WITH A WHIZZ AND A ROAR THE TRAIN SPED PAST.WITH A WHIZZ AND A ROAR THE TRAIN SPED PAST.
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South.Page 44
With a whizz and a roar the train sped past Bunny and Sue in the sleigh. They were quite near it, being alongside the tracks.
Prince stamped and reared a little, but he seemed to have gotten over his first fright, and was more like himself. Usually he was not skittish nor afraid of trains or engines. But not having been out of the stable for some time and having had no exercise, he was, likemany other horses, ready to run away at the first loud noise. But Uncle Tad had pulled him down to a walk and guided him into the snowdrift just in time.
"My, that train was going fast!" exclaimed Sue, as it roared on its way.
"If it had hit us it would—it would have busted us all to pieces, wouldn't it, Uncle Tad?" asked Bunny, who, being a little older than his sister, knew more about the danger they had been in.
"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed the soldier, as he again spoke soothingly to Prince. "Getting in the way of railroad trains is dangerous. But we're all right now."
"Then let's go on," begged Sue. "I don't like it here. Let's get daddy's boxes and go for a nice ride where there aren't any trains, Uncle Tad."
"All right, we will," promised the old gentleman. But as he looked up and down the track, to make sure all was clear, he heard the whistle of another engine and the roar of an approaching train.
"We'll wait until this one goes past," hesaid, little guessing what a strange thing was to happen.
Prince pranced a little as he heard another locomotive coming toward him, but he did not try to run away again nor jump through the snowdrift.
With a roar the second train approached, gliding swiftly past Bunny, Sue, and Uncle Tad seated in the sleigh alongside of the tracks. And as the children watched for the last car they saw the rear door of it open, and a colored porter, with his white jacket on, stood on the platform.
It was a chair car, and the porter had evidently been doing some sweeping, for he held in his hands a dustpan. This dustpan he had taken to the back door to empty, and, just as his car came near the sleigh in the snowdrift, the porter threw the dust, dirt, and other things from the pan into the air.
The train was going so fast that it made quite a breeze, and this wind carried the stuff from the dustpan into the very faces of Uncle Tad and Sue. Bunny, being on the outsideof the seat, did not get any dust in his face.
"Oh!" cried Sue, as she felt the swirling wind and dust.
"That porter certainly was a careless fellow!" exclaimed Uncle Tad. "That dust nearly blinded me!" The old soldier held the reins in one hand, for Prince seemed ready to bolt again, and with the other hand Uncle Tad wiped the dust from the porter's pan out of his eyes.
Bunny had a glimpse of torn papers and other refuse from the car falling into the snowdrift near the sleigh.
"I guess he didn't mean to do it, Uncle Tad," the little boy said. "He wasn't looking this way when he emptied that dustpan."
"I wish he had been!" exclaimed the old soldier. "Did you get a lot of dust in your eyes, Sue?"
"Yes," answered the little girl. "But it's most gone now."
"How about you, Bunny?" asked Uncle Tad.
"Oh, I'm all right," Sue's brother answered."Look, Uncle Tad, there are some papers the porter threw out, too," and he pointed to the heap of refuse on the snow.
"All trash, I suppose," said the soldier. "People in parlor cars throw on the floor things they don't want, and the porter has to sweep it up. Well, we'll get along now."
"Wait a minute, Uncle Tad!" cried Bunny, as the soldier was about to swing Prince around to go on to the freight depot.
"Eh? What's that, Bunny? What's the matter?" asked Uncle Tad.
"There's a nice green and gold piece of paper down there," Bunny answered. "Maybe it's some good."
"No, I don't believe so, else the porter wouldn't have thrown it out," Uncle Tad answered, as he looked at the train now a mile or more away down the track.
"Maybe it's some good," Bunny insisted. "Please let me get it, Uncle Tad. Maybe it's some old railroad ticket and Sue and I can play conductor on the train when we go to Florida."
"Well, all right, get it if you want to,"agreed the old soldier. "Whoa, Prince! Whoa!"
He steadied the horse while Bunny got down out of the sled, and ran to the scattered refuse from the porter's dustpan. Bunny picked up the paper. It was printed in green and gold, as he had said, and was not torn as were the other scraps of paper that had come from the chair car.
"Look, Uncle Tad!" called Bunny, holding up what he had found. "Is this a railroad ticket?"
The old soldier put on his glasses and looked carefully at the paper.
"Why, Bunny boy!" he exclaimed, "you've found something worth a lot of money—a whole lot of money. I must put this away in my pocket and show it to your father. Whoa there! Steady, Prince! Bunny has just found, what may be worth a lot of money!"
Uncle Tad slipped into his coat pocket the paper printed in green and gold that Bunny had picked up from the refuse tossed out by the Pullman car porter. Then the old soldier turned Prince around so the horse could pull the sleigh out of the drift.
"How much money did I find, Uncle Tad?" asked Bunny.
"Well, I don't know just how much it may amount to," was the answer. "'Tisn't exactly money, you understand. That paper, Bunny, is what is called a certificate, or something like that, and it's for some stock in an oil well made out to bearer, as nearly as I can tell."
"Can I have some of the money to spend?" Bunny asked. "I want to get some candy for Sue and me."
"You can't exactlyspendthis money," saidthe old soldier. "In the first place, it isn't yours, Bunny. You just found it, you know, and finding isn't always keeping. This oil stock certificate must belong to some one on the train. They very likely dropped it in the car, and when the colored porter was cleaning up he swept it into his dustpan and never noticed it when he threw the dirt in our faces. That certificate may be worth a lot of money, but it would have to be sold before you could get cash for it, and, besides, it isn't yours."
