"I should say so!" exclaimed Mr. Treadwell. "But now, children, we'll get on with the play."

Miss Winkler took her parrot home and shut him, or her, up in a cage.

Sometimes "Polly" was called "him," and again "her." It didn't seem to matter which. The bird had got out of an open window when Miss Winkler was busy in another room, and, like the monkey, had gone to the store of Mr. Raymond, not far away.

I need not tell you about the practice for the play, as it took so long for each boy and girl to learn his or her part, and how to come on and go off the stage at the right time. At the proper place I'll tell you all about the play, but just now I'll say that for several days there was hard practice with Mr. Treadwell, Mart, and Lucile to help, or "coach," as it is called, the children.

"Do you think we'll be ready by Christmas?" asked Bunny one day.

"Oh, surely," answered the actor. It was planned to have the play, "Down on the Farm," given Christmas afternoon, and the money was to go to the Home for the Blind in Bellemere, and not the Red Cross.

"Oh, it's snowing again!" cried Bunny Brown, as he ran into the house one afternoon, when he and Sue came home from school. "May we take our sleds out, Mother?"

"Yes, I think so," answered Mrs. Brown.

"Where's Lucile?" asked Sue. "Can't she come and sleigh ride with us?"

"She and Mart are out in the pony stable," answered Sue's mother. "Your father let Mart come home early from the office, and he and his sister have been out in the barn ever since. I can't say what they're doing.

Maybe you'd better go and see."

"Come on, Sue!" cried Bunny Brown. "Maybe they're practicing some new acts for the play."

But when Bunny and his sister entered the stable where the Shetland pony was kept, a sound of hammering was heard.

"Are you here, Mart?" called Bunny.

"Yes," was the answer. "Come and see what Lucile and I have made for you and Sue!"

Bunny and his sister hurried into the room where the little pony cart stood, and there they saw something that made them open their eyes in delight.

CHAPTER XIII

"THEY'RE GONE"

The pony cart, which generally stood in the middle of the barn floor next to the stall of Toby, the little Shetland, had been rolled back out of the way, and in its place stood what first seemed to Sue and Bunny to be a large box. But when they looked a second time, they saw that the box was fastened on a large sled--larger than either of their small ones.

"What are you makin'?" asked Sue.

"Oh, something to give you and Bunny a pony ride," answered Mart.

"Oh, it's a pony sled, isn't it?" cried Bunny.

"Well, yes, something like that," was the answer, given with a smile.

"There wasn't much to do down at the dock to-day, so your father let me off early. On my way home I saw this large sled at Mr. Raymond's store.

It was broken, so he let me buy it cheap. I brought it here, mended it, and fastened on it this drygoods box. Lucile helped me, and she lined it with an old blanket your mother gave us. Now what do you think of your sled?" and Mart stepped back out of the way so Bunny and Sue could see what he had made.

"Oh, it's just--just dandy!" cried the little boy.

"And it's a real seat in it!" exclaimed Sue.

"Yes, we took a smaller box and put it inside the large one for a seat,"

explained Lucile. "Now don't you want to go for a ride?"

"I--I--oh, it's dandy," cried Bunny, his eyes round with pleasure.

"See," went on Mart, "I am going to take the thills off the pony cart and fasten them on this sled. Then you can hitch up the Shetland and go for a ride."

"Oh! Oh!" squealed Sue, in delight, as she jumped up and down on the barn floor.

"Say, this is more than dandy!" cried Bunny. "It's _Jim Dandy_!"

He went closer to look at the home-made sled while Mart took the shafts from the pony cart and fastened them on the dry goods box at a place he had made for that purpose.

"Why, there's room for all four of us in the sled!" said Bunny, as he noticed how large the box was. "And our pony can pull four. He's done it lots of times."

"Well, then I guess he can do it on the slippery snow," said Mart.

"We'll come if you want us to, Bunny."

"Of course I want you!" said the little boy.

"And Lucile, too!" added Sue, for she was very fond of the singing girl actress.

"Yes, I'll come," said Lucile. "But if you drive, Bunny, you must promise not to go too fast."

"Oh, I'll go slow," he agreed.

"Maybe the snow'll stop and then we can't go riding," Sue said.

"Oh, go and look and see if it has!" cried her brother. "That would be too bad, wouldn't it, to have the snow stop after Mart had made such a fine sled?"

But a look out the window of the barn showed the white flakes still swirling down, and Bunny and Sue laughed and clapped their hands in delight as Mart brought the pony from his stall.

Everything was just right. The pony backed in between the shafts, and soon drew the new sled outside where the newly fallen snow let it slip easily along.

"It will look nicer when it's painted," said Mart.

"I think it's nice now!" said Bunny.

"Terrible nice!" agreed Sue.

"Well, get in, and we'll have a ride," suggested Lucile. "Can you drive, Bunny?"

"Oh, yes!" was the answer; and Bunny soon showed that he could by taking the reins and guiding the pony around to the front of the house.

"Come on out, Mother, and see what we have!" cried Sue, as Bunny stopped the little horse.