“Don’t let him bite you,” said Mother Brown, as she started to get breakfast.

“Oh, Fluffy won’t bite,” said Bunny.  “He’s as tame as our cat used to be.”

Once more the automobile traveled on.  It rained part of the day but the shower was not a hard one, though Bunny and Sue had to stay in the big car when noon came, and dinner could not be served out-of-doors.

But the skies cleared before night, and when the auto was stopped the children could run about with their rubbers on.  They were near a small town, and Mrs. Brown promised to take the children in after the meal to see if they could buy some grain or seeds for Fluffy.

The supper was an early one, and, leaving Uncle Tad at the “Ark” with the two dogs and the squirrel, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, with the two children walked into town.  As they reached the middle of the village, near a public square, they heard the sound of music and saw a crowd of people around a wagon lighted by a gasolene torch, such as is used in a circus at night.

“Oh, it’s a medicine show!” cried Mrs. Brown, as she saw a big, long-haired man on the back platform of a wagon, holding up a bottle about which he was talking to the people.

“Yes, and there’s a banjo player with him,” said Bunny.  “Look, Mother!  It’s a colored boy playing a banjo!  Maybe it’s Fred Ward!”

CHAPTER XV

WAS IT FRED?

“What’s this?  What’s this you’re talking about?” suddenly asked Mr. Brown, as he heard what Bunny said.  Or rather, Bunny’s father did not hear exactly, for he had been thinking about something else.  But he had caught the name Fred Ward.

“Bunny thinks that colored banjo player with that medicine show may be Fred Ward,” said Mrs. Brown.  “Do you think it would be of any use to inquire, Daddy?”

“Why, that is a medicine show, isn’t it!” exclaimed Mr. Brown, as though he saw it for the first time.  “And it’s just like the one we heard about that had a boy banjo player with it.”

“There’s a boy banjo player now,” said Bunny.  “He’s going to play, Daddy, too!  Do you think it could be Fred?”

The man who was selling the bottles of medicine, after telling the people how much good it would do them, had stopped to let the boy traveling with him play the banjo.

There are, or there used to be, many such traveling medicine shows.  Sometimes there would be a whole troop of Indians, some real and some make-believe, that would be engaged by the seller of the medicine.  He would have the Indians do some of their queer dances and then, when a crowd had collected, he would sell some medicine—­maybe some he said the Indians made themselves.

Another medicine seller would go about with a gaily painted wagon, carrying a cornet player, a singer or a banjoist to attract a crowd.  And when the men and women were gathered about the end of the wagon, which had a broad platform on the end and a flaring gasolene torch at night, the man would tell about his medicine and sell all he could.