Part 9 (2/2)

A little later, when Mr. and Mrs. Brown had got together their baggage, for they were near their destination, Bunny, who was looking from the window, suddenly called:

”Oh, look! Here they are, picking cotton!”

Sue rushed to her window and Mrs. Brown turned to gaze out on the scene.

As Bunny had said, the train was then pa.s.sing through a cotton section, and in the fields on either side of the track a number of colored men, women, and children were picking the big white clumps of cotton from the bushes which grew in long, straight rows. It was a late crop.

”Oh, it's a cotton plantation!” cried Mrs. Brown. ”I'm glad, for I've always wanted to see one.”

As they looked out at the sight, which was a new one to Bunny and Sue, the train began to slow up. In a very few moments they could see painted in very large letters on the end of the station the word ”Seedville.”

”This is our station,” announced Daddy Brown.

”Oh, we're going to get out right near the cotton plantation!”

exclaimed Mrs. Brown. ”I'm glad! Why didn't you tell us we were going to be so near where they pick cotton?” she asked her husband.

”I didn't really know it myself,” he said. ”Mr. Morton, whom I am going to see, said he owned cotton land, but I did not know it was a plantation. However, we'll get out here.” And Bunny and Sue were wild with delight at the new adventures which might be in store for them.

CHAPTER VIII

AMONG THE COTTON PICKERS

When the train reached the station of Seedville the cotton fields with the colored pickers were out of sight around a bend in the road. But Bunny and Sue were glad they were going to stop not far away from this new and interesting sight.

As the Brown family alighted from the train at the small station, a gentleman with a broad-brimmed hat, under which his pleasant smiling face could be seen, came forward.

”h.e.l.lo, Jim!” called Mr. Brown. ”Well, here we are!”

”So I see, and I'm glad of it!” Mr. Morton answered. Then he was introduced to Mrs. Brown and the children. Mr. Morton was the man Daddy Brown had come to Georgia to see on business. Later Mr. Brown would have to visit Mr. Halliday at Orange Beach, Florida.

”Give me your checks and I'll look after your baggage,” went on the Southerner. ”I have my auto right behind the station, and it's only a short ride over to my place.”

”Have you any peanuts?” asked Sue.

”Yes, I grow a few,” answered Mr. Morton.

”Course you don't have any oranges?” Bunny added, feeling pretty sure, from what his father had said, there would be none; but still he could not help hoping.

”No, I'm sorry to say I haven't any orange grove,” Mr. Morton replied, smiling.

”Is that your cotton field we pa.s.sed?” asked Mrs. Brown, pointing back toward the scene through which they had come a little while before.

”That's part of my plantation, yes,” answered the Southerner. ”It's quite interesting if you haven't seen it as often as I have.”

A little later the family was riding toward Mr. Morton's home, where the Browns were to stay while Daddy and Mr. Morton finished their business, which would take about a week. Mrs. Morton welcomed the family, and Bunny and Sue were delighted to find that there were two children, a boy and a girl, not much older than they were--Sam and Grace Morton.

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