Before the Parkney family moved to Judge Layton's farm, Miss May's school had opened, the Christmas holidays were over, and dear Grandpa and Grandma Horton had gone home to Brookside. Grandma had to take the sweater she was knitting for Bob home with her to finish, but she sent it to him as soon as it was done. And a handsome sweater it was, dark gray and warm and comfortable. Bob was delighted with it.
The first day of school, after the holiday vacation, Jessie Smiley, a little girl who sat near Sunny Boy in Miss Davis' room, brought her walking doll to school with her.
"I couldn't leave Cora Florence at home," Jessie explained to Miss Davis. "Santa Claus brought her to me. I thought she could sit in a chair and wait for me, mornings."
Miss Davis shook hands politely with Cora Florence and said that she might stay. The girls were much interested in the doll, and even the boys wanted to make her walk, though of course they privately thought that dolls were rather silly things. But Cora Florence was as large as the youngest Parkney child and wore "real" clothes that one could take off like a real child's. Jessie spent a good many minutes taking off her doll's hat and coat and her leggings and mittens and putting them on again.
"I brought my railroad train," announced Carleton Marsh, the next morning.
He unwrapped a long train of cars and an engine.
"I got 'em for Christmas," he said. "They wind up with a key and you don't have to have any track," and down on his hands and knees went Carleton to start his train.
The assembly bell rang while the train was still running around, and Miss Davis had to catch it and leave it turned upside down with the little wheels whirring around while she marched her class into Miss May's room for the morning exercises.
Several of the children brought new toys with them to school the next day. Perry Phelps carried a sand toy which was a little car that ran up and down an inclined plane when filled with sand. Jimmie Butterworth had a jumping rabbit that took a long hop when you pressed a rubber bulb. Lottie Carr brought her new doll, and Dorothy Peters even carried her toy piano, though it was rather heavy.
"My dear little people!" said Miss Davis, when she saw all these toys, "do you think you will be able to keep your mind on lessons with these delightful and distracting presents arranged around the room? Or shall I put them in the cloak room for you till recess?"
The children were sure they could pay attention to lessons and still look at the Christmas toys, so Miss Davis allowed them to put the presents under the sand table, and she said no one must touch a thing till recess. And then, goodness me, wasn't there a gay time! Jessie's doll walked and Carleton's train ran around and around, the little sand car jerked up and down its track, the rabbit hopped on top of the desks, and Dorothy's piano tinkled seven different tunes at once as seven different children tried to play on it. Miss May came across the hall to see what the class could be doing to make so much noise.
"Why, it looks like Christmas!" she said, smiling.
"Yes, and I don't know whether we can settle down after so much excitement," answered Miss Davis doubtfully. "There goes the bell. Put the toys back under the table, children, and take your seats."
Sunny Boy walked home thoughtfully. He usually walked most of the way to school and home again alone, for none of the pupils lived very near him.
"I'm going to take something to show 'em, to-morrow," he said to himself. "My ice skates and sled aren't much fun. I know what I'll do! I'll take the lead soldiers!"
He was so excited over this idea that he ran the rest of the way home and was quite out of breath by the time he reached his front door. He had to go up in the playroom and put his lead soldiers back in the box they had come in before he could come to lunch.
"What were you doing, precious?" his mother asked him, when he came into the dining-room. "Didn't you hear Harriet calling you?"
"Yes, Mother, and I did hurry," replied Sunny Boy. "But I have to take my lead soldiers to school to-morrow and I was putting them in the box."
Then he told Mother about the toys the other children had brought to school and that he was sure they would like to see his lead soldiers.
"But I don't believe Miss Davis will be pleased," said Mrs. Horton. "She must find it hard to teach her class when they are thinking about their toys. Do you think you ought to take the lead soldiers, dear?"
"Oh, yes, Mother, please," Sunny Boy said. "We put them under the sand table and we don't play with them till recess. Lead soldiers don't make a noise, Mother, and Miss Davis will like them. She said she likes quiet toys."
So Mrs. Horton said he might take the lead soldiers if he would promise not to play with them during school hours and if he would put them away the moment recess was over and not make Miss Davis speak to him twice.
"What you got, Sunny Boy?" asked Carleton, when Sunny Boy came into Miss Davis' room the next morning, a box under his arm.
Sunny Boy, though he would not have said so, rather wished he had not decided to bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something to show the boys.
"I brought my lead soldiers," he said to Carleton. "Want to see them?"
Carleton did, and he helped Sunny Boy take them out of the box and stand them up on his desk. The boys and girls came crowding around to look and the other toys were forgotten for a moment. When Miss Davis came in she found the train rushing around on the floor and the doll walking and the toy piano playing, as usual, but half a dozen boys around Sunny Boy's desk were playing "battle" with wads of paper for bullets and pencils for guns.
"The assembly bell will ring in five minutes, children," said Miss Davis warningly. "Put the toys away under the sand table at once. Are these your lead soldiers, Sunny Boy?"
Miss Davis looked at the soldiers and admired them and then told Sunny Boy to put them back in the box and put the box under the table.
"You may get them out again at recess," she said, smiling.
