Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South Part 14

But this is as far as this railroad runs and we have to get off and take another train. The place where we will get off is only a small station in a little town, but there is a man there I want to see on business."

"Will you stay there long?" asked Mrs. Brown.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 p.u.s.s.y!" 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 p.u.s.s.y seemed to think this was too far to jump down.

"Poor little p.u.s.s.y!" 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 p.u.s.s.y! It ran away and now we can't feed it!"