THE POOR CAT
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were now going farther down into the
sunny South. They had left far behind the bleak and cold of the North
where there was ice and snow when they had come away. In Georgia they
had found soft winds and balmy skies, but now, as they were headed into
Florida, they were to find it even warmer.
Orange Beach, where Mr. Brown expected to meet Mr. Halliday and attend
to some business, was in the southern part of Florida, somewhat inland
from the ocean and on a river which Bunny, at least, hoped would be
filled with alligators.
As for Sue, all she hoped for was to gather oranges and orange blossoms.
Both children, in a way, were to have their wishes gratified.
As the train went farther south, the scenery grew more and more green,
for Bunny and Sue were getting into the land where there is never any
snow or ice, and only occasionally a little frost, which all orange
growers dread. Sometimes, to keep a frost from hurting the orange trees,
great bonfires are built in the groves and kept going all night.
"Oh, look what a funny tree!" cried Sue, as the train was passing
through a swampy bit of forest. "It looks as if it had whiskers!"
"Oh, isn't it funny!" echoed Bunny. "What is it, Daddy?"
Daddy Brown leaned toward the car window and looked out. Several trees
were now seen, each one festooned with what Sue had called "whiskers."
"That is Spanish moss, also called long moss," explained Mr. Brown. "It
is common in Florida and other parts of the South, especially in trees
that grow in the swamps, or everglades."
"What are the everglades?" Bunny wanted to know. "Are they like
alligators?"
"Oh, no!" laughed his mother. "About all you think of, Bunny, is
alligators."
"I don't; do I, Mother?" asked Sue. "I keep thinking of oranges!"
Mr. and Mrs. Brown laughed at this, and Mr. Brown, after explaining how
the Spanish moss grew on trees, sometimes hanging down like the gray
beard of a very old man, told the children about the everglades.
"The everglades are the great swamps in the southern part of Florida,"
Mr. Brown said. "The land there is very low in some places, and the sea
water covers it at times. The everglades are lonely places, part forest
and partly covered with tall grass."
"Alligators, too?" asked Bunny, with wide-open eyes.
"Yes, I think alligators are there," Mr. Brown said. "But no oranges,"
he added, before Sue could ask that question. "It is too swampy to raise
oranges, though now an effort is being made to drain the swampy
everglades and make them of some use. We aren't going to that part of
Florida, however; at least not on this journey."
There was so much of interest to see on this trip to the sunny South,
and so much to ask questions about, that Bunny and Sue thought the
journey one of the most delightful they had ever taken.
While Mr. Brown looked over some business papers, among which Bunny had
a glimpse of the valuable oil certificate, and while Mrs. Brown read a
magazine, the children looked from the windows of their car at the
scenes and landscapes that flitted past so rapidly.
"We're going to change cars in a little while," said Mr. Brown to his
wife and children, as he put his papers back in his pocket.
"Are we at Orange Beach?" Bunny asked, ready to start out and hunt
alligators at a moment's notice if need be.
"Oh, no," his father answered. "Orange Beach is another day's travel.
But this is as far as this railroad runs and we have to get off and take
another train. The place where we will get off is only a small station
in a little town, but there is a man there I want to see on business."
"Will you stay there long?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"No, only a few hours, while waiting for the next train to take us on to
Orange Beach. You will have time to get something to eat--you and the
children, while I see Mr. Parker. The name of the place is Clayton, and
it is the next station," said Mr. Brown, looking at a timetable he
carried.
Bunny and Sue were delighted to ride in railroad trains and look out at
the scenery, but they were also glad to get out once in a while, to
"stretch their legs," as Bunny said. In fact, the children were always
glad of a change, and now that they heard they were to alight from one
train, get lunch in Clayton, and proceed in another car they welcomed
whatever might happen during that time.
"Clayton! Clay-ton!" called the trainman, as the cars began to go more
slowly when the brakes were put on, and Bunny and Sue, with their father
and mother, began to gather up their hand baggage in readiness to
alight.
Clayton was a small town in Florida, and except that everything was as
green and sunny as it would have been in Bellemere in the middle of
summer, the village was not very different from many country towns of
the North. Yes, there was a difference, too. There were a large number
of colored people about--children and men and women--and many of the
animals seen drawing carts and wagons were mules instead of horses. One
or two small automobiles were to be noticed, but there was not such a
busy scene as would have been noticed in a Northern town.
