they camped, and of their visit to Aunt Lu, after which they went to the big woods, then took an auto tour.

Once Bunny and Sue had had a Shetland pony, and later a trick dog. You may guess that they were fond of playing store, and once they helped in a real store. Just before this story opens, as related in the book, “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at a Sugar Camp,” the children had gone to the woods toward the end of winter and had seen how maple sugar was made.

Now it was summer again, and Bunny and Sue were ready for more adventures. But they were hardly prepared for seeing a man tossed off the back of a runaway horse, over their hedge, and almost at their feet.

“Oh, Bunny, do you s’pose he’s dead?” whispered Sue to her brother as Uncle Tad, Mr. Winkler, and another man lifted the unconscious man who had said his name was Philip Pott.

“I guess he’s not dead,” Bunny answered. “He couldn’t talk if he was dead.”

“Well, anyhow, maybe he’s hurt,” went on Sue.

“Yes, I guess he is hurt,” agreed Bunny.

The children started to go into the house, following the men who were carrying the injured sailor. Some other men and boys in the street caught the runaway horse, which had stopped as soon as it had tossed the man from his back.

“Whose horse is it?” some one asked.

“It belongs to Jason’s livery stable,” said Bunker Blue, coming along just then. “That’s old Jim—I know that horse.”

“All right, I’ll take him back to Mr. Jason,” offered Sam Flack, a man who did odd jobs about the town.

Bunker had come back from the boat and fish dock to take away the pile of newly cut grass he had raked up.

“Hi, Bunny, did the horse jump over the hedge?” asked George Watson, one of Bunny’s chums. A number of boys and girls had gathered near the scene of the runaway.

“No, the horse didn’t go over the bushes—just the man,” said Charlie Star, another chum of the Brown children.

“How do you know?” asked Harry Bentley.

“I saw him,” answered Charlie.

“So did I!” added Mary Watson. “Oh, weren’t you ’cited—I mean excited—Sue?”

“Yes, I was,” admitted Sue.

Sue and her brother went into the house, following the men who had carried in Mr. Pott, and Bunker Blue “shooed” the other people out of the yard so he could gather up the grass. Sam Flack led away the now quieted horse.

The excitement was over for a time. But many things were happening in the home of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.

Mrs. Brown and Julia, the maid, had made ready a couch in one of the rooms, and on this the silent sailor was laid.

“Does he seem to be badly hurt?” asked Mrs. Brown of Uncle Tad. “I have telephoned for Dr. Rudd. He will be here in a few minutes.”

“He seems to be hurt on the legs and in his head, Mrs. Brown,” said Jed Winkler. “He’s a sailor. I gathered that much from his talk. Do you know him?”

“I never saw him before,” Mrs. Brown answered. “I was looking out, watching Bunny and Sue playing store, when I saw this horse come galloping down the street. Then it stopped so quickly that the poor man was pitched off over the hedge.”

“He almost landed on me,” said Bunny.

“On me, too,” added Sue, who did not like to be left out of anything in which her brother had a part.

Dr. Rudd came in a few minutes later and looked Mr. Pott over. The injured sailor soon felt better. He opened his eyes and looked about him.

“Hello! Where am I? What ship is this?” asked the man in a weak voice.

“You aren’t on any ship, my good man,” said the doctor. “You are in Mr. Brown’s house. Can you tell us who you are and where you want to go?”

The man looked around at the faces, which were strange to him, and said:

“I don’t know any Mr. Brown.”

“We’re the Browns,” explained Bunny.

“That’s my mother’s name and my father’s name and Bunny’s name and my name!” exclaimed Sue. “And you’re in our house.”

“Oh, am I? Thank you, little girl,” said Mr. Pott, smiling at her. “How did I get here?”

“You were riding a horse and it ran away and threw you. Don’t you remember?” asked Uncle Tad.

