Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South

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"Oh, the darkies have to have their fun, and if we didn't let them we
wouldn't get as much work done as now takes place," said the wife of the
cotton planter. "Life is rather slow and easy down here."

Indeed it seemed so. After more banjo and mouth organ music, the pickers
gradually went to another part of the field, and Bunny and Sue, with
the two Morton children, were allowed to go to the place where the loose
cotton was pressed into big bales.

Cotton, as you have doubtless noticed, is very light and fluffy. A pound
of it, loose, takes up much room, and it is to save room that it is
pressed into bales, or bundles. Each one weighs about five hundred
pounds, and the bales are somewhat larger than a barrel, though of
square shape and not round. But if the cotton were allowed to fluff out,
it would take up four or five times this room.

Guided by Sam and Grace, Bunny and his sister were taken to the cotton
gin and baling place. First the seeds must be taken out of the cotton.
To do this the fluffy mass, as it is taken from the bags or baskets in
which it is carted from the field, is fed into a machine.

The machine is like a big clothes wringer, but the rolls, instead of
being made of smooth rubber, are rough, and covered with sharp iron
teeth.

As the cotton passes between these toothed rollers they tear it apart,
loosening the seeds, which drop down while the cleaned cotton goes to
the other side of the machine ready to be baled.

The cotton seeds are used for many things, being sometimes fed to cattle
in the form of meal, or from them oil may be squeezed which is almost as
good to eat as olive oil.

"I want to see the cotton pushed into bales," said Bunny, and his
Southern friends led the way into the factory. There were white wisps of
cotton all about, clinging to the walls and ceiling of the pressing
room, as well as to the colored men who were working there. Bunny and
Sue did not understand much about the machinery. But they could see how
the cotton was put into a sort of iron box. A big plunger then pressed
down what might be called the "lid" of the box. This squeezed the big,
fluffy mass of cotton into a bale, and iron straps, or wires, were put
around the outside of the burlap bagging that kept the cotton clean.

Sue was standing with Sam and Grace, watching the cotton being pressed
into bales, when suddenly behind them came a noise as of something
falling, and a voice cried:

"Oh, dear!"

"That's Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, turning around.

She did not see her brother, but she saw some men gathered around a big
heap of cotton on the floor of the gin. And, not seeing Bunny, his
sister Sue had the most dreadful scare.

"Oh, Bunny's in a cotton press! He's being put into one of the bales!"
she cried. "Oh, Bunny! Bunny!" and she broke away from the holding hand
of Grace and rushed toward the heap of cotton on the floor, which was
tumbling about in the queerest fashion.

CHAPTER IX

GATHERING PEANUTS

Sam and Grace Morton were somewhat older than Bunny Brown and his sister
Sue, and they knew more about cotton gins. So when Sue cried that Bunny
was being pressed into one of the white bales neither Sam nor Grace
thought this could be so.

For they had been standing near the big press all the while, and they
would have seen if Bunny had fallen in. But the little boy was not in
sight, and something must have happened to him, or why did he cry out as
he had? Sue had certainly heard Bunny's voice.

"Bunny! Bunny! where are you?" shouted Sue, as she broke away from the
Morton children.

"Who yo' all lookin' fo'?" asked a big colored man, who had been rolling
bales of cotton about the floor.

"My--my bro-brother!" stammered Sue, almost ready to cry. "He's in a
bale of cotton!"

"Oh, nopey! Nopey, he ain't, li'l girl!" said the kind colored man. "I
done see dat li'l boy jest a minute ago. He was climbin' up on a basket
ob loose cotton, an' he done pulled it over on top ob him! He's under
dat pile right yeah!" and he pointed to the mass of white, fluffy stuff
on the floor.

"I see what happened!" exclaimed Sam, hurrying over with his sister to
Sue, who stood near the pile of cotton. "Bunny's all right. You can't
get hurt when loose cotton falls on you," and he laughed.

"Is--is Bu-Bunny under there?" asked Sue.

There was no need for any one to answer her, for a moment later out from
under the fluffy pile crawled Bunny himself. Lumps of cotton clung to
him all over, and his clothes were covered, but he was not in the least
harmed.

"I--I was under there!" gasped the little fellow.

"You don't need to tell us that!" laughed Sam. "We can see for
ourselves. You sure have been under the cotton."

"What happened to you, Bunny?" his sister asked, happy, now that nothing
had occurred to harm her brother.

"I saw a big basket of loose cotton," he explained, "and I wanted to see
how heavy it was and to find out if I could lift it. I pushed on it, and
it fell over on top of me. Then I yelled."

