Sunny Boy at the seashore

“I know my mother wouldn’t like it,” said Sunny Boy.

The laundry wagon horse was galloping now, urged on by the freckle-faced boy who was singing loudly as the light wagon swayed from side to side. Sunny Boy looked very little and frightened trailing on in his wagon behind.

A big brown dog bounced out at him and barked madly.

“Go ’way!” cried Sunny, for the dog reminded him of the fairy-tale wolf with very white teeth and such a red mouth. “Go ’way, old dog!”

Slish! the laundry wagon swerved to avoid another wagon, and Sunny Boy nearly tumbled out. An old gentleman stood on the sidewalk and brandished his cane at him.

“Hi, you!” he called, “don’t you know you’re likely to be killed? Why don’t the policemen—”

Sunny Boy couldn’t hear the rest of what he said, but, looking back, he saw the old gentleman still standing on the walk shaking his cane angrily.

Sunny Boy was more than willing to let go, but he didn’t see how he could. They were nearing the end of the street now, and the houses were fewer with more ground between.

“Look behind!” an ice-man delivering ice called to the laundry boy, at the same time pointing to the back of the wagon.

The laundry boy may have looked, but of course he couldn’t see Sunny’s wagon from where he sat, and he apparently had no intention of stopping his horse to see if any one was stealing a “hitch.” Instead he brought the whip down smartly, and the horse leaped forward with a sudden jerk that made Sunny’s neck snap.

“My land!” poor Sunny gasped.

It was an expression he had learned from the red-haired Araminta.

Goodness knows what might have happened if they had had to turn a corner, or if the rope hadn’t broken. But break it did, and Sunny Boy and the laundry wagon parted company just as they came opposite to a vacant lot. Sunny’s wagon shot off to one side and, as there was no pavement and no curbing, the wagon kept going until it brought up in a clump of elderberry bushes.

“Hurt you, kid?” and a man who had seen him came running across the street. “That’s a mighty dangerous way to play, and the littler you are the worse it is. I suppose you’ve seen the big boys do it. Take my advice and leave wagons alone after this.”

As he talked, he lifted Sunny and the express wagon out of the bushes, brushed Sunny Boy off neatly. He now stood smiling down at him so good-naturedly that it was impossible to keep from smiling back.

“I thought you was scolding,” said Sunny Boy, in whose experience people never smiled when they scolded.

Sunny Boy suddenly remembered that Aunt Bessie always made big round eyes and a round mouth and held up her hands whenever he said “you was,” and that his mother always looked at him and shook her head just the very least possible bit. But never mind; it was too late to go back and say it differently now, and besides he must hurry on and explain to this nice man who was smiling down at him.

“It didn’t hurt me, but one wheel’s bent,” he said.

“That’s where it skidded across the street,” explained the man, bending down to examine the wagon. “Not worth mentioning, though. I’m thankful it wasn’t your leg that was bent. Now don’t you think you’d better call it a day and go home?”

Sunny was willing enough to go home, though he didn’t know what the man meant by calling it a day.

“I mean that one such adventure’s enough for a morning,” smiled the new friend, as he saw that Sunny Boy looked puzzled.

Sunny agreed to this, and they shook hands gravely and the man went on down the street and Sunny and his express wagon headed for home.

He found his mother getting lunch, and she was very glad to see him because, as she said, she was lonesome.

“We’ll have to hurry,” she greeted him when he had put the express wagon in the back yard and found her in the kitchen. “Daddy is coming home at half-past one to help get us ready to go. Have you washed your hands, dear? Well, then you and I will have our bread and milk right here on the kitchen table.”

Sunny Boy enjoyed this. Mrs. Horton spread a little white cloth at one end of the table and they had bread and milk and cold boiled eggs and four chocolate cookies—two apiece—just like a picnic. The kitchen was the only room in the house that seemed natural to Sunny, anyway. The house had been shut all the time they were staying at Grandpa Horton’s, and as they were only going to be home two days before going to the seashore Mrs. Horton said it was not worth while to unwrap or unpack anything.

“Now we’ll wash the dishes,” declared Mother, when they had finished their lunch. “Then I’ll go upstairs and darn socks while you watch at the window for Daddy. Poor Daddy! No one mended his socks for him while we were gone.”

Sunny Boy helped Mother carry the milk and the butter back to the ice-box, and dried the dishes as she washed them. Then he ran down into the yard and hung up the scalded tea towels for her.

“Daddy says little boys can help most as much as little girls,” said Sunny seriously, watching Mother put the glass pitcher on the high shelf that he hadn’t been able to reach. “When Harriet isn’t here, do I help, Mother?”

“Precious,” Mother assured him, giving him a bear hug, “you help me every minute of the day, whether Harriet is here or not. And when you’re a man I won’t be any more proud of you than I am right now.”

They went upstairs, Mrs. Horton to darn the neglected socks, and Sunny to watch for Daddy and the new car.

“Here he is! I’ll open the door! O-hoo, Daddy!” Sunny Boy saw the dark blue car draw up before the house and stop, and he banged noisily on the window screen to attract his father’s attention. Then he dashed downstairs.

“Well, well, who’s this young cyclone?” inquired Mr. Horton, catching Sunny Boy in his arms and lifting him to his shoulder. “Saw me drive up, didn’t you? Where’s Mother?”

