CHAPTER IIIGETTING READY
“Takeme with you, Daddy?” Sunny Boy begged. “I could see the accident.”
“There’ll be nothing to see,” answered Mr. Horton, smiling. “I’m only going to the laundry office, and that wouldn’t interest you. I think you’d better stay with Mother and help her.”
“All right,” agreed Sunny Boy cheerfully, climbing out of the car and holding the cake box carefully right side up.
He and Mother went into the kitchen, while Mr. Horton turned the car and went off down the street.
“Gee!” exclaimed Sunny, watchingMother fill the tea kettle. “Gee! I guess that laundry-wagon boy wishes he’d called it a day.”
“Called it a day?” repeated Mrs. Horton, puzzled. “What do you mean, dear? And is it absolutely necessary that you use ‘gee’ twice in one sentence?”
Sunny Boy admitted that it wasn’t. Then, while they waited for the kettle to boil, he told Mother about his morning adventure and the man who had picked him out of the bushes and advised him to call it a day.
“Why, you might have been hurt!” said Mrs. Horton seriously. “Don’t do that again, Son. Probably the boy is a reckless driver, or he wouldn’t have had this accident, but no driver can watch out for little folks who hitch on behind wagons. Now we’ll set the table in the dining-room to-night, and go out and wait for Daddy on the front steps.”
Sunny Boy helped Mother so well that the table was set and everything in readiness for supper and they had been out on the front steps for nearly ten minutes before they saw Mr. Horton coming around the corner.
Sunny Boy ran to meet him.
“Did you walk?” he asked disappointedly. “Where’s the automobile? Did you scold the laundry-wagon boy?”
“I put the automobile to bed,” answered Daddy, waving to Mother. “This fall, perhaps, we can build a garage out back of the house. I’ll see. But just now a man named Mr. Taggart has to keep the car at night for us. Did you help Mother?”
“Indeed he did!” Mrs. Horton held open the screen door for them to go in. “I haven’t missed Harriet at all.”
At the supper table Sunny remembered the accident again.
“What did the laundry-wagon boy say?” he asked his father.
“The poor chap’s in the hospital,” replied Mr. Horton soberly. “Nothing more serious than bad bruises, they say. I imagine, from the way the superintendent talked, that he’s been in pickles before this for careless driving. There were half a dozen of us there, reclaiming stuff. How many shirts was I supposed to have in that bundle, Olive?”
“Seven, and eleven collars,” said Mrs. Horton promptly.
“Well, only six had my mark on ’em,” declared Mr. Horton. “A number of bundles were entirely missing, stolen during the excitement of the crash they think, or hopelessly torn and mangled. He drove right into a big touring car, the police say.”
“I have to go over to Mrs. Baker’s,” announced Mrs. Horton when supper was finished. “You’ll go up with Sunny Boy,won’t you, Harry? He must have a hot bath.”
“It’s day yet,” protested Sunny Boy. “I don’t have to go to bed till night.”
“Well, if you’re going to get up early in the morning and help me pack stuff in the car, I think you’d better have a nice, hot bath and go to sleep as fast as you can. Of course, if you are not going to get up in the morning, and would rather stay down and wash the dishes, why that’s another matter entirely.”
Sunny Boy giggled.
“I’ll bath me,” he decided. “You sit on the hamper and watch, Daddy.”
Daddy did sit on the hamper and watch. He also helped with the drying. Then he pulled up the awnings all across the front of the house so that the rooms would be cool during the night. Then he found the woolly dog, that hadn’t gone to the farm but that was Sunny’s bedfellow when he was athome, and put him in bed with Sunny Boy.
“Good night, laddie,” Daddy bent down and kissed Sunny Boy. “If you wake up first, come in and call me.”
When Sunny Boy opened his eyes it was to find the sun streaming in the windows and to hear the locusts singing away for dear life. He got softly out of bed, tucked the woolly dog under his arm, and paddled into Daddy and Mother’s room. It was empty.
“Well, well, here he is!” There stood Daddy in the doorway behind him. “Breakfast’s almost ready, and we need a certain young man to help us with the sliced peaches and cream, to say nothing of the brown toast Mother’s made for us. Come on, and see if you can find the blue sailor suit on the little rocking chair under the window nearest the closet door.”