"We heard you," said Grace.

"And I thought you were being pressed in a bale," added Sue.

"I'm glad I wasn't," remarked Bunny, as he noticed how very hard the
press squeezed the loose cotton.

The colored workers picked up the fluffy stuff Bunny had spilled from
the big basket, which he had pulled over on him. He had been hidden from
sight in the white mass that had toppled out on the floor.

"It was just like the time when I was under the snowdrift, only it
wasn't so cold," Bunny said, telling about his accident afterward. "And
it was awfully ticklish!"

"Better that than a cotton press," his mother said. "You must be careful
around the gin, children."

"It's all right to go to the peanut fields though, isn't it, Mother?"
asked Sue. She had been eager, ever since hearing that peanuts grew in
Georgia, to see how they clung to the ends of the vines, like little
potatoes.

"Yes, I think visiting the peanuts will be all right, if you don't eat
too many," Mrs. Brown said.

"They won't want to eat too many," said Sam Morton. "When the peanuts
come out of the ground they are raw, and they have to be roasted before
they are good to eat. They won't eat too many."

"Can't we roast some?" Sue wanted to know, and her mother promised that
this would be done.

When the children came away from Mr. Morton's cotton press and gin,
after the little happening to Bunny, the visitors could hear the darkies
singing there, as they had sung in the fields.

Most of Mr. Morton's peanut crop had been gathered, as it was almost
the close of the season, but some late vines were growing in one of the
fields, and this was visited by the children a day or so after their
arrival in Seedville.

Bunny Brown and Sue had been rather disappointed when they heard that
peanuts did not grow on trees, as did chestnuts and hickory nuts, but
they soon forgot this when Sam told them something about this crop, by
which his father made money.

"We don't call 'em peanuts down here," Sam said.

"What do you call 'em?" asked Bunny.

"Ground nuts and sometimes goobers," answered the Southern boy. "Over in
England, my father says, they call 'em monkey nuts."

"What for?" Bunny wanted to know.

"I s'pose it's because the first peanuts came from Africa, and there are
so many monkeys in Africa," answered Sam.

"I wish there was a monkey here!" exclaimed Sue. "I'd like to see him
eat peanuts--I mean goobers!" she added, with a laugh at the funny
word.

"There's a monkey near our house at home," explained Bunny. "We could
send Wango some peanuts, couldn't we, Sue?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, let's!" cried the little girl.

"Well, come on first and pick some, or dig 'em, which is what you'll
have to do," suggested Sam.

What had not been gathered of Mr. Morton's peanut crop was growing in a
field not far from the plantation buildings. There were no darkies
gathering the goobers, as it was more important now to pick the cotton.

"Pull up one of the vines," suggested Sam to the children from the
North.

You can imagine how delighted Bunny and Sue were when they pulled up by
the roots one of the vines and saw, dangling on the end, some of the
peanuts they knew so well.

"Oh, wouldn't Mrs. Redden like it here?" cried Bunny, as he pulled off
some of the peanuts.

"Who's she?" asked Grace.

"She keeps a peanut and candy store where we live," explained Sue. "And
she sells lots of peanuts. If she was here she could get all she
wanted."

"But she'd have to roast them, or get them roasted," said Sam. "About
the only things unroasted peanuts are good for is to make peanut oil and
to feed to horses. We'll take some to the house and roast them. We have
a little roaster in the kitchen."

"And can we make some peanut molasses candy?" asked Bunny. "Don't you
have molasses down here?"

"Oh, yes, plenty of molasses," said Grace. "We don't raise any sugar
cane, which molasses come from, but they do farther South. We'll make
some peanut candy."

The prospect of this delighted Bunny and Sue almost as much as did the
gathering of the nuts. The children from the North looked curiously at
the "goobers" they had pulled up on the vine. As Sam had said, they were
not at all good to eat, needing to be dried and roasted before they
would be enjoyable.

For several days Bunny and Sue enjoyed themselves on the Southern
plantation. One day Mr. Morton took them over a grove where a friend of
his was growing pecans. These were nuts which grew on trees, and Bunny
and Sue were allowed to gather and eat as many as they wished, for these
nuts did not need to be baked or roasted before being eaten.

There were busy times on the cotton plantation. Much work yet remained
to finish, and one day, after his business with Mr. Morton was almost at
an end, Daddy Brown went with his wife and Bunny and Sue to watch the
gathering of cotton by the negroes. Up to now he had not had much time
to see this.

