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+Project Gutenberg's Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sunny Boy and His Playmates
+
+Author: Ramy Allison White
+
+Illustrator: Howard L. Hastings
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2006 [EBook #17902]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "Put your arms around my neck and I'll carry you
+ashore."]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
+
+BY
+
+RAMY ALLISON WHITE
+
+
+
+Author of
+
+"SUNNY BOY IN THE COUNTRY," "SUNNY BOY AT THE SEASHORE," "SUNNY BOY IN
+SCHOOL AND OUT," ETC.
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+HOWARD L. HASTINGS
+
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+BARSE & CO.
+
+NEW YORK, N. Y. -------- NEWARK, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1922
+
+By
+
+BARSE & CO.
+
+
+SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I  LEARNING TO SKATE
+   II  GRANDPA HORTON IS FOUND
+  III  WHO WAS THE BIG BOY?
+   IV  ON COURT HILL
+    V  THE SNOW MAN
+   VI  THE PARKNEY FAMILY
+  VII  THE OTHER GRANDPA
+ VIII  WHEN TOYS GO TO SCHOOL
+   IX  OUT IN THE BLIZZARD
+    X  WHERE THE HORSE LIVED
+   XI  MR. HARRIS BRINGS A LETTER
+  XII  JERRY LOSES HIS TEMPER
+ XIII  BRAVE LITTLE SUNNY BOY
+  XIV  THE EXPLORERS SET OUT
+   XV  ANOTHER RESCUE
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"Put your arms around my neck and I'll
+  carry you ashore" . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+Sunny Boy calmly stuck pieces of coal down
+  the white front of the snow man
+
+Sunny Boy held the blanket in place
+
+They came rushing toward her, pellmell
+
+
+
+
+SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LEARNING TO SKATE
+
+"Santa Claus brought them," said Sunny Boy.
+
+He was lying flat on the floor, trying to reach under the bookcase
+where his marble had rolled.  The marble was a cannon ball and Sunny
+Boy had been showing Nelson Baker, the boy who lived next door, how to
+knock over lead soldiers.
+
+Nelson Baker picked up the lead general and examined him carefully.
+
+"They're nicer soldiers than I had last year," he said.  "Say, Sunny
+Boy, I could bring my soldiers over and we could have a real fight."
+
+"I've got it!" shouted Sunny Boy suddenly, pulling his arm out from
+under the bookcase with the marble in his hand.  "I _knew_ it rolled
+under the bookcase.  You can roll it this time, Nelson."
+
+"All right," said Nelson, taking the marble.  "And I guess I won't go
+for my lead soldiers.  My mother might say I'd been over here an hour."
+
+Nelson's mother, you see, had told him he might stay an hour at Sunny
+Boy's house, and something told Nelson he had already played so long
+with his little friend that if he went home now he would not get back.
+
+"Get down like the Indians," urged Sunny Boy, as Nelson took the
+marble.  "Shut one eye, Nelson."
+
+Nelson put his head down to the floor and closed one eye.  He meant to
+aim straight at the row of beautiful new lead soldiers, but, as he
+afterward explained, the marble slipped before he was ready.  It shot
+across the floor and went crash into the glass door of the bookcase.
+
+"What was that, Sunny Boy?  Did you break anything?" asked Grandpa
+Horton, coming in from the dining-room, where he had been reading the
+newspaper.  He carried the paper in his hand and his glasses were
+pushed up on his forehead and he looked worried.
+
+"My marble hit the bookcase door, but I don't believe I broke it," said
+Nelson.  "'Tisn't even cracked, is it, Mr. Horton?"
+
+Grandpa Horton looked carefully at the glass door and said no, the
+marble had not been able to crack the heavy plate glass.
+
+"But I'd play another game if I were you, boys," he said kindly.  "Have
+you shown Nelson all your Christmas presents yet, Sunny Boy?"
+
+"We got only as far as the lead soldiers," answered Sunny Boy.  "Nelson
+wanted to play with them.  But come on up in the playroom, Nelson, and
+I'll show you my things."
+
+It was only two days after Christmas, and the presents Santa Claus had
+brought Sunny Boy and the gifts his mother and daddy and grandparents
+had given him, were all spread out on the window seat in his playroom.
+The two presents that Sunny Boy liked most were a little pocket
+searchlight and his ice-skates.  The skates were double-runner ones,
+for Sunny Boy did not yet know how to skate.
+
+"I'm going to learn this winter," he told Nelson.  "Grandpa is going to
+take me to Wilkins Park this afternoon as soon as Daddy and Mother come
+home from taking a walk."
+
+"I can skate a little," said Nelson.  "But my mother won't let me go to
+the Park alone.  Lots of the boys go, but she never lets me.  I wish we
+had a little private pond.  Maybe we could make one in the yard, Sunny."
+
+"Maybe," assented Sunny Boy, but he was thinking about going to the
+Park with Grandpa Horton and trying his new skates, and not about
+making a "private" skating pond in the back yard.  "There!  I heard the
+front door shut.  I hope Daddy's come."
+
+Sunny Boy and Nelson ran downstairs to find Daddy and Mother Horton in
+the hall, taking off their coats.
+
+"Nelson, your mother wants you to come home," said Mr. Horton.  "We saw
+her in the window as we passed your house.  She's waiting for you.
+Your Aunt Caroline has come."
+
+"Take a popcorn ball, Nelson," said Sunny Boy's mother, as Nelson began
+to put on his coat and hat.  "And here is one for Ruth."  Ruth was
+Nelson's little sister.
+
+Nelson said good-bye to Sunny Boy and ran down the steps of the Horton
+house and up his own.  It was never any trouble for Nelson or Sunny Boy
+to go calling on each other.
+
+"Now we can go skating, can't we, Grandpa?" asked Sunny Boy eagerly.
+"I thought Nelson stayed ever so long."
+
+"Why, Sunny Boy, how impolite you are!" cried his mother.  "That isn't
+a nice thing to say.  Suppose you should go to see Nelson and he should
+spend the time wishing you would go home--how would you feel?"
+
+Sunny Boy looked uncomfortable.
+
+"Well, he can come back after I go skating," he suggested.  "Grandpa
+promised we could go this afternoon, Mother."
+
+"So I did; and we'll start this minute," declared Grandpa Horton,
+coming out into the hall and smiling at his small grandson.  "Who ever
+heard of a little boy with a brand-new pair of skates and ice on the
+pond, not going skating, Olive?  Sunny Boy is just as polite as he ever
+was, Olive, but we have to go skating, whether we have company or not."
+
+"Oh, Father, how you do spoil Sunny Boy!" cried Mrs. Horton,
+half-laughing.  But she kissed them both and waved to them as they went
+off, the new skates dangling over Sunny Boy's arm and buckled together
+with a leather strap just as the big boys tie their skates.
+
+"Can you skate, Grandpa?" the little boy asked, as they trudged along,
+Grandpa's rosy face and white mustache showing above a gray and white
+muffler and Sunny Boy's pink cheeks and dancing eyes set off by a
+muffler of scarlet wool.  "Will you go skating with me?"
+
+"Why, I haven't been skating for thirty years!" exclaimed Grandpa
+Horton.  "I don't know whether I have forgotten or not, Sunny Boy.  But
+I have no skates, you see, and I shall not get any because I don't
+expect to go skating often this winter.  I'll get you started, and then
+this winter, when we go home, Grandma and I will be able to think of
+you having fine times on the ice."
+
+Wilkins Park was several blocks from the Horton's house, but Sunny Boy
+and his grandfather liked to walk, and though it was a cold day they
+tucked their hands in their coat pockets and walked fast and were very
+comfortable.  The best skating pond in Centronia--indeed about the only
+good pond--was in the center of the Park, and long before Sunny Boy and
+his grandfather came in sight of the Park they saw boys and girls with
+skates over their arms, hurrying to the pond.
+
+"Hurry, Grandpa!" urged Sunny Boy.  "Hurry!  Maybe there won't be room
+for me!"
+
+Grandpa Horton laughed and said he thought there would be room for one
+small boy on the pond even if half the town did want to go skating that
+afternoon.
+
+"I suppose it is because there is no school," he said, as they turned
+in at the Park gates.  "I declare, Sunny Boy, if I had thought of it, I
+don't know that I would have brought you today!"
+
+For the ice-pond--and by this time they were in sight of it--was
+crowded with skaters.  Skating in holiday week was too delightful to be
+neglected, and it seemed as though all the school children in the city
+were skating or learning to skate.  There were big boys and little boys
+and tall girls and short girls and good skaters and poor ones.  Now and
+then a long line of skaters, hands joined, swept down the pond,
+shouting.
+
+Sunny Boy beamed.  He was very glad that he had come and he wanted to
+sit down on the grass and put on his skates at once.
+
+"I think we'll walk around to the other end of the pond, dear," said
+Grandpa Horton.  "There are not so many people there, and I'll be able
+to walk out on the ice a little way with you till you learn to keep
+your balance.  Don't put on your skates till we get to that white post."
+
+Sunny Boy took his grandfather's hand and they tramped around the pond
+till they reached a place where there were fewer skaters.  A tall
+policeman was telling a pretty girl that she could not leave her
+sweater on the bank.
+
+"It wouldn't be there when you got back, Miss," he said.  "The only
+wise thing to do is to carry all extras with you--that is if you want
+'em."
+
+The pretty girl skated off, carrying her sweater, and the policeman
+turned and saw Sunny Boy struggling to put on his skates.
+
+"Well, I guess I know you!" said the policeman, smiling.  "You go to
+Miss May's school, don't you?"
+
+It was the same policeman Sunny Boy had met when all the children at
+Miss May's school had lost their coats before Thanksgiving (and that
+was exciting, you may be sure), and they were really very good friends.
+
+"This is my Grandpa Horton," said Sunny Boy.  "He and Grandma are
+visiting us.  They came before Christmas."
+
+Grandpa Horton and the policeman shook hands and Grandpa asked him if
+he thought the ice was safe.
+
+"Oh, it's safe enough, sir," answered the policeman.
+
+"Sunny Boy is so anxious to learn to skate," explained Grandpa Horton,
+while Sunny Boy stood up, his new skates on his feet by this time,
+"that I promised him his first lesson today."
+
+"He'll be all right if he stays near the edge and you keep an eye on
+him," said the policeman.  "Sometimes the little fellows get knocked
+down, if they go out in the center alone.  If you tumble, Sunny Boy,
+don't bump your nose, will you?  You might sneeze."
+
+Sunny Boy laughed, and, holding tight to Grandpa Horton's hand, he
+slowly slid out on the ice.
+
+"I feel--" he gasped, "I feel like a rocking horse!"
+
+And indeed, if you have ever been on double runner skates yourself,
+you'll remember that you do feel something as a rocking horse must feel.
+
+Grandpa Horton was very patient and he walked slowly and held fast to
+Sunny Boy so that he would not feel frightened.  Boys and girls whizzed
+by them, laughing and shouting, and Sunny Boy hoped that he would be
+able to skate like that some day.  Presently he let go of his
+grandfather's hand and tried to skate by himself.
+
+"I can do it, just as nice," he was boasting when one foot went out and
+the other doubled up and Sunny Boy went down flat!
+
+"Hurt?" asked Grandpa Horton, helping him up.  "No one ever learned to
+skate without a fall or two, Sunny Boy."
+
+"It didn't hurt me," said Sunny Boy bravely.  "At least, not very much.
+But the ice is pretty slippery, isn't it, Grandpa?  And it is hard,
+too."
+
+He took hold of his grandfather's hand again, though, after this
+tumble, and they were both having a fine time when they heard some one
+shout.
+
+"Why, it's the policeman!" said Grandpa Horton, in surprise.  "I didn't
+realize how far out we were, Sunny Boy.  He's motioning.  We must go
+in.  Hurry, laddie!"
+
+The policeman stood on the shore, shouting and waving his arm.  As the
+skaters heard him they began to move toward him, and in a minute there
+was a pushing, hurrying throng, some skating, some trying to run.
+
+"Everybody ashore!" shouted the policeman.  "Everybody off!"
+
+A crowd of skaters rushed for the head of the pond.  Sunny Boy felt his
+hand pulled from Grandpa Horton's and he spun around like a little top.
+When he stopped spinning he landed on his hands and knees and several
+boys almost skated into him.  Grandpa Horton was nowhere to be seen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GRANDPA HORTON IS FOUND
+
+"Look out!" shouted a big boy.  "Watch where you're going!  Can't you
+see the little kid?"
+
+"The ice is cracking!" cried another boy.  "Look!  There's water on the
+top now.  Gee, let me get ashore!"
+
+"Well, go on and get ashore," said the big boy, pulling Sunny Boy to
+his feet.  "Go on ashore!  If you're so afraid of drowning you have to
+walk on a kid of this size, you'd better go ashore."
+
+The other boy had pushed on toward the shore and he did not hear any of
+this talk.  The crowd continued to move by, because all the skaters
+kept coming.  Of course it would have been much wiser if they had gone
+ashore at different points of the lake instead of crowding together at
+the end where the ice was already cracking.  But, somehow, people do
+not stop to think when anything happens, and as soon as the boys and
+girls--and men and women, too--who were skating on the pond saw that
+something was happening at one end of the pond they skated there as
+fast as they possibly could.
+
+"You'd get along faster without your skates," said the big boy, "but I
+won't try to take 'em off for you.  We'd both be walked on while I was
+doing it.  Come on, we'll see if these folks are in too big a hurry to
+let us get ashore with them."
+
+Sunny Boy was not exactly frightened, but he felt rather queer.
+Grandpa Horton was gone, a strange boy had him by the hand, and many
+people kept shouting and making a loud noise.  And now, instead of
+clear, smooth ice under his skates, he seemed to be walking through
+slushy water.
+
+"Don't you get scared," said the big boy kindly.  "We wouldn't drown if
+we went right through the ice.  It isn't very deep right here.  Look
+out--here we go!"
+
+Sunny Boy cried out in surprise and a girl ahead of him screamed.  The
+ice seemed to part and let them down gently into the coldest water
+Sunny Boy had ever felt.  He had not known that water could be so cold!
+
+"You're all right," the big boy assured him, "Put your arms around my
+neck and I'll carry you ashore.  The girls make a lot of noise, don't
+they?  Well, in one way it's a good sign--as long as they can scream we
+know they are not drowned."
+
+The boy had a round, freckled face, and he grinned so cheerfully that
+Sunny Boy had to smile back.  The boy looked blue from the cold and his
+coat was thin and shabby, if Sunny Boy had only noticed it, but he
+talked every minute and didn't complain once.  He showed Sunny Boy how
+he wanted him to put his arms, and then he lifted him up and carried
+him toward the bank.
+
+"Good for you, Bob!" called some one, as the big boy reached the shore.
+
+"There you are," the boy said to Sunny, as he set him carefully down.
+"Now you take my advice and trot along home and get on dry shoes and
+stockings.  You'll be sneezing your head off to-morrow, if you don't
+look out."
+
+"But I want my grandpa!" said Sunny Boy, beginning to cry.  "I lost my
+grandpa!  Maybe he is all drowned!"
+
+No wonder Sunny Boy cried at this sad thought.  He loved his Grandpa
+Horton very dearly and he was named for him, "Arthur Bradford Horton."
+To be sure, no one ever called the little lad by that long name, for
+"Sunny Boy" seemed to suit him so exactly.  But, of course, when he
+grew up and was a farmer or a traffic policeman or the captain of a
+sailboat--he didn't know yet which he would rather be--he would need
+his real name.  Perhaps you know all about Sunny Boy.  If so, we do not
+have to introduce you.  But if you have not read the other books about
+him you will want to know that he lived with his daddy and his mother
+and Harriet, who had helped his mother since Sunny Boy was a tiny baby,
+in the city of Centronia and that Grandpa and Grandma Horton lived on a
+beautiful farm, "Brookside,"  where Sunny Boy and his mother had spent
+a month the summer before.  The first Sunny Boy book, called "Sunny Boy
+in the Country," tells all about this visit and the friends Sunny Boy
+made there and about the kite he made which got him into trouble.  But
+that ended happily and Sunny Boy was so happy at Brookside that he
+might have decided to be a farmer if he and his daddy and mother had
+not gone to the seashore to visit his Aunt Bessie.
+
+"Sunny Boy at the Seashore" tells about the fun a small boy can find in
+the sand and of Sunny Boy's experiences in sailing boats, and
+especially about the time he drifted out to sea in a rowboat all by
+himself.  His mother and daddy, in another boat, found him, though, and
+Sunny Boy thought he would like to be a sea captain like the kind
+Captain Franklin who ran the motor-boat which caught up with him just
+as he was beginning to be very much afraid he was lost.
+
+Sunny Boy knew that he could not be a sea captain before he was grown
+up, and long before that, the very next month, in fact, Daddy and
+Mother Horton took him to New York City, and, dear me, didn't he find
+adventures there!  He was lost twice and he took his mother shopping
+and he visited Central Park and the Statue of Liberty and he saw so
+many things that he kept remembering them long after he was home again.
+"Sunny Boy in the Big City" is the title of this third book, and the
+traffic policemen interested him so much that he thought he would put
+off being a sea captain till he had tried to be a policeman.
+
+In fact the traffic policemen interested Sunny Boy so much that he
+taught the children on his street to play a game called "City" when he
+came home from New York, and in this game Sunny Boy was always a
+policeman.  You may have read of how he played "City" in the fourth
+book about him called "Sunny Boy In School and Out."  It was in this
+book, too, that Sunny Boy made the acquaintance of the big policeman
+whom he had seen at the skating pond.
+
+Sunny Boy thought of this big policeman as soon as he was safely on
+shore and as soon as he said perhaps his grandpa was drowned and the
+big boy had told him no one was drowned--"some of 'em may have been
+walked on a little, but no one is drowned, I tell you," he said
+earnestly.  Sunny Boy wished he could find this kind man in the blue
+uniform who might be able to help him find his grandfather.
+
+"Where's the policeman?" he asked, pulling at the big boy's ragged
+sleeve.
+
+"What you want the police for?" asked the boy, looking at Sunny Boy
+queerly.  "Do you want them to chase you?"
+
+"This policeman won't chase me," said Sunny Boy sturdily.  "He is a
+friend of mine and I like him.  Come on and let's hunt for him."
+
+He started to walk higher up the bank and almost fell down.
+
+"Why, I have my skates on!" he cried, in surprise, for he had forgotten
+them.  "I guess I'd better take them off."
+
+He turned to ask the big boy to help him, and he wasn't there!  He
+wasn't anywhere, for Sunny Boy looked all around.  The other boy had
+disappeared as though he had tumbled into the lake, though Sunny Boy
+was sure he hadn't done that.
+
+"Oh, dear, I wish he had waited," mourned Sunny Boy, sitting down to
+take off his skates.  "I wanted to tell Grandpa about him, and now he's
+gone."
+
+The skate straps were swollen with water and stiff and cold.  Sunny Boy
+worked at them till his poor little fingers were blue, but he could not
+unfasten them.  So Sunny Boy was ready to cry with cold and
+disappointment and loneliness when a man spoke to him.  It is not
+strange that a little boy should feel like crying when he has lost his
+grandpa and his feet are wet and his hands are so cold they ache.
+
+"Are you lost, little boy?" he asked.
+
+He was a short man, and he stared at Sunny Boy so hard through round,
+black-rimmed Spectacles that the little boy felt rather uncomfortable.
+
+"No, thank you, I'm not lost," he answered politely.  "But my grandpa
+is.  I can't find him anywhere."
+
+"Well, well, you don't tell me!" replied the man eagerly.  "Why, I
+heard a grandfather saying back there in the crowd that he was looking
+for his little grandson.  Come along and I'll help you find him."
+
+The short man was very kind, for he knelt down and unbuckled the
+stubborn skate straps and tied them over Sunny Boy's arm.  Then he took
+his hand and led him back into the crowd up to a worried-looking old
+gentleman.
+
+"Excuse me, sir, I think I've found your little grandson," he said.  "I
+discovered this little fellow over by the edge of the pond.  He is
+looking for his grandpa."
+
+The worried-looking old gentleman was tall and thin.  He had no white
+mustache and no gray-and-white muffler.  He was not Grandpa Horton at
+all.
+
+"What ails the man!" cried this grandpa, glaring at the short man.  "I
+am looking for my granddaughter and he brings me a lost boy!"
+
+"Oh, my!" murmured the short man, dropping Sunny Boy's hand.  "I'm
+sorry.  I'm so absent-minded.  I hardly ever get things straight.  I
+thought you said you had lost your grandson.  Excuse me," and he turned
+and stepped back into the crowd, leaving Sunny Boy alone again.
