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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"Yes!" answered the little boy. He was too busy to talk much, for he was
thinking of the best plan to get his raft into the water. For the boards
and logs, now nailed together, must be shoved from the shore into the
river, else there could be no wonderful voyage down-stream to the
"pirate island."

Bunny had often seen his father move heavy boards from the shore into
the waters of the bay by means of rollers. Rollers are round pieces of
wood, like the rolling pin in mother's kitchen. Rollers placed under a
boat make it easy to launch into the water. If you have ever seen men
moving a house from one street to another you may have noticed that they
used rollers. Or they may have slid the house along on big beams which
were made slippery with grease or soap.

"I'll roll my raft into the water," said Bunny.

"And I'll help!" offered Sue, for she knew what rolling a boat into the
water meant--she had often seen her father do it.

Getting the raft into Squaw River was not quite as hard as putting the
craft together. By using a long pole Bunny managed to raise up one edge
of his nailed-together boards and logs, and under it Sue slipped a round
roller, which was a short piece of round tree trunk. Then when Bunny
raised up the other side of the raft his sister slipped under it
another roller.

"Now she'll slide!" cried Bunny, as he had often heard his father or
Bunker Blue say.

With his long pole Bunny now pried up on the rear of the raft. At first
it did not move, and Bunny began to be afraid he and Sue would not,
after all, have a voyage down the river.

But at last it slid a little bit, and then more and more, until finally
it was rolling along quite rapidly. As the bank sloped down to the river
like a little hill, Bunny hardly had to push or pry at all now, and a
minute later the raft was floating in the water.

It would have floated away, but Bunny had tied a rope to one edge, and
the other end of the rope he had fastened to a tree stump on shore, so
the raft was "made fast," as a sailor would say. Bunny had been around
his father's dock enough to know that when one puts a boat into the
water one must make it fast or it will be lost.

"Isn't our raft nice, Bunny?" exclaimed Sue, as she saw it floating in
the water.

"Yes," Bunny agreed, "we'll have lots of fun! Wait till I get the lunch
and we'll start."

"I want a pole so I can help push," said Sue.

"All right. You bring the bag of lunch and I'll get you a pole,"
promised Bunny.

Soon the two children were on the raft, each one thrusting with a pole
on the bottom of the river, which was not very deep, and so shoving
themselves along. In the middle of the raft was the bag of lunch--the
dried bread, pieces of cake and a very much flattened piece of pie that
Bunny had found on the pantry shelf.

"Oh, this is lots of fun!" exclaimed Sue, as they floated along.

"Yep!" agreed Bunny, shoving hard on his pole. "I'm glad we came to
Florida."

It was very pleasant on this part of Squaw River, where it ran through
the orange groves of Mr. Halliday. On either side were growing palms and
other trees, some of which met overhead in a green arch, making it very
shady. Only for this the sun would have been very warm--quite different
from the sun in Bellemere, where there was now snow on the ground.

"Our snow man wouldn't last very long down here, would he, Bunny?" asked
Sue, as she began to feel quite warm from poling the raft.

"Nope! A snow house wouldn't either," Bunny answered. "But I like it
here."

"So do I," said Sue. "There's lots of birds, too."

There were. Bunny and Sue could hear them flitting through the tree
branches overhead, and could listen to their songs. Sometimes birds with
brilliant feathers flashed into view, disappearing in the thick, leafy
trees on either side of the river.

Bunny had made his raft rather strong and heavy, so that it floated well
up out of the water. In fact, the top part was quite dry, and if the
children had worn shoes and stockings they would have been perfectly
safe. But Bunny knew that, sooner or later, water generally washes over
the top of a raft, for one side or the other is likely to tip down. So
he and Sue were barefooted. They had left their shoes and stockings on
shore at the spot where they had launched the raft. It did not matter
now whether the water washed over the top of their craft or not.

On and on, down the river floated the two children. For a time nothing
happened. It was as calm and peaceful as even Mrs. Brown could have
wished. But Bunny and Sue wanted something to happen, and pretty soon
Bunny said:

"Let's eat!"

"Oh, yes, let's!" agreed Sue, always willing to do what Bunny did.

"We'll make believe it's dinner time," Bunny went on, "and we'll let the
raft float."

There was enough current in the river to carry the raft gently down, and
Bunny and Sue were in no hurry.

Bunny had thought the time would come when he and his sister might want
to sit down on their raft, and to keep them up out of the water he had
put two empty orange crates on the craft. These made fine seats, and on
one the lunch bag had been placed.

