“I’m not Bunny!” he answered. “I’m Captain Ward.” He remembered the name of the commander of the Beacon spoken of by Mr. Brown. “You have to call me Captain Ward if you’re going to play steamboat,” he told his sister.
“All right. Captain Ward,” and Sue did not smile when she said this, “could I take one of my dolls on your steamer?”
“Doll? No!” cried Bunny. “You’re supposed to be a big woman passenger and they don’t have dolls. But if you want to take your little girl in your cabin, you can do that.”
“Oh, all right, Captain Ward. Thank you,” quickly answered Sue, understanding what Bunny meant. If you were pretending, you must do it in everything. And since she was pretending to be a grown-up passenger she would not, naturally, have a doll. But she could make believe her doll was her little girl. “I’ll go and get my daughter now.” She had already taken her place on the “ship,” but now, as she was about to get off, she remembered that the grass was “water.”
“How am I going to get my daughter?” she asked. “I can’t jump into the ocean to go for her,” and she pointed to the grass.
“That’s so,” agreed Bunny. “Wait! I’ll steer the ship up to the pier and you can go ashore there and get your daughter. Look out now, hold tight! We’re going fast! Toot! Toot!”
Sue held “tight,” and though of course the plank and the boxes did not move from the place where they had formerly been part of the “store,” still to the children it was as if they were sailing on the rolling ocean.
“Whoa!” suddenly called Bunny. “We’re at the pier now,” he added to his sister. “You can go ashore and get your doll—I mean your daughter,” he quickly corrected himself.
Sue began to laugh.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bunny. He did not like to have his sister laugh when he was pretending in real earnest.