as she took her seat
on the bench in the shade. "I don't know just what time the train for
Orange Beach is due."

Bunny and Sue promised not to stray away, and then, hand in hand, while
their father was off uptown on business and while their mother was
dozing sleepily on the station bench, the children wandered along the
street which extended beside the railroad tracks.

On the rails were a number of freight cars, several of the kind called
"box," because they look like big boxes on wheels. Bunny and Sue crossed
the street and walked along the string of boxcars, looking into those
the doors of which were open.

"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 pussy!" 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 pussy
seemed to think this was too far to jump down.

"Poor little pussy!" 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.

"