“You spoke of the schooner Mary Bell,” said Jed Winkler. “You’re a sailor, I take it, same as I used to be. I’m sorry to see you in trouble, messmate? Can I help you?”

Mr. Pott looked at Jed Winkler a minute and then said:

“Well, you might help me if you could find the lost treasure.”

“What lost treasure?” asked Dr. Rudd, and Bunny and Sue remembered a sea story their mother sometimes read to them about a shipwreck in which treasure had been lost and later was found on a desert island.

“The treasure was lost on the Mary Bell,” murmured Mr. Pott. “She foundered, the Mary Bell did, down in southern waters. I was first mate aboard of her and my son Harry was second mate. But I guess he’s lost too—my boy Harry. He was sick just before the Mary Bell began to sink. I haven’t had any word from him since.

“But I thought maybe he got picked up at sea somehow, and I’ve been going about ever since, trying to find him. Every time I heard of a place where a sailor lived I went there, thinking it might be my son Harry. I thought maybe he might have the lost treasure. I heard there was a sailor living here, so I came to this port.”

“I guess I’m the only sailor living here,” said Mr. Winkler. “But I’m not your son and I haven’t any treasure.”

“You have Wango, your monkey,” said Bunny, for he and Sue liked the queer, fuzzy, little animal that Jed had brought back with him from one of his voyages.

“Yes, I have Wango, but he isn’t any treasure,” chuckled the old sailor. “Anyhow, my sister Euphemia doesn’t think so.”

Bunny and Sue well knew this. They wondered what else the injured sailor would say. They had listened to his strange story, and they wondered what his treasure was and if he would ever find his lost son Harry.

After telling this much about himself Mr. Pott became unconscious.

“I wanted to ask him how it was he came to be riding that horse,” said Mr. Winkler. “A horse is no sort of craft for a sailor.”

“It will be better not to ask him any more questions for a while,” said Dr. Rudd, “even if he regains consciousness. Shall I have the ambulance come and take him away, Mrs. Brown?”

“Oh, no, not yet. Let the poor man stay here,” said Bunny’s mother. “It might hurt him to move him. Later, if you find he needs hospital treatment, he can go there. But let him stay here for the time being.”

So it was arranged, and Dr. Rudd said he would come in again that afternoon. Bunny and Sue were looking at the strange sailor when their mother called:

“Here comes daddy. I suppose he heard that something had happened at home and came up from the dock to see about it.”

The footsteps of some one walking in the hall were heard. Bunny and Sue knew their father’s tread. Then the voice of Mr. Brown called:

“Where are you, Bunny? And where’s Sue? I’ve great news for you!”

CHAPTER III
WONDERFUL NEWS

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue made a rush for the hall to meet their father. In fact, they always ran to meet him as soon as they heard him enter the house. But this time, because he called out that he had great news for them, there was an extra reason for hurrying.

“Don’t make too much noise, my dears,” said Mrs. Brown, motioning to the injured sailor.

“He doesn’t hear them,” said Uncle Tad, who was sitting beside Mr. Pott. “He’s off in a stupor now. I’m afraid he’s going to be a very sick man.”

“Too bad,” murmured Mrs. Brown. “If we could only find his son and get word to him about his father.”

“Likely the son will never be found,” replied Uncle Tad in a low voice.

“Well, we’ll take care of this poor man until Dr. Rudd sees him again,” went on Mrs. Brown. “By that time he may be better.”

Bunny and Sue found their father out in the hall. Generally they rushed at him with merry peals of laughter and jolly shouts. But now they had heard what their mother said about disturbing Mr. Pott, so they were a little quieter.

“What’s the great news, Daddy?” asked Bunny.

“Are we going away somewhere?” Sue wanted to know. To travel was the delight of the two children, and nothing pleased them so much as to be on the move—it did not much matter where, as long as they were seeing something new. But probably most children are like that.

