"What's what?" asked Bunny, who had been trying to make the p.u.s.s.y 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 p.u.s.s.y 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.

"Yes, Toddle is my kitten," the queer tramp went on. "I picked him up the other day in the fields. I guess he was lost--a tramp like myself. I put him in my pocket--it's got some holes in it, but none of them quite big enough for Toddle to fall through--and I've kept him ever since. He was with me when I crawled into this car to go to sleep."

"Were you in this car when we got in after the cat?" asked Bunny. "We didn't see you."

"For a good reason," the tramp answered. "I didn't want any one to see me. The railroad men don't like us tramps, and when they find us in the cars they put us out. I crawled away back in the darkest corner I could find and curled up. I must have looked like a bundle of rags."

"You did," Bunny answered. "That's what I thought you were."

"It's the safest way to look when a railroad man is searching for you,"

Nutty answered, with a laugh. "Well, I'm on my way again," he added.

"The engine must have backed down, coupled on to the freight cars, and hauled them off while I slept. Where are you children going?"

"We--we don't know," answered Bunny Brown, and then he and Sue felt a wave of lonesomeness coming over them. They wanted their father and mother, and the children knew they were being carried farther and farther away from their parents as the train jolted along. They knew daddy and mother would be much frightened, too.

"Where is your mother?" asked Nutty, the tramp.

"She was sitting on a bench at the station when we climbed into the car to get the kitten," explained Sue.

"She didn't see us," added her brother.

"And where is your father?" Nutty wanted to know.

"He's up in the village seeing a man," said Bunny. "We're going to Florida to get alligators--"

"And oranges!" broke in Sue.

"Yes, and oranges," admitted Bunny. "And we stopped off here to change trains and get something to eat."

"Hum!" mused Nutty. "Speaking of something to eat, where's Toddle? That kitten must be hungry."

"Here it is!" exclaimed Sue, stooping down and picking up the little cat which was purring around her legs.

"Come on, Toddle, I'll give you some milk," said Nutty, holding out his hands for his pet.

"Oh, have you got milk here?" eagerly asked Bunny.

"Well, I've a little in a bottle that I have been saving for Toddle,"

the tramp answered. "But if you are thirsty I can give you a drink of water. I've got some nice, clean water in a bottle."

"I'm thirsty," said Sue, in a low voice.

"And I'm hungry!" exclaimed Bunny Brown. "But I don't s'pose you have anything to eat, have you?" he asked, hopefully.

"Ha! That's just what I have!" exclaimed the tramp. "If you'll come with me, back to my corner where I left my things, we'll have a little picnic. I don't want to make a light so near this crack in the door.

Some railroad men at the stations we pa.s.s might see us, and then I'd be arrested."

"What for?" Bunny wanted to know.