Sunny Boy at the seashore

After supper that night, Sunny Boy had a dim idea that he would like to go down and look at the ocean “in the dark” as he said. But Mr. Horton announced that he was going to bed and get up early in the morning, so Sunny decided that perhaps after all that was the wiser plan.

As usual, he went to sleep at once and woke up a minute later—or so it seemed to him. The sunlight was very bright and there was a great deal of it in the room. Daddy was nearly dressed, but Mother was still asleep.

“Don’t make a noise,” whispered Mr. Horton. “I thought we’d have a little swim, but I guess the bathing suits are in the trunks. They’re in the hall and not unlocked yet. We’ll go down to the beach and have a little walk before breakfast.”

Sunny Boy struggled into his brown linen sailor suit, Daddy helping him with the most stubborn buttons, and together they stole out of the house. Not even Harriet was awake.

“Is it dreadful early?” asked Sunny curiously, and whispering, because he felt so strange.

Mr. Horton laughed.

“It’s six o’clock,” he answered. “The sun has been up a long time. Some morning you and I must struggle up to see a sunrise, Sunny Boy. Ah, there’s the sea. Doesn’t it sparkle this morning?”

The little waves were running up and down, just as Sunny Boy had seen them yesterday. He wondered if they had done that all night, and then he knew they had. The last thing he had heard the night before was the dull roar of the waves as they broke on the sand, and he had heard it that morning, too. The sea, he thought, never rested.

“There’s a little girl, Daddy.” Sunny’s quick eyes had spied a small figure farther down the beach. “What’s she got in her box?”

“You ask her,” suggested Mr. Horton. “She probably lives in one of the cottages, and you’ll want to be friends. Ask her what she is doing.”

They walked down toward the little girl, and when she heard their feet in the sand she turned. She was a pretty child, with big brown eyes and short, curly, brown hair. She smiled at Sunny Boy and her smile showed that several front teeth were missing. This made her lisp when she talked.

“’Lo!” she said pleasantly. “Are you hunting thells?”

“Is that what you’ve got in your box?” asked Sunny Boy. “Let me see?”

The little girl held up her box; it was half full of odd shells.

“Ellen! Ellen! Breakfast!” called some one clearly.

“I have to go,” announced Ellen hastily. “I’ll be out after breakfast. ’Bye.”

She ran up the beach as fast as her short legs could carry her, and Sunny Boy and Daddy saw her scramble up the sand and disappear over the road.

“Now she’s gone,” said Sunny Boy wistfully, “and I wanted to play with her. She’s a nice little girl, and I liked her, and I wanted to see the shells she had in that box.”

“You’ll see her again,” said Mr. Horton. “I hope you’ll soon know plenty of children to play with. Now we’ll take a short walk down this way, and then we must go back and have our own breakfast.”

When they went back to the bungalow, they found the others on the porch looking for them.

“Harriet sounded the gong five minutes ago,” announced Mrs. Horton. “Where were you? Aren’t you hungry? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“We’ve brought real seashore appetites to breakfast,” answered Mr. Horton. “Sunny Boy and I just went on a scouting trip. We’ve found the bathing beach, and made the acquaintance of Ellen. Sunny, have you said good morning to Miss Martinson?”

“Do you know,” said that little lady, smiling warmly at Sunny Boy, “I think it would be ever so nice if Sunny Boy would call me Aunt Betty. I haven’t a single nephew in this wide world—just two nieces. ‘Miss Martinson’ is such a long name to remember.”

So it was settled that Sunny Boy should have another auntie.

After breakfast Mrs. Horton went to unpack the trunks and find the bathing suits. Aunt Bessie and Aunt Betty volunteered to make the beds. Harriet and a big basket took the jitney for town to buy things to eat, and Sunny Boy and Daddy were told to go and amuse themselves till lunch time.

“We’ll surprise them,” declared Mr. Horton, leading the way to the garage. “I have a package they don’t know about and you and I will take it down to the beach and then we’ll see what Mother and the aunties say.”

This mysterious bundle Mr. Horton had spoken of was long and thin and rather heavy. They found it on the floor of the automobile where it had not been noticed because of the many other bundles and luggage they had carried with them.

“What is it, Daddy?” asked Sunny Boy as he took one end and Mr. Horton the other, and they headed for the beach.

“It’s a secret,” was all Daddy would say.

Down on the beach, he laid it in the sand, and, taking out his strong pocket knife, cut the heavy string.

“Why, it’s only umbrellas!” Sunny’s voice sounded disappointed.

Mr. Horton chuckled.