“Yes, I think perhaps we are going away—on the rolling ocean,” said Mr. Brown. “I’ll tell you more about it in a little while. But what is going on here? Some one told me there had been an accident here, though I see it isn’t either of you two who is hurt. And it can’t be mother, for I hear her talking to Uncle Tad.”

“It’s Mr. Pott,” explained Bunny. “He’s a sailor and he lost his son Harry and the treasure and he was on a horse.”

“But he fell off the horse,” quickly added Sue. “And, Daddy, he ’most fell on us when we played store!”

“My! I should say that was a lot to have happen to one,” said Mr. Brown. “Now don’t make too much noise if we have a sick man in the house.”

He went into the room where his wife and Uncle Tad were keeping watch over Mr. Pott, and from Mrs. Brown soon learned all there was to know about the matter.

“Too bad,” said Mr. Brown. “Well, perhaps things may turn out all right after all, but it’s pretty hard for the old man to lose his son and a treasure at the same time.”

Making the sailor as comfortable as possible, and leaving Uncle Tad to watch over him, Mr. and Mrs. Brown and the children went to another room where they could talk together.

“What’s this about some news the children say you have?” asked Mrs. Brown.

“It is news, yes, in a way,” answered her husband. “How would you like to take a trip?”

“It depends on where the trip is,” his wife said, with a smile. “If I had my choice I would like to go down south where it is lovely and warm and where there are so many flowers and birds.”

“You must have guessed what I was going to say,” laughed Mr. Brown, “for down south is where I was thinking of going.”

“Is it down to the sunny south where we were once before?” asked Bunny. The Brown children had once taken a trip to the southland.

“Not exactly the same place,” Mr. Brown replied. “Of course, the south is always sunny, but this time I have in mind an ocean voyage. I have to go to the West Indies on business, and I have a chance to go on a steamer which one of the big fish companies is sending. They have given me the use of two staterooms, so there will be room for all of us. If you want to go and take the children, my dear,” he said to his wife, “I think it would be a pleasant trip for us all.”

“I don’t see how we could very well leave them at home,” remarked Mrs. Brown, looking at Bunny and Sue.

“Leave us at home? I guess not!” cried Bunny. “I wouldn’t stay!”

“And if Bunny doesn’t stay at home I’m not going to stay!” announced Sue, almost ready to cry.

“There, now, don’t get excited,” laughed Mr. Brown. “No one is going to be left at home.”

“And are we really going on the ocean?” asked Bunny.

“To get to the West Indies down near Cuba we must go on the ocean,” answered Mr. Brown. “But though the ocean may roll a bit, it will not be very rough, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”

“Tell me more about it,” begged Mrs. Brown, while the children listened.

“Well, it isn’t all settled yet,” Mr. Brown replied. “But, as you know, I sell some of my fish to the Empire Sea Food Company of Philadelphia. One of their men was in to see me the other day and told of an especial trip one of their steamers was going to make to the West Indies. They are to look up new places from which they may have southern fish shipped to them. This man said there would be plenty of room on the Beacon, which is the name of the steamer. She isn’t going to carry regular passengers, just the crew, some members of the fish company, and some of the wives of the officers of the company.

“So, as he offered me the use of two staterooms, which will be just enough for us, I thought perhaps you and the children might like to go. I can leave my head clerk and Bunker Blue in charge of my business here, and Uncle Tad can look after the house. So there is no reason why we can’t all go on the rolling ocean.”

“I think I should love it,” said Mrs. Brown.

“Are we going to-morrow?” Sue wanted to know. “’Cause if we are, I’ve got to put a new dress on my doll.”

“Oh, no, we won’t go to-morrow!” laughed her father. “Perhaps not for a week yet. You’ll have plenty of time to dress Sallie Ann, if that’s the name of your doll.”

“No,” said Sue, thinking the matter over, “I haven’t any doll named Sallie Ann. But,” she added quickly, “if you would get me a new doll I could name her Sallie Ann.”

