Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South.

by Laura Lee Hope.

CHAPTER I

THE SNOW MAN

"Oh, Bunny! what you making such a big nose for?"

"So I can hit it easier, Sue, when I peg s...o...b..a.l.l.s at it."

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were in the backyard of their home, making a big man of snow. There had been quite a storm the day before, and many white flakes had fallen. As soon as the storm stopped and the weather grew warm enough, Mrs. Brown let Bunny and Sue go out to play.

And of course one of the first things they did, after running about in the clean white snow, making "tracks," was to start a snow man.

Bunny was working away at the face of the white chap when Sue asked him about the big nose he was making.

"What'd you say you were going to do, Bunny?" asked Sue, who was digging away in the snow about where the man's legs would be when he was finished.

"I said--" replied her brother, as he pressed some snow in his red-mittened hand, getting ready to plaster it on the man's funny face--"I said I was making his nose big so I could hit it easier with a s...o...b..ll."

"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, "are you going to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at our nice snow man?"

"Of course!" replied Bunny. "That's what we're making him for! I'm going to put a hat on him, too. Course a hat's easier to hit than a nose, 'specially a tall hat like the one I'm going to make. You can throw at the hat if you want to and I'll throw at the nose."

"Oh, Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, and from her voice you might have thought Bunny had said he was going to throw a s...o...b..ll at w.a.n.go, the pet monkey of Mr. Jed Winkler, an animal of which Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were very fond. "Bunny, don't hurt him!"

"Pooh! You don't s'pose a snow man can feel, do you?" asked Bunny, turning to look at his sister. He had just begun to understand why it was that Sue did not want him to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at the big white fellow when he was finished.

"Well, maybe he can't feel," said Sue, for she was really too old to have such a little child's belief. At least she felt she was too old to confess to such a feeling. "But what's the fun of making a nice snow man and then hitting him all over with s...o...b..a.l.l.s? I'm not going to throw at his tall hat, even if you make one. Why can't you throw b.a.l.l.s at something else, Bunny, like a tree or a telegraph pole?"

"'Cause I can peg at them any time," Bunny answered, with a laugh. "It's more fun to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at a snow man and make believe he's real. He can't chase you then."

"Well, I'm not going to throw anything at our nice snow man," decided Sue, digging away with her little shovel to carve out the legs.

"You don't have to," said Bunny, fairly enough. "I'll do it all, Sue."

"Well," said his sister, with a shake of her head, "you can throw at your part of the snow man, if you like, but you can't throw at my part!"

"Which--which is your part?" asked Bunny, and he spoke as though greatly surprised.

"The legs," answered Sue. "I wish you wouldn't throw any s...o...b..a.l.l.s at the legs, Bunny Brown."

"All right, I won't," he promised kindly. For Bunny was a year older than his sister, and, at most times, was kind and good to her.

"You can throw at your own part as much as you like," went on Sue, "but I'm not going to have my part spoiled."

"All right," her brother agreed again. "I'll throw at his nose and high hat--after I make it--and I won't touch his legs."

This seemed to satisfy Sue, and for some time the children played in the yard, where the big snow man was being made. He was as large as Sue and Bunny could build him. First they had rolled a s...o...b..ll around the yard, and, as the snow was soft and packed well, the ball grew larger and larger.

Then, when it was about the size Bunny thought was right, it was left at the place where the man was to stand.

"Now we have to roll another ball," Bunny had said.

"What for?" asked Sue, who, though she had often seen snow men, had perhaps forgotten just how they were made.

"This second ball is for his stomach," Bunny said.

"What good is a stomach?" asked Sue. "He can't eat."

"He could maybe eat icicles if he wanted to," Bunny had answered.

"Anyhow, the second s...o...b..ll has to go on top of the bottom one and make the body. Then you cut legs out of the bottom s...o...b..ll. You can cut the legs, 'cause I'm taller 'n you and I can reach up and make the face."

Sue was digging away with her little shovel at the bottom s...o...b..ll to make the man's legs, and Bunny was just finishing the big nose when, suddenly, a s...o...b..ll came sailing into the Brown yard and fell with a thud between Bunny and his sister.

They both started, and Bunny cried:

"Did you throw that, Sue? If you did you mustn't, for 'tisn't time to start throwing yet!"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed a voice around the corner of the Brown home, and down the path came running Charlie Star, one of Bunny's playmates, followed by Helen Newton, a little girl with whom Sue was very fond of playing.

It was Charlie who had laughed.

"I threw the s...o...b..ll," he said. "But I only did it to make you jump. I wasn't trying to hit you, Bunny and Sue."

"All right," replied Bunny. "Want to help make the snow man?"

"Sure!" answered Charlie.

"Oh, what fun!" added Helen. "May I help?"

"You may help me make the legs," replied Sue. "Bunny says he's going to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at his part--that's the head," she explained.

"That'll be fun!" decided Charlie Star. "Come on, let's hurry up and get it finished and then we'll see who's the best shot."

"I've got to get a hat made first," Bunny stated. "It'll be a lot more fun pegging at a tall hat."

"If you could get a real one--one of the shiny black kind--it would be dandy," said Charlie.

"Well, I can make one just as good of snow," Bunny said. "Come on, Charlie!"

Together the four children played around the snow man, who was slowly coming to look more and more like himself.

"Oh, isn't he a big fellow!" cried Helen, walking off a little way to get a better view.

"Wait till I make his hat," suggested Bunny. "Then he'll look bigger, and we can hit him easier, Charlie."

"Sure, Bunny!"