"What are they all so jolly about?" he asked Mr. Morton, as they walked
through the field, the bushes of which were now almost stripped of their
white tufts.

"Oh, they expect to finish work to-night and they're going to have a
jubilee dance later on," was the answer. "You must come to it, for it
will be great fun for the children."

"Oh, yes, they must see that," said Mother Brown.

Indeed the darkies were much more musical than on the occasion of the
first visit of Bunny and Sue. Several banjos were playing and also a
mouth organ here and there, while snatches of songs could be heard all
about the field.

Suddenly, over in the place where a number of pickers had gathered to
empty their baskets into the big bin, whence the cotton was carted to
the gin, there arose a great shouting.

"Whoa now! Whoa dere, Sambo! Steady now!" called a man's voice.

Then there was the shrill shrieking of women and girls, and a moment
later a big mule hitched to a cart rushed toward Bunny, Sue and their
friends, and on the mule's back, clinging for dear life, was a little
colored boy, frightened almost out of his wits.

"Oh, look out, Bunny! Sue! Look out for the runaway!" cried Mrs. Brown.

CHAPTER X

ON TO FLORIDA

The clatter of the mule's hoofs, the rattle of the cart, and the yells
of the little colored boy on the animal's back made plenty of excitement
in the roadway of the cotton field. But besides all this there were the
calls of Mrs. Brown, the shouts and yells of the frightened colored men,
women and children, and the screams of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.

"Good lan' ob massy!" exclaimed one big, fat, colored woman, as she
dropped her basket of cotton and rushed for a place of safety. "Dat
frisky li'l nigger suah will be splatter-dashed ef he fall offen dat
mule's back!"

And indeed it did look bad for the small colored boy.

"Over here, Sue! Come to me, Bunny!" cried Mrs. Brown. "Walter," she
called to her husband, "look out for Sam and Grace," for the Morton
children were with their friends from the North.

Mr. Brown, with a quick motion, pulled Sam and Grace out of danger as
the runaway mule, hauling the load of cotton, came nearer.

"Maybe Sam and I can stop him, Mother!" cried Bunny.

"Indeed and you'll do nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown,
hurrying the children behind a row of cotton plants.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" was all the little colored boy on the back of the runaway
mule could shout. "Hi! Hi!"

"Oh, can't some one save him?" cried Mrs. Brown.

"I'll try," answered her husband, who, having seen to it that Sam and
Grace were safe with Bunny and Sue, started out to try to head off the
mule. At the same time the shrieks of the colored women had called from
a distant part of the field several strong colored men, and one of these
ran toward the mule about the same time that Mr. Brown did.

But there was no need of any one getting worried. Before the mule could
be caught he stopped, and stopped so suddenly that the colored boy was
pitched off the animal's back. Down to the ground the dusky-skinned
child slipped, but, luckily enough, there was a pile of cotton here, and
it was on top of the fluffy stuff that he landed.

There he sat, a splotch of black in a heap of white, and he presented
such a funny picture that Sue and her brother burst out laughing. So did
Sam and Grace. And then Jim, the colored boy, finding that he was not
hurt, opened his mouth and shrieked in delight.

Some of the colored men came up and took charge of the mule, which they
led back to the shed whence he had run away. And one of the fat black
women waddled toward Jim on the heap of cotton.

"Look yeah, yo' li'l hunk ob sticky black 'lasses!" she cried. "Whut fo'
you want to git on dat mule's back an' scare yo' po' mammy 'most into a
conniption fit? Whut fo' you do dat, Jim St. Clair Breckinridge? Whut
fo', huh?"

"Ah didn't go fo' to do it, 'deed an' Ah didn't, Mammy!" said Jim, as he
arose. "Ah wuz jest leanin' ober to knock a fly often dat mule's back
an' Ah slipped an' fell on him. Den he started up, an' Ah couldn't nohow
git offen him!"

And this, it appeared, was how it had happened. The little colored boy
was playing around the shed where the darkies emptied their baskets of
cotton into a bin. There it was piled into the cart to be taken to the
gin. The boy had climbed up on a pile of boxes to make himself higher,
and in this position had seen a fly on the mule's back. Or at least that
is what Jim said.

At any rate, whether he tried to do the mule a kindness, or whether he
really intended to use the boxes as a stepping block to get up and take
a ride, Jim got on the animal's back, and this so alarmed the mule that
it started off, causing much excitement.

But no real harm had resulted, and no one was hurt, for the fluffy
cotton was even softer to fall on than a pile of hay. Jim was taken in
charge by his mother and made to help pick cotton the rest of the day.

