L
et's go away up front, Daddy, right up near the gate, so's I can see everything," suggested Sunny Boy eagerly, as he and Mother and Daddy entered the Twenty-third Street ferry house.
"All right. But let me get the tickets," said Mr. Horton, feeling in his pocket for change.
Sunny Boy was so short that he walked under the turnstile instead of through it, and the ticket man laughed when he saw him do it.
"Look out one of the sea gulls doesn't take you for a bite of breakfast," he called jokingly after him.
"Huh," Sunny Boy said resentfully to Mother, "I'm not so little. I know lots of children littler than I am. Wonder what he'd say if he saw Lottie Saunders going through his gate."
Lottie Saunders was a little friend of Sunny Boy's at home. She was not quite three years old.
There was a crowd of people waiting to get on the ferryboat and for a few minutes the Hortons had to stand at the closed door while the people on the boat walked off. There were a great many automobiles and horses and wagons and trucks coming off, too, and the drivers did a deal of shouting.
"Everybody's in a hurry," observed Sunny Boy, when the door was at last slid back and the crowd started to jostle its way on board.
Crowds are always in a hurry, if you have noticed it. They run and push and scramble to get somewhere, and then, when they arethere, they sit down and rest or stand about contentedly, quite as though they did not know what hurrying meant.
"What do they do with the ropes?" asked Sunny Boy, as they went down the inclined plank and stepped on the ferryboat deck.
"They're what hold the boat in the slip," explained Mr. Horton. "If we stay on this back deck till the boat moves, you'll see the men take out those great hooks and wind the ropes on those wheels. Do you want to see them do it?"
Sunny Boy did, of course, and he waited till the gates were closed and the ropes loosened. Then two men, one on either side of the wharf, or slip, as they call the docks built for this kind of boat, gave a large spiked wheel one long, powerful turn, and it spun round rapidly, coiling up the ropes.
"Now we'll go up to the front," announced Mr. Horton, "and see what ails that noisy little tugboat we hear."
But Sunny Boy had made a discovery.
"Oh, Daddy!" he shouted. "There's a top! Let's go up!"
Mrs. Horton laughed.
"I'm sure Sunny will be an aviator when he grows up," she declared, smiling at her little boy. "He always wants to get as near to the sky as he can."
Sunny Boy was eager to climb the stairs to the second deck of the ferryboat, and he promised to help Mother up the stairs. So they went into the wide, pleasant cabin and up the broad staircase and came out on the sunny deck. There was a roof over it, and a cabin where people who did not like so much fresh air might sit, but Sunny Boy, of course, wanted to stand by the railing, and since it was a pleasant day, so did almost every one else.
"See the birds!" exclaimed Mrs. Horton, to whom a ferry trip was new too. "What do you suppose they find to eat?"
The gulls were flying gracefully above the water, sometimes coming close to the boat and now and then one would make a sudden dash down to the water, just dip his head in it and skim it with his wings, then soar up into the air again.
"I suppose they find bits of fruit and other refuse they can eat," replied Mr. Horton.
"That boat is going to run into the little flat one," said Sunny Boy positively, pointing an excited little forefinger at a fussy little tugboat making straight for a lazily floating barge loaded with coal.
"You watch," counseled Mr. Horton. "You can not see the rope because it is in the water, but that other tug up ahead is towing the barge. She'll have it out of the way before the other boat gets there."
And the towing tug did just that, apparently without hurrying, and before the noisy tugboat reached the coal barge it drifted safely out of the way.
"Now you can see where we are going in," said Mr. Horton, pointing out a dark opening just ahead of them.
The slips were made like stalls, with piling driven down on either side, and beams nailed across them. As the ferryboat turned into her slip she bumped smartly against the sides of the slip two or three times. It swayed, and Sunny Boy thought that there had been an accident.
"Oh, that often happens," his father assured them, as they stood a little to one side watching the people streaming off. "Sometimes, when it is very foggy, the boats have great difficulty in getting in, and sometimes an unusually high tide makes it hard for them, too."
The Hortons did not get off the ferryboat, and it was not long before more people were crowding on the decks again.
"Are they the same ones?" asked Sunny, puzzled.
"My no," answered Daddy quickly. "There are large cities on this side of the river, and people go back and forth between New York and New Jersey all day long. But I thought we were taking this trip because you wanted to see the horses enjoying a boat ride. Don't you want to go downstairs and look around?"
Sunny Boy said he did, and they went down.
"He looks like one of Grandpa's horses," said Sunny Boy, indicating a bay horse attached to a light delivery wagon. "Do you suppose he likes to go on a boat, Mother?"
"Sure he does," replied the driver, who had overheard. "He likes to go anywhere he doesn't have to use his own feet. That's what makes him so fat."
