Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove by Hope Laura Lee
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 1383 lines and 43431 words, and 28 pages
"I know he isn't Splash," agreed Bunny. "But it might be. And Splash is a dog's name, and if this dog hears me call it he may come out. Come on, old fellow!" he called again coaxingly. But no dog crawled out from under the shavings, sawdust, or piles of boards.
"Where can he be?" asked Sue.
"I guess he ran out the back door," suggested Bunny.
"Then maybe we can get out there, too!" cried the little girl, and she and her brother, with the same thought, ran to the rear of the shop.
"Here is the door," said Bunny, as he pointed it out.
It was a large affair that slid back from the middle of the wall to one corner. It was tight shut.
"And it's locked, too," cried Sue, pointing to a big padlock.
To make sure, her brother tried the padlock. Sure enough, it was locked, and the key was nowhere in sight.
"I can slide the door a little bit," said Bunny, and by hard work he managed to move it about an inch. This allowed a little of the breeze to come into the carpenter shop but that was all.
"We can't get out through that crack," protested Sue, pouting. "Nobody could. Oh, dear! I don't see why this old carpenter shop has got to have all the doors locked."
"Hum, that's funny!" said Bunny Brown.
"How do you s'pose that dog got out with both doors locked?" asked Sue of her brother.
Bunny paused to think. Then an idea came to him.
"He must have jumped out a window, that dog did," he said. "There must be a window open, and he got out that way. And that's how we can get out, Sue. We'll crawl out a window just like that dog jumped out. Now we're all right. Mr. Foswick locked us in his carpenter shop by mistake, but we can get out a window."
"Oh, yes!" agreed Sue, and she felt happier now.
But again came disappointment. When the children made the rounds of the shop, looking on both sides, they not only saw that not a window was open, but when Bunny tried to raise one he could not.
"Are they stuck?" asked Sue.
"No," replied Bunny. "They're nailed shut! Every window in this shop is nailed shut, Sue, and the doors are both locked!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Sue in a faint voice, and she looked at her brother in a way he felt sure meant she was going to cry.
THE DIAMOND RING
Whistling as cheerfully as he could, Bunny Brown glanced all around the carpenter shop.
"Are you whistling for the dog?" asked Sue.
"No, not zactly," Bunny answered. "I'm just whistlin' for myself. I'm going to do something."
"What?" asked Sue.
She knew that whenever Bunny was making anything, such as a boat out of a piece of wood or a sidewalk scooter from an old roller skate, he always whistled. The more he worked the louder he whistled.
"What are you going to make now?" asked Sue.
"But he didn't get out of a window," objected Sue. "How could he, if they were nailed shut before we came in? And they must 'a' been, 'cause we didn't hear Mr. Foswick hammering."
"Yes, I guess the windows have been nailed shut maybe a long time," agreed Bunny. "But, anyhow, the dog got out and we can get out."
"But how could he get out if both doors are locked and the windows nailed shut?" Sue wanted to know.
Bunny could not answer that. Besides, he had other things to look after. He wanted to get himself and his sister out of the carpenter shop before Sue began to cry. Bunny didn't like crying girls, even his sister, though he felt sorry for them.
"I can take a hammer and pull the nails out of a window where it's nailed shut, and then I can raise it and we can crawl out," explained Bunny to his sister. "There's sure to be a hammer in a carpenter shop."
There were, several of them, lying around on the benches and sawhorses that seemed to fill the place. There were other tools, also; sharp chisels and planes, but Bunny and Sue knew enough not to touch these. The children might have been cut if they had handled the sharp tools. Mr. Brown kept sharp tools at his dock for mending old boats and making new ones, so Bunny and his sister knew something about carpentry.
"I guess this hammer will be a good one," said Bunny, picking up one with a claw on the end for pulling out nails. He had often seen Bunker Blue at the boat dock use just such a hammer as this.
Bunny climbed up on a workbench near a window which, as he could look out and see, was only a short distance from the ground. If that window could be opened, the little boy and his sister could easily drop out and not be hurt in the least.
"Can you get it open?" asked Sue anxiously, as she watched Bunny climb upon the dusty carpenter bench.
"Oh, sure!" he answered. "We'll be out in a little while now; and then we can go and hunt that big dog that has our mother's pocketbook."
"And the money, too," added Sue. "We've got to get the money and go to the store, Bunny."
"Yes, that's right," he agreed.
With the hammer in his hand, he began looking over the window. He wanted to see where the heads of the nails were sticking out, so he could slip the claw of the hammer under them and pull them out by prying on the handle. Bunny had not only pulled out nails himself before this, but he had watched his father and Bunker Blue do it.
Bunny Brown also knew how windows were nailed shut. Once the Browns owned a little cottage on an island in the river. They sometimes spent their summer vacations in the cottage, and in the fall, when winter was approaching and the cottage was to be closed, the windows were nailed shut from the inside.
Once Bunny had helped his father nail the windows shut, and once he had helped pull the nails out the next summer when the cottage was to be opened. So Bunny was now looking for the heads of nails in the window of Mr. Foswick's carpenter shop.
The first window he looked at was so tightly nailed, with all the heads driven so far into the wood, that Bunny could get the claw of the hammer under none of them. He made his way along the bench to the next window. This window was nearer the street.
"Can you open that one?" asked Sue.
"Yes, I guess so!" exclaimed Bunny.
The little boy saw a nail head sticking out. He slipped the claw of the hammer under it and pressed hard on the handle.
Whether Bunny had not put the claw far enough under the nail, or whether the head was so small that the claw slipped off, neither of the children knew. But what happened was that Bunny's hand slipped, the hammer also slipped away from his grasp, and the next moment, with a crash and tinkle of glass, the hammer broke through the window and fell outside.
"Oh, Bunny! are you hurt?" cried Sue, for once she had seen her mother cut her hand trying to open a window that stuck.
"No, I'm not hurt," answered her brother. "But the hammer's gone out."
"You can get another. There's lots here," said Sue.
"But I can't fix the window," said Bunny, rather sadly. "It's all busted!"
"It wasn't your fault!" said Sue stormily. "Mr. Foswick ought never to have locked us in, and then you wouldn't have to try to unnail a window to get out! It's his fault!"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page