It was hard work for some of the children, though most of them thought
of it as play, but they had spent long hours in drilling.
As I have told you, there was a real tree in the scene, and a house, and
the play was supposed to end with every one saying how happy he or she
was to be "Down on the Farm," when they all sang a song with those words
in it.
Everything went off very nicely. Bunny and Sue did even better in this
third act than in the first or second, and there was no little accident
like that with the pony and rooster.
They were coming to the climax of the third act. Sue was supposed to be
lost, and Bunny was supposed to hunt for her. He was to look everywhere,
and at last find her up in an apple tree--or what passed for an apple
tree--on the stage.
All went well until Sue slipped out of the farmhouse, ran to the apple
tree and climbed up in it to hide among the artificial branches. Then
Bunny started to pretend to look for her. He stood under the tree, but
didn't let on he knew she was there, though of course he really did
know.
"I wonder where she can be?" he said aloud, just as he was supposed to
say in the play. "Where can she have hidden herself?"
And just then little Weejie Brewster piped up from where she was sitting
with her mother:
"Dere she is, Bunny! Dere's Sue hidin' up in de apper tree! I kin see
her 'egs stickin' out! She's in de tree, she is!"
Of course everybody burst out laughing at hearing this, but the play was
so near the end that what Weejie said did not spoil it.
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