"Whose is it?" Bunny wanted to know. "I found it, didn't I?"
"Yes, but we must try to learn to whom it belongs, and give it back," Uncle Tad went on. "They may give a reward for it, and then you would have real money."
Bunny could not understand this, nor could Sue. If you found a thing why couldn't you keep it? the little boy wondered. Also when something looked so much like money, as this gold and green paper looked like nice new bills from the bank, why couldn't some of it be spent for candy? Bunny and Sue wondered about this.
But when Prince was driven across the tracks to the freight depot, and when Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were given some pennies by Uncle Tad and allowed to go to a near-by store while the boxes of motor boat parts were being loaded into the sleigh, the two children forgot all about the oil stock paper. They were more interested in getting the kind of candy they wanted.
"Wouldn't it be nice, Bunny," said Sue, as she chewed a red gumdrop, "if you'd get a lot of money so we could spend it in Florida?"
"Course it would be nice," her brother agreed. "But where shall I get a lot of money?" and he bit the end off a stick of cocoanut candy.
"You might get it from that stiff thing you found," went on Sue. "But I don't think it's very stiff. I saw Uncle Tad bend it when he put it in his pocket."
"Oh, you mean that stiff cut," laughed Bunny, as he remembered the paper he had picked up in the snow. "Isn't it a funny name, Sue—stiff cut?I s'pose somebody cut thepaper. But it isn't very stiff if you can bend it."
Of course Bunny and Sue did not get the name just right, but then, as they didn't understand about certificates and oil stock, there is no use in worrying over the matter.
Uncle Tad and the freight man finished putting into the sleigh the different boxes for Daddy Brown's motor boat in which Bunker Blue often went out after fish in the summer, sometimes taking Bunny and Sue with him. By this time the two children came back from the candy store and got in the sleigh.
"Well, did you find any more valuable papers, Bunny?" asked Uncle Tad, with a joking laugh as he started Prince down the road.
"Nope, I didn't," answered the little boy. "But maybe I'll find some in Florida."
"You're going to the state of Georgia first, I heard your father say," remarked the old soldier.
"Are there any oranges in Georgia?" asked Sue.
"Or alligators?" Bunny wanted to know, forhe had heard that there were plenty of the big, scaly and long-tailed creatures in Florida.
"I don't know much about Georgia," answered Uncle Tad, "except I've heard that peaches grow there. But, of course, you won't find any of them now, as it isn't summer."
"Isn't Georgia nice and warm in winter, like Florida?" asked Sue. "And can't we get some orange blossoms there?"
"I don't believe you'll find any oranges in Georgia," answered Uncle Tad, "and it isn't as warm as the southern part of Florida, though of course Florida and Georgia, being close together, are a good deal alike. They grow lots of cotton in Georgia, and peanuts."
"Peanuts!" cried Bunny, in delight. "Oh, I'm glad! Peanuts are most as good as oranges, aren't they, Sue?"
"Yes," agreed the little girl. "But it would be nice if we had peanutsandoranges. 'Cause then when we got thirsty from eating peanuts off a tree we could go and pick an orange off another tree and suck the juice, and we wouldn't be thirsty any more, would we, Uncle Tad?"
"No, I presume not," answered the old soldier, with a laugh. "But peanuts don't grow on trees, Sue."
"They don't?" cried the little girl. "Why not? Hickory nuts do."
"I don't know why, but they don't," said Uncle Tad. "Peanuts grow on vines, under the ground. In some places down South peanuts are called 'goobers.'"
"What a funny name!" said Bunny. "We'll have some fun in Georgia when we get there."
"Yes, you two seem to have fun wherever you go, like the lady with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, so she had music 'wherever she goes,'" said Uncle Tad.
Prince had now quieted down, and he drew the sled along without trying to run away. A little later Bunny and Sue reached home, and Mrs. Brown was quite excited when she heard how near they had been to the rushing train.
Bunny and Sue told about the porter and his dustpan, and Uncle Tad took from his pocket the green and gold oil stock certificate.
"We'll show it to daddy when he comeshome," said Mrs. Brown. "He will know what to do with it."
But though Mr. Brown telephoned to the railroad office, telling about the finding of the valuable paper, which was thought to be worth much money, the owner of it could not be found.
After several days, during which Bunny and Sue had more fun in the snow, Mr. Brown told his wife that the railroad people had not even yet been able to find the person who owned the oil stock paper.
"It must have been dropped by some one who was riding in that Pullman car," said Mr. Brown. "Perhaps he dropped it and didn't know it until he got off the train. Then he may have thought he lost it somewhere else, and so didn't come back to the railroad office."
"Can't you find out who owns it by writing to the oil company?" Mrs. Brown asked.
"I could if the certificate were made out in somebody's name," her husband answered. "But it is made out to 'bearer'—that is, anybody who holds it can get the permanent certificates. This is a temporary one."
"Could Bunny or Sue?"
"Yes, and if this isn't claimed and we can't find to whom it belongs, they can sell it and get the money. But the owner may write to the oil company, even though his name isn't on the paper. In that way I may find out to whom it belongs. I'll write to the oil company myself in a few days."
But Mr. Brown had so much to do, getting ready to leave for the sunny South with Bunny and Sue that, for a time, he forgot about the oil stock certificate.
As for Bunny and Sue, they talked so much about their coming trip to the South, mentioning oranges, peanuts, and alligators—it was Bunny who spoke of the last, you may be sure—that all their little boy and girl friends were interested.
"I wish you'd send me back some oranges, Sue," begged Mary Watson. "And some orange blossoms, too. Then I could put them on one of my dolls and pretend to have a wedding."