Laying their pushing poles down on top of the raft, in the middle,
Bunny and Sue sat down on the orange crates and began to eat what they
had brought with them. It did not matter that the cake and the bread
were stale. To the children the food tasted as good as anything they had
ever eaten at a party.

As they ate and floated along, the raft swung this way and that,
sometimes turning completely around, so, at times, the children were
going backward down the stream. It was at one of these times that they
felt a sudden bump and jar--almost like the time when the engine had
hitched itself to the freight car.

"Oh!" cried Sue. "What's that?"

Bunny turned, gave one look and cried:

"Hurray! We're here!"

"Where?" Sue asked.

"On the pirate island! Come on! All ashore!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ALLIGATORS

Bunny and Sue had, indeed, landed on an island in Squaw River. Or if
they had not exactly landed as yet, they were soon going to. For their
raft, floating downstream, had, as Sue expressed it, "bunked" on the
shore of a patch of land in the middle of the stream, forming an island.

As you learned in school, an island is a "body of land entirely
surrounded by water." That's what the place was where Bunny and Sue had
come. Water was all around the little patch of land, on which grew
several trees.

"All ashore!" cried Bunny again, as he had often heard his father or
Bunker Blue call when the fishing boats reached the dock. "All ashore!"

"Are we going to stay here long?" asked Sue, as she got up and brushed
the crumbs of bread and cake from her lap.

"Yes," Bunny answered, "we'll stay here all day and all night. We'll
make believe we're regular pirates!"

"Oh, we can't stay all _night_!" objected Sue.

"Well, we'll stay all day, anyhow," Bunny said. "And we'll go home when
it gets dark, and to-morrow we'll come back and stay all night."

"That'll be fun," agreed Sue. "Now we'll go on the island."

As yet the children were not off the raft. Their make-believe boat had
grounded on one of the sandy stretches that marked the shore of the
island, and there it stayed. Bunny took the mooring rope and made it
fast to a tree stump on shore. He did not want the raft to float away
as, more than once, some of his father's boats had floated off from the
dock.

Then Bunny and Sue, taking the bag of lunch with them, went on
shore--that is on the island. It was a pleasant place, with trees and
bushes to make shade, and with birds to sing to them.

"There doesn't anybody live here, I guess," Sue said, as they walked
about, looking on every side.

"Nobody ever lives on an island 'cepting pirates," Bunny said; "and
we're them."

"Maybe there are other pirates here," suggested Sue.

"If there are we'll fight 'em!" Bunny said.

"Oh!" exclaimed his sister, "mother wouldn't like to have us fight."

"Only make-believe," explained Bunny.

"Oh, make-believe is all right," Sue agreed.

Carrying their bag of lunch, the children wandered here and there over
the island. It was larger than they at first supposed, and Bunny was
glad of this. It was very still and quiet there, the ripple of the
water, the wind in the trees, and the birds making the only sounds.

"I guess daddy and mother are away off, aren't they?" asked Sue, after a
while.

"Miles and miles," Bunny answered. "Aren't you glad, Sue?"

"Ye--yes, I--I guess so," she answered, and her voice sounded so strange
that Bunny was afraid his sister might be going to cry. This would
never do! A crying pirate! Never!

Bunny must think of a way so his sister would not be lonesome. That was
the trouble now, he decided--she was getting lonesome because it was so
still and quiet on the island, far away from the orange groves.

The little boy ran back to the raft and brought off the sharp stick he
had placed there at the start of the voyage.

"What's that for?" asked Sue.

"For alligators," answered her brother. "I've got to have a sharp stick
to drive the alligators away, you know."

"Oh, Bunny!" gasped Sue, moving closer to him, "are there alligators
here--on our island?"

"I don't know," he answered. "I'm going to look for some."

"You're going to look for alligators?" cried Sue in surprise.

"Sure!" Bunny answered. "So they won't crawl up behind our backs and
bite us when we're eating some more lunch."

"Oh!" exclaimed Sue. "Well, I'll help you look for some then, so we can
drive 'em away!"

That was one thing Bunny liked about Sue. After you had told her about a
thing she was always ready to join in with you. And she was pretty brave
after all.

"Shall I get you a sharp stick, too?" asked Bunny of his sister. "Then
you can help drive the alligators away."

"No, I don't guess I want to," she answered. "I'll just help you look
for 'em and help you drive 'em away."

"All right," said Bunny Brown.

So he and Sue began walking along the edge of the island, looking for
alligators. They were in their bare feet, but the wet sand was smooth to
walk on. Sue, however, made up her mind as soon as she saw an alligator
to run back as far as she could. She did not want one to nip her bare
toes, she decided. If she had had on shoes it might be different.