“Oh, ho, you little tyke! So that’s what you’re thinking of, are you?” exclaimed Mr. Brown, catching Sue up in his arms. “Well, we’ll see about the new doll later on. But if you think it is settled about making the trip, I’ll send word to Captain Ward of the Beacon so our staterooms will be made ready.”

“Yes, I think we’ll take the trip,” said Mrs. Brown.

Just then Sue called:

“Oh, look at Bunny! What’s he doing?”

Well might she ask that, for Bunny was moving about the room, reeling from side to side, heaving and rolling his shoulders and head as though trying to turn himself inside out.

“Bunny! What’s the matter?” called his mother. “Are you ill?”

“No, I’m not sick!” replied Bunny, straightening up. “I’m just making believe I’m on a ship on the rolling ocean. The ocean rolls, daddy said, and I’m rolling. I’m on the rolling ocean! The rolling ocean!” With a laugh, Bunny again made his shoulders move in that funny way, imitating the heaving and swaying of a ship in the swell of the sea.

“You’ll get plenty of that before we reach the West Indies,” said Mr. Brown. “The ocean will roll for you all you want it to.”

“I like the ocean,” announced the little boy. “I’m going to fish in it when we get on the steamer.”

“And maybe you’ll catch a crab and it will pinch you,” said Sue.

“I like crabs,” declared Bunny.

“I don’t,” stated Sue. “I don’t like ’em alive! Once I got pinched by a crab.” This was true. The children had gone out fishing in Sandport Bay with Bunker Blue once upon a time. A crab had been caught and before Sue could get out of the way of the queer, sidewise-moving creature, it had nipped her on the leg.

“Well, since it is all settled that we are to go on the rolling ocean,” announced Mr. Brown, “I’ll send word to Captain Ward. He asked me to let him know, and—”

“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Brown, holding up her hand for silence.

A noise sounded in the other room where Mr. Pott had been put. The voice of the sailor could be heard murmuring, and Uncle Tad was answering him.

“I must see what’s the matter,” said Mrs. Brown.

CHAPTER IV
MR. POTT GOES AWAY

Keeping Bunny and Sue in the background, Mr. and Mrs. Brown looked in the room where Uncle Tad was watching over Mr. Pott.

“Is anything the matter?” whispered Mrs. Brown, for when she and her husband looked in the room the injured man seemed to be quiet and there was no longer the murmur of voices.

“He’s all right now,” said Uncle Tad in low tones. “But he was a bit restless a moment ago. He was sort of talking in his sleep, I guess, about his missing son and the lost treasure.”

“Do you really think he lost a treasure?” asked Mr. Brown.

“Well,” said Uncle Tad slowly, “you know how it is with sick folks. Sometimes they imagine things. I know how it was in the army. Sometimes the men that were hurt would talk a lot about things that had never happened. They were wandering in their minds.”

“But Mr. Pott lost his son—he told us so,” remarked Bunny. He and Sue stood just outside the door.

“Yes,” agreed Sue, “he did. When he fell off the horse and came into our yard and sat on the pile of grass, he said he’d lost his son.”

“Well, maybe he did, and a treasure, too,” agreed Mr. Brown. “Perhaps in the morning he’ll be better able to tell us more about himself and how he happened to come here.”

“He came here because he heard there was a sailor living here,” explained Mrs. Brown. “He thought it might be his son who had been rescued from the wreck of the Mary Bell. But the only sailor we have here is Jed Winkler.”

“And he’s too old to have been this man’s son,” said Mr. Brown.

The sick man had grown quiet again, and Mrs. Brown sent Julia, the maid, in to watch by his couch while Uncle Tad had a rest.

The excitement caused by the runaway horse had passed, the animal having been taken back to the livery stable where Mr. Pott had hired it. Bunker Blue raked up the pile of grass and put it back of the Brown garage where later some stray goats came and ate it.

Bunny and Sue, forgetting for a time about the strange sailor in their house, ran out to play again.