"I'll send you lots of oranges and blossoms," promised Sue.
"And will you send me some peanuts from Georgia?" asked Sadie West.
"Lots of 'em!" promised Sue.
At last the day came when the start was to be made. Bunny Brown and his sister Sue thought it never would arrive, but finally it did, and after trunks and valises had been packed the party started for the station. The weather was cold, more snow had fallen, and it seemed that another storm would soon come.
"But in a little while we'll be where they never have any snow," said Daddy Brown.
The last good-byes were called back and forth. Bunny and Sue took their places in the parlor car—the same kind of car as that from which the porter had tossed the oil stock certificate—and the train began to move. They were at last off for Georgia and from there would go to Florida—two states of the sunny South.
As the train began to roll more rapidly out of the station there came the sound of some excitement from the narrow passageway at one end—the passage where the porter keeps his towels and soap.
"Oh, there goes Dickie!" cried a woman's voice. "Oh, Dickie, come back! You'll be hurt, I know you will! Oh, porter! don't let Dickie jump off and be killed!"
"No'm, I won't," answered the colored man. "Ah'll get yo' Dickie fo' you!"
"Maybe it's a little child!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown to her husband. "You'd better go and help her, Walter! That porter is so slow! Go and save Dickie!"
Mr. Brown knew how he and his wife would worry if anything should happen to Bunny or Sue, so, with this thought in mind, he hurried to the end of the car to do what he could in the rescue of Dickie.
Mrs. Brown stayed with the two children, but she was so anxious to help the woman who had called out about Dickie that she made up her mind to go to the aid of her husband as soon as Bunny and Sue were settled in their seats.
As for Mr. Brown, as he hastened toward that end of the parlor car where some one was begging the porter not to let Dickie be harmed, he saw the woman who was so excited. She was a large woman, wearing a wide-brimmed hat trimmed with many ostrichfeathers which nodded and swayed as she moved about.
"Oh, Dickie! Dickie! Where did you go?" this woman cried, clasping her hands. "Why didn't you stay with me? Now you'll be killed, I'm sure you will! Or else you'll jump off the train and be left behind! Oh, porter, close the door so Dickie can't get off!"
"Yes'm. De do' am done closed!" said the colored man. "Ah'll git yo' Dickie fo' you ef you-all jest waits a minute!"
"Perhaps I can help," suggested Mr. Brown, coming up at that moment, and looking about in the narrow passageway and in the men's smoking room for a sight of some little child who might have wandered away from his mother.
"Oh, if you only can get him!" exclaimed the large woman with the big hat. "I had him in my arms, but he jumped out—"
"Jumped out of your arms!" exclaimed Mr. Brown. "I should think he would have been hurt."
"Oh, no, he often does that," said the woman. "He always lands on his feet."
"What a strange child!" thought Mr. Brown. "He must be training for a circus performer."
"He jumped out of my arms and ran in there," went on the woman, and she pointed to the smoking room, which, just then, was empty. It was a room containing several leather chairs, a leather settee across one end, and a wash basin in one corner.
"Ah'll git him in jest a minute," said the porter, who was putting some clean towels in a rack over the basin. "He must be under the long seat."
"I'll bring him out," offered Mr. Brown, getting down on his hands and knees to look under the long leather seat at one end of the smoking compartment. He remembered a time when Sue had thus crawled under a sofa at home and what a time he had to get her to come out.
"Oh, Dickie, why did you do it?" wailed the woman. "Are you sure he didn't fall off the train?" she asked.
"No'm," answered the porter. "Nobody,man, woman or chile, got off dish yeah car after it started. I shet de do' too quick for dat! But I didn't see anybody come in heah!"
"This is where he came," said the woman, following Mr. Brown into the smoking room. "Oh, I do hope he is under the seat."
By this time the father of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue was able to see under the leather seat. But, to his surprise, he saw no little boy or girl there. All he caught sight of was a white poodle dog, cowering back in the corner.
"There's no Dickie here—only a dog," said Mr. Brown.
"That's Dickie!" cried the woman. "Oh, dear Dickie! are you there? I was afraid my precious was lost forever! Oh, Dickie, come out!"
Mr. Brown was so surprised that he did not know what to say. He had thought he was coming to the rescue of a little child, and it had turned out to be—a dog! And while Mr. Brown loved animals, he was a little angry to think that anybody would make as much fussover a poodle that had crawled under a couch as would be made over a missing little boy or girl.
Still Mr. Brown was too polite to say all that he felt, and so he reached his hand under the long seat, and tried to get hold of the dog's fuzzy coat.
The dog growled and barked, and snapped at Mr. Brown's hand.
"Does he bite?" the children's father asked the woman.
"Not very hard," she answered.
"Hum!" mused Mr. Brown, as he drew back and arose. "Perhaps you'd better coax him out," he said, for he had no desire to be bitten even by a little dog, as sometimes their teeth inflict a poisonous wound.
"Oh, Dickie! you wouldn't bite the nice, kind man, would you?" the lady exclaimed, stooping down and trying to peer under the seat.
"Ah'll put on mah gloves an' git him," offered the porter, who perhaps felt that the woman might give him a large tip. And, of course, Mr. Brown was very willing to let thecolored man have any reward there might be.
Putting on a pair of heavy gloves he used when he did rough work in cleaning the Pullman car, the porter reached under the seat and dragged forth the growling, snapping little white poodle.
By this time Mrs. Brown, hearing the loud talking out in the smoking room, thought something serious had happened. She hastened to that end of the car, followed by Bunny and Sue, who did not want to be left behind. They arrived in time to see the porter handing the woman her pet.
