He had hardly packed it in when Mother came running breathlessly up the stairs crying that the express wagon was at the door. Hurriedly she put down the trunk lid, locked it, and tied on the tag that Daddy had written for her.
“That tells the train folks what to do with it,” explained the trunk man to Sunny, swinging the heavy trunk to his shoulder as though it weighed no more than the kiddie-car and trotting downstairs with it.
Sunny Boy watched him put it in the wagon and drive away.
“Now we’re almost ready,” said Mrs. Horton smilingly. “We have to pack our bag and go to bed early, and then, in the morning, we really will be on our way to Grandpa Horton’s.”
“But there’s the canary,” Sunny Boy reminded her hesitatingly. “Can I carry him?”
“The train would frighten him so he might never sing any more,” said Mrs.Horton. “No, Aunt Bessie is going to keep him for us till we come back.”
“Well, let’s go now,” urged Sunny. “Why can’t we go this minute? Let’s, Mother.”
“And have Daddy come home to dinner to-night and find us gone?” said Mother reproachfully. “Why, Sunny!”
“Well—then perhaps we’d better wait,” admitted Sunny Boy. “But one whole night’s an awful long time, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER IVOFF FOR BROOKSIDE
Perhaps the most fun of going on a journey is the fun of starting.
Sunny Boy began to get excited the moment he opened his eyes the next morning, and if he had had his way, they wouldn’t have bothered with such an every-day affair as breakfast. One could eat breakfast any morning, but a trip on the train to one’s grandfather’s farm was much more important.
However, Daddy explained that all experienced travelers ate a good breakfast before they set out, and as Sunny Boy wanted above all things to do as real travelers did, he consented to sit down and be interestedfor a few moments in his blue oatmeal bowl and its contents.
“You look so nice, Mother,” he told Mrs. Horton suddenly.
“So do you,” she assured him, smiling. “I think it must be because we are both wearing our new blue serge suits.”
“Remember, you’re going to take care of my girl,” warned Daddy. “Don’t let her get too tired, and try to make her comfortable, and don’t let any one or anything bother her.”
Sunny Boy gravely promised to look after Mother. He felt very proud that Daddy trusted him to take care of her on their first long journey together, and he resolved to wait on her all he could and to save her every possible step.
Harriet, who was not going with them, but who was going to help Aunt Bessie keep house until they came back, was bustling about, pulling down shades and closing andlocking doors. The canary had gone, and Sunny Boy had a funny feeling that their house was going on a journey, too. In his trotting around after Harriet, while Mother was telephoning a last good-by to some friend, he found a square white box on the parlor table, neatly tied with red string—one of that mysterious kind that makes your fingers fairly itch to untie the string and look inside. Sunny Boy went in search of Mother.
“Could I open it?” he asked coaxingly. “I’ll tie it right up again, Mother. Maybe you have forgotten what is in it.”
“’Deed I haven’t!” laughed Mrs. Horton. “Give it to me, dear. It’s a surprise for you—we’ll open it on the train.”
Sunny Boy obediently handed her the package, and in a few minutes he had forgotten all about it.
At last the house was ready to leave, and Harriet kissed him and said good-by.Sunny Boy watched her down the street until she turned the corner. He had a little ache in his throat, but he was too big a boy to cry.
“Precious,” said Mother who knew perhaps how he was feeling, “I’m afraid I’ve left my little coin purse on my bureau. Would you mind going up and getting it for me?”
The house upstairs was very still and hot. Sunny Boy tiptoed softly as he hurried into Mother’s room. There on the bureau lay the little silver purse and a clean handkerchief that smelled like a bunch of violets.
“You left your hanky, Mother,” he cried, running downstairs. “And you said folks should never, never, begin to go anywhere without a clean hanky, you know.”
Mr. Horton, standing on the front step, opened the screen door and put in his head.
“Taxi’s coming!” he announced. “Ready, Olive? I have the bag right here. Come, son.”
Sunny Boy was thrilled at the thought of riding in that orange dragon of an automobile. Mother and Daddy had friends who often took them motoring pleasant afternoons, and sometimes Sunny Boy went with them. But every one knows that is different from having a gay colored car roll up to your front door and wait especially for you.
The young man who drove the car opened the door with a flourish and helped Mrs. Horton in. Then he turned to lift Sunny Boy, but that young person hung back.
“I could ride with you—up front,” he suggested.
“Oh, you might tumble out, going around the corner,” cried Mrs. Horton.