+
+This other grandpa stared at Sunny Boy silently for a few minutes and
+Sunny Boy stared back.  Then the old gentleman threw back his head and
+laughed and laughed.  He laughed so heartily that Sunny Boy had to
+laugh, too, though he could not see that there was anything funny to
+laugh at.
+
+"Well, poor James Ridley has made a mess of it as usual," said the old
+gentleman, when he could stop laughing.  "I suppose, because I called
+Adele my little girl, he went about looking for a child.  She is
+seventeen and able to take care of herself almost anywhere.  Well,
+child, if I were your grandfather I'd want some one to look after you,
+so suppose you stay with me till we see if your grandpa is here.  He
+wouldn't go home without you, that much I know."
+
+Sunny Boy felt better, with a tall, kindly old gentleman to walk about
+with him, but he wished that they could find Grandpa Horton before his
+feet were too cold to walk on.  And then, just as he was sure his shoes
+were frozen fast to his toes, he saw dear Grandpa Horton!
+
+"Grandpa!" he shouted.  "Here I am, Grandpa!  We've been looking all
+over for you."
+
+"And I've been about crazy, looking for you," said Grandpa Horton,
+hurrying up to them.  "Are you all right, Sunny Boy?  Are you cold?
+Are you wet?  How did you get ashore?"
+
+The other grandfather laughed again as he shook hands with Grandpa
+Horton.
+
+"He's all right, though I suspect his feet are pretty wet," he said.
+"I would have bundled him off home, but I knew you would be terribly
+anxious and I couldn't pick you out of the crowd without his help.
+You'd better hurry, now.  I'm going to get out of this crowd as soon as
+I find my granddaughter."
+
+Grandpa Horton thanked the old gentleman for taking care of Sunny Boy
+and then they shook hands again and Sunny Boy and his grandpa hurried
+toward the Park gates.
+
+They walked as fast as they could all the way home, and sometimes they
+ran a little.  Grandma Horton, who had been taking a nap when they left
+for the Park, was downstairs in the living-room with Mrs. Horton,
+knitting, when she happened to look out of the window and see Grandpa
+and Sunny Boy coming.
+
+"Has anything happened to you?" she cried, opening the door as they
+dashed up the steps.  "Are either of you hurt?"
+
+Dear, dear, there was a great deal of excitement, you may be sure, when
+Sunny Boy and Grandpa told what had happened at the pond.  Harriet
+brought hot water bottles and dry shoes and stockings and hot lemonade
+and her best box of peppermint drops.  Grandma Horton insisted on
+wrapping Sunny Boy from chin to feet in a hot blanket and she made
+Grandpa take little white pills.  Mother Horton rubbed their hands and
+lighted the electric heater, although the room was very warm and
+comfortable, and put on all the wood in the fire-basket till the
+fireplace was ablaze with flames.
+
+And all this loving care and attention agreed with both Sunny Boy and
+Grandpa Horton, for neither one of them took the tiniest bit of cold
+and they were all right again the next day.  Sunny Boy said he knew it
+was the peppermint drops, and Harriet thought so, too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHO WAS THE BIG BOY?
+
+Although Sunny Boy and Grandpa were quite well the next morning, Daddy
+Horton said he thought they had better stay in the house till after
+lunch.
+
+"It is much colder to-day.  The thermometer dropped several degrees
+last night," Daddy explained.  "I think if you wait a few hours you'll
+find it pleasanter out."
+
+So Sunny Boy and Grandpa took this good advice and stayed in by the
+living-room fire.  They again told Grandma and Mother Horton about the
+ice cracking, and Harriet, who was cleaning the dining-room, could not
+get along very fast with her dusting because she was always coming to
+the door to listen.
+
+"That must have been Judge Layton, Father," said Mrs. Horton, when
+Grandpa described the old gentleman whom Sunny Boy insisted on calling
+"the other grandpa."
+
+"I believe I did hear some one in the crowd call him 'judge,'" answered
+Grandpa Horton.
+
+"He has a granddaughter, Adele, I know," said Mrs. Horton.  "And he is
+so proud of her he goes everywhere with her.  I hope he found her and
+that she was not hurt."
+
+"Oh, no one was hurt," replied Grandpa Horton.  "There was a great deal
+of shouting and screaming, but a pair of wet feet was the most any one
+suffered, I feel sure.  What is it, laddie?"
+
+Sunny Boy had been standing quietly beside his grandfather's chair,
+waiting for a chance to say something very important.
+
+"I wish, Grandpa--" he began excitedly, "I wish the big boy who pulled
+me off the ice had waited to see you.  He was afraid of the policeman,
+or maybe he might have stayed."
+
+"I wish I had seen him," said Grandpa Horton seriously.  "He must have
+had his wits about him to get you out of that crowd so easily.  That
+was what was worrying me all the time--I was afraid that a little chap
+like you would be knocked down by that struggling crowd."
+
+"I wish I could see the boy," said Mrs. Horton wistfully.  "I would
+like so much to thank him, and Daddy would, too.  Don't you even know
+his name, Sunny?"
+
+Sunny Boy shook his head.
+
+"I forgot to ask him," he admitted.
+
+"Well, never mind," said Grandpa cheerily.  He did not believe, he
+often said, in feeling sad over things you could not help.  "Perhaps we
+will see him again.  You would know him, wouldn't you, Sunny Boy, if
+you should see him on the street?"
+
+"Ye-s, I guess I would," answered Sunny Boy.  "His coat was ripped in
+the back and where it didn't button, and he wore a blue sweater with
+green buttons.  I would know the green buttons, Grandpa."
+
+Grandpa Horton laughed, but Mrs. Horton and Grandma looked grave.
+
+"I'd like to knit him a good sweater," said Grandma.  "Like as not the
+child needs warm things to wear."
+
+"Boys wear old clothes to skate in, of course," Mrs. Horton said.  "But
+last night when Sunny Boy told me how rough and red his hands were and
+that his skate straps were tied with string, I wondered if he wasn't a
+boy from the River Section.  He may need more than our thanks for
+taking care of Sunny Boy."
+
+"We'll go out and try to find him after lunch," promised Grandpa.
+"Shall we, Sunny Boy?"
+
+"Oh, yes, let's!" cried Sunny Boy joyfully.  "Let's go skating again,
+Grandpa."
+
+And after lunch they put on their mufflers and overcoats and caps and
+Sunny Boy hung his skates on his arm and they set out for Wilkins Park
+and the skating pond.
+
+But first Mother had to kiss Sunny Boy and Harriet had to kiss him and
+they all waved their hands to him till he and Grandpa turned the corner
+and could not be seen from the house any more.
+
+"We have to find the big boy, don't we?" said Sunny Boy, trying not to
+gasp as the wind blew down the avenue and almost took his breath away.
+
+"Yes, we must be on the look-out for him," Grandpa Horton replied.  "I
+have an idea he may be at the pond."
+
+But, though they looked carefully when they came to the skating pond,
+they could not find a boy who looked like the one Sunny remembered.
+The pond was crowded again with skaters and they were laughing and
+singing as though they had never heard of the ice cracking.
+
+Sunny Boy put on his skates, and this time he had better luck with his
+lesson.  Grandpa said he was doing finely.  And, indeed, he did not
+fall down more than twice, and one of those times, as he explained, was
+a mistake.  Another boy skated into him and "tipped him over," Sunny
+Boy said.  Just as Grandpa said it was time to stop, Sunny Boy looked
+up and saw his friend, the tall policeman, standing on the shore.
+
+"Hello!" called the policeman, as Sunny Boy and Grandpa Horton came
+close to the shore.  "Thought you'd try it again, did you?  Where were
+you yesterday during the big excitement?"
+
+Sunny Boy sat down on the bank to take off his skates and Grandpa
+Horton told the policeman what had happened to them.
+
+"Do you know, I thought about the little chap," said the policeman
+kindly.  "I knew you were with him; but I said, suppose the crowd tears
+'em apart from each other?  I know what a crowd can do when it loses
+its head, you see.  All the time I was telling girls they were not
+drowned, I kept one eye open for the little boy, but I didn't catch a
+glimpse of him.  You say an older lad pulled him ashore?"
+
+"Yes, and he ran away when I said I was going to try to find you," said
+Sunny Boy, standing up, now that the skates were off.  "He was just as
+nice, but he is afraid of policemen."
+
+"Then he is a silly boy, and you tell him I said so," answered the tall
+policeman promptly.  "Of course a bad boy might not want to see me; but
+this was a mighty good lad, to my way of thinking.  He has an old head
+on young shoulders, to get you out of such a mix-up without a scratch."
+
+But the policeman could not tell them who the big boy was, of course;
+and after they went home, and found that Mother and Grandma had a bowl
+of good, hot, buttered popcorn for them, Sunny Boy and Grandpa
+continued to talk about the lad in the poor, torn coat and to wish they
+could find him.  Daddy Horton, too, at dinner that night said he would
+rather find the boy than a ten dollar goldpiece.
+
+"I'm afraid he is a lad who needs some help," he said anxiously; "and
+we would be so glad to do anything for him.  I must see some of the men
+who work over in the River Section and try to get them to hunt him up."
+
+And Mr. Horton did interest several people in his search for the big
+boy, but when they reported, one by one, that they could find no boy
+who had carried a little boy ashore at the skating pond, he began to
+think that perhaps the boy did not live in the River Section, after
+all, but in some other part of the city.
+
+While Mr. Horton was trying to find the boy who had been so good to his
+little son, Sunny Boy was having great fun.  There was no school, of
+course, during the holidays, and, after two days of skating, there came
+a heavy fall of snow.  When Sunny Boy woke up and saw the roofs all
+white, his shout wakened Daddy and Mother.
+
+"It snowed!" shouted Sunny Boy, dancing up and down in his white
+flannel sleeping suit.  "Oh, Mother, it snowed!  I can use my new sled,
+Mother!"
+
+"Well, for pity's sake!" cried Daddy Horton, pretending to be very
+cross.  "What is all this fuss about?  All over a little snow?  Why, I
+don't think snow is half so nice as rain!"
+
+"Oh, Daddy!"  Sunny Boy climbed into bed with his father and put his
+arms around his neck.  "Daddy, boys with new sleds like it to snow.
+I'm going coasting right after breakfast."
+
+"Oh, you are, are you?" said Daddy, beginning to tickle Sunny Boy.
+"Maybe you'll have to study spelling or something like that, instead."
+And then Sunny Boy began to tickle his father and they rolled and
+tussled and threw pillows at each other till Mrs. Horton, who was
+brushing her hair, declared she had never seen such a looking bed!
+
+"No one can go coasting," she said firmly, "who doesn't get up this
+minute and start to get dressed!"
+
+And then Daddy Horton jumped out of bed on one side and Sunny Boy fell
+out on the other and Daddy chased him into his room and they had
+another pillow fight in there.  Sunny Boy laughed and squealed so much
+that Grandpa Horton came and tapped on his door and asked him what all
+the fun was about.
+
+Dear, dear, Sunny Boy was so excited that he could hardly get dressed
+and he was going downstairs without having brushed his hair.  But
+Mother called him back and brushed it neatly for him.  Before Sunny Boy
+could eat his oatmeal he had to go down into the laundry where his new
+sled was and bring it upstairs and put it in the front hall.  Santa
+Claus had brought him the sled for Christmas as well as the skates.
+
+"Do you want to go coasting, Grandpa?" asked Sunny Boy eagerly.
+
+"Well, no, I don't believe I do," Grandpa Horton replied.  "You see,
+your daddy asked me to go down to the office with him this morning, and
+I think I will.  Perhaps I'll come around and see you coast down once
+or twice, if not to-day, to-morrow.  Is there a good hill for coasting
+in this neighborhood?"
+
+"There is only one hill in the whole city," Mrs. Horton explained.  "I
+suppose all the children in Centronia will be there this morning.
+Don't you think Sunny Boy is too little to go alone, Daddy?"
+
+"Oliver Dunlap and Nelson Baker will go, Mother," said Sunny Boy
+anxiously.  "All the fellows are going, Daddy."
+
+Mr. Horton laughed and gave Harriet his cup for more coffee.
+
+"I think Sunny Boy will be all right," he said.  "I know that new sled
+will rust its runners if it isn't used pretty soon.  Sunny must not
+stay a minute later than you wish him to, and if the hill is too
+crowded, let him come home.  You can have fun with your sled in more
+ways than just using it for coasting, you know, Son."
+
+"Your grandmother and I are going over to Aunt Bessie's for lunch,
+dear," Mrs. Horton said to Sunny Boy, who had already finished his
+breakfast.  "Harriet will give you yours.  Don't stay out on the hill
+longer than half-past eleven.  Have you your sweater on, precious?"
+
+"Yes'm," nodded Sunny Boy.  "May I be excused, Mother?  That's Nelson
+whistling for me.  I won't forget.  Good-bye.  I have to hurry."  And
+he kissed his family in great haste and ran out into the hall for his
+overcoat and mittens and sled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ON COURT HILL
+
+"Hello!" called Nelson Baker, as Sunny Boy came out on his front steps,
+dragging his new sled with him.  "Did you know it snowed in the night?
+Can you go coasting?"
+
+"Yes.  And let's stop for Oliver," suggested Sunny Boy.  "Oh, Nelson,
+your mother is rapping on the window for you."
+
+"Gee, I bet Ruth wants to go coasting," said Nelson crossly.  "I never
+wanted to do anything in my life, Ruth didn't want to, too.  I think
+girls are just horrid!"
+
+"Nelson!" called Mrs. Baker, raising the window, "wait just a minute,
+dear; Ruth wants to go coasting, too.  She will be right out."
+
+"I told you so!" groaned Nelson.  "Now I can't have a hit of fun.  Ruth
+will cry because the sled goes too fast and she'll cry because her feet
+are cold and she'll cry because she gets tired walking up the hill.
+And then she will want to come home just when I am having a good time
+and I'll have to bring her.  I wish Mother would make her stay in the
+house."
+
+Before Sunny Boy could answer him, Ruth came out.  She was a pretty
+little girl, about four years old, and she wore a fur hat and a dark
+red coat with a fur collar.  Her muff was tied to a string which went
+around her neck.  She had her own sled, a little one.
+
+"Hello, Sunny Boy," she said, smiling.  "Santa Claus brought me a sled,
+too."
+
+"What do you want to go coasting for?" asked Nelson, not waiting for
+Sunny Boy to answer.  "Your feet will get cold."
+
+"They won't, either!" cried Ruth.  "Anyway, I'm going with you--Mother
+said I could.  So there!" and she stamped her foot in its shiny new
+rubber.
+
+"All right, come on then," said Nelson crossly.  "What are you waiting
+so long for?  Sunny Boy and I could have a lot more fun if you stayed
+at home."
+
+Sunny Boy was so afraid Ruth was going to cry at this unkind speech
+that he tried to think of something to say that would make her forget
+it.
+
+"You sit on your sled and Nelson and I will pull you," he told Ruth.
+"You can hold my sled for me."
+
+This pleased Ruth very much, and she sat down on her sled and tucked
+her coat around her and stuck her fat, short little legs, in their gray
+leggings, straight out in front of her.
+
+"Take my sled, too," said Nelson, forgetting to be cross.  "Don't fall
+off, because we are going to go fast."
+
+"Let's play we are fire horses, going to a fire," suggested gunny Boy.
+They had some automobile fire apparatus in Centronia, but the engines
+were still pulled by horses.  "Can you pull two sleds, Ruth?"
+
+"Oh, my, yes," replied dear little Ruth.
+
+If the boys had asked her to pull six sleds she would have tried her
+best to do it.  It did seem too bad that when she wanted to go with
+them and tried so hard to please them, that they so often wished her to
+stay in the house and play by herself.  That is, Nelson did.
+
+"Hang on," said Nelson now, and away went the two fire horses, pulling
+the fire engine.
+
+Ruth nearly fell off when they started, for they jerked the sled, but
+she managed to hold on.  The two sleds bumped wildly behind her, but
+she held the ropes tightly and never cried out even when the boys
+pulled her over a curb-stone and her sled tipped far to one side.
+
+"Toot!  Toot!" cried Sunny Boy, trying to whistle, and not doing it
+very well because it is difficult to run and pull a sled and whistle,
+all at the same time.
+
+"Nelson!" called Ruth, as they bumped her down another curbstone.  "Oh,
+Nelson!  Say, Sunny Boy, wait a minute!"
+
+"We can't stop!  We have to get to the fire!" cried Nelson, panting.
+"When we get to the fire we'll stop."
+
+"But wait a minute!" begged Ruth, "I want to tell you something."
+
+The two little boys pretended to kick up their heels and snort as they
+had seen the fire horses do, and they would not stop.  They galloped
+and pranced and tried to run faster.  At last they had to stop to get
+their breath.  Their cheeks were red and they were as warm as toast.
+
+"Why--why--" stammered Sunny Boy, looking back at Ruth who sat on her
+sled with her hands in her little fur muff.  "Why, where are our sleds?"
+
+"I dropped the ropes 'way back on Greene Street," replied Ruth calmly.
+"I asked you to stop and you wouldn't."
+
+"Well, you might have said you lost the sleds," said Nelson.  "Then we
+would have stopped.  Gee, I hope nobody took 'em!  We'll have to go
+back."
+
+Ruth got off her sled and walked back with the two boys.  They found
+the sleds on the sidewalk, exactly where a sudden jerk of the sled she
+was on had made Ruth drop the ropes.  Even Nelson could not scold his
+sister when the sleds were so easily found, and as they went back
+toward the hill he and Ruth and Sunny Boy took turns riding.
+
+As Mrs. Horton had said, every boy and girl in Centronia was at Court
+Hill, the one good spot for coasting in the city.  At least it seemed
+that every boy and girl had had a sled for a Christmas gift, or had one
+left from the year before, or had borrowed one from some one who had
+two, and all had trotted through the snow to enjoy the fun.  Since
+there was no school, there were high school and grammar and primary
+grade children, as well as the little folks who went to kindergarten or
+to Miss May's school, the small, private school where Sunny Boy went.
+Nelson Baker went to public school where Sunny would go when he was a
+little older, Daddy Horton said.
+
+"There's Perry Phelps and Jimmie Butterworth," cried Sunny Boy, as he
+caught sight of two of his schoolmates.  "Look at the crowd!  Oh,
+Nelson, see this sled coming down!"
+
+A large sled shot by the children, filled with a crowd of high school
+boys and girls.
+
+"I don't believe I want to coast," said Ruth.  "I'm not exactly afraid,
+but I don't like it.  Let's stay down here and watch them, Nelson."
+
+"You can stay," Nelson answered.  "But I want to coast.  Sit down on
+your sled by this stone and you can watch me coast."
+
+But this didn't please Ruth.  She didn't want to be left alone with
+only her sled for company.  She wanted the boys to stay with her.
+
+"You'll like it when you are used to it," urged Sunny Boy.  "Come on,
+Ruth, there are ever so many girls coasting.  You can steer as well as
+that girl in the green coat."
+
+He pointed to a little freckle-faced girl who came down the hill on a
+shabby old sled and steered it neatly out of the way of every sled she
+met.
+
+"No, I couldn't do that," said Ruth.  "But I'll coast with you, Sunny.
+I can hang on to you."
+
+Sunny Boy had meant to coast down the hill a few times by himself, for
+he had not had a sled last year and he was not sure he knew how to
+steer.  But, of course, if Ruth had made up her mind to coast with him
+on his sled, Sunny Boy felt that there was nothing to do but take her.
+
+"I'll go first!  Watch me!" cried Nelson, scrambling up the hill ahead
+of them.  He plumped himself on his sled, pushed with one foot, and
+away he flew down the hill.
+
+"That looks just as easy," said Sunny Boy to himself.
+
+He had to wait a minute to find a place for his sled in the row of
+coasters lined up at the top of the hill.  Then he sat down and took
+the rope and Ruth sat down behind him and grasped the belt of his coat.
+
+"Here, I'll start you," offered a boy, who came up behind them.
+
+"Wait a--" began Sunny Boy.  He meant to say, "Wait a minute," but the
+boy gave him a tremendous push and the sled slid over the hill and
+began to go down.
+
+"Ow!" shrieked Ruth, closing her eyes and opening her mouth very wide.
+"Ow!  Stop Sunny Boy!  Ow!  Ow!"
+
+Sunny Boy couldn't stop.  But he was steering nicely and they would
+probably have had a fine coast if Ruth had not grown more frightened
+and thrown her arms around his neck.  Her elbow knocked Sunny Boy's cap
+over his eye and he felt himself being pulled over backward.  The sled
+went zigzagging down the hill for a moment, then a big sled tore past
+it and knocked it to one side.  Ruth fell off and dragged Sunny Boy
+with her and the sled went on down the hill alone.
