Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South

L >> Laura Lee Hope >> Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South

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"No, only a few hours, while waiting for the next train to take us on to
Orange Beach. You will have time to get something to eat--you and the
children, while I see Mr. Parker. The name of the place is Clayton, and
it is the next station," said Mr. Brown, looking at a timetable he
carried.

Bunny and Sue were delighted to ride in railroad trains and look out at
the scenery, but they were also glad to get out once in a while, to
"stretch their legs," as Bunny said. In fact, the children were always
glad of a change, and now that they heard they were to alight from one
train, get lunch in Clayton, and proceed in another car they welcomed
whatever might happen during that time.

"Clayton! Clay-ton!" called the trainman, as the cars began to go more
slowly when the brakes were put on, and Bunny and Sue, with their father
and mother, began to gather up their hand baggage in readiness to
alight.

Clayton was a small town in Florida, and except that everything was as
green and sunny as it would have been in Bellemere in the middle of
summer, the village was not very different from many country towns of
the North. Yes, there was a difference, too. There were a large number
of colored people about--children and men and women--and many of the
animals seen drawing carts and wagons were mules instead of horses. One
or two small automobiles were to be noticed, but there was not such a
busy scene as would have been noticed in a Northern town.

"Now," said Mr. Brown to his wife, when she and the children were
gathered about him on the station platform, "I think this will be the
best plan. You and the children get lunch in that restaurant over there,
while I go uptown and see Mr. Parker. By the time you finish your lunch
and I get back, you will not have long to wait for the train that will
take us to Orange Beach. It comes in here at this station."

"But where will you get lunch?" asked Mrs. Brown.

"With Mr. Parker," was the answer. "I can eat and talk business at the
same time, and get through sooner. That looks like a nice enough little
restaurant over there. I hope they will have something you and the
children can eat."

"I am not very hungry," Mrs. Brown said. "We ate so many good things at
Mrs. Morton's that I must have gained several pounds."

"I'm hungry!" exclaimed Bunny, anxious lest there be no lunch.

"So'm I!" echoed his sister.

"I guess there'll be enough for you," his father said, with a laugh.
"Take them over, Mother, while I see if I can hire one of these
easy-going colored boys to drive me uptown."

There were one or two ramshackle old carriages with bony horses
harnessed to them standing about the station, and in one of these Mr.
Brown was soon on his way up the street toward the main part of the
village.

"Come on, children. We'll see what there is for lunch," Mrs. Brown said.

She led the way over to the small restaurant near the railroad. She
found that it was clean and neat, something of which she had been a
little doubtful from the outside.

A white man kept the restaurant, but he said he had an old colored
"mammy" for a cook, and then Mrs. Brown knew she and the children would
get something good to eat.

They had chicken and waffles, as well as other good things, and in spite
of the fact that she had said she was not hungry, Mrs. Brown managed to
eat a good lunch. As for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, I really am
ashamed to tell you how much they ate and how many things they passed
their plates for "more."

But traveling always makes children hungry, doesn't it?

"May we walk up and down the street a little while?" asked Bunny of his
mother, as she went back to the station with him and Sue after lunch.
"We want to see things while we're waiting for daddy."

"Yes, but don't go far away," Mrs. Brown answered, as she took her seat
on the bench in the shade. "I don't know just what time the train for
Orange Beach is due."

Bunny and Sue promised not to stray away, and then, hand in hand, while
their father was off uptown on business and while their mother was
dozing sleepily on the station bench, the children wandered along the
street which extended beside the railroad tracks.

On the rails were a number of freight cars, several of the kind called
"box," because they look like big boxes on wheels. Bunny and Sue crossed
the street and walked along the string of boxcars, looking into those
the doors of which were open.

"I wouldn't like to ride in one of those cars," said Sue to Bunny. "They
aren't nice, and they have no windows in to see out of."

"And no seats, either," Bunny added. "They're only for freight, anyhow."

"What's freight?" asked Sue.

"Oh, it's different things they put in cars," Bunny answered. "It's
boxes and barrels and bales of cotton, I guess, for I heard Mr. Morton
say he had to pay a lot of freight money to have his cotton taken away."

"Is that freight?" asked Sue, pointing to some broken boxes on the
ground near a boxcar, the door of which stood open.

"I guess it was once, maybe," Bunny answered. "Those boxes come in a
freight car, but they took the stuff out. Let's go and see if there's
anything left in the freight car."