Daddy, who had been locking the front door, came down to them, carrying the black leather bag that was to go with Sunny Boy and Mother.
“Do you know,” said Daddy slowly, “Ithink the bag will have to go in the front seat, Sunny? I wouldn’t like to put it down on Mother’s pretty new patent leather pumps. Sometime when we have no baggage you shall ride with the chauffeur.”
So Sunny Boy climbed in and sat between Mother and Daddy, and the chauffeur just touched his wheel and they shot off up the street. Indeed they started so suddenly that Sunny Boy went over backward and laughed so hard that he quite forgot to be disappointed because he could not sit on the front seat.
“What’s in the bag, Mother?” he asked, as they rolled along through the streets.
“Hair-brushes and combs and towels and soap, and your tooth-brush and mine, and the tooth-paste,” answered Mrs. Horton. “And pajamas for you and a nightie for me, in case we can’t get the trunk to-night.”
“But it is going on the train just like us,” urged Sunny Boy. “Daddy said so.”
“But it will be nearly night before we reach Brookside,” explained Mrs. Horton, “and Grandpa will meet us with a horse and surrey most likely. We will have to leave the trunk at the station till some one can go and get it for us in the morning. I have a play suit in the bag for you, though, so trunk or no trunk, you can be real country boy.”
Presently the taxi rolled up under a stone arch, and Mr. Horton said they were at the station. They all got out and went into a great space filled with people. Porters were rushing about with suitcases and bags, crowds of men and women were going in several directions at once, and a man running for his train nearly ran right over Sunny Boy.
“I’ll get the trunk checked and then give you the tickets,” Mr. Horton said to his wife. “You sit down over there by the door where I can find you, and I’ll be back in five minutes. We have plenty of time.”
Sunny Boy and Mother sat down by the door and watched the people. Opposite them sat a short, fat woman with a baby in her arms and five little children, two girls and three boys, in the seats nearest her. They were each sucking a lolly-pop and took turns giving the baby a taste. Although they were very sticky and not exactly tidy, they seemed to love one another very much and to be having a very good time.
“Where do you suppose they’re going?” Sunny Boy asked.
Mrs. Horton did not know. Perhaps, if they watched them, they might see them take the train.
Then Sunny Boy wanted to know where they kept the trains. He could hear them, and nearly every minute a man with a big trumpet—which Mother said was a megaphone—would call out something, and from all over the station people would come rushing to get on the train. But thoughSunny Boy watched carefully, he could not see a single smokestack.
“The trains are downstairs—you’ll see when we go out,” said Mrs. Horton. “I wonder what can be keeping your father? He has been gone almost fifteen minutes.”
“Will there be a piano in the parlor car?” Sunny Boy wanted to know next.
Mrs. Horton laughed merrily.
“A parlor car is like the rest of the cars in a train, except that the seats are more comfortable,” she explained. “Anyway, we have to go in an ordinary coach, because Daddy and I couldn’t get a single parlor car seat yesterday. They had all been taken. I don’t see what can have happened to Daddy!”
Just then Mr. Horton came up to them. There was a baggage man with him and they both looked rather excited.
“I guess you’ll have to come over to thebaggage room, Olive,” said Mr. Horton in a low voice, “and see what you can do about straightening out this mess. They want to know what you’ve packed in the trunk.”
Sunny Boy clung tightly to Mother’s hand while they walked over to a low, broad window on one side of the station wall. This opened into the baggage room, and a perfect ocean of trunks was being tossed about in there. The pink came into Mother’s cheeks as she saw the crowd gathered about the window.
“You see, Ma’am,” said the big, tall man at the window in a gruff voice that was somehow kind and friendly, too, “it’s like this—we figure out something blew up in that trunk of yours about ten o’clock last night, and naturally we want to know something about it. In fact, we can’t check the trunk for you until we do. A dozen men heard it, and—”
“But I don’t understand,” protested Mrs.Horton. “I packed nothing that could possibly blow up, as you say. My sister and I put everything in with our own hands. I even have a list. I can show you that—” she fumbled in her velvet handbag with fingers that trembled.
“Probably an infernal machine,” declared a shrill voice in the crowd that was now growing too large for comfort. “With the country in the unsettled state it is now, you can look for anything.”
“What’s a ’fernal ’chine?” asked Sunny Boy boldly.
“Like a bomb—it goes off with a whang,” answered a freckle-faced boy standing near. He reminded Sunny of his friend, the grocery boy.