+
+Nelson had seen the spill at the bottom of the hill and he came running
+up to them.
+
+"Are you hurt, Ruth?" he asked his sister.  "Did another sled hit you?
+There's Jimmie Butterworth with your sled, Sunny Boy."
+
+Ruth was not hurt, and neither was Sunny Boy.  And tumbling off a sled
+when you are coasting is rather fun if you do not get frightened.
+Unfortunately, Ruth was frightened and she began to cry and say she
+wanted to go home.
+
+"I knew you'd want to go home," scolded Nelson.  "You can't go.  I
+haven't had but one coast.  Come on, and ride down on my sled."
+
+"I don't want to ride on your sled," sobbed Ruth.  "I want to go home;
+my feet are cold."
+
+"Well, you'll have to wait till I have some fun," said Nelson.  "What
+did you do with your sled?"
+
+"I don't know," wailed Ruth.  "My feet are cold."
+
+"Step on them and they won't be," said Sunny Boy kindly.  He meant that
+Ruth should walk or run a little and then her feet would be warmer.
+
+"I don't want to step on them!" Ruth cried.  She was very unhappy
+indeed.  "I want my sled.  I want to go home.  My feet are cold."
+
+"I'll find your sled," Sunny Boy promised, and he went up to the top of
+the hill.  After a little tramping around in the snow he found Ruth's
+sled where she had left it.  No one had touched it.
+
+Sunny Boy came running back to Nelson and Ruth, dragging the sled, and
+just as he came up to them he heard Ruth say: "I'll go home by myself,
+then."
+
+"You can't!" scolded Nelson.  "Mother said you musn't cross streets
+without me.  And I'm not going home as soon as I get here.  I want to
+coast.  You'll have to wait till I've had some fun."
+
+Ruth was crying now and her little nose was red from the cold.  She
+looked so forlorn and uncomfortable that Sunny Boy's kind heart felt
+sorry for her.  He was anxious to coast and he hated to go home before
+he had had any good times with his new sled, but he did not want Ruth
+to cry.
+
+"I'll go home with you," he said.  "You sit on the sled and I'll pull
+you."'
+
+"Gee, will you take her home?" asked Nelson, in surprise.  "That's
+great!  And then you can come back and we'll have packs of fun."
+
+"All right," said Sunny Boy, though he was quite sure he couldn't come
+back.  It would be half-past eleven, he knew, before he could get home
+and leave Ruth and come back to Court Hill; and Mother had said he must
+stop coasting at half-past eleven.  So, you see, he was really very
+kind and good to take Ruth home and give up his own coasting fun to
+make her happier.
+
+Ruth sat down on her sled and held fast to Sunny Boy's sled, and he
+pulled her all the way home, though she was a fat little girl and
+pretty heavy for one boy to pull.  And as soon as they were home again
+and Ruth and her sled had gone into her house, Sunny Boy trotted around
+to the kitchen door of his house to ask Harriet what time it was.
+
+"Half-past eleven, just," answered Harriet.  "Did you have a good time?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SNOW MAN
+
+Poor Sunny Boy!  When Harriet said it was half-past eleven he felt like
+crying himself, though of course a boy six years old doesn't cry about
+anything if he can help it.
+
+"Did you have a good time coasting?" asked Harriet again.  She was
+getting lunch ready and Sunny Boy was sure he smelled chicken soup.
+
+"I didn't have any time," he explained sadly.  "I tipped Ruth off the
+sled and then she wanted to come home and I had to come with her,
+'cause her mother won't let her cross streets all alone."
+
+"And I suppose Nelson wanted to stay and enjoy himself," said Harriet.
+"Well, never mind, Sunny Boy, next time you shall coast all morning, if
+I have to go along to see that no one bothers you."
+
+"Could I go this afternoon, Harriet?" asked Sunny Boy.  "Mother didn't
+say not to; she just said to come home at half-past eleven."
+
+"Yes, I know she did," answered Harriet, putting salt in her soup and
+then tasting it to be sure it was right.  "But I don't think she wants
+you to play on Court Hill in the afternoon when there will be a larger
+crowd.  I tell you what you do this afternoon, Sunny Boy: Build the
+biggest snow man you can in the yard and then you'll surprise your
+mother and grandmother when they come home from your Aunt Bessie's."
+
+"I could s'prise 'em, couldn't I?" replied Sunny Boy, chuckling in
+delight.  "And Daddy and Grandpa, too!  Do you think I could make a
+very big snow man, Harriet?"
+
+"I don't see why not," said Harriet.  "You have a yard full of snow to
+make him out of."
+
+Sunny Boy was hungry, but he was so eager to begin to build his snow
+man that he would have hurried through his lunch and skipped the bread
+and butter entirely if Harriet had not said that he could not go out to
+play at all unless he ate the things she gave him.
+
+"Now I'm through," he declared when he had eaten even the crusts and
+his glass of milk was quite empty.  "Now may I build the snow man,
+Harriet?"
+
+"Yes indeed you may," said Harriet.  "And here is the old broom I
+promised you, and the felt hat.  Do you know how to build a snow man,
+Sunny Boy?"
+
+Sunny Boy was sure he did, and he went out into the yard, where the
+snow was piled white and smooth and not even a path had been shoveled,
+and began to roll a snowball to make the snow man.
+
+"Hello, Sunny Boy, coming coasting?" called Oliver Dunlap.
+
+He had rung the bell and Harriet had told him Sunny Boy was in the back
+yard.  So Oliver had walked through the house, scattering snow at every
+step, and out through the kitchen to the back porch where he found
+Sunny Boy beginning his snow man.
+
+"Aren't you going coasting?" called Oliver again.  "Come on, Sunny Boy.
+Nelson and Ruth have gone to dancing school and we can have heaps of
+fun."
+
+"I have to build a snow man," replied Sunny Boy.  "I want to surprise
+my grandpa.  Do you want to help build him, Oliver?"
+
+"Why, I don't mind," said Oliver.  "Wait till I bring my sled in.  I
+left it out on your front steps."
+
+He ran through the house, and when he came back in a few moments there
+were four other boys with him.  They brought in a good deal of snow,
+but Harriet did not mind; she said she would rather sweep up snow than
+mud, any time.
+
+"Here's Jimmie Butterworth, Sunny Boy," cried Oliver, as the five lads
+tumbled down the steps, "and Perry and Leslie and Harry.  We'll all
+help you build a snow man."
+
+Sunny Boy was glad to see his friends, and the snow man grew very fast
+with six boys to work on him.  First they rolled the biggest snowball
+you ever saw.  It took pretty nearly all the snow in Sunny Boy's yard,
+and he and the other boys had to go into Nelson Baker's yard and get
+more snow to make a head for the snow man.
+
+The great big snowball made the body of the snow man and a smaller ball
+was his head.  They made him arms, too, and stuck a broomstick through
+one so that he looked, a little way off, as though he were carrying a
+gun.
+
+"He ought to have some face," said Sunny Boy, when they had this much
+done.
+
+"Get some coal," suggested Oliver.  "You can make eyes and a nose and a
+mouth with pieces of coal."
+
+Sunny Boy went into the house and asked Harriet if he could, have some
+coal to make a face for his snow man.
+
+"Take some coal for his eyes," said Harriet.  "And here is a strip of
+apple skin which will make him a handsome mouth.  And perhaps the boys
+would like an apple to eat.  I'll put half a dozen in a basket for you."
+
+Sunny Boy took several pieces of coal from the scuttle standing near
+the kitchen range and a piece of apple skin Harriet gave him and the
+basket of apples.  The boys ate the apples right away and let the snow
+man wait for his eyes and mouth.
+
+"You put in his eyes, Sunny Boy," said Oliver, when his apple was eaten
+and even the core had disappeared.  "You put in his eyes and I'll fix
+his mouth."
+
+"Let me put on his hat," begged Harry Winn, when eyes and mouth were in
+place.  "Get out the way, fellows, and let me put on his hat."
+
+They all wanted to put the snow man's hat on for him, all except Sunny
+Boy.  He had several broken bits of coal left over and he wanted to put
+those down the front of the snow man so that they would look like
+buttons on his coat.
+
+"I'm going to put the hat on," said Harry.
+
+"I'll fix the buttons now," Sunny Boy said happily.
+
+Harry snatched the old felt hat Harriet had given to the snow man from
+Oliver, who held it.  Oliver made a dash for Harry and the other boys
+tried to trip him.  Around and around the yard they went, laughing and
+shouting, while Sunny Boy calmly stuck pieces of coal down the white
+front of the snow man and pretended they were buttons on his coat.
+
+[Illustration: Sunny Boy calmly stuck pieces of coal down the white
+front of the snow man.]
+
+"I said I'd do it!" shouted Harry, jumping for the snow man and landing
+half way up his back.
+
+He meant to clap the hat on the snow man's head and jump back.  But,
+before he could do this, the other four boys tumbled on top of him and
+the snow man.  Over went the whole statue, and the two huge balls of
+snow fell squarely on Sunny Boy, just as Daddy and Grandpa Horton, who
+had come home from the office early, stepped out on the back porch.
+
+Sunny Boy was too surprised to be frightened, and before he had time to
+wonder what had struck him, Daddy had him out and was brushing the snow
+out of his ears and eyes.
+
+"Are you hurt, Sunny Boy?" asked Harry.  "I didn't mean to knock the
+snow man over, honestly I didn't."
+
+"There's snow down my neck," said Sunny Boy, wriggling.  "But nothing
+hurt me.  Only the snow man is all gone."
+
+There he lay, that beautiful snow man, in two pieces, several pieces in
+fact, for the balls had broken apart when they fell.
+
+"Never mind," said Daddy Horton cheerfully.  "You can easily build
+another snow man.  And the boys will help you, perhaps tomorrow."
+
+"To-morrow is New Year's," announced Oliver Dunlap.  "I have to go to
+see my grandma.  But I can help build a snow man the day after that."
+
+The other boys promised to help build another snow man whenever Sunny
+Boy asked them to, and then, as they were going into the house, Mrs.
+Baker called to Daddy Horton.
+
+"Wait a minute, Mr. Horton," she said, hurrying out with a scarf tied
+over her pretty hair.  "My nephew just telephoned to know if he could
+take Nelson and Ruth bobsledding on the hill before dinner.  They are
+at dancing school this afternoon; but I wonder if you wouldn't let
+Sunny Boy go.  He hasn't had any fun at all to-day.  This morning he
+came home with Ruth because she was cold and cried, and then this
+afternoon the snow man fell on him.  My nephew is very careful, and he
+would be glad to take all these boys.  May I tell him they will meet
+him at the Hill?  He is on the 'phone now."
+
+"Oh, Daddy, let me go!" cried Sunny Boy.  "I never went on a bobsled.
+Please, Daddy."
+
+Mr. Horton knew Blake Garrison, Mrs. Baker's nephew, and he knew he was
+careful and very fond of younger children.  Blake was a senior in high
+school and had a splendid sled.  It was just like him to think of his
+little cousins and to want to give them pleasure.  So Sunny Boy was
+allowed to go, and the other boys went with him.  They had all started
+to go coasting anyway, they explained to Mr. Horton, when they passed
+Sunny Boy's house and Oliver told them about the snow man.  Their
+mothers would not worry, they said, if they came home by five o'clock.
+
+"Hello, everybody!" said Blake Garrison, when the six small boys found
+him at the top of Court Hill.  Most of them knew him by sight and he,
+it seemed, knew all their names.  "I'm glad you didn't all go to
+dancing school.  Do you feel like a little coast?"
+
+"Let me steer, Blake?" asked Harry Winn.
+
+Blake and another boy, Fred Carr, who was with him, laughed.
+
+"I'll do the steering, Harry," said Blake firmly.  "You other
+youngsters pile on where you please, but I'll keep Sunny Boy near me.
+If he fell off we might lose him entirely, he's so little."
+
+Sunny Boy smiled, but he did not say anything.  He was having a
+beautiful time.  The six small boys got on the sled, and Blake and
+three other high school friends of his got on, too.  The big bob
+started.  Sunny Boy closed his eyes.  My, how the wind whistled!  How
+the snow flew up and stung their faces!  And how soon they came to the
+bottom of the hill and shot across the little bridge that was at the
+foot.
+
+"Do it again," said Sunny Boy to Blake.
+
+They did it again, half a dozen times in fact, before Blake and Fred
+said that it was quarter to five and time to stop.  Then they put the
+small boys on the sled and gave them a ride home.  Blake said no one
+need say "thank you" to him, because he had had more fun than anybody!
+
+That evening, as Sunny Boy sat in Grandma Horton's lap after dinner and
+watched the fire burn merrily in the grate, he remembered that Oliver
+had said the next day would be New Year's Day.
+
+"What do we do on New Year, Grandma?" Sunny Boy asked curiously.
+
+"Oh, people come to see us," replied Grandma Horton, giving him a kiss.
+"And you may pass them the New Year's cakes that Harriet has baked for
+us.  You will like that, won't you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PARKNEY FAMILY
+
+"Happy new year, precious!" said Mother, coming into Sunny Boy's room
+to put down his window the next morning.
+
+"Happy New Year, Sunny Boy!" cried Grandpa and Grandma Horton, when
+they met him in the hall on the way to breakfast.
+
+"Happy New Year, Son!" said Daddy Horton, catching him in his arms and
+lifting him as high as the Christmas tree which still stood in one
+corner of the parlor.
+
+"Happy New Year, Sunny Boy!" cried Harriet, waving a dish towel at him
+when he peeped into her kitchen.
+
+"I think New Year is nice," said Sunny Boy, when Mother said he might
+have two waffles for his breakfast because of the holiday.  Usually
+Mother said that hot cakes were not good for little boys.
+
+After breakfast Sunny Boy brought down his lead soldiers from the
+playroom and played with them on the rug before the fire place.  This
+was the last day the Christmas tree would be left standing, Mother
+Horton said, so he liked to stay near it.
+
+"When will it be time to pass the New Year cakes?" he asked Harriet,
+when she came in to bring more wood for the fire.
+
+"This afternoon," she answered.  "When the callers come."
+
+Sunny Boy's Aunt Bessie came to dinner, which was at one o'clock as on
+Sunday, and Sunny Boy was very glad to see her.  She brought him a
+little set of bells and showed him how he could play a tune on them by
+striking them with a wooden mallet.  Sunny Boy could play "Annie
+Laurie" before the afternoon was over.
+
+After dinner came visitors.  They were all grown up people, and Mrs.
+Horton and Aunt Bessie gave them tea to drink and sandwiches from the
+tea wagon and Sunny Boy, in his best white flannel sailor suit, passed
+them the plates of New Year cakes which Harriet had baked.  They were
+delicious little cakes with caraway seeds and pink sugar on them, and
+Sunny Boy had three for himself.
+
+It was nearly six o'clock before the "company" as Sunny Boy called
+them, had gone.  Then, to his surprise, his daddy came into the parlor
+with his overcoat on and his hat in his hand.
+
+"Olive," he said to Sunny Boy's mother, "I'm going over to Dover street
+in the River Section for a short call.  Father is going with me.  We
+heard this afternoon of a family who are pretty hard up."
+
+"Is there anything I can send them?" asked Mrs. Horton.  "Harriet will
+heat up some soup and you can carry it in the vacuum bottle."
+
+"Let me go with you, Daddy?" begged Sunny Boy.  "I can carry some New
+Year cakes."
+
+"We are not going to take anything till we find out what is needed,"
+answered Mr. Horton.  "From what I've heard, I'm afraid that this
+family was overlooked at Christmas.  The husband is out work and there
+are several children."
+
+"Who are the children?" asked Sunny Boy, when his daddy and grandfather
+had gone.  "What are their names, Mother?  Are there any little boys?"
+
+"I don't know, precious," replied Mrs. Horton, "but I think likely.
+Suppose you and I and Grandma go upstairs and look through the Square
+Box and see if we have some clothes to send them.  I am pretty sure
+Daddy will come back and tell us that they need warm clothes."
+
+Sunny Boy knew all about the Square Box.  It stood in the hall closet
+next to the bathroom, and in it Mrs. Horton put all his clothes that
+were too small for him to wear and all the clothes her friends gave
+her, and her own clothes and those of Mr. Horton's that they could no
+longer wear.  Everything was cleaned and mended before it was put in
+the box, and then, when she heard of some family who did not have
+enough clothes to wear in winter, or who needed something clean and
+cool in summer, Mrs. Horton could go to the Square Box and find just
+what was wanted.
+
+"I hope you didn't give away everything for Christmas," said Grandma
+Horton anxiously.
+
+Sunny Boy hoped so, too.  He knew that his mother had sent several
+bundles of clothes away at Christmas time and the minister had
+telephoned her twice for clothes for his poor people.  But Mother
+Horton said there were still some clothes left in the Square Box.
+
+"Here is a good coat for a little girl and three sets of underwear for
+a man," she said, when they had opened the box.  "And this is a warm
+dress for the mother, if she needs one.  And if Daddy comes home and
+tells us he needs other things for the family, we'll get them for him."
+
+"Are there any little boys?" shouted Sunny Boy, as soon as his daddy
+opened the front door.
+
+Daddy and Grandpa Horton were covered with snow, for it had begun to
+snow again.  They were cold and hungry, too, and Mrs. Horton said that
+Harriet should put the hot supper on the table and they could talk
+while they ate.
+
+"I'd like to have that family up at Brookside just a month," declared
+Grandpa Horton, stirring his tea.  "I tell you, Olive, we don't have
+such cases in the country.  There's a man and wife and seven children,
+living in two rooms."
+
+"Did they have any Christmas?" asked Grandma Horton.
+
+"Not a sign," said Grandpa Horton.  "The man has been out of work for
+two months and he won't go near the charity bureau.  He has an injured
+arm and he ought to be under a doctor's treatment.  There's a boy sick
+in bed, too, with a heavy cold, and the mother is about ready to give
+up.  But they won't take charity--say they'll starve first."
+
+"We built them a fire," Mr. Horton explained.  "And I went out and
+bought them food for a good supper--told the man he could pay me when
+he got work.  I think I can make him see a doctor to-morrow.  And I
+must find a job for him."
+
+"I have some clothes in the Square Box," said Mrs. Horton.  "I can get
+more, if you will persuade them to accept such things.  I don't think
+they ought to refuse because of the children.  If Sunny Boy had no warm
+coat to wear I think I'd take one from any one who would give it to me."
+
+"I could take the sick boy a New Year cake," declared Sunny Boy, who
+had been listening.  "Is he as big as I am, Daddy?"
+
+"I should say he was about fourteen years old," replied Mr. Horton.  "I
+don't know but I will take you to-morrow morning, Sunny.  You'll see
+some children who didn't get even a candy cane from Santa Claus."
+
+Sunny Boy glanced across the hall.  From where he sat at the table he
+could see his Christmas tree.
+
+"I'll take them my candy canes," he said.  "Mother is going to take the
+tree down tomorrow.  I ate only two canes, Daddy, so there are enough
+left."
+
+"All right," answered his daddy.  "You may take the children anything
+you wish.  That family can use anything, and we won't let them refuse
+our help.  They'll be on their feet again the faster if they accept aid
+before they are all discouraged."
+
+The next morning Sunny Boy and his grandpa had to go alone to see the
+poor family.  From Daddy Horton's office came a telephone message that
+he must come and see a man on very important business before nine
+o'clock, and he had only time to eat his breakfast and run for a car.
+But Grandpa Horton promised him that he would see to the Parkneys.
+That was their name--Mr. and Mrs. Parkney and Bob, Joe, Elsie, Alice,
+Kitty, Ned, and Charlie Parkney.  Grandpa Horton had the names written
+down on a slip of paper.
+
+"Are you sure the sick boy hasn't anything he can pass on to Sunny
+Boy?" asked Mrs. Horton, a little bit worried as she tied up a bundle
+for them to carry.  "You are sure it is only a cold?"
+
+"Sure," said Grandpa Horton.  "Positive.  The poor lad is as hoarse as
+a crow.  Got the New Year cakes and the candy canes, Sunny Boy?  Then I
+think we are ready to start."
+
+Sunny Boy had found seven candy canes on his Christmas tree and he had
+wrapped each one separately.  There would be a cane for each Parkney
+child.  Harriet had helped him make seven little packages of cakes.
+And, with Daddy's help, the night before he had picked out a toy for
+each child.  He could not go to sleep until he had chosen the toys.
+Though, of course, he did not have anything especially for girls, he
+thought they would like the games and the jack-in-the box, and Mother
+Horton said she knew they would.