Sunny Boy laughed, and a colored man driving a team of horses harnessed to a wagon-load of empty barrels, rolled his eyes in delight.
"You've said it," he cackled joyously. "Dat horse sure look like he wished he was a automobile."
As the ferryboat drew near the New York side, Sunny Boy saw the wonderful "sky line" which is famous all over the world—the outline made by the tall buildings against the sky. Even a little boy could appreciate the picture the tall skyscrapers made, some buildings white, some gray, with here and there a gleaming gold dome against the fleecy September clouds.
"What makes the boat go?" Sunny Boy thought to ask, as the gates were opened and they were moving off with the crowd.
"Engines and steam," answered Mr. Horton. "And turn around and you'll see who steered us."
Sunny Boy turned and saw a white-bearded, blue-capped man in a small round pilot house above the deck. There was awheel beside him which he turned as he wanted the boat to go.
"We've been sailing on the what is its name, Daddy?" asked Sunny, noticing for the first time large gold lettering below the pilot house which he guessed to be the name of the boat.
"The 'Lansdowne'," answered Mr. Horton. "And a nice old ferryboat she is. I don't know how you feel, Sunny, but I've had enough traveling for a few hours. Can't we have lunch down town, Olive?"
"And not go up to the hotel?" said Mrs. Horton. "Why, I'm willing. I know where I want to take Sunny Boy this afternoon, if you are going up to Yonkers to meet that buyer from Chicago."
"Where?" demanded Sunny Boy eagerly. "Where are we going, Mother?"
Mrs. Horton smiled mysteriously.
"Let it be a surprise," she suggested. "You're having so many good times, Sunny,that I'm afraid you'll find it hard to settle down and go to school when we are home again."
"School!" That made Sunny Boy jump. But just then Daddy hailed a street car, which they got on, and Sunny forgot everything else.
They found a clean, comfortable restaurant after a short ride on the street car, and Sunny Boy was quiet and good while Daddy looked over some papers and Mother read a letter from Aunt Bessie she had been carrying in her purse since breakfast time that morning.
"Bessie says," Mrs. Horton announced, "that some boy threw a ball through the front window and she's had it fixed. And Ruth and Nelson Baker send their love to you, Sunny. This is a very short letter because Aunt Bessie wants us to try to match the sample of silk she encloses and she hurried the letter to catch the next mail."
"I wonder if Nelson got the postal I sent him?" speculated Sunny Boy. "It was a picture of Central Park."
"He probably received it, and you'll see it in Ruth's album when you get home," said Mrs. Horton. "And now, Daddy, how about going uptown?"
Sunny Boy was excited, and wouldn't you be, if you were going somewhere you didn't know about, to see something no one had told you you would see? He wondered if they could be going to another menagerie, or if they were going shopping again.
"Wait and see," was all Mrs. Horton would answer, when he teased her.
They took the surface car, and after a few blocks Mr. Horton left them to get a train for Yonkers, which is a suburb of New York. Sunny Boy and his mother continued some half dozen blocks further and then left the car. They walked over a busy street, and suddenly Mrs. Horton stopped in front ofa building with many entrances, and people crowding into them all.
"I know!" shouted Sunny Boy, as he saw a red and yellow poster. "It's a theater!"
"Yes, it is," admitted Mrs. Horton smiling. "I read in the paper last night that there was a children's matinee to-day, and Daddy 'phoned downstairs after you were asleep and bought our tickets. Can you tell what the play is, dear, from the pictures? See, here is a case of photographs."
Sunny Boy plunged his hands deep into his pockets, spread his feet sturdily apart, and studied the pictures seriously.
"There's a girl," he murmured aloud. "An' an old lady—she's a witch, I guess. Do I know it, Mother?"
"I've read you the story," said Mrs. Horton. "Don't you remember Snow White and the dwarfs?"
Sunny Boy remembered the story, and hewould have liked to look at the photographs again, but Mrs. Horton thought it was time to go in and find their seats. An usher, a pretty girl, took them easily and quickly to the right row, and Sunny Boy found himself seated next to an elderly lady, with two children, a boy and a girl, evidently her grandchildren, in two seats directly in front of her.
"Why don't they sit next to her?" Sunny Boy whispered, watching the lady standing up to smooth out the little girl's hair-ribbon.
"They probably couldn't get three seats together," explained Mrs. Horton. "Better let me hold your hat, precious; you might drop it and some one would walk on it."
The orchestra was playing a gay bit of music, and Sunny's feet kept time to it merrily. He had been to the theater once or twice at home, generally at Christmas time, but this was decidedly different.
"I like New York," he confided to Mother.
The grandmotherly lady smiled.
"So you don't live here?" she asked pleasantly. "I have lived here so many years that no other place would seem like home. But Louise and David, my grandchildren, are, like you, visitors. They come from Georgia."
Mrs. Horton leaned forward.
