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Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 16. The Jolly Switchman |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. THE JOLLY SWITCHMAN For some time Bunny Brown and his sister Sue did not know that they had been left alone. They were playing with the kitten and they supposed their tramp friend Nutty was looking out of the partly opened door, watching for a chance to get them off the train. It was not until Sue grew tired of setting Toddle up on his hind legs, only to have the kitten slump over in a heap, that she looked up and saw the door opened wider and Nutty gone. "Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue. "Look!" Bunny, who was taking some more nuts from one of the tin boxes the tramp had left in the corner, glanced at his sister. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Nutty is gone!" exclaimed Sue. "Oh, Bunny! I guess he fell out of the door! It's open wider! Oh, poor Nutty has falled out!" Bunny made his way to the crack, and, holding to the edge of the door, he looked out. He could see that it was late afternoon, and as the sun was setting Bunny knew it would soon be night. He began to wish, more than ever, that he and Sue were with their father and mother. "Do you see him?" asked Sue, after Bunny had had time to look up and down the railroad. "No," was the answer. "Nutty isn't here. I guess he fell all the way out." Sue scrambled to her feet to walk over and stand beside Bunny. She was tired of the dark car and of not being able to look from a window. That was half the fun of traveling--looking from windows. Sue was half way across the car on her way to join Bunny when the train went around a curve, and so sudden it was that the freight car swayed and jolted, and Sue lost her balance. Down she sat on the floor, rather hard. She was not hurt, but she was surprised and she lost her breath for the moment. If Bunny had not held tightly to the edge of the door he might have been tossed out. "I guess I'd better not stand there," Bunny said, as he thought of what might have happened if he had been tossed out. He could not have got back in again when the train was moving, and Sue would have been left all alone. "Come and stay with me," begged Sue, giving up the idea of going to the partly opened door. "We'll have to light another candle pretty soon, 'cause this one is 'most gone." This was true. The candle-end which Nutty had lighted was burned almost to the bottom of the tin can to which it was fastened by some of the melted grease. "Maybe there are more candles," suggested Bunny. "Let's look." Nutty, as has been said, had left all his things behind him in a corner of the freight car. Delving in among the old bags, in which he always carried his "baggage," the children found some more nuts. There was so much of this food that they would not be hungry for another day at least, and there was another bottle of water. "But there's no more milk for pussy," said Sue. "Well, he's got a little left in his bottle," Bunny answered. "And he can have some of our water." "Water isn't good to eat--it's only good to drink," declared Sue. "Maybe Toddle will eat nuts," suggested her brother. But when they put some down in front of the cat it only smelled of them, played with them by knocking them about with its paw, and rubbed up against Sue. "Oh, well, maybe he won't be hungry," Bunny said. Night was now coming on, and Bunny and Sue were alone in the freight car--that is, except for Toddle, and while the children loved the kitten he was not as much company as a big dog would have been. On and on rumbled the train. Where they were now Bunny and Sue had not the least idea. Bunny was still looking among Nutty's things for another candle-end to light when the first one should burn out, which seemed likely to happen very soon, when the children suddenly became aware that the train was slowing up. "Oh, maybe it's going to stop!" exclaimed Sue. And then, just as the candle burned down and went out in a splutter of grease, leaving the car in darkness, the train came to a slow stop, with a creaking and squealing of brakes. "Oh, Bunny! Bunny!" cried Sue, "now we can get off." "Yes," said Bunny, "I guess we can." It was easy to cross the car now, for it was not moving. Bunny hurried to the door which Nutty had left open, and the little boy looked out. In the early evening twilight he and Sue could see a patch of woods and some fields. They did not know what the place was. The freight car in which they had ridden had stopped along the way at a place where a high bank was close to the track. From the freight car to