+
+It was lucky that Sunny Boy and Grandpa Horton liked to walk, for the
+Parkneys did not live near a car line.  There was only one trolley line
+that went through the River Section, anyway, and they lived many blocks
+from that.  Grandpa Horton carried a large bundle in one hand and a
+basket Harriet had packed in the other.  Sunny Boy had his toys and
+candy and cakes.
+
+"Here is the house," said Grandpa Horton, stopping suddenly before a
+house that looked so old and dirty and shabby you would not think
+people could live in it.  The shutters were missing from most of the
+windows and the door stood wide open.
+
+"Now stay close to me," said Grandpa Horton.  "It is dark in the halls,
+and I don't want to lose you."
+
+It was dark in the halls and dark on the stairs.  They passed many
+doors and they heard people talking, but they saw no one.  Sunny Boy
+followed Grandpa till they had climbed three flights of stairs and were
+on the fourth floor of the house.  Then Grandpa Horton knocked on a
+door.
+
+"Come in," called a man's voice.
+
+Sunny Boy clung to Grandpa Horton's coat and stared around him.  They
+had stepped into a room that did not look like any room he had ever
+seen before.  There were no chairs at all and only one table.  A stove
+in one corner had a good fire in it, and a man, with one arm in a
+sling, sat near it, on a soap box.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Parkney?" said Grandpa Horton cheerfully.  "This is
+my little grandson, Sunny Boy.  He wanted to see your children and wish
+them a Happy New Year."
+
+The man smiled at Sunny Boy and Mrs. Parkney came out of the other room
+when she heard the voices.
+
+"I believe I'm better," Mr. Parkney declared.  "And I've decided to go
+to the doctor as you said, Mr. Horton.  Perhaps if I get this arm well
+and get a job, I can pay back all you've done for me."
+
+"Why, certainly you can," said Grandpa Horton.  "Or you can give some
+one else a lift, which will be better.  Now I want to talk to you and
+Mrs. Parkney a few minutes.  But where are the children?  Sunny Boy has
+something for them."
+
+"They've all gone out, except Bob, of course," replied Mrs. Parkney.
+
+"Well, then, Sunny Boy, suppose you go in and wish Bob a Happy New
+Year," suggested Grandpa Horton.  "Take him his candy and cakes and the
+baseball game you brought him."
+
+"You come, too," whispered Sunny Boy.
+
+"You're not bashful, are you?" laughed Grandpa Horton.  "Well, I'll go
+with you and introduce you to Bob, then I'll have a talk with you, Mr.
+Parkney."
+
+Bob Parkney was lying on a mattress propped up between two chairs, not
+a very comfortable bed for a sick boy.  But Sunny Boy did not notice
+the bed.  He stared at Bob and Bob stared at him.
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake!" cried Bob Parkney.  "Where did you come
+from?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE OTHER GRANDPA
+
+"Why, Sunny Boy!" said Grandpa Horton, much surprised, "do you know
+Bob?"
+
+"He's the boy--" Sunny Boy began in such a hurry that he choked.  "Oh,
+Grandpa, he's the boy that pulled me off the ice!" he finished in one
+breath.
+
+"Well, I never!" said Grandpa Horton, in astonishment.  "I never
+thought of that, and Bob didn't mention ice to me.  Is that what gave
+you this fine cold, young man?"
+
+Grandpa Horton tried to frown at Bob, but he only succeeded in smiling.
+And Bob smiled back.
+
+"I did catch a little cold," the boy admitted.  "You see, my feet were
+sort of wet.  But it's most gone now."
+
+"I hope it is.  But you're hoarse yet," said Grandpa Horton.  "So
+you're the lad who kept his head and brought my Sunny Boy safely
+ashore.  There are a number of folks at our house, Bob, who would like
+to tell you what they think of you.  We looked everywhere for you the
+next day and for several days afterward."
+
+"Don't let anybody come!" croaked Bob in his poor, hoarse voice.
+"Please, don't let 'em come, sir.  It was nothing to do.  I only kept
+the lunatics from walking on the little chap.  I hate people making a
+fuss."
+
+"There, there, no one shall make a fuss," Grandpa Horton promised him.
+"Don't tire your throat with talking.  I want to have a word with your
+mother and father, Bob, so I'll leave Sunny Boy to entertain you.  He
+can do enough talking for two boys when he gets started."
+
+Grandpa Horton went into the other room, and left Sunny Boy and Bob
+alone.  There was no chair for Sunny Boy to sit on, so he stood beside
+Bob and talked to him.  He told him about the "other grandpa" and the
+funny mistake the short man who wore glasses had made.  And he told Bob
+what the tall policeman had said about good boys not being afraid of
+the police.
+
+"And he said you were good to pull me off the ice," added Sunny Boy.
+
+"Shucks, that wasn't anything to do," said Bob.  "I wasn't afraid of
+seeing a policeman, either.  But they always tell you to get a move on
+or to go on where you're going, or something like that.  I just don't
+have any use for a policeman."
+
+"You'll get your throat tired," said wise little Sunny Boy, who saw
+that Bob was excited over the mention of the policeman.  He sat up in
+bed and his cheeks were very red.  "I'll show you how to play the
+baseball game.  You don't have to talk to play that."
+
+They were having such a good time playing the baseball game that
+neither one of them heard Grandpa Horton come into the room.  He said
+it was time for him and Sunny Boy to go home, but Bob was so eager to
+finish an inning that Grandpa Horton said he would wait a few minutes.
+Bob won, and this seemed to please him very much.
+
+"I've going to leave word at Doctor Stacy's as we go past his office,"
+said Grandpa Horton, buttoning Sunny Boy into his coat.  "He will drop
+in to-day to see your father and look you over, Bob.  We won't try to
+pay you for what you did for Sunny Boy, but you must understand that
+you have made at least four good friends for life--Sunny Boy's father
+and mother and his grandma and grandpa--and we claim the right of
+friends to look after you.  Your father has taken the sensible view,
+and we've arranged matters so that you will all be more comfortable
+till your father's arm heals.  Then, when he has a job and you're rid
+of that cold, you must go back to school.  Sunny Boy's father may have
+a place in his office this summer for a boy who goes to school
+regularly through the winter."
+
+Bob positively grinned with delight as Grandpa Horton and Sunny Boy
+shook hands with him and said good-bye.  He looked so happy that Sunny
+Boy asked his grandfather, when they were out in the street, if Bob
+wanted to go to school.
+
+"I don't know about that," replied Grandpa Horton, "though I think he
+does.  But Bob's mother told me he is wild to get in an office.  He
+wants to learn to use the typewriter.  The poor lad has been staying
+out of school trying to earn a little money since his father hurt his
+arm.  That is why he is afraid of policemen, Sunny Boy.  He is really
+playing hookey, though not for his own pleasure.  Still, we must see
+that he stays in school and has a fair chance."
+
+Though Sunny Boy was in a great hurry to get home and tell his mother
+and his grandma and Harriet about Bob, he was willing to wait while
+Grandpa Horton stopped at the doctor's office and left word with the
+nurse there to have the doctor stop at 674 White Street.  That was the
+house in which the Parkney family lived.
+
+What a lot Sunny Boy and Grandpa Horton had to tell when they reached
+home!
+
+"I never heard anything so lucky in my life," declared Harriet, who
+always was counted one of the family.  "Mrs. Horton, don't you think I
+ought to make some chicken soup for that boy?  If he has a cold he is
+probably all run down and needs nourishing things to eat."
+
+"I wonder if I would have time to knit him a sweater before we go home
+Friday," said Grandma Horton.  "I could start it anyway, couldn't I,
+Olive?  I would love to knit a pure wool sweater for Bob."
+
+"I must see that he has good clothes to wear to school," said Mrs.
+Horton.
+
+Grandpa Horton listened and laughed a little.  He was sitting before
+the fire, and he held Sunny Boy on his knee.
+
+"What would you like to do for Bob, laddie?" he asked his grandson.
+"If you can think of something I'll give you the money to buy it and
+you and I will go downtown and shop to-morrow."
+
+"I'd like to give him skates on shoes, like the ones Blake Garrison
+has," said Sunny Boy promptly.  "Bob's skates were old, rusty ones, and
+he had 'em tied on with string, Grandpa.  Would skates on shoes cost
+too much?"
+
+"They certainly would not!" said Grandpa Horton.  "To-morrow morning
+we'll go down to the best store selling sporting goods in Centronia and
+buy the best pair of skates we can find."
+
+When Mr. Horton came home that night he had to hear all about Bob, of
+course.  And he was as surprised and pleased as the others had been,
+and at once began to plan to do something for the boy who had been so
+kind to his own boy.
+
+"He must go back to school as soon as he is well, and from what Dr.
+Stacey tells me that will be by the time the vacation is over," Daddy
+Horton said.  "I stopped in at the doctor's office on my way home
+to-night.  We'll persuade Bob to go back to school on the promise that
+he shall come into my office for the summer vacation and be taught
+shorthand and typing.  Doctor Stacey says Mr. Parkney has overworked
+himself and must go slow for a year.  I am trying to find him a job
+where he won't have heavy work to do."
+
+The next day Mother and Grandma Horton went to call on Mrs. Parkney,
+and they carried some of Harriet's famous chicken soup with them.
+
+"Harriet always sends some to my friends when they are sick," explained
+Mother Horton to Mrs. Parkney and, of course, when she said that, no
+one could feel they were being offered charity.
+
+While Mother and Grandma Horton were visiting Mrs. Parkney, Sunny Boy
+and Grandpa Horton went downtown to buy the skates for Bob.  They spent
+a long time in the shop, looking at the skates and asking the clerk
+questions, and finally they bought a beautiful pair of skates "on
+shoes" of the best leather.  The clerk put them in a box and told Sunny
+Boy he was carrying home the best skates in the store.
+
+"I hope Bob will like them," said Sunny Boy, skipping along beside
+Grandpa Horton.  "Oh, look, here comes the other grandpa!"
+
+The tall old gentleman coming toward them saw Sunny Boy, and smiled.
+He stopped and held out his hand.
+
+"Well, if it isn't my little ice-pond friend!" he said cordially.  "Did
+you catch cold from those wet feet?"
+
+He shook hands with Grandpa Horton, and Sunny Boy answered that he had
+not taken cold and asked if he had "found his little girl?"
+
+"Oh, yes, thank you, Adele turned up safe and sound and smiling,"
+replied Adele's grandfather.  "By the way, I think friends should at
+least know each other's names.  I am Judge Layton."
+
+"I am Arthur B. Horton," answered Sunny Boy's grandpa.  "This is my
+grandson and namesake, called Sunny Boy for convenience.  I'm visiting
+my son, Harry Horton."
+
+"I've met him a number of times in court," said Judge Layton.  "And I
+am more than glad to know his father and his son.  You live on a farm,
+I believe Mr. Horton?  I think I've heard your son mention 'Brookside.'"
+
+The two grandfathers talked about the country and about farms--Judge
+Layton had been brought up on a farm and had never lost his interest in
+farming--and Sunny Boy, waiting politely and patiently, was not exactly
+listening.  He was playing with a piece of snow and ice and wishing
+that Grandpa Horton would hurry so that he could, take the skates to
+Bob Parkney.  Then, suddenly, he heard the Judge say something that
+sounded very interesting.
+
+"I need an honest man, for while the work is light the place must be
+well looked after," he said.  "I can't get any one I'll trust.  Few men
+with families are willing to go outside the city limits, and there is
+no one to board a single man.  I'd give a good deal to get hold of the
+right kind of man."
+
+"Grandpa," whispered Sunny Boy, pulling Grandpa Horton's coat sleeve.
+"Grandpa, Daddy says Mr. Parkney should do light work."
+
+Truth to tell, Sunny Boy had a hazy idea that "light work" meant
+something to do with electric lights or gas; but though it turned out
+that Judge Layton wanted a man to take care of a small country place he
+had bought that winter, Sunny Boy's quick thought proved a happy one.
+
+"I do believe that is the man for you," said Grandpa Horton quickly.
+
+Then, in a few words, he told the Judge about the Parkney family.  Of
+course nothing was settled that morning, but Judge Layton and his wife
+came over in the evening to see the Hortons and to learn more about the
+Parkneys.  In a day or two the Judge went to see Mr. Parkney, and
+before the month was out the Parkneys were comfortably established in
+the farmhouse which Judge Layton insisted on putting in good order for
+them.
+
+Mr. Parkney's arm was much better and Bob's cold was entirely cured by
+the time they moved.  The four children who were of school age came
+into Centronia every day on the trolley car and Bob declared that
+nothing could keep him from going to school now that he had a prospect
+of learning to use the typewriter that summer.  Judge Layton engaged
+Mr. Parkney to look after the farm during the winter and to see that no
+tramps came along and set fire to the barns or cut down any of the
+valuable trees.  There was no really hard work for him to do, and he
+was so contented and happy that he did not seem like the same man.
+Mrs. Parkney was happy, too.  As for the children, they thought Mr.
+Horton and his family were fairies.
+
+"I never saw such dandy skates," said Bob, when Sunny Boy gave them to
+him.  "They must have cost a heap of money.  I can't say thank you
+right."
+
+"Don't try," replied Grandpa Horton, with a smile.  "Just think of them
+as a gift from a little boy who admires you very much."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEN TOYS GO TO SCHOOL
+
+Before the Parkney family moved to Judge Layton's farm, Miss May's
+school had opened, the Christmas holidays were over, and dear Grandpa
+and Grandma Horton had gone home to Brookside.  Grandma had to take the
+sweater she was knitting for Bob home with her to finish, but she sent
+it to him as soon as it was done.  And a handsome sweater it was, dark
+gray and warm and comfortable.  Bob was delighted with it.
+
+The first day of school, after the holiday vacation, Jessie Smiley, a
+little girl who sat near Sunny Boy in Miss Davis' room, brought her
+walking doll to school with her.
+
+"I couldn't leave Cora Florence at home," Jessie explained to Miss
+Davis.  "Santa Claus brought her to me.  I thought she could sit in a
+chair and wait for me, mornings."
+
+Miss Davis shook hands politely with Cora Florence and said that she
+might stay.  The girls were much interested in the doll, and even the
+boys wanted to make her walk, though of course they privately thought
+that dolls were rather silly things.  But Cora Florence was as large as
+the youngest Parkney child and wore "real" clothes that one could take
+off like a real child's.  Jessie spent a good many minutes taking off
+her doll's hat and coat and her leggings and mittens and putting them
+on again.
+
+"I brought my railroad train," announced Carleton Marsh, the next
+morning.
+
+He unwrapped a long train of cars and an engine.
+
+"I got 'em for Christmas," he said.  "They wind up with a key and you
+don't have to have any track," and down on his hands and knees went
+Carleton to start his train.
+
+The assembly bell rang while the train was still running around, and
+Miss Davis had to catch it and leave it turned upside down with the
+little wheels whirring around while she marched her class into Miss
+May's room for the morning exercises.
+
+Several of the children brought new toys with them to school the next
+day.  Perry Phelps carried a sand toy which was a little car that ran
+up and down an inclined plane when filled with sand.  Jimmie
+Butterworth had a jumping rabbit that took a long hop when you pressed
+a rubber bulb.  Lottie Carr brought her new doll, and Dorothy Peters
+even carried her toy piano, though it was rather heavy.
+
+"My dear little people!" said Miss Davis, when she saw all these toys,
+"do you think you will be able to keep your mind on lessons with these
+delightful and distracting presents arranged around the room?  Or shall
+I put them in the cloak room for you till recess?"
+
+The children were sure they could pay attention to lessons and still
+look at the Christmas toys, so Miss Davis allowed them to put the
+presents under the sand table, and she said no one must touch a thing
+till recess.  And then, goodness me, wasn't there a gay time!  Jessie's
+doll walked and Carleton's train ran around and around, the little sand
+car jerked up and down its track, the rabbit hopped on top of the
+desks, and Dorothy's piano tinkled seven different tunes at once as
+seven different children tried to play on it.  Miss May came across the
+hall to see what the class could be doing to make so much noise.
+
+"Why, it looks like Christmas!" she said, smiling.
+
+"Yes, and I don't know whether we can settle down after so much
+excitement," answered Miss Davis doubtfully.  "There goes the bell.
+Put the toys back under the table, children, and take your seats."
+
+Sunny Boy walked home thoughtfully.  He usually walked most of the way
+to school and home again alone, for none of the pupils lived very near
+him.
+
+"I'm going to take something to show 'em, to-morrow," he said to
+himself.  "My ice skates and sled aren't much fun.  I know what I'll
+do!  I'll take the lead soldiers!"
+
+He was so excited over this idea that he ran the rest of the way home
+and was quite out of breath by the time he reached his front door.  He
+had to go up in the playroom and put his lead soldiers back in the box
+they had come in before he could come to lunch.
+
+"What were you doing, precious?" his mother asked him, when he came
+into the dining-room.  "Didn't you hear Harriet calling you?"
+
+"Yes, Mother, and I did hurry," replied Sunny Boy.  "But I have to take
+my lead soldiers to school to-morrow and I was putting them in the box."
+
+Then he told Mother about the toys the other children had brought to
+school and that he was sure they would like to see his lead soldiers.
+
+"But I don't believe Miss Davis will be pleased," said Mrs. Horton.
+"She must find it hard to teach her class when they are thinking about
+their toys.  Do you think you ought to take the lead soldiers, dear?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Mother, please," Sunny Boy said.  "We put them under the sand
+table and we don't play with them till recess.  Lead soldiers don't
+make a noise, Mother, and Miss Davis will like them.  She said she
+likes quiet toys."
+
+So Mrs. Horton said he might take the lead soldiers if he would promise
+not to play with them during school hours and if he would put them away
+the moment recess was over and not make Miss Davis speak to him twice.
+
+"What you got, Sunny Boy?" asked Carleton, when Sunny Boy came into
+Miss Davis' room the next morning, a box under his arm.
+
+Sunny Boy, though he would not have said so, rather wished he had not
+decided to bring his lead soldiers.  They were heavy to carry and it
+was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his
+pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens.
+He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under
+his arm, and once he had dropped it.  But, never mind, now he had
+something to show the boys.
+
+"I brought my lead soldiers," he said to Carleton.  "Want to see them?"
+
+Carleton did, and he helped Sunny Boy take them out of the box and
+stand them up on his desk.  The boys and girls came crowding around to
+look and the other toys were forgotten for a moment.  When Miss Davis
+came in she found the train rushing around on the floor and the doll
+walking and the toy piano playing, as usual, but half a dozen boys
+around Sunny Boy's desk were playing "battle" with wads of paper for
+bullets and pencils for guns.
+
+"The assembly bell will ring in five minutes, children," said Miss
+Davis warningly.  "Put the toys away under the sand table at once.  Are
+these your lead soldiers, Sunny Boy?"
+
+Miss Davis looked at the soldiers and admired them and then told Sunny
+Boy to put them back in the box and put the box under the table.
+
+"You may get them out again at recess," she said, smiling.
+
+"Could I keep the general, Miss Davis?" begged Sunny Boy.  "Could I let
+him stand on my desk?  I won't play with him the tiniest bit; I'd just
+like to have him to look at."
+
+"Well, are you _sure_ you won't forget and play with him?" urged Miss
+Davis.  "He is a beautiful general, isn't he?  All right, if you
+promise me not to play with him during school time, you may let him
+stand on your desk."
+
+So Sunny Boy put all the soldiers away except the general who rode a
+horse and was very handsome indeed.  He stood him up on his desk and
+left him there while the class went into Miss May's room for assembly.
+When they came back, Miss Davis sent Sunny Boy to the board to color a
+picture she had drawn.  Sunny Boy loved to use the colored chalk, and
+he forgot all about the lead soldier general while he worked away at
+the board.
+
+When he had finished the picture--and Miss Davis said he had done it
+very nicely--it was time for the writing lesson.
+
+"I think we will try to use ink to-day," the teacher said.  "We will
+take great pains and not hurry.  And please be careful of your fingers."
+
+Whenever Miss Davis tried to teach her class to make an "M" or a "T" or
+some other letter in ink, it was strange, but more ink seemed to get on
+their fingers than anywhere else!  But Miss Davis said they would learn
+in good time and that she had inked her fingers, too, when she was a
+little girl and was learning to write.
+
+Sunny Boy took his seat to be ready for the writing lesson, and the
+first thing he saw was the lead general lying on his back.  He had
+fallen off his horse!
+
+"Though I don't see how he could fall off," argued Sunny Boy to
+himself.  "He screws on the little screw in the saddle.  I wonder if
+somebody unscrewed him!"
+
+Carleton Marsh was beginning to hand out the papers for the writing
+lesson and Jessie Smiley took the box of pens from Miss Davis.  It was
+her turn to distribute them to the children this week.
+
+"I'll bet Jessie did it," said Sunny Boy, but not out loud.  "I'll bet
+she unscrewed the general while I was at the blackboard."
