"I guess sixteen cents isn't rich. But we did better than I thought we would. Oh, look!" suddenly cried Bunny. "There's a dog, and some one has tied a tin can to his tail!"

Down the street, yelping and barking, came a small yellow dog, and, bounding after him, b.u.mping about and scaring him, was a big, empty tin can, tied to the dog's tail.

"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, "he's coming right here. He'll upset our lemonade stand!"

"That's what he will," Bunny agreed. "Hi, there! Stop! Go the other way!

Shoo!" he cried, waving his arms at the dog, while Sue took up the nearly empty lemonade pitcher.

On came the frightened dog, straight for the stand and the two children.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MOVING PICTURES

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny! What are we going to do?" cried his sister Sue.

Bunny swallowed a sort of lump in his throat that always seemed to come when he was a bit frightened. Then he looked around. Next he glanced at Sue.

"Get under the box, Sue!" he cried. "Then the dog can't get you!"

"But what will you do?" asked the little girl. "I don't want you to get hurt, Bunny."

"I--I won't be afraid," said the little boy. "I--I'll pour lemonade on the dog, and that will make him run away."

"Oh--Oh!" gasped Sue. "Throw away our good lemonade?"

"We can make more," said Bunny. "There's only a little left, anyhow."

He reached for the pitcher. At the same time Sue started to crawl under the empty box they had made into a lemonade stand.

But the yelping, yellow dog, with the tin can tied to his tail, was coming faster than either Bunny or Sue thought. Before Bunny could take up the nearly empty pitcher of lemonade, or before Sue could crawl under the box, the dog was upon them.

Right under the box the poor, frightened creature ran, thinking, I suppose, that it would be a good place to hide and get away from that terrible tin can that was pounding after him, no matter how fast he went.

So into the box he ran, and I think you can guess what happened. The dog was going so fast, and the box, not being held down to the ground, was so easily pushed over, that it toppled to one side.

And, as Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were standing near the box, it fell over on them, and the lemonade pitcher upset, and the lemonade in it splashed all over the little boy and his sister. The gla.s.ses bounced off into the gra.s.s, and the dog suddenly turned a somersault, and fell on top of Bunny, Sue, the box and the lemonade pitcher.

And that's what happened, just as you must have guessed.

For a few seconds there was such a tangle of dog, lemonade, pitcher, lemonade stand, to say nothing of Bunny and Sue, that if any one had been there to see he would hardly have known which was the dog, and which was Bunny and Sue.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried the little girl.

"What--what's the matter?" gasped Bunny.

The dog howled, barked and whined, and then the box rolled to one side, and so did the now empty pitcher of lemonade. Sue found herself sitting on the gra.s.s, holding what she thought was her doll, but which was really one of Bunny's chubby legs.

Bunny lay on his back, and in his arms he held--what do you think? Why the little yellow dog, to be sure!

And now the dog stopped howling and barking, for he must have known that Bunny and Sue would be his friends, and he was not afraid any more. And that is the way they were when Aunt Lu and Splash, the big dog, came out to see how the two little lemonade sellers were getting along.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Aunt Lu. "Oh my goodness! What has happened?"

At first she was a bit frightened, but when she saw that Sue was smiling, and that Bunny was just ready to laugh, Aunt Lu laughed also.

"Well, if none of you is hurt, and nothing broken, I think this is very funny!" Aunt Lu exclaimed. "Oh, but what a mix-up!"

Splash, the big dog, seemed to think so too, for he barked--not a cross, ugly bark, but a sort of laughing kind--as if, he, also, felt that it was jolly fun.

Then Splash saw the little yellow dog in Bunny's arms, and the big dog went up to him, wagging his tail, while the two sort of rubbed noses--you know the way dogs do instead of shaking hands, or paws, I suppose I should say, and right away they were friends.

"Oh, look! look!" Sue exclaimed, now laughing herself. "I thought I had my doll, and--it's Bunny's leg!"

"Huh! I wondered what was holding me." exclaimed the little boy.

Sue let go of him, and Bunny got up. Then he rolled the lemonade box away from Sue, for it was resting partly on her, and by this time the little yellow dog (which Bunny had put down) was making better friends than ever with Splash.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GET UNDER THE BOX, SUE!" HE CRIED.]

Then Aunt Lu saw the tin can tied to the yellow dog's tail, and she cried out:

"Oh, what a shame! Who did that?"

"We didn't!" Bunny answered quickly.

"Oh, of course not! I know you wouldn't do such a thing," returned his aunt. "Here, little dog, I'll cut it off for you," and she took her scissors out of her ap.r.o.n pocket, for she had been sewing just before coming out to look at the lemonade stand. "I'll cut it off for you,"

said Aunt Lu.

"Oh, don't cut off his tail!" begged Sue.

"Of course not!" laughed Aunt Lu. "I meant I'd cut off the tin can. You poor little doggie! No wonder you were frightened. And now tell me all how it happened," she went on, as she snipped, with her scissors, the string around the little yellow dog's tail. He seemed very happy to be free of the tin can.

"Well, it just happened--that's all," said Bunny. "He ran into our lemonade stand, and upset it."

"But I guess he didn't mean to," remarked Sue, who had, by this time, found her real doll in the long gra.s.s.

"No, he was so scared that he didn't know where he was running," decided Aunt Lu. "Well, now I'll help you pick things up, and then you had better come to the house. Haven't you sold enough lemonade for one day?"

"I guess so," answered Bunny.

"Did you lose the money?" asked Sue anxiously. "Where is the money we got?"

"In my pocket," Bunny replied. It was lucky he had put it there, or, when the box was knocked over, the pennies and five cent pieces might have been scattered in the gra.s.s and lost.