Bunny Brown and his sister Sue and their trick dog

Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone in the home of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. Ting-a-ling!

“I’ll answer it!” called Bunny, for he knew his mother was down in the kitchen, helping the maid get supper ready. It was almost supper time. Bunny could tell this, he said, “by the empty feeling in his little tummy.”

Ting-a-ling! rang the telephone again.

“I’m going!” fairly shouted Bunny, for he heard the footsteps of his sister Sue coming down the hall.

“I want to answer it!” cried Sue. “It’s my turn, Bunny Brown!”

“No, ’tisn’t! It’s mine!” and Bunny fairly yelled this, he was so excited.

“Children! Children!” gently called their mother, as she opened the kitchen door, thereby letting out the delicious smell of baking tarts, of which Bunny and his sister were very fond. “Gently, children!” begged Mrs. Brown. “I can’t have you answering the telephone if you are going to shout like that. Think what the person on the other end of the wire would say if they heard you.”

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! rang the bell again so loudly and so long that it seemed to mean some one was very impatient on the other end of the line, though of course the girl in the central office was doing the ringing.

“I’m going!” cried Bunny.

“I’m going!” exclaimed Sue.

“You may both go,” decided Mrs. Brown. “Sue, you may talk over the telephone that is down in the library. Bunny, you go upstairs and talk over the telephone in the sitting room.”

“All right!” agreed Bunny.

“This is fun!” laughed Sue.

Perhaps she knew that she would get to the telephone first, for Bunny had to run upstairs from the downstairs hall. And Sue was first. Taking the receiver off the hook she called:

“Hello!”

Back came a voice she well knew. It was her father speaking.

“Hello, Sue!” he cried, in his jolly tones. “Is Bunny there?”

“Yes, I’m here!” answered Bunny for himself, as by this time he had reached the upstairs telephone--an extension of the one from downstairs. Thus both children could talk to their father at once and he to them.

“Listen quietly, children, and don’t talk back until I ask you to,” cautioned Mr. Brown. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” answered Bunny Brown.

“Yes, I am, too!” said Sister Sue.

The children wondered what it could all be about. Why was their father so particular to have them listen carefully?

Mrs. Brown caught enough of the talk from Bunny and Sue to learn that it was her husband who was on the other end of the wire. He often called up from the boat dock just before supper, to let her know he was on the way home. Bunny and Sue had taken such messages many times before, but this time seemed a bit different.

“I want to ask you a question,” said Mr. Brown, at his end of the wire. “Are you going to be at home this evening, Bunny?”

“Why, of course I’m going to be at home!” answered the little boy.

“That’s good,” said his father. “Are you going to be at home after supper, Sue?”

“Course I am, Daddy!” she replied, with a laugh. “What makes you ask such a funny question?”

“Because I want to know,” went on Mr. Brown, and Bunny was sure he could hear his father laughing back there in the office on the boat and fish dock. “Now don’t forget! Don’t go out after supper. And don’t go out until I come home. Tell mother I’ll be there soon.”

“But what for, Daddy?” asked Bunny. “Why don’t you want us to go out?”

“Are you going to take us to the movies?” asked Sue. For sometimes Daddy Brown did this when there was a children’s play early in the evening.

“Well, we may go to the movies,” said Mr. Brown. “But perhaps you won’t care to go after you see what you’re going to see.”

“Oh, what are we going to see?” cried Bunny, catching at a new tone in his father’s voice.

“That’s a secret!” replied Mr. Brown.

“Oh, a secret!” cried both children.

“Tell me!” begged Sue.

“I will when I come home,” her father promised.

“Is it a nice secret?” Bunny wanted to know.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Mr. Brown. “You can tell better after you see it. But I haven’t time to talk any more now. Yes, Bunker Blue, I’m coming,” he said in a side voice which Bunny and Sue could hear. Bunker Blue was a red-haired boy who worked at Mr. Brown’s boat and fish dock. Then their father ended with: “Now don’t forget, Bunny and Sue. Don’t go out this evening. Wait for the surprise.”

“I will!” promised Bunny Brown.

“I will!” promised his sister Sue.