+
+Sunny Boy knew that Jessie was mischievous and he also knew that she
+could not keep her little fingers off anything that might be lying on
+his desk.  She had mortified him very much the first week he came to
+school by making his camel squeak in class, and it would be just like
+her to play with the lead soldier when Sunny Boy was at the board and
+Miss Davis was busy helping some pupil.
+
+"I'll bet Jessie did it," said Sunny Boy again to himself.
+
+Just then Jessie looked at him.  She smiled, an impish, naughty little
+smile, and then Sunny Boy knew he had guessed right.  Jessie had
+unscrewed the lead soldier general.
+
+"I'll just put him back," whispered Sunny Boy, putting out a cautious
+hand toward the soldier.  He wasn't going to play with him, he argued,
+but Miss Davis might call it playing, if she saw him.
+
+"Here's your pen," said Jessie suddenly.
+
+Sunny Boy jumped a little, for he had not heard her come up to his
+desk.  His blouse sleeve brushed again the lead general, and what do
+you think happened?  Splash!  Down into the inkwell on Sunny Boy's desk
+went that beautiful soldier, down out of sight in the messy ink!
+
+Jessie looked startled, but she did not say anything.  She walked on
+with her box of pens.  Perhaps she thought it was her fault for
+unscrewing the lead soldier general, but Jessie did not like to blame
+herself for anything.
+
+"This morning you may draw the initial of your first name," announced
+Miss Davis.  "And then you may go over it in ink.  I will come around
+and help you, if you need help."
+
+Sunny Boy was gazing down into his ink well and scarcely heard her.
+How could he rescue the lead soldier before he drowned?  He took his
+best pencil and poked it down into the inkwell.  Goodness, the ink was
+deeper than he thought, and before he knew it his fingers were stained
+black.  Then he poked around with the pen Jessie had given him, but
+though he could feel the soldier at the bottom of the inkwell, he could
+not make the pen stick in him.  Once the pen slipped and the ink
+splashed out on the desk.  Sunny Boy wiped it up with his hands.  They
+were inky anyway, and a little more wouldn't hurt.
+
+He began to draw an "S" on his paper.  Then he remembered that his
+"truly" name was Arthur like Grandpa Horton's.  Sunny Boy turned the
+paper over and tried to draw an "A."  But all the time he kept thinking
+of the poor lead soldier down at the bottom of the inkwell.
+
+"That looks very nice, Carleton," said Miss Davis.
+
+Sunny Boy looked up.  She was standing at Carleton's desk in the next
+aisle.  In a few minutes she would come to Sunny Boy's desk to see his
+letter.  If he was ever going to get that lead soldier, it must be now.
+Sunny Boy took another quick glance at Miss Davis, saw that she was
+busy helping another child, and down went his little right hand into
+the ink-well!
+
+"I've got him!" he said aloud, as he brought up the lead soldier,
+dripping with ink.
+
+The class looked at Sunny Boy in surprise.  So did Miss Davis.  They
+saw a little boy with ink spots on his face and blouse, his hands as
+black as--well, as black as ink, and ink running in streams over his
+desk.
+
+"Sunny Boy!" cried Miss Davis.  "What are you doing?  I thought you
+promised not to play with the lead soldier.  Carleton, get the blotter
+on my desk, quick!"
+
+Carleton got the blotter and that helped to mop up some of the ink.
+Miss Davis sent Jessie to get a cloth from Maria, the maid, and she
+used that to wipe the ink off the desk.  Sunny Boy and the lead soldier
+she sent upstairs to the bathroom, where Maria scrubbed them both with
+water and a stiff little brush.  Not all the ink came off, but most of
+it did.
+
+Sunny Boy had to sit quietly at his desk during recess while Miss Davis
+talked to him.  He explained that he was not playing with the soldier
+and Jessie was honest enough to say that she had unscrewed him from his
+horse, and Miss Davis said she was very glad to know that Sunny Boy had
+not broken his promise.
+
+"But I think I shall have to say that there must be no more toys
+brought to school after this," she declared, when she had heard all
+about the rescue of the lead soldier general and had kissed Sunny Boy
+so he might know she was not scolding him.  "Toys and school do not
+seem to go very well together."
+
+And Sunny Boy's mother, when she heard about that morning, said she
+thought Miss Davis was right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+OUT IN THE BLIZZARD
+
+"Daddy," said Mrs. Horton at the breakfast table one morning, "what do
+you think about sending Sunny Boy to school to-day?"
+
+Mr. Horton glanced out of the window.  The snow was piled high on the
+sill and the white flakes were still falling steadily.
+
+"I don't know," he said slowly.  "I don't believe the storm will be
+much worse, Olive.  It has snowed all night, and our storms seldom last
+twenty-four hours.  It may be a little hard going this morning, but the
+walks will be cleared before it is time for him to come home.  And if
+the wind rises, let him stay at school till Harriet or some one can go
+after him."
+
+Sunny Boy had listened anxiously.  He loved to go to school and he did
+not mind the snow.  Didn't he have a pair of real rubber boots and a
+fur cap that covered his ears?  And this was the first chance he had
+had to go to school in a snowstorm.  There had been snow, of course,
+but it had always snowed in the night or after school was out, or
+during the holidays.  Now he was going to go to school while it was
+snowing, just as Daddy Horton had done when he was a little boy.
+
+"I wonder if Bob has rubber boots?" said Sunny Boy to Harriet, after
+breakfast.  She was watching him put on his boots in the hall.
+
+"I don't know.  But he won't be able to come to school to-day if he
+has," replied Harriet.  "The suburban trolleys won't run in a storm
+like this.  I don't think your mother ought to let you go to school
+when it is snowing so hard."
+
+Mr. Horton came downstairs, putting on his overcoat.  He looked rather
+serious.  "The storm is worse than I thought," he said.  "Sunny Boy, do
+you want to go to school very much this morning?"
+
+Sunny Boy's lip quivered.  His eyes filled with tears.  Couldn't he go,
+after all?
+
+"I put my rubber boots on," he said, trying not to cry, and holding out
+his foot for Daddy to see.
+
+Mr. Horton loved his little son dearly and he wanted him to be happy.
+He saw that Sunny Boy would be sadly disappointed if he had to miss a
+day in school.
+
+"All right, you shall go," he said cheerfully.  "I'll take you myself,
+and I think we'll manage to get there.  Good-bye, Mother.  And don't
+worry about us."
+
+Mrs. Horton and Harriet stood at the parlor windows and watched Sunny
+Boy go down the street, holding fast to his daddy's hand.  The snow did
+not drive in their faces, and it did not seem very cold.
+
+"I like it, don't you?" cried Sunny Boy, tramping along in his rubber
+boots and wishing that Daddy could walk to school with him every
+morning.
+
+Here and there they saw a man shoveling the sidewalk, and already teams
+of horses and carts were standing at the street corners while gangs of
+men and boys shoveled snow into them.
+
+"Where do they take the snow?" asked Sunny Boy.  "Why don't they leave
+it on the street so people can go coasting?"
+
+"Well, you see, Sunny Boy, if the snow wasn't carried away, the baker's
+horse might not be able to bring us any rolls for breakfast and perhaps
+the milkman couldn't bring us any milk," Mr. Horton answered.  "And the
+people who are cold would not be able to get any coal for their fires.
+The boys and girls might go coasting, but the horses and wagons and
+motor trucks would find it hard going.  It is much wiser to carry the
+snow away as fast as it falls.  I think it is taken out into the
+country and there emptied on waste land."
+
+"I wonder if Mr. Parkney likes it to snow," said Sunny Boy, who always
+thought of the Parkney family when any one mentioned the country.
+"When can we go see him, Daddy?"
+
+"By and by, when spring comes, if not before," said Mr. Horton
+pleasantly.  "Now, Son, here we are at Miss May's.  If it doesn't stop
+snowing pretty soon I shall telephone Mother to have Harriet come for
+you this noon."
+
+Sunny Boy kissed Daddy and ran up the steps.  Miss May opened the door
+for him.
+
+"Well, Sunny Boy, you are not afraid of the weather, are you?" she said
+brightly.  "I'm sure some of the children will not be able to come
+to-day.  The trolley cars have stopped, Miss Davis tells me, and Lottie
+Carr and her sister live in the suburbs, you know."
+
+When the nine o'clock bell rang all the children in Miss Davis' room
+were there, except the two Carr girls.  They could not come because
+there were no trolley cars running and they lived too far away to walk.
+There were three or four little girls in Miss May's room who stayed at
+home, too, but nearly every one came.  The children thought it great
+fun to scramble through the snow, and then, when they reached Miss
+May's, to have Maria stand them on a mat of linoleum and brush them off
+with a whisk broom so that they should not carry snow into the school
+rooms.
+
+Miss Davis' class was having a reading lesson just after recess, when
+Miss May came in to speak to Miss Davis.  The two teachers went over by
+the window to talk and the children could not hear what they said.
+Miss May went back to her own room in a few moments and then, to every
+one's surprise, instead of telling Sunny Boy to finish the story he had
+been reading to her, Miss Davis asked her class to close their books.
+
+"Miss May is going to send you home earlier than usual to-day," she
+told them when the books were closed and the boys and girls were
+sitting "at attention," as she liked to have them.  "She thinks the
+storm is getting worse, and, of course, the longer you stay the more
+snow you will have to plough through.  I will help you put on your
+wraps, and then I want you to hurry home.  Don't stop to play in the
+snow and don't build snow men or throw snowballs.  Go straight home,
+because your mothers may begin to worry about you."
+
+They went into the cloakroom to get their wraps, and Miss Davis had to
+turn on the light for them because it was so dark.  The window was high
+in the wall, and the wind had blown so much snow against it that the
+room was "like five o'clock at night," Carleton Marsh said.
+
+"Now remember, don't play, but hurry home," said Miss Davis, when the
+last legging was buttoned and all the mittens were matched.  Perry
+Phelps lost one of his mittens regularly every day and Miss Davis
+always had to find it for him.  "Don't stop to play in the snow till
+you have been home and had your lunch.  You'll have the whole afternoon
+to play in."
+
+It was much colder than it had been in the morning.  Sunny Boy knew
+that as soon as he went out on the steps.  But he did not know how cold
+it was till he and the other children turned the first corner.  Then
+the wind struck them and Dorothy Peters cried that she couldn't breathe!
+
+"Turn your back to it," Sunny Boy advised her, pulling his fur cap down
+over his ears.
+
+But the wind seemed to blow in several directions at once.  It swooped
+down around the children and blew stinging snowflakes into their eyes.
+It howled and shrieked and tore over the roofs of the houses, bringing
+great sheets of snow with it.
+
+"It wasn't like this, this morning," complained Carleton, stamping his
+feet to warm them.
+
+Though none of them knew it, the storm was now a blizzard and it was
+cold enough and windy enough and snowy enough to make grown-ups most
+uncomfortable, to say nothing of small boys and girls who had to walk
+through the storm.  It was a mistake for the teacher to send the
+children home alone.
+
+"I can't see where I'm going!" gasped Jimmie Butterworth, trying to
+wipe the snow from his face with his mittens.
+
+Jessie Smiley stubbed her toe against something and began to cry.
+
+"I'm so cold!" she wailed.  "My nose is frozen, I know it is.  And I
+never saw that funny fence before."
+
+Sunny Boy looked up at the great iron fence.  The snow had blown
+against it till it was almost covered.  There was a row of ash cans set
+out on the curb in front of this fence and they were so completely
+covered with snow that poor Jessie had walked into them without seeing
+them.
+
+"No, I never saw that fence, either," declared Jimmie.  "Is this the
+way you go home to your house, Sunny Boy?"
+
+"I don't know whose fence that is," replied Sunny Boy.  "I never saw it
+before.  Gee, doesn't the wind blow!"
+
+The wind was blowing harder than ever and the snow seemed to be coming
+down faster and faster.  There was not a horse or wagon or motor truck
+to be seen on the street, and not even a single person.  Every one who
+could get in out of the storm had done so.  And as it was noon by this
+time even those whose work forced them to be out had managed to find
+shelter somewhere for the lunch hour.
+
+"I want to go home!" cried Dorothy Peters, just as Ruth Baker had cried
+the day she went coasting with Sunny Boy and Nelson.  Sunny Boy decided
+that all girls acted the same way.
+
+"Well, come on," said Jimmie Butterworth, putting his hands deeper into
+his pockets.  "Come on, Dorothy; you won't get home standing there and
+crying about it.  Hurry up."
+
+The children began to walk again, but the snow blinded their eyes and
+the wind continued to take their breath way.  Jessie Smiley fell over a
+curb stone and began to cry and Helen Graham, who had not said a word,
+sat down in the snow and declared she wasn't going a step further.
+
+"I think we're lost and we'll be buried in the snow and never, never
+found any more!" she said.  Helen liked exciting stories and she had
+heard so many she thought she could tell a few herself and, as it
+proved, she could.
+
+"I don't want to be buried in the snow!" cried Jessie.  "I won't be
+buried and never, never found any more."
+
+"You can't help yourself," Helen informed her.  "Oh-h, my feet are
+cold!"
+
+"Well, I don't b'lieve we're going home," admitted Jimmie Butterworth,
+working his arms up and down to get them warm.  "I think we'd better
+walk the other way."
+
+So they all turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction.
+The wind turned, too, and the snow came into their faces faster than
+ever.
+
+"Look out!" screamed Helen Graham, as they stumbled across a street.
+"Here comes something!"
+
+Something big and black was coming toward them out of the snowstorm.
+It moved slowly and Jimmie Butterworth said he thought it was a
+battleship.
+
+"Who ever saw a battleship on the land?" said Perry Phelps.  "I'll bet
+you it is a--a cow."
+
+Perry said this hastily because he had thought at first the thing
+coming toward them was a motor truck, but before he could say so his
+quick eyes had made out four moving legs.
+
+"It's a horse and wagon," said Sunny Boy.  "Let's ask the driver to
+give us a ride home."
+
+"Hey, mister!" shouted the boys as the wagon came close to them.  "Let
+us in?  Where are you going?  Let us ride with you, please?"
+
+The horse stopped, but no one answered.  It seemed, tired, poor animal,
+and stood with its head down and winking its eyes to keep the snow out
+of them.
+
+"Let us ride with you?" said Jimmie Butterworth politely.  "I think
+some of us are lost."
+
+Sunny Boy moved closer to the wagon.  He peered in where the driver
+should sit.  He could not see any one, and he noticed that the reins
+were tied around the whip handle.
+
+"I don't believe any one is driving this horse," he said suddenly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WHERE THE HORSE LIVED
+
+Sunny Boy was right.  The children stared at each other in surprise and
+the little girls forgot that their feet were cold.  Who ever heard of a
+horse and wagon without a driver?
+
+"Is he running away?" asked Jessie Smiley.
+
+"Silly, of course he isn't," retorted Jimmie Butterworth.  "A horse
+can't run away in a snowstorm.  I tell you what let's do--let's get in
+and drive him home!"
+
+"How do you know where he lives?" said Helen Graham.
+
+"Oh, I guess I can find out," replied Jimmie, though he was wondering
+how to find the answer to that question.
+
+"Do you know how to drive a horse?" asked Sunny Boy.
+
+"Well I never did, but I think I could," said Jimmie, who was a
+good-natured boy and quite ready to try any kind of new experiment.
+
+"You know how, don't you, Sunny Boy?" said Perry Phelps.  "You went to
+see your grandfather in the country, didn't you?  And he has horses and
+things.  You drive us home."
+
+"No," said Sunny Boy, "I don't know how to drive a horse like this.
+Wait a minute, and I'll think."
+
+The other children waited for him to think.  Though he was the youngest
+in his class, they had found out that Sunny Boy was often wiser than
+they were and that he could be trusted to find a way to do things.
+Miss Davis said that Sunny Boy was her "right-hand man."
+
+"My daddy says," announced Sunny Boy, after he had thought a minute,
+"that horses can go home all by themselves, so I guess this one can.
+But if we all got into the wagon, the girls would cry and be afraid he
+would run away."
+
+"We wouldn't, either!" said Jessie Smiley crossly.
+
+"Yes you would," Sunny Boy told her.  "I think the girls ought to get
+in the wagon and ride and we'll stay and walk with the horse.  Then
+he'll go home and we'll find out where he lives."
+
+They argued a few minutes about this plan, but as no one could think of
+a better one, the girls, Helen and Jessie and Dorothy, climbed into the
+wagon and the four boys trudged along beside the horse who started to
+walk slowly the minute Sunny Boy called "gid-ap" to him.
+
+He wasn't a fast horse, and it did seem as though his home must be at
+the very end of Centronia, for he continued to walk long after the boys
+were lame and tired from slipping around in the snow.  The three little
+girls were more comfortable, for while the wagon was not warm, the
+cover kept the snow off them.
+
+"I never saw much a slow horse," grumbled Jessie, putting her head out
+to see where they were, though it was impossible to tell because the
+whirling snow hid everything.
+
+"My feet are cold!" cried Dorothy Peters.
+
+"I don't think this horse lives anywhere," shouted Helen, so that the
+boys could bear her.  "He's probably going out into the country and
+we'll all freeze and Miss May will wonder where we went, and is she
+does come looking for us, she'll never find us!"
+
+Sunny Boy patted the horse gently.
+
+"I guess you're cold, too," he said gently.  "I wish I had a blanket
+for you Mr. Horse.  Maybe there is one in the wagon."
+
+He said "whoa" and the horse stopped.  Then Sunny Boy climbed into the
+wagon and felt under the seat.  Sure enough there was a blanket.
+
+"What are you going to do with that, Sunny Boy?" asked Helen Graham.
+
+"Put it on the horse," replied Sunny Boy.  "I think he must be awfully
+cold.  He's a pretty tall horse, but I guess Jimmie will help me."
+
+Jimmie helped him and so did Perry and Carleton, and it took them all
+to get the blanket spread over the horse.  They got it on wrong and
+there was no way to fasten it, so they took turns holding it around the
+horse's neck as he walked.  Sunny Boy held the blanket in place till
+his hands were cold, then Jimmie held it while Sunny warmed his hands.
+When Jimmie's hands were cold, Perry held the blanket, and then
+Carleton.  The horse looked surprised at such kindness, but he did not
+walk any faster.  He couldn't.
+
+[Illustration: Sunny Boy held the blanket in place.]
+
+"I guess we've walked a hundred miles," said Sunny Boy wearily, when
+they had trudged through the wind and snow for a long, long time.
+
+Then, as though he had heard, the horse stopped suddenly.  He pointed
+his ears straight ahead and then turned the wagon around so quickly
+that the girls inside cried out in fright.  They thought they were
+going to be tipped out in the snow.  But the horse was walking slowly
+up a driveway, and now he stopped again and Sunny Boy saw that he stood
+in front of a barn.
+
+The barn doors were closed and the children heard a horse inside give a
+loud neigh.  Their own horse answered.
+
+"I'll bet he lives here," said Jimmie Butterworth.
+
+Sunny Boy waited a minute, and then, as no one opened the barn doors,
+he looked around for a house.  Yes, there was a house; at least there
+was a chimney showing through the driving snow.
+
+"I'll go tell the folks the horse is here," he said.  "You wait for
+me."  They all wanted to come, but Sunny Boy pointed out that the horse
+might go off again.  So Perry Phelps and Carleton agreed to hold him
+and keep the blanket on him, while Sunny Boy and Jimmie Butterworth
+went to tell the people in the house that their horse had come home.
+
+The two little boys walked out of the drive way and started to go
+across the field to the house.  Sunny Boy was ahead, and suddenly he
+went into a snowdrift up to his neck!
+
+"Do you suppose it is as deep as that all the way there?" he gasped,
+when Jimmie helped him out.  There was snow inside his rubber boots and
+down under his coat collar.  But Sunny Boy seldom fussed even when he
+was not quite comfortable.
+
+Luckily, it was not as deep all the way to the house, and after they
+had walked and stumbled and even run a little, they reached the front
+door of the farmhouse.  Sunny Boy rapped on it, and a woman came in
+answer to his knock.  She held a small child in her arms.
+
+"Why, Sunny Boy!" she cried.  "How did you ever get here in weather
+like this?  Where is your mother?  Come in quickly, out of the storm."
+
+It was Mrs. Parkney, and Sunny Boy was so surprised that before he
+could say a word he found himself in the warm kitchen with the seven
+Parkney children and Mr. and Mrs. Parkney all standing around him and
+Jimmie.
+
+"Does a horse live here?" was Sunny Boy's first question.  "He's
+waiting outside your barn.  And the other children are there, too."