"Could I keep the general, Miss Davis?" begged Sunny Boy. "Could I let him stand on my desk? I won't play with him the tiniest bit; I'd just like to have him to look at."
"Well, are yousureyou won't forget and play with him?" urged Miss Davis. "He is a beautiful general, isn't he? All right, if you promise me not to play with him during school time, you may let him stand on your desk."
So Sunny Boy put all the soldiers away except the general who rode a horse and was very handsome indeed. He stood him up on his desk and left him there while the class went into Miss May's room for assembly. When they came back, Miss Davis sent Sunny Boy to the board to color a picture she had drawn. Sunny Boy loved to use the colored chalk, and he forgot all about the lead soldier general while he worked away at the board.
When he had finished the picture—and Miss Davis said he had done it very nicely—it was time for the writing lesson.
"I think we will try to use ink to-day," the teacher said. "We will take great pains and not hurry. And please be careful of your fingers."
Whenever Miss Davis tried to teach her class to make an "M" or a "T" or some other letter in ink, it was strange, but more ink seemed to get on their fingers than anywhere else! But Miss Davis said they would learn in good time and that she had inked her fingers, too, when she was a little girl and was learning to write.
Sunny Boy took his seat to be ready for the writing lesson, and the first thing he saw was the lead general lying on his back. He had fallen off his horse!
"Though I don't see how he could fall off," argued Sunny Boy to himself. "He screws on the little screw in the saddle. I wonder if somebody unscrewed him!"
Carleton Marsh was beginning to hand out the papers for the writing lesson and Jessie Smiley took the box of pens from Miss Davis. It was her turn to distribute them to the children this week.
"I'll bet Jessie did it," said Sunny Boy, but not out loud. "I'll bet she unscrewed the general while I was at the blackboard."
Sunny Boy knew that Jessie was mischievous and he also knew that she could not keep her little fingers off anything that might be lying on his desk. She had mortified him very much the first week he came to school by making his camel squeak in class, and it would be just like her to play with the lead soldier when Sunny Boy was at the board and Miss Davis was busy helping some pupil.
"I'll bet Jessie did it," said Sunny Boy again to himself.
Just then Jessie looked at him. She smiled, an impish, naughty little smile, and then Sunny Boy knew he had guessed right. Jessie had unscrewed the lead soldier general.
"I'll just put him back," whispered Sunny Boy, putting out a cautious hand toward the soldier. He wasn't going to play with him, he argued, but Miss Davis might call it playing, if she saw him.
"Here's your pen," said Jessie suddenly.
Sunny Boy jumped a little, for he had not heard her come up to his desk. His blouse sleeve brushed again the lead general, and what do you think happened? Splash! Down into the inkwell on Sunny Boy's desk went that beautiful soldier, down out of sight in the messy ink!
Jessie looked startled, but she did not say anything. She walked on with her box of pens. Perhaps she thought it was her fault for unscrewing the lead soldier general, but Jessie did not like to blame herself for anything.
"This morning you may draw the initial of your first name," announced Miss Davis. "And then you may go over it in ink. I will come around and help you, if you need help."
Sunny Boy was gazing down into his ink well and scarcely heard her. How could he rescue the lead soldier before he drowned? He took his best pencil and poked it down into the inkwell. Goodness, the ink was deeper than he thought, and before he knew it his fingers were stained black. Then he poked around with the pen Jessie had given him, but though he could feel the soldier at the bottom of the inkwell, he could not make the pen stick in him. Once the pen slipped and the ink splashed out on the desk. Sunny Boy wiped it up with his hands. They were inky anyway, and a little more wouldn't hurt.
He began to draw an "S" on his paper. Then he remembered that his "truly" name was Arthur like Grandpa Horton's. Sunny Boy turned the paper over and tried to draw an "A." But all the time he kept thinking of the poor lead soldier down at the bottom of the inkwell.
"That looks very nice, Carleton," said Miss Davis.
Sunny Boy looked up. She was standing at Carleton's desk in the next aisle. In a few minutes she would come to Sunny Boy's desk to see his letter. If he was ever going to get that lead soldier, it must be now. Sunny Boy took another quick glance at Miss Davis, saw that she was busy helping another child, and down went his little right hand into the ink-well!
"I've got him!" he said aloud, as he brought up the lead soldier, dripping with ink.
The class looked at Sunny Boy in surprise. So did Miss Davis. They saw a little boy with ink spots on his face and blouse, his hands as black as—well, as black as ink, and ink running in streams over his desk.
"Sunny Boy!" cried Miss Davis. "What are you doing? I thought you promised not to play with the lead soldier. Carleton, get the blotter on my desk, quick!"
Carleton got the blotter and that helped to mop up some of the ink. Miss Davis sent Jessie to get a cloth from Maria, the maid, and she used that to wipe the ink off the desk. Sunny Boy and the lead soldier she sent upstairs to the bathroom, where Maria scrubbed them both with water and a stiff little brush. Not all the ink came off, but most of it did.