"Now," said Mr. Brown to his wife, when she and the children were
gathered about him on the station platform, "I think this will be the
best plan. You and the children get lunch in that restaurant over there,
while I go uptown and see Mr. Parker. By the time you finish your lunch
and I get back, you will not have long to wait for the train that will
take us to Orange Beach. It comes in here at this station."
"But where will you get lunch?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"With Mr. Parker," was the answer. "I can eat and talk business at the
same time, and get through sooner. That looks like a nice enough little
restaurant over there. I hope they will have something you and the
children can eat."
"I am not very hungry," Mrs. Brown said. "We ate so many good things at
Mrs. Morton's that I must have gained several pounds."
"I'm hungry!" exclaimed Bunny, anxious lest there be no lunch.
"So'm I!" echoed his sister.
"I guess there'll be enough for you," his father said, with a laugh.
"Take them over, Mother, while I see if I can hire one of these
easy-going colored boys to drive me uptown."
There were one or two ramshackle old carriages with bony horses
harnessed to them standing about the station, and in one of these Mr.
Brown was soon on his way up the street toward the main part of the
village.
"Come on, children. We'll see what there is for lunch," Mrs. Brown said.
She led the way over to the small restaurant near the railroad. She
found that it was clean and neat, something of which she had been a
little doubtful from the outside.
A white man kept the restaurant, but he said he had an old colored
"mammy" for a cook, and then Mrs. Brown knew she and the children would
get something good to eat.
They had chicken and waffles, as well as other good things, and in spite
of the fact that she had said she was not hungry, Mrs. Brown managed to
eat a good lunch. As for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, I really am
ashamed to tell you how much they ate and how many things they passed
their plates for "more."
But traveling always makes children hungry, doesn't it?
"May we walk up and down the street a little while?" asked Bunny of his
mother, as she went back to the station with him and Sue after lunch.
"We want to see things while we're waiting for daddy."
"Yes, but don't go far away," Mrs. Brown answered, as she took her seat
on the bench in the shade. "I don't know just what time the train for
Orange Beach is due."
Bunny and Sue promised not to stray away, and then, hand in hand, while
their father was off uptown on business and while their mother was
dozing sleepily on the station bench, the children wandered along the
street which extended beside the railroad tracks.
On the rails were a number of freight cars, several of the kind called
"box," because they look like big boxes on wheels. Bunny and Sue crossed
the street and walked along the string of boxcars, looking into those
the doors of which were open.
"I wouldn't like to ride in one of those cars," said Sue to Bunny. "They
aren't nice, and they have no windows in to see out of."
"And no seats, either," Bunny added. "They're only for freight, anyhow."
"What's freight?" asked Sue.
"Oh, it's different things they put in cars," Bunny answered. "It's
boxes and barrels and bales of cotton, I guess, for I heard Mr. Morton
say he had to pay a lot of freight money to have his cotton taken away."
"Is that freight?" asked Sue, pointing to some broken boxes on the
ground near a boxcar, the door of which stood open.
"I guess it was once, maybe," Bunny answered. "Those boxes come in a
freight car, but they took the stuff out. Let's go and see if there's
anything left in the freight car."
Forgetting that they had promised their mother not to go far away, Bunny
and Sue wandered down the track and soon stood beside a car out of which
some empty boxes and barrels had been thrown. And as they neared the car
they heard, coming from within it, the mewing of a cat.
"Oh, there's a pussy!" cried Sue, who heard it first.
"Where?" asked Bunny.
"In that freight car, I think," his sister went on. "Oh, there it is!"
she cried, pointing.
Bunny looked in time to see a small cat peering from the door of the
car. The door was about four feet from the ground, and the little pussy
seemed to think this was too far to jump down.
"Poor little pussy!" said Sue kindly. "I guess it's hungry and lonesome,
Bunny! Let's get it and take it to mother."
"All right," Bunny agreed. "But we'll have to get up on a box or barrel
to reach it."
Neither Bunny nor Sue was tall enough to lift the poor cat down from
the open door of the freight car. And it did seem to be the kind of cat
one would call "poor," for it was very thin, and was crying as if hungry
or perhaps lonesome.
"Maybe it's been shut up in the car a long time," Sue said.
"We'll get it down and feed it," said Bunny, pulling a box from the pile
over toward the freight car, so he could climb up through the wide,
sliding door.