CHAPTER XVII

A WORRIED MOTHER

While Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were traveling in the freight car with the p.u.s.s.y and with Nutty, the tramp, Mrs. Brown was left alone on the station platform, where she had sat down to rest after lunch and to wait for her husband. Mr. Brown had some business to attend to uptown, and he had to see not one man, as he thought at first, but several.

Mrs. Brown watched Bunny and Sue walk down the street alongside of the freight tracks, but she did not see the children cross to look into the open car.

Then Mrs. Brown went to sleep, or, if she did not exactly go to sleep, she closed her eyes, so she saw nothing of what went on.

Mrs. Brown was suddenly awakened from her mid-day doze on the railroad station bench by hearing a loud banging noise. The noise was caused when the engine backed down the track, b.u.mped into the train of freight cars and was coupled to them. Then the engine started off, pulling the cars with it.

"My, I thought that was a clap of thunder!" said Mrs. Brown, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "I'm glad it isn't," she went on, as she saw the warm, southern sun shining.

"Where did Bunny and Sue go?" she asked herself, speaking aloud, as she arose from the bench. Then she heard some voices of children on the other side of the station, and, thinking her two might be there, she walked around to the farther platform.

But there were only some colored boys playing with their marbles and tops.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, "I hope those two haven't wandered away. I hope they haven't gone toward the town, thinking they can find their father. I must look for them."

She went back to the place where she had been sitting on the bench and looked down the street where she had last seen Bunny and Sue. But the children were not there. And the freight train was almost out of sight now down the track.

"Perhaps they are in talking to the station agent," thought Mother Brown. "Surely they wouldn't wander away without telling me."

But as this was between the time for trains the office of the station agent was closed. He had gone home and would not be back until it was time for the arrival of the train Mr. Brown intended taking, to go on to Orange Beach.

The door of the office was locked and the gla.s.s ticket window was closed. Inside the office could be heard the clicking of the telegraph sounders, and this, with the voices of the colored boys playing with their tops, were the only noises to be heard.

"Where can Bunny and Sue have gone?" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, getting more and more worried. "They must have wandered off. If there had been an accident on the track, I'd see something of it." She was glad there was no sign of a train having hurt any little boy or girl. In fact, except for the freight train having pulled away, there had been no other trains moving around the station since the Browns had arrived.

"I'll go ask those colored boys if they have seen Bunny and Sue," said Mrs. Brown to herself.

She walked around the corner of the station, and was just in time to see one little colored boy trip another, sending him sprawling in the dust.

"Heah, yo' li'l sinnah!" cried the boy who had sent the other sprawling.

"What fo' yo' tuck mah top!"

"Ah didn't tek yo' top, Sam!" answered the other, as he arose from the dust.

"Yes, yo' did!" declared the other. "Now yo' go on 'way from heah or Ah'll cuff yo' ears!"

In answer the other colored boy, the one who had been tripped, rushed at his enemy and struck him with clenched fist. In an instant the other hit back, and soon there was a lively fight. The colored boys fell down and rolled over and over in the dust.

"Here! Here! You boys mustn't fight!" cried Mrs. Brown, hastening toward them and trying to pull off the one on top, who was pounding the bottom lad with his fists. "Stop it!"

"You best let 'em alone, lady," said an older colored boy, with a grin.

"Dem two am always fightin', but dey don't do no harm nohow!"

"But it isn't nice to fight," said the mother of Bunny and Sue. "Get up, please, I want to ask you boys something."

Hearing this, and seeing that Mrs. Brown was well dressed and was a "white lady of quality" carrying a pocketbook out of which pennies might be handed, the fighting boys stopped. The top one got off the other, and both stood up, dusting off their ragged clothes. Neither seemed much hurt, and both were broadly grinning.

"You mustn't fight!" declared Mrs. Brown.

"Oh, we was only in fun, lady," laughed the one who had first tripped the other.

"Have you seen a little boy and girl?" went on Mrs. Brown.

"White chilluns?" asked one of the black boys.

"Co'se she done mean white chilluns!" exclaimed another. "I done seen 'em get offen de train!"

"Have you seen them since?" asked Mrs. Brown. "We had lunch, and my husband went uptown. I sat down on the bench, and Bunny and Sue walked down the street. I haven't seen them since, and they aren't in sight. Do you know where they are?"

None of the colored boys did, it appeared, though hearing that two white children were missing there were soon eager volunteers to search for them.

Out and around the station scattered the colored boys, Mrs. Brown having said she would give fifty cents to the one first bringing news of Bunny and Sue.

"Oh, golly! I'se gwine to earn dat money, suah!" cried one lad.

But though the boys looked up and down the different streets, and though some even went into near-by stores, not a trace of Bunny or Sue could they find. And for a good reason--because Bunny and Sue were traveling far away in the freight car with Nutty, the tramp.

Mrs. Brown became more and more worried as nearly an hour pa.s.sed and Bunny and Sue were not found. The station agent came back, for it was nearly time for the other train to arrive. But he could tell nothing of the missing children.

"I must find my husband!" Mrs. Brown exclaimed, and she was just starting uptown when Mr. Brown came riding to the station in an automobile. One of the business men, on whom he had called, had brought him back in the car.

"Oh, Walter," cried Mrs. Brown, "Bunny and Sue are lost! I can't find them anywhere! What shall we do?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRICK DOG

We left Bunny and Sue Brown standing beside the track with the jolly switchman, who laughed at the little girl's question as to whether his wife lived in the small brown shanty.

"My wife live in that little shanty?" he cried, his face all wrinkled with smiles like a last year's apple. "Why, that shack is hardly big enough for me, and when my dog comes to see me he has to stick his tail outside if he wants to wag it!"

"Oh, have you a dog?" cried Bunny.

"That I have, and a fine dog he is, too. He's at home with my wife now, in the cottage. But I'll soon take you there. My, my! but you're little children to have come alone in a freight car."

"We weren't alone," explained Sue. "Nutty was with us."