CHAPTER III

READY FOR THE TRIP

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Go and love your mother for a change!" laughed Mr.

Brown as he squirmed away from Bunny and Sue, who had hugged him and kissed him half a dozen times. "You've mussed my hair all up! Isn't my hair sticking up seven ways, Mother?" he asked his wife.

"Indeed it is. If you children muss mine that way I shall have to comb it again before supper, and I'll hardly have time if father is to explain about the auto tour. This is as much news to me, Bunny and Sue, as it is to you."

"Oh, Mother made a rhyme! Now we'll have a good time!" cried Bunny.

"Come on, Sue, we'll kiss her easy-like, and then we'll hear about the trip. When are you going, Daddy?"

"And where?" asked Sue.

"One is about as important as the other," laughed Mr. Brown. "But I think you will have to wait a while. I want to telephone to the chief of police, and have him start the search for Fred Ward. We have to work quickly in the cases of runaway boys, or they get so far away that it makes them harder to find."

"What makes boys run away?" asked Bunny.

"Well, it's hard to tell," said Mr. Brown. "Sometimes it's because they feel ashamed at being punished, just as Fred was, and as you might be, Bunny, if I scolded you for being bad. Not that you are often naughty, but you might be, some time."

"But I wouldn't run away," Bunny said, shaking his head very earnestly.

"I like it here too much. I read a story once, about a boy who ran away, and he had to sleep in a haymow and eat raw eggs for breakfast."

"Oh! I'd never do _that_!" cried Sue. "I wouldn't mind playing with the little chickens that came out of the eggs, but I wouldn't run away,"

she said earnestly. "I wouldn't want to sleep in a haystack lessen Bunny was with me."

"Well, when you two make up your minds to run away," said Mrs. Brown with a laugh, "tell us, and we'll come for you when night falls and bring you home. Then you can sleep in your own beds and run away the next day.

"That will be great!" cried Bunny. "We'll do it that way, Sue."

"That's what we will!" said she.

They were at the Browns' house now, and Dix, the dog that belonged to the runaway boy, turned to go back home. Splash barked at him as much as to say:

"Oh, come on, old fellow, stay and have a good time. Maybe I can find a choice bone or two."

But Dix wagged his tail and barked, and if one had understood dog language, of which I suppose there must be one, he would, perhaps, have heard Dix say:

"No, old chap. I'm sorry I can't come to play with you now. Some other time, perhaps. There's trouble at home you know, and I'd better stay around there."

Then Splash and Dix looked at each other for a little while, saying never a word, as one might call it, only looking at each other. They seemed to understand, however, for, with a final wagging of their tails, away they ran, Dix back to the Ward home where the mother and the father were grieving for their lost boy, and Splash on to the happy home of the Browns.

"Now, Daddy, you can tell us about that auto trip we are going to take, while mother is seeing to the supper," called Bunny as he pulled his father toward a big armchair, while Sue clung to her father on the other side.

"Not until after the meal," insisted Mr. Brown. "I want to tell it to mother and you all at the same time. That will save me from talking so much. Besides, I haven't yet told the police about missing Fred Ward."

Mr. Brown soon called the chief on the telephone wire. Being the president of the police board, Mr. Brown often had to give orders.

In this case he told the chief about Fred running away, how long the boy had been gone, and about the note saying he was going to join a theater company.

"We'd better get some circulars printed, with the boy's picture on them," said Mr. Brown to the chief. "These we can send to other cities.

And we'll notify the police by telephone. I'll be down to see you this evening."

"All right," answered the chief. "I'll get right after this boy."

"And tell whoever catches him to be good and kind to him," said Mr.

Brown. "Fred is not a bad boy. He feels that he has not been treated well, and he'll do his best to hide away. But a boy with a banjo, who is crazy to play in a show, ought not be very hard to find."

"No, I think we'll soon pick him up," the chief said.

"Well, pick him up as soon as you can," said Mr. Brown.

"Pick him _up_!" repeated Bunny, who had been listening to his father's side of the conversation. "Did Fred fall down?"

"No. 'Pick him up' is a police expression," explained Mr. Brown. "It means find him, or learn where he is."

"Oh, I see," murmured Bunny. "Well, I hope they'll soon find Fred."

The talk at supper time drifted from the running away of the boy next door, and what might happen to him, to the trip the Browns were to take in the big car.

"Well, now are you ready to tell us?" asked Bunny, as he saw his father finish his cup of tea.

"Yes, I'll tell you a little now, and more when the time comes, as I have soon to go down to the police station with Fred's picture. But I'll tell you enough so you can sleep easy," said Mr. Brown with a laugh.

Then he sat thinking for a while as to the best way to tell his news.

"In the first place----" began Mr. Brown, only to have Bunny interrupt him with:

"Oh, it starts off just like a story!"

"No," cried Sue. "A story begins: 'Once upon a time.'"

"Well, never mind about that now," said Mr. Brown with a laugh. "Let me get on with what I have to tell you. The first part is that I have to go to a city called Portland, about three hundred miles down the coast.

I have to go there on business, but there is no particular hurry. That is, I can take my time on the road. Just what the business is about needn't worry your heads, except that I'm going to look at a big motor boat which I may buy."

"And may I have a ride in it?" cried Bunny.

"I want to ride myself," cried Sue, "and I want to learn how to steer."

"Well, we'll talk that over later," said her father. "Just now I am going to tell you about our auto tour. We are going, as I said, to the city of Portland. It is three hundred miles there, but the roundabout roads we will take may make it longer."

"Can we stop over a day or so here and there?" asked Mrs. Brown.

"Yes, several days, if we like," said her husband. "We are going in the big enclosed auto, in which we went to grandpa's farm."

"That will be lovely!" cried Sue.