The lonesome feeling Sunny had had for a moment when he found his father and mother had gone downstairs ahead of him,went away, and he hurried to help Daddy find the sailor suit. They knocked over so many things in their search, and laughed so much and made such a great deal of noise that Mother came up and pretended to scold, though really she came to find the suit, tie the tie for Sunny, and brush his yellow hair.
“Now if you don’t come down to breakfast this minute,” she told them when Sunny Boy was as neat as neat could be—“well, you can’t have any toast, that’s all!”
So they all three hurried down and found plenty of toast; and very good it was, too.
“Each one must carry his plate out to the kitchen,” ordered Mr. Horton, when they had finished. “And then Sunny Boy and I will go round and get the car. Whatever you can pack to-day, Olive, will save us time in the morning. I’d like to make an early start, because I’m afraid we’re in for a hot spell, and the earlier we get off, the more comfortable we’ll be.”
“The trunks are going this morning,” said Mrs. Horton. “Bessie promised to get theirs off, too. All I have to do—My dear child, what are you going to do with that?” she broke off.
Sunny Boy stood in the doorway, Harriet’s cake on the best china cake-plate in his hands. It was a cake with white icing and it looked delicious.
“It’s to eat on the way,” explained Sunny Boy. “Harriet said so. I was going to put it in the automobile under the seat where it wouldn’t get mussed.”
“But I’m going to put up a nice lunch for us,” said Mother. “Harriet’s cake really ought to be wrapped in wax paper, you know, and go in a box. You shall fix it for me this morning. Now run along with Daddy, and bring our shiny new car around for the bundles.”
Sunny met Mr. Taggart that morning. He was a short, round man with little twinklingblue eyes and he wore overalls that were very black and greasy from the oil and grease on the cars he took care of.
“I’ve got a little boy ’bout your age,” he told Sunny. “You’re about five, aren’t you? I thought so. Ted’s five and a half. In you go! Ted’s a little heavier than you are. He’s down in the country now, visiting his grandma.”
Daddy started the car, and Sunny leaned out to call back to Mr. Taggart.
“My grandma lives in the country, too, and we’re going to the seashore to-morrow.”
Mr. Taggart waved his hand to show that he heard and understood, and Daddy backed the car out into the street.
“Let’s get Mother and go now,” suggested Sunny. “Why is there always a lot to do before we do anything, Daddy?”
Mr. Horton smiled.
“Well, most things that are worth whileor give us lasting pleasure, laddie, require work and effort,” he said. “You’ll find that out as you go along. You see, we might go this morning, but we’d have to come back in a day or two for more clothes, or the swing, or some of the other things Mother is busily thinking of and packing up this morning. And down at Nestle Cove, the man who owns the cottage Aunt Bessie has rented is opening it and cleaning it and putting it in good order for us, so we’ll be comfortable the rest of the summer. If he didn’t look at it till ten or fifteen minutes before we were due there, the roof might leak, or the rooms be damp and dirty, and then we’d have to spend the first week of our stay making things pleasant and comfortable. So we’ll wait till the time to go, and do everything there’s to be done while we’re waiting, shall we?”
“Let’s,” nodded Sunny Boy, who really understood. “Look, Daddy, there’s Ruthand Nelson Baker out in front of their house. Ruth’s waving to you.”
Mr. Horton stopped the car, and beckoned to the Baker children.
“Hop in,” he said pleasantly. “I have to go over to Aunt Bessie’s apartment and you might as well have the little ride. I’ll tell your mother where we’re going. Wait for me.”
He went on into the house, and Ruth and Nelson scrambled into the back of the automobile.
“Isn’t it hot?” said Nelson. “I’ll bet there’s a thunderstorm this afternoon. Don’t scratch the paint, Ruth.”
“I’m not!” retorted Ruth indignantly. “Let me ride up in front, Sunny?”
“Don’t you let her,” urged Nelson. “You always want to do whatever you see any one else do. Sit down, or I’ll tell Mother.”
Ruth, who had been trying to climb overthe back of the seat, sat down, not so much to please her brother as because she saw Mr. Horton coming.
“Now we’re off,” he said, getting in. “I’m to take you two Bakers down to your father’s office after we’ve been to the apartment. I hear you’ve been wearing out your sandals at a shocking rate.”
“And Father’s going to get us new ones,” guessed Nelson.
“Right,” responded Mr. Horton. “He’s a pretty nice father to have.”