"Yes, I did," said Sue. "But maybe not this one."
"Oh, they're all alike," said the man, but Sue paid no more attention to him, for she was nudging Bunny and trying to get him to look at the colored boy.
Bunny himself was greatly interested. He wanted to make sure whether or not the player were Fred. So he stared with all his might at the banjoist, who just then began another song.
By this time the medicine man had come out on the platform of his wagon with more filled bottles to sell. He would begin as soon as the song was finished, for more people had gathered, attracted by the music.
And then Bunny and Sue both noticed that the colored boy was looking straight at them. But he did not seem to know them. And surely, if it had been Fred Ward he would have known the Brown children, even though he had lived next door to them only a short time. People did not easily forget Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, once they had met them.
But this banjo player evidently did not know them; or, if he did, he was not going to let it be known. He finished his song with a twang of the banjo strings and then hurried inside the wagon, the sides of which were of wood, like a small moving van.
Then the man began selling his medicine again, talking a great deal about it while he did so.
Mrs. Brown turned to her husband and said:
"I'm sure that was a white boy blacked up to look like a negro, and he does it very well, too. Even his voice is like a colored person's. But as he turned to go back into the wagon his sleeve slipped up and I saw that his arm was white."
"Very likely he was made up as a colored boy then," said Mr. Brown. "His lips were too red for a real colored boy's."