Sunny Boy had to sit quietly at his desk during recess while Miss Davis talked to him. He explained that he was not playing with the soldier and Jessie was honest enough to say that she had unscrewed him from his horse, and Miss Davis said she was very glad to know that Sunny Boy had not broken his promise.
"But I think I shall have to say that there must be no more toys brought to school after this," she declared, when she had heard all about the rescue of the lead soldier general and had kissed Sunny Boy so he might know she was not scolding him. "Toys and school do not seem to go very well together."
And Sunny Boy's mother, when she heard about that morning, said she thought Miss Davis was right.
"Daddy," said Mrs. Horton at the breakfast table one morning, "what do you think about sending Sunny Boy to school to-day?"
Mr. Horton glanced out of the window. The snow was piled high on the sill and the white flakes were still falling steadily.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't believe the storm will be much worse, Olive. It has snowed all night, and our storms seldom last twenty-four hours. It may be a little hard going this morning, but the walks will be cleared before it is time for him to come home. And if the wind rises, let him stay at school till Harriet or some one can go after him."
Sunny Boy had listened anxiously. He loved to go to school and he did not mind the snow. Didn't he have a pair of real rubber boots and a fur cap that covered his ears? And this was the first chance he had had to go to school in a snowstorm. There had been snow, of course, but it had always snowed in the night or after school was out, or during the holidays. Now he was going to go to school while it was snowing, just as Daddy Horton had done when he was a little boy.
"I wonder if Bob has rubber boots?" said Sunny Boy to Harriet, after breakfast. She was watching him put on his boots in the hall.
"I don't know. But he won't be able to come to school to-day if he has," replied Harriet. "The suburban trolleys won't run in a storm like this. I don't think your mother ought to let you go to school when it is snowing so hard."
Mr. Horton came downstairs, putting on his overcoat. He looked rather serious. "The storm is worse than I thought," he said. "Sunny Boy, do you want to go to school very much this morning?"
Sunny Boy's lip quivered. His eyes filled with tears. Couldn't he go, after all?
"I put my rubber boots on," he said, trying not to cry, and holding out his foot for Daddy to see.
Mr. Horton loved his little son dearly and he wanted him to be happy. He saw that Sunny Boy would be sadly disappointed if he had to miss a day in school.
"All right, you shall go," he said cheerfully. "I'll take you myself, and I think we'll manage to get there. Good-bye, Mother. And don't worry about us."
Mrs. Horton and Harriet stood at the parlor windows and watched Sunny Boy go down the street, holding fast to his daddy's hand. The snow did not drive in their faces, and it did not seem very cold.
"I like it, don't you?" cried Sunny Boy, tramping along in his rubber boots and wishing that Daddy could walk to school with him every morning.
Here and there they saw a man shoveling the sidewalk, and already teams of horses and carts were standing at the street corners while gangs of men and boys shoveled snow into them.
"Where do they take the snow?" asked Sunny Boy. "Why don't they leave it on the street so people can go coasting?"
"Well, you see, Sunny Boy, if the snow wasn't carried away, the baker's horse might not be able to bring us any rolls for breakfast and perhaps the milkman couldn't bring us any milk," Mr. Horton answered. "And the people who are cold would not be able to get any coal for their fires. The boys and girls might go coasting, but the horses and wagons and motor trucks would find it hard going. It is much wiser to carry the snow away as fast as it falls. I think it is taken out into the country and there emptied on waste land."
"I wonder if Mr. Parkney likes it to snow," said Sunny Boy, who always thought of the Parkney family when any one mentioned the country. "When can we go see him, Daddy?"
"By and by, when spring comes, if not before," said Mr. Horton pleasantly. "Now, Son, here we are at Miss May's. If it doesn't stop snowing pretty soon I shall telephone Mother to have Harriet come for you this noon."
Sunny Boy kissed Daddy and ran up the steps. Miss May opened the door for him.
"Well, Sunny Boy, you are not afraid of the weather, are you?" she said brightly. "I'm sure some of the children will not be able to come to-day. The trolley cars have stopped, Miss Davis tells me, and Lottie Carr and her sister live in the suburbs, you know."
When the nine o'clock bell rang all the children in Miss Davis' room were there, except the two Carr girls. They could not come because there were no trolley cars running and they lived too far away to walk. There were three or four little girls in Miss May's room who stayed at home, too, but nearly every one came. The children thought it great fun to scramble through the snow, and then, when they reached Miss May's, to have Maria stand them on a mat of linoleum and brush them off with a whisk broom so that they should not carry snow into the school rooms.
Miss Davis' class was having a reading lesson just after recess, when Miss May came in to speak to Miss Davis. The two teachers went over by the window to talk and the children could not hear what they said. Miss May went back to her own room in a few moments and then, to every one's surprise, instead of telling Sunny Boy to finish the story he had been reading to her, Miss Davis asked her class to close their books.
"Miss May is going to send you home earlier than usual to-day," she told them when the books were closed and the boys and girls were sitting "at attention," as she liked to have them. "She thinks the storm is getting worse, and, of course, the longer you stay the more snow you will have to plough through. I will help you put on your wraps, and then I want you to hurry home. Don't stop to play in the snow and don't build snow men or throw snowballs. Go straight home, because your mothers may begin to worry about you."