the bank was only a few feet--a distance that Bunny and Sue could easily jump. "I'll go first!" offered Bunny, and he leaped to the ground. "I'm coming!" cried Sue, as she followed her brother, landing beside him with a thud. And then Bunny gave a little cry of surprise. "Why!" he exclaimed. "You--you brought Toddle with you!" "Course I did!" answered Sue. "Think I'd leave that little pussy behind in the car all alone?" "No," agreed Bunny. "I guess it's good you brought him." "What made the train stop?" asked Sue, as she snuggled the kitten down in her arms and stood beside Bunny. "Did Nutty make it stop, and is mother or daddy here?" "I don't know," Bunny answered, looking up and down the track. "I don't b'lieve mother is here--or father either," he went on. "And I don't see Nutty." "But what made the train stop?" Sue asked again. "The engine is getting a drink of water," Bunny answered, pointing down the track to a water tower, opposite which the engine had stopped. A man was standing on the pile of coal in the tender, or back part of the engine, and from the wayside tank a big iron pipe had been pulled over the opening in the tank tender. Through this pipe a stream of water was flowing. Bunny and Sue both knew, of course, that the engine did not exactly "drink" water. But they had been told this when quite young and they still said it just in fun. Their father had told them that water was put in an engine just as water was put in the tea kettle--to boil and make steam. "That's what the train stopped for," Bunny went on; "so the engine could get some water. And I'm glad it stopped, so we could get off. I was tired of riding in that old car." "So was I," Sue agreed. "It's lots nicer out here. But, Bunny," she said, "it's going to be night--how are we going to get back?" and she hugged Toddle closer to her. Bunny, too, was beginning to wonder about this. He could see that it was getting dark. He looked down the track, and the engine whistled twice. This meant that it was going to start off again and pull the train. The man on the pile of coal in the tender pushed back the iron water pipe, and then the freight car wheels began to squeak and turn. As Bunny and Sue stood beside the track the train started to move, and soon it was pulling away, leaving the two children alone. It was a rather desolate place, with fields on one side and a patch of woods on the other. But as the train clacked on down the track, out of sight, Bunny caught a view of a small shanty, or little house, near the water tank. And as he pointed this out to Sue a man came from the little brown house and looked up and down. "Oh, there's somebody," Sue cried, almost dropping the kitten in her excitement. "Maybe he can tell us how to get back to mother, Bunny Brown!" "Maybe he can," the little boy agreed. "Let's go and ask him." "Do you know who he is?" Sue asked. "I guess he's the switchman, and he tends to the water tower," Bunny answered. At home they knew a switchman who lived in a little shanty just like this. He lowered and raised gates as trains came and went. But there were no gates here in this lonely place. But Bunny and Sue knew this person was a switchman, and as he saw them coming down the track he stared in wonder at the children. "Well, what are you two little ones doing here?" asked the jolly switchman as he greeted Bunny and Sue. His smile was jolly, his voice was jolly, and he seemed quite a jolly person all over. "Where did you come from?" he asked. "Off that train," answered Bunny. "What? That freight train?" asked the switchman, who was also the water-tender. He had charge of the pump that filled the tank alongside of the track. "Yes, we were on that freight train," Bunny answered, "and we jumped off when it stopped." "Well, of all things!" cried the jolly switchman. "And was the cat with you, too?" he wanted to know. "Yes," answered Sue. "This was Nutty's cat." "What, Nutty, the tramp?" cried the switchman. "Did he have you two tots?" Bunny shook his head. "Nutty was very good to us," answered the little boy. "He was in the car when we crawled in to get the pussy, but we didn't know it. Then the train started up and we couldn't get off. Nutty jumped off a while ago, 'cause he was afraid he'd be arrested. But we couldn't jump off until just now." "My! My! That's quite a story!" cried the jolly switchman. "You had better come home with me, and my wife will give you something to eat. You two children must be lost! Come, I'll take you to my wife." "Does she live there?" asked Sue, pointing to the shanty. The jolly switchman burst into a loud laugh. _ |
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