The words, “Goes off with a whang,” reminded Sunny Boy of something, though. He looked up into the friendly blue eyes of the baggage-window man.
“Maybe—” began Sunny Boy, “Maybe,I guess it was the alarm clock I packed!” he finished bravely.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” said the baggage-window man. His blue eyes crinkled.
The crowd had heard, and a ripple of laughter ran through them. As suddenly as they had gathered, they melted away.
“Let me have your tickets,” said the baggage-window man. “I guess you can still make the ten-forty-five.”
CHAPTER VON THE TRAIN
Well, though, as Mr. Horton expressed it, they “had to hustle,” they did make the ten-forty-five. They went down in an elevator to board the train and the ticket man at the gate would not let Mr. Horton through.
Daddy hugged his little boy tight before he let him go, and Mother had diamonds in her pretty brown eyes as she turned from saying good-by to him. But when they looked back to wave to him, there was Daddy smiling gayly at them and waving his hat.
“Have a fine time,” he called. “Take care of Mother, Sunny Boy. And look for me exactly three weeks from to-day.”
Sunny Boy and Mother found a seat after they had walked through a number of cars that were filled, and, though it was rather dark, Sunny Boy could make out the people near them.
“Look, Mother,” he whispered, “there’s the woman with the baby and the other children we saw in the station. Isn’t it funny they took our train?”
Sure enough, there they were, a little further down the aisle on the other side of the car, lolly-pops and all.
Mrs. Horton took off her hat and Sunny Boy’s and put them in a large paper bag she took from her bag.
“That will keep them clean,” she said, “and we shall be cooler and more comfortable without them. We may have to shut the window when we get out of the tunnel, but we need the air now. Now we’re off! Hear the conductor calling?”
“All a-bo-ard,” Sunny Boy heard some onecrying. “All a-bo-ard!” and soon the train began to move.
Slowly they rumbled out of the dark gray of the train shed, past so many snorting, sniffing black iron engines that Sunny Boy did not see why they did not run into each other, past a crew of men working on the railroad tracks, past red and green lights, into a tunnel without a roof, but walled high on either side with smooth concrete walls. Just as Sunny Boy grew tired of looking at this wall, it stopped, and the train was merrily rushing along through open streets. Sunny Boy looked at Mother and smiled.
“Isn’t it fun?” she said.
For a long time Sunny Boy amused himself by watching the country through which they were riding. They passed one or two little stations without stopping, and at the crossings Sunny Boy saw children waving to the train. He waved to them and hoped that they saw him.
“Tickets!” The conductor had reached their car.
Mrs. Horton took a ticket from her bag and gave it to her son. He held it out and the conductor punched it and passed on.
“Do you want me to keep it?” he asked.
“I’ll put it in my purse so it can’t be lost,” Mother answered. “But when the conductor asks for it again you may give it to him. He won’t come again for ever so long.”
As Sunny Boy was watching an automobile racing with the train on a road that ran alongside the tracks, a white-aproned colored man came into their car.
“First call for lunch!” he shouted. “First call for lunch!”
Sunny Boy felt suddenly hungry. Down the aisle the woman with all the children had opened a pasteboard box and they were having a picnic right there. Other people were eating sandwiches.
“We’ll go and get our lunch,” decided Mrs. Horton. “Be careful going down the aisle, dear, and don’t bump into people any more than you can help.”
They had to go through a parlor car to reach the dining car, and Sunny Boy saw for himself that there was no piano, nothing but chairs on either side of the aisle. A colored waiter helped him into his seat at a little table in the dining car, and he thought it great fun to eat chicken broth while looking out of the window at the telegraph poles galloping by. The poles seemed to be moving instead of the train, but Sunny Boy knew the train really moved.
“Will there be another call for lunch?” he asked, remembering what the man had shouted, as he ate his mashed potato and peas.
“Oh yes, but we won’t come,” said Mrs. Horton. “That will be for the people who weren’t hungry when we were.”
A man at the table across from theirs picked up the menu card.
“Now what on earth shall I order for dessert?” he frowned. “If the doctor won’t let me have meat, I suppose I have to eat something.”
“Chocolate ice-cream,” suggested Sunny Boy helpfully, feeling sorry for any one who did not know that it was the finest dessert in the world.
The frown slid away from the man’s face and he grinned cheerfully at the small boy.
“Is that what you are going to have?” he demanded. “All right then, I will, too.”
And when it came, a neat little mountain of it, he and Sunny smiled again at each other before they buried their silver spoons in the beautiful dark iciness of it.