"We're from Centronia," she volunteered, for Sunny Boy was too shy to do more than smile at the two children who had turned around when they heard their names spoken, and now grinned at him politely over the backs of their seats. "I don't believe Sunny Boy knows where Georgia is—do you, dear?"
"It's down South," said the little girl. "We slept on the train. And David was sick. I wasn't. Grandmother said heprob'ly ate too much ice-cream for his supper."
"Sh!" cautioned their grandmother. "The curtain's going up in a minute."
The lights went out, the music stopped, and Sunny Boy snuggled close to Mother. Slowly, oh, very slowly, the big blue curtain began to roll up, and the play began.
"Such a mean old stepmother," scolded Sunny Boy, at the end of the first act. "Poor little Snow White! I hope they never find out where she went when she ran away."
The orchestra played again, and then stopped as the lights were turned off for the second act. Sunny Boy gave a nervous little squeak as the curtain rose and he saw the dwarfs in their house.
T
he dwarfs trotted gaily about the stage and finally went off to their work of chopping wood in the forest, leaving Snow White singing happily and brushing up the hearth.
"Isn't she pretty?" whispered Sunny Boy to Mother, who nodded and handed him the opera glasses.
Sunny Boy couldn't make the glasses work very well, but he loved to try, and he never felt that he was really at the theater unless he spent some minutes trying to look through the end that brought the stage nearer to him. He pretended that he had seen Snow White by the aid of the daintypearl-handled glasses that were a gift from Daddy to Mother, and gave them back.
"Oh, look!" he nudged Mother sharply.
A queer old beggar woman had thrust her face close to the window in the dwarf's house and was watching Snow White.
"Sh!" whispered Mother, as Sunny Boy bounced in his seat. "You must keep still, dear. Don't make a noise."
The play went on, and Snow White let the old beggar woman in. She was selling apples, and right away, if you had been in the audience, you would have known she wasn't a beggar woman at all, but the wicked stepmother, who was also a witch.
"What did she say?" whispered Sunny Boy, who couldn't hear every word that was said on the stage.
"She wants to sell Snow White an apple, and Snow White says she has no money," explained Mother, in a low voice so that the people sitting near them would not be disturbed."Now listen, and you'll hear what they say next."
Snow White had picked up her broom again and was going to work.
"I'll give you this beautiful apple," smiled the crafty old beggar woman. "See, my dear, I have it for you as a gift. Isn't it beautiful?"
She put it on the table, and went limping out of the door, pretty little Snow White running after her to thank her. At the window she stopped once, waved her hand, and vanished.
Snow White picked up the apple, and admired it. It was very red, and large and shining.
This was too much for Sunny Boy. He had kept still when Snow White let the witch in the door—"after the dwarfs told her not to let any one in the house, too," he grumbled as he watched her do it—and he had kept still while the witch tried topersuade her to buy an apple; but it was altogether too much to expect him to sit quietly there and watch Snow White eat that apple. Not for nothing had Harriet read him his book of fairy tales!
Snow White shook back her curly black hair and raised the apple to her rosy mouth for a bite.
"Don't eat it!" shouted Sunny Boy "at the top of his lungs" Harriet would have said. "Don't bite it! Throw it away! The witch poisoned it!"
He stood up on the seat, waving his hands frantically, a conspicuous little figure in a blue and white sailor suit.
How the people about him laughed! The lady sitting next to him had to wipe her eyes because she laughed so hard the tears came. Mother pulled Sunny Boy down into the seat beside her, and Snow White went on eating her apple, because, of course, the play had to go on.
"It's only make-believe, dear," whispered Mother, smoothing Sunny Boy's tousled hair. "You know she won't really die."
Sunny Boy smiled, a faint little smile.
"I guess I forgot it wasn't real," he said sheepishly. "Anyway, the little girl from Georgia is crying. I guess she forgot, too."
The little girl from Georgia was crying, the big tears rolling slowly and silently down her cheeks. Many of the children all over the house were crying, or if not actually crying, sniffling a bit. Snow White had eaten her apple and fallen asleep and the poor little brown dwarfs came home to find her, as they supposed, dead.
But the third and last act had a happy ending. Snow White came to life again, and the big curtain came down and the lights flared up to show a houseful of happy, smiling children being buttoned into coats and gloves, and having their caps and hats and bonnets put on for them by mothers andgrandmothers and aunts and big sisters.
Sunny Boy walked soberly up the aisle beside his mother, thinking about a great many things. He thought about the dwarfs, and how he would like to know some to play with. He thought about the big theater, and wondered if it was fun to be an actor. And then he thought what a lot of children had come to see the play, and whether they all lived in New York. He put this last thought into words.
"Do they all live here?" he asked Mother, who, of course, did not know what he had been thinking and had to have it explained to her.