“Yes, but you wait,” he advised. “I open the umbrella so, and I stand it up this way; then I open the other, and I stand it up so, in the sand. And now when Mother and Aunt Bessie and Aunt Betty come down with their fancy-work, they have a fine, shady place to sit and sew.”

“Oh,” said Sunny Boy.

Secretly, he didn’t think those large white canvas umbrellas were very much fun, but when, a little later, his mother and aunts came down to the beach, they were delighted. And before the summer was over Sunny himself had spent many a hot afternoon under their comfortable shade while his mother or Harriet read aloud to him.

After the umbrellas were in position, he and Daddy strolled up the beach. Sunny Boy soon took off his shoes and stockings and then he could walk along the edge of the water and let the waves come up over his feet.

“There’s Ellen,” he cried presently. “I know, ’cause she has on a yellow dress. And there’s a little boy with her. Look, Daddy.”

Ellen saw them, and waved her hand.

“’Lo!” she called, running up to them. “This is my brother, Ralph. Are you going bathing?”

“When Mother finds the bathing suits,” Sunny assured her. “Come on wading. That’s heaps of fun.”

Ellen shook her head.

“Can’t to-day,” she responded briefly. “Yesterday Ralph an’ I took our shoes and stockings off after Mother said we shouldn’t, and we went in too far and got our best clothes wet. We can’t go wading again for two days.”

“Then why not build a sand fort?” suggested Mr. Horton sympathetically. “Three of you can build a fine one. I’ll sit right here and keep a look-out for Mother so she won’t miss us.”

“Yes, that would be fun,” agreed Ellen. “Come on, Sunny.”

“All right,” responded Sunny Boy briefly. “Are you going to play, Ralph?”

“Course. I like to build in the sand.”

The three children set to work to build a fort, and as Sunny Boy could go down and scoop up water in Ellen’s pail, they had plenty of damp sand to make the walls shape well. They made an elaborate fort with five gates and a high wall, and they were molding soldiers for it when Mrs. Horton and Aunt Bessie came and found them.

“Betty’s getting into her bathing suit,” Aunt Bessie announced. “Hello, chicks, you seem to be having a fine time. And Sunny Boy has seven freckles on his nose already.”

Aunt Bessie’s small nephew tried to look down at his nose to see the seven freckles, of which he was prepared to be rather proud, but, as the nose was very little and, as all noses are, very close to his eyes, he could scarcely see the nose, much less the freckles that might be on it.

Sunny Boy introduced his new friends politely, though they had to tell him their last names.

“Ellen and Ralph Gray,” repeated Mrs. Horton. “Then I think you must be the little folk who live in the white house on the street next but one to ours. I met your mother in the embroidery store this morning when I was matching some wool. It is nice you live so near Sunny Boy.”

“Is the water cold? Aren’t you lazy people going in?” asked Aunt Betty, dancing before them in her pretty black and white bathing suit. She held her rubber cap in her hand.

“Sunny and I are going,” declared Mr. Horton scrambling to his feet. “Come on, Son, we must get dressed. ’Scuse us, friends.”

Mrs. Horton and Aunt Bessie decided to stay under the umbrellas and knit, and Ellen and Ralph had an errand to do in the town for their mother. So Sunny Boy and Daddy raced each other up to the bungalow and found their bathing suits neatly spread out for them in the built-in bathing houses next to the side porch.

“Can you swim, Daddy?” Sunny Boy asked, struggling with his jersey.

“Yes, indeed,” was the cheerful answer. “You’ll learn this summer, too. I want to teach Mother to drive the car, so I can leave it down here sometimes; and I want to teach you to swim.”

Sunny Boy looked ready for a good time when he finally stood up in his trim little suit. It was dark blue with a red stripe at the neck and wrists. Daddy’s was just like it. They took hold of hands and raced down the beach.

“In we go,” said Mr. Horton, lifting Sunny Boy high.

Sunny Boy held on tightly and tried not to be afraid. The waves looked very big and fierce when he got out among them, but all about him were people laughing and ducking and having the merriest time.

“You’re all right, Son,” Daddy’s kind voice assured him. “I won’t duck you, but I want you to get wet all over, as then the water won’t feel cold. Stand up, now, and hold my hand.”

He put Sunny Boy down and a great wave broke over them both.

“O-oh!” gasped Sunny Boy, and laughed.

He began to splash and paddle around, though he was careful to keep tight hold of Daddy.

“And now we come out,” declared Mr. Horton after ten or fifteen minutes.

“Not yet,” teased Sunny. “I like it. And I can’t swim, Daddy.”

“We’re going out now,” repeated Mr. Horton firmly. “Mustn’t stay in too long the first time. You couldn’t learn to swim in one morning, anyway. Run over and speak to Mother a moment if you want to, and then we’ll get dressed.”