Back in their seat in their car, Sunny was restless. To Mother’s suggestion that he take a nap, he said that he didn’t feel sleepy.He wished he had something to do—he was tired of looking at trees and things.
“I hoped you would take a little nap, but I suppose there is too much excitement,” said Mrs. Horton. “Well, then, how would you like to see the surprise now?”
“The surprise?” repeated Sunny Boy. “Oh, Mother—is that the box?”
For answer Mrs. Horton opened the leather bag and took out the box neatly wrapped in white paper that Sunny Boy had seen on the parlor table at home. She put it in his lap and then took up the magazine she was reading.
“Oh my!” said Sunny Boy, when he had pulled off string and paper and lifted the lid.
Inside the box were six little packages, each wrapped in white paper and tied with pink string. It was like Christmas. Sunny Boy unwrapped them all, one after another, and underneath he found two long thin boxes, also wrapped and tied.
In the first package he found a box of colored crayons; in another, a little pad of drawing paper; another held an envelope stamped and addressed and a sheet of writing paper. In another was a lead pencil; the fifth was a cake of sweet chocolate, and the sixth package was a little lump of modeling wax. The two long thin packages proved to be boxes of animal crackers.
Sunny Boy was chiefly interested in the envelope, because he could not read the writing on it.
“Who’s it to, Mother?” he urged. “Your writing runs into letters so I can’t read it.”
Mrs. Horton explained that the envelope was addressed to Daddy, and that she thought she and Sunny Boy might write a little note to him and that he would have it in the morning.
“Is there a mail-box on the train?” asked Sunny, in surprise.
“No, dear. But we will give it to the conductor and he will see that it is mailed at the next station where we stop. You print on one side of the sheet, and I will write a little message on the other.”
So, taking great pains and holding the pencil very tightly because the motion of the train made it wobble in his fingers, Sunny Boy printed this:
DEER DADDY: I LOV YOU.
WE ARE HAVING A NICE TIME
ON THE TRANE. I AM TAKING
CARE OF MOTHER. YOUR
LOVING SUN, SUNNY BOY.
Then Mother wrote her note, and they folded it up and sealed the letter and Sunny gave it to the conductor when he next came through.
After that he drew pictures and colored them with the crayons and nibbled at his chocolate and modeled dogs and cats andhorses with the wax. He opened the cracker boxes, too, and played Noah’s ark with them. The children down the aisle watched him and nudged each other. Their mother would not let them out into the aisle, or very likely they would have come closer to see what that boy was doing with so many nice things.
“I’d like, Mother,” announced Sunny Boy suddenly, “to pass my crackers to the little boy with the green tie—he looks like Nelson Baker. Would that be all right?”
“Why, of course,” agreed Mrs. Horton. “Ask their mother if she is willing for them to have some, and give some to each child, dear. And don’t stay too long, because I shall miss you.”
Sunny Boy went down the aisle to the seats where the children were. The lolly-pops had disappeared long ago, and so had the picnic sandwiches. They were all stickier than ever, were those children. Theheavy baby was asleep in his mother’s lap, and she smiled when Sunny asked her if she were willing he should pass his crackers.
“Thank you, they’d like ’em first-rate,” she said, speaking low so as not to wake the baby. “Mamie, Ellen, Jamie, Fred, George—say thank you, and don’t grab.”
Sunny Boy stayed a little while, talking to them all, and they told him they were going to another state far away. They would be all night on the train. Sunny Boy was a bit disappointed that he must get off at Cloverways, the nearest station to Grandpa’s farm, for he had never stayed all night on a train in his life. He hurried back to Mother to tell her of the fortunate family who were to spend the night on the train.
“That poor woman!” Mother, to his astonishment, exclaimed. “She’ll be worn out before she gets all those children safely somewhere. Think of sitting up all night with that fretful baby! I’ll tell you, SunnyBoy—we get off in about half an hour now; wouldn’t you like to leave your surprise package to amuse those children who are going farther than we are? I’ll help you tie them up again, and I have two more cakes of chocolate in the bag. You are so careful with your things they are not hurt at all, and it will keep them busy for an hour or two, playing with them.”
Sunny Boy thought this a fine plan, and he hardly had all the packages tied up and in the box again when Mrs. Horton pinned on her hat and gave him his, saying that the next station was theirs. She went down the aisle with him and they gave the surprise box to the five youngsters who were delighted to have something new to look at. And then the train stopped, and the brakeman lifted Sunny Boy down, and he found an old gentleman was kissing Mother.
