Excerpt
CHAPTER I GRANDPA'S TENT
"Bunny! Bunny Brown! There's a wagon stoppin' in front of our house!"
"Is there? What kind of a wagon is it, Sue?"
The little girl, who had called to her brother about the wagon, stood with her nose pressed flat against the glass of the window, looking out to where the rain was beating down on the green grass of the front yard. Bunny Brown, who had been playing with a tin locomotive that ran on a tiny tin track, put his toy back in its box.
"What kind of a wagon is it Sue?" he asked his sister again.
"It isn't a grocery wagon," Sue answered slowly. "Not a grocery wagon, like the one we rode in once, when we gave all those things to Old Miss Hollyhock."
"Has it got any letters on it?" Bunny wanted to know. He was on his way to the window now, having taken up the toy railroad track, with which he was tired playing.
"Yes, it's got a E on it," Sue said, "and next comes the funny letter, Bunny, that looks like when you cross your legs or fingers."
"That's a X," said Bunny. He knew his letters better than did Sue, for Bunny could even read a little. "What's the next letter, Sue?"
Bunny could have run to the window himself, and looked out, but he wanted to pick up all the things with which he had been playing. His mother had always made him do this—put away his toys when he was through.
"What's the next letter, Sue?" Bunny Brown asked.
Sue was not quite sure of it. She put her little head to one side so she might see better. Just then a man jumped off the seat, and splashed through a muddy puddle as he walked around to the end of the wagon.
"Oh, Bunny!" Sue cried. "The man's going to bring something here, I guess. He's taking out a big bundle."
"Maybe it's a wagon from the store," said Bunny. And, as he looked out through the window glass, pressing his nose flat against it, as his sister Sue had done, he spelled out the word:
EXPRESS
"That's an express wagon, Sue," said Bunny.
"What's express?" Sue wanted to know.
"That means when you're in a hurry," Bunny said. "You know, when we're playing train, sometimes I'm an express train, and I go awful fast."
"Yes, I 'member that," said Sue. "Once, when we hitched our dog, Splash, up to our express wagon, he went so fast he spilled me out."
"Well, that's express," Bunny went on. "When you went out of the wagon so fast you were an express."
"I don't like express, then," said Sue. "I like to go slower. But that can't be an express wagon, then, Bunny."
"Why not?"
"'Cause that's not goin' fast. It's jest standin' still."
"Oh, well, when it does go, it goes fast. That's an express wagon, all right. Somebody's sent us something by express. Oh, Sue, I wonder what it is?"
Sue shook her head. She did not know, and she could not guess. She was watching the man out in the rain—the expressman who was trying to get something out of the back of his wagon. It was a big bundle, that was sure, because Bunny and Sue could see the end of it.
"I wonder if it's a present for us?" Sue asked.
"It can't be a present," answered Bunny....