A TERRIBLE NOISE
The _Beacon_ steamed on, each hour taking her nearer and nearer to
the warm, sunny southland of the West Indies. But Bunny Brown, locked
in the storeroom, cared nothing for this. All he wanted was to be let
out. He had even forgotten about the cookie now.
Mr. and Mrs. Brown were up on deck, sitting in easy chairs and
enjoying the beautiful sight of the ocean, which, though it was
rolling a bit, was not as wild as it had been during the storm.
Sue came up to her father and mother, carrying her doll Elizabeth,
for whom she had made a new dress out of an old towel her mother had
given her for this purpose. The sewing Sue did was not very good—the
stitches were much too large.
“Isn’t Elizabeth’s dress nice?” asked Sue, showing her mother the
new gown for the doll.
“Indeed it is a pretty dress,” replied Mrs. Brown.
“Where is Bunny?” asked Mr. Brown, for usually the little boy and his
sister were together.
“Oh, Bunny didn’t want to play doll with me, so he went to get
something to eat,” explained Sue. “I guess Bunny’s going to play
picnic,” added Sue.
“Where would he get anything to eat on this ship?” asked Mrs. Brown.
“He can’t go to the kitchen as he could if he were at home.”
“I suppose he will ask one of the dining-room or pantry stewards to
get him something,” suggested Mr. Brown. “They’ll be glad to do that.
But it will not be wise for Bunny to eat much now. It is too near the
time for the regular meal.”
“That wouldn’t worry him,” laughed Mrs. Brown. “Bunny always has a
good appetite.”
So, thinking their little boy was in the care of one of the stewards,
Mr. and Mrs. Brown did not worry about him. They remained on deck
for some time longer. Sue stayed with them, playing with her doll.
Then came the bugle call, which served the same purpose as a dinner
bell at home. One of the sailors blew several musical notes on a
horn, and this meant that the passengers, the captain, and such of
the ship’s officers as were not on duty could get their meal.
“I guess Bunny is down there waiting for us,” said Mr. Brown, as he
started for the dining saloon with his wife and Sue.
Much to the surprise of his father and mother, Bunny was not waiting
for them in the dining saloon. The tables were set and many of the
passengers were in their chairs. But at the table assigned to the
Brown family there was no Bunny.
“I wonder where he is,” said Mrs. Brown.
“Perhaps he went up on deck to find us,” suggested her husband. “He
may have gone up by a different stairway, and we didn’t see him. I’ll
go and look. You sit down with Sue, my dear.”
Mrs. Brown sat down at the table to wait for her husband’s return.
But when he came down a little later he was alone.
“Where’s Bunny?” asked Mrs. Brown, now anxious.
“He wasn’t up there on deck, and no one seems to have seen him around
lately,” was the answer. “I think he must have wandered into some
other part of the ship. Perhaps he has gone down to the engine room.
The last time I took him there he asked to go again, and I said I’d
see about it. He may have gone there by himself.”
“I hope nothing has happened to him!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown.
“Nothing has, I’m sure,” her husband said. “But I’ll have a search
made at once.”
Without waiting to start his meal, Mr. Brown spoke to some of the
officers, and at once a search was started through the ship to find
the missing boy.
All this while poor Bunny was securely locked in the storeroom where
many good things to eat were kept.
At first, after Bunny realized that the swaying of the ship had made
the sliding door roll shut and lock, he thought perhaps he could push
it open again and get out. So, after calling once or twice for Mr.
Jobson, the pantry steward, and getting no answer, Bunny went to the
door and began to push on it.
But, as far as Bunny could tell, the door was made to open only from
the outside, though, he thought, perhaps a man if he knew how could
have opened it from within. There seemed to be some sort of catch
that held it shut, and push and pull though he did, Bunny could not
stir it.
“Maybe Mr. Jobson is away back in there and doesn’t hear me calling,”
said Bunny to himself, after he had worked in vain at the door for
some time. “I’ll go and look.”
The pantry was small and well lighted by even the one electric bulb,
so Bunny could easily see his way to the back part. When he got there
he did not find the cupboard bare, as Mother Hubbard did, for there
was plenty to eat in this ship’s pantry, but Mr. Jobson was not in
the storeroom.
Then Bunny Brown knew he was locked in all alone, and for the first
time he felt a bit frightened.
But he was also a bit hungry, and seeing on a shelf a package of
ginger cookies that had been opened, he reached up and took one.
“I don’t s’pose anybody will care,” thought Bunny. “Maybe Mr. Jobson
was eating some of these cookies, and he’d have given me one,
anyhow.” Which was probably quite true.
So the little locked-in boy munched his ginger cookie and felt
better. Still he wanted to get out, and so when he had gotten rid of
the last crumbs he tried the door again. But it was still tightly
closed.
