CHAPTER XIIICURLY IS FOUND
Thewhite-haired lady was out of the car the instant it stopped and up the walk, her silk skirts flying in the wind.
“Bon-Bon! Bon-Bon!” she called. Then she said something that Sunny Boy could not understand. Afterward she told him that it was French for “Littlest one.”
Curly leaped upon her, barking madly.
The lady took him in her arms and sat down on the step, and, to Sunny Boy’s amazement, began to cry.
The noise of the dog’s barking brought Mrs. Horton to the door.
“Why, Sunny Boy, where in the world have you been?” she said quickly. “It’s almostone o’clock. Harriet was just going down to the beach to look for you.”
Then she saw the strange car at the curb and the strange lady on her doorstep. The lady stood up and held out her hand.
“I am Mrs. Raymond,” she said. “Colonel Francis Raymond’s wife. I believe my husband has met Mr. Horton. And now I find your little boy has found my pet dog.”
Mrs. Horton was very much surprised and greatly pleased to learn that at last Curly’s own people had been found. She asked Mrs. Raymond to come in and stay to lunch with them, but Mrs. Raymond had an appointment at two o’clock several miles away with the colonel, and lunch would be ready there for the white-haired lady. She and Mrs. Horton talked very fast, and Sunny Boy could not understand all they said.
“We advertised and put up a bulletin notice,” he heard Mother say, “and we couldn’t understand why no one claimed thedog. It was so evidently a pet, that we knew it couldn’t have been abandoned, and though exhausted by the storm, it seemed so well-fed we were sure it had not been lost very long.”
“I lost him the same day you found him,” explained Mrs. Raymond. “Carlton, the chauffeur, was taking the car up to Draper Inlet to get my husband. That’s twenty miles up the coast from our cottage, and Bon-Bon loves so to ride that he never misses a chance to go in the car. He rode in the back and the hood was down and I suppose he was on top of that, as he often was. Carlton was trying to make the inlet before the storm, and I imagine he drove at a pretty hard pace. Bon-Bon was evidently jolted out going through Nestle Cove, and neither my husband nor Carlton thought of the dog again till they reached home and I asked for him.”
“And of course you didn’t know where hewas lost,” said Mrs. Horton sympathetically.
“No, though my husband and Carlton hunted and hunted. But now everything is all right again. Sunny Boy has made me very happy!”
Mrs. Horton walked with her guest toward the door.
“But what I don’t understand yet,” she said, puzzled, “is how you met Sunny Boy and he mentioned the dog. Were you out searching?”
Sunny’s face got very red.
“No, I’d simply stopped in town to get a cool soda before going on to meet Colonel Raymond,” said Mrs. Raymond. “I think Sunny Boy had better tell you all about it. Kiss me good-by, dear. I’m going to send you the very nicest thing I can buy in the city for being so good to my dog. You won’t feel too bad if I take him away now, will you, Sunny Boy?”
“No, I—I guess not,” quavered Sunny Boy uncertainly.
He kissed Mrs. Raymond, and gave Bon-Bon, for we might as well call the dog by its right name now that we know it, a big hug. Then he sat down on the top step while Mrs. Horton walked with Bon-Bon’s owner to the car. They stood there several minutes, talking, and then Mrs. Raymond got in and drove away.
Mrs. Horton came up the path, but Sunny Boy did not look at her. He was studying a crack in the step with great interest.
“Lunch is on the table, Mrs. Horton,” announced Harriet. “Most everything’s spoiled, it’s so late.”
“I’m ever so sorry, Harriet, but it couldn’t be helped this time,” answered Sunny’s mother pleasantly. “Sunny Boy, I want you to go to your room. Harriet will bring you a bowl of bread and milk, and when youhave eaten that I’m coming in to talk to you.”
Sunny Boy went slowly to his room. When Harriet brought the bread and milk, he ate it. In perhaps half an hour his mother came into the room, closing the door quietly.
She drew a low rocking chair near the window where Sunny Boy stood looking out, and, sitting down, put her arm about him.
“Now tell Mother all about it,” she said, gently turning Sunny Boy around so that he faced her.
“I wanted to go on the merry-go-round,” explained Sunny Boy, tracing with his forefinger the outline of one of the pink roses that grew on Mother’s pretty white dress.
