Part 11 (1/2)

CHAPTER IX

GATHERING PEANUTS

Sam and Grace Morton were somewhat older than Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, and they knew more about cotton gins. So when Sue cried that Bunny was being pressed into one of the white bales neither Sam nor Grace thought this could be so.

For they had been standing near the big press all the while, and they would have seen if Bunny had fallen in. But the little boy was not in sight, and something must have happened to him, or why did he cry out as he had? Sue had certainly heard Bunny's voice.

”Bunny! Bunny! where are you?” shouted Sue, as she broke away from the Morton children.

”Who yo' all lookin' fo'?” asked a big colored man, who had been rolling bales of cotton about the floor.

”My--my bro-brother!” stammered Sue, almost ready to cry. ”He's in a bale of cotton!”

”Oh, nopey! Nopey, he ain't, li'l girl!” said the kind colored man. ”I done see dat li'l boy jest a minute ago. He was climbin' up on a basket ob loose cotton, an' he done pulled it over on top ob him! He's under dat pile right yeah!” and he pointed to the ma.s.s of white, fluffy stuff on the floor.

”I see what happened!” exclaimed Sam, hurrying over with his sister to Sue, who stood near the pile of cotton. ”Bunny's all right. You can't get hurt when loose cotton falls on you,” and he laughed.

”Is--is Bu-Bunny under there?” asked Sue.

There was no need for any one to answer her, for a moment later out from under the fluffy pile crawled Bunny himself. Lumps of cotton clung to him all over, and his clothes were covered, but he was not in the least harmed.

”I--I was under there!” gasped the little fellow.

”You don't need to tell us that!” laughed Sam. ”We can see for ourselves. You sure have been under the cotton.”

”What happened to you, Bunny?” his sister asked, happy, now that nothing had occurred to harm her brother.

”I saw a big basket of loose cotton,” he explained, ”and I wanted to see how heavy it was and to find out if I could lift it. I pushed on it, and it fell over on top of me. Then I yelled.”

”We heard you,” said Grace.

”And I thought you were being pressed in a bale,” added Sue.

”I'm glad I wasn't,” remarked Bunny, as he noticed how very hard the press squeezed the loose cotton.

The colored workers picked up the fluffy stuff Bunny had spilled from the big basket, which he had pulled over on him. He had been hidden from sight in the white ma.s.s that had toppled out on the floor.

”It was just like the time when I was under the snowdrift, only it wasn't so cold,” Bunny said, telling about his accident afterward. ”And it was awfully ticklis.h.!.+”

”Better that than a cotton press,” his mother said. ”You must be careful around the gin, children.”

”It's all right to go to the peanut fields though, isn't it, Mother?”

asked Sue. She had been eager, ever since hearing that peanuts grew in Georgia, to see how they clung to the ends of the vines, like little potatoes.

”Yes, I think visiting the peanuts will be all right, if you don't eat too many,” Mrs. Brown said.

”They won't want to eat too many,” said Sam Morton. ”When the peanuts come out of the ground they are raw, and they have to be roasted before they are good to eat. They won't eat too many.”

”Can't we roast some?” Sue wanted to know, and her mother promised that this would be done.