CHAPTER IV
MR. POTT GOES AWAY
Keeping Bunny and Sue in the background, Mr. and Mrs. Brown looked in the room where Uncle Tad was watching over Mr. Pott.
“Is anything the matter?” whispered Mrs. Brown, for when she and her husband looked in the room the injured man seemed to be quiet and there was no longer the murmur of voices.
“He’s all right now,” said Uncle Tad in low tones. “But he was a bit restless a moment ago. He was sort of talking in his sleep, I guess, about his missing son and the lost treasure.”
“Do you really think he lost a treasure?” asked Mr. Brown.
“Well,” said Uncle Tad slowly, “you know how it is with sick folks. Sometimes they imagine things. I know how it was in the army. Sometimes the men that were hurt would talk a lot about things that had never happened. They were wandering in their minds.”
“But Mr. Pott lost his son—he told us so,” remarked Bunny. He and Sue stood just outside the door.
“Yes,” agreed Sue, “he did. When he fell off the horse and came into our yard and sat on the pile of grass, he said he’d lost his son.”
“Well, maybe he did, and a treasure, too,” agreed Mr. Brown. “Perhaps in the morning he’ll be better able to tell us more about himself and how he happened to come here.”
“He came here because he heard there was a sailor living here,” explained Mrs. Brown. “He thought it might be his son who had been rescued from the wreck of the Mary Bell. But the only sailor we have here is Jed Winkler.”
“And he’s too old to have been this man’s son,” said Mr. Brown.
The sick man had grown quiet again, and Mrs. Brown sent Julia, the maid, in to watch by his couch while Uncle Tad had a rest.
The excitement caused by the runaway horse had passed, the animal having been taken back to the livery stable where Mr. Pott had hired it. Bunker Blue raked up the pile of grass and put it back of the Brown garage where later some stray goats came and ate it.
Bunny and Sue, forgetting for a time about the strange sailor in their house, ran out to play again.
“But don’t let’s play store again,” suggested Bunny.
“What’ll we play?” Sue wanted to know.
“Let’s play about the rolling ocean,” suggested Bunny, whose mind seemed filled with thoughts of the great sea. “We’ll make believe the store counter is a ship, and I’ll be the captain and you can be a passenger and we’ll go to the West Indies.”
“And maybe we’ll find Mr. Pott’s lost son,” added Sue.
“I’d rather find the treasure,” said Bunny Brown.
Neither he nor his sister dreamed of the strange adventures that were soon to be theirs.
Bunny and Sue so often made believe that it did not take them long to change the “store” into an ocean-going steamer. The long plank that had served for a counter was laid on two lower boxes, for, as it was, it was too high for the deck of a ship. Then Bunny placed one box up in front of the plank.
“This is where the captain steers the ship,” he said.
He placed another box behind the first at the farther end of the plank.
“That’s the cabin for passengers,” he told Sue. “You get in there, and be careful you don’t fall into the water.”
“I don’t see any water,” remarked Sue.
“You don’t?” cried Bunny Brown. “Why, there’s water all around us! How do you s’pose a ship’s going to sail on the rolling ocean if it doesn’t go in the water? This grass all around us is water, and you’d better get on board else you’ll be drowned. You’re in the water now!” and he pointed to Sue’s feet.
“I am not in the water!” she cried.
“You are so!” asserted Bunny. “And if you don’t get on board quick, the steamer’ll go off without you! Toot! Toot!” and he pretended to blow a whistle.
“Then you’re in the water, too,” retorted Sue, pointing to Bunny’s feet which were also on the grass.
“Oh, well, that’s nothing! Captains have to be in the water! Anyhow, I’m going to get up and steer the boat. So if you want to play you’ve got to get on, too.”
Bunny made a jump and landed on the plank. Then he took his place in the forward box. Sue was going to get aboard when she happened to think of something.
“Bunny,” she called.
“I’m not Bunny!” he answered. “I’m Captain Ward.” He remembered the name of the commander of the Beacon spoken of by Mr. Brown. “You have to call me Captain Ward if you’re going to play steamboat,” he told his sister.
“All right. Captain Ward,” and Sue did not smile when she said this, “could I take one of my dolls on your steamer?”
“Doll? No!” cried Bunny. “You’re supposed to be a big woman passenger and they don’t have dolls. But if you want to take your little girl in your cabin, you can do that.”
“Oh, all right, Captain Ward. Thank you,” quickly answered Sue, understanding what Bunny meant. If you were pretending, you must do it in everything. And since she was pretending to be a grown-up passenger she would not, naturally, have a doll. But she could make believe her doll was her little girl. “I’ll go and get my daughter now.” She had already taken her place on the “ship,” but now, as she was about to get off, she remembered that the grass was “water.”
“How am I going to get my daughter?” she asked. “I can’t jump into the ocean to go for her,” and she pointed to the grass.
“That’s so,” agreed Bunny. “Wait! I’ll steer the ship up to the pier and you can go ashore there and get your daughter. Look out now, hold tight! We’re going fast! Toot! Toot!”
Sue held “tight,” and though of course the plank and the boxes did not move from the place where they had formerly been part of the “store,” still to the children it was as if they were sailing on the rolling ocean.
“Whoa!” suddenly called Bunny. “We’re at the pier now,” he added to his sister. “You can go ashore and get your doll—I mean your daughter,” he quickly corrected himself.
