Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods Part 9

"That's right," said Bunny. "If my toy train had fallen into the lake and stayed there very long, it might never have run again. But I can run after I've been in the water."

Then Bunny heard a voice calling to him from up on top of the hill:

"Bunny! Bunny Brown! Are you all right?"

Bunny looked up quickly, and so did the Indian. Sue was standing on top of the hill, holding her Teddy bear with the little electric eyes.

"I'm all right, Sue," called up Bunny. "Come down if you want to. But come down by the path. My train is all right, too. Eagle Feather saved it for me. He's one of the Indians from the reservation."

The State had set aside certain land for the Indians on which they must live. Bunny and Sue, with their father or mother or Uncle Tad, had often been to the place where the Indians lived.

"Are you all right, Bunny?" asked Sue again.

"Yep. Course. But I'm all dirty. Don't you roll down."

"I won't," promised the little girl, and she started for the path, which was an easier way of getting to the bottom of the hill. The Indian waited with Bunny, and when Sue stood beside the two Eagle Feather gave a sort of grunt of welcome, for Indians are not great talkers.

"Bunny has an 'lectric train," said Sue, for she was no more afraid of the red men than was her brother. "Bunny has an 'lectric train, and I have an 'lectric Teddy bear. See, Eagle Feather!"

She pushed the b.u.t.ton, or switch, in the back of her toy, and at once the eyes flashed out brightly.

"Huh! That much like real bear when you see him in dark by campfire,"

said the Indian. "Much funny. Let Eagle Feather see!"

Sue showed the Indian how to make the eyes gleam by pressing the b.u.t.ton in the toy bear's back, and Eagle Feather did this several times. He seemed to think the toy bear was a more wonderful toy than the train he had saved from the lake. He gave this back to Bunny and kept the bear, flas.h.i.+ng the eyes again and again.

"You mustn't do it too much or you'll wear out the batteries inside the bear," said Bunny. "The same kind of electric batteries make the eyes of the bear bright as run my train."

"Huh! Indian no want to make little girl's toy bad," said the Indian handing it back. "Great toy, much. Very good to have."

"What are you doing so far away from your camp?" asked Bunny. "Have you some bows and arrows to sell?"

"No got to sell to-day. Indian come to hunt lost cow."

"Have you lost a cow?" asked Bunny and Sue together.

"Yes. Maybe you see him. He got two horns funny twisted--so"; and Eagle Feather picked up a crooked branch, like a fork or crotch, both parts of which were gnarled and twisted. "Horns like him?"

"Yes, just like that," said Bunny. "The cow came to our tent in the night and we thought it was an elephant. Was it your cow? We thought it belonged to the white hermit who sold us milk last night."

"No, two-crooked-horn cow belong Eagle Feather. Where you see him?"

Bunny and Sue told of Uncle Tad having tied the cow in the night and of her having broken loose.

"But maybe we can see which way she went by her hoof-prints in the mud,"

said Bunny. "Come on, Eagle Feather. You saved my train from going into the lake where maybe I couldn't get it up, so we'll help you find your lost cow."

CHAPTER VII

THE MISSING TRAIN

For a moment Eagle Feather, the Indian, stood looking at the two children, and yet not so much at them as at their two toys--the electrical train, and at the Teddy Bear with the queer electric eyes. It was hard to say of which the Indian was most fond.

"You ought to see my train run on the track!" exclaimed Bunny, as he shook some drops of water off the cars and engine. "I guess I'll have to put oil on it now to keep it from getting rusty, as Uncle Tad does when I leave his tools out all night."

"And you ought to see my doll at night!" added Sue. "Her eyes s.h.i.+ne like anything, and once, after I got to bed, and wanted a drink of water that was on a chair near my bed, I just lighted Sallie Malinda's eyes, and I found the drink without calling mother."

"Huh! Heap big medicine--both of um!" grunted the Indian.

Eagle Feather was one of the oldest of the tribe of Onondagas who lived on the reservation, and though he usually spoke fairly good English, sometimes he talked as his grandfather had done when he was a boy and the early settlers first had to do with the Indians.

And when Eagle Feather called the children's toys "heap big medicine,"

he did not mean exactly the kind of medicine you have to take when you are sick.

The Indians have two kinds of medicine, as they call it. One is made of the roots and barks of trees, berries and bushes which they take, and some of which we still use, like witch hazel and sa.s.safras. But they also have another kind of medicine, which is like what might be called a charm; as some pretty stone, a feather, a bone or two, or anything they might have picked up in the woods as it took their fancy. These things they wear around their necks or arms and think they keep away sickness and bad luck.

So when Eagle Feather called the toy train and the Teddy bear of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, "heap big medicine," he meant they would be good not only to cure sickness without medicine, but also keep bad luck away from whoever had them.

"Now we'll help find your cow, Eagle Feather," said Bunny, for he was no more afraid of the Indian than you would be of the fireman down in the engine house at the end of your street, or the policeman on your block.

Bunny and Sue had lived in the Big Woods so long now, and had seen the Indians so often, even to learning the names of some of them, that they thought no more of them than of some of the farmers round about.

"All right--we go find cow," said Eagle Feather. "No milk for little papoose if cow no come home." "Papoose" was the word the Indians used for "baby," and in the log cabin where Eagle Feather lived were two or three papooses.

"It must have been your cow that poked her head into our tent," said Sue, "for she had two crumpled horns, and the farmer's had only one."

"That right," said Eagle Feather with a sort of grunt. "My cow have two horns twist like so," and he held up two fingers and made a sort of corkscrew motion in the air with his hands.

"Then that was your cow all right," said Bunny. "Uncle Tad tied her to a tree, but maybe we can find her."

"Sure we find," grunted Eagle Feather. "Heap big medicine little boy an'

girl have soon find cow."

What the Indian meant was that he believed the toy train and the electrical Teddy bear would bring such good luck that the lost cow would soon be found.

Mr. Brown had gone back to the city when Bunny and Sue, each one carrying a toy, and followed by Eagle Feather, came back to Camp Rest-a-While. Bunny was in worse condition than his sister, for he had rolled down the steep hill. Sue's dress was torn a little.

"Why, Bunny! Why, Sue!" cried Mrs. Brown as she saw the two children.

"Where in the world have you been?"

"In the woods, playing with our toys," answered Bunny. "Sue made her Teddy's eyes flash to scare away the tigers and lions all around us."

"Oh, you were playing make-believe," said Mother Brown, for well she knew the different games the children made up.

"But Bunny's runaway train was real," said Sue.