CHAPTER X

GOING FISHING

But though Grandpa and Sunny Boy hunted and hunted and hunted, till it seemed as though they must have covered every inch of the big woods; though they searched the tangled thickets where the briery blackberry bushes grew along the edge of the brook; though they looked up at the trees till their necks ached, hoping perhaps to find the kite caught in the branches; still they had to come home without the precious Liberty Bonds.

"Never mind," said Grandpa, as they made their way toward home over a little pathway of stones tumbled together in the brook to make a bridge, "Never mind, Sunny. If we can't find them, we can't, and there is no use in feeling bad about it any longer. You didn't mean to lose the bonds, we all know that, so we'll just stop crying over spilled milk and cheer up and be happy again."

But it was a very unhappy little boy who went to bed early that night—for the long tramp had tired him—and for several days after the loss of the kite Sunny Boy kept rather closely to the house.

He liked to be in the kitchen with Araminta or on the side porch with Grandma and Mother. Jimmie and Bruce tried to coax him to go with them, but he said politely that he didn't feel like it.

However, as the time drew near for his father's visit Sunny Boy cheered up, and by the morning that Daddy was expected he felt quite like his usually sunny self.

"Are you going to meet Daddy?" he asked Mother that morning, as he brushed his hair after she had parted it for him.

"I don't believe I'll go down," answered Mrs. Horton. "If you and Grandpa go, that will be enough and I'll be at the gate waiting for you."

"Daddy's coming!" Sunny Boy pounded his spoon against his bread and milk bowl.

"Sunny!" said Mother warningly.

"He's most here now!" and Sunny's feet hammered against the table so that the coffee pot danced a jig.

"Sunny Boy!" implored Grandma.

"I'm going to meet him!" This time Sunny Boy upset his glass of water with a wild sweep of his arm.

Grandpa pushed back his chair.

"I think we'd better start," he observed, "before a certain young man goes out of the window. If you're as glad as all this to think that Daddy's coming, what are you going to do when you really see him?"

But Sunny Boy was already out of the room and down at the gate where Jimmie stood holding Peter and Paul already harnessed to the carryall.

"Let me feed 'em sugar," teased Sunny Boy. "Hold me up, Jimmie, I'm not 'fraid of their teeth now."

"You pile in," said Jimmie good-naturedly. "If you're going to meet that train, you want to start in a few minutes. Say, Sunny, what ails you this morning?" for Sunny Boy had gone around to the back of the carriage, scrambled up over the top of the second seat, and was now tumbling head first into the cushions of the front seat.

Grandpa came out in a more leisurely fashion and took the reins.

"All right, Jimmie, we're off. In case anything happens to the team, Sunny has enough push in him this morning to pull the carriage there and back."

Peter and Paul trotted briskly, and Sunny's tongue kept pace with their heels. His shrill little voice was the first thing Mr. Horton heard, for the train had beaten them to the station after all, and as the carriage turned the corner of the street a familiar figure stood on the platform waving to them. Grandpa had to keep one hand on his grandson to prevent him from falling out over the wheels.

"Well, well, Son, isn't this fine!" Daddy had him in his arms almost before the horses stopped. "How brown you are! and yes, you've grown, too. I'll put the suitcase in—don't try to lift it."

Daddy put Sunny Boy down and turned and kissed Grandpa.

"You're his little boy!" Sunny thought out loud. It was the first time he had thought about it at all.

"I'm his daddy," said Grandpa proudly. "Pretty fine boy, all things considered, isn't he?"

Sunny Boy laughed because this was probably a joke. Anyway, Grandpa laughed and so did Daddy. Then they all got into the carriage and Daddy drove Peter and Paul. How Mrs. Horton laughed when she saw them drive up to the gate, all three of them crowded together on the front seat.

"You three big boys!" she teased them. "I suppose you had so much to talk about that you had to be together."

Daddy put one arm around Mother and the other about Grandma.

"Make the most of me," he said gayly. "I can stay only three days."

Then there was a great to-do. Mother and Grandma had counted on having him for three weeks. Three days, as Mother said, was "no vacation at all."

"But better than nothing," Mr. Horton pointed out. "We can do a great deal in three days. And if I can't get up again, at least I'll come up to get you and Sunny when you're ready to go home."

Well, being sensible people and not given to "crying over spilled milk" (which was Grandpa's favorite proverb) they soon decided to enjoy every minute of Daddy's stay and to begin right away.

"Sunny and I are going fishing," announced Daddy firmly. "We'll go to-day—if Araminta can give us a lunch—and Mother is coming with us, if she wants to. Then to-morrow she and I are going for a long drive, and the last day I'm going to be a farmer and help Father with the work. Come on, Sunny, upstairs with you and get on high shoes. We don't go fishing in sandals and socks."

Araminta made them sandwiches and packed a box of lunch, putting in a whole apple pie. Daddy had brought his fishing rod with him, and he promised to make Sunny one as soon as they found a place to fish. Mother thought she would not go, for she was already tired from a long walk the day before. So Sunny Boy and Daddy set off alone for the brook in the woods where the speckled trout lived.

"Shall I catch one?" asked Sunny Boy, scuffling along. He did like to scuffle his feet and Daddy did not seem to care how much noise he made. "Shall I fish?"

"Sure you'll fish," Daddy assured him. "Likely, you'll catch one, though you never can tell. A good sportsman doesn't growl even if he spends a whole day and doesn't catch one fish. We'll be good sports, shan't we?"

"Yes," agreed Sunny Boy. "But I would rather catch a fish."

Daddy laughed and began to whistle.

"Do you know Jimmie?" said Sunny Boy, running to keep up with him. "Do you know Jimmie and Mr. Sites and Araminta and David and Raymond and Juddy and Fred and Sarah and Dorabelle? Do you, Daddy?"