Sue began to laugh.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bunny. He did not like to have his sister laugh when he was pretending in real earnest.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Sue. “You told the ship to whoa like a horse. You shouldn’t say whoa to a ship. You’ve got to tell it to halt, Bunny Brown.”
Then Bunny saw he had made a mistake. But in turn he laughed at Sue.
“You don’t say halt to a ship,” he declared. “You only say halt to soldiers, and we aren’t playing soldiers.”
“Well, anyhow, you don’t say whoa to a ship,” declared Sue.
“No, I guess you don’t,” admitted Bunny. “Well, anyhow, the ship has stopped and we’re at Pier Number Three and you can go ashore without getting in the water now and bring your daughter on board,” he said.
“All right,” Sue agreed.
So she again stepped in the grass, but this time it was not water, but the floor boards of the pier, so of course she could not get wet. Up to the house she ran to get one of her dolls, and soon she was back on board the Beacon. She found Bunny making a loud hissing noise.
“What you doing?” Sue asked. “Are you playing wild animals? You sound like a snake. I don’t want to play wild animals. I want to play ship.”
“I am playing ship,” declared Bunny. “I’m the engine blowing off steam. Don’t you know steam when you hear it?”
“Oh, if it’s steam, all right,” agreed Sue. “I thought you were a snake.”
“All aboard!” cried Bunny Brown. “Toot! Toot! All aboard!”
Again Sue stepped on the grass, which was not water because it was a pier, and soon she was in her box cabin.
Bunny started the ship off once more, hissing to show that steam was blowing out of the pipes and now and then whistling to tell other ships to get out of his path.
Sue held her “daughter” in her arms and pretended to show her whales and sharks as they sailed along the grassy-green rolling ocean.
Pretty soon Bunny left his place in the forward box and walked back along the plank toward his sister Sue. Bunny held out his hand to Sue as if he wanted something.
“What do you want, Captain Ward?” asked the little girl.
“I’m not Captain Ward now,” Bunny answered. “I’m the conductor and I want your ticket.”
“They don’t have conductors on ships,” retorted Sue. “They have conductors on trolley cars and steam cars.”
“Well, I’m the ticket-taker, anyhow, and you’ve got to give me a ticket or I’ll put you off the ship,” announced Bunny.
“Oh, all right, I’ll give you a ticket,” agreed Sue.
She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out one of the green leaves which a little while before she had used as money when she and Bunny were playing store.
“There’s my ticket,” said the little girl.
“Yes,” agreed her brother, looking closely at it, “I see it’s a ticket all right. You’re going to the West Indies, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Sue, “to the West Indies.”
Bunny punched the ticket by putting a hole in the leaf with a small twig. Then he held out his hand again.
“What you want now?” asked Sue. “I gave you my ticket.”
“I must have a ticket for that child,” said Bunny sternly. “She’s more’n five years old.”
Once he had been on a street car with his mother and he had heard the conductor say this to a woman with a little girl.
“Yes, Annabell is more’n five years old,” Sue said. “But I didn’t know I had to have a ticket for her.”
“Well, you have to,” declared Bunny.
“Oh, all right,” agreed Sue, and she handed out another green leaf.
Bunny tore the leaf in two and gave Sue back a part of it.
“What’s this for—my change?” she asked.
“It takes only a half ticket for little girls,” announced Bunny, as he punched half the leaf with his twig-puncher. “I hope you have a nice trip to the West Indies,” he said to passenger Sue.
“I hope so,” echoed the little girl. “Do you think it will be very rough on the rolling ocean, Captain Ward?” she asked, for now Bunny, being back in his steering box, was in command of the ship.
“Yes, we may have a very bad storm,” he said. “But don’t be afraid, Mrs. Anderson, I’ll bring you and your daughter safe to the West Indies.”
“I’m glad of that,” returned Sue politely.
So the children played, having much fun on the “steamboat” they had made so simply out of a plank and some boxes. They sailed to the West Indies and back. Then they made a trip to the north pole, and, landing there, Bunny and Sue, though under an apple tree, played they were in one of the igloos, or snow huts, of the Eskimos.
All the rest of the day the children played at one game or another, and when night came they were tired and ready to go to sleep.
“Is Mr. Pott any worse?” asked Bunny, as he and Sue were getting ready for bed that night.
“No, I think he isn’t any worse,” his mother answered. “But he doesn’t seem to be any better, either. Dr. Rudd, who was here a while ago, will see him again in the morning.”
“He didn’t find his lost son or the treasure, did he?” Sue wanted to know.
“No, dear. Now go to bed and don’t think any more about it.”
“I’m going to think of the fun we’ll have on the rolling ocean,” said Bunny Brown.
“So’m I,” murmured his sister Sue.
“Yes, that will be best,” their mother told them.
The children looked in at Mr. Pott the next morning, but he lay with eyes closed and did not see them. Then Bunny and Sue went to the store for their mother. They were gone about an hour. When they came back they saw Uncle Tad opening the windows in the room where the sick man had been. And they could look in and see that Mr. Pott was no longer on the couch.
“Where’s he gone?” cried Bunny. “Where’s Mr. Pott?”
“He has gone away,” said Mrs. Brown. “Dr. Rudd came and found that the poor man was much worse, so he decided to send him to the hospital. He can be better taken care of there than here. They took him to the hospital while you were at the store.”
“Oh!” murmured Bunny Brown. After a moment he asked: “Could we go to the hospital to see him?”
“Some time, I guess—maybe,” answered Mrs. Brown. But she was so busy that she hardly knew what she was saying.