"I—I guess so," Bunny answered. "I was pulling down on the rope, to show my sister how strong it was."
"Oh, I see," the conductor went on. "Then you didn't stop my train because you wanted to get off?"
"Oh, no!" cried Bunny quickly. "I don't want to get off now. I want to go to New York. We're going to my Aunt Lu's house."
"Well, New York is quite a way off yet," laughed the conductor, "so I guess you had better stay with us. But please don't pull on the whistle cord again."
"I won't," Bunny promised. "But it is a strong rope, isn't it, Mr. Conductor? And it does hold the cars together; doesn't it?"
"Well, no, not exactly," the conductor answered, while the passengers laughed. "I'll show you what the cord does in a little while. But I'm glad nothing has happened. I thought there was an accident when the train stopped so quickly, so I ran through all the cars to find out. Now we'll go on again."
He reached up and pulled the car-cord twice. Far up ahead, in the cab of the locomotive, a little whistle blew twice, and the engineer knew that meant for him to go ahead. It's just like that on a trolley car. One bell means to stop, and two bells to go ahead.
"Oh Bunny! Why did you do it?" asked his mother, as she took the parasol from him.
"Why—why, I didn't mean to stop the train," he said.
Mrs. Brown thought there was not much need of scolding Bunny, for he had not meant to do wrong. He promised never again to pull on a whistle cord in a train.