“Well?”
“So I went to town—” Sunny Boy began on another rose.
“And you didn’t ask me? Did you run away, Sunny Boy?”
Sunny Boy was very uncomfortable. His throat didn’t feel right. And he couldn’t look at his own dear mother, though usually he loved to watch her face. He wasn’t aSunnyBoy just now.
“Did you run away, Arthur?” she asked again.
Sunny Boy nodded miserably, still fingering the pink roses.
Mrs. Horton did not say anything for a moment. She seemed to be thinking. Then she gathered both of Sunny Boy’s small hands in her smooth, soft right hand, keeping her left arm around him.
“Listen to Mother carefully, dear,” she said firmly. “This all happened because you were cross. Any other morning you would have found something pleasant to do. But when a little boy makes up his mind to be cross and not to be pleased with anything he usually winds up by doing something naughty.”
Two big tears fell out of Sunny Boy’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. He was very unhappy.
“What do you suppose Daddy would say,” continued his mother, “if he knew you had gone over to town without saying a word to me? I think he would say that he was surprised and grieved to learn that his only son couldn’t be trusted. Because that is what it really means—that Daddy and Mother can not trust a little boy who, just because the day doesn’t go to suit him, runs away and lets his mother worry about him.”
Sunny Boy put his yellow head down in Mother’s lap and cried as though his heart would break.
“Don’t you really trust me, Mother?” he managed to sob out.
Mother’s soft arms drew him into her lap.
“Well, yes, I do,” she admitted, smoothing his hair. “Because, you see, dear, I think you are sorry and will not do it again. Beingsorry makes all the difference in the world.”
Sunny Boy sat up, and this time he found he could look right into Mother’s deep brown eyes.
“I’m sorry—honest,” he told the little boy he saw there.
“All right, I believe you,” Mother assured him promptly. “I think you will have to stay here in your room till supper time to help you remember not to be cross again, and after that we’ll forget about it. Now tell Mother what you did over in town.”
Sunny Boy told her all about his trip, from the jitney and merry-go-round rides to his experience at the soda fountain where kind Mrs. Raymond had paid for his soda-water.
“An’ wasn’t it funny Curly was her dog?” he wound up.
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Mother. “I’m glad the dog found his mistress. There, I hear the clock striking three. I must go to thestation to meet Aunt Bessie and Miss Martinson.”
“I s’pect they’ll wonder where I am,” said Sunny Boy sadly.
“They probably will,” sighed Mother. “Never mind, Son, just remember you are never going to run away again.”
And Sunny Boy did remember.
“Why did Mrs. Raymond cry when she found Curly?” he asked, as Mrs. Horton turned to leave the room. “Did her little boy die in the war?”
“No, dear,” answered Mrs. Horton. “He came home from France and brought his mother the dog you call Curly and she calls Bon-Bon. But her son—he was a Captain—lived only a few months after he landed in this country; he was invalided home. So, you see, poor little Bon-Bon means a great deal to Mrs. Raymond because her boy thought to bring him all the way from France to his mother.”
After Mother had gone—Sunny Boy heard the noise of the car as it started for the station, though his room was on the wrong side of the house to see the garage—he thought a great deal about the little lost dog and the brave soldier who had brought it home to his mother. The more he thought, the gladder Sunny Boy was to know that Mrs. Raymond had her dog again.
Two or three days later he was sitting on the front porch waiting for Aunt Bessie to go swimming with him (Sunny Boy could really swim very nicely now) when the parcel-post wagon drew up before the house. The driver grinned as Sunny Boy came flying down the path.
“Package for Arthur Bradford Horton,” he announced cheerfully. “Is that the little boy who lives next door?”
“Course not!” Sunny Boy was startled at the idea that his package might go to theboy next door. “That’s my name. Is there something for me?”
“Looks like it,” admitted the man. “Here you, don’t get under the horse’s feet, I’m handing it to you as fast as I can. There you are. Like Christmas, isn’t it?”
Sunny Boy took his package and said “thank you.” It was a large package, and he wondered what could be in it and who had sent it to him.
“Maybe it’s from Grandpa,” he told his mother, as she and Aunt Bessie came out on the porch.