"No, I don't suppose they all live here," she said thoughtfully, when Sunny Boy had told her. "I imagine a great many of these boys and girls are New Yorkers and live in the houses and apartments we have seen in the city. Some of them, I am sure, come from the suburban towns to the matinee, theway the children from Glendale come in to Centronia when we have a good play at our theaters, you know. And some of these children you saw this afternoon are like a little boy I know—they come from other cities on their first visit to New York. Though not all of them stand up and shout at the stage people, I'm glad to say."
Sunny Boy snickered.
"Well, next time I won't," he promised. "Won't Daddy laugh when I tell him? Guess he'll think I never went to the theater."
Daddy did laugh when they told him that night, after they had had dinner and were up in their room together. Sunny Boy had had his bath and, all cool and clean, was curled up in his pink pajamas in a blanket on Mother's bed trying to keep awake and listen to Mother and Daddy talk.
"Right out loud in the theater!" repeated Mr. Horton, pretending to be shocked."Why, Sunny Boy, you must be more careful. I don't suppose you stopped to think that if Snow White had taken your advice and thrown away the apple, the rest of the play couldn't have happened."
"Yes, and suppose they had come down to you and had said you would have to write them a new fairy story before they could finish the play," teased Mrs. Horton. "What would you have done then, Sunny?"
"I'd have just said I couldn't," giggled Sunny Boy, trying to turn a summersault on the bed.
"Some one called you up about five o'clock this afternoon," said Mr. Horton, speaking to his wife. "It was a short time before you came in. She said she would call again after dinner."
"I didn't know I knew any one in New York, at least any one who knew we were here," Mrs. Horton began, puzzled, when the telephone on the table rang.
She went to answer it, and Sunny Boy and Daddy had a pillow fight, which was all the more exciting because they had to keep quiet and not bother Mother at the telephone. Sunny Boy grew red in the face, not daring to laugh aloud, and Daddy tickled him unmercifully.
"There, now, do be still," said Mrs. Horton, hanging up the receiver and coming over to the bed where Sunny Boy and his father were rolling around, each apparently trying to stuff a pillow down the other's neck. "Harry! Sunny! Neither of you will go to sleep to-night. Sunny Boy and I are invited to pay a call to-morrow afternoon."
"All right, let's." A flushed and triumphant Sunny Boy sat up and smiled blissfully at his mother. He had had "last whack" at Daddy, who was now busy brushing lint off his trousers.
Mrs. Horton laughed.
"Sunny, you're getting to be keen for going," she declared. "You don't seem to care where you go as long as it is somewhere. I'm anxious to see you in school and having a little less excitement. And look at my bed!"
"That's all right," Mr. Horton assured her hastily. "We scoop Sunny Boy off so." He swung Sunny high in the air and landed him safely in his own little bed. "Then we pat up the pillows, so, and smooth the covers like this—and there you are!"
"Thank you," smiled Mrs. Horton. "Who do you suppose called me up?"
Mr. Horton couldn't guess, and Sunny Boy couldn't guess.
"Adele Parker," announced Mrs. Horton. "We went to school together, but I haven't seen her since she was married. Bessie and her younger sister are great chums, and Bessie wrote the sister we were in New York. She gave our address and Adele has huntedus up. She wants me to come up to-morrow afternoon. They are just back from the country, and the house is all torn up, so we won't stay long. But I do want to see her."
Sunny Boy dropped asleep while they were talking, and in the morning he and Mother went shopping again, because Daddy was to have an all-day conference with business men and they must amuse themselves.
"I think we ought to choose a few little gifts to take to the friends at home," suggested Mrs. Horton, as she and Sunny Boy stepped from the car and went into one of the beautiful big shops. "Daddy says we won't be here much longer, perhaps not more than another week. Wouldn't you like to take something home to Nelson and Ruth?"
Sunny Boy thought this would be very nice, but what should he take them?
"Well, suppose you think about it, while I buy some things for Aunt Bessie and Aunt Betty Martinson and Harriet," said Mrs. Horton.
Sunny Boy puzzled and puzzled, but Mother was all through her shopping before he could think of a single thing that Ruth and Nelson might like.
"Could we buy 'em a spress wagon?" he asked doubtfully. "Nelson's always borrowing mine. Or roller skates?"
"Dear me," said Mrs. Horton, "don't you think something we could pack in the trunk would be nicer? It needn't be a large gift, you know. Just something they can say came from New York. We'll go up to the toy department and look around."
This was a different shop from the first one they had visited, and Sunny Boy had to see all the toys before he could settle down to choosing gifts for Ruth and Nelson.Finally, by Mother's advice, he settled on a quaint little painted music box for Ruth that played four different tunes, and a picture puzzle game for Nelson, who liked to put things together. These were sent home to the hotel so that Sunny Boy and Mother would not have to carry packages with them the rest of the day.