+
+Mr. Parkney, who by the way looked strong and well again, soon had
+everything all straight.  He and Bob went out to the barn and put the
+horse in his stall and brought back the five children.  Mrs. Parkney
+spread a red cloth on the kitchen table, for the kitchen was cozy and
+warm and no amount of snow from rubber boots and little shoes could
+harm the linoleum floor, and began to get them something to eat.
+
+"They must be starved, poor lambs," she said, "It is almost three
+o'clock."
+
+You see, the children had been walking ever since half-past eleven
+o'clock that morning and had had nothing to eat since their breakfasts.
+No wonder they were tired and hungry.
+
+"I don't see how you could walk away out here," said Bob Parkney,
+pouring milk into the bowls his mother had put out on the table.  "I
+did it this forenoon, and I was dead tired when I got home."
+
+"Bob walked to school, because the trolley cars were not running,"
+explained Mrs. Parkney.  "His father took the light wagon and one of
+the horses and went after him right after dinner to save him the walk
+home.  But the public schools dismissed the pupils early, just as Miss
+May did you, and Bob had started before his father got to the school."
+
+"And while I was in the building, asking for Bob, the horse took it
+into its head to walk away without me," said Mr. Parkney.  "So I had to
+walk all the way back home myself."
+
+"How are we to get these children home?" said Mrs. Parkney to her
+husband, while Sunny Boy and his six playmates were busy with the
+delicious home-made bread and country milk she had given them.  "Their
+mothers will be wild with anxiety, Robert.  Our telephone is out of
+order, or we could telephone and let them know and keep the children
+here over night."
+
+"Bob and I will take them home in the sleigh," said Mr. Parkney at
+once.  "It's an old rattletrap affair, and I don't believe it has been
+used for years.  Still, I reckon Bob and I can make it hold together
+for one trip.  But, Mother, find out where these little folks live
+before they go to sleep.  I might leave the wrong child at the wrong
+house."
+
+The cold and the long walk had made the children very sleepy.  Sunny
+Boy could hardly hold his eyes open and Jessie Smiley went to sleep
+with her spoon in her hand.  When Mrs. Parkney tried to wake her up and
+ask her where she lived, Jessie only opened her eyes and smiled and
+closed them again.
+
+"My feet are warm now," she murmured.
+
+"I know where she lives," said Sunny Boy to Mrs. Parkney.  "I'll tell
+Bob.  I know where all the children live, don't I, Jimmie?"
+
+Mrs. Parkney said she would have to depend on Sunny Boy, for the others
+were so sleepy they almost tumbled over standing up when she tried to
+put their hats and coats on them.
+
+Bob and his father went out and harnessed the old sleigh to two black
+horses (not the one the children had brought home, for he was tired
+out, of course,) and Mrs. Parkney filled bottles with hot water and
+wrapped hot flatirons in old cloths to keep them warm.  She insisted on
+coming out to the sleigh and tucking away the seven boys and girls, and
+every one of her own children followed to watch her.  Perhaps they
+wanted a sleigh ride, but Mr. Parkney said he would have his hands full
+with the load he had, and he did not want any extra passengers.
+
+"We'll tuck Sunny Boy up in the front seat between us," said Bob, "and
+then he can tell us where the different youngsters live."
+
+And Sunny Boy did, though he was so sleepy Bob had to wake him by
+shaking him gently every time.  They soon reached Centronia, for it was
+not a very long drive for two horses and a sleigh which can travel
+swiftly over the snow.  Once in the city, Bob began shaking Sunny Boy
+awake and asking him where his playmates lived.
+
+They came to Jessie Smiley's house first, and she did not wake up, even
+when Bob lifted her and carried her in.  Mrs. Smiley wanted to hear the
+whole story, but Bob explained that he had more children to see safely
+home, and Mrs. Smiley was so glad and thankful to have Jessie back that
+she told Bob to hurry.
+
+"For I know the other mothers are as anxious as I have been," she said.
+"We have had a terrible day.  The telephone wires are all down, and my
+husband has been to Miss May's school and to the house of every child
+in Jessie's class, trying to find some trace of her.  He is out hunting
+now."
+
+Around and around Mr. Parkney drove, and at every house they stopped
+Bob carried in a sleeping child.  How glad the mothers were, so glad
+they wanted to hug Bob, and some of them did.  At last every one was
+safe home but Sunny Boy, and then Mr. Parkney made the horses go as
+fast as they could.  When he stopped them at the Horton's house, both
+he and Bob got out and went in with Sunny Boy.
+
+"Mrs. Horton, here's Sunny Boy!" cried Harriet, when she answered the
+ring at the doorbell and found Sunny Boy standing there with the
+Parkneys.
+
+Daddy Horton came down the front stairs three steps at a time and
+grabbed Sunny.  Mother Horton came running down after him, and she was
+so glad to see Sunny Boy that she cried just a little--the way she had
+cried in New York when he was lost and then found again.
+
+She held him in her lap all the time Mr. Parkney and Bob were
+explaining how they came to bring him home.  When Mr. Horton tried to
+thank them, Mr. Parkney stopped him.
+
+"I'm only trying to do for your family one-tenth part of what you've
+done for me and mine," he said, though Sunny Boy was so sleepy he
+didn't hear him very well and had to ask Mother the next day what he
+had said.  "There isn't anything the Parkneys, from the two-year-old to
+Mrs. Parkney and me, wouldn't do for you, Mr. Horton."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MR. HARRIS BRINGS A LETTER
+
+Sunny BOY did not go to school the next day.  There was no school to go
+to.  Though, even if there had been, he would not have gone, because he
+did not wake up till half past ten, and then Mother and Harriet brought
+his breakfast up to him on the pretty wicker tray.
+
+When Sunny Boy had had his breakfast, he started to dress.  While he
+was dressing he told his mother and Harriet all the things that had
+happened to him and the other children the day before.  He had gone to
+sleep almost as soon as Mr. Parkney brought him home.  Of course Mrs.
+Horton was anxious to hear what had happened to him after school was
+dismissed that snowy morning.
+
+It had stopped snowing--Harriet said it stopped during the night--and
+the walks rang with the cheerful sound of shovels as men and boys went
+about cleaning the pavements and streets.  The sun came out, too, and
+the outdoors was very beautiful, but so dazzling it made Sunny Boy
+blink his eyes whenever he looked out of the window.
+
+"Did Miss May know we were lost?"  Sunny Boy asked his mother while she
+was brushing his hair.  He could brush his own hair, of course, but
+Mrs. Horton said she liked to do it for him and then she was quite sure
+he wouldn't forget.  "Did she wonder where we were?"
+
+"Poor Miss May!" said Mrs. Horton.  "She had a terrible day.  Dear
+Daddy went around last night to tell her you were all safe.  Come and
+sit in my lap, Sunny Boy, and I will tell you about it."
+
+Sunny Boy climbed into his mother's lap and she moved her rocking chair
+near the window so that she could see the postman when he came down the
+street.  She was expecting a letter from a friend.
+
+"You see, precious," Mrs. Horton began, "Daddy saw that the storm was
+getting worse, and he tried to telephone me to tell Harriet to go after
+you.  But the telephone wires were out of order and he couldn't get us;
+so he sent a messenger.  Harriet started out at once, but, as you know,
+Miss May sent you home early, and by the time Harriet reached the
+school you were gone.  She hurried home, expecting to find you here.
+And then wasn't I frightened when the afternoon went by and you didn't
+come!  I sent Harriet down to Daddy's office, and he came home.  By and
+by Mr. Smiley came and one or two other fathers to ask if we knew
+anything about their children.  Miss May started out in all the storm
+to look for you, and a policeman had to bring her back, for the wind
+was too much for her."
+
+"Yes, it blew like--like anything!" agreed Sunny Boy.  "Did you think I
+was lost, Mother?"
+
+"Yes, I did, precious.  And so you were, you know," said Mrs. Horton,
+kissing the back of his neck.
+
+"There comes Mr. Harris!" cried Sunny Boy, as the postman came down the
+street.  "Let me go, Mother.  Perhaps there is a letter for me!"
+
+Sunny Boy was always expecting letters, though he seldom wrote any.  He
+wrote to Grandpa Horton now and then, to be sure, and at Christmas time
+he wrote one or two "thank you" letters to the relatives and friends
+who sent him Christmas presents.  But, as a rule, he did not write
+letters, and that is probably the reason he did not receive many.
+Still, it is fun to expect letters, and Sunny Boy liked to say: "Any
+for me?" to the postman.
+
+"Hello, you didn't get snowed in after all, did you?" said kind Mr.
+Harris, smiling at Sunny Boy when he opened the door.  "You had this
+house in a turmoil yesterday, young man."
+
+"What's a turmoil?" asked Sunny Boy.
+
+"It's an upset," replied the postman.  "What happened to you, anyway?"
+
+Sunny Boy explained, while Mr. Harris went through his package of
+letters which he carried in his hand.
+
+"And we came home in Mr. Parkney's sleigh," finished Sunny Boy.  "Have
+you any letters for me, Mr. Harris?"
+
+"Two for your mother, and a paper for your daddy," said Mr. Harris
+slowly.  "And--let--me--see--"  He began to go over his letters again,
+very slowly.  "Let--me--see--" he said again.  "Oh, here it is!  I
+thought I'd lost it.  Are you Arthur Bradford Horton?  You are?  Well,
+Sunny Boy, here's a nice, big, square white letter for you.  And I'm
+glad the blizzard didn't blow you away."
+
+Sunny Boy took his letter eagerly, mumbled "thank you," and ran
+upstairs as fast as he could go.
+
+"Oh, Mother, look!" he shouted.  "I have a letter!  It's addressed to
+me from somebody.  Did Aunt Bessie write to me?"
+
+"Open your letter and read it," said Mrs. Horton laughingly.
+
+Sunny Boy took the paper knife she gave him and cut the envelope as he
+had seen his daddy do.
+
+"It isn't a letter; it's a Christmas card," he said in disappointment.
+
+"Oh, no, precious, no one would sent you a Christmas card in January,"
+declared Mrs. Horton.  "See, dear, it is an invitation to a party.
+Oliver Dunlap is eight years old next week and he is going to have a
+birthday party.  Won't that be fun!"
+
+Sunny Boy was glad Oliver had sent him an invitation to his party and
+not a Christmas card.  He spent the greater part of the afternoon
+writing an answer to the letter.  First he wrote it in pencil, and when
+he had shown the pencil copy to Mother and Harriet and Aunt Bessie (who
+came to lunch and to see if Sunny Boy was quite well after his snow
+storm experience) and they had all said it was a very nice answer
+indeed, he copied it in ink.  He had to do this five times before it
+satisfied him.  Sunny Boy would not send a letter to Oliver with the
+tiniest spot of ink on it, and he was willing to do a thing over and
+over and over to get it right.  Before he had finished putting the
+stamp on the envelope--Harriet said Sunny Boy shook the house when he
+put a stamp on a letter, and indeed he thumped it as though he were
+pounding with a brick--Nelson and Ruth Baker came over to see him.
+
+"Did you get lost yesterday?" asked Nelson.  "When did you get home?
+We only had one session in school."
+
+Nelson went to the public school and he had to go to school in the
+afternoon unless the principal decided to have only one session, as he
+often did when it stormed.
+
+"Are you going to Oliver's party?" said Ruth.  "We are.  What are you
+going to take him?"
+
+Sunny Boy could tell Nelson all about getting lost and when he came
+home, and he could explain to Ruth that he was going to Oliver's party.
+But he could not tell her what birthday gift he meant to take Oliver,
+because he hadn't thought about it.
+
+He asked Mother, after Nelson and Ruth had gone home, and she said they
+would go down town some afternoon before the party and find something
+nice.
+
+The telephone man came to fix the wires that afternoon, and when Daddy
+Horton came home to dinner he said that much of the snow had been
+cleared away in the streets.
+
+The next morning Sunny Boy started off to school and Daddy walked with
+him up to the steps, as he had done the snowy morning.  It was very
+cold, but all the walks were clear and the great high walls of snow
+that had been piled up along the pavements made fine places for jumping
+boys.  Sunny Boy tried several himself, and Daddy had to remind him
+that it was a quarter to nine, or he might have been late for school.
+
+Every one talked about the blizzard in school.  All the children wanted
+to hear from those who had been lost, and Sunny Boy and Jimmie and
+Perry and Carleton and the three little girls were kept busy answering
+questions.  Miss May and Miss Davis asked questions, too, and even when
+they did get at their lessons they read snow stories and drew sleighs
+and horses and snow forts on the blackboard.
+
+But after that day, Oliver Dunlap's party was the most exciting thing
+talked about.  There might be another snowstorm but, as Oliver said, he
+wouldn't be eight years old again that winter.
+
+"Oliver's party is to-morrow, and I haven't any birthday present for
+him yet," Sunny Boy said to his family at breakfast the day before the
+party.
+
+"We'll go down town and get it this afternoon, as soon as lunch is
+over," Mrs. Horton promised.  "I didn't mean to leave it till the last
+minute, dear, but I have been very busy.  Hurry home from school, and
+we'll go and buy him something nice."
+
+After school Sunny Boy hurried home, and he and Mother went down town
+shopping as soon as they had had lunch.  They looked at ever so many
+things which might please Oliver, and finally they decided that a
+little flashlight he could carry in his pocket would be a good birthday
+gift for him.  They bought it, and Mrs. Horton wrapped it up nicely and
+Sunny Boy wrote on a little white card, "Many Happy Returns of the Day
+from Sunny Boy to Oliver," and this was tied on the outside of the
+package.
+
+The next day was Oliver's birthday.  It happened to be a Saturday.
+Miss Davis said this was lucky, or she didn't know what might have
+happened in school.  She said no one could expect children who were
+going to a party in the afternoon to be very much interested in
+learning to spell and write in the morning.
+
+The party was to be from two to five o'clock, and Sunny Boy, in his
+best white flannel suit, and carrying Oliver's present under his arm,
+started about quarter of two for the birthday boy's house.
+
+At the same time the door of the Bakers' house opened.
+
+"Going to the party?" called Nelson, running down the steps of his
+house, followed by Ruth.  "What did you get for Oliver?"
+
+Sunny Boy told him.  Nelson said he had a story book to give Oliver.
+Ruth had a little silver pencil, she said.  Sunny Boy thought that Ruth
+looked very pretty, dressed all in white from her white rubbers to her
+white fur hat.  She didn't complain about her feet being cold, either.
+But that may have been because Oliver did not live very far away.
+
+There were about twenty children at the party, when all the guests had
+arrived.  Mrs. Dunlap and Oliver shook hands with each, and the boys
+put their hats and coats in Oliver's room while the little girls put
+theirs in his mother's.  Sunny Boy knew nearly all the children except
+one, a boy who seemed older than any of the others and who, whenever he
+had a chance, teased the girls by pulling their hair-ribbons or putting
+out his foot to trip them as they went past him in the games.
+
+"That's Jerry Mullet," whispered Oliver to Sunny Boy.  "He's a cousin
+of Perry Phelps'.  I didn't know he was visiting Perry when I sent the
+invitations, but Mrs. Phelps called up Mother and asked if Jerry
+couldn't come to the party.  I don't like him very much, do you?"
+
+"Oh, I guess so," said Sunny Boy, who wanted to be polite and who liked
+Perry Phelps so much he wanted to like his cousin, too.
+
+Among the games they played were several in which prizes were given to
+those who won the game.  Ruth Baker won the spider web prize, much to
+her delight, for she was the youngest of the little girls, and it made
+her feel quite grown up to be asked to an eight-year-old party and to
+win a prize also.
+
+"We are going to play the donkey game before supper," announced Mrs.
+Dunlap, after they had played several other games.  "The donkey game is
+old, but Oliver thinks you will like it," went on Mrs. Dunlap.  "I will
+blindfold you, children.  You first, Jerry."
+
+Jerry was blindfolded and turned around three times.  Then he started
+for the picture of the donkey pinned up on the wall.  A shout of
+laughter greeted him when he pinned the tail on one of the donkey's
+long ears.
+
+Nelson Baker was next, and he pinned the tail on a leg.  Helen Graham
+pinned it on his neck.  Dorothy Peters took a long time to decide where
+she would stab her pin and then, after all her trouble, only succeeded
+in pinning the tail on the donkey's nose.  Child after child went up,
+and not one of them pinned the tail anywhere near the place where a
+donkey's tail should grow.
+
+"Now, Sunny Boy, you come and try it," said Mrs. Dunlap, smiling at
+Sunny Boy.  "Never mind if these children do laugh.  They are ready to
+laugh at nothing now.  You pin the tail on the donkey, and then we'll
+go out to the dining-room and see what Kate has to surprise us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+JERRY LOSES HIS TEMPER
+
+Sunny Boy stood very still to have the handkerchief tied over his eyes.
+He was glad it was his turn, and he meant to pin that donkey's tail
+almost in the right place, if not the exact spot.
+
+"There you are, Sunny Boy," said Mrs. Dunlap gaily, turning him around
+and around gently, three times.  "Now you are ready to try your luck."
+
+Sunny Boy tried to remember where the donkey was pinned.  He walked
+forward slowly, taking queer little short steps.  When your eyes are
+blindfolded, you know, you feel every moment as though you were going
+to step down into a hole.  Suddenly Sunny Boy lifted his pin with the
+donkey's tail on it and made a quick jab.  He was sure he had reached
+the picture of the donkey.
+
+"Ouch!" shrieked a boy's voice.
+
+After that came a moment of perfect silence; and then, such a shout of
+laughter!  Girls and boys seemed to be shouting together and Sunny Boy
+thought he heard Mrs. Dunlap laughing with them.  He pulled off the
+handkerchief, and then he saw what they were laughing at.  He had
+pinned the donkey's tail on Jerry Mullet!
+
+"Oh, my!  Oh, my!" laughed Perry Phelps, rolling over on the floor.
+"Oh, Sunny Boy, I never saw anything so funny in my life!  You lifted
+that pin so high in the air and brought it down on Jerry's arm before
+he knew what you were going to do.  I never saw anything so funny!" and
+Perry rolled over on the rug and began to laugh again.
+
+All the children were laughing, and pretty Mrs. Dunlap had tears in her
+eyes because she had laughed so much.  Only Jerry Mullet looked cross.
+
+"I hope I didn't hurt you," Sunny Boy said to him.  "I didn't mean to
+stick a pin into you."
+
+Before Jerry could do more than scowl, Perry sat up on the floor wiping
+his eyes.
+
+"What I want to know--" he said, "is Jerry a donkey?"  And then he
+began to laugh again, and this time the children shouted with him.
+
+They thought this was the funniest question, and they laughed and
+laughed and kept saying to each other: "Is Jerry a donkey, because
+Sunny Boy pinned the donkey's tail on him?  Is Jerry a donkey?"
+
+"I'll show you whether I'm a donkey or not," growled Jerry, frowning at
+them all.  "I'll show you!  I won't stay at your old party!"
+
+And he dashed upstairs and into Oliver's room where his hat and coat
+were.  Downstairs he came flying, and never stopped in the parlor to
+tell Mrs. Dunlap he was going or to say that he had had a pleasant
+time.  No!  Instead, Jerry opened the front door and banged it after
+him with a crash that shook the house.
+
+"He's gone!" said Sunny Boy, dismayed.  "He's mad!"
+
+"I'm afraid he is," admitted Mrs. Dunlap.  "And I'm sorry.  He didn't
+have his ice-cream."
+
+"He didn't like it 'cause I pinned the donkey's tail on him," said
+Sunny Boy sorrowfully.  "But I didn't mean to."
+
+"No, of course you didn't," answered Mrs. Dunlap.  "Don't feel bad over
+that, Sunny Boy.  I'm afraid we teased Jerry too much about it, though.
+He is a stranger here in Centronia, and we should have tried to be
+extra kind to him.  You shouldn't have said that about Jerry being a
+donkey, Perry," she added, turning to Perry Phelps.  "You must have
+hurt his feelings."
+
+Miss May often said that Perry had the best manners of any boy in her
+school.  He did not laugh now, but he came up to Mrs. Dunlap and said
+he was sorry he had asked his cousin if he were a donkey.
+
+"I should think he could take a joke," he said.  "He's ten years old.
+But I'm sorry, Mrs. Dunlap, and Mother will be, too, that Jerry left
+your party like this.  And I hope you'll 'scuse him banging your front
+door."
+
+Perry Phelps' mother did not allow him to bang doors.  If he forgot and
+slammed one, he had to come back and open and close it softly five
+times.  This helped him to remember.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry our party is spoiled for Jerry," sighed Mrs. Dunlap.
+"But we'll go out into the dining-room and have supper now.  Jennie
+Rice wins the prize for pinning the donkey's tail nearer to the right
+place than any other child, so she gets the first prize.  Sunny Boy, of
+course, gets the consolation prize.  Give them the prizes, Oliver,
+dear."
