Part 14 (2/2)
”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 p.u.s.s.y!” 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 p.u.s.s.y seemed to think this was too far to jump down.
”Poor little p.u.s.s.y!” 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.
CHAPTER XII
A STRANGE RIDE
”Let me help you!” begged Sue, when she saw what her brother was doing.
”I'll help you move the box.”
Bunny Brown was glad to have his sister's help, and the two children half carried, half dragged the empty packing box over to the freight car.
”Oh, it's gone!” cried Sue in disappointed tones, as Bunny shoved the box under the wide, open door.
”What's gone?” asked the little boy.
”The poor, hungry p.u.s.s.y! It ran away and now we can't feed it!”
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