Stop! Stop! Wait a minute!" cried Bunny. "I can't remember all that!
Now what did you say first?"
"Prunes," replied Sue.
There were some real prunes among the things the children were playing
store with, and Bunny wrapped a few of these in a paper.
"Now some sugar," Sue ordered.
As real sugar was rather messy if it spilled on the floor, Bunny had
some bird gravel, which was almost as good, and he pretended to weigh
some of this out on an old castor that was the make-believe scales. Some
real coffee beans were also wrapped up for Sue, and then for eggs Bunny
used empty thread spools.
"Will that be all to-day, Mrs. Snifkins?" asked Grocer Huntley, when Sue
had put the things in her basket.
"Yes, that's all," Sue answered, placing two large black buttons on the
ironing board counter and getting back in change a small white button.
Sue went out with her "groceries," and soon came back for more. After
her third trip, by which time she had bought nearly everything in the
store, she said:
"Now I want to be storekeeper."
"All right," agreed Bunny.
Sue brought back the things she had pretended to buy, they were put on
the shelves again, and Bunny became a purchaser while Sue waited on
him.
Outside it still rained hard, as Bunny saw when he looked from the
window. But it was fun in the house, keeping store. The children kept on
taking turns, first one being the keeper of the store and then the
other, until Bunny suddenly had a new idea.
"Oh, I know what we can do!" cried the little boy.
"What?" asked Sue.
"We'll play hardware store," Bunny said. "I'm tired of having a grocery.
We'll keep hammers and nails and things like that."
"I think a grocery is more fun," said Sue.
"Nope! A hardware store is better," Bunny insisted. "I'll sell you
washboilers, basins, tin pans and things like that, and knives and
forks. We can have ever so many more of those things than we can have
groceries."
"Well, maybe we can," Sue agreed, doubtfully.
"I'll make a high-up shelf, like those in the hardware store down
town," went on Bunny. "I'll have things high up on the shelf, and I'll
climb up on a ladder to get 'em, as they do down town."
"What you going to climb up on?" Sue asked.
"The stepladder."
"What you going to make a high shelf of?" Sue inquired.
"There's another ironing board down in the laundry," Bunny answered.
"And I can get the washboiler and a lot of things. I'll put the other
ironing bo
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