Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods

by Laura Lee Hope

"But can I get it?" thought Bunny, as he rolled over and over.

He could hear Sue calling to him at the top of the hill, on the very edge of which he had made the curve of his track. He realized now that it was too near the edge. What Sue was saying Bunny could not hear, but he imagined she was begging him to stop rolling downhill and come back to her.

"As if I could!" thought Bunny to himself. "This rolling downhill isn't any fun. I didn't really mean to do it, but I couldn't help it. I wanted to run or slide down. There are too many stones for rolling."

Indeed there were, for the slope of the hill down to the lake was not of soft grass. Instead it was of gravel and stone and these were very rough for a small boy to roll on. Still Bunny did not mind if he could get his locomotive and train of cars.

He could see them just ahead of him, rolling over and over just as he was doing. Of course there was no electricity in the toy locomotive now. The current, as the electricity is called, was all in the rails, going into them from the batteries, and from there it went into the motor or the wheels, gears and other things inside the engine that made it roll along.

"I guess it's rolling faster than I am," thought Bunny. "It will get to the bottom first, and go in the water."

This seemed to be what would happen. For the engine and cars had started ahead of Bunny, and, too, they were not so big as he. It took him some time to turn over, for there was more of him.

It was not the first time Bunny had rolled downhill. Often he and Sue, finding a nice smooth, grassy slope in the country, had started at the top and rolled all the way to the bottom, over and over, getting up slightly dizzy.

But Bunny had never rolled down such a long, steep and rough hill as this, and he really did not mean to do it. He had started out to run to the bottom, or slide along, his feet buried in the soft sand and gravel. But he had slipped, and the only thing now to do was to roll, just as the train was doing.

Bunny looked down the slope again. He saw that the train was almost in the water, and he was wondering how much spoiled it would be, and whether it could be fixed again, so it could be run, when he suddenly saw a man step from the fringe of bushes at the edge of the lake and pick up the engine and cars just as they went into the water, getting only a little wet in the edge of the lake.