Ramy Allison White - Sunny Boy and His Playmates

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[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?"

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