They went into the cloakroom to get their wraps, and Miss Davis had to turn on the light for them because it was so dark. The window was high in the wall, and the wind had blown so much snow against it that the room was "like five o'clock at night," Carleton Marsh said.
"Now remember, don't play, but hurry home," said Miss Davis, when the last legging was buttoned and all the mittens were matched. Perry Phelps lost one of his mittens regularly every day and Miss Davis always had to find it for him. "Don't stop to play in the snow till you have been home and had your lunch. You'll have the whole afternoon to play in."
It was much colder than it had been in the morning. Sunny Boy knew that as soon as he went out on the steps. But he did not know how cold it was till he and the other children turned the first corner. Then the wind struck them and Dorothy Peters cried that she couldn't breathe!
"Turn your back to it," Sunny Boy advised her, pulling his fur cap down over his ears.
But the wind seemed to blow in several directions at once. It swooped down around the children and blew stinging snowflakes into their eyes. It howled and shrieked and tore over the roofs of the houses, bringing great sheets of snow with it.
"It wasn't like this, this morning," complained Carleton, stamping his feet to warm them.
Though none of them knew it, the storm was now a blizzard and it was cold enough and windy enough and snowy enough to make grown-ups most uncomfortable, to say nothing of small boys and girls who had to walk through the storm. It was a mistake for the teacher to send the children home alone.
"I can't see where I'm going!" gasped Jimmie Butterworth, trying to wipe the snow from his face with his mittens.
Jessie Smiley stubbed her toe against something and began to cry.
"I'm so cold!" she wailed. "My nose is frozen, I know it is. And I never saw that funny fence before."
Sunny Boy looked up at the great iron fence. The snow had blown against it till it was almost covered. There was a row of ash cans set out on the curb in front of this fence and they were so completely covered with snow that poor Jessie had walked into them without seeing them.
"No, I never saw that fence, either," declared Jimmie. "Is this the way you go home to your house, Sunny Boy?"
"I don't know whose fence that is," replied Sunny Boy. "I never saw it before. Gee, doesn't the wind blow!"
The wind was blowing harder than ever and the snow seemed to be coming down faster and faster. There was not a horse or wagon or motor truck to be seen on the street, and not even a single person. Every one who could get in out of the storm had done so. And as it was noon by this time even those whose work forced them to be out had managed to find shelter somewhere for the lunch hour.
"I want to go home!" cried Dorothy Peters, just as Ruth Baker had cried the day she went coasting with Sunny Boy and Nelson. Sunny Boy decided that all girls acted the same way.
"Well, come on," said Jimmie Butterworth, putting his hands deeper into his pockets. "Come on, Dorothy; you won't get home standing there and crying about it. Hurry up."
The children began to walk again, but the snow blinded their eyes and the wind continued to take their breath way. Jessie Smiley fell over a curb stone and began to cry and Helen Graham, who had not said a word, sat down in the snow and declared she wasn't going a step further.
"I think we're lost and we'll be buried in the snow and never, never found any more!" she said. Helen liked exciting stories and she had heard so many she thought she could tell a few herself and, as it proved, she could.
"I don't want to be buried in the snow!" cried Jessie. "I won't be buried and never, never found any more."
"You can't help yourself," Helen informed her. "Oh-h, my feet are cold!"
"Well, I don't b'lieve we're going home," admitted Jimmie Butterworth, working his arms up and down to get them warm. "I think we'd better walk the other way."
So they all turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction. The wind turned, too, and the snow came into their faces faster than ever.
"Look out!" screamed Helen Graham, as they stumbled across a street. "Here comes something!"
Something big and black was coming toward them out of the snowstorm. It moved slowly and Jimmie Butterworth said he thought it was a battleship.
"Who ever saw a battleship on the land?" said Perry Phelps. "I'll bet you it is a—a cow."
Perry said this hastily because he had thought at first the thing coming toward them was a motor truck, but before he could say so his quick eyes had made out four moving legs.
"It's a horse and wagon," said Sunny Boy. "Let's ask the driver to give us a ride home."
"Hey, mister!" shouted the boys as the wagon came close to them. "Let us in? Where are you going? Let us ride with you, please?"
The horse stopped, but no one answered. It seemed, tired, poor animal, and stood with its head down and winking its eyes to keep the snow out of them.
"Let us ride with you?" said Jimmie Butterworth politely. "I think some of us are lost."
Sunny Boy moved closer to the wagon. He peered in where the driver should sit. He could not see any one, and he noticed that the reins were tied around the whip handle.
"I don't believe any one is driving this horse," he said suddenly.
Sunny Boy was right. The children stared at each other in surprise and the little girls forgot that their feet were cold. Who ever heard of a horse and wagon without a driver?
"Is he running away?" asked Jessie Smiley.
"Silly, of course he isn't," retorted Jimmie Butterworth. "A horse can't run away in a snowstorm. I tell you what let's do—let's get in and drive him home!"
"How do you know where he lives?" said Helen Graham.