“But don’t let’s play store again,” suggested Bunny.

“What’ll we play?” Sue wanted to know.

“Let’s play about the rolling ocean,” suggested Bunny, whose mind seemed filled with thoughts of the great sea. “We’ll make believe the store counter is a ship, and I’ll be the captain and you can be a passenger and we’ll go to the West Indies.”

“And maybe we’ll find Mr. Pott’s lost son,” added Sue.

“I’d rather find the treasure,” said Bunny Brown.

Neither he nor his sister dreamed of the strange adventures that were soon to be theirs.

Bunny and Sue so often made believe that it did not take them long to change the “store” into an ocean-going steamer. The long plank that had served for a counter was laid on two lower boxes, for, as it was, it was too high for the deck of a ship. Then Bunny placed one box up in front of the plank.

“This is where the captain steers the ship,” he said.

He placed another box behind the first at the farther end of the plank.

“That’s the cabin for passengers,” he told Sue. “You get in there, and be careful you don’t fall into the water.”

“I don’t see any water,” remarked Sue.

“You don’t?” cried Bunny Brown. “Why, there’s water all around us! How do you s’pose a ship’s going to sail on the rolling ocean if it doesn’t go in the water? This grass all around us is water, and you’d better get on board else you’ll be drowned. You’re in the water now!” and he pointed to Sue’s feet.

“I am not in the water!” she cried.

“You are so!” asserted Bunny. “And if you don’t get on board quick, the steamer’ll go off without you! Toot! Toot!” and he pretended to blow a whistle.

“Then you’re in the water, too,” retorted Sue, pointing to Bunny’s feet which were also on the grass.

“Oh, well, that’s nothing! Captains have to be in the water! Anyhow, I’m going to get up and steer the boat. So if you want to play you’ve got to get on, too.”

Bunny made a jump and landed on the plank. Then he took his place in the forward box. Sue was going to get aboard when she happened to think of something.

“Bunny,” she called.

“I’m not Bunny!” he answered. “I’m Captain Ward.” He remembered the name of the commander of the Beacon spoken of by Mr. Brown. “You have to call me Captain Ward if you’re going to play steamboat,” he told his sister.

“All right. Captain Ward,” and Sue did not smile when she said this, “could I take one of my dolls on your steamer?”

“Doll? No!” cried Bunny. “You’re supposed to be a big woman passenger and they don’t have dolls. But if you want to take your little girl in your cabin, you can do that.”

“Oh, all right, Captain Ward. Thank you,” quickly answered Sue, understanding what Bunny meant. If you were pretending, you must do it in everything. And since she was pretending to be a grown-up passenger she would not, naturally, have a doll. But she could make believe her doll was her little girl. “I’ll go and get my daughter now.” She had already taken her place on the “ship,” but now, as she was about to get off, she remembered that the grass was “water.”

“How am I going to get my daughter?” she asked. “I can’t jump into the ocean to go for her,” and she pointed to the grass.

“That’s so,” agreed Bunny. “Wait! I’ll steer the ship up to the pier and you can go ashore there and get your daughter. Look out now, hold tight! We’re going fast! Toot! Toot!”

Sue held “tight,” and though of course the plank and the boxes did not move from the place where they had formerly been part of the “store,” still to the children it was as if they were sailing on the rolling ocean.

“Whoa!” suddenly called Bunny. “We’re at the pier now,” he added to his sister. “You can go ashore and get your doll—I mean your daughter,” he quickly corrected himself.

Sue began to laugh.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bunny. He did not like to have his sister laugh when he was pretending in real earnest.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Sue. “You told the ship to whoa like a horse. You shouldn’t say whoa to a ship. You’ve got to tell it to halt, Bunny Brown.”

Then Bunny saw he had made a mistake. But in turn he laughed at Sue.

“You don’t say halt to a ship,” he declared. “You only say halt to soldiers, and we aren’t playing soldiers.”

