A WORRIED MOTHER
While Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were traveling in the freight car
with the pussy and with Nutty, the tramp, Mrs. Brown was left alone on
the station platform, where she had sat down to rest after lunch and to
wait for her husband. Mr. Brown had some business to attend to uptown,
and he had to see not one man, as he thought at first, but several.
Mrs. Brown watched Bunny and Sue walk down the street alongside of the
freight tracks, but she did not see the children cross to look into the
open car.
Then Mrs. Brown went to sleep, or, if she did not exactly go to sleep,
she closed her eyes, so she saw nothing of what went on.
Mrs. Brown was suddenly awakened from her mid-day doze on the railroad
station bench by hearing a loud banging noise. The noise was caused
when the engine backed down the track, bumped into the train of freight
cars and was coupled to them. Then the engine started off, pulling the
cars with it.
"My, I thought that was a clap of thunder!" said Mrs. Brown, sitting up
and rubbing her eyes. "I'm glad it isn't," she went on, as she saw the
warm, southern sun shining.
"Where did Bunny and Sue go?" she asked herself, speaking aloud, as she
arose from the bench. Then she heard some voices of children on the
other side of the station, and, thinking her two might be there, she
walked around to the farther platform.
But there were only some colored boys playing with their marbles and
tops.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, "I hope those two haven't wandered
away. I hope they haven't gone toward the town, thinking they can find
their father. I must look for them."
She went back to the place where she had been sitting on the bench and
looked down the street where she had last seen Bunny and Sue. But the
children were not there. And the freight train was almost out of sight
now down the track.
"Perhaps they are in talking to the station agent," thought Mother
Brown. "Surely they wouldn't wander away without telling me."
But as this was between the time for trains the office of the station
agent was closed. He had gone home and would not be back until it was
time for the arrival of the train Mr. Brown intended taking, to go on to
Orange Beach.
The door of the office was locked and the glass ticket window was
closed. Inside the office could be heard the clicking of the telegraph
sounders, and this, with the voices of the colored boys playing with
their tops, were the only noises to be heard.
"Where can Bunny and Sue have gone?" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, getting more
and more worried. "They must have wandered off. If there had been an
accident on the track, I'd see something of it." She was glad there was
no sign of a train having hurt any little boy or girl. In fact, except
for the freight train having pulled away, there had been no other
trains moving around the station since the Browns had arrived.
"I'll go ask those colored boys if they have seen Bunny and Sue," said
Mrs. Brown to herself.
She walked around the corner of the station, and was just in time to see
one little colored boy trip another, sending him sprawling in the dust.
"Heah, yo' li'l sinnah!" cried the boy who had sent the other sprawling.
"What fo' yo' tuck mah top!"
"Ah didn't tek yo' top, Sam!" answered the other, as he arose from the
dust.
"Yes, yo' did!" declared the other. "Now yo' go on 'way from heah or
Ah'll cuff yo' ears!"
In answer the other colored boy, the one who had been tripped, rushed at
his enemy and struck him with clenched fist. In an instant the other hit
back, and soon there was a lively fight. The colored boys fell down and
rolled over and over in the dust.
"Here! Here! You boys mustn't fight!" cried Mrs. Brown, hastening
toward them and trying to pull off the one on top, who was pounding the
bottom lad with his fists. "Stop it!"
"You best let 'em alone, lady," said an older colored boy, with a grin.
"Dem two am always fightin', but dey don't do no harm nohow!"
"But it isn't nice to fight," said the mother of Bunny and Sue. "Get up,
please, I want to ask you boys something."
Hearing this, and seeing that Mrs. Brown was well dressed and was a
"white lady of quality" carrying a pocketbook out of which pennies might
be handed, the fighting boys stopped. The top one got off the other, and
both stood up, dusting off their ragged clothes. Neither seemed much
hurt, and both were broadly grinning.
"You mustn't fight!" declared Mrs. Brown.
"Oh, we was only in fun, lady," laughed the one who had first tripped
the other.
"Have you seen a little boy and girl?" went on Mrs. Brown.
"White chilluns?" asked one of the black boys.
"Co'se she done mean white chilluns!" exclaimed another. "I done seen
'em get offen de train!"
"Have you seen them since?" asked Mrs. Brown. "We had lunch, and my
husband went uptown. I sat down on the bench, and Bunny and Sue walked
down the street. I haven't seen them since, and they aren't in sight. Do
you know where they are?"
None of the colored boys did, it appeared, though hearing that two white
children were missing there were soon eager volunteers to search for
them.
Out and around the station scattered the colored boys, Mrs. Brown having
said she would give fifty cents to the one first bringing news of Bunny
and Sue.
"Oh, golly! I'se gwine to earn dat money, suah!" cried one lad.
But though the boys looked up and down the different streets, and though
some even went into near-by stores, not a trace of Bunny or Sue could
they find. And for a good reason--because Bunny and Sue were traveling
far away in the freight car with Nutty, the tramp.
Mrs. Brown became more and more worried as nearly an hour passed and
Bunny and Sue were not found. The station agent came back, for it was
nearly time for the other train to arrive. But he could tell nothing of
the missing children.
"I must find my husband!" Mrs. Brown exclaimed, and she was just
starting uptown when Mr. Brown came riding to the station in an
automobile. One of the business men, on whom he had called, had brought
him back in the car.
"Oh, Walter," cried Mrs. Brown, "Bunny and Sue are lost! I can't find
them anywhere! What shall we do?"