CHAPTER VIBROOKSIDE
Sunny Boy found himself looking into two dark eyes so much like Daddy’s that he almost jumped. But the rest of the old gentleman was not like Daddy—no indeed. He was short and round instead of tall, and he had the curliest white hair and beard Sunny Boy had ever seen. Sunny Boy knew this must be Grandpa Horton, and when he was lifted up in a pair of strong arms and given a tremendous hug before being gently set down, he decided that he loved him very much.
“Grandma couldn’t come,” explained Grandpa, leading the way to an old-fashioned carriage and pair of horses drawnup at the other end of the station. “There’s only Araminta to help her with the supper, and Grandma’s heart was set on having the biscuits just right. In you go, Olive. Wait a minute, though, what about your trunk?”
“I have the check, Father,” Mrs. Horton answered. “I thought Jimmie would be coming down in the morning to the creamery. He can get it then.”
“An’ Mother brought her nightie in the bag an’ my pajamas,” contributed Sunny Boy, waiting while Mother and the bag were stowed away on the back seat.
“Want to ride up with me and help drive?” said Grandpa, turning to him suddenly.
Poor Sunny Boy was sorely tempted, but he decided quickly.
“I have to take care of Mother,” he said. “She might be lonesome all alone in the back.”
“No, indeed,” cried Mother instantly. “You ride up there with Grandpa, precious. You were so good not to tease about the taxi. I’ll lean over the seat and talk to you both.”
So Sunny Boy and Grandpa got into the front seat, and Sunny learned that the horses’ names were Paul and Peter, and that they were not afraid of automobiles, and that he could drive them whenever some older person was with him. Paul and Peter trotted briskly along, and Grandpa said they knew they were going home to supper.
They drove through the town, and Sunny Boy thought it looked very cool, and clean, and pretty, after the warm and dusty train. The grass was bright green, and, as Sunny Boy wrote Harriet, “millions and dozens” of robins were singing among the trees. A great red sun was going to bed back of a high dark hill, and Sunny Boy, sitting besideGrandpa and holding the reins while Paul and Peter trotted steadily, thought that the country was the nicest place he had ever been in.
Then, where the road divided, Grandpa took the reins and turned the team to the left. They entered a lane with white-washed fences on either side and tall waving trees like soldiers, which Mrs. Horton said were elms.
“Now, Sunny Boy,” she told him softly, “here’s Brookside.”
Sunny Boy saw an old red brick house with a great white porch across the front and a green lawn all about it. A white picket fence went all around the lawn, and as Grandpa stopped the horses before the gate, three people came out. There was a tall, thin young man who went to the horses’ heads, a little girl with flaming red hair who looked about fourteen years old, and a tall, thin old lady with hair as white and curly asGrandpa’s, who came out to the carriage and took Mother and Sunny Boy both in her arms at once.
“You’re Grandma,” said Sunny Boy.
It was Grandma Horton, and she remembered Sunny Boy without a bit of trouble; though, as he had been only two weeks old the last time she had seen him, he could not be expected to remember her.
“And this is Araminta,” said Grandma, drawing the little red-haired girl forward. “She is my right hand in the house. You recall Jimmie, Olive?”
Jimmie was the young man holding the horses. He came and shook hands with Mrs. Horton, blushing a little, and chucked Sunny under the chin. Then he took the team away to the barn, and Mother and Sunny Boy and Grandpa and Grandma Horton and Araminta went in to supper.
They had wonderful fresh foamy milk to drink, and hot biscuits and cold ham for thegrown-ups. Sunny Boy was not expected to eat those—not at night. There were baked apples, too, and honey and cookies. Sunny, seated before a bowl of bread and milk, held a cookie in his hand and wondered what was the matter with the hanging lamp with the pretty red shade. It swung up and down like a train lantern.
“He’s sleepy,” he heard some one say. It sounded like Araminta.
He opened his eyes as wide as he could make them go, tried to take another bite of cookie and made one last desperate effort to smile. The smile ran into a yawn, and Sunny Boy gave up and tumbled, a tired little ball of weariness, into Mother’s lap.
He never knew who carried him upstairs, or when he was undressed. So, waking in the morning to find the sun shining in four windows at once, and Mother in her blue dressing gown brushing her hair, he was a bit surprised.
“Hello!” said Mother gayly. “How do you think you are going to like the country?”
“Are the chickens up?” asked Sunny Boy.
