t's great!" said Mr. Treadwell. "I think he can be in the play after
all, George. It helps out the barnyard scene."

George felt quite proud of his bantam rooster, and Bunny and Sue were
glad the feathered actor was in their show. But alas! Toward the end of
the barnyard scene, when Lucile was singing a sad little song, Peter
began to crow. He crowed and he crowed and he crowed, until Lucile could
hardly be heard, and everybody laughed instead of sitting quietly.

"I'll go and hold his wings," offered George. But even that didn't
quiet Peter. He kept on crowing louder than ever.

"I know what I'll do," said Bunny Brown. "I'll put Peter in his basket
and carry him down to the cellar. That'll be dark, and he'll think it's
night and he'll stop crowing."

"That will be just the thing!" said Mr. Treadwell.

So as Bunny Brown didn't have anything to do just then in the barnyard
scene, he put Peter in the basket and carried the bantam rooster
downstairs.

"What have you got there?" asked Mr. Raymond, the hardware man, as he
saw Bunny with the basket.

The little boy told.

"Yes, put him down in the cellar," said Mr. Raymond. "That ought to keep
him quiet. I'll turn on the electric lights down there for you, so you
can see. Otherwise you might tumble downstairs in the dark."

Bunny had been down in the hardware store cellar before, once when his
father was looking at a certain piece of iron for a boat, the iron being
stowed away down in the basement, and at other times, when he himself
wanted to buy some odds or ends from the hardware man to make some toy.
So Bunny knew his way down into the cellar.

"I'll come and get you after the play," said Bunny to Peter, as he set
the basket, with the rooster in it, on a big box.

Peter didn't answer. He didn't even crow. I guess he didn't like the
dark. He might have thought it was night, when the electric lights were
turned out after Bunny had gone upstairs, and Peter may have gone to
roost.

Bunny tramped upstairs and went on with his parts in the play.
Everything went along nicely, and every one said the last act, the one
in the orchard, was fine. Bunny and Sue did well, as did Lucile, Mart
and the others.

"I wish we could think of some way so my rooster would only crow at the
right time," said George, when talking to Bunny, after the rehearsal was
over.

Bunny Brown wished so, too, for he wanted the little play to be as real
as it could, so the people who saw it wo