Forgetting that they had promised their mother not to go far away, Bunny
and Sue wandered down the track and soon stood beside a car out of which
some empty boxes and barrels had been thrown. And as they neared the car
they heard, coming from within it, the mewing of a cat.

"Oh, there's a pussy!" cried Sue, who heard it first.

"Where?" asked Bunny.

"In that freight car, I think," his sister went on. "Oh, there it is!"
she cried, pointing.

Bunny looked in time to see a small cat peering from the door of the
car. The door was about four feet from the ground, and the little pussy
seemed to think this was too far to jump down.

"Poor little pussy!" said Sue kindly. "I guess it's hungry and lonesome,
Bunny! Let's get it and take it to mother."

"All right," Bunny agreed. "But we'll have to get up on a box or barrel
to reach it."

Neither Bunny nor Sue was tall enough to lift the poor cat down from
the open door of the freight car. And it did seem to be the kind of cat
one would call "poor," for it was very thin, and was crying as if hungry
or perhaps lonesome.

"Maybe it's been shut up in the car a long time," Sue said.

"We'll get it down and feed it," said Bunny, pulling a box from the pile
over toward the freight car, so he could climb up through the wide,
sliding door.

CHAPTER XII

A STRANGE RIDE

"Let me help you!" begged Sue, when she saw what her brother was doing.
"I'll help you move the box."

Bunny Brown was glad to have his sister's help, and the two children
half carried, half dragged the empty packing box over to the freight
car.

"Oh, it's gone!" cried Sue in disappointed tones, as Bunny shoved the
box under the wide, open door.

"What's gone?" asked the little boy.

"The poor, hungry pussy! It ran away and now we can't feed it!"

"Hum!" exclaimed Bunny, who was also disappointed. "I guess--"

"Oh, there it is!" suddenly cried Sue, pointing, as the little cat--for
it was only half grown--thrust his head around the edge of the door.

"Keep still now, pussy, and we'll get you," begged Sue, as if the cat
knew what she was saying. The cat certainly heard, and perhaps it did
understand something of what the children were trying to do, for they
spoke very kindly. And let me tell you that dogs and cats can easily
tell the difference between kind and cross speaking.

While the little pussy looked down from the door of the freight car at
the two children, Bunny managed to scramble up on top of the wooden box.
From there he could easily get inside the car. He did not think he would
have to do this, however, and he did not want to, for the inside of the
car looked very dark and "scary." Bunny could not see to either end, for
the car was rather long.

But as the little boy climbed up on the box and reached out his hand to
grasp the kitten, the little cat, with a sad "mew!" backed farther
inside the big car.

"Come on, pussy!" called Bunny gently. "I won't hurt you!"

"We'll give you some nice milk," added Sue, standing on the ground near
the box. "Let Bunny get you!"

But this the strange cat did not want to do. Back into the car it ran,
just as you have very often, I suppose, seen a strange cat or dog run
away from you, until it made sure you were going to be kind.

By this time Bunny had leaned far enough inside the car to be able to
notice that it was not quite so black and "scary" as he had at first
thought. He could see each end easily now, and in one far corner was the
little cat, rubbing up against the sides of the car, as if it wanted to
be petted, but was afraid to let the children do it.

"I guess I'll have to go in after it," said Bunny.

"All right," agreed Sue. "I'll come and help you," and she scrambled up
on the box just as Bunny drew his legs up over the edge of the car and
went inside.

Mrs. Brown, from her place on the station platform, could look down the
tracks and see the line of freight cars which extended alongside the
street. She had seen Bunny and Sue walking in this direction, but she
did not imagine they would get inside a car. If she had seen Bunny
scrambling in after the cat she would have run down to make him come
out.

But she did not see this, for she had closed her eyes and was dozing a
little in the warm air of the sunny South. Nor did Mrs. Brown see Sue
climb up on the box after her brother.

As soon as Bunny went inside the car to get the cat Sue followed, and
there the two children were, inside the big boxcar, while pussy was
mewing sadly at one end, wanting to be petted and fed, but just a little
afraid.

"We'll get it now," said Bunny, as he saw Sue in the car with him. "You
go one side and I'll go the other. Then we'll catch it and take it to
mother."

"Maybe it'll scratch me," suggested Sue, for she had been scratched by
pet kittens more than once.

"No, I don't think it will," said Bunny. "Come up easy, so you won't
scare it."