“Hours ago. Mr. Rooster crowing under our window woke me up at five o’clock,” replied Mrs. Horton. “I heard Jimmie bring in the milk a few minutes before you sat up. And if you want to ride into town with him after the trunk—”
Sunny Boy jumped out of bed and fairly galloped with his dressing. He insisted on using the wash bowl and pitcher, though there was a nice white bathroom down the hall, because a wash bowl and pitcher were new to him. Just as he had finished brushing his hair, Araminta rapped at the door to tell them breakfast was ready.
In the dining room Sunny Boy met another member of the family. Lying on a rug in the corner was a shaggy brown and white collie that rose as they came in and,coming over to Mrs. Horton, laid a beautiful pointed nose in her lap.
“We shut him in the barn last night, because we thought you’d be too tired to stand his barking,” said Grandma. “His name is Bruce, and he is very gentle. Don’t be afraid of him, Sunny Boy.”
The collie went back to his rug while they were at breakfast, but when Jimmie and Sunny Boy started for the door he got up to follow them.
“Is he going, too?” asked Sunny Boy.
“He never goes off the farm,” answered Jimmie. “He’ll follow us to the end of the lane and then go back. Hop in lively, now, for we’re late as it is.”
Jimmie had harnessed Peter to a wagon that had only one high seat. In back of this were two cans of milk which Jimmie explained, in answer to Sunny’s questions, would be made into butter at the creamery in Cloverways.
“Is Araminta your sister?” Sunny Boy asked him as they jogged along.
“No, she’s the tenant farmer’s daughter—the man who does the farming for your Grandpa, you know. I work Spring and Summer for him and in Winter I go to the agricultural school. That’s where they teach you to be a farmer.”
After they left the milk at the creamery they drove down to the station and got the trunk. Sunny Boy told Jimmie about the alarm clock, and he laughed. Then, after stopping at a yellow store with high white steps, where Jimmie bought some groceries for Grandma, they turned Peter’s head toward home.
“What are you going to do first?” asked Jimmie, smiling down at his small companion.
“I don’t know—what are you?”
“Oh, I have work to do—have to weed the garden this morning. But you have thewhole farm to get acquainted with. I’ll tell you—if I were you, I’d go down to the brook and play.”
“I guess I will,” decided Sunny Boy.
Mrs. Horton wanted to unpack the trunk, and when Grandma assured her that the brook was not deep and Sunny Boy promised not to go wading until she should be there, she kissed him and told him to run along and have a good time.
On his way to the brook, Sunny Boy passed Grandpa and Jimmie in wide straw hats working in the garden. Grandpa pointed out the brook to him. It ran through a meadow that came right up to the garden.
“I’ll be down and play with you myself as soon as we get this lettuce transplanted,” said Grandpa.
Sunny had never had a brook to play in before, and he thought it fine. It was nota very wide brook, but it was very clear, and Sunny Boy could see the pebbles on the bottom. Little darting fish went in and out, hiding under the long grasses that leaned over the edge. Bruce came panting down as Sunny Boy looked at the water, and took a long drink. Then he lay down in the grass, his brown doggie eyes fixed watchfully on his new friend.
“Wonder what that is?” said Sunny Boy to himself.
“That” was a wooden wheel that turned in the water with slow, even jerks, sending out a little spray of rainbow drops that fell back into the water. Sunny Boy got down on his knees to watch it. Quite suddenly, without warning, the wheel stopped turning.
Sunny Boy waited, but it did not turn again. He blew on it gently, and still it did not move. Then he ran over to the big tree nearest him and picked up a stick.
“I’ll fix it,” he said aloud. “Grandpa’ll be surprised if I get it mended ’fore he comes.”
Well, as it turned out, Grandpa was surprised, but not as much as Sunny Boy. He leaned over, and jabbed the obstinate wheel with his stick; the dry end of the stake snapped, and Sunny Boy, stick and all, tumbled head-first into the water. In after him leaped a flash of brown and white—good old Bruce!
The water was very cold, and when Sunny had swallowed some of it and shaken some from his eyes, he scrambled to his feet crying bitterly. He thought he was freezing to death. Bruce pulled at his coat and tried to drag him back, and it was his frantic barking that attracted Jimmie’s notice. He came tearing across the meadow, followed by Grandpa.
“There—there—you’re all right,” said Jimmie, as he pulled the little boy out in ajiffy. “Don’t cry so, Brother, you’re only frightened. How’d it happen?”
