Bunny, after supper, had whispered to his sister:

"If we go to bed sooner we can be awake quicker and go down to the
tent."

"Can you open the door?" asked Sue.

"Yes, the back door opens easy."

"But has you got the branches from the evergreen tree cut so we can
spread our blankets over them?" Sue wanted to know.

Bunny shook his head.

"I didn't dast do it," he said. "They might see me cutting 'em, and then
they'd guess what we were going to do. We can each take two blankets
off our beds, Sue, and that will make the ground soft enough. 'Sides, if
we're going to be campers, and sleep in the woods, we mustn't mind a
hard bed. Soldiers don't--for daddy said so."

"Girls aren't soldiers!" said Sue. "But I'll come with you and we'll
sleep on two blankets."

"To practice for when we go camping," added Bunny.

Sue nodded her head, and, with her doll, went up to bed in the room next
to Bunny's.

"I just know those children are up to something," said Mother Brown, as
she came down after tucking in Bunny and Sue. "I wish I knew what it
was."

"Oh, I guess it isn't anything," laughed daddy.

Sue and her brother found it hard to keep awake. They had played hard
all day, and that always makes children sleepy.

In fact, Bunny and Sue did fall asleep, but Bunny awakened sometime in
the night, I suppose because he was thinking so much about going out
into the tent.

The little fellow sat up in bed. A light was burning out in the hall, so
he could see plainly enough. He remembered what he had promised to
do--wake up Sue by tickling her feet.

Softly he stole into her room, after putting on his bath robe. He
dragged after him two blankets from his bed.

Reaching under the covers he gently tickled Sue's pink toes.

"What--What's matter?" murmured Sue, sleepily.

"Hush!" whispered Bunny close to her ear. "Wake up, Sue! I don't want to
tickle you any more, and make you sneeze. We're going to sleep out in
the tent, you know."

Sue was soon wide awake. Softly she crawled out of bed, slipped on her
bath robe, which was on a chair near her bed, and then, dragging two
blankets after her, she and Bunny went softly down the stairs.

Carefully Bunny opened the door, and he and Sue went out on the side
porch, and down across the lawn to where, in the moonlight, stood
grandpa's tent.

CHAPTER IV

SPLASH COMES, TOO

The camping tent, which had been put up by Daddy Brown, so it would be
well dried out, stood w