"Now we'll go to the restaurant and have lunch," planned Mrs. Horton, leading the way to the elevator. "And then I want to get a box of nice candy to take Adele's children. I hope their mother lets them eat candy."
"Will there be some children?" asked Sunny Boy, surprised. "That will be fun. Houses where I sit on a chair visiting are kind of lonesome."
"I don't doubt it," agreed Mother sympathetically. "Well, you'll find three children to visit with this afternoon. You musthave been asleep last night when I told Daddy. Adele Parker has two boys and a little girl."
"Daddy calls her Mrs. Kennedy," objected Sunny Boy, following Mother out of the elevator into a large dining room.
Mrs. Horton stopped at the door till the waitress should find them seats.
"She is Mrs. Kennedy," Mother admitted, smiling. "I call her Adele Parker because that was her name when I knew her at school. She probably calls me Olive Andrew, because that was my name before it was Mrs. Horton."
The waitress came up to them and beckoned.
"There's a table for two over by the window," she said. "I'll see that some one takes your order."
S
unny Boy and Mother had a pleasant lunch, Sunny Boy, as he ate his sandwiches and drank his milk, looking down into the street six or seven stories below, or out over the roofs of the city.
"Now we're going to Adele's," he remarked, as Mother gathered up her gloves and purse.
"Oh, Sunny Boy!" Mrs. Horton surveyed him half laughingly, half with despair. "You musn't call her Adele. Say Mrs. Kennedy. You never call Mother's friends by their first names, you know you don't."
"Well, I don't know her," offered Sunny Boy mildly, as though that made a difference.
They took a bus, which never lost its charm for Sunny, and after a rather longride, got out at a cross street and walked until they reached a narrow, five-storied brick house with gay window boxes at every window. A maid opened the door for them and showed them into a pleasant, rather small room where a little girl sat at the grand piano, practicing.
She glanced up shyly as Mrs. Horton and Sunny Boy came in.
"I'm sure I know who you are," smiled Mrs. Horton. "You must be Alice."
The little girl got up and made a pretty curtsy.
"I'm Alice Kennedy," she said, smiling too. "Are you Mother's friend, Mrs. Horton? Is he your little boy?"
Mrs. Kennedy came in as Mrs. Horton nodded, and there was a great showering of kisses and many questions asked and ever so many introductions, for two small boys followed Mrs. Kennedy in and they were presented as her sons, Dick and Paul.
"Now you and I'll go upstairs where it is cozier," said Mrs. Kennedy, when every one knew every one else, "and the children shall take Sunny Boy up to their playroom on the top floor."
"We brought a little candy," explained Mrs. Horton, giving Sunny Boy the box. "Are you willing to have it passed?"
Mrs. Kennedy was, so each of the children had three pieces and climbed the stairs to the playroom chattering like old friends.
"Have you been to the ac-quarium?" asked Paul, pronouncing it as if it were two words. He was rocking Sunny Boy on his rocking horse, which was as large as a small pony and had real hair in its mane and tail.
"Got one at home," announced Sunny Boy contentedly. "There were ten goldfish but one died."
"Oh, Paul means the real aquarium," explained Alice. "Down at the Battery, withthe queerest fish you ever saw, and big tanks, and corals, and everything."
No, Sunny Boy hadn't seen that. He was so much interested in Alice's descriptions that when the two mothers came up to see what they were doing, they found them still talking about the fish.
"Hasn't Sunny Boy been down to the Battery?" asked Mrs. Kennedy. "Why, we must all go. How about to-morrow?"
Mrs. Horton explained that she had planned to go to the Statue of Liberty the following day.
"You can do that easily in the afternoon," said Mrs. Kennedy. "We might as well make a day of it. I have to get the children ready for school, and one day is all I can spare. Suppose we meet at the Battery in the morning and see the aquarium. We'll have lunch somewhere and take the boat right from the Battery for Bedloe's Island."
So it was arranged that they should meet the next morning, and Sunny Boy and Mother went back to the hotel to tell Daddy all about their plans and to hear about his busy day.
As soon as Sunny Boy and Mother entered the park at the Battery the following morning, the glint of water in the sun attracted him.
"Why is it the Battery?" he asked. "Are there guns?"
"There used to be," said Mother. "Long ago, when instead of a park, this end of New York was high rocks, a water battery guarded the town and was used a little in the Revolution. That is where the Battery gets its name. The aquarium is housed in the old fort."
"I see Alice," cried Sunny Boy.
"Yes, here they all are," said Mother.
The Kennedy family came up to them, and together they walked toward the dingybuilding where the queer fish, Sunny had been told, lived.
