Mrs. Brown, from her place on the station platform, could look down the tracks and see the line of freight cars which extended alongside the street. She had seen Bunny and Sue walking in this direction, but she did not imagine they would get inside a car. If she had seen Bunny scrambling in after the cat she would have run down to make him come out.
But she did not see this, for she had closed her eyes and was dozing a little in the warm air of the sunny South. Nor did Mrs. Brown see Sue climb up on the box after her brother.
As soon as Bunny went inside the car to get the cat Sue followed, and there the two children were, inside the big boxcar, while pussy was mewing sadly at one end, wanting to be petted and fed, but just a little afraid.
"We'll get it now," said Bunny, as he saw Sue in the car with him. "You go one side and I'll go the other. Then we'll catch it and take it to mother."
"Maybe it'll scratch me," suggested Sue, for she had been scratched by pet kittens more than once.
"No, I don't think it will," said Bunny. "Come up easy, so you won't scare it."
Walking a little way apart down the length of the freight car, in which they could now see very well, Bunny Brown and his sister Sue approached the pussy. They held out their hands and hissed through their lips, for they thought cats liked that sound. If it had been a little dog in the freight car the children would have whistled, and the dog, very likely, would have run to them, wagging its tail.
If Bunny and Sue had whistled they might have frightened the little pussy, so they just made soft sounds through their lips, and walked toward the small cat.
But when Bunny and his sister did this the pussy ran and hid as far back as it could in one end of the car, as if afraid.
"Oh, we won't hurt you!" exclaimed Sue.