+
+Oliver handed Jennie a tiny silver donkey on a pretty red ribbon, to
+wear around her neck.  She was delighted and put it right on.  Sunny
+Boy's prize was a gray donkey whose head came off and whose body was
+filled with small gumdrops.  He thought it was a very nice prize.
+
+They had a beautiful time at the supper table, and poor Jerry was
+hardly missed.  They had chicken sandwiches and cocoa with whipped
+cream.  Then came vanilla and chocolate ice cream.  And there was a
+large slice of the white-frosted birthday cake, which Oliver himself
+cut, for each child.
+
+After supper they played a few more games, and then it was time to go
+home.  Mrs. Dunlap was almost smothered by the little girls who all
+tried to kiss her at once and tell her they had had the nicest time at
+Oliver's party.  Nearly every one said-good-bye to Oliver and his
+mother and started down the steps at the same time.
+
+At the first corner every one but the Baker children and Sunny Boy went
+a different way.  They could walk home together, and that was why Mrs.
+Horton had said that Harriet need not come for Sunny Boy.
+
+As they were passing a house some one tapped on the window.  Nelson and
+Ruth's aunt lived there, and she had been waiting to see them pass.
+
+"Your mother telephoned me you went to Oliver Dunlap's party and would
+go by our house on your way home," said Aunt Edith, coming out on the
+steps, with a coat thrown over her shoulders.  "I asked her to let you
+stay and visit us till eight o'clock this evening.  Then I'll take you
+home.  The cat has a basketful of new kittens for you to play with,
+Ruth."
+
+"May Sunny Boy stay, too, please?" asked Ruth.
+
+"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Tyler, who was Ruth's Aunt Edith.  "Of
+course, he may.  I will telephone to his mother so that she will not
+worry about him."
+
+"No, thank you.  I have to go home," Sunny Boy said shyly.  "I said I
+would come right home.  And I want to tell Mother about the party."
+
+"All right, dear, just as you please," said Mrs. Tyler kindly.  "You
+are sure, Sunny Boy, you don't mind going the rest of the way alone?"
+
+Sunny Boy replied that he did not mind, and Nelson and Ruth went into
+the house, while he trudged off down the street by himself.  Presently
+he chuckled.
+
+"Didn't Jerry look funny?" snickered Sunny Boy.  "I wonder what made me
+pin the donkey's tail on him."
+
+"Where do you think you're going so fast?" cried Jerry, stepping out
+from behind a barrel where he had been hiding.
+
+"Hello!" said Sunny Boy, surprised to see him.  "I'm going home.  The
+party is all done.  You missed it--we had two kinds of ice cream."
+
+"I hope you're happy, spoiling my afternoon and making everybody laugh
+at me," scolded Jerry Mullet.  "You're a nice kind of boy.  Do you know
+what I'm going to do to you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Sunny Boy, trying to walk past him.  "Let me be.  I
+told my mother I'd come home and not stop to play on the way."
+
+"This isn't playing," growled Jerry disagreeably.  "You can't go till I
+say you can.  Are you sorry you made everybody laugh at me?"
+
+"I told you I was sorry I pinned the tail on you," answered Sunny Boy.
+"I can't help it if they did laugh.  And you did look funny."
+
+"Well, you think so now, but you won't long," Jerry said.  "I'm going
+to wash your face in that snow and then you'll look funny yourself."
+
+He pointed to some dirty snow that was banked in the gutter.
+
+"You let me alone," cried Sunny Boy, trying to run past Jerry.  "I
+won't let you wash my face.  Go away, Jerry Mullet!"
+
+Jerry reached out his hand to snatch Sunny Boy's coat, but, before he
+could touch him, down came a shower of snow that struck Jerry on the
+back of his neck and made him shut his eyes.
+
+"Hey, you!" called a deep, hoarse voice.  "Why don't you pick on boys
+your own size!  That kid isn't half as big as you are!"
+
+Jerry and Sunny Boy looked up.  The voice came from the roof of a
+piazza that overhung the sidewalk.  A big man in blue overalls and a
+red flannel undershirt, and wearing no overcoat, was shoveling the snow
+off the roof.  He had heard Jerry scolding Sunny Boy and had seen him
+trying to grab him.
+
+"The likes of you, thinking to pick a fight with a little feller like
+that!" said the man, scooping up another shovelful of snow as he
+talked.  "Why, if you were my boy, bread and water for a week would be
+too good for you.  Take that, you little bully!"  And down came another
+shower of snow on the surprised Jerry.
+
+"Run, kid, run!" shouted the man to Sunny Boy.  "Let's see how well you
+can run.  I'll look after this tormenting one."
+
+Sunny Boy took one look at Jerry sputtering in the snow, and then
+turned and ran.  He ran as fast as he could, and he never stopped till
+he landed on his own doorstep and rang the bell.  When Harriet came to
+the door he was so out of breath that, for several minutes, he couldn't
+tell her what had happened.  And then, of course, before he could make
+her understand about Jerry, he had to tell all about the party.
+
+Daddy and Mother Horton had to hear about the party, too.  And they
+said that they would rather have a little boy for their son who behaved
+as Sunny Boy had than a boy who acted the way Jerry Mullet did.
+
+"But no one likes to be laughed at, and we won't be too hard on Jerry,"
+said Mother Horton, as she helped Sunny Boy get ready for bed.  "Shall
+I put your donkey prize up here on the mantel shelf for you, Sunny Boy?"
+
+Sunny Boy remembered her putting his donkey on the shelf for him, but
+he did not remember seeing the donkey climb down again.  Yet the next
+time he looked at the shelf the donkey wasn't there.  Then he saw it
+sitting on the foot of his bed, laughing.  The donkey laughed so hard
+and opened his mouth so very wide that Sunny Boy could see the gumdrops
+down inside him.
+
+"Ha!  Ha!" laughed the donkey.  "Didn't Jerry look funny?  Ha!  Ha!"
+
+"Mother says we mustn't laugh at him any more," Sunny Boy told the
+donkey.  "You'll hurt his feelings."
+
+But the donkey only laughed harder, and Sunny Boy began to laugh, too,
+and he woke up laughing to find that it was morning and that he had
+been dreaming about the donkey.
+
+Sunny Boy saw Perry Phelps in Sunday school that afternoon, but Jerry
+had not come with him.
+
+"Jerry is so cross!" declared Perry.  "He hardly speaks to me, and I'm
+glad he is going home to-morrow."
+
+And Monday, when Perry came to school, he announced that his cousin had
+gone home.  He lived in a city fifty miles from Centronia and did not
+visit Perry very often.
+
+"My father said it might snow to-day," said Oliver Dunlap, who seemed
+to feel very happy and gay after his party.  "And if it does, let's
+have a snowball fight, shall we?"
+
+Oliver had brought Miss Davis "some of the party" in a pretty paper
+napkin, and she said he was a very thoughtful boy and she was sure
+every one had had a good time Saturday afternoon.
+
+All the boys were willing to have a snowball fight, and when a few
+flakes of snow began to fall at recess time, Oliver shouted that now
+there would be enough snow for the "bullets and things."
+
+"Let me be on your side, Oliver?" asked Helen Graham coaxingly.
+
+"On my side?" repeated Oliver.  "There aren't going to be any girls in
+this snowball fight.  This is just us boys."
+
+"I think you're mean!" cried Helen.  "And I will, too, be on your side.
+If you don't let us girls in the snowball fight, I'll go to Miss May
+and tell her we want the back lot to play in after school.  So there!"
+
+And now it was Oliver's turn to be provoked.
+
+"I think girls are perfectly horrid," he said crossly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BRAVE LITTLE SUNNY BOY
+
+Miss Davis, feeding the goldfish in the largest glass bowl, overheard
+what Oliver said to Helen.
+
+"Why, Oliver!" she said in surprise.  "How impolite you are!  How can
+you say such a thing to Helen?  Besides, didn't you have girls at your
+birthday party?"
+
+"Oh, girls are all right at parties," explained Oliver.  "They always
+go to parties.  But I don't think girls should want to be in a snowball
+fight, Miss Davis."
+
+"Miss May said the girls could have the back lot whenever they wanted
+it," said Helen.  "And if you don't let us play with you, Oliver
+Dunlap, there won't be any snowball fight; you haven't any other place
+to play."
+
+This was true.  Oliver knew it, and Helen knew it.  Boys who live in a
+city can not have a snowball fight in the street, lest they hit people
+who may be walking past.  No back yard is a safe place because of the
+many windows that may be broken.  A vacant lot, like the one behind
+Miss May's school, is really the only place for this kind of fun.  Miss
+May early in the school year had made a rule that this lot should be
+for the girls in her school whenever they wanted it.  The boys might
+use it, she said when the girls didn't care to play on it.
+
+"Boys have more freedom than girls," kind Miss May had said.  "They can
+run and climb and tumble about coming to school and going home.  But
+little girls have to be more careful.  So I think they should have the
+lot to play in whenever they wish."
+
+In the spring Miss May had swings and a sand pile and a few "flying
+rings" put up for the children to amuse themselves with, but these, of
+course, were taken down during the winter.  When it snowed, the lot was
+a large white square, and it certainly was an ideal spot for a snowball
+fight.
+
+"I don't see why you don't let the girls play," said Miss Davis to
+Oliver.  "You will probably be glad to have them in your army.  Sunny
+Boy, don't you think the girls ought to play?"
+
+Sunny Boy looked uncomfortable.  He wanted to be polite, but he had to
+be truthful, too.
+
+"Well, girls are a lot of trouble, Miss Davis," he explained earnestly.
+"You see, as soon as they start to play their feet get cold.  And then
+they have to stop."
+
+Miss Davis said yes, she could see how that would bother a general.
+
+"But then," she said, "perhaps the girls won't get cold feet while they
+are in the snowball fight.  They will be running about and they will be
+quite cozy and warm all the time, I am sure."
+
+"Well, let 'em play, if they want to," said Oliver.  "I shouldn't think
+they would want to play when they know nobody wants 'em."
+
+"Then I'll be on your side, Oliver," said.  Helen Graham, who intended
+to be in that snowball fight whether any one wanted her or not.
+
+It was snowing steadily by this time and all the children in Miss
+Davis' rooms were excited about the fight.  Recess was over before they
+had chosen generals and sides, but Miss Davis, who was such a dear
+teacher it was no wonder her pupils loved her, said that she would
+allow them an extra ten minutes to make their plans.
+
+"Then you must work ever so hard to cover the lost time," she told
+them, slipping out of the room to speak to Miss May, while the boys and
+girls began to chatter again.
+
+Sunny Boy was made a general for one side, and Oliver took the other.
+Perry Phelps and Jimmie Butterworth were on Sunny Boy's side and Jessie
+Smiley and Dorothy Peters.  There were three other boys and two more
+girls in his army, too.  Helen Graham, of course, was on Oliver's side,
+and Carleton Marsh and Leslie Bradin.  Lottie Carr and her sister were
+on his side, also, and four other boys.  That gave each side ten, you
+see.
+
+"I've been speaking to Miss May," announced Miss Davis, coming back to
+her room when the ten minutes was up.  "She thinks, instead of having
+you children go home at noon and come back for your snowball fight,
+that it will be better if you have lunch here and then go out to play
+in the snow.  Miss May will telephone every child's mother and ask
+permission to have you stay here, and she is going to promise that you
+will all be home by four o'clock.  And now I want you to have the best
+reading lesson we have had since Christmas."
+
+The children liked to have luncheon in Miss May's blue and silver
+dining-room.  She invited them, one at a time, to have lunch with her,
+and it was always a pleasant experience.  And to-day it would be great
+fun not to have to go home and come back again, but to be able to go
+right out and begin their snow battle as soon as luncheon was over.
+
+The rest of the morning went smoothly, and Miss Davis said she was glad
+she had given them the extra recess, for they recited very nicely.
+When the noon bell rang, it seemed strange instead of going to the
+cloak room for coats and hats and rubbers, to go upstairs and wash
+their hands and faces and then come downstairs and go into the
+dining-room with Miss May and Miss Davis and have Maria bring in their
+lunch.
+
+"I'd like to have a table like this every noon," said Miss May, smiling
+at the circle of little faces that went all around her big mahogany
+table.  "We'd both like it, shouldn't we, Miss Davis?"
+
+"I think it would be lovely!" nodded Miss Davis, squeezing Sunny Boy's
+hand.  He sat next to her.  "Think of all the questions we could
+answer, Miss May."
+
+Miss May laughed and said she didn't mind answering questions at all.
+
+As soon as lunch was over, Miss Davis helped them get into their coats
+and wraps and watched them march out to the back lot for their fun.
+Jessie Smiley wore a new scarlet sweater that came down to the edge of
+her dress and was so warm and snug that she said she did not need to
+wear her coat with it.  Miss Davis said she thought she would be warm
+enough, too, without the coat, and she knew she could run more easily.
+
+"Not that a good soldier runs," she explained, laughing a little as she
+buttoned the sweater under Jessie's chin.  "But a snowball army soldier
+has to run, I know."
+
+Jessie left her rubbers in the cloakroom, too, for she had her rubber
+boots.  She had worn her rubbers to school that morning.  The boots had
+been left in the cloakroom since the last snowstorm.  Jessie wanted to
+wear one rubber and one boot, but Miss Davis said she thought that two
+boots would be better, so Jessie had taken her advice.
+
+"Whee, there's a lot of snow!" cried Sunny Boy, wading out into the
+middle of the lot, followed by his army.  "We ought to get a lot of
+bullets made.  And a fort.  We must build a fort."
+
+Oliver took his army over at one end of the lot and set them to work
+making snowballs.  The boys made more balls than the girls did.  But
+then the girls were so anxious to make theirs smooth and round that
+they did not work very quickly.  Sunny Boy soon noticed that Dorothy
+Peters scraped and packed and patted one snowball while he was making
+four.
+
+Finally General Dunlap shouted to General Sunny Boy and the battle was
+about to start when something happened that put all thoughts of a
+snowball fight out of the heads of soldiers and generals alike.
+
+The battlefield, that is the back lot, you know, was directly back of
+Miss May's school.  A large porch ran across the rear of the building
+and the back yard joined the vacant lot.  Just as Sunny Boy waved his
+hand to signal Oliver that he was ready, Maria came out on the porch of
+the school.
+
+"Fire!" she shouted.  "Fire!  The school is on fire!"
+
+If Miss May or Miss Davis had been in the building, it never would have
+happened.  Miss May would have telephoned the fire department quietly
+at the first sign of smoke and Miss Davis would have picked up the
+brass fire extinguisher that stood in the hall and at least have tried
+to put the fire out.  But Miss May and Miss Davis had gone down town,
+believing that the children were safe and happy, playing in the snow,
+and Maria was alone in the house.  When she saw smoke creeping out
+around the door of Miss Davis' schoolroom, Maria lost her head entirely.
+
+"Fire!" she screamed, rushing out on the porch and beckoning to the
+children.  "The school's on fire!"
+
+But when they came rushing toward her, pellmell, she seemed to remember
+what she ought to do.
+
+[Illustration: They came rushing toward her, pellmell.]
+
+"You can't come in," she told them, as they gathered at the bottom of
+the porch steps.  "You can't come in, because you'll get burned!  The
+school is on fire."
+
+She opened the door behind her and, sure enough, out poured smoke.
+
+"My coat!" wailed Jessie Smiley.  "My lovely new coat.  Santa Claus
+brought it to me for Christmas and it has real beaver fur on the
+collar!  Oh, oh, I don't want my coat burned up!  And my rubbers are
+brand new, too."
+
+"I'll get them for you," promised Sunny Boy.  "Don't cry, Jessie.  I
+know where they are in the cloakroom."
+
+"Will you get my rubbers, too?" asked Jessie, smiling through her tears.
+
+"Yes, I'll get everything," said Sunny Boy.
+
+"You can't go in there, it's on fire!" screamed Maria, when he ran up
+the steps.  "Sunny Boy, I tell you the school is burning up!  Come back
+here!"
+
+But Sunny Boy opened the door and ran in past her.  He knew that Jessie
+Smiley was very proud of her new winter coat with its pretty beaver
+collar.
+
+The house was full of smoke, and it made Sunny Boy choke and gasp, but
+he shut his eyes and felt his way to Miss Davis' room.  The smoke was
+worse in here than in the hall, and his eyes smarted and burned as he
+crept slowly to the cloakroom.  In there there was not so much smoke,
+and he had no trouble at all in pulling Jessie's coat down from the
+hook where it hung, and he found her rubbers on the floor.  He stuffed
+one in each pocket.  Then he started back.
+
+His eyes hurt so badly that, brave little boy as he was, he began to
+cry.
+
+"I can't breathe!" he sobbed.  "I wish I had a drink of water."
+
+"George!" suddenly shouted a big voice in his ear.  "Say, George, here
+he is!  I've found him!"
+
+Somebody grabbed Sunny Boy up in strong, rough arms and he was carried
+swiftly through the halls and out to the porch again.  The children
+shouted when they saw him.
+
+"Don't you know any better than to go into a house that is on fire?"
+said a big, rough voice that seemed to belong to the big arms.
+
+Sunny Boy opened his eyes.  It was the tall policeman!  And before he
+could speak, with a clang and a whistle and a toot and a great deal of
+noise and excitement, up came the fire engines to put the fire out.
+
+The tall policeman dipped a clean white handkerchief in water and
+bathed Sunny Boy's eyes while another policeman kept the children off
+the porch.  The other policeman was the "George" to whom Sunny Boy's
+policeman friend had shouted.  They had heard Maria screaming and had
+run through the alley to see what the matter was.  And then George had
+sent in the alarm of fire while the tall policeman had come to look for
+Sunny Boy.
+
+"What possessed you to go in there, anyway?" asked the tall policeman,
+paying no attention to the firemen running past him into the house.
+"What made you do it?"
+
+"I had to get Jessie's coat," explained Sunny Boy.  "And her rubbers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE EXPLORERS SET OUT
+
+And that was what Sunny Boy said to every one who asked him why he had
+gone into the burning school.
+
+"I had to get Jessie's coat and rubbers," he repeated, when the
+"George" policeman asked him.
+
+And the big firemen, who soon crowded around him, and Miss May and Miss
+Davis, who came hurrying home, breathless, for they had seen the crowd
+around the school the moment they stepped off the trolley car at the
+corner, were given the same reason.
+
+"Well, next time, you remember that no coat and no rubbers are worth
+going after when a place is on fire," said one of the firemen, fanning
+himself with his helmet, for fighting a fire is warm work, you know.
+"There is just one thing to risk your life for at a fire," he went on
+to explain to Sunny Boy and to the other children who crowded around to
+hear.  "Just one thing, and that's another life.  Think you youngsters
+can remember that?"
+
+Sunny Boy was sure he could, and the firemen began to roll up their
+chemical hose.  They had not even unwound the big hose for, you see,
+Miss May's school had not been on fire.
+
+"Not on fire!" cried Maria, when the tall policeman told her this.
+"Why, I saw the smoke, and Sunny Boy was almost choked with it.  Of
+course it was on fire!"
+
+"No fire, Miss," said one of the firemen, grinning.  "Snow's been
+accumulating on the edge of the chimney for some time, I take it, and
+this afternoon a chunk fell in and choked the flue.  Of course the
+smoke poured out into the house.  And the little fellow thought he was
+going straight into a blaze.  He's a spunky little chap, and it was a
+good chance to tell him, and the other kids, what not to do at a fire.
+Next time it might be a serious matter."
+
+The firemen went away, their engines and apparatus making as much noise
+as when they had been coming to the fire, and by and by the curious
+crowd that had gathered in the street went away, too.  The tall
+policeman and his friend George helped Miss May and Miss Davis and
+Maria to put down the windows which had been left up by the firemen to
+let the smoke out, and then they went away.
+
+"Sunny Boy, are you quite positive you feel all right?" asked Miss May
+anxiously.  "Do your eyes hurt you now?  Don't you want me to walk home
+with you?"
+
+Sunny Boy said no, thank you, he felt all right and he didn't need her
+to walk home with him.
+
+Daddy Horton was home when Sunny Boy came in, for he had left his
+office early.  So he and Mother heard all about the fire before dinner,
+and though Mother hugged him tightly and declared that he smelled of
+smoke, she said she was glad her little boy had not been afraid.
+
+"But the fireman was right," said Daddy Horton gravely.  "Coats and
+rubbers are not important enough, Sunny Boy, even if they were trimmed
+with gold fur, to risk one's life for.  I hope there'll be no more
+fires till you are grown up and able to judge for yourself.  But if
+there should be, remember what the fireman said.  That will keep you
+from dashing into a blaze after foolish trifles."