“Upstairs. Daddy, let’s go out in the automobile! Where you going to keep it? Can I drive?” Sunny bounced about excitedly as he put his questions one after another.

“Easy, easy,” protested Mr. Horton. “The automobile will be an old story fast enough. Let me have a word with Mother and then perhaps you and I will have an errand to do down town.”

Mrs. Horton smiled when she saw Sunny’s flushed face.

“Some one is excited,” she teased. “Well, Daddy dear, what did Bessie say about the suitcase?”

“I called her up, but she wasn’t in,” answered Mr. Horton. “Miss Martinson seemed to think, though, that they’d better have it. I’ll go up and drag it out now and Sunny and I can run it over to her in the car.”

“Oh, yes, let’s,” coaxed Sunny Boy, without a very clear idea of what the talk was about, but sure that a ride in the automobile was in some way connected with it.

“Think you can come up to the store-room with me and give me a hand?” asked his father. “I have to get a suitcase for Aunt Bessie, and I suppose it is under three trunks with the empty goldfish globe on top.”

“Why, Daddy Horton, what a way to talk!” Mrs. Horton pretended to be very indignant. “The suitcase is the first thing you’ll see when you open the door. I thought we might need it before the summer was over, so I left it where it would be easy to get.”

Sure enough, Sunny and Daddy found the suitcase without any trouble, and they brought it downstairs and Mother dusted it off, and then they carried it down to the automobile and put it in the back.

Sunny Boy climbed into the car and sat very still with his eyes straight ahead. He hoped Nelson and Ruth Baker were watching him. Mr. Horton walked around the car to the other side, got in, and closed the door. He waved to Mother in the window, put both hands on the wheel, and away they went.

“Can I help drive, going to Nestle Cove, Daddy?” Sunny asked, watching carefully, so that he might remember all the things he saw Daddy do. “I drove Peter and Paul for Grandpa.”

Peter and Paul were the farm horses.

“Well, you see, Sunny Boy,” Daddy explained, skillfully steering the car around a heavy coal truck, “automobiles are different from horses. You can’t talk to them and tell them what to do. You have to be older, and stronger, and taller, to manage a machine. See how constantly I have to use my feet? You are not tall enough to reach the brakes. And, anyway, the law says little boys can’t drive cars, even to help their daddies. They must be at least eighteen years old.”

“Yes, I ’member, you told me,” said Sunny sorrowfully.

Daddy never turned aside his questions with an “Oh, you wouldn’t understand, wait till you’re older” kind of answer, and Sunny really was used to reasoning things out.

“I’ll carry the suitcase,” he offered, when they came to Aunt Bessie’s house. “Let me ring, Daddy.”

Aunt Bessie lived in an apartment house and the colored boy who answered the bell knew Sunny very well indeed.

“Miss Andrew ain’t home,” he said. “But Miss Martinson am. I’ll take you-all up.”

Aunt Bessie was Miss Andrew, and of course the colored boy couldn’t have known much English grammar to say “ain’t.” Or, perhaps, he forgot what his mother told him about always saying “is not.” We’ll hope you never do. Anyway, this boy had the most delightful, rich, soft voice, and no matter what he said it always sounded pleasant.

“How lovely of you!” Miss Martinson, Aunt Bessie’s friend who lived with her and helped keep house in the apartment, flung open the door almost as soon as they lifted the heavy old-fashioned knocker. “Come right in. We have a bundle of things that simply won’t go in the trunk and Bessie has every suitcase packed so full now we’re in despair.”

Miss Martinson was little and dark and pretty. She taught girls in a large public school how to baste and hem and tuck and, after a while, make dresses. She was a sewing teacher.

Sunny and Mr. Horton couldn’t stay very long because they knew that Mother at home would be needing them. But before they went, Sunny ran out to the kitchen to find his dear Harriet.

“Here’s my own boy, bless his dear heart!” and Harriet, whose eyes were as blue as Sunny Boy’s, and who wore a blue dress that just matched them and her usual big, white apron—Harriet’s aprons were always whiter than other people’s—swooped down upon Sunny Boy and gave him a tremendous hug. “Did you have a lovely time on the farm, darlin’? And did you miss Harriet? Never mind, we’re going to have a fine time down at the sea. Think of it—you’ll be sailing boats and going swimming and all!”

“Sunny, coming?” called Mr. Horton.

“Here, give this to your mother,” and Harriet hastily put a square box into his hands. “’Tis a cake I baked for the lunch on the way down. I made two of ’em, one for her and one for Miss Bessie.”

“Daddy,” Sunny Boy spoke for the first time on the way home, holding the cake box carefully on his lap, “how long does it take to get to Nestle Cove?”

“Oh, about six or eight hours with fair traveling,” answered Mr. Horton. “Why, Son?”

“I was just thinking,” said Sunny. “Harriet made a cake for us to eat on the way.”

“And I suspect Mother will be busy all day to-morrow putting up a picnic lunch for us,” responded his father. “You see, we’ll find a nice shady spot about noon when the sun is too hot to make driving comfortable, and we’ll sit down and rest on the grass and eat all those good things up.”

“That will be fun,” agreed Sunny enthusiastically. “There’s Mother waving to us now. Does she want something, Daddy?”

“Don’t get out,” called Mrs. Horton, hurrying to them. “The laundryman telephoned Mrs. Baker that their wagon has been in an accident and the clothes are hopelessly scattered. They want you to go down and see if any of yours are missing.”