Walking a little way apart down the length of the freight car, in which
they could now see very well, Bunny Brown and his sister Sue approached
the pussy. They held out their hands and hissed through their lips, for
they thought cats liked that sound. If it had been a little dog in the
freight car the children would have whistled, and the dog, very likely,
would have run to them, wagging its tail.

If Bunny and Sue had whistled they might have frightened the little
pussy, so they just made soft sounds through their lips, and walked
toward the small cat.

But when Bunny and his sister did this the pussy ran and hid as far back
as it could in one end of the car, as if afraid.

"Oh, we won't hurt you!" exclaimed Sue.

"We just want to get you and take you out so we can feed you," explained
Bunny.

But the pussy did not seem to understand.

"You go one way and I'll go the other," suggested Bunny. "We can catch
it between us."

"Like we did chickens at grandpa's farm once," agreed the little girl.
She remembered how she and her brother had once thus closed in on some
hens and a rooster that had got out of the chicken yard.

"That'll be a good way," Bunny said.

But when they tried it, he coming in toward the pussy from the right and
Sue from the left, the little cat just scampered between the children
with a "mew!" and there it was at the other end of the car!

"Oh, it's playing tag!" laughed Sue.

"I guess it is," agreed Bunny. "Come on, little cat!" called the boy.
"We have to go home pretty soon. We can't stay here all the afternoon."

"Oh, Bunny, how funny!" laughed Sue. "We aren't going _home_!"

"Well, we're going on to Florida, and that'll be home for a while," said
the little fellow. "Anyhow we've got to be going pretty soon or mother
will be looking for us. Come on now, we'll try again."

Once more they walked carefully toward the other end of the freight car,
whither the pussy had gone. But again the furry animal dashed between
Bunny and his sister, keeping out of reach of their eager hands.

"I don't b'lieve it wants us to catch him," said Sue.

"I don't b'lieve so, either," agreed Bunny.

But they did not give up trying, though the more they raced after the
little pussy the livelier that animal seemed to become, until Bunny and
Sue were getting quite tired.

Then, suddenly, when they were in one end of the car trying to corner
the lively little cat, there came a jar and a jolt to the car.

"What's that?" asked Sue, a bit frightened.

"Something bumped into us," Bunny answered. "I guess maybe it was the
engine." Then, as the children felt another bump, which shook the whole
car and them also, and as they heard a banging noise and the tooting of
a whistle, Bunny exclaimed: "Oh, an engine is hitching on our car! We're
going to have a ride!"

Before Sue could say anything the car suddenly became dark, for the
sliding door on the side, by which Bunny and his sister had entered,
slid shut with another bang.

"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, this time in great fright. "We're shut in here!"

"Yes," agreed Bunny, trying hard to be brave and not cry as he felt Sue
was going to do. "I guess we are!"

"Oh, Bunny!" exclaimed his sister, "what'll we do?"

Bunny did not know just what to answer.

"Mew!" cried the little kitten, somewhere in the dark car. In fact, it
was so dark that neither Bunny nor Sue could see the other, and they
could not tell where pussy was.

There came another bang and rattle, a loud noise, and then Bunny Brown
and his sister Sue felt the car rolling away. A locomotive was pulling
it, giving the children a strange ride.

CHAPTER XIII

NUTTY, THE TRAMP

Bunny and Sue were so surprised when they found that they were being
hauled away in the closed and dark freight car that for a time after
their first startled cries they said nothing. They remained standing
hand in hand in the middle of the dark, empty space, swaying to and fro
as the train bumped over the uneven rails.

"Oh, Bunny!" gasped Sue in a little whisper, "where do you s'pose we're
going?"

"I don't know," he answered. "But it's somewhere. We're having a ride,
anyhow."

This was true enough. They were moving along quite swiftly now, but not
nearly so smoothly or so comfortably as when they had ridden in the
parlor car or the sleeping car.

"Will mother and daddy come?" asked Sue, her voice a bit shaky because
she was half crying.

"I--I don't guess they will," her brother answered. "Daddy is uptown,
seeing a man, and mother was on the station bench when we crawled in
this car to get the cat."

"Oh!" exclaimed Sue, and then she tried to peer through the gloom to see
Bunny. At first, after the door had slid shut, she could only dimly see
where her brother stood, even though she had hold of his hand. But now,
as her eyes became used to the darkness, she could make out that Bunny
was standing close beside her.

What had happened was this. The children had climbed into an empty
freight car that was standing on a siding, as the extra tracks around a
railroad station are called. The freight had been taken from the car
some days before, and, being empty, it was needed to be loaded again.

