r and actress had been in plays before, it was not so hard for
them. And though the two little strangers gave much of their time to
getting ready for the performance they still had hours when they thought
of their missing relations--Uncle Bill, Uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie.

For, though many letters had been written by Mr. Brown and Mr.
Treadwell, no answers had come, and at times Lucile and Mart were very
sad.

But no one could be sad very long when they were near Bunny Brown and
his sister Sue. These two were always doing such funny things and saying
such funny things that Mart and Lucile laughed more often than they were
sad.

"Do you think, we can have Mr. Winkler's monkey and Miss Winkler's
parrot in the show?" asked Bunny of Mart one day.

"I guess we can if Mr. Treadwell will write parts for them," answered
Mart. "But the trouble is, you can't be sure that Wango and the parrot
will do the things you want them to. The parrot might speak at the wrong
time, and Wango might cut up by chasing his tail or hanging by his
hind paws from the ceiling, and so make the audience laugh when we
didn't want them to."

"That's so," agreed Bunny. "Then I guess we'll only just have our dog
Splash in the play. He'll do whatever you tell him."

"He certainly chases after the tramp in a funny way," laughed Lucile. "I
should think Mr. Treadwell would be afraid the dog would tear his coat."

"Oh, Splash only bites the old piece of cloth," said Mart. "It's a good
trick."

A little while after this Bunny saw Mart going out to the garage with
some ropes and straps under his arm. The garage was partly a barn, for
the Shetland pony was kept in it and some hay for Toby, the pony, to eat
was also stored in the same place.

"What are you going to do?" Bunny asked the boy acrobat.

"Practice a few of my new tricks that I'm going to do in the play," Mart
answered. "There's a new kind of back somersault I want to turn, and a
new kind of flipflop I want to make. You know in the play I do some
tricks in front of the stage barn to make the farmers laugh. I'm
supposed to be a boy who has run away from a circus."

"We knew a boy who really ran away from a circus once," said Bunny. "And
he was in our show when we had one down at grandpa's farm."

"Well, I'm going to do a few circus tricks, as well as I can, though I
never was in a tent show," said Mart.

"Please, may I come and watch you?" asked Bunny.

"Yes," answered Mart kindly.

So