Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South Part 28

"Daddy is going riding with Mr. Halliday," said the little fellow, "and I heard mother say she and Mrs. Halliday were going to make orange shortcake to-day, so they won't want us around. We can go down and make the raft and have a sail. Won't that be fun?"

"It will be if the alligators don't come," agreed Sue.

"I don't b'lieve any will come," Bunny answered, though in his heart he hoped they would, so he could scare them away with the sharp stick.

So Sue took up the bag of lunch and Bunny ran and got the sharp stick where he had hidden it under the porch. Bunny also had a hammer and some nails he had taken from the shop where Mr. Halliday's men put together the orange crates.

"We'll make a big raft and sail away off," Bunny said, as he and Sue, telling their mother nothing about their plans, went down to the river.

They found the pile of boards and small logs in the same place they had first seen them, and Bunny, with Sue's help, began to make a raft.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON THE ISLAND

The two children had been around boats enough to know more about water craft than most boys and girls of their age. Bunny's father, owning a boat and fish dock, where Sue and her brother often played, had taught the youngsters something about how boats are steered. A raft, as Bunny knew, was the simplest and safest form of a boat. He also knew that a raft was only a lot of logs and boards fastened together. On it one could float or push down a little river or across a pond.

"This is nice smooth water, isn't it?" asked Sue, as she looked out over Squaw River which, as has been said, was a sluggish stream. It hardly seemed to flow at all.

"Yes, it's nice here," Bunny said. "We won't go very fast. There aren't any waves like in the ocean or our bay."

Bunny and Sue had often been out with their father, Uncle Tad, or Bunker Blue on Sandport Bay at home, and sometimes on the real ocean when it was not too rough. So Squaw River seemed very small and smooth to them.

It was harder work than Bunny had thought it would be to make the raft, but he had right at hand everything he needed, from boards and small logs to hammer and nails. The hammer and nails he had brought with him.

Putting the cloth bag of lunch in a safe place on the bank, Bunny began work.

He laid some logs down on the sandy sh.o.r.e as close to the water as he could. On top of the logs he placed boards, and these he nailed on, so they would not float away.

On top of the first layer of boards he placed others, crossing them to and fro, as he had once seen his father and Uncle Tad making a float near the dock. The float was like a raft, only it was anch.o.r.ed in the bay and used for getting in and out of the fis.h.i.+ng boats.

"How far you going to sail on the raft, Bunny?" asked Sue, as she helped her brother lay in place the boards to be nailed. Sue did none of the nailing. She tried it once, but she hit her fingers and thumb instead of the nail, and she threw the hammer aside.

"Oh, we'll sail down until we get hungry, and then we'll go on an island like the pirates and eat our lunch," Bunny answered.

By "sail" he meant pus.h.i.+ng the raft along with a pole he had brought from the orange grove.

"S'posin' there isn't any island?" asked Sue.

"Oh, I guess there is one," Bunny said, looking at the raft to see if it needed any more boards to make it strong enough. "Anyhow, if we don't find an island we can go on sh.o.r.e. Course an island would be more fun, but we can have a good time anyhow."

"To be sure we can!" laughed Sue. "We've had lots of fun since we've come down South, haven't we, Bunny?"

"Yes!" answered the little boy. He was too busy to talk much, for he was thinking of the best plan to get his raft into the water. For the boards and logs, now nailed together, must be shoved from the sh.o.r.e into the river, else there could be no wonderful voyage down-stream to the "pirate island."

Bunny had often seen his father move heavy boards from the sh.o.r.e into the waters of the bay by means of rollers. Rollers are round pieces of wood, like the rolling pin in mother's kitchen. Rollers placed under a boat make it easy to launch into the water. If you have ever seen men moving a house from one street to another you may have noticed that they used rollers. Or they may have slid the house along on big beams which were made slippery with grease or soap.

"I'll roll my raft into the water," said Bunny.

"And I'll help!" offered Sue, for she knew what rolling a boat into the water meant--she had often seen her father do it.

Getting the raft into Squaw River was not quite as hard as putting the craft together. By using a long pole Bunny managed to raise up one edge of his nailed-together boards and logs, and under it Sue slipped a round roller, which was a short piece of round tree trunk. Then when Bunny raised up the other side of the raft his sister slipped under it another roller.

"Now she'll slide!" cried Bunny, as he had often heard his father or Bunker Blue say.

With his long pole Bunny now pried up on the rear of the raft. At first it did not move, and Bunny began to be afraid he and Sue would not, after all, have a voyage down the river.

But at last it slid a little bit, and then more and more, until finally it was rolling along quite rapidly. As the bank sloped down to the river like a little hill, Bunny hardly had to push or pry at all now, and a minute later the raft was floating in the water.

It would have floated away, but Bunny had tied a rope to one edge, and the other end of the rope he had fastened to a tree stump on sh.o.r.e, so the raft was "made fast," as a sailor would say. Bunny had been around his father's dock enough to know that when one puts a boat into the water one must make it fast or it will be lost.

"Isn't our raft nice, Bunny?" exclaimed Sue, as she saw it floating in the water.

"Yes," Bunny agreed, "we'll have lots of fun! Wait till I get the lunch and we'll start."

"I want a pole so I can help push," said Sue.

"All right. You bring the bag of lunch and I'll get you a pole,"

promised Bunny.

Soon the two children were on the raft, each one thrusting with a pole on the bottom of the river, which was not very deep, and so shoving themselves along. In the middle of the raft was the bag of lunch--the dried bread, pieces of cake and a very much flattened piece of pie that Bunny had found on the pantry shelf.

"Oh, this is lots of fun!" exclaimed Sue, as they floated along.

"Yep!" agreed Bunny, shoving hard on his pole. "I'm glad we came to Florida."

It was very pleasant on this part of Squaw River, where it ran through the orange groves of Mr. Halliday. On either side were growing palms and other trees, some of which met overhead in a green arch, making it very shady. Only for this the sun would have been very warm--quite different from the sun in Bellemere, where there was now snow on the ground.

"Our snow man wouldn't last very long down here, would he, Bunny?" asked Sue, as she began to feel quite warm from poling the raft.

"Nope! A snow house wouldn't either," Bunny answered. "But I like it here."

"So do I," said Sue. "There's lots of birds, too."

There were. Bunny and Sue could hear them flitting through the tree branches overhead, and could listen to their songs. Sometimes birds with brilliant feathers flashed into view, disappearing in the thick, leafy trees on either side of the river.

Bunny had made his raft rather strong and heavy, so that it floated well up out of the water. In fact, the top part was quite dry, and if the children had worn shoes and stockings they would have been perfectly safe. But Bunny knew that, sooner or later, water generally washes over the top of a raft, for one side or the other is likely to tip down. So he and Sue were barefooted. They had left their shoes and stockings on sh.o.r.e at the spot where they had launched the raft. It did not matter now whether the water washed over the top of their craft or not.

On and on, down the river floated the two children. For a time nothing happened. It was as calm and peaceful as even Mrs. Brown could have wished. But Bunny and Sue wanted something to happen, and pretty soon Bunny said:

"Let's eat!"

"Oh, yes, let's!" agreed Sue, always willing to do what Bunny did.

"We'll make believe it's dinner time," Bunny went on, "and we'll let the raft float."

There was enough current in the river to carry the raft gently down, and Bunny and Sue were in no hurry.