“Well, anyhow, you don’t say whoa to a ship,” declared Sue.

“No, I guess you don’t,” admitted Bunny. “Well, anyhow, the ship has stopped and we’re at Pier Number Three and you can go ashore without getting in the water now and bring your daughter on board,” he said.

“All right,” Sue agreed.

So she again stepped in the grass, but this time it was not water, but the floor boards of the pier, so of course she could not get wet. Up to the house she ran to get one of her dolls, and soon she was back on board the Beacon. She found Bunny making a loud hissing noise.

“What you doing?” Sue asked. “Are you playing wild animals? You sound like a snake. I don’t want to play wild animals. I want to play ship.”

“I am playing ship,” declared Bunny. “I’m the engine blowing off steam. Don’t you know steam when you hear it?”

“Oh, if it’s steam, all right,” agreed Sue. “I thought you were a snake.”

“All aboard!” cried Bunny Brown. “Toot! Toot! All aboard!”

Again Sue stepped on the grass, which was not water because it was a pier, and soon she was in her box cabin.

Bunny started the ship off once more, hissing to show that steam was blowing out of the pipes and now and then whistling to tell other ships to get out of his path.

Sue held her “daughter” in her arms and pretended to show her whales and sharks as they sailed along the grassy-green rolling ocean.

Pretty soon Bunny left his place in the forward box and walked back along the plank toward his sister Sue. Bunny held out his hand to Sue as if he wanted something.

“What do you want, Captain Ward?” asked the little girl.

“I’m not Captain Ward now,” Bunny answered. “I’m the conductor and I want your ticket.”

“They don’t have conductors on ships,” retorted Sue. “They have conductors on trolley cars and steam cars.”

“Well, I’m the ticket-taker, anyhow, and you’ve got to give me a ticket or I’ll put you off the ship,” announced Bunny.

“Oh, all right, I’ll give you a ticket,” agreed Sue.

She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out one of the green leaves which a little while before she had used as money when she and Bunny were playing store.

“There’s my ticket,” said the little girl.

“Yes,” agreed her brother, looking closely at it, “I see it’s a ticket all right. You’re going to the West Indies, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Sue, “to the West Indies.”

Bunny punched the ticket by putting a hole in the leaf with a small twig. Then he held out his hand again.

“What you want now?” asked Sue. “I gave you my ticket.”

“I must have a ticket for that child,” said Bunny sternly. “She’s more’n five years old.”

Once he had been on a street car with his mother and he had heard the conductor say this to a woman with a little girl.

“Yes, Annabell is more’n five years old,” Sue said. “But I didn’t know I had to have a ticket for her.”

“Well, you have to,” declared Bunny.

“Oh, all right,” agreed Sue, and she handed out another green leaf.

Bunny tore the leaf in two and gave Sue back a part of it.

“What’s this for—my change?” she asked.

“It takes only a half ticket for little girls,” announced Bunny, as he punched half the leaf with his twig-puncher. “I hope you have a nice trip to the West Indies,” he said to passenger Sue.

“I hope so,” echoed the little girl. “Do you think it will be very rough on the rolling ocean, Captain Ward?” she asked, for now Bunny, being back in his steering box, was in command of the ship.

“Yes, we may have a very bad storm,” he said. “But don’t be afraid, Mrs. Anderson, I’ll bring you and your daughter safe to the West Indies.”

“I’m glad of that,” returned Sue politely.

So the children played, having much fun on the “steamboat” they had made so simply out of a plank and some boxes. They sailed to the West Indies and back. Then they made a trip to the north pole, and, landing there, Bunny and Sue, though under an apple tree, played they were in one of the igloos, or snow huts, of the Eskimos.

All the rest of the day the children played at one game or another, and when night came they were tired and ready to go to sleep.

“Is Mr. Pott any worse?” asked Bunny, as he and Sue were getting ready for bed that night.