DIX AND THE CAT
Uncle Tad and Mr. Brown did not stop to answer the children's plea to be
allowed to go to the fire. On the men rushed, and Bunny and Sue turned
to their mother.
"Please mayn't we go?" they begged. "It isn't far, and it's early yet.
Besides, we know enough to keep away from fires."
"Well----" said Mrs. Brown slowly. Then she stopped as she saw Uncle Tad
running back, while Mr. Brown kept on toward the blaze in a shed near
some farmer's barn.
"What's the matter, Uncle Tad?" asked Bunny. "Aren't you going?"
"Yes. But I came back to get the fire extinguishers that we carry on the
auto. This blaze hasn't much of a start yet, and we may be able to put
it out with our extinguishers."
Uncle Tad darted into the automobile. Sue and Bunny remembered about the
extinguishers now. They were red things, like fire crackers, and hung
near the seat behind the steering wheel.
Once, to show Bunny and Sue how easily the extinguishers put out a fire,
Mr. Brown had started one in the back yard. Then, from the red thing, he
had squirted a liquid and the fire sizzled and went out.
"Oh, we want to see daddy put out the fire!" cried Bunny.
"The children are teasing to go," said Mrs. Brown, as Uncle Tad came out
again with an extinguisher under each arm. "Do you suppose it would do
them any harm?"
"Not at all!" cried Uncle Tad. "But you come with them. I don't believe
the fire will be a very big one, but a lot of the country people are
running to it. Bring the children along. Daddy Brown won't care."
"Whoop!" cried Bunny. "That's great!"
"I wouldn't whoop," observed Sue, shaking her finger at her brother.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because this isn't a bonfire. Somebody's shed is burning up; and though
it looks nice it isn't any fun for them. We ought to be sorry."
"Well I am," said Bunny. "I'm sorry for them, but I'm glad for myself
that I'm going to see the fire. Is that all right, Momsie?"
"I guess so," answered Mrs. Brown, and then she hurried on to the fire
with the children, while Uncle Tad raced ahead with the red fire-cracker
extinguishers.
Over the fields, from other farmhouses, people came running. Men and
women, and boys and girls. They, also, wanted to see the fire. As Bunny
and Sue, with their mother, hurried on they saw that the blaze was in a
low shed, and from this shed came wild squeals.
"They sound like pigs!" said Bunny.
"I guess it is the pig-pen on fire," replied Mother Brown.
Bunny and his sister, with their mother, were at the fire almost as soon
as Daddy Brown and Uncle Tad. Then they saw for sure that what was
blazing was a big pig-pen built on the side of a barn. The barn had not
yet caught fire.
"Make a bucket brigade!" called one of the farmers who had run to the
fire. "We must dip water from the brook, pass it along in pails, and
throw it on the fire."
"Wait a minute!" cried Mr. Brown. "I have a better way than that, and
surer, I think. First some of you rip out a side of the pen, so the pigs
can get loose, and then we'll put out the fire for you."
"That's the idea! He's got fire extinguishers!" cried the farmer whose
pen was ablaze. "Rip off some of the boards and let those pigs out.
Otherwise they'll be roasted before their time."
"Set to work!" yelled a neighbor.
With rakes, hoes and axes the men soon tore down a side of the pen
farthest away from the fire. Out ran the pigs squealing as loudly as
they could. Dix, Splash and some other dogs ran among them, thinking it
was all a game, I suppose.
Mr. Brown, with one extinguisher, and Uncle Tad, with another, squirted
on the blaze the white streams, made of something that puts fire out
better even than water. Over the blaze Uncle Tad and Mr. Brown squirted
the stuff until finally the fire was out.
"Well, I'm certainly obliged to you, neighbor," said the farmer who
owned the pigs. "My name's Blakeson. I don't believe I know you, though.
Live around here?"
"No, we are making a tour in a big automobile," and Mr. Brown pointed to
it. "We saw your blaze and came to it."
"Well, I'm certainly thankful to you, and for those contraptions there,"
and he pointed to the fire extinguishers. "That's better than dipping
water from the brook."
"Yes, I carry them in case the gasolene on my auto should get on fire,"
said Mr. Brown. "But they'll put out any small blaze."
The pig-pen had only partly burned, and the barn, to the side of which
it was built, was only scorched. Some one must have dropped a match in
the straw of the pig-pen to start the blaze, it was said.
"Well, we'll nail a few boards back on the pen, and it will do to keep
the pigs in until morning," said Mr. Blakeson, the farmer. "That is if
we can get 'em collected again."
"My dogs will help," said Mr. Brown. "Here, Dix! Splash!" he called.
"Drive the pigs up here!"
The two dogs, both of which were used to driving cows, soon collected
the pigs, even in the dark, and once more they were in their pen,
sniffing about for something to eat, now that the fire was out.
The farmer whose barn had been saved by the children's father was much
interested in the big auto, and, a little later in the evening, went
down to look at it, as did some of his neighbors.
"Well, that's a fine way of traveling about," said Mr. Blakeson, and his
friends agreed with him.
The next morning, while Bunny, Sue and the others were at breakfast,
talking about the fire of the night before, a number of children came
down the road to see the big machine. All the dirt from the flood had
been washed off, and as it had been newly painted before this tour
started, the "Ark," as the Browns sometimes called their big car, looked
very nice indeed.
The country children had seldom, if ever, seen so big an automobile as
this, nor one in which a family could live as they traveled. There were
many "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" as they walked about it.
"Let's ask 'em in and show 'em our bunks," proposed Bunny, and his
mother said he might. The children were even more surprised at the
inside of the "Ark" than at the outside.
"Oh, wouldn't I love to live in this!" sighed a little girl with red
hair. "It's just like Mother Goose or a fairy story."
"I love fairy stories," said Sue.
Just before the Browns were ready to set off once more in their
automobile, a hired hand from the Blakeson farm came down with a basket
of fresh eggs, some apples and other fruit which the farmer gave Daddy
Brown and Uncle Tad for helping to put out the fire.
"Oh, he needn't have done that," said Mrs. Brown. "But I do love fresh
eggs, so I'll keep them. Please thank Mr. Blakeson for me."
The man said he would, and then, as he went back to the farm, the big
auto started off on the tour again. There were yet many miles to go, and
many more adventures were in store for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.
"We've got to find that missing Fred Ward," said Bunny. "It's funny
where he went, isn't it?"
"Well, this country is a big place, especially if a person wants to
hide," said Mr. Brown. "Still we may find some trace of Fred in Portland
when we get there. But that will not be for some weeks, as we are
traveling slowly."
The Browns and Uncle Tad found the auto tour so pleasant that it was
decided to make the trip even longer than at first planned, which would
put off the time when they would reach Portland.
For two more days they traveled on, stopping each night near some
village or small city. Nothing happened except that once they nearly ran
into a hay wagon that did not get out of the way in time.
"But it wouldn't hurt any more to hit a hay wagon than it would be to
fall into a feather bed," said Bunny.
It was just about supper time. Bunny and Sue were playing out in front
of the automobile, while Mrs. Brown was getting supper. Sue suddenly
called:
"Oh, look at Dix! He's chasing a cat!"
Something big and gray flashed over the ground. Dix ran for it, and his
teeth seemed to close on one of the hind legs of the animal. Then the
gray animal ran up a tree, and Dix raced about at the foot, barking and
whining, while Splash left the place where he was rolling on the grass,
to come to see what the matter was.