A switch engine, which was "picking up empties," as the railroad men
call it, had backed down the track and had been fastened to several cars
in addition to the one containing Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. The
railroad men, of course, did not know that the children were in the car.
And they knew nothing about the pussy cat. They supposed the freight car
was empty.

The freight engine, in backing down the track to be coupled, or
fastened, to the cars, had banged into them rather hard. This hard bang
had slid shut the sliding door, making Bunny, Sue, and the cat
prisoners.

"Oh!" suddenly exclaimed Sue after a period of silence.

"What's the matter?" asked Bunny, for, having hold of his sister's hand,
he could feel her jump.

"Something rubbed up against my legs," she answered.

"It's the cat!" exclaimed Bunny.

"Oh!" cried Sue again, and this time there was happiness in her voice.
She leaned down and felt around her legs. Her hand touched a warm, furry
back. "It is pussy!" she cried. "And kitty let me pick him up! Oh,
Bunny, it's purring like anything!" Sue exclaimed.

"I guess it's lonesome, too, and maybe don't like to ride in a freight
car, so it's getting tame," Bunny said. And perhaps this did explain it.

"I can pick him up!" cried Sue in delight. And, a moment later, she had
the pussy in her arms. Surely enough the little fluffy fellow was no
longer afraid of the children. It wanted to be near them for company,
and it snuggled down in Sue's arms, while Bunny reached over in the dark
and softly stroked the animal.

All this while the freight car was being hauled farther and farther away
from the railroad station.

"I'm going to sit down," said Sue, and she did, taking her place on the
floor of the car with her legs stretched out, making a lap for the cat.
Bunny, whose eyes were also becoming used to the dark, could see what
Sue was doing, and he sat down beside her, reaching over now and then
and petting pussy. The little cat seemed quite content now, and if it
was hungry it did not cry.

"Maybe I could open the door so we could get out," suggested Bunny,
after a bit.

"You couldn't get off this car while it was moving, even if you could
open the door," Sue stated. "Don't you 'member mother said we should
never get on a trolley car when it was moving, or get off?"

"Yes," admitted Bunny. "I 'member that. But I'm not going to get off
till the car stops. Only I'll see if I can get the door open, so we'll
be all ready to get off when it does stop."

With this in mind Bunny arose from his place on the floor of the swaying
freight car beside Sue and the kitten in her lap, and tried to make his
way over to where some cracks of light showed around the door. There
were two sliding doors to the car, one by which the children had
entered, and another opposite. But this last showed no light around the
edges, and Bunny rightly guessed that this one was fastened more tightly
than the one that had slid shut.

It was one thing for Bunny to say he would open the door, but it was
quite another thing to do it. For by this time the engine was puffing
away down the track at good speed, and the little fellow soon found that
it was very hard to walk across the empty freight car. It swayed from
side to side, much more so than an ordinary railroad coach, and a great
deal more than a Pullman car.

But if it was difficult for him to walk in a regular passenger car, it
was much harder in the swaying freight car. And when he tried to make
his way to the door he was nearly thrown off his feet.

"Oh, Bunny, look out! You'll be hurt! What are you going to do?" asked
Sue, for she could see her brother fairly well now.

"I'm going to open that door!" grunted Bunny. The reason he grunted was
because he sat down suddenly. He had been swayed right off his feet.

"You can't do it!" Sue said. "Don't get hurt, Bunny!"

"I won't," he answered. "But we've got to get out of this car, and I've
got to get that door open! I know what I can do," he went on. "If I
can't walk over I can crawl. I did that when I was a baby."

Bunny Brown was a smart and brave little fellow, and, as he said, when
he found he could not walk upright, because the car swayed so, he made
up his mind to crawl. And crawl he did, across the rough, splintery
floor of the old car. Once he stuck a sliver into the palm of his hand.
He cried "Ouch!" but the rumble of the wheels was so loud that Sue did
not hear him, and Bunny was glad of it.

He stopped, pulled the splinter from his hand, and then bravely went on
again, crawling over the swaying car. At last he reached the door, and
as there were projections on the side, by which he could hold himself,
Bunny managed to stand up.

"Now I'm going to open the door, Sue!" he called to his sister. "And
when the train stops we can get off and go back to mother and daddy."

"Yes, I guess we'd better do that," Sue answered. "They'll get worried
about us."