"Oh, I guess I can find out," replied Jimmie, though he was wondering how to find the answer to that question.
"Do you know how to drive a horse?" asked Sunny Boy.
"Well I never did, but I think I could," said Jimmie, who was a good-natured boy and quite ready to try any kind of new experiment.
"You know how, don't you, Sunny Boy?" said Perry Phelps. "You went to see your grandfather in the country, didn't you? And he has horses and things. You drive us home."
"No," said Sunny Boy, "I don't know how to drive a horse like this. Wait a minute, and I'll think."
The other children waited for him to think. Though he was the youngest in his class, they had found out that Sunny Boy was often wiser than they were and that he could be trusted to find a way to do things. Miss Davis said that Sunny Boy was her "right-hand man."
"My daddy says," announced Sunny Boy, after he had thought a minute, "that horses can go home all by themselves, so I guess this one can. But if we all got into the wagon, the girls would cry and be afraid he would run away."
"We wouldn't, either!" said Jessie Smiley crossly.
"Yes you would," Sunny Boy told her. "I think the girls ought to get in the wagon and ride and we'll stay and walk with the horse. Then he'll go home and we'll find out where he lives."
They argued a few minutes about this plan, but as no one could think of a better one, the girls, Helen and Jessie and Dorothy, climbed into the wagon and the four boys trudged along beside the horse who started to walk slowly the minute Sunny Boy called "gid-ap" to him.
He wasn't a fast horse, and it did seem as though his home must be at the very end of Centronia, for he continued to walk long after the boys were lame and tired from slipping around in the snow. The three little girls were more comfortable, for while the wagon was not warm, the cover kept the snow off them.
"I never saw much a slow horse," grumbled Jessie, putting her head out to see where they were, though it was impossible to tell because the whirling snow hid everything.
"My feet are cold!" cried Dorothy Peters.
"I don't think this horse lives anywhere," shouted Helen, so that the boys could bear her. "He's probably going out into the country and we'll all freeze and Miss May will wonder where we went, and is she does come looking for us, she'll never find us!"
Sunny Boy patted the horse gently.
"I guess you're cold, too," he said gently. "I wish I had a blanket for you Mr. Horse. Maybe there is one in the wagon."
He said "whoa" and the horse stopped. Then Sunny Boy climbed into the wagon and felt under the seat. Sure enough there was a blanket.
"What are you going to do with that, Sunny Boy?" asked Helen Graham.
"Put it on the horse," replied Sunny Boy. "I think he must be awfully cold. He's a pretty tall horse, but I guess Jimmie will help me."
Jimmie helped him and so did Perry and Carleton, and it took them all to get the blanket spread over the horse. They got it on wrong and there was no way to fasten it, so they took turns holding it around the horse's neck as he walked. Sunny Boy held the blanket in place till his hands were cold, then Jimmie held it while Sunny warmed his hands. When Jimmie's hands were cold, Perry held the blanket, and then Carleton. The horse looked surprised at such kindness, but he did not walk any faster. He couldn't.
Sunny Boy held the blanket in place.[Illustration: Sunny Boy held the blanket in place.]
Sunny Boy held the blanket in place.[Illustration: Sunny Boy held the blanket in place.]
"I guess we've walked a hundred miles," said Sunny Boy wearily, when they had trudged through the wind and snow for a long, long time.
Then, as though he had heard, the horse stopped suddenly. He pointed his ears straight ahead and then turned the wagon around so quickly that the girls inside cried out in fright. They thought they were going to be tipped out in the snow. But the horse was walking slowly up a driveway, and now he stopped again and Sunny Boy saw that he stood in front of a barn.
The barn doors were closed and the children heard a horse inside give a loud neigh. Their own horse answered.
"I'll bet he lives here," said Jimmie Butterworth.
Sunny Boy waited a minute, and then, as no one opened the barn doors, he looked around for a house. Yes, there was a house; at least there was a chimney showing through the driving snow.
"I'll go tell the folks the horse is here," he said. "You wait for me." They all wanted to come, but Sunny Boy pointed out that the horse might go off again. So Perry Phelps and Carleton agreed to hold him and keep the blanket on him, while Sunny Boy and Jimmie Butterworth went to tell the people in the house that their horse had come home.
The two little boys walked out of the drive way and started to go across the field to the house. Sunny Boy was ahead, and suddenly he went into a snowdrift up to his neck!
"Do you suppose it is as deep as that all the way there?" he gasped, when Jimmie helped him out. There was snow inside his rubber boots and down under his coat collar. But Sunny Boy seldom fussed even when he was not quite comfortable.
Luckily, it was not as deep all the way to the house, and after they had walked and stumbled and even run a little, they reached the front door of the farmhouse. Sunny Boy rapped on it, and a woman came in answer to his knock. She held a small child in her arms.
"Why, Sunny Boy!" she cried. "How did you ever get here in weather like this? Where is your mother? Come in quickly, out of the storm."
It was Mrs. Parkney, and Sunny Boy was so surprised that before he could say a word he found himself in the warm kitchen with the seven Parkney children and Mr. and Mrs. Parkney all standing around him and Jimmie.