For a time no alligators were seen, though Bunny looked eagerly for
them. I can not say that Sue looked as eagerly as did her brother.
Perhaps she wished that no alligators would be found.

But, all of a sudden, as they were walking along Sue grasped Bunny by
the arm and exclaimed:

"Look!"

"Where?" whispered Bunny, for he was filled with excitement.

"Right over by that stone!" and Sue pointed ahead a little way and down
the island shore. "Isn't that an alligator?" she asked.

Bunny looked long and carefully. Then he showed much disappointment as
he answered:

"No, that isn't an alligator, Sue. It's just an old floating log, like
the one we pegged stones at the other day. It isn't an alligator at
all."

She was glad of it, but she did not say so.

"It looked like an alligator, anyhow," she remarked.

"Yes," agreed Bunny, as he tossed a stone near the black object, hitting
it and thus making sure it was not alive. "It did look like an
alligator. But we'll find some--come on."

However, this did not seem to be a very good day for alligators, and the
children had reached the most distant end of the island without seeing
any when suddenly Sue, who had wandered a little ahead of her brother,
called out:

"Look, there's another island!"

And, surely enough, there was a smaller one a short distance from the
larger one on which the children had first landed.

"Come on! We'll go there!" cried Bunny. "Maybe there's alligators
there!"

He hurried down to the strip of water that separated the two islands.
Then he began to roll up his trousers as far above his knees as he
could.

"What you going to do?" asked Sue.

"I'm going to wade over to that other island," Bunny answered.

"Maybe the water's deep," suggested his sister.

"Well, if it is I won't go," Bunny replied. "But I don't guess it is."

"And maybe there's alligators in the water," went on Sue.

Bunny paused and looked at the strip between the two islands, one
large, on which they then were, the other smaller. Nothing seemed to be
in the strip of water.

"I guess it's all right," said Bunny Brown, as he finished rolling up
his trousers.

Into the water he waded, and as Sue did not want to be left behind she
followed, holding up her dress and skirt to keep them dry. She hurried
over the strip of water, which was quite shallow, only coming to the
knees of the children.

"Now maybe we'll find some alligators here," Bunny said hopefully, as he
started along the shore of the second island, Sue following.

Again Sue hoped Bunny would not have any luck finding the scaly
creatures, but she did not say so.

"How long you going to stay here, Bunny?" asked Sue, when they had
walked almost around the small island. "I'm getting hungry again."

"Well, we'll go back pretty soon and eat the rest of the lunch," agreed
Bunny. "But I wish--"

He suddenly stopped what he was saying and looked sharply ahead. Sue
looked also, and what she saw made her rush to the side of her brother,
cling to his arm and cry:

"There they are! There are the alligators!"

"Yes!" exclaimed Bunny. "They're sure enough alligators!"

There could be no mistake about it this time. Crawling up out of the
river to the shore of the small island were a number of the long-tailed,
scaly creatures with the big snouts. And as one of the alligators
crawled up he opened his mouth, showing rows of sharp teeth.

"Oh, I don't want to stay here!" cried Sue, in alarm.

Bunny Brown grasped more firmly his sharp stick.

"Don't be afraid!" he said. "I won't let the alligators hurt you!"

CHAPTER XXV

MR. BUNN

Sue Brown thought a great deal of her brother Bunny, and she knew he was
brave and good to her. But whether he could save her from the alligators
she was not quite so certain.

"Oh, Bunny, Bunny! where you going?" cried Sue, as she felt her brother
pull away from her.

"I'm going down there to drive those alligators away with my sharp
stick!" he answered.

"Oh, Bunny, don't!" begged Sue. "There's such a lot of 'em!"

Bunny began to think this himself. As he and his sister watched, they
saw more alligators crawling up out of the water to the warm sunny bank
of the little island.

"There's hundreds of 'em!" cried Sue.

More and more alligators kept coming out of the water. Some were
large--fully fifteen feet long perhaps, with big, sharp claws, a long,
rough tail, and such big mouths! Others of the alligators were small,
but there were no babies among them.

The sun shone warm on the mud and sand shores of the little island and
that is why the alligators climbed out there. Alligators spend about
half their time under water, getting things to eat, but when the sun
shines hot they like to bask in it. That is what the scaly creatures
were now doing.

"Let's don't hurt alligators," begged Sue of her brother. "Let's go back
to our own island."

