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By and by a boy came through the car selling candy.
"Mother, I'm hungry!" said Bunny.
"So am I!" added Sue. "I want some candy!"
Mrs. Brown bought them some chocolates, for the ride was a long one, and they had eaten an early breakfast. The candy kept Bunny and Sue quiet for a while, and Mrs. Brown was shutting her eyes for a little sleep, when she heard some one behind her saying:
"Oh, children, I wouldn't do that!"
Quickly opening her eyes she saw Bunny and Sue crossing to the other side of the car, to take some empty seats there. A passenger behind Mrs. Brown, seeing that she was asleep, had spoken to the children.
"Oh, you musn't do that," said Mrs. Brown. "Stay in the seats you had first."
"We want to see what's on this side," said Bunny. He had already climbed up into a vacant seat, and was near the window, when, all at once, a train rushed past on the other track, with a loud whistle, a clanging of the bell and puffing of the engine, that sent smoke and cinders into Bunny's face. The little fellow jump...
"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "You see it is much nicer on the side where you were first. No trains pass on this side."
So Bunny and Sue were glad enough to go back to the places they had at first. For some time they were quiet, looking out at the different stations as they stopped. At noon their mother gave them some chicken sandwiches from a basket of lunch she had put up.
"Why don't we go into the dining car, like we did once?" Bunny wanted to know.
"Because there isn't any on this train," said Mrs. Brown. "But we will soon be at Aunt Lu's. Now sit back in your seats, and rest yourselves."
Bunny and Sue did for a while. Then they looked for something else to do. The train boy came through with some picture books, and Mrs. Brown bought one each for Bunny and Sue.
These kept them quiet for a little while, but the books were soon finished, even when Bunny took Sue's and gave her his, to change about.
"You come back and sit in my seat, Bunny," Sue invited her brother after a while.
"No, you come with me," said Bunny. So Sue got in with him, but she wanted to sit next to the window, and as Bunny wanted that place himself, they were not satisfied, until Sue went back in her own seat.
About this time Bunny looked up and saw a long cord stretched overhead in the car, like a clothes line. It hung down from the car ceiling, and ran over little brass wheels, or pulleys, like those on Mr. Brown's boats, only much smaller.
"Do you see that cord, Sue?" asked Bunny.
"Yes," answered the little girl. "What's it for?"
"That's what holds the cars together," Bunny said. "The cars are tied to the engine with that cord."
Of course this was not so, for it takes strong iron chains and bars to hold the railroad cars one to another, and to the engine. But Bunny thought the cord, that blew a whistle in the engine, kept the train from coming apart.
"Is that what it's for?" asked Sue. "It isn't a very big string for to hold a train."
"Oh, it's very strong," Bunny said. "Nobody could break it."
"I -- I guess daddy could break it," Sue suggested.
"No he couldn't!"
"Yes he could! Daddy's awful strong!"
"He couldn't break that cord!" declared Bunny. "Nobody could break it. If I could pull it down here, you could pull on it and see how strong it is. No one can break it."
He reached up toward the whistle cord, but he was too short to get hold of it.
"I know how you can get it," said Sue.
"How can I get it?" Bunny asked.
"Hook it down with mother's parasol," answered Sue.
"Oh, so I can!" cried Bunny.
He went back to the seat where his mother sat. Mrs. Brown had fallen asleep, and Bunny got her parasol without awakening her.
The little fellow raised the umbrella, and hooked the crook in the end of it over the whistle cord. He pulled down hard, and then -- well, I guess I'll tell you in the next chapter what happened.
Chapter VIII
Aunt Lu's Surprise
When Bunny Brown pulled down on the whistle cord in the railroad car, a very strange thing happened. All at once there was a loud squeaking, grinding sound. The car shivered and shook and began to go slowly. It stopped so suddenly that Bunny slid out of the smooth plush seat down to the floor. So did his sister Sue.
Some of the other passengers had hard work to keep from sliding from their seats, and many of them jumped up and began calling:
"What's the matter?"
"What has happened?"
"Is there an accident?"
For when a train stops suddenly, you know, if it is going along fast, it almost always means that something has happened, or that there is a cow, or something else, on the track, and that the engineer wants to stop, quickly, so as not to hit it. And that's what the other passengers thought now.
Mrs. Brown was suddenly awakened from her sleep. She, too, had almost slid from her seat when the car stopped so suddenly. For the moment Bunny pulled down on the cord, it blew a whistle in the cab, or little house of the engine, where the engineer sits. And when the engineer heard that whistle he knew it meant for him...
He could look down the track, and see that there was nothing on the rails that he could hit, but, hearing the whistle, he thought the conductor, or one of the brakemen, must have pulled the cord. Perhaps the engineer thought some one had fallen off the train, as people sometimes fall off boats, and the engineer wanted ...
"Why, Bunny!" cried his mother, as she straightened up in her seat. "Where are you? Where is Sue? What has happened?"
For, you know, Bunny and Sue had slid down to the floor of the car when the train came to such a sudden stop.
"Where are you, children?" called Mrs. Brown, anxiously.
"I -- I'm here, Mother!" answered Sue. "Bunny pushed me off my seat!"
"Oh-o-o-o, Sue Brown! I did not!" cried the little fellow, getting up with the parasol still in his hand. "I did not!"