Bunny and Sue liked it so much on the plantation, watching the
cotton-pickers and occasionally pulling up a few peanuts for themselves,
that I think they would have been willing to spend the rest of the
winter in that part of the sunny South.

"But my business here is almost finished," said Mr. Brown to his family
one evening as they sat in Mr. Morton's pleasant home. "We will soon go
on to Florida."

"And eat oranges!" added Sue, for she had often been thinking of that
juicy fruit.

"And catch alligators!" exclaimed Bunny. The chance of at least seeing
some of these scaly creatures seemed to give Bunny pleasure.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed his mother. "Now look here!" she went on, as she
thought of what might happen. "I don't want you two tots going off by
yourselves trying to catch alligators! Mind that!" and she shook a
warning finger at them.

In the evening, while the older folks were talking in the sitting room
and the children were playing games, Bunny heard his father say:

"There's the oil stock certificate Bunny found, Mr. Morton."

"Oh, yes, your wife was telling us about that," remarked the cotton
planter. "Let me see it."

Bunny looked up in time to see his father show Mr. Morton a stiff,
crinkly green and gold paper, which the little boy well remembered.

"Didn't you yet find out to whom that oil stock belongs?" asked Mrs.
Brown of her husband, while Bunny entertained Sam and Grace by telling
them in a low voice how, while they were in the sleigh that day with
Uncle Tad, the porter of the Pullman car had tossed the valuable paper
out in a pan of dirt.

"No, so far I haven't found the owner," Mr. Brown answered. "I brought
the certificate with me, for I thought perhaps the oil company might
have been notified by the loser. But they write me that no one has yet
notified them of the loss. So I'll have to hold the stock a while
longer. It is quite valuable, the oil company says, and I must take good
care of it."

He put the temporary certificate back in his pocket, and Bunny and his
sister, after telling about the runaway, went on playing games with Sam
and Grace.

"Well," said Mr. Brown at last, after he and Mr. Morton had looked over
several business books and papers, "I think we'll be traveling on to
Florida in a few days."

"We shall miss having you here," Mrs. Morton said. "I'm sure it has done
the children good."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Brown. "They never before saw cotton or peanuts
growing, and they have learned something."

"I want to learn about oranges!" exclaimed Sue.

"And maybe I could grow up to be an alligator hunter," added Bunny.

"I hope not that!" his mother exclaimed, laughing. "And I think it is
almost time for you children to go to bed."

But just then there came a knock on the door and the colored servant,
having answered it, came back to say that the plantation hands were
having a sort of jubilee among themselves and had sent to know if the
"white folks" didn't want to see the fun.

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Morton, as he heard this message. "I was telling you
that at the end of the cotton-picking season the darkies have a great
time among themselves, playing and singing songs. They make hoe cakes
and if they can get a 'possum they roast that with sweet potatoes. Let's
go down for a little while."

"Can we come?" cried all four children, almost in one voice.

"Yes, let them come!" said Mr. Morton.

It was not really very late, though it was dark. But once Bunny and Sue,
with Sam and Grace were outside, they saw, down in the direction of the
darkies' cabins, some flickering lights which told of bonfires and
torches.

"It looks just like a picture," said Mrs. Brown, as she walked along
with her husband.

They could hear the strumming of banjos, the blowing of mouth organs,
and the singing of the colored folk, whose full, soft voices made most
pleasant tunes.

[Illustration: BUNNY AND SUE WERE DELIGHTED WITH THE "JUBILEE."

_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South._ _Page 101_]

Bunny and Sue were delighted with the "jubilee," as it was called. Of
course Sam and Grace had seen it before, but they always enjoyed it.
There was dancing, too, and some of the capers cut by the men and boys
were very funny.

"What's hoe cake?" asked Bunny, remembering that Mr. Morton had spoken
of this.

"In the old days, before the war, it was a cornmeal cake baked on the
clean blade of a field hoe," was the answer. "But now they are generally
made in a pan or skillet, I think. A hoe cake is a sort of Johnnie cake
up North."

"Here comes Mammy Jackson with some now," said Mrs. Morton, as a fat,
jolly-looking colored woman approached the visitors with a large tray.

"White folks come to visit an' we got to treat 'em quality like!"
chuckled the old negress. "Here you is, li'l white folks," and she
presented the tray to Bunny and Sue.