"Oh, Dickie!" exclaimed the wearer of the big hat, as she clasped the poodle in her arms, "oo bad 'ittle snookums!"
"Where's the child?" asked Mrs. Brown.
In answer Mr. Brown pointed to the dog, and his wife understood.
"Oh, isn't he nice!" exclaimed Sue.
"May I see him?" asked Bunny.
"In a little while," the woman answered. "Dickie is so fussed up now his 'ittle heart is beating too hard! I must cuddle him!"
She turned and walked into the next car for,it seemed, she had got into the wrong one, or, rather, her dog had leaped from her arms and had gone into the one in which the Browns had seats and the woman had followed her pet.
"Come in and see me when I get 'ittle Dickie quiet," said the woman, but even Bunny and Sue, much as they loved pets, did not like the silly fuss this woman made over her dog. So they did not go into the other car.
Mr. Brown turned and went with his wife and children up to the middle of the car, where they had their seats. As they left, the porter, with a queer grin which showed his white teeth, said:
"Golly, she suah did make a fuss ober dat dog!"
"Yes," agreed Mr. Brown with a laugh, "she did!"
"He was a nice little dog," observed Sue, "but I like a big dog better—you can have more fun with it."
"Sure!" agreed Bunny. "And poodles are so snappy."
"I'm glad you didn't pull him out, Walter," Mrs. Brown said. "I'd be anxious if he had bitten you."
"I didn't give him the chance," her husband said. "Well, now that Dickie is safe we can settle down."
And so the travelers made themselves as comfortable as possible, for they had rather a long trip ahead of them. They would be on the train all night and a large part of the next day.
"I'm glad that woman with the dog isn't in our car," said Mrs. Brown to her husband, when Bunny and Sue were contentedly looking from the windows. "She probably makes a fuss over the animal all the while."
"Yes, it's just as well for us she isn't here," agreed the children's father. "Though if it were the kind of dog they could play with it would make the time pass more quickly for Bunny and Sue."
"Oh, I think they'll manage to keep themselves amused," said their mother. "They like traveling."
Bunny and Sue certainly did, and it was apleasure for them to look from the windows at the scenery.
No very remarkable adventures happened on the journey to Georgia. To be sure, Sue did fall out of the berth once, and her mother had to pick her up. But the little girl scarcely awakened, and as the carpet on the floor of the sleeping car was soft and thick she was not hurt in the least.
Bunny had a little accident, too. During the day he went to the end of the car to get Sue a drink, taking a folding silver cup his mother carried in her handbag. But when the little boy was half way down the aisle the train gave a swing around a curve, Bunny almost fell, and the cup closed, spilling the water all over him.
However, it was not a great deal, and as the car was warm no harm resulted. Bunny himself laughed at the happening, and insisted on going back and filling the cup for Sue. This time he brought it to her nearly full of water.
And so, with looking out of the windows, reading some of their best-loved books which they had brought with them, eating and sleeping, the time passed most happily for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.
As mile after mile was reeled off by the train, the children began to notice a difference in the scenery.
The weather was cold, and there was much snow on the ground when they left Bellemere, and the snow continued to cover the ground for some distance. But as the train went farther and farther south the snow seemed to disappear—melting away until, when the children looked from the windows of their car toward the end of their journey, they saw green leaves on the trees.
"Oh, are we down South now, Daddy?" called Sue.
"Yes, we are in the southern part of Georgia," was the answer. "We have left winter behind us. In a little while, especially when we get into Florida, you will be in the sunny South."
"Oh, what fun we'll have!" cried Sue.
"Where are the oranges?" demanded Bunny. "I don't see any," and he looked at the trees.
"Oranges don't grow in Georgia, at least not in the open," said Mr. Brown. "Some may be raised in hothouses, but to grow them in the open air warmer weather than Georgia has in winter is needed. We shall have to wait until we get to Florida to gather oranges."
"What about peanuts?" asked Bunny.
"Oh, I think I can promise you plenty of peanuts," answered his father.
"And shall we see cotton growing?" asked Mrs. Brown. "I have always wanted to see a cotton field, with the darkies singing and picking the white, fluffy stuff."
"There is plenty of cotton in Georgia," her husband answered, "but there may be none where we are going. However, I hope you will have your wish. If we can't have oranges we may have peanuts and cotton."
"We'll not eat the cotton though, shall we, Daddy?" asked Sue.
"You won't have to unless you want to," he laughed in answer.
A little later, when Mr. and Mrs. Brown had got together their baggage, for they werenear their destination, Bunny, who was looking from the window, suddenly called:
"Oh, look! Here they are, picking cotton!"
Sue rushed to her window and Mrs. Brown turned to gaze out on the scene. As Bunny had said, the train was then passing through a cotton section, and in the fields on either side of the track a number of colored men, women, and children were picking the big white clumps of cotton from the bushes which grew in long, straight rows. It was a late crop.
"Oh, it's a cotton plantation!" cried Mrs. Brown. "I'm glad, for I've always wanted to see one."
As they looked out at the sight, which was a new one to Bunny and Sue, the train began to slow up. In a very few moments they could see painted in very large letters on the end of the station the word "Seedville."
"This is our station," announced Daddy Brown.
"Oh, we're going to get out right near thecotton plantation!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "I'm glad! Why didn't you tell us we were going to be so near where they pick cotton?" she asked her husband.
"I didn't really know it myself," he said. "Mr. Morton, whom I am going to see, said he owned cotton land, but I did not know it was a plantation. However, we'll get out here." And Bunny and Sue were wild with delight at the new adventures which might be in store for them.