"It doesn't look much, but think who's been in it," remarked Alice. She went to school and liked history. "After it stopped being a fort, they called it Castle Garden, and three presidents of the United States held receptions there. 'Sides Lafayette landed there when he came to this country to visit. Didn't he, Mother?"
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Kennedy. "But I think Sunny Boy is more interested just now in seeing the fish. Here we are, and please, children, don't all talk at once and do try to keep together."
Sunny Boy stared about him in amazement. Huge glass tanks with the queerest fish he had ever seen swimming in them were on all sides of him. A sudden noise, like a harsh cough, startled him.
"That's a seal," laughed Dick. "Come on over here, Sunny, and see them."
Funny, flat heads, bright eyes and "whiskers" had the seals, and they made the queer coughing sound Sunny Boy had heard. He privately didn't think they were very pretty, and he admired the great turtles in another tank much more.
"Let's go in back and see if we can touch the fish," he suggested to Dick, when they had seen all the open tanks on the floor. "I'd like to look out from behind there and see how it seems."
Dick was puzzled, but Alice understood right away.
"Those are all tanks, with just glass in front," she informed Sunny Boy.
The round walls of the fort were set with what looked like glass plates, behind which great lazy fish were idly swimming. It looked as though one could go in back of them and see through, and perhaps touch the fish in the water.
After they had seen all the fish in all thetanks downstairs, they went upstairs and looked at the fish and the corals and anemones and funny crabs living and growing in other glass tanks. The anemones looked like beautiful, vivid flowers, and Mrs. Horton and Mrs. Kennedy both exclaimed over their beauty.
"I like the crab that walks crooked best," announced Sunny Boy, and Dick and Paul agreed with him.
When they came out of the aquarium they walked about the picturesque old park a little, and then found a small place where they had lunch.
"What does Sunny Boy know about the statue we're going to see?" asked Mrs. Kennedy, as they stepped on board the boat that was to take them to the Statue of Liberty that afternoon. "My children have been so often that it is an old story to them."
"I know," cried Sunny Boy eagerly."Donald Joyce told me. I know, don't I, Mother?"
"Donald Joyce is a young neighbor of ours who went to war and came back safely," said Mrs. Horton.
"An' Donald said," recited Sunny Boy, slowly and carefully because he did not want to forget before he had told it all, "the Statue of Liberty was made by a man—you say it, Mother," he broke off. "It begins with 'B'."
"A man named Bartholdi," said Mrs. Horton smilingly.
"A man named Bartholdi," repeated Sunny Boy. "He came over from France to see us, and he saw all the im-im-immigrants acting glad when they first saw the United States. So he went home and asked the French to give some money so's he could build us a statue. And they did. And Bartholdi made the statue and it's a present from France. Donald Joyce said the soldierswere awful glad to see it when they came home from France and they were glad they'd helped fight for the country that made the Statue of Liberty, too."
"Isn't that nice?" said Alice Kennedy, with satisfaction. "I never heard that part about the soldiers being glad. The boat's moving, Sunny!"
The four children hung over the rail, pulled back now and then by an anxious mother, during the short sail. Alice had brought some crumbs of bread with her, and they amused themselves by throwing these into the water for the gulls.
"See the boats!" cried Sunny Boy, pointing to several large steamers plainly seen from their boat.
"That's Ellis Island we're passing," explained Mrs. Kennedy. "All the immigrants are sent there from the ships on which they arrive. They see the Statue of Liberty first, Sunny, as you said."
The beautiful bronze Statue of Liberty, familiar to all the boys and girls of our country through pictures if not by actual sight, loomed up before the passengers on the boat now. It was so much larger than Sunny Boy had expected, that he stared at it silently.
"The torch isn't lit, but you can imagine how wonderful it must look then," said Mrs. Horton, as the boat docked and the people prepared to go ashore. "Just think of the millions of people who have been glad to catch their first glimpse of 'Miss Liberty'."
"It's awful big," Sunny managed to gasp.
"Guess how high it is," said Alice. "You can't? Well, it's one hundred and fifty-one feet high. My father told me. And that's not counting the thing it stands on."
"Don't talk all the time, Alice," implored her mother. "Let Sunny Boy have time to collect his thoughts. Shall we walk around it first, dear, before we go in?"
They walked slowly around the statue, and then went inside.
"Now we'll go up," chattered Alice. "I just love going up and looking out over the bay when we get there."
Sunny Boy planted his feet firmly on the stone floor.
"I isn't going up," he announced quietly.
"Why, Sunny! Why not? Don't you want to?" several voices urged him at once.
Sunny Boy shook his head.
"I'll wait for you," he said politely.
"But we've been up," declared Dick and Paul. "Nobody ever comes 'way out to the Island and not go up. What will people say?"
"You haven't seen the Statue of Liberty at all," cried Alice, greatly disappointed.
"I'd rather not," insisted Sunny Boy.