“The wheel stopped!” sobbed Sunny Boy. “An’ I tried to fix it. I was going to s’prise Grandpa.”
“So you did,” admitted Jimmie, while Bruce circled around them, barking madly. “Now we’ll have to look out that you don’t surprise us more by catching cold from this ducking.”
CHAPTER VIIADVENTURES BEGIN
Grandpa hurried up to them, his kind face filled with anxiety.
“I brought my coat,” he gasped, for he was out of breath from running. “Wrap him in that, Jimmie. Then hustle for the house.”
Jimmie carrying Sunny Boy and Grandpa and Bruce following made quite a little procession. Mrs. Horton, who was down at the gate with Grandma inspecting the garden, was startled.
“Sunny Boy!” she cried, and came running toward them. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“He’s all right,” Grandpa assured her cheerfully. “Just fell into the brook andgot a little damp, that’s all. Mercy, Olive, don’t look like that—brooks were made for boys to fall into. Why I’d dragged Harry out a dozen times before he was Arthur’s age.”
Of course Mother and Grandma were relieved and thankful to find it was nothing more serious than a ducking. But they decided that it was safer to rub Sunny Boy briskly with towels and put him to bed to rest.
“You might take cold and be sick a long time, precious,” explained Mrs. Horton, as she popped him between the sheets. “You would miss all the Summer fun then. Now close your eyes and Mother will read to you.”
And while listening to the adventures of a little Italian boy, Sunny’s blue eyes grew heavier and heavier, till he went to sleep.
When he awoke, Mrs. Horton had gone, and the room was empty and quiet. SunnyBoy lay for a time, studying the walls and furniture, for he had been asleep when put to bed the night before and had dressed for breakfast in such a hurry that he had not noticed much of anything. It was a very different room from his blue and white bedroom at home, but a very pleasant, pretty room, too. The wall-paper had gay little pink roses scattered thickly over it, and the furniture was all very large and dark and brightly polished. Sunny Boy did not know it, but the four-posted bed in which he was lying had belonged to his great-grandmother, and would be his own some day.
Presently Sunny Boy tired of lying still and began to be conscious of a funny sensation somewhere down in his ribs. At least he thought it must be his ribs. He remembered that he had had no lunch. Did his grandma expect him to starve at her house?
Sunny Boy got up and found his slippers. The ‘’fernal ’chine’ of an alarm clock was ticking steadily away on the bureau where Mrs. Horton had placed it after unpacking, and with a great deal of trouble and much tracing with a wet forefinger, he made out that it was three o’clock—or was it five o’clock? Three o’clock in the afternoon and no lunch! Sunny Boy felt so sorry for himself that he sat down on the floor and wept a little. He was not quite awake yet, you see, and our troubles often look rather large when we first wake up. In just a minute Sunny Boy stopped crying—he had thought what to do.
Naturally his grandmother would not wish him to go without eating all day, so why not go down and try to find a little chocolate cake, or some of those cookies left from last night’s supper? Sunny Boy had not the slightest idea where the pantry was, but he was sure there must be one—everyhouse had a pantry with a cake box in it. So, in his slippers and pink pajamas, he crept out into the hall intent on locating the pantry in Grandma Horton’s house.
He met no one on his way downstairs, and the first floor of the house seemed deserted, too. He couldn’t know that his mother and Grandma had peeped in at him several times and found him fast asleep, or that now they were on the side porch entertaining a caller. Jimmie and Grandpa were working in the garden again, and Araminta had gone home until it should be time to start supper. This was why Sunny Boy found no one on his path to the pantry. He found it without great trouble, because he kept going until he came to the kitchen, and a kitchen and the pantry are never very far apart.
Grandma’s pantry was a beautiful place, shelves and walls and floor a snowy white, and boxes and jars in apple-pie order. There was a large window with a table underit, and there Grandma rolled her cookies and made her pies, but Sunny Boy did not know that yet. He spied a round box that, to his experienced eyes, looked as though it might hold cake.
“I’ll get a chair,” he said aloud, talking to himself, as he often did. “An’ I won’t take only a little piece. I wish I was bigger.”
He meant taller.
He carried in a kitchen chair and scrambled up on it. His eyes were on a level with the shelf, and there sat two beautiful brown pies beside the cake box. Sunny poked a small, fat finger into the nearest one to taste it. It was very good, though he did not “remember” the taste. My, how soury it was! Grandma had baked two rhubarb pies. But no pie could hold Sunny’s attention very long—his heart was set on cake. Standing on his tiptoes, he managed to lift the tin lid of the box when a voice at the door startled him.