Holding to a wooden brace on the side of the car with one hand, Bunny
tried to push back the heavy, sliding door with the other. It went a few
inches, letting more light inside the car, but there the door stuck. And
it was, perhaps, a good thing that it did. For if the door had opened
suddenly the little boy might have been pitched out, for the train of
empty freight cars was now moving swiftly.

Bunny pulled and tugged so hard that he fairly grunted.

"What's the matter?" asked Sue, hearing him.

"I--I can't get this door--open!" gasped her brother.

"Oh, well, never mind," she said. "Maybe some of the trainmen will come
along and let us out."

"How can they come along when the train is moving?" Bunny wanted to
know.

"Didn't you ever see 'em run along on top of the freight cars?" asked
Sue.

"Yes. But this door is on the _side_--not on _top_," her brother
answered. "I've got to get it open if we want to get out!"

He pulled and tugged again, but it was of no use. The door had opened a
little way, making a crack through which Bunny could see the sunny
fields, the trees, the telegraph poles, and the fences gliding past.
But the crack was all too small for him or Sue to squeeze through.

"I guess we'll have to wait," Bunny said at length, as he crawled back
to the side of his sister.

"You can hold pussy a little while," she said to him. Bunny was very
glad to do this, and the little cat snuggled down on his legs, while he
gently stroked the soft fur.

On and on rumbled the freight train, clicking and clacking over the
rails, and making a roaring sound when it crossed a bridge. Suddenly,
above the other creaking, jolting sounds another noise sounded. It was
like a groan.

"What's that?" asked Sue, reaching over and grasping Bunny by the arm.
She could see him plainly now, because the door was open a wider crack.

"What's what?" asked Bunny, who had been trying to make the pussy stand
up on its hind legs.

"That noise," went on Sue. "Didn't you hear it?"

Both children listened, and above the noise made by the clacking wheels
they did hear a groan! Or was it a grunt?

"Oh!" cried Sue, almost crawling into Bunny's lap. "What is it?"

"I don't know," the little boy answered, and he was beginning to feel as
frightened as was Sue.

Again a noise, somewhere between a grunt and a groan, sounded through
the car, and the children also heard a movement. Bunny glanced in the
direction of it, and saw what at first he had taken to be a bundle of
rags moving in one dark corner.

"Who's there?" boldly cried Bunny, holding Sue's hand.

"Why, I'm here," was the answer. "I'm Nutty, the tramp. Who are you? My,
I've had a fine sleep!" the voice went on, and it was rather a jolly,
good-natured voice Bunny thought. "Such a fine sleep as I've had!"

There was the sound of grunting, yawning, and stretching. Then the voice
cried in surprise:

"Why, we're moving!"

"Yes," answered Bunny, wondering who in the world Nutty, the tramp,
might be. "The train is going!"

"Well, well! And to think I slept through it!"

Bunny and Sue could see the ragged bundle in the corner getting up. It
came toward them, and in the light that came through the crack in the
freight car door the children saw that their fellow traveler was a very
ragged man--a regular tramp in fact.

On his part Nutty, as he called himself, stared with surprised eyes at
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.

"Two kids!" cried the tramp. "Bless my ragged gloves! Two kids!"

CHAPTER XIV

A QUEER PICNIC

Bunny and Sue did not know just what to make of this ragged tramp who
was traveling in the freight car with them. It was not, of course, the
first time they had seen a tramp--they were plentiful enough around
Bellemere at times, and often they had come begging for food at the back
door of the Brown house. Bunny and Sue had often seen their mother feed
the poor men, and some of them were quite jolly, and joked about their
bad luck.

This tramp, "Nutty," he had called himself, was one of the jolly kind,
the two children decided. Nutty now came from the corner where he had
been sleeping and stood in the light that came through the door Bunny
had slid back a little way.

"What in the world are you doing here?" asked Nutty, as he again
stretched out his arms, showing the rags and patches of his torn coat.

"We came in to get the kitten," answered Sue.

"What, my kitten? My Toddle?" cried the tramp. "You wouldn't take little
Toddle away from me, would you?"

"Oh, is that your kitten?" asked Bunny Brown. "We didn't know. We
thought it was a stray pussy that had got up in the freight car and
couldn't get out. We climbed up in to take it to our mother so it could
have some milk, and then the train started."

"Oh, ho! So that's how it happened?" asked Nutty. "I wondered how you
two kids got here. I knew you couldn't be tramps. But Toddle is my
kitten all right. I call him Toddle because that's about all he can do
in the way of a walk. He toddles on his four little legs," and Nutty
laughed, which made Bunny and Sue feel better.

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