"Does a horse live here?" was Sunny Boy's first question. "He's waiting outside your barn. And the other children are there, too."
Mr. Parkney, who by the way looked strong and well again, soon had everything all straight. He and Bob went out to the barn and put the horse in his stall and brought back the five children. Mrs. Parkney spread a red cloth on the kitchen table, for the kitchen was cozy and warm and no amount of snow from rubber boots and little shoes could harm the linoleum floor, and began to get them something to eat.
"They must be starved, poor lambs," she said, "It is almost three o'clock."
You see, the children had been walking ever since half-past eleven o'clock that morning and had had nothing to eat since their breakfasts. No wonder they were tired and hungry.
"I don't see how you could walk away out here," said Bob Parkney, pouring milk into the bowls his mother had put out on the table. "I did it this forenoon, and I was dead tired when I got home."
"Bob walked to school, because the trolley cars were not running," explained Mrs. Parkney. "His father took the light wagon and one of the horses and went after him right after dinner to save him the walk home. But the public schools dismissed the pupils early, just as Miss May did you, and Bob had started before his father got to the school."
"And while I was in the building, asking for Bob, the horse took it into its head to walk away without me," said Mr. Parkney. "So I had to walk all the way back home myself."
"How are we to get these children home?" said Mrs. Parkney to her husband, while Sunny Boy and his six playmates were busy with the delicious home-made bread and country milk she had given them. "Their mothers will be wild with anxiety, Robert. Our telephone is out of order, or we could telephone and let them know and keep the children here over night."
"Bob and I will take them home in the sleigh," said Mr. Parkney at once. "It's an old rattletrap affair, and I don't believe it has been used for years. Still, I reckon Bob and I can make it hold together for one trip. But, Mother, find out where these little folks live before they go to sleep. I might leave the wrong child at the wrong house."
The cold and the long walk had made the children very sleepy. Sunny Boy could hardly hold his eyes open and Jessie Smiley went to sleep with her spoon in her hand. When Mrs. Parkney tried to wake her up and ask her where she lived, Jessie only opened her eyes and smiled and closed them again.
"My feet are warm now," she murmured.
"I know where she lives," said Sunny Boy to Mrs. Parkney. "I'll tell Bob. I know where all the children live, don't I, Jimmie?"
Mrs. Parkney said she would have to depend on Sunny Boy, for the others were so sleepy they almost tumbled over standing up when she tried to put their hats and coats on them.
Bob and his father went out and harnessed the old sleigh to two black horses (not the one the children had brought home, for he was tired out, of course,) and Mrs. Parkney filled bottles with hot water and wrapped hot flatirons in old cloths to keep them warm. She insisted on coming out to the sleigh and tucking away the seven boys and girls, and every one of her own children followed to watch her. Perhaps they wanted a sleigh ride, but Mr. Parkney said he would have his hands full with the load he had, and he did not want any extra passengers.
"We'll tuck Sunny Boy up in the front seat between us," said Bob, "and then he can tell us where the different youngsters live."
And Sunny Boy did, though he was so sleepy Bob had to wake him by shaking him gently every time. They soon reached Centronia, for it was not a very long drive for two horses and a sleigh which can travel swiftly over the snow. Once in the city, Bob began shaking Sunny Boy awake and asking him where his playmates lived.
They came to Jessie Smiley's house first, and she did not wake up, even when Bob lifted her and carried her in. Mrs. Smiley wanted to hear the whole story, but Bob explained that he had more children to see safely home, and Mrs. Smiley was so glad and thankful to have Jessie back that she told Bob to hurry.
"For I know the other mothers are as anxious as I have been," she said. "We have had a terrible day. The telephone wires are all down, and my husband has been to Miss May's school and to the house of every child in Jessie's class, trying to find some trace of her. He is out hunting now."
Around and around Mr. Parkney drove, and at every house they stopped Bob carried in a sleeping child. How glad the mothers were, so glad they wanted to hug Bob, and some of them did. At last every one was safe home but Sunny Boy, and then Mr. Parkney made the horses go as fast as they could. When he stopped them at the Horton's house, both he and Bob got out and went in with Sunny Boy.
"Mrs. Horton, here's Sunny Boy!" cried Harriet, when she answered the ring at the doorbell and found Sunny Boy standing there with the Parkneys.
Daddy Horton came down the front stairs three steps at a time and grabbed Sunny. Mother Horton came running down after him, and she was so glad to see Sunny Boy that she cried just a little—the way she had cried in New York when he was lost and then found again.
She held him in her lap all the time Mr. Parkney and Bob were explaining how they came to bring him home. When Mr. Horton tried to thank them, Mr. Parkney stopped him.
"I'm only trying to do for your family one-tenth part of what you've done for me and mine," he said, though Sunny Boy was so sleepy he didn't hear him very well and had to ask Mother the next day what he had said. "There isn't anything the Parkneys, from the two-year-old to Mrs. Parkney and me, wouldn't do for you, Mr. Horton."
Sunny BOY did not go to school the next day. There was no school to go to. Though, even if there had been, he would not have gone, because he did not wake up till half past ten, and then Mother and Harriet brought his breakfast up to him on the pretty wicker tray.
