"plot." But it was just the thing for Bunny Brown and
his sister Sue, and the only sort of play they could have given, for
they were not very old.

In one scene George Watson, Harry Bentley, and Charlie Star played
leapfrog, jumping over one another's backs. Bunny also had a part in
this.

George tried to get his rooster to do a little trick in the barnyard
scene. The boy stood near the barn door and held a piece of bread in his
hand. He wanted Peter, the rooster, to fly up, perch on his head, and
eat the crumbs of bread. But the rooster seemed to think he had done
enough by perching on the pony's back, and he wouldn't fly on top of
George's head at all. So they had to leave that trick out of the second
act.

Then the curtain went down on the second act, the barnyard scene, and
the boy and girls got ready for the last, the third act, in the orchard.
This was to be the prettiest of all, for it was supposed to be in
apple-blossom time, and the scene was a beautiful one, though it was
cold, snowy, and wintry weather outside. Mr. Treadwell had done his best
on this act.

It was hard work for some of the children, though most of them thought
of it as play, but they had spent long hours in drilling.

As I have told you, there was a real tree in the scene, and a house, and
the play was supposed to end with every one saying how happy he or she
was to be "Down on the Farm," when they all sang a song with those words
in it.

Everything went off very nicely. Bunny and Sue did even better in this
third act than in the first or second, and there was no little accident
like that with the pony and rooster.

They were coming to the climax of the third act. Sue was supposed to be
lost, and Bunny was supposed to hunt for her. He was to look everywhere,
and at last find her up in an apple tree--or what passed for an apple
tree--on the stage.

All went well until Sue slipped out of the farmhouse, ran to the apple
tree and climbed up in it to hide among the artificial branches. Then
Bunny started to pretend to look for her. He stood under the tree, but
didn't let on he knew she was there, though of course he really did
know.

"I wonder where she can be?" he said aloud, just as he was supposed to
say in the play. "Where can she have hidden herself?"

And just then little Weejie Brewster piped up from where she was sitting
with her mother:

"Dere she is, Bunny! Dere's Sue hidin' up in de apper tree! I kin see
her 'egs stickin'