Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove Part 5

"It was very careless of me to put my lovely ring in the pocketbook, and then to forget all about it and let you children take it to the store,"

said Mother Brown.

"But are you sure you did put it in the pocketbook?" asked Mr. Brown again. "You may have done that, my dear, and then have taken it out again and carried the diamond ring into the house before Bunny and Sue went to the store. Try to think." And he sat down beside his wife while the little boy and his sister looked on wonderingly.

"I know I left the ring in the pocketbook," replied Mrs. Brown, wiping her eyes on her handkerchief. "I didn't think of it until a little while ago, and then I thought Bunny and Sue would bring it back with the change from the five-dollar bill. The ring was inside the middle part of the pocketbook, and they wouldn't have to open that to get at the money.

Oh, children, did a dog really run away with the pocketbook?"

"Yes, he really did," said Bunny.

"And he run into the carpenter shop, and we ran after him, and Mr.

Foswick locked us in, and he was sorry, and Bunny broke a window, and he was sorry, too," explained Sue, almost in one long breath.

"Well, that's quite a story," said Mr. Brown. "Let's hear it all over again."

So Bunny and Sue told all that had happened, from the time they had been teetering until they were let out of the carpenter shop after Mr.

Reinberg had heard them calling through the broken window.

"Oh, what shall I do?" asked Mrs. Brown once more, when the story was finished.

"There is only one thing to do," said Mr. Brown. "I'll go back to the carpenter shop, and Mr. Foswick and I will look for the pocketbook. The dog probably dropped it among the shavings."

"Let us come, too," said Bunny. "We can show you where the dog ran in the front door that was open."

"I think I can see that place all right myself," answered Mr. Brown.

"You children get your supper. I'll be back in a little while."

It was not a very joyful supper for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.

Every once in a while they would see tears in their mother's eyes, and they could not help but feel it was partly their fault that the diamond ring was lost.

For if Bunny and Sue had gone to the store as soon as their mother had told them to go, and had not stopped to play on the seesaw, and had not put the pocketbook down on the bench where the dog so easily reached it, all this trouble would not have come upon their mother.

Mrs. Brown must have known that Bunny and Sue were thinking this, for she very kindly said to them:

"Now, don't worry, my dears. Perhaps daddy will find the pocketbook, and the money and ring safely in it. I know you wanted to play, and that is why you did not go to the store at once. But never mind. Mother should not have left the ring in the pocketbook. It is largely mother's own fault. Anyway, daddy will come back with the ring."

But Daddy Brown did not. Bunny and Sue had finished their supper, Mrs.

Brown taking only a cup of tea, when their father came in. It needed only a look at his face to show that he had found nothing.

"Wasn't it there?" his wife asked, as he sat up to the table, though, to tell the truth, he did not feel much like eating. He felt bad because his wife was so unhappy about her lost diamond ring.

"Mr. Foswick and I searched the carpenter shop as well as we could,"

said Mr. Brown. "It was rather dark in there, and we could not see much.

But we found no pocketbook."

"Did you find the dog?" asked Sue eagerly.

"No, he had run out," said Mr. Brown. "We saw where he had scattered the sawdust and shavings, though. Was it a dog you ever saw before, Bunny?"

"No, Daddy," answered the little boy. "He was a big, strange, new dog. I wish we had him, 'cause we haven't any dog, now that Splash has run away."

"I guess this dog has run away, also," said Mr. Brown. "There wasn't a trace of him; nor of the pocketbook, either. But Mr. Foswick and I are going to look in the shop again to-morrow by daylight. It may be the dog dropped the pocketbook, and it got kicked under a pile of sawdust or shavings."

"Did you see the place where I broke the window with the hammer?" asked Bunny.

"Yes, the window was still broken," answered his father, who began to eat his supper.

It was not at all a cheerful evening in the Brown home. Never before had Bunny and Sue felt so unhappy--at least, they could not remember such a time. They did not feel like playing as they generally did, though it was a warm early summer night, and lovely to be out of doors.

"Never mind, dears," said Mrs. Brown, when she was putting them to bed.

"Perhaps we shall find the ring to-morrow."

"And the money, too," added Bunny. "Five dollars is a lot to lose."

"Maybe the dog ate it," suggested Sue.

"How could he?" asked her brother.

"Well, didn't Splash once chew up my picture-book? He ate one of the paper leaves that had on it about Bo Peep and her sheep," said Sue. "A five-dollar bill is paper, and so was my Mother Goose book, and Splash ate that."

"No, I don't believe the dog ate the money," said Mrs. Brown. "It is probably still in the pocketbook with my ring wherever the dog dropped it. I should not mind the loss of the money if I could only get back my lovely diamond ring. But go to sleep, dears. To-morrow we may have good news."

And so Bunny and Sue went to sleep. They were up early the next morning, but not so early as Mr. Brown, who, their mother said, had gone to the carpenter shop to help Mr. Foswick look among the sawdust and shavings.

After a while Bunny and Sue went out in the yard to play with some of the boys and girls who lived near by. And to them Bunny and his sister told the story of what the strange dog had done.

"I am sure I saw that big yellow dog," cried Lulu Dare, one of the girls. "It was down near Bradley's livery stable."

"Oh, maybe he's down by the livery stable now!" exclaimed Bunny.

"Let us go and see," added his sister Sue.

"No, I don't think the dog is there now," said Lulu. "He wasn't standing still. He was running along."

"Did he have anything in his mouth?"

"Only his tongue and that was hanging out at first. Then he stopped to get a drink at that box where Mr. Bradley waters his horses, and then his tongue didn't hang out any more."

"Say, did that dog have a spot on his left leg?" asked one of the boys.

"Yes--a long, up-and-down spot."

"Then he wasn't the dog who took the pocketbook. That old dog belongs at the hotel and he never comes up this way at all."

"Let us make sure," said Bunny; and a little later all of the boys and girls visited the hotel. One of the boys was a nephew of the proprietor so they had little trouble in getting the man's attention.

"No, my dog wouldn't do such a thing," said the hotel man. "He hasn't been up your way. It must have been some other dog." And then the boys and girls went home.

A little later Bunny went into the house to get some cookies, and then he asked his mother if his father had come back with the ring.