It was laden with all sorts of good things that the darkies like to eat,
but as some of the food was rather rich, especially for eating just
before going to bed, Mrs. Brown looked at what Bunny and Sue took,
allowing them only a little of each dainty. It was all clean and well
cooked, and Bunny and Sue thought they had never before tasted anything
so good. They did not get any 'possum meat, and perhaps they would not
have liked that. It takes a real Southerner to care for that dainty.

After the eating, the singing, playing and dancing went on more wild and
noisy than before, but Bunny and Sue were not allowed to stay up very
late. And so, rather wishing they might remain longer, they were led
away, and a little while afterwards were snug in bed, listening to the
faint and far-off sounds of the colored jubilee.

Two days later Mr. Brown, having finished his business in Georgia,
started with his family for Orange Beach, Florida.

"We had a lovely time here!" said Sue to Grace, as they parted.

"Most fun I ever had in my life!" added Bunny. But then as he said that
about nearly every place he had visited, I am beginning to think he had
a very happy disposition.

"Don't eat too many oranges!" Grace called to Sue, as the Southern
children watched their little guests climb aboard the train that was to
take them to Florida.

"I won't," Sue promised.

"And don't let an alligator catch you!" begged Sam of Bunny.

"I'll catch _them_!" declared the little fellow.

"Good-by! Good-by!" was echoed back and forth.

Then the train pulled out of the small station of Seedville, and once
more Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were on their journey. And many
things were to happen before they reached home again.

CHAPTER XI

THE POOR CAT

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were now going farther down into the
sunny South. They had left far behind the bleak and cold of the North
where there was ice and snow when they had come away. In Georgia they
had found soft winds and balmy skies, but now, as they were headed into
Florida, they were to find it even warmer.

Orange Beach, where Mr. Brown expected to meet Mr. Halliday and attend
to some business, was in the southern part of Florida, somewhat inland
from the ocean and on a river which Bunny, at least, hoped would be
filled with alligators.

As for Sue, all she hoped for was to gather oranges and orange blossoms.
Both children, in a way, were to have their wishes gratified.

As the train went farther south, the scenery grew more and more green,
for Bunny and Sue were getting into the land where there is never any
snow or ice, and only occasionally a little frost, which all orange
growers dread. Sometimes, to keep a frost from hurting the orange trees,
great bonfires are built in the groves and kept going all night.

"Oh, look what a funny tree!" cried Sue, as the train was passing
through a swampy bit of forest. "It looks as if it had whiskers!"

"Oh, isn't it funny!" echoed Bunny. "What is it, Daddy?"

Daddy Brown leaned toward the car window and looked out. Several trees
were now seen, each one festooned with what Sue had called "whiskers."

"That is Spanish moss, also called long moss," explained Mr. Brown. "It
is common in Florida and other parts of the South, especially in trees
that grow in the swamps, or everglades."

"What are the everglades?" Bunny wanted to know. "Are they like
alligators?"

"Oh, no!" laughed his mother. "About all you think of, Bunny, is
alligators."

"I don't; do I, Mother?" asked Sue. "I keep thinking of oranges!"

Mr. and Mrs. Brown laughed at this, and Mr. Brown, after explaining how
the Spanish moss grew on trees, sometimes hanging down like the gray
beard of a very old man, told the children about the everglades.

"The everglades are the great swamps in the southern part of Florida,"
Mr. Brown said. "The land there is very low in some places, and the sea
water covers it at times. The everglades are lonely places, part forest
and partly covered with tall grass."

"Alligators, too?" asked Bunny, with wide-open eyes.

"Yes, I think alligators are there," Mr. Brown said. "But no oranges,"
he added, before Sue could ask that question. "It is too swampy to raise
oranges, though now an effort is being made to drain the swampy
everglades and make them of some use. We aren't going to that part of
Florida, however; at least not on this journey."

There was so much of interest to see on this trip to the sunny South,
and so much to ask questions about, that Bunny and Sue thought the
journey one of the most delightful they had ever taken.

While Mr. Brown looked over some business papers, among which Bunny had
a glimpse of the valuable oil certificate, and while Mrs. Brown read a
magazine, the children looked from the windows of their car at the
scenes and landscapes that flitted past so rapidly.

"We're going to change cars in a little while," said Mr. Brown to his
wife and children, as he put his papers back in his pocket.

"Are we at Orange Beach?" Bunny asked, ready to start out and hunt
alligators at a moment's notice if need be.

"Oh, no," his father answered. "Orange Beach is another day's travel.
But this is as far as this railroad runs and we have to get off and take
another train. The place where we will get off is only a small station
in a little town, but there is a man there I want to see on business."

"Will you stay there long?" asked Mrs. Brown.

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