“My land of Goshen!” ejaculated Araminta.
Sunny Boy’s hand slipped, the lid came down sharply on his fingers, and his other hand swept across the shelf to knock over a brown bowl from which some sticky yellow stuff began to stream.
“Now you’ve done it!” Araminta told him. “That’s the custard pudding for to-morrow’s dinner. What in the world are you trying to do, anyway?”
Araminta was not accustomed to finding small boys in pale pink pajamas standing on chairs in her pantry, so no wonder she was surprised. But she was kind, was Araminta, and she helped Sunny Boy down, and did not scold. She got a basin of clean water and a clean cloth and wiped up the pudding and washed Sunny’s hands for him.
“I came back an hour earlier than I had to,” she told him, “’cause I thought maybe you’d be up and might like to see the chickenyard. No wonder you’re hungry if you didn’t have any lunch. Your Grandma has some saved for you on a big plate. I guess they don’t know you’re up. You go and get dressed, and I’ll warm it up for you. And don’t say anything about knocking over the custard—let ’em think it was the cat.”
Sunny Boy was washed and dressed by the time Mother came up again to see if he was awake. She helped him a bit with his hair and straightened his collar and kissed him three or four times and then went down with him to see him eat. Grandma did not call it lunch—they had dinner and supper on the farm.
Sunny Boy had a queer little feeling all the while he was eating and he was so quiet that his mother thought perhaps he was still tired from his tumble into the brook. He went out with Araminta afterward to see the chicken yard, and he almost, but not quite, forgot the queer feeling in watching thehundreds of white chickens and white ducks busily scratching in the yard and drinking water “upside down,” as he told Grandpa that night. A chicken, you know, doesn’t drink water as you do, but differently. Araminta gave Sunny Boy a handful of cracked corn to throw to the biddies, and they came flocking about his feet, pushing and scrambling so that he was glad when Araminta shooed them away from him. She showed him the nests, too, and in many of them were pretty white eggs. He could gather them some morning, all himself, Araminta told him.
Coming out of the chicken yard they met Jimmie, whistling merrily. He was glad to find Sunny Boy all right after his wetting, and asked him if he did not want to come out to the stable to see Peter and Paul and “the prettiest little fellows you ever saw.” Sunny Boy went gladly, but the queer little feeling went, too.
Peter and Paul, it seemed, lived in a house that was called a barn, and were very comfortable. They had each a little room, “box stalls” Jimmie called them, and all the hay they could eat. For breakfast and dinner and supper they usually had corn and now and then some oats. The barn was a delightful place, and Jimmie pointed out the hay mow when Sunny Boy mentioned that Harriet had said that was the place to play on rainy days.
“Not much hay in it now,” announced Jimmie, leading the way into another little room. “We start cutting this year’s crop next week. Ever seen any one hay?”
Sunny Boy had not, but he forgot to say so, because he found himself looking down on a gentle-eyed collie dog mother with three of the dearest little blind baby puppies you could wish to see. Jimmie explained that Lassie was Mrs. Bruce, and that the puppies would have their eyes open in a day or two.
“And one of them’s to be yours—your Grandpa said so,” Jimmie went on.
And in spite of that—and what child would not be pleased to have a puppy for his very own?—the queer little feeling still stayed with Sunny Boy. It was like a small lump of lead right down at the end of his throat.
“I’m going up to the house now for the milk pails,” announced Jimmie, when they had finished looking at the puppies. “You can come out and watch me milk if you want to.”
In the kitchen they found Mother and Grandma.
“Don’t let Topaz in,” said Grandma, as Jimmie opened the door. “That wretched cat has eaten half my egg custard, and I won’t have him in the house again to-night.”
Araminta was setting the table in the dining room and did not hear. Sunny Boy gulped a little, but spoke up bravely.
“’Twasn’t Topaz, Grandma. I knocked the custard over, looking for cake. I didn’t mean to, but my hand slipped.”
Then how he did cry!
But when the whole story had come out, and Grandma had hugged him, and had said not to mind, that she could make another pudding in a minute; after Mother had whispered to him that while it was naughty to help oneself to cake without asking, it was much worse to let the kitty-cat be blamed, and had kissed him and assured him she was sure he would not do it again; after Araminta had given him a pink peppermint—after all this, and Sunny Boy was on his way to the barn with Jimmie to watch the milking, do you know, that queer little feeling had entirely disappeared!