When the train reached the station of Seedville the cotton fields with the colored pickers were out of sight around a bend in the road. But Bunny and Sue were glad they were going to stop not far away from this new and interesting sight.
As the Brown family alighted from the train at the small station, a gentleman with a broad-brimmed hat, under which his pleasant smiling face could be seen, came forward.
"Hello, Jim!" called Mr. Brown. "Well, here we are!"
"So I see, and I'm glad of it!" Mr. Morton answered. Then he was introduced to Mrs. Brown and the children. Mr. Morton was the man Daddy Brown had come to Georgia to see on business. Later Mr. Brown wouldhave to visit Mr. Halliday at Orange Beach, Florida.
"Give me your checks and I'll look after your baggage," went on the Southerner. "I have my auto right behind the station, and it's only a short ride over to my place."
"Have you any peanuts?" asked Sue.
"Yes, I grow a few," answered Mr. Morton.
"Course you don't have any oranges?" Bunny added, feeling pretty sure, from what his father had said, there would be none; but still he could not help hoping.
"No, I'm sorry to say I haven't any orange grove," Mr. Morton replied, smiling.
"Is that your cotton field we passed?" asked Mrs. Brown, pointing back toward the scene through which they had come a little while before.
"That's part of my plantation, yes," answered the Southerner. "It's quite interesting if you haven't seen it as often as I have."
A little later the family was riding toward Mr. Morton's home, where the Browns were to stay while Daddy and Mr. Morton finished their business, which would take about a week.Mrs. Morton welcomed the family, and Bunny and Sue were delighted to find that there were two children, a boy and a girl, not much older than they were—Sam and Grace Morton.
"Oh, now we can have a lot of fun!" cried Bunny, when he saw these playmates. "Will you show me how to pick cotton?" he asked Sam.
"Sure," was the answer. "I help pick it myself, sometimes."
"And will you show me how to dig peanuts?" asked Sue of Grace.
"You don't have to do much digging," answered the little Southern girl, laughing. "You just pull up the vines and the peanuts stick to 'em, same as potatoes do. Course you sometimes have to dig out some that don't come up on the vine."
While Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Mr. and Mrs. Morton were talking together, the children were allowed to go to one of the near-by cotton fields. Cotton, as you know, grows on low bushes, which are planted in long rows, so the pickers may easily walk between them. In some countries the cotton bushes,or plants, last from one year to the next, but in Georgia most of the cotton grows from new bushes each year. The seeds are planted in the spring, but the picking is not finished until sometimes late in what is the winter season of the North.
Of course in some parts of Georgia there are frosts which kill the bushes, and in these parts of the state the cotton must be picked earlier than in the southern part, where the Browns were.
So, though there was cold weather and snow in Bellemere, there were warm, blue skies in Georgia, and the colored men, women and children were out in the fields picking the cotton.
As Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, with Sam and Grace, reached the field of cotton, they could hear the darkies singing. Some one would start a tune, and then others would join in.
"It's jolly!" laughed Bunny, as they stopped to listen to a funny song about a mule.
"Yes, the darkies always seem to be happy," said Sam.
The children from the North watched as the colored pickers pulled off the great, fluffy balls of white, stuffing them into bags or baskets which were later taken from the field on two-wheeled mule carts.
"What are all those brown things in the cotton?" asked Sue, as she looked at a fluffy clump on a near-by bush.
"Seeds," answered Grace. "The cotton clump, or boll, is full of seeds, and these have to be taken out before the cotton is baled up for the mill."
"Oh, I 'member about that!" cried Bunny. "We learned it in school. A man named Eli Whitney made a machine for taking seeds out of the cotton."
"That's right," admitted Sam. "I'll take you to the gin, as it is called, where the seeds are taken from the cotton and the white stuff is pressed into bales. You ought to see the big presses! It squeezes the cotton all up!"
"I hope it doesn't squeeze us!" laughed Sue.
"I'll keep you back out of danger," promised Grace.
The children walked through the cottonfield of the plantation and were greeted by broad grins and smiles on the part of the colored folk. There seemed to be more children than grown people working in the field, and Sam said it was sometimes hard to get old pickers, so children had to be used.
The darkies did not work very fast, and often, as Bunny and his sister walked along with their new friends, the hands would stop working to look at the children. This, with their habit of stopping to sing every now and then, slowed up the cotton picking.
"I'd like to go to the mill and see the cotton pressed into bales," said Bunny after a while.
"All right, we'll go," said Sam. "You've seen about all there is to see here."
As they turned away Sue suddenly called:
"Hark!"
They all listened, and Grace said:
"That's one of their banjos! They bring them to the field and play and dance."
"Oh, let's see that!" cried Sue. "It'll be more fun than going to the cotton factory!"
Bunny, too, wanted to listen to the music, so they turned aside into a part of the field wheremost of the cotton had been picked from the bushes. The darkies, who had finished this part of their work, were celebrating after a fashion.
Some boards had been laid down, and an awning placed over them to make a place where bags of cotton were tied up to be taken to the gin. Gathered around this platform were a number of negro men, women and children. One of the men had an old banjo, and though the instrument seemed battered and broken, he managed to get some lively music from it.
"Golly, dat suah mek me want to shuffle mah feet!" exclaimed one bright-eyed colored lad.
"Why doan you shuffle 'em den, Rastus?" some one called. "Show de white folks how you kin cut de pigeon wing!"
"Oh, landy, banjo music suah am sweet!" cried an old white-wooled colored woman, with a jolly laugh.
