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Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove

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<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> <h3>THE SURPRISING LETTER</h3> Mrs. Slater was so interested in looking at the strange box which had been washed up on shore, and was thinking so deeply about the name of Frank Ravenwood which Bunny spelled for her that, for the moment, she did not quite understand what Sue meant. "What is it, Sue?" she asked the little girl, for Sue kept on pointing toward something behind Mrs. Slater. "The tide!" exclaimed Bunny's sister. "The tide's coming up and it's washing over the sand and we're on an island! We can't get back lessen we wade!" Mrs. Slater gave a startled cry, and looked toward where Sue pointed. Surely enough, while they had been watching the box and while Bunny and Harry had been getting it to shore the tide had risen and now covered part of the strip of sand on which they had all walked out. As Sue said, it was an island, and the only way to get to shore was to wade. "I'm going to take off my shoes and stockings!" cried the little girl, hopping up on the box and beginning to loosen her laces. "You'd better take off your shoes, too, Mrs. Slater. If you don't you'll get your feet wet when you have to wade to shore. Course you haven't got your mother here to scold you if you get your shoes wet, but maybe your husband mightn't like it," went on Sue. "You can wade same as I can." "We don't have to take off our shoes and stockings, 'cause we have 'em off already," said Bunny. "Harry and I can wade." "It looks as if I'd have to do that," said Harry's mother. "I wonder if the water is very deep," she went on, as she looked at the water which had covered the shore end of the little tongue of land. "No, it isn't deep!" declared Bunny, and he waded out into it. "But it keeps on getting deeper when the tide comes up. You'd better take your shoes and stockings off now, Mrs. Slater, else maybe it'll be away up over your head soon." "I shouldn't want that to happen," she said, with a laugh. "I believe I shall have to do as you children have done, and go barefoot," and she glanced at Sue, who, by this time, had off her shoes and stockings. Harry's mother looked at the stretch of water separating the little party from the mainland. As Bunny had said, it would get deeper the higher the tide rose, though, of course, it would not go over Mrs. Slater's head. She sat down on the box, as Sue had done, and was just beginning to take off her shoes when a voice called to them. "Wait a minute! I'm coming to get you!" was what they all heard, and, looking up, Bunny Brown saw Bunker Blue rowing along in his sailboat. The sail, however, was not up now. "Oh, Bunker, come and get us!" cried Sue. "We're caught by the tide, and——" "And we found a box and maybe it has pirate gold in it!" sang out Bunny. "Look, Bunker!" and the little boy pointed to the box on the sand. It was still partly in the water. "I see," answered Bunker Blue. "I noticed that you'd been caught by the tide, so I came in the boat to get you. Wait there, Mrs. Slater," he went on. "There's no need of getting your feet wet." In a little while Bunker rowed up to the place where the box rested and where Bunny, Sue, and the others stood around it, the three children barefooted. The little tongue, or peninsula, of land, was now an island, rapidly growing smaller in size as the tide rose. "Get in the boat and I'll row you to shore," said Bunker, as he grounded his craft in the sand. "Have we got to leave the box here?" asked Bunny. "No, I'll come back and get that after I land you," said the fish boy. So they all got into the boat, and it did not take Bunker Blue long to row them to shore. Then he went back, and, after a little hard work, he managed to get the box into his boat. "I'll row this box down to the dock," called Bunker to those on shore. "You walk along the beach until you meet me. Then we can see what's in it." This was done, and soon Uncle Tad and Mrs. Brown were down on the little pier of Christmas Tree Cove, looking at the box and wondering what could be in it. "It's heavy, whatever it is," said Uncle Tad. "Pirate gold is always heavy, I guess," said Bunny. "Oh, it couldn't be gold!" declared Bunker Blue. "If it was gold in the box I never could have lifted it." "Let's open it!" suggested Sue. "No, we must not do that," said Mrs. Brown. "When your father comes home to-night I'll have him write to this Mr. Frank Ravenwood of Sea Gate. In the letter daddy can explain how the box was found, and Mr. Ravenwood can come here and get it if he wishes to. Until then, Bunker, you had better take it up to the woodshed, where it will be safe from harm." Uncle Tad and Bunker put the box on a wheelbarrow, and it was soon stored in the woodshed back of the bungalow. For some time Bunny, Sue and Harry wondered what could be in it, but, after a while, the children ran off to play in the sand, and to wade and paddle in the water. "Let's build a big sand fort," suggested Bunny. "Oh, no, make it a doll house," cried Sue. "All right, a doll house," said Harry, who was beginning to like Sue as much as he did Bunny. So they built a wonderful doll house of sand, with four rooms and an elegant driveway. But just as it was completed the whole thing caved in. "My! ain't I glad none of my dolls were in that," declared Sue. Mr. Brown came up to his summer home that night, and, after looking at the box, wrote a letter to Mr. Ravenwood, telling how it had been found. This letter was mailed to Sea Gate, and then followed a time of waiting. In the letter Mr. Brown had told how Bunny, Sue, and Harry Slater had found the box. "I wonder when we'll get an answer," remarked Bunny several times in the next two days. "If the box is at all valuable Mr. Ravenwood ought to answer daddy's letter very soon," said Mrs. Brown. "I don't see how the box got into the bay and floated all the way up here from Sea Gate. It is quite a distance." Three days after the strange find, when Bunny, Sue, and Harry were playing with Rose and Jimmie Madden near the bungalow one afternoon, Uncle Tad came up from the village with the mail. "Here's a letter from Mr. Ravenwood, children!" said the old soldier. "Oh, goody!" exclaimed Sue. "Did he say his box had pirate gold in?" asked Bunny. "I don't know. I didn't open the letter," answered Uncle Tad. But Mrs. Brown soon read the note and, as she did so, a look of surprise came over her face. "Yes, that is Mr. Ravenwood's box," said Bunny's mother. "He is coming here to-morrow in his motor boat to get it. But here is something else very strange. I'll read it to you," she went on. Then she read: <div class="blockquot">"'Thank you, very much, for saving my valuable box. I see a little boy named Harry Slater helped in saving it. I wonder if he is any relation to a Mr. Thomas Slater who has been advertising for a lost yellow dog. I have found such a dog, and I am going to bring him to Christmas Tree Cove in my motor boat when I come after my box. If this is the lost dog that is being advertised for, Harry may have him back.'" </div> "Oh, I wonder if that is my dog!" exclaimed Harry. "And if it is, I wonder if he can tell us where he left mother's pocketbook," said Bunny Brown. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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