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.
"Just dandy!" exclaimed Bunny Brown. "And I'm going to sit on the seat
and steer, just as I did when Bunker Blue took us to grandpa's."
"I don't know that Bunker is going this time," said Mr. Brown, speaking
of the boy who worked for him and ran some of the motor boats when
parties of men and women wanted to go out in the bay fishing.
"Oh! Bunker not going?" cried Bunny, somewhat disappointed.
"But we'll take your dog Splash and Uncle Tad," said Mr. Brown.
"That will be all right," agreed Bunny. "Go on, Daddy. Tell us some
more."
"Well, I don't know that there is any more to tell. We are going in the
big automobile, have a nice trip, and come back when we get ready. It
will be Indian Summer most of the time, the nicest part of the year, I
think, so we ought to have good weather. Now the rest is in your hands
and your mother's--getting ready for the trip."
Those who have read the book telling about the time spent on grandpa's
farm will remember the big automobile in which the Browns traveled to
the farm.
It had been a furniture moving van, and you know how big and strong they
are. Inside they are just like a big room in a house, only they move
about by a motor in the front, just as does a small automobile.
But this moving van was very different from the kind usually seen. The
inside had been made over into several rooms. There were little bunks,
or beds in which to sleep, a combined kitchen and dining room, and a
little sitting room where, in the evenings after the day's travel, the
children could sit and read, for the traveling automobile was lighted by
electric lights, from a storage battery carried in it.
On bright, sunshiny days the little table was moved out of the van to
the ground beside it and there the meals were served. Sometimes cooking
was done out-of-doors, also, on a gasolene stove. A tent was carried,
and if any company came they could sleep in that if there was not room
in the auto-van.
When the Browns wanted to travel through the rain they could do so
without getting wet, for there was a stout roof on the automobile.
Windows had been cut in the sides of the van so the children could sit
beside them in stormy weather and look out, just as if they were in a
railroad car. And in the big car was a place for some of the children's
toys.
There was room for plenty of food to be carried, and even a small
ice-box that could be filled with ice whenever they stopped in a city.
"Well," said Mr. Brown, after he had told Bunny, Sue and their mother
about his plan, "do you think you'll like it?"
"I'll just love it!" cried Sue.
"So will I," said Bunny. "Let's hug and kiss daddy and momsie!"
"No, I'll have to beg off!" cried Mr. Brown. "Just one kiss each, and
don't muss my hair for I've got to go to the police station to take
Fred's picture. I'm sure his father would feel bad about doing a thing
like that so I'll do it for him. I'll be back soon."
"And we'll talk about the trip while you're gone," said Mrs. Brown.
Bunny and Sue were in bed when their father returned. The next morning
their mother told them, after Mr. Brown had gone to work, that he had
asked the police to do all they could to find Fred Ward.
"And now we must get ready for our trip," went on Mrs. Brown. "I must
get both of you some new clothes, for you wore out many suits while we
were at Camp Rest-a-While and in the Big Woods."
"But don't get too many. It will take too long to get 'em," remarked
Bunny. "We want to get started on our auto tour."
Not long after this Mrs. Brown announced that she was ready for the
trip--that she had bought the new clothes, and had arranged for the food
they were to take with them.
"Then I'll bring the big auto around here to the house to-morrow morning
and let you look at it," said Mr. Brown. "I have made a few changes in
it. I hope you will like it."
"Oh, we'll be sure to," said Mrs. Brown.
That night, when Bunny and Sue were ready for bed, Bunny looked out of
the window toward the Ward house. There was a bright moon.
"I see Dix and Splash playing together on the lawn," he said.
"And I see something else," added Sue.
"What?" asked Bunny.
"I see Fred Ward coming home. There he is, going up the back steps now."
Sue pointed, and Bunny saw a tall lad, who did look very much like the
runaway boy, at the back door of the Ward home.
"Oh, let's tell daddy and momsie!" cried Bunny, as he and his sister, in
their bare feet, pattered their way downstairs.