“I’m going to yell!” said Bunny Brown. “Somebody will hear me yell
and come and let me out.” So he called: “Open the door! Open the door
and let me out! I’m in here! Bunny Brown is locked in here!”
But on board a ship, especially on a steamer, there are many noises
made by the machinery. So the voice of the little boy was not heard
above these sounds. Shut up as he was in a pantry some distance away
from the dining saloon, Bunny’s voice did not carry very far. No one
heard him calling.
By this time Mr. and Mrs. Brown were getting very much worried
because Bunny could not be found, and when one after another of the
men about the ship came back from different places where they had
looked to report that nothing had been seen of the little fellow,
Mrs. Brown was almost ready to cry and Sue’s lips were quivering.
Just then the dining-room steward, to whom Bunny had appealed for
a cookie, came into the saloon. He had been in another part of the
ship, having gone there soon after he had sent Bunny to the pantry
steward; so this man from the dining room, whose name was Peter Wynn,
did not know Bunny was lost until coming back on duty again.
“What’s that?” cried Mr. Wynn. “Bunny Brown gone? Why, he was here
when I was setting my tables.”
“Where did he go?” asked Mr. Brown.
“I sent him to Jobson,” was the answer. “The little lad wanted a
cookie. I didn’t have any, but I knew Jobson was in the storeroom
getting out some packages of cakes and biscuits. So I sent Bunny
there.”
No one had thought of the pantry, but as soon as Mr. Wynn spoke of it
a hurried trip was made to the place. As Mr. and Mrs. Brown and some
of the ship’s officers came to the corridor outside the pantry, they
heard Bunny shouting:
“Let me out! Please let me out! I don’t want to stay here!”
“We’re coming, Bunny! We’re here! We’re going to let you out!” cried
Sue, for she had followed to see what had happened to her brother.
It took only a second for one of the men who knew how to open the
pantry, and then Bunny, with tears on his cheeks, stepped outside.
“Oh, Bunny!” cried his mother, putting her arms around him, “why did
you go into the pantry and lock yourself in?”
“I didn’t lock myself in,” said the little boy. “The door slammed
shut and I couldn’t get it open again.”
“That’s very true,” said Mr. Wynn, who looked at it. “This door has
a habit of sliding shut and locking itself. We stewards know about it
and always fasten it back. I don’t see why Jobson didn’t do it. He
might have been locked in himself.”
Just then Steward Jobson, who had gone to another part of the ship,
came back to his pantry, and he was surprised to learn what had
happened.
“It’s too bad,” he said. “I finished my work in there and went out.
I did fasten back the door, and when I went out I took off the
fastening, thinking the door would shut of itself. And it did, it
seems, though I’m sorry to know it shut Bunny up behind it. He must
have gone in just after I went out. I happened to remember a moment
ago that I had left the electric light turned on in the pantry, and I
was coming now to turn it off. I’m very sorry.”
“Well, I didn’t get hurt,” said Bunny, smiling now that the danger
and fright were over. “And I ate some of your cookies.”
“You are quite welcome to all you want,” said Mr. Jobson, with a
smile.
Thus the lost boy was found and every one was happy. One of the
ship’s officers gave orders to have the pantry door repaired so no
one else would be likely to get shut in.
“Have you eaten yet?” asked Bunny, as he went back to the dining
saloon with his father, mother and sister.
“No, we were just going to when we missed you,” said Mrs. Brown. “But
I don’t suppose you want anything to eat now, do you, Bunny?”
“Sure, I do!” he cried. “Why not, Mother?”
“I thought you had eaten so many cookies while you were in the pantry
that you wouldn’t want anything else.”
“Oh, I didn’t eat many,” said Bunny. “Only five or six. And I’m
hungry yet.”
Afterward Bunny and Sue played some games out on deck and when
evening came they listened to a story their father told them and went
to bed.
“What a lovely, calm and quiet evening,” said Mrs. Brown to her
husband as they walked the deck a little while before going to their
staterooms.
“Yes, the ocean is hardly rolling any now,” said Mr. Brown. “There is
no wind at all. If this were a sailing ship we would be becalmed, not
able to move.”
But the _Beacon_, being a steamer, plowed her way through the warm,
southern waters while Bunny and Sue slept soundly. It was in the
morning when Bunny and Sue were dressing, their parents having gotten
up earlier to go out on deck, that something happened.
Sue had finished putting on her clothes, as had Bunny, and the
children were just leaving their staterooms when the ship suddenly
trembled and shook and a most terrific blast sounded in their ears.
“Oh! Oh!” cried Sue, as she made a wild jump. “What’s that terrible
noise, Bunny? Did you hear it? There it goes again!”
“Sure, I heard it!” answered Bunny, but Sue could hardly hear him
above the strange blast of sound.