When Sunny Boy had had his breakfast, he started to dress. While he was dressing he told his mother and Harriet all the things that had happened to him and the other children the day before. He had gone to sleep almost as soon as Mr. Parkney brought him home. Of course Mrs. Horton was anxious to hear what had happened to him after school was dismissed that snowy morning.
It had stopped snowing—Harriet said it stopped during the night—and the walks rang with the cheerful sound of shovels as men and boys went about cleaning the pavements and streets. The sun came out, too, and the outdoors was very beautiful, but so dazzling it made Sunny Boy blink his eyes whenever he looked out of the window.
"Did Miss May know we were lost?" Sunny Boy asked his mother while she was brushing his hair. He could brush his own hair, of course, but Mrs. Horton said she liked to do it for him and then she was quite sure he wouldn't forget. "Did she wonder where we were?"
"Poor Miss May!" said Mrs. Horton. "She had a terrible day. Dear Daddy went around last night to tell her you were all safe. Come and sit in my lap, Sunny Boy, and I will tell you about it."
Sunny Boy climbed into his mother's lap and she moved her rocking chair near the window so that she could see the postman when he came down the street. She was expecting a letter from a friend.
"You see, precious," Mrs. Horton began, "Daddy saw that the storm was getting worse, and he tried to telephone me to tell Harriet to go after you. But the telephone wires were out of order and he couldn't get us; so he sent a messenger. Harriet started out at once, but, as you know, Miss May sent you home early, and by the time Harriet reached the school you were gone. She hurried home, expecting to find you here. And then wasn't I frightened when the afternoon went by and you didn't come! I sent Harriet down to Daddy's office, and he came home. By and by Mr. Smiley came and one or two other fathers to ask if we knew anything about their children. Miss May started out in all the storm to look for you, and a policeman had to bring her back, for the wind was too much for her."
"Yes, it blew like—like anything!" agreed Sunny Boy. "Did you think I was lost, Mother?"
"Yes, I did, precious. And so you were, you know," said Mrs. Horton, kissing the back of his neck.
"There comes Mr. Harris!" cried Sunny Boy, as the postman came down the street. "Let me go, Mother. Perhaps there is a letter for me!"
Sunny Boy was always expecting letters, though he seldom wrote any. He wrote to Grandpa Horton now and then, to be sure, and at Christmas time he wrote one or two "thank you" letters to the relatives and friends who sent him Christmas presents. But, as a rule, he did not write letters, and that is probably the reason he did not receive many. Still, it is fun to expect letters, and Sunny Boy liked to say: "Any for me?" to the postman.
"Hello, you didn't get snowed in after all, did you?" said kind Mr. Harris, smiling at Sunny Boy when he opened the door. "You had this house in a turmoil yesterday, young man."
"What's a turmoil?" asked Sunny Boy.
"It's an upset," replied the postman. "What happened to you, anyway?"
Sunny Boy explained, while Mr. Harris went through his package of letters which he carried in his hand.
"And we came home in Mr. Parkney's sleigh," finished Sunny Boy. "Have you any letters for me, Mr. Harris?"
"Two for your mother, and a paper for your daddy," said Mr. Harris slowly. "And—let—me—see—" He began to go over his letters again, very slowly. "Let—me—see—" he said again. "Oh, here it is! I thought I'd lost it. Are you Arthur Bradford Horton? You are? Well, Sunny Boy, here's a nice, big, square white letter for you. And I'm glad the blizzard didn't blow you away."
Sunny Boy took his letter eagerly, mumbled "thank you," and ran upstairs as fast as he could go.
"Oh, Mother, look!" he shouted. "I have a letter! It's addressed to me from somebody. Did Aunt Bessie write to me?"
"Open your letter and read it," said Mrs. Horton laughingly.
Sunny Boy took the paper knife she gave him and cut the envelope as he had seen his daddy do.
"It isn't a letter; it's a Christmas card," he said in disappointment.
"Oh, no, precious, no one would sent you a Christmas card in January," declared Mrs. Horton. "See, dear, it is an invitation to a party. Oliver Dunlap is eight years old next week and he is going to have a birthday party. Won't that be fun!"
Sunny Boy was glad Oliver had sent him an invitation to his party and not a Christmas card. He spent the greater part of the afternoon writing an answer to the letter. First he wrote it in pencil, and when he had shown the pencil copy to Mother and Harriet and Aunt Bessie (who came to lunch and to see if Sunny Boy was quite well after his snow storm experience) and they had all said it was a very nice answer indeed, he copied it in ink. He had to do this five times before it satisfied him. Sunny Boy would not send a letter to Oliver with the tiniest spot of ink on it, and he was willing to do a thing over and over and over to get it right. Before he had finished putting the stamp on the envelope—Harriet said Sunny Boy shook the house when he put a stamp on a letter, and indeed he thumped it as though he were pounding with a brick—Nelson and Ruth Baker came over to see him.
"Did you get lost yesterday?" asked Nelson. "When did you get home? We only had one session in school."
