Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show Part 15

"Now we're all ready," said Mr. Treadwell, at length. "Start to pick daisies, Bunny and Sue, and the rest of you pick b.u.t.tercups. Then I'll make believe I'm a tramp and come along the road."

As this was not what is called a "dress rehearsal" neither Mr. Treadwell nor the children had on any special costumes. They were wearing their everyday clothes.

Bunny, Sue, and the others took their places, and spoke their proper lines.

"Oh, here comes a tramp!" suddenly cried Sue to her brother, as she was supposed to do in the play when Mr. Treadwell appeared on the stage.

"Here comes a tramp!"

Now Bunny was supposed to have a speech at this point, but no sooner had Sue cried out just as she had been taught to do, than a strange voice answered her, saying:

"A tramp is it! Set the dog on him! Here, Towser! Get after the tramp!

No tramps allowed around here! Bow! Wow! Wow!" and then came a shrill whistle as of some one calling a dog.

CHAPTER XII

A SURPRISE

Mr. Treadwell, who was closely watching Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, to see that they did their first part in the play all right, looked up in surprise as he heard the strange voice speaking about the tramp, calling the dog and whistling.

"Please don't do that," said the actor. "That isn't in the play. Who said it?"

"No--n.o.body--I guess," replied Charlie Star.

"Well, somebody must have said it, for I heard it," replied Mr.

Treadwell, with a smile. "Don't do it again! Now Bunny and Sue try it again. Make believe, Sue, that you see a tramp coming down the road. I'm to be the tramp, you know, and on the night of the show I'll really dress up like one. Now go on."

Bunny looked at Sue and Sue looked at Bunny. The other children in the play also looked at one another. They were sure none of them had spoken, and yet Mr. Treadwell seemed to think the voice had been one of theirs.

"Oh, here comes a tramp!" cried Sue once more, and Bunny was just about to repeat his part, when, again, came the strange, shrill voice, saying:

"No tramps allowed! No tramps wanted! Give him a cold potato and let him go!"

"Oh, I'm not going to stay here!" suddenly cried Sadie West.

"There is something funny here," said Bunny Brown. "None of us is talking and yet we hear a voice."

Mr. Treadwell, who had been looking over the papers on which he had written down the different parts of the play, looked up quickly when he again heard the strange voice. He was just about to ask who had called out when something fluttered down out of the stage tree which was to be set up in the orchard scene. The tree was off to one side, in what are called in theater talk, the "wings." Out of the tree fluttered something with flapping wings.

"It's a big owl!" cried George Watson.

"Don't let it get hold of your hair or it'll pull it all out!" called Sue. "Owls feets gets tangled in your hair," and she put her hands over her head.

"Pooh! They don't either!" cried Helen Newton.

The children were rus.h.i.+ng here and there about the stage, and Mr.

Treadwell was trying to see where the strange bird was going to light, when Bunny Brown cried out:

"'Tisn't an owl at all! It's Mr. Jed Winkler's parrot!"

And when the fluttering bird had come to rest on top of the stage barn, it was seen that it was just what Bunny said--a big, green parrot. There it perched, picking at a make believe s.h.i.+ngle with its hooked bill, and calling in its shrill voice:

"No tramps allowed! No tramps allowed! Call the dog! Here, Towser! Give him a cold potato and let him go! Bow wow!"

Then how all the children laughed!

"Why, it surely is Mr. Winkler's parrot!" exclaimed Mr. Treadwell, as he looked at the green bird. "He was safe in his cage when I came out this morning, but he must have got loose. I'd better go and tell Miss Winkler, for she likes the parrot as much as she doesn't like Jed's monkey. She told me she was teaching the parrot to say some new words, but I didn't know they were about tramps or I would have known right away it wasn't any of you children speaking during the play. Come on down, Polly!" called the actor to the green bird.

But Polly seemed to like it up on top of the stage barn, and from the top of the roof it cried again:

"No tramps! No tramps allowed! Towser, get after the tramps!"

The children laughed again, and Mr. Treadwell said:

"It wouldn't do to have the parrot in the play, or he'd spoil the first scene. Now I'd better go and tell Miss Winkler where she can find the bird."

But he was saved this trouble, for just then Miss Winkler herself came up the stairs leading from the hall at one side of the hardware store.

"Is my parrot here, Mr. Treadwell?" she asked the actor who boarded at her house. "I let him out of his cage when I was cleaning it a while ago, and when I looked for him, to put him back, he was gone. One of my windows was open and he must have flown out. Some of my neighbors said they saw a big bird flying toward the hardware store, so I came over.

Mr. Raymond and I couldn't find him downstairs, and he told me to look up here. Have you seen Polly?"

The big, green bird answered for himself then, for he cried out:

"Look out for tramps!"

"Oh, there you are!" exclaimed Miss Winkler. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Polly, to fly off like that? You'll catch your death of cold; too, coming out this wintry weather! Here, come to me!"

She held out her hand, and the parrot fluttered down to one finger. Miss Winkler scratched the green bird's head, and the parrot seemed to like this.

"No tramps allowed!" he cried.

"I taught him to say that!" said Miss Winkler. "I thought it would be a good thing for a parrot to say. Often tramps come around when Jed isn't at home, and if they hear Polly speaking they'll think it's a man and go away. Now, Polly, we'll go home!"

"No tramps allowed!" said the bird again.

"I hope my parrot didn't spoil the play," said Miss Winkler to Mr.

Treadwell and the children.

"Oh, no," answered the actor. "We didn't know he was in here, and when he began talking I thought it was one of the boys or girls speaking out of turn. But he did no harm."

"I'm glad of that," said the elderly woman. "A parrot is a heap sight better than a monkey, I tell Jed. He ought to teach w.a.n.go to talk, and then he'd be of some use!"

The children laughed as she went downstairs with the parrot on her finger, and Sue said:

"A monkey would be funny if he could talk, wouldn't he?"