+
+Sunny Boy knew he would not forget, and then he went out into the
+kitchen and told Harriet about the afternoon's excitement.
+
+"And we never had the snowball fight at all," he said.  "All the
+bullets were made, too.  Perhaps we can have it to-morrow."
+
+But the next morning was rainy, and though there was plenty of cold
+weather through February which followed, not once did it snow again.
+There was not even much good skating, though Sunny Boy did enjoy one
+afternoon with Bob Parkney, who declared that he would soon be a
+champion skater with his new skates to help him.  After that, though,
+it thawed and froze and thawed and froze and the Centronia Park
+Commission refused to allow any one on the ice.  The children were
+disappointed in the weather, but Miss May said she was glad to see it
+rain.  She had had enough snow, she said, till another year.
+
+Bob stopped in once a week after school at the Hortons, to get the egg
+container.  He brought Mrs. Horton two dozen fresh eggs every Monday
+morning from his mother's poultry yard, and Friday afternoon he came
+for the box.  Mrs. Parkney was so busy and happy now that she had
+almost forgotten she had ever been discouraged.  Judge Layton had put
+the farmhouse in good order for her family, and he had stocked the
+poultry yard with fine chickens.  He said that if Mrs. Parkney would
+feed the chickens and look after them till he came out in the summer,
+she might have the eggs to do with as she pleased.  The Parkney
+children had all the fresh eggs to eat they wanted and there were
+several dozen to sell every week, and Mrs. Parkney said she felt rich
+with the egg money for her own.
+
+Mr. Parkney's arm gradually grew stronger, and he was proving such a
+handy man on the little farm, so willing and so capable, that Judge
+Layton told Mrs. Horton that he was thinking of building a new house
+and asking Mr. Parkney to go on living in the farmhouse and to be his
+farm manager.
+
+"He's going to paint the house and the barns for me this spring and
+whitewash all the fences," said the judge.  "There isn't anything that
+man can't do."
+
+"Spring is on the way," announced Daddy Horton, one evening early in
+March.  "I see they are having freshets out in Yardley county."
+
+"What is a freshet?" asked Sunny Boy.
+
+"A freshet, Son, is when a stream rises suddenly and overflows its
+natural course," explained his daddy.  "In spring, freshets are often
+caused by the ice and snow melting too rapidly and draining down into
+the brooks and rivers.  Then the stream rises, and if the banks are
+narrow, it overflowers [Transcriber's note: overflows?] them and
+sometimes great damage is done.  A big river may sweep away houses and
+cattle and send people scurrying about in boats and rafts.  Centronia
+is not near a river, though, so it isn't likely that you'll see a
+freshet soon."
+
+The news of the freshets was not the only sign of spring.  At school,
+Miss Davis had a large blue jar filled with beautiful pussy willows on
+her desk, and the nature study lessons were all about the spring birds.
+When Bob Parkney brought Mrs. Horton her fresh eggs, he also brought
+her some budded twigs which he said would blossom if she put them in
+water.
+
+"My, it's nice out in the country now," said Bob.  "Why can't Sunny Boy
+come out and see us, Mrs. Horton?  Ma was saying yesterday she'd like
+to have him come any time.  He's never really seen the place, and Judge
+Layton is fixing it up fine.  Can't he come next Saturday?  I'd meet
+him at the trolley station."
+
+"I'll tell you, Bob, what Sunny Boy has been teasing to be allowed to
+do," replied Mrs. Horton.  "He and half a dozen of the boys he plays
+with want to take their lunches and spend a day exploring.  Mr. Horton
+and I have suggested that they wait till it is warmer, but I am afraid
+they can't wait contentedly much longer, and your suggestion has really
+solved the problem for me."
+
+"Oh, Mother!" cried Sunny Boy, who had been listening eagerly.  "Next
+Saturday, Mother?  Please!"
+
+Mrs. Horton laughed as she put her twigs in a vase of water.
+
+"You see how it is, don't you, Bob?" she said.  "Well, Mr. Horton and I
+are not willing to have Sunny Boy go to a strange place.  But if your
+mother is willing to let them come out where you are, they can play
+around and have a beautiful time.  They'll bring their own lunches, and
+she musn't let them track mud on her clean kitchen floor.  Indeed,
+they'll be too busy with all outdoors, to think much about coming in
+the house, I suppose.  But you and your father will be there, to keep
+an eye on them, and I shall feel so much easier.  Some one will put
+them on the trolley car here in the morning, and if you will meet them
+at the corner of your lane and see that they are put on the half past
+four car in the afternoon, every mother will be much obliged to you."
+
+Bob grinned and said he would "tell Ma," and the next morning he
+stopped on his way to school to say that the Parkneys would be
+expecting Sunny Boy and his friends the next Saturday morning.
+
+"And tell them to wear their rubber boots, Mrs. Horton," he said
+earnestly.  "Such mud you never saw!  Ma keeps a broom at the back
+door, and she won't let us come in till we change our shoes.  She hands
+us out clean ones.  But of course it is always soft when the frost is
+coming out of the ground."
+
+Sunny Boy could hardly wait till Saturday.  He and Oliver Dunlap were
+the ones who had teased to be allowed to go on an "exploring" trip in
+the country.  At first they had planned to go together, without any one
+else, but as soon as the other boys heard of the scheme, they wanted to
+go, too.  Nelson Baker heard about the plan, and he asked if he could
+go.  Nelson did not see much of Sunny Boy on school days because, of
+course, he went to the public school and did not get home till three
+o'clock in the afternoon.  But he and Sunny Boy were good friends, and
+Sunny was glad to have him go exploring with the rest.
+
+"Bring me some pussy willows, if you find them," said Miss Davis, when
+she heard what they were planning to do.  "Miss May wants some pussy
+willows to root in water and then she will plant them in the yard and
+perhaps they will grow."  Sunny Boy promised to bring back pussy
+willows, if they found any.
+
+Friday came at last, and that meant he could leave his rubber boots
+beside his bed where he could see them the first thing in the morning.
+Somehow, Sunny Boy never felt that he was going on a long trip till he
+saw the big trunk standing in the hall, waiting to be packed, and he
+never felt that he was going on a little trip till he could put the
+things he was to wear in neat piles ready to hop into.
+
+"So you're going exploring to-day, are you?" said Daddy Horton, when he
+kissed him good-bye the next morning.  "Well, good luck to you, old
+man.  I hope you have an exciting adventure.  And don't lose either of
+your handsome boots!"
+
+Sunny Boy laughed and went out on the front steps to wave to Daddy.
+
+"It feels so nice," he said to his mother, when she came to tell him
+that Mrs. Dunlap had telephoned that Oliver was going to call for Sunny
+Boy.  "I like spring, don't you, Mother?"
+
+"I love the spring, precious," she answered, smiling.  "Now come and
+get your cap and the lunch Harriet has packed for you.  I believe Mr.
+Nelson is going to walk out to the car with you.  Where are you going
+to meet the other boys?"
+
+"At the corner," replied Sunny Boy, snatching up his cap and struggling
+into his sweater as he heard Oliver's whistle.  "Thank you for making
+me the lunch, Harriet," he cried, running toward the door.  "Good-bye,
+Mother," he said, running back to kiss her.
+
+Oliver and Nelson and Mr. Baker were waiting for him on the sidewalk,
+and when they reached the corner where the interurban trolley car
+stopped to take on passengers, they found Perry Phelps and Jimmie
+Butterworth and Leslie Bradin and Carleton Marsh, each with a box of
+lunch under his arm.
+
+"Going to Europe?" said the conductor, as he watched them climb into
+his car.  "Let them off at Lane's Corners," he repeated, as Mr. Baker
+told him how far the boys were going.  "All right, sir.  Lane's Corners
+it is.  All aboard."
+
+He pulled the bell and the car started.  The seven little boys found
+seats together at one end of the car, and the conductor made them laugh
+all the way to Lane's Corners.  There were only two other people in the
+car, an elderly man and a man who read his newspapers and did not look
+up.  The conductor pretended half the time that the trolley was a boat
+and that the boys were sailors.  And then he would pretend that he was
+the conductor on a train and that the motorman was the engineer.  It
+was not a long ride to Lane's Corners and the merry conductor made it
+seem only a few minutes.
+
+"Who wanted to get off at Lane's Corners?" he called, when he had
+stopped the car at the big white sign post.  "Why, goodness, all my
+passengers are leaving me!  Here, lad, catch this," he shouted to Bob,
+picking up Sunny Boy and pretending to toss him to Bob, who was waiting
+for them.
+
+"It's a good thing you wore boots and rubbers," said Bob, as the
+trolley car went on, leaving the boys, who waved to the conductor as
+long as they could see him on the platform.  "The mud is up to the hub
+of the wagon wheels."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ANOTHER RESCUE
+
+A horse and wagon stood at one side of the road, and Bob led the boys
+over and told them to "hop in."
+
+"Isn't this the horse and wagon that was lost in the blizzard?" asked
+Sunny Boy, scrambling up to a seat beside Bob.  Indeed all the boys
+tried to get near Bob, and when he turned the horse's head toward the
+farmhouse, there were boys on every side of him.
+
+"Same horse, same wagon," said Bob.  "Only difference is the weather.
+Feel how warm that sun is?"
+
+"Where we going?" asked Carleton Marsh.
+
+"Down to the house, first, to pick up Father," replied Bob.  "He is
+going to tinker up and whitewash some of the fences this morning.  And
+Ma said she wanted to say 'hello' to you all.  I thought you'd like to
+play down along the brook, and I can drive you there, because Father
+wants to work on the pasture fence."
+
+Mrs. Parkney came out, followed by the Parkney children, when she heard
+Bob driving up to the farmhouse door.  The road was so soft and muddy
+that she couldn't hear the horse's feet or the wagon wheels, but she
+could hear eight boys talking and laughing.  That made a noise that
+could be heard some distance away.
+
+"Now mind," said Mrs. Parkney, when she had spoken to the boys and her
+husband had come out with his tools and two buckets of whitewash and
+climbed into the wagon with them.  "Mind!  If you eat your lunch up
+before noon, or get hungry any time, you come up to the house and I'll
+fix you something good.  And stop in anyway before you go home and have
+some milk to drink.  Mud, Sunny Boy?  Why, bless your heart, dear, a
+little mud is nothing.  I wouldn't know spring had come to stay if I
+didn't see some mud tracked in."
+
+The boys thanked Mrs. Parkney, and Bob drove off.  When he came to the
+pasture, he got out and took down three bars and then drove in across
+the grass, down to the brook.
+
+"Why, it's almost like a river!" cried Perry Phelps in surprise.  "Look
+how fast it goes!"
+
+"Ice melting up above," said Mr. Parkney, getting out his tools while
+Bob tied the horse to a tree.  "See the chunks of ice floating past?"
+
+As the boys watched they saw pieces of dirty-looking ice go swirling
+past in the rushing water.
+
+"Is it a freshet?" asked Sunny Boy, remembering what his daddy had told
+him about freshets.
+
+"Not exactly," answered Mr. Parkney.  "The water's pretty high, but I
+don't believe this little stream can do much in the way of a freshet.
+Folks around here say it carries on right powerful-like some springs,
+but it doesn't look dangerous to me."
+
+The pasture land was soft and oozy, but as every boy wore either rubber
+boots or storm rubbers, they did not mind the mud.  Perry Phelps said
+if they were going to explore, he thought it would be a good plan to
+follow the brook and see where it went.
+
+"Go as far as you like," said Mr. Parkney.  "Bob and I are going up to
+the house at noon for dinner, but we'll be back around half-past one.
+And we won't let you miss the half-past four car, because your mothers
+will be expecting you home on that.  Go as far as you like; you won't
+be trespassing.  The few folks that live around here are good-natured,
+and the next farm is vacant, anyway."
+
+"But don't try any funny stunts, like wading in the brook," said Bob.
+"That water has more current than you'd expect, and it might knock you
+down easily.  And it isn't warm enough yet to make a cold bath
+pleasant."
+
+Sunny Boy had been thinking that it would be fun to wade into the brook
+and see how near the water came to the top of his rubber boots.  But he
+didn't want to be knocked down and perhaps hit with a piece of the ice,
+so he wisely decided to follow Bob's advice and stay on shore.
+
+The boys walked beside the brook, following its twists and turnings and
+climbing the fences that stood in their way, till they came to a large
+clump of willow trees, loaded down with pussy willows.
+
+"Let's pick them for Miss Davis," suggested Sunny Boy.
+
+"But then we'll have to carry them all day," said Perry.
+
+"No we won't.  We can take them back and leave them in the wagon," said
+Sunny Boy.  "And then we'll eat lunch and walk the other way.  I don't
+think there is much fun around here."
+
+Nelson Baker had a pocket knife, so he cut the pussy willows and the
+boys carried a large bunch back to the tree where Bob had tied the
+horse and wagon.  But the horse was gone, and, of course, the wagon,
+when they reached the tree, and neither Bob or Mr. Parkney was in sight.
+
+"They've gone home to eat their dinner," said Sunny Boy.  "Let's leave
+the pussy willows under this tree.  Mr. Parkney said he would be back
+by half-past one, you know."
+
+"I'm starving," declared Leslie Bradin.  "Come on, let's eat now.  My
+mother put two stuffed eggs in my box."
+
+Seven very hungry small boys may dispose of seven hearty lunches in
+almost seven minutes.  It did take Sunny Boy and his friends a little
+longer, but in much less than half an hour they were through eating and
+had tossed the boxes into the brook and seen them rushed swiftly down
+stream.
+
+"What's on the other side of that fence?" asked Oliver Dunlap, pointing
+to a wire fence that ran across the pasture, dipped into the brook, and
+continued on the other side.
+
+"Mr. Parkney said nobody lives there," Sunny Boy reminded Oliver.
+"Let's explore where nobody lives.  Come on, fellows!"
+
+They ran toward the fence, intending to climb over it, but before they
+reached it, Sunny Boy saw something that made him cry out in surprise.
+
+"Look, Oliver!" he shouted.  "Carleton, look!  See the fence in the
+water!"
+
+The boys looked toward the brook.  Part of the fence that was in the
+water had broken and hung wobbling.  But what had attracted Sunny Boy's
+attention was a pile of ice cakes that were jammed against the fence.
+They were a yellowish-white, not at all like the ice cakes the iceman
+left in the refrigerator on summer mornings.
+
+"It'll break in a minute," declared Nelson Baker.  "Let's watch."
+
+The boys stood waiting a few moments, and with a dull roar, the ice was
+forced through the fence, carrying a part of it along, and the water,
+as though angry at being held back, raced madly by, tossing cakes of
+ice on either bank.  A large piece was tossed right on the toe of Sunny
+Boy's boot.
+
+"There must be more ice where that came from," said Nelson.  "Maybe we
+can find the beginning of the brook.  Hurry up!  Let's try to find it."
+
+They could not run, or even walk very fast, because at every step they
+sank into the soft ground.  But, after they had climbed the fence, they
+came to a little graveled walk that was drier.
+
+"Bet you I can throw a stone farther than any of you," said Carleton
+Marsh.
+
+"Bet you can't!" retorted Perry Phelps.
+
+Then every one had to toss a stone into the brook.  The water went so
+fast it was hard to tell whose stone went farthest, for none landed
+across the brook.  Still, in a way this was satisfactory, for each boy
+was sure that his stone had won.
+
+"Well, come on, if you're going to explore," said Nelson Baker.  "What
+are you staring at, Sunny Boy?"
+
+"Ice," said Sunny Boy, pointing up the stream.  "Isn't that ice all
+over everything?"
+
+The boys looked.  A little distance away the ground seemed to be
+covered with cakes of ice.
+
+"Hurry up!" shouted Perry.  "It's an ice field.  We can have heaps of
+fun playing."
+
+The others hurried after Perry, and when they came to the field where
+the ice was they found that the brook was almost a river at this point.
+It had cut a wide, new gash in the bank and had overflowed, leaving mud
+and water and ice in great quantities and cutting the trunks of little
+trees that stood in the way.  The boys scrambled up on the ice and
+pretended that they were at the North Pole.
+
+"I'll be the savage Eskimo and chase you white men," said Carleton.
+
+"Are Eskimos savage?" asked Sunny Boy doubtfully.  "They don't look
+savage in the geography book.  They look fat."
+
+"Of course they are savage," said Carleton.  "Anybody who lives at the
+North Pole is savage.  Now when I chase you, you have to jump."
+
+Carleton made an awful face, such as he thought a savage Eskimo would
+make, and ran directly toward Sunny Boy, who jumped from his cake of
+ice to the ground.  But instead of landing on the ground, he landed in
+water!  Ice-cold water and up to his knees!  And at that moment the ice
+on which Carleton stood began to rock.
+
+"The brook!" gasped Sunny Boy.  "It's running over again!  It's inside
+my rubber boots!"
+
+The boys jumped from the ice cakes on which they stood, and those who
+had only rubbers on were wet at once to the knees.
+
+"We'll be drowned!" cried Perry Phelps.
+
+Sunny Boy saw a barn in the next field, and he thought if they could
+only reach that they would be safe.
+
+"We'll all take hold of hands," he said quickly.  "And don't anybody
+let go.  There's a barn up there, and we can go and stay in that.  Bob
+will come and find us, I know he will."
+
+The water kept rising higher and higher, and it was hard work to walk
+against the current.  Once Sunny Boy stumbled and fell, and once
+Carleton lost his balance; but the others pulled them up again.  When
+they reached the barn they found it was an old building, built very
+close to the brook and quite empty.
+
+"It must have been the hay barn," said Sunny Boy, who remembered what
+he had learned when he visited Grandpa Horton's farm.  "Sometimes hay
+barns are built out in the fields so it won't be so far to haul the
+hay.  I wonder how far off the house is?"
+
+The house had burned down years ago, but Sunny Boy did not know that.
+The boys were only too thankful to have a dry floor to stand on, and
+they huddled in one corner out of the keen March wind that blew in
+through the windows, for every pane of glass in the barn was broken.
+Every few minutes they could hear the crash of a chunk of ice against
+the building, and once or twice Sunny Boy thought he felt something
+move.  The third time he saw Jimmie Butterworth looking at him.
+
+"The barn _is_ moving!" said Sunny Boy loud.
+
+And it was.  The force of the water and the ice, driving against the
+poor worn out foundations, had loosened them, and the old barn was
+actually sailing.  The boys ran to the door.  All around them was
+water, water and ice.  The barn began to rock and to lean to one side a
+little.
+
+"It will tip over!" cried Carleton.  "We'll be drowned."
+
+"If we shout, some one will hear us and come and get us," suggested
+Sunny Boy.  "We'll have to yell!"
+
+And yell they did, shouting with all the strength and power of their
+lungs.  They had almost given up hope of making any one hear when
+suddenly there came an answering shout and down in one corner of the
+field they saw something moving.
+
+"It's Bob and the horse and wagon!" cried Sunny Boy.  "Now we'll be all
+right."
+
+"Well, you do manage to get yourselves into a pickle every time, don't
+you?" was Bob's greeting when he drove up.  "Father sent me down to
+finish the fence alone and bring you up, and I couldn't imagine where
+you could be.  Hurry up, kids, because I don't like the looks of this
+water.  It will be coming in the wagon if it gets much higher."
+
+Bob helped them all in and then drove slowly to the Parkney house.  The
+horse had hard work to keep his footing in the water and ice, and he
+kept shaking his head as though he did not like it.  But they reached
+the house safely, and Mrs. Parkney gave the boys milk to drink and
+clean dry stockings to wear as though she were used to any emergency,
+as indeed she was.
+
+"I guess you've had enough exploring for one day," said Bob, as he
+drove the boys out to the head of the lane to get the half-past four
+o'clock trolley car.  "If it's dull out here this summer, I mean to
+send for you, Sunny Boy, because excitement seems to follow you around."
+
+The same merry conductor was on the four-thirty trolley car, and he was
+much interested to hear about the day's experiences.  So were the
+mothers and fathers when the boys reached home.
+
+The next morning Daddy Horton telephoned Mr. Parkney to ask him if the
+brook had done any damage over night.  Mr. Parkney said that the old
+barn had been carried down past their farm and was completely wrecked.
+
+"I'm glad we didn't stay in it," said Sunny Boy cheerfully.  "It must
+have been a freshet, Daddy.  Don't you think it was?"
+
+It was a freshet, of course, and Daddy Horton said so.
+
+After that Saturday the weather grew warmer and warmer, and Sunny Boy
+began to think of summer.  What he did when school closed and what
+happened to him, we'll have to tell you in another book, to be called
+"SUNNY BOY AND HIS GAMES."
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White
+
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