Nelson went to the public school and he had to go to school in the afternoon unless the principal decided to have only one session, as he often did when it stormed.
"Are you going to Oliver's party?" said Ruth. "We are. What are you going to take him?"
Sunny Boy could tell Nelson all about getting lost and when he came home, and he could explain to Ruth that he was going to Oliver's party. But he could not tell her what birthday gift he meant to take Oliver, because he hadn't thought about it.
He asked Mother, after Nelson and Ruth had gone home, and she said they would go down town some afternoon before the party and find something nice.
The telephone man came to fix the wires that afternoon, and when Daddy Horton came home to dinner he said that much of the snow had been cleared away in the streets.
The next morning Sunny Boy started off to school and Daddy walked with him up to the steps, as he had done the snowy morning. It was very cold, but all the walks were clear and the great high walls of snow that had been piled up along the pavements made fine places for jumping boys. Sunny Boy tried several himself, and Daddy had to remind him that it was a quarter to nine, or he might have been late for school.
Every one talked about the blizzard in school. All the children wanted to hear from those who had been lost, and Sunny Boy and Jimmie and Perry and Carleton and the three little girls were kept busy answering questions. Miss May and Miss Davis asked questions, too, and even when they did get at their lessons they read snow stories and drew sleighs and horses and snow forts on the blackboard.
But after that day, Oliver Dunlap's party was the most exciting thing talked about. There might be another snowstorm but, as Oliver said, he wouldn't be eight years old again that winter.
"Oliver's party is to-morrow, and I haven't any birthday present for him yet," Sunny Boy said to his family at breakfast the day before the party.
"We'll go down town and get it this afternoon, as soon as lunch is over," Mrs. Horton promised. "I didn't mean to leave it till the last minute, dear, but I have been very busy. Hurry home from school, and we'll go and buy him something nice."
After school Sunny Boy hurried home, and he and Mother went down town shopping as soon as they had had lunch. They looked at ever so many things which might please Oliver, and finally they decided that a little flashlight he could carry in his pocket would be a good birthday gift for him. They bought it, and Mrs. Horton wrapped it up nicely and Sunny Boy wrote on a little white card, "Many Happy Returns of the Day from Sunny Boy to Oliver," and this was tied on the outside of the package.
The next day was Oliver's birthday. It happened to be a Saturday. Miss Davis said this was lucky, or she didn't know what might have happened in school. She said no one could expect children who were going to a party in the afternoon to be very much interested in learning to spell and write in the morning.
The party was to be from two to five o'clock, and Sunny Boy, in his best white flannel suit, and carrying Oliver's present under his arm, started about quarter of two for the birthday boy's house.
At the same time the door of the Bakers' house opened.
"Going to the party?" called Nelson, running down the steps of his house, followed by Ruth. "What did you get for Oliver?"
Sunny Boy told him. Nelson said he had a story book to give Oliver. Ruth had a little silver pencil, she said. Sunny Boy thought that Ruth looked very pretty, dressed all in white from her white rubbers to her white fur hat. She didn't complain about her feet being cold, either. But that may have been because Oliver did not live very far away.
There were about twenty children at the party, when all the guests had arrived. Mrs. Dunlap and Oliver shook hands with each, and the boys put their hats and coats in Oliver's room while the little girls put theirs in his mother's. Sunny Boy knew nearly all the children except one, a boy who seemed older than any of the others and who, whenever he had a chance, teased the girls by pulling their hair-ribbons or putting out his foot to trip them as they went past him in the games.
"That's Jerry Mullet," whispered Oliver to Sunny Boy. "He's a cousin of Perry Phelps'. I didn't know he was visiting Perry when I sent the invitations, but Mrs. Phelps called up Mother and asked if Jerry couldn't come to the party. I don't like him very much, do you?"
"Oh, I guess so," said Sunny Boy, who wanted to be polite and who liked Perry Phelps so much he wanted to like his cousin, too.
Among the games they played were several in which prizes were given to those who won the game. Ruth Baker won the spider web prize, much to her delight, for she was the youngest of the little girls, and it made her feel quite grown up to be asked to an eight-year-old party and to win a prize also.
"We are going to play the donkey game before supper," announced Mrs. Dunlap, after they had played several other games. "The donkey game is old, but Oliver thinks you will like it," went on Mrs. Dunlap. "I will blindfold you, children. You first, Jerry."
Jerry was blindfolded and turned around three times. Then he started for the picture of the donkey pinned up on the wall. A shout of laughter greeted him when he pinned the tail on one of the donkey's long ears.
Nelson Baker was next, and he pinned the tail on a leg. Helen Graham pinned it on his neck. Dorothy Peters took a long time to decide where she would stab her pin and then, after all her trouble, only succeeded in pinning the tail on the donkey's nose. Child after child went up, and not one of them pinned the tail anywhere near the place where a donkey's tail should grow.
"Now, Sunny Boy, you come and try it," said Mrs. Dunlap, smiling at Sunny Boy. "Never mind if these children do laugh. They are ready to laugh at nothing now. You pin the tail on the donkey, and then we'll go out to the dining-room and see what Kate has to surprise us."