"Yes," said Mrs. Gordon. "One of my hens has strayed off by herself and is laying her eggs in a nest I can't find. I've looked all over our yard for it, but perhaps it is in your barn," she went on to Mrs. Brown. "And if it is, maybe Bunny and Sue could find it."

"Oh, maybe we could!" Bunny cried.

"It will be fun to look!" said Sue. "Come on, Bunny."

"Be careful you don't fall," their mother cautioned them, as they ran out, hardly waiting to finish their breakfast.

Hens, you know, often like to go quietly off by themselves, and lay their eggs in a nest that no one can find. And this is what one of Mrs.

Gordon's hens had done.

Into the barn ran Bunny and Sue.

"We'll see who'll find the nest first!" Bunny shouted.

"I think I shall," cried Sue.

And now you wait and see what happens.

There were many places in the barn where a hen might lay her eggs. There were nooks under wagons, or under wheelbarrows, corners behind boxes, and any number of holes in the place where the hay for the horses was kept--the haymow, as it is called.

Bunny and Sue looked in all the places they could think of. But they did not see a hen sitting in her hidden nest, nor did they find the white eggs she might have laid.

"I guess the nest isn't here," said Bunny after a while.

"No, I guess not, too," echoed Sue. "Let's slide down the hay."

The hay in the mow was quite high in one place, and low in another, like a little hill. Bunny and Sue could climb to the top, or high place of the hay, and slide down, for it was quite slippery.

Up they climbed, and down they slid, quite fast. They had done this a number of times, when finally Sue said:

"Oh, Bunny, I'm going to slide down in a new place!"

She went over to one side of the hay-hill, and down she slid. And then something funny happened.

There was a sort of crackling sound, and Sue called out:

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny! I've found the hen's nest, and I'm right in it!"

CHAPTER XXII

AUNT LU IS SAD

Bunny Brown quickly slid down on his side of the hay-hill. He could see his sister Sue, who was sitting in a little hollow place.

"What--what's the matter?" Bunny asked, for Sue had a funny look on her face.

"I found Mrs. Gordon's hen's nest," answered the little girl, "and I'm right in it!"

"In what?" Bunny wanted to know.

"In the nest. I'm sitting in it--right on the eggs, just like a hen.

Only," said Sue, and the funny look on her face changed into a sort of smile, "only I--I've broken all the eggs!"

And that is just what she had done.

Oh! how Sue was covered with the whites and yellows of the eggs!

She had slid down the haymow on a side where she and Bunny did not often play, and she had slid right into the hen's nest. The children had not thought of looking there for it.

But Sue had found it.

Slowly she stood up. She and Bunny looked into the nest And, just as Sue had said, all the eggs were broken.

"Oh, it's too bad!" the little girl exclaimed. "Mrs. Gordon will be so sorry."

"You couldn't help it," declared Bunny, "You--you just slid into 'em!"

"Yes," went on Sue. "I didn't see the nest at all, but I heard the eggs break, and there I was, sitting there on them just like a hen. Oh, dear!

Look at my dress!"

"It will wash out," said her brother. "You might go down and wade in the brook. But we couldn't, without asking mother, and then she'd see you anyhow."

"Oh, I'll tell her!" exclaimed Sue. "We'd better go in, 'cause if egg-stuff dries on you it's awful hard to get off. Aunt Lu said so when she baked a cake yesterday."

"Well, we can come back and slide some more."

"Yes, after I get clean. And we'll have to tell Mrs. Gordon, too; won't we, Bunny?"

"Oh, yes. But she has lots of hens and eggs, so she won't care."

Mrs. Brown and Aunt Lu were much surprised when Bunny Brown and his sister Sue came in, Sue all white and yellow from the eggs. But Sue's mother knew it was something that could not be helped, so she did not scold. She changed Sue's dress, and then she said:

"Now you and Bunny run over and tell Mrs. Gordon."

When the grocery-store-keeper's wife saw Bunny and Sue coming over to her house she thought perhaps their mother had sent them on an errand, as Mrs. Brown often did. For the time Mrs. Gordon had forgotten about the hidden hen's nest. In fact, she had not thought that Bunny and Sue would really spend much time looking for it. So when Sue said:

"I--I found it, Mrs. Gordon!"

Mrs. Gordon asked:

"What did you find, Sue, a penny rolling up hill?"

That was the way Mrs. Gordon sometimes joked with Bunny and Sue.

"No'm. I found your hen's nest, and I sat in it and broke all the eggs,"