The two mothers looked at each other and laughed.
"I went up with Harry years ago," saidMrs. Horton. "Of course I should like Sunny Boy to have the experience, but he'll come to New York other times I hope. Anyway, I can't agree with Alice that he hasn't seen the statue. He can learn the dimensions when he studies arithmetic."
Sunny Boy wasn't quite sure in his own mind why he refused to take the elevator, as people all around him were doing, and go to the top of the statue. He only knew that he would be dreadfully unhappy if any one made him go.
He was very quiet on the trip back, but all the children were a little tired from their busy day and not so inclined to be hilarious as earlier in the afternoon. They all said good-bye to Sunny Boy at the ferry, for the Kennedys took a different way from Sunny Boy and his mother.
"We're going home in the subway," said Mrs. Kennedy, kissing Mrs. Horton. "It's the quickest way to travel. I think you'refoolish to drag Sunny around on the surface cars."
"I want to wait till his father can go with us," answered Mrs. Horton. "Your noisy old subways make me nervous, Adele."
Sunny Boy, sleepily leaning against Mother's shoulder in the crowded street car, remembered this.
"What's a subway?" he asked drowsily. "Where is it, Mother?"
"You'll find out perhaps to-morrow, if Daddy isn't too busy," Mother assured him. "Oh, precious, see this poor old woman."
Sunny Boy sat up, wide awake instantly.
An old woman, bent and lame, had entered the car and stood swaying, trying to reach a hanger. She had a worn old shawl over her shoulders and carried a big basket.
Sunny Boy slipped out of his place.
"Here's a seat for you," he called clearly.
The woman sat down heavily, mumbling her thanks, and Sunny Boy had to stand therest of the way home. Not that he minded. For one thing, it kept him wide awake, and for another, his father always gave every woman his seat in a crowded car, and Sunny Boy was sure he would be glad to hear that Sunny Boy had done the same.
"And what do we do to-morrow?" this same Daddy asked that night as he helped a very tired, sleepy little boy to get ready for bed. "I'm going to play with you and Mother all day, you know."
Sunny Boy was ready with his reply.
"To-morrow," he said indistinctly, in the midst of a big yawn, "we're going to travel quick on the subway!"
D
o you remember when you were counting up the kinds of cars you had ridden on?" asked Daddy, as he and Sunny Boy stood on the walk waiting for Mother, who had gone into a drugstore to buy some postage stamps.
Sunny Boy nodded.
"Well, the subway is one kind you haven't been on," said Daddy.
Sunny Boy was surprised.
"But it isn't cars, Daddy," he argued. "I think it is a boat."
Mr. Horton laughed.
"The subway isn't what you ride on," he tried to explain. "It's what you ridein. The trains go through the subway, Sunny."
Mrs. Horton came out with her postage stamps just then, and the three walked till they came to one of the funny little houses Sunny Boy had seen at many street corners. Mr. Horton led the way straight down the steps.
"Why, we're going down cellar!" exclaimed the astonished little boy, who followed him. "Daddy, do the trains run in the cellar?"
It was clear that they did, for even before they reached the last step the rumble and roar of a coming train was heard. It was light and bright in the subway station, and Sunny Boy thought that it did not seem like a cellar at all.
He stood as close to the edge of the platform as his father would let him and peered up the track. It was dark, like a tunnel, and colored lights winked at him from the walls.
"Will the next be our train?" he asked.
"We can take any that comes," answered Daddy. "This is an express station. See the red light coming—that is a train."
A tiny red glow far in the distance grew larger and larger, and the roar and rumble of the train was heard. A long train of cars, brilliantly lighted, swept past them, such a long train that Sunny Boy thought at first that it was not going to stop. But it did.
"Where's the engine?" he asked disappointedly, as he and Mother and Daddy stepped on through a center door.
"There isn't any engine," replied his father. "Don't you remember the elevated train has no engine, either? Both kinds of trains are run by electricity. If Mother doesn't mind, we'll go up in the first car and watch from the front door."
Mrs. Horton didn't mind, even though they had to walk almost the length of the train to reach the first car. There wereplenty of seats in this car, and Mrs. Horton sat down to rest while Sunny Boy and his father stood at the door and peered through the glass panel. They could see the tracks stretching ahead of them, and as they watched the train flashed through a station without stopping.
Sunny Boy was delighted.
"Let's ride all day," he suggested. "Don't get off, Daddy. See the blue light! What's that for?"
Mr. Horton didn't know. It was some sort of signal for the engineer. The engineer was shut away from them in a little enclosed corner space where it was dark and he could see the lights ahead of him plainly.
When they stopped at a station, many people always got off, but seemingly as many crowded on.
"Where are we going, Daddy?" Sunny Boy thought to ask at one of these stops.
"A long way," Daddy assured him. "Up to Bronx Park and the Zoological Garden. I thought you'd like to see the animals."
