“To the hospital,” was the answer.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the fish boy. “You aren’t sick! What are you going to the hospital for?” As Bunny kept on without answering, Bunker said to himself: “I guess he was making believe as he and Sue are always doing. Going to the hospital! Ho! ho! That’s pretty good!” He did not really think Bunny meant what he had said.
But Bunny and Sue were very much in earnest. The little boy reached the apple tree and, looking over in the meadow, saw his sister gathering the flowers.
“Pick a nice bouquet,” he called to her.
“I will,” she answered. “I found some buttercups, too.”
“That’s good,” said Bunny. “Buttercups are good for sick folks in hospitals. I’ll put all the apples I can find in the basket.”
The apples on the ground were mostly those that were wormy, which was the reason they had fallen from the tree so early. And looking at some of this fruit Bunny decided it was not very nice.
“But there are nice apples up on the tree,” he said to himself. “I’m going to climb up and pick some.”
The apple tree was a low one, and to as active a boy as was Bunny Brown it was not at all hard to climb. So up he scrambled, leaving his basket on the ground.
Pretty soon Sue, having picked as many dandelions, buttercups and daisies as her hands would hold, crawled back under the fence. She looked beneath the apple tree for Bunny, but did not see him.