Then the man with the banjo "cut loose," as one of his friends called it, and played such a lively tune that even Bunny and Sue saidthey felt like dancing. But they wanted to see what the cotton pickers did, and so they watched. Out on the wooden platform shuffled Rastus, and the way he kicked up, turned cartwheels, stood on his hands and danced around made Bunny and Sue laugh in delight.
Others of the pickers, men and women, girls and boys, danced, and then along came the driver of one of the mule carts who had a mouth organ. He added this music to that of the banjo, until quite a crowd had collected.
"My goodness!" exclaimed a voice behind Bunny and Sue when there came a lull in the fun. "Cotton picking can't be such very hard work after all!" The children turned around to see their mother and Mrs. Morton, who had come to the field.
"Oh, the darkies have to have their fun, and if we didn't let them we wouldn't get as much work done as now takes place," said the wife of the cotton planter. "Life is rather slow and easy down here."
Indeed it seemed so. After more banjo and mouth organ music, the pickers gradually went to another part of the field, and Bunnyand Sue, with the two Morton children, were allowed to go to the place where the loose cotton was pressed into big bales.
Cotton, as you have doubtless noticed, is very light and fluffy. A pound of it, loose, takes up much room, and it is to save room that it is pressed into bales, or bundles. Each one weighs about five hundred pounds, and the bales are somewhat larger than a barrel, though of square shape and not round. But if the cotton were allowed to fluff out, it would take up four or five times this room.
Guided by Sam and Grace, Bunny and his sister were taken to the cotton gin and baling place. First the seeds must be taken out of the cotton. To do this the fluffy mass, as it is taken from the bags or baskets in which it is carted from the field, is fed into a machine.
The machine is like a big clothes wringer, but the rolls, instead of being made of smooth rubber, are rough, and covered with sharp iron teeth.
As the cotton passes between these toothed rollers they tear it apart, loosening the seeds, which drop down while the cleaned cottongoes to the other side of the machine ready to be baled.
The cotton seeds are used for many things, being sometimes fed to cattle in the form of meal, or from them oil may be squeezed which is almost as good to eat as olive oil.
"I want to see the cotton pushed into bales," said Bunny, and his Southern friends led the way into the factory. There were white wisps of cotton all about, clinging to the walls and ceiling of the pressing room, as well as to the colored men who were working there. Bunny and Sue did not understand much about the machinery. But they could see how the cotton was put into a sort of iron box. A big plunger then pressed down what might be called the "lid" of the box. This squeezed the big, fluffy mass of cotton into a bale, and iron straps, or wires, were put around the outside of the burlap bagging that kept the cotton clean.
Sue was standing with Sam and Grace, watching the cotton being pressed into bales, when suddenly behind them came a noise as of something falling, and a voice cried:
"Oh, dear!"
"That's Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, turning around.
She did not see her brother, but she saw some men gathered around a big heap of cotton on the floor of the gin. And, not seeing Bunny, his sister Sue had the most dreadful scare.
"Oh, Bunny's in a cotton press! He's being put into one of the bales!" she cried. "Oh, Bunny! Bunny!" and she broke away from the holding hand of Grace and rushed toward the heap of cotton on the floor, which was tumbling about in the queerest fashion.
Sam and Grace Morton were somewhat older than Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, and they knew more about cotton gins. So when Sue cried that Bunny was being pressed into one of the white bales neither Sam nor Grace thought this could be so.
For they had been standing near the big press all the while, and they would have seen if Bunny had fallen in. But the little boy was not in sight, and something must have happened to him, or why did he cry out as he had? Sue had certainly heard Bunny's voice.
"Bunny! Bunny! where are you?" shouted Sue, as she broke away from the Morton children.
"Who yo' all lookin' fo'?" asked a big colored man, who had been rolling bales of cotton about the floor.
"My—my bro-brother!" stammered Sue, almost ready to cry. "He's in a bale of cotton!"
"Oh, nopey! Nopey, he ain't, li'l girl!" said the kind colored man. "I done see dat li'l boy jest a minute ago. He was climbin' up on a basket ob loose cotton, an' he done pulled it over on top ob him! He's under dat pile right yeah!" and he pointed to the mass of white, fluffy stuff on the floor.
"I see what happened!" exclaimed Sam, hurrying over with his sister to Sue, who stood near the pile of cotton. "Bunny's all right. You can't get hurt when loose cotton falls on you," and he laughed.
"Is—is Bu-Bunny under there?" asked Sue.
There was no need for any one to answer her, for a moment later out from under the fluffy pile crawled Bunny himself. Lumps of cotton clung to him all over, and his clothes were covered, but he was not in the least harmed.
"I—I was under there!" gasped the little fellow.
"You don't need to tell us that!" laughedSam. "We can see for ourselves. You sure have been under the cotton."
"What happened to you, Bunny?" his sister asked, happy, now that nothing had occurred to harm her brother.
"I saw a big basket of loose cotton," he explained, "and I wanted to see how heavy it was and to find out if I could lift it. I pushed on it, and it fell over on top of me. Then I yelled."
"We heard you," said Grace.
"And I thought you were being pressed in a bale," added Sue.
"I'm glad I wasn't," remarked Bunny, as he noticed how very hard the press squeezed the loose cotton.
The colored workers picked up the fluffy stuff Bunny had spilled from the big basket, which he had pulled over on him. He had been hidden from sight in the white mass that had toppled out on the floor.
"It was just like the time when I was under the snowdrift, only it wasn't so cold," Bunny said, telling about his accident afterward. "And it was awfully ticklish!"
"Better that than a cotton press," his mother said. "You must be careful around the gin, children."
"It's all right to go to the peanut fields though, isn't it, Mother?" asked Sue. She had been eager, ever since hearing that peanuts grew in Georgia, to see how they clung to the ends of the vines, like little potatoes.