Bunny looked at the big, glistening, black creatures, as they crawled
over one another, sometimes giving flips with their tails and opening
their mouths. And though Bunny was a brave little chap he knew it would
never do for him to go anywhere near the alligators. As it was, he and
his sister were some distance back from the shore, up near the center of
the little island. The alligators did not seem to have noticed them.

"All right," Bunny answered. "I won't hurt any of the alligators. We'll
go home and I'll tell daddy and Mr. Halliday and they can come and hunt
them."

"That'll be better," Sue said, with a sigh of relief.

For a little while longer the two children remained looking at the great
water lizards. Then they started for the place where they had waded from
one island to the other.

But when they reached this place, Sue keeping hold of her brother's hand
all the way, they saw a new trouble.

"Oh, look!" cried Sue, pointing. "We can't get away, Bunny! The wading
place is full of alligators!"

And so it was! While the children had been at the center of the little
island, the alligators had crawled up out of the river, and many were
now sunning themselves on the sand near the ford. One or two were even
on the end of the larger island. And as Bunny and Sue watched, they saw
some swimming around in the shallow water through which the children
had waded a little while before.

"We--we can't get back across!" Sue cried.

"No," agreed Bunny. "I don't b'lieve we can. Not in our bare feet."

Clearly it would have been dangerous to go in among those alligators.
Even Bunny, brave as he was, would not dare to do this.

"Oh, how are we going to get home?" wailed Sue.

Bunny did not know what to answer.

"I want mother!" sobbed Sue. This time she was really crying. Bunny felt
he must do something. He dropped the pointed stick he had intended to
use on the alligators and, putting his arm around Sue, said:

"Don't cry! I'll holler for help and somebody will hear us and come and
get us."

"Will they?" asked Sue.

"Sure!" Bunny answered. "Come on, we'll both call!"

The children united their voices in loud calls of:

"Help! Help! Help!"

For a moment there was no answer. Some of the alligators seemed alarmed
by the noise and scrambled back into the river. But others of the big,
scaly creatures seemed to be crawling up toward Bunny Brown and his
sister Sue.

"Oh, help! Help!" screamed the little girl, and Bunny joined his voice
with hers.

Then, to their delight, they heard a call in answer.

"What's the matter? Who are you? Where are you?" asked a man, who, as
yet, neither Bunny nor Sue could see.

"We're on the island! The alligators are after us!" Bunny answered.

"Don't be afraid! I'll be with you in a minute. They're my alligators
and they got out of the pens," the man went on. This time Bunny and Sue
knew where his voice came from. They looked down the stream and saw an
elderly man, with white hair and a pleasant face, rowing toward them in
a boat.

"Oh, take us away! Take us away!" begged Sue.

"I will," the man said. "How in the world did you children ever get
here, anyhow? But don't be afraid. The 'gators won't hurt you. They'll
all jump into the river!"

And, surely enough, no sooner had the man pulled his boat close to the
island, so that the keel grated on the sand, than, with great splashes,
the alligators all plunged into the river.

"What made 'em go away?" asked Sue, as she and Bunny went down to the
shore.

"Oh, alligators are timid," said the man, with a laugh. "Did they scare
you? Well, if you had only run at them or thrown something at them, they
would all have crawled into the water. But who are you, anyhow?"

"I'm Bunny Brown and this is my sister, Sue," said the little fellow.

"Well, I'm Mr. Bunn," was the man's reply, and he smiled at the
children. "I raise alligators a few miles down the river. Some of 'em
got away last night, and I've rowed up here to see if I could find 'em.
I did."

"But they all got away!" exclaimed Bunny, for now not one of the scaly
creatures was in sight.

"Oh, I'll get 'em again," said Mr. Bunn. "They won't go very much
farther up Squaw River. It's too shallow. They'll soon turn and swim
down, and they can't get past my place for I have a net stretched across
the river to hold 'em back. Well, I'm glad I have found my 'gators. I
was afraid some one had taken them. Now shall I put you children in my
boat and row you home? Where do you live?"

"We're staying at Mr. Halliday's," Bunny answered.

"Oh, at Orange Beach. Yes, I know him and I know his place. You're quite
a way from there. How'd you get here?"

"On a raft," Bunny replied. "It's over on that other island," and he
pointed to the larger one.

"Our shoes and stockings are away back near the orange trees," said Sue.

"Oh," laughed Mr. Bunn. "Well, I'll let you come in my boat without any
shoes or stockings on. Get aboard!"

A little later he was rowing the children up the river. Sue was no
longer afraid, even though she could see some alligators swimming around
in the water. She felt safe in the big boat, and so did Bunny.