Sunny Boy was fond of animals, but he was sure that he would never again have as much fun as he was having watching the train speed along those dark shining rails.
"You can go and sit down, if you're tired, Daddy," he told his father. "I can stay here alone."
Mr. Horton did go back and sit down beside Mother.
"I guess maybe I will sit down a minute," said Sunny Boy, after he had stood up for many blocks. "I'm not tired, but my feet are."
Then, before his feet were rested, Daddy announced that the next station was theirs. They were out of the subway now, riding along in the open air, and he took Mother's hand.
"And now," said Mr. Horton, with asmile for Sunny as they left the train and, after a short walk, entered the park, "let's see everything!"
This they proceeded to do.
There isn't room to tell you of the wonderful animals they saw, the buffaloes, the beautiful deer, so tame that they came up to the wires to have their noses rubbed; of the lions and tigers and panthers and leopards; of strange animals that Sunny Boy had never seen even in his book of wild animals; and of the woods where they enjoyed their lunch, just as if they were on a picnic. They visited the Botanical Gardens, too, where Mother made as much fuss over the flowers as Sunny Boy had over the baby deer, and where Daddy took pictures of them both to send to Grandpa and Grandma Horton.
"We may be tired," Daddy admitted, when he looked at his watch and found it was time for them to go home, "but then look what we have for being tired!"
Sunny Boy was busy thinking of all the things he had seen, and he forgot to be disappointed because the first car was full and he couldn't get near the door to look out, as he had coming up that morning.
"We'll change at Forty-second Street," he heard Daddy say to Mother. "I'm afraid we stayed a little too long and will be caught in the rush."
Mrs. Horton had a seat, but Sunny Boy and Daddy were standing.
"Hang on to my coat sleeve and you'll be steady enough," Daddy advised his little son.
"I think it would be better if he sat in his mother's lap, don't you?" said Mrs. Horton, smiling.
"But I'm not slipping, Mother," he announced proudly. "Wouldn't you think I was standing without holding on to anything?"
"You manage very nicely," Mrs. Horton told him. "Isn't the next stop ours, Harry?"
It was, and Mr. Horton had to elbow a little path for them to the door, there were so many people trying to get in and out at the same time. Sunny Boy had hold of Mother's dress, and as they squeezed out of the car he lost his grasp.
"Goodness," he scolded, "I should think folks would wait a minute. That man bumped right into me and never said 'excuse me.'"
Sunny Boy looked ahead and saw Mother's blue dress and tan coat.
"I 'spect I'd better hurry," he said aloud.
He ran after the blue dress and tan coat and slipped in through a door just a second before the guard closed it.
Then Sunny Boy made a surprising discovery.
The blue dress and the tan coat were not Mother's at all! He had followed a strange woman!
He looked all around the car and couldn't see his own mother, nor a sign of Daddy. Though Sunny Boy did not know it, he had crossed the station platform and taken an uptown train. He was riding away from the hotel as fast as the noisy rumbling subway train could carry him.
"It's pretty crowded," said Sunny Boy to himself. "Maybe when some more folks get off at the next station, I can see Mother."
But though people got off at the next station and the next, there was no Mother.
Sunny Boy sat quietly. No one, looking at him, would have guessed that he was lost. When the crowd of people began to thin out, he followed a fat man with a big basket to the door and up the steps out into the street.
It was still light enough to see clearly, and Sunny Boy knew that he had never beenin this part of New York. There were many small shops on either side of the street and moving picture places with great glaring signs already lit.
"Papers!" a boy on the corner was calling. "Papers!"
As Sunny watched him, several men stepped up and bought papers and ran down the subway steps.
Sunny felt in his pocket. There were two bright pennies there, slipped in by Mother, who always put money in the pocket of each new suit. Sunny jammed his hat more tightly on his yellow head and walked over to where the newsboy stood.
"Want a paper?" the boy grinned at him in a friendly way. "World?Well, didn't your father say? How much you got?"
Sunny Boy held out his pennies silently.
The boy whipped a paper from the pack under his arm, folded it neatly and gave itto Sunny, taking his money as he did so.
"You'd better scoot," he advised him kindly. "If your father's waiting for that paper he'll think you're reading it. Hurry up—get a move on!"
Sunny Boy sat down sociably on an old soap box.
"Daddy isn't waiting," he said.
"Papers! Here you are, sir!" the boy made change quickly with not too clean hands. "Then what do you want a paper for? You can't read, can you?"
"Well some writing I can," admitted Sunny Boy modestly. "That is, if it's printed. I thought maybe you'd talk to me."
"Talk to you!" repeated the newsboy. "Say, kid, you ought to be home running errands for supper."
Sunny Boy doubled a small foot under him.
"I got lost," he announced casually.