"Yes, I think visiting the peanuts will be all right, if you don't eat too many," Mrs. Brown said.
"They won't want to eat too many," said Sam Morton. "When the peanuts come out of the ground they are raw, and they have to be roasted before they are good to eat. They won't eat too many."
"Can't we roast some?" Sue wanted to know, and her mother promised that this would be done.
When the children came away from Mr. Morton's cotton press and gin, after the little happening to Bunny, the visitors could hear the darkies singing there, as they had sung in the fields.
Most of Mr. Morton's peanut crop had beengathered, as it was almost the close of the season, but some late vines were growing in one of the fields, and this was visited by the children a day or so after their arrival in Seedville.
Bunny Brown and Sue had been rather disappointed when they heard that peanuts did not grow on trees, as did chestnuts and hickory nuts, but they soon forgot this when Sam told them something about this crop, by which his father made money.
"We don't call 'em peanuts down here," Sam said.
"What do you call 'em?" asked Bunny.
"Ground nuts and sometimes goobers," answered the Southern boy. "Over in England, my father says, they call 'em monkey nuts."
"What for?" Bunny wanted to know.
"I s'pose it's because the first peanuts came from Africa, and there are so many monkeys in Africa," answered Sam.
"I wish there was a monkey here!" exclaimed Sue. "I'd like to see him eat peanuts—I mean goobers!" she added, with a laugh at the funny word.
"There's a monkey near our house at home," explained Bunny. "We could send Wango some peanuts, couldn't we, Sue?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, let's!" cried the little girl.
"Well, come on first and pick some, or dig 'em, which is what you'll have to do," suggested Sam.
What had not been gathered of Mr. Morton's peanut crop was growing in a field not far from the plantation buildings. There were no darkies gathering the goobers, as it was more important now to pick the cotton.
"Pull up one of the vines," suggested Sam to the children from the North.
You can imagine how delighted Bunny and Sue were when they pulled up by the roots one of the vines and saw, dangling on the end, some of the peanuts they knew so well.
"Oh, wouldn't Mrs. Redden like it here?" cried Bunny, as he pulled off some of the peanuts.
"Who's she?" asked Grace.
"She keeps a peanut and candy store where we live," explained Sue. "And she sells lots of peanuts. If she was here she could get all she wanted."
"But she'd have to roast them, or get them roasted," said Sam. "About the only things unroasted peanuts are good for is to make peanut oil and to feed to horses. We'll take some to the house and roast them. We have a little roaster in the kitchen."
"And can we make some peanut molasses candy?" asked Bunny. "Don't you have molasses down here?"
"Oh, yes, plenty of molasses," said Grace. "We don't raise any sugar cane, which molasses come from, but they do farther South. We'll make some peanut candy."
The prospect of this delighted Bunny and Sue almost as much as did the gathering of the nuts. The children from the North looked curiously at the "goobers" they had pulled up on the vine. As Sam had said, they were not at all good to eat, needing to be dried and roasted before they would be enjoyable.
For several days Bunny and Sue enjoyed themselves on the Southern plantation. One day Mr. Morton took them over a grove where a friend of his was growing pecans. These were nuts which grew on trees, and Bunny and Sue were allowed to gather and eat as many as they wished, for these nuts did not need to be baked or roasted before being eaten.
There were busy times on the cotton plantation. Much work yet remained to finish, and one day, after his business with Mr. Morton was almost at an end, Daddy Brown went with his wife and Bunny and Sue to watch the gathering of cotton by the negroes. Up to now he had not had much time to see this.
"What are they all so jolly about?" he asked Mr. Morton, as they walked through the field, the bushes of which were now almost stripped of their white tufts.
"Oh, they expect to finish work to-night and they're going to have a jubilee dance later on," was the answer. "You must come to it, for it will be great fun for the children."
"Oh, yes, they must see that," said Mother Brown.
Indeed the darkies were much more musical than on the occasion of the first visit of Bunny and Sue. Several banjos were playing and also a mouth organ here and there, while snatches of songs could be heard all about the field.
Suddenly, over in the place where a number of pickers had gathered to empty their baskets into the big bin, whence the cotton was carted to the gin, there arose a great shouting.
"Whoa now! Whoa dere, Sambo! Steady now!" called a man's voice.
Then there was the shrill shrieking of women and girls, and a moment later a big mule hitched to a cart rushed toward Bunny, Sue and their friends, and on the mule's back, clinging for dear life, was a little colored boy, frightened almost out of his wits.
"Oh, look out, Bunny! Sue! Look out for the runaway!" cried Mrs. Brown.
The clatter of the mule's hoofs, the rattle of the cart, and the yells of the little colored boy on the animal's back made plenty of excitement in the roadway of the cotton field. But besides all this there were the calls of Mrs. Brown, the shouts and yells of the frightened colored men, women and children, and the screams of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.
"Good lan' ob massy!" exclaimed one big, fat, colored woman, as she dropped her basket of cotton and rushed for a place of safety. "Dat frisky li'l nigger suah will be splatter-dashed ef he fall offen dat mule's back!"
And indeed it did look bad for the small colored boy.
"Over here, Sue! Come to me, Bunny!"cried Mrs. Brown. "Walter," she called to her husband, "look out for Sam and Grace," for the Morton children were with their friends from the North.
Mr. Brown, with a quick motion, pulled Sam and Grace out of danger as the runaway mule, hauling the load of cotton, came nearer.
"Maybe Sam and I can stop him, Mother!" cried Bunny.