"What do you keep 'gators for?" asked Bunny, when the boat was near the
place where he and Sue had started out in the raft, some hours before.

"For their hides," answered Mr. Bunn. "I sell the hides, and pocketbooks
and valises are made from them. But I guess there are your folks looking
for you," and he nodded toward shore.

And there, on the bank stood Daddy and Mother Brown and Mr. Halliday,
looking anxiously up and down the stream. Daddy Brown had the children's
shoes and stockings in his hand.

"Oh, Bunny! where have you been?" cried his mother.

"We went down on a raft, and we landed on a pirate island, and then we
got on an alligator island," Bunny explained.

"Alligators!" cried Daddy Brown.

"Some of mine got away," explained Mr. Bunn. And then he told how he had
found Bunny and Sue.

"Well, you had quite an adventure!" exclaimed the orange grower. "I knew
Mr. Bunn had 'gators on his place, but I never thought any of 'em would
get away and come up here."

"Well, I'm glad we saw some," said Bunny.

Mr. Brown thanked Mr. Bunn for having saved Bunny and Sue, and as it was
near meal time the alligator farmer was invited to stay to supper.
Washed and combed, with clean clothes on, Bunny and Sue sat at the table
and related their adventures, while Mr. Bunn told about raising
alligators.

"Do you make much money?" asked Mr. Brown.

"Well, yes, some years I do," was the answer. "But I'd like to make an
extra lot this year. I've had some bad luck."

"Do you mean your alligators getting away?" asked Mr. Brown.

"No, though that's bad enough," Mr. Bunn replied. "But I was up North a
few weeks ago on business, and I lost a valuable paper belonging to my
nephew. It was for some stock in an oil well, and was made out to
'bearer.' If it had had his name on it I might have got it back. But as
it is, I guess it's gone forever. He gave me the stock certificate to
keep for him, but I guess I'm not very good at keeping things. I haven't
told my nephew about it yet, but when he finds out I have lost his oil
stock temporary certificate he'll be angry with me, I'm afraid."

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue looked at one another curiously. Daddy
Brown went over to a desk where he and Mr. Halliday had been looking at
some papers before they missed the children.

"Did you lose that certificate in a parlor car up near Bellemere, Mr.
Bunn?" asked the children's father, as he took a green and gold piece of
paper from an envelope.

"Well, I remember going through a place called Bellemere," was the
answer. "But where I lost the paper I don't know. I may have dropped it
from my pocket in the parlor car, or somewhere else. Anyhow, I lost it,
and I don't suppose I'll ever see my nephew's certificate again. He'll
be angry with me."

"Oh, no, I guess he won't," said Mr. Brown with a smile. "What company
was that stock in?"

"The Great Bonanza," was Mr. Bunn's answer.

"Then here it is back again," said Mr. Brown, and he gave to the
alligator farmer the paper Bunny had picked out of the snow some weeks
before.

Then the whole story was told, and you can imagine how glad and
surprised Mr. Bunn was. He had never expected to see his nephew's
property again, and he had not told about the loss nor notified the oil
company, for fear his nephew would hear of it and be angry.

"I was just going to let it go and say nothing," said Mr. Bunn. "I
thought I could make enough extra on my alligators to pay my nephew back
for the loss. But now I don't have to! I'm so glad I met you children!"
he added. "But for that I would never have this back," and he put into
his pocket the green and gold certificate. He wanted to give Mr. Brown a
reward for the children, but their mother said rescuing them from the
alligators was reward enough.

"But they were my own 'gators, and, really, Bunny and Sue were in no
great danger," said Mr. Bunn. "They could have scared the 'gators away."

But Mr. Brown would accept no reward, though later Mr. Bunn did send
Bunny and Sue a tiny live alligator for a pet, and they kept it for some
time, for it grew quite tame and would eat bits of meat from their
fingers--at least from Bunny's, for Sue never learned to like their
scaly pet.

Meanwhile Mr. Bunn had gone back down the river to his alligator farm.
He said he would get his men together and capture the big lizards that
had got away.

Bunny and Sue had many more days of fun in the sunny South, and they ate
all the oranges they wanted.

But what Bunny talked about most when he and Sue reached their Northern
home was the adventure with the alligators on the little island.

Before they went home, however, Bunny and Sue went to Mr. Bunn's queer
"farm," and saw hundreds of alligators where they were kept in pens.
Most of those that broke away had been captured again. Mr. Bunn's nephew
came down to help his uncle, and was given his oil stock certificate,
never knowing how nearly it had been lost.

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