WAS IT FRED?
"What's this? What's this you're talking about?" suddenly asked Mr.
Brown, as he heard what Bunny said. Or rather, Bunny's father did not
hear exactly, for he had been thinking about something else. But he had
caught the name Fred Ward.
"Bunny thinks that colored banjo player with that medicine show may be
Fred Ward," said Mrs. Brown. "Do you think it would be of any use to
inquire, Daddy?"
"Why, that _is_ a medicine show, isn't it!" exclaimed Mr. Brown, as
though he saw it for the first time. "And it's just like the one we
heard about that had a boy banjo player with it."
"There's a boy banjo player now," said Bunny. "He's going to play,
Daddy, too! Do you think it could be Fred?"
The man who was selling the bottles of medicine, after telling the
people how much good it would do them, had stopped to let the boy
traveling with him play the banjo.
There are, or there used to be, many such traveling medicine shows.
Sometimes there would be a whole troop of Indians, some real and some
make-believe, that would be engaged by the seller of the medicine. He
would have the Indians do some of their queer dances and then, when a
crowd had collected, he would sell some medicine--maybe some he said the
Indians made themselves.
Another medicine seller would go about with a gaily painted wagon,
carrying a cornet player, a singer or a banjoist to attract a crowd. And
when the men and women were gathered about the end of the wagon, which
had a broad platform on the end and a flaring gasolene torch at night,
the man would tell about his medicine and sell all he could.
This traveling medicine show which Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue saw
was like those. And, just as the Browns reached the place in the village
square where the torch on the wagon was burning, the man had finished
selling a large number of bottles of medicine. It was about time he
amused the crowd again, he thought. So he called in a loud voice:
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, while I am getting out of my storeroom some
more bottles of my wonderful medicine that will cure all your pains and
aches, I will have my friend here, Professor Rombodno Prosondo entertain
you on his magical banjo. Professor Rombodno Prosondo, I might say, is
the most wonderful player on the banjo you have ever heard. He has
traveled all over the world and played in every country. Professor, you
will now oblige!"
Of course what the medicine man said about the banjo player was only a
joke, and the people knew that. He was not a professor at all. But he
was a good banjo player and a singer, and Bunny and Sue were delighted
with the music. The songs, too, were funny.
"He sings like a real colored boy," said Sue.
"Maybe he is," her father observed.
"Yes, and maybe he's only blacked up, like most of them," suggested Mrs.
Brown. "Can you tell if he looks anything like Fred Ward, Daddy?"
"No, I can't be sure that he does," said Mr. Brown. "I never saw much of
the missing boy, you know; and I certainly would not know him if he were
blackened like a negro. This one, if he is not really colored, is well
made-up. He would fool almost any one."
"Is there any way we could find out?" asked Mrs. Brown. "We ought to do
all we can to find Fred for his parents."
"I'll see what I can do after the exhibition is over," promised Mr.
Brown. "I'll ask the proprietor of the medicine wagon if I can get a
chance. But I'll have to do it when the banjo player can't hear, for in
case he should be Fred--which I hardly think can be true--but if it
should be he, and he heard me asking, he'd run away again."
"Yes, I suppose he would," said Mrs. Brown with a sigh. "Oh, how foolish
boys are sometimes. They don't know what is good for them," and she
looked at Bunny, as if wondering if the time would ever come when he
would not be a "mother's boy." She hoped not.
"Let's get up as close as we can," said Bunny. "Maybe if it's Fred we
can tell, no matter if he is blacked up like a minstrel."
"He doesn't look at all like Fred to me," said Sue. "He looks so funny
with his big red lips and his white collar."
"That's the way they all dress," said Bunny. "Come on, here's a place we
can squeeze through and see better."
Bunny wiggled his way up among the people. His sister followed him, and
Mr. and Mrs. Brown, watching the children, knew where to find them when
they wanted to go away.
"Now take a good look," whispered Sue to Bunny, as they got very near
the platform on which the boy sat. She had made her whisper rather loud,
and it came at just the time when the banjoist stopped playing, so that
he and several persons heard the little girl.
"What's the matter?" asked one man, smiling down at Sue. "Didn't you
ever see a minstrel before?"
"Yes, I did," said Sue. "But maybe not this one."
"Oh, they're all alike," said the man, but Sue paid no more attention
to him, for she was nudging Bunny and trying to get him to look at the
colored boy.
Bunny himself was greatly interested. He wanted to make sure whether or
not the player were Fred. So he stared with all his might at the
banjoist, who just then began another song.
By this time the medicine man had come out on the platform of his wagon
with more filled bottles to sell. He would begin as soon as the song was
finished, for more people had gathered, attracted by the music.
And then Bunny and Sue both noticed that the colored boy was looking
straight at them. But he did not seem to know them. And surely, if it
had been Fred Ward he would have known the Brown children, even though
he had lived next door to them only a short time. People did not easily
forget Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, once they had met them.
But this banjo player evidently did not know them; or, if he did, he was
not going to let it be known. He finished his song with a twang of the
banjo strings and then hurried inside the wagon, the sides of which were
of wood, like a small moving van.
Then the man began selling his medicine again, talking a great deal
about it while he did so.
Mrs. Brown turned to her husband and said:
"I'm sure that was a white boy blacked up to look like a negro, and he
does it very well, too. Even his voice is like a colored person's. But
as he turned to go back into the wagon his sleeve slipped up and I saw
that his arm was white."
"Very likely he was made up as a colored boy then," said Mr. Brown. "His
lips were too red for a real colored boy's."
"Well, since we are sure of that let's ask the medicine man about him,"
went on Mrs. Brown.
"All right, I'm willing," said Mr. Brown good-naturedly. "We'll wait
until the show is over though."
The medicine man kept on selling bottles. It was getting later now, and
the crowd began to thin out. Seeing this the medicine man announced
there would be no more music or sales that night, but that he would stop
in this town on his next trip.
The flaring lamp was put out, and the medicine man began to close up his
wagon for the night. Mr. Brown stepped up to him. The real or pretended
colored boy was not in sight.
"I'd like to ask you a question," said Mr. Brown to the traveling
medicine seller.
"About my wonderful pain destroyer?" asked "Dr. Perry," as he called
himself.
"No. About that young banjo player you have with you."
"Oh, you mean Professor Rombodno Prosondo?"
"Yes," and Mr. Brown smiled. "I want to know if he is Fred Ward, who has
run away from his home next door to us?"
[Illustration: "NOW TAKE A GOOD LOOK," WHISPERED SUE TO BUNNY.
_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour._ _Page_ 153.]