"Indeed and you'll do nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, hurrying the children behind a row of cotton plants.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" was all the little colored boy on the back of the runaway mule could shout. "Hi! Hi!"
"Oh, can't some one save him?" cried Mrs. Brown.
"I'll try," answered her husband, who, having seen to it that Sam and Grace were safe with Bunny and Sue, started out to try to head off the mule. At the same time the shrieks of the colored women had called from a distant part of the field several strong colored men, and one of these ran toward the mule about the same time that Mr. Brown did.
But there was no need of any one getting worried. Before the mule could be caught he stopped, and stopped so suddenly that the colored boy was pitched off the animal's back. Down to the ground the dusky-skinned child slipped, but, luckily enough, there was a pile of cotton here, and it was on top of the fluffy stuff that he landed.
There he sat, a splotch of black in a heap of white, and he presented such a funny picture that Sue and her brother burst out laughing. So did Sam and Grace. And then Jim, the colored boy, finding that he was not hurt, opened his mouth and shrieked in delight.
Some of the colored men came up and took charge of the mule, which they led back to the shed whence he had run away. And one of the fat black women waddled toward Jim on the heap of cotton.
"Look yeah, yo' li'l hunk ob sticky black 'lasses!" she cried. "Whut fo' you want to git on dat mule's back an' scare yo' po' mammy 'most into a conniption fit? Whut fo' you do dat, Jim St. Clair Breckinridge? Whut fo', huh?"
"Ah didn't go fo' to do it, 'deed an' Ah didn't, Mammy!" said Jim, as he arose. "Ah wuz jest leanin' ober to knock a fly often dat mule's back an' Ah slipped an' fell on him. Den he started up, an' Ah couldn't nohow git offen him!"
And this, it appeared, was how it had happened. The little colored boy was playing around the shed where the darkies emptied their baskets of cotton into a bin. There it was piled into the cart to be taken to the gin. The boy had climbed up on a pile of boxes to make himself higher, and in this position had seen a fly on the mule's back. Or at least that is what Jim said.
At any rate, whether he tried to do the mule a kindness, or whether he really intended to use the boxes as a stepping block to get up and take a ride, Jim got on the animal's back, and this so alarmed the mule that it started off, causing much excitement.
But no real harm had resulted, and no one was hurt, for the fluffy cotton was even softer to fall on than a pile of hay. Jim was takenin charge by his mother and made to help pick cotton the rest of the day.
Bunny and Sue liked it so much on the plantation, watching the cotton-pickers and occasionally pulling up a few peanuts for themselves, that I think they would have been willing to spend the rest of the winter in that part of the sunny South.
"But my business here is almost finished," said Mr. Brown to his family one evening as they sat in Mr. Morton's pleasant home. "We will soon go on to Florida."
"And eat oranges!" added Sue, for she had often been thinking of that juicy fruit.
"And catch alligators!" exclaimed Bunny. The chance of at least seeing some of these scaly creatures seemed to give Bunny pleasure.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed his mother. "Now look here!" she went on, as she thought of what might happen. "I don't want you two tots going off by yourselves trying to catch alligators! Mind that!" and she shook a warning finger at them.
In the evening, while the older folks were talking in the sitting room and the children were playing games, Bunny heard his father say:
"There's the oil stock certificate Bunny found, Mr. Morton."
"Oh, yes, your wife was telling us about that," remarked the cotton planter. "Let me see it."
Bunny looked up in time to see his father show Mr. Morton a stiff, crinkly green and gold paper, which the little boy well remembered.
"Didn't you yet find out to whom that oil stock belongs?" asked Mrs. Brown of her husband, while Bunny entertained Sam and Grace by telling them in a low voice how, while they were in the sleigh that day with Uncle Tad, the porter of the Pullman car had tossed the valuable paper out in a pan of dirt.
"No, so far I haven't found the owner," Mr. Brown answered. "I brought the certificate with me, for I thought perhaps the oil company might have been notified by the loser. But they write me that no one has yetnotified them of the loss. So I'll have to hold the stock a while longer. It is quite valuable, the oil company says, and I must take good care of it."
He put the temporary certificate back in his pocket, and Bunny and his sister, after telling about the runaway, went on playing games with Sam and Grace.
"Well," said Mr. Brown at last, after he and Mr. Morton had looked over several business books and papers, "I think we'll be traveling on to Florida in a few days."
"We shall miss having you here," Mrs. Morton said. "I'm sure it has done the children good."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Brown. "They never before saw cotton or peanuts growing, and they have learned something."
"I want to learn about oranges!" exclaimed Sue.
"And maybe I could grow up to be an alligator hunter," added Bunny.
"I hope not that!" his mother exclaimed, laughing. "And I think it is almost time for you children to go to bed."
But just then there came a knock on the door and the colored servant, having answered it, came back to say that the plantation hands were having a sort of jubilee among themselves and had sent to know if the "white folks" didn't want to see the fun.
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Morton, as he heard this message. "I was telling you that at the end of the cotton-picking season the darkies have a great time among themselves, playing and singing songs. They make hoe cakes and if they can get a 'possum they roast that with sweet potatoes. Let's go down for a little while."
"Can we come?" cried all four children, almost in one voice.
"Yes, let them come!" said Mr. Morton.
It was not really very late, though it was dark. But once Bunny and Sue, with Sam and Grace were outside, they saw, down in the direction of the darkies' cabins, some flickering lights which told of bonfires and torches.
"It looks just like a picture," said Mrs. Brown, as she walked along with her husband.
They could hear the strumming of banjos,the blowing of mouth organs, and the singing of the colored folk, whose full, soft voices made most pleasant tunes.