“What’s the matter?” asked one man, smiling down at Sue.  “Didn’t you ever see a minstrel before?”

“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.”

“Well, since we are sure of that let’s ask the medicine man about him,” went on Mrs. Brown.

“All right, I’m willing,” said Mr. Brown good-naturedly.  “We’ll wait until the show is over though.”

The medicine man kept on selling bottles.  It was getting later now, and the crowd began to thin out.  Seeing this the medicine man announced there would be no more music or sales that night, but that he would stop in this town on his next trip.

The flaring lamp was put out, and the medicine man began to close up his wagon for the night.  Mr. Brown stepped up to him.  The real or pretended colored boy was not in sight.

“I’d like to ask you a question,” said Mr. Brown to the traveling medicine seller.

“About my wonderful pain destroyer?” asked “Dr. Perry,” as he called himself.

“No.  About that young banjo player you have with you.”

“Oh, you mean Professor Rombodno Prosondo?”

“Yes,” and Mr. Brown smiled.  “I want to know if he is Fred Ward, who has run away from his home next door to us?”