Ramy Allison White - Sunny Boy and His Playmates

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"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.

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