Part 16 (1/2)

Bunny and Sue were so surprised when they found that they were being hauled away in the closed and dark freight car that for a time after their first startled cries they said nothing. They remained standing hand in hand in the middle of the dark, empty s.p.a.ce, swaying to and fro as the train b.u.mped over the uneven rails.

”Oh, Bunny!” gasped Sue in a little whisper, ”where do you s'pose we're going?”

”I don't know,” he answered. ”But it's somewhere. We're having a ride, anyhow.”

This was true enough. They were moving along quite swiftly now, but not nearly so smoothly or so comfortably as when they had ridden in the parlor car or the sleeping car.

”Will mother and daddy come?” asked Sue, her voice a bit shaky because she was half crying.

”I--I don't guess they will,” her brother answered. ”Daddy is uptown, seeing a man, and mother was on the station bench when we crawled in this car to get the cat.”

”Oh!” exclaimed Sue, and then she tried to peer through the gloom to see Bunny. At first, after the door had slid shut, she could only dimly see where her brother stood, even though she had hold of his hand. But now, as her eyes became used to the darkness, she could make out that Bunny was standing close beside her.

What had happened was this. The children had climbed into an empty freight car that was standing on a siding, as the extra tracks around a railroad station are called. The freight had been taken from the car some days before, and, being empty, it was needed to be loaded again.

A switch engine, which was ”picking up empties,” as the railroad men call it, had backed down the track and had been fastened to several cars in addition to the one containing Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. The railroad men, of course, did not know that the children were in the car.

And they knew nothing about the p.u.s.s.y cat. They supposed the freight car was empty.

The freight engine, in backing down the track to be coupled, or fastened, to the cars, had banged into them rather hard. This hard bang had slid shut the sliding door, making Bunny, Sue, and the cat prisoners.

”Oh!” suddenly exclaimed Sue after a period of silence.

”What's the matter?” asked Bunny, for, having hold of his sister's hand, he could feel her jump.

”Something rubbed up against my legs,” she answered.

”It's the cat!” exclaimed Bunny.

”Oh!” cried Sue again, and this time there was happiness in her voice.

She leaned down and felt around her legs. Her hand touched a warm, furry back. ”It is p.u.s.s.y!” she cried. ”And kitty let me pick him up! Oh, Bunny, it's purring like anything!” Sue exclaimed.

”I guess it's lonesome, too, and maybe don't like to ride in a freight car, so it's getting tame,” Bunny said. And perhaps this did explain it.

”I can pick him up!” cried Sue in delight. And, a moment later, she had the p.u.s.s.y in her arms. Surely enough the little fluffy fellow was no longer afraid of the children. It wanted to be near them for company, and it snuggled down in Sue's arms, while Bunny reached over in the dark and softly stroked the animal.

All this while the freight car was being hauled farther and farther away from the railroad station.

”I'm going to sit down,” said Sue, and she did, taking her place on the floor of the car with her legs stretched out, making a lap for the cat.

Bunny, whose eyes were also becoming used to the dark, could see what Sue was doing, and he sat down beside her, reaching over now and then and petting p.u.s.s.y. The little cat seemed quite content now, and if it was hungry it did not cry.

”Maybe I could open the door so we could get out,” suggested Bunny, after a bit.

”You couldn't get off this car while it was moving, even if you could open the door,” Sue stated. ”Don't you 'member mother said we should never get on a trolley car when it was moving, or get off?”

”Yes,” admitted Bunny. ”I 'member that. But I'm not going to get off till the car stops. Only I'll see if I can get the door open, so we'll be all ready to get off when it does stop.”

With this in mind Bunny arose from his place on the floor of the swaying freight car beside Sue and the kitten in her lap, and tried to make his way over to where some cracks of light showed around the door. There were two sliding doors to the car, one by which the children had entered, and another opposite. But this last showed no light around the edges, and Bunny rightly guessed that this one was fastened more tightly than the one that had slid shut.

It was one thing for Bunny to say he would open the door, but it was quite another thing to do it. For by this time the engine was puffing away down the track at good speed, and the little fellow soon found that it was very hard to walk across the empty freight car. It swayed from side to side, much more so than an ordinary railroad coach, and a great deal more than a Pullman car.