CHAPTER XV

SPLASH IS LOST

"Bunny! Oh, Bunny! We're sailing! We're sailing!" joyfully cried Sue, as she felt the barn-door raft moving through the water.

"Of course we're sailing," Bunny answered, as he stood up near the mast, which is what the stick that holds the sail is called. The mast Bunny had made was only a piece of a lima bean pole, and the sail was only an old bag. But the children had just as much fun as though they were in one of their father's big sail boats.

The duck pond was not very wide, but it was quite long, and when Bunny and Sue had sailed across it to the other side, they turned around to go to the upper end.

Bunny had found a piece of board, which he had nailed to another short length of bean pole, and this made a sort of oar. This he put in the water at the back of the raft to steer with.

Bunny Brown knew something about steering a boat, for he had often been out with his father or Bunker Blue. And Bunny was quick to learn, though he was not much more than six years old.

Harder blew the wind on the bag-sail, and faster and faster went Bunny and Sue to the upper end of the pond. There were many ducks swimming on the water, or putting their heads down below, into the mud, to get the weeds that grew there. Sometimes they found snails, which some ducks like very much.

But when the ducks saw the barn-door raft sailing among them, they were afraid, and, quacking loudly, they paddled out of the way.

"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, as they sailed along, "there's the little ducks that were hatched out by the hen mother."

"So they are!" exclaimed the little boy. The little ducks were swimming in the water, and the hen mother was clucking along sh.o.r.e. She would not go in the water herself, but stayed as near to it as she dared, on sh.o.r.e. Perhaps she wanted to make sure the little ducks would not drown. Of course they would not, unless a big fish pulled them under water, for ducks are made on purpose to swim. And there were no big fish in the pond, only little minnows, about half as big as a lollypop stick.

"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, as she saw the hen mother watching the little ducks paddle about, "Oh, Bunny, I know what we can do."

"What?"

"We can give the hen mamma a ride on our boat. Poor thing! She never can go paddling or swimming with her family. Let's take her on our boat, and she can sail with her little ducks then, and not get wet."

"That's what we'll do!" Bunny cried. "I'm glad you thought of it, Sue.

We'll give the old hen a sail, and the ducks can paddle around with us."

Bunny steered the raft over to the sh.o.r.e where the hen was clucking away, calling to her ducklings to come to dry land. Perhaps she thought they had been in bathing long enough.

"Can we catch her?" asked Sue. "You know it's hard work to catch a chicken. You couldn't catch the old rooster."

"Oh, this is easier," Bunny said. "The hen mother won't run away from her little ducks."

And, for a wonder, Bunny was right. But then, as Grandma Brown told him afterward, the old hen was a very tame one, and was used to being picked up and petted.

So when Bunny and Sue reached the sh.o.r.e the hen did not run away. She let Bunny pick her up, and she only clucked a little when he set her down in a dry place on the door raft.

"Now we'll go sailing again," Bunny said, as he pushed off from the sh.o.r.e.

The old hen clucked and fluttered her wings. She was calling to her little ducks. And they came right up on to the raft, too. Perhaps they wanted to see what sailing was like, and then, too, they may have had enough of swimming and paddling for a time. At any rate, there the old mother hen and her little ducks were on the raft, with the two children.

"Now we'll give them a fine ride!" cried Sue. "Aren't they cute, Bunny?"

"Yes," said Bunny. He steered the raft, while Sue picked up one of the little ducks and petted it in her hand.

"Oh, you dear, cute, sweet little thing!" murmured Sue. "I wish I had you for a doll!"

On and on sailed Bunny and Sue, and I think it was the first time the old hen mother ever went sailing with her family of ducks. She seemed to like it, too, Bunny and Sue thought.

Finally, when the raft was in the middle of the pond, the little ducks gave some quacks, a sort of whistle and into the water they fluttered one after the other.

"Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!" went the hen mamma, fluttering her wings.

"Cluckity-cluck-cluck!"

I suppose that meant, in hen talk:

"Come back! Come back! Stay on the boat and have a nice ride!"

But the little ducks wanted to swim in the water. And they did.

"Never mind," said Sue. "We'll keep on sailing, Bunny, and we'll sail right after the little ducks, so the hen mamma can watch them."

And this the children did. The little ducks paddled around in the water at the edge of the raft, and on the middle of it, in a dry place, perched the hen mother. It was great fun, and Bunny and Sue liked it very much.

"She is just like a trained hen," said Bunny. "If we have another and bigger circus, Sue, we can have this hen in it."

"Are we going to have another circus?"

"Maybe--a big one, in two tents. Bunker Blue and Ben are talking about it."

"Oh, that would be fun!" cried Sue, clapping her hands.

And then, all at once, as soon as Sue did this, the little ducks took fright, and hurried toward the sh.o.r.e. Perhaps they thought Sue was shooing them away, as her grandmother sometimes shooed the hens out of the garden.

Anyhow, the little ducks, half swimming and half flying, rushed for the sh.o.r.e, and no sooner had the hen mother seen them go, than with a loud cluck she raised herself up in the air, and flew to sh.o.r.e also. She had had enough of sailing, and she wanted to be with her little duck family.

"Oh, I didn't mean to scare them," said Sue.

"Never mind," Bunny comforted her. "I guess they had ride enough. Now we'll sail down to the other end of the pond."

But the wind was quite strong now. It blew very hard on the bag-sail, and the raft went swiftly through the water.

All at once there was a cracking sound, and the raft turned to one side.

"Oh, dear!" cried Sue. "What's the matter?"

Something flew down over her head, covering her eyes, and she could see nothing.

"Stop! Stop!" cried the little girl. "Is that you, Bunny?"

But Bunny did not answer. Sue pulled the thing off her head. When she could see she noticed that it was the bag sail. The beanpole mast had broken off close to where it was stuck in a crack in the barn door, and the sail had fallen on Sue.

But where was Bunny Brown?

Sue looked all around and then saw her brother, off the raft, standing up in the water behind her.