"I went to school with a boy named Jaspar Sites," Daddy stopped whistling to answer. "Guess he's the same. Araminta helps Grandma—I know her, and Jimmie I've met before. But I must say the others haven't the pleasure of my acquaintance—who is Dorabelle, may I ask?"

"They're Araminta's brothers and sisters," explained Sunny Boy. "They live down the road. Let's fish now, Daddy."

"We will," agreed Mr. Horton. "You've picked out a good place. Now first I'll start you in, and then I'll try my luck."

He found a nice long branch for Sunny, and tied a fish-line to it. At the end of the line he fastened a bent pin with a bit of cracker on the point.

"There you are," he told him. "Now you sit out here on the dead roots of this tree that hangs over the bank, and you dangle the cracker in the water and keep very, very still. And perhaps a little fish on his way to the grocery store for his mother will see the cracker and want a bite of lunch. Then you'll catch him."

Sunny Boy sat very still while Daddy baited a sharp thin hook with real bait and threw his line into the water, too. He sat down beside Sunny and together they waited.

"Daddy!" said Sunny Boy after a long while.

Mr. Horton raised a warning finger.

"But Daddy?" this after Sunny Boy had waited a longer time.

"You'll scare the fish," Mr. Horton whispered. "What is it?"

"My foot prickles!"

Mr. Horton took his line and whispered to him to get up and run about.

Sunny Boy's foot felt too funny for words, and at first he was sure it had dropped off while he had been sitting on it. He could not feel it at all. After stamping up and down a few minutes the funny feeling went away, and he came back to his father and took his line.

"Your foot was asleep," said Mr. Horton in a low tone. "Don't sit on it again. Feel a nibble?"

Sunny Boy drew his line up and looked at it. There was nothing at all on the pin.

"Percy Perch must have taken that cracker when you weren't looking," said Mr. Horton, putting another cracker on. "Now watch out that Tommy Trout doesn't run off with this."

Sunny Boy waited and waited. A yellow butterfly came and sat down on a blade of grass near him. Sunny looked at it more closely—it was a funny butterfly—a funny butter—

Splash went his rod and line, but he never heard it. Sunny Boy was fast asleep, and Tommy Trout must have run away with the pin and the cracker because they were never heard of again. When Sunny Boy opened his eyes again, his father was folding up his fishing tackle.

"Hello! You're a great fisherman!" Daddy greeted him. "See what we're going to take home to Mother to surprise her."

Sunny Boy rubbed his sleepy eyes. There on the grass lay four pretty little fish.

"Did you catch them?" he asked Daddy, who nodded.

"My land of Goshen!" said Sunny Boy.

"Where'd you pick that up?" demanded Daddy. "Do you think apple pie might help you to feel spryer?"

Sunny Boy was interested in pie, and he helped Daddy to spread the little white cloth on the ground. He had not known a picnic was part of the fun of fishing!



CHAPTER XI

THE HAY SLIDE

"Daddy," said Sunny Boy, as he munched a sandwich, lying on his stomach and looking down into the brook from the safe height of the bank, "how much is five hundred dollars?"

"A large sum of money," answered Mr. Horton, surprised. "Why, Son? What do you know about such things? Little boys shouldn't be bothering about money for years and years to come."

So Sunny told him about Grandpa's bonds and how he had lost them by pasting them on his kite. Mr. Horton was very sorry, but he said little.

"Only remember this, Sunny Boy," he insisted gravely. "I would rather you told me yourself than to have heard it from any one else—even from Mother. When you've done anything good or bad that you think I should know, you tell me yourself, always. And now how about going wading?"

That was great fun. Sunny Boy rolled his trousers up as far as they would go and took off his shoes and stockings. The water was not deep, but, my! wasn't it cold? Little baby fish darted in and out, and ever so many times Sunny thought he had a handful of them. But when he unclosed his hands there was never anything in them but water, and not much of that.

"If I did catch a fish, could I keep him, Daddy?" Sunny asked. "I could carry home some brook for him to live in."

Sunny meant some of the brook water. Daddy explained that the baby fish, minnows they are called, would not be happy living in a bowl as the goldfish Sunny once had were.

"And you wouldn't want a fish to be unhappy, would you?" questioned Daddy. "Of course you wouldn't. But I'll tell you something better to do than trying to catch fish that only want to be left alone."

"Something to do with my shoes and stockings off?" stipulated Sunny anxiously. "I haven't been wading hardly a minute yet, Daddy."

Daddy laughed a little. He was lying flat on his stomach as Sunny had done, peering over the bank down at the water. He seemed to be having a very good time, did Daddy.

"This is something you can do without your shoes and stockings," he assured the small figure standing in the middle of the brook. "Indeed, I thought of it because you are all fixed for doing it. You know Mother was talking about her Christmas presents last night?"

Sunny nodded.

"She's sewing a bag for Aunt Bessie," he confided, "and Grandma is getting ready, too. But I think Christmas is about a year off, Daddy."

"Not a year—about five months," corrected Daddy. "That seems like a long time to you. But Mother likes to start early and make many of her presents. And a very good way it is, too. Well, Sunny Boy, I once heard Mother say that she would like to try making an indoor garden for some of her friends who live in apartments and have no gardens of their own. Only, Mother said, she must experiment first and find out what would grow best."

"What's an indoor garden?"

"Oh, there are different kinds," answered Daddy. "But I think the kind Mother is anxious to try is very simple. Just damp moss and a vine or two put into a glass bowl. They will grow and keep green all Winter and be pretty to look at."

"I could get her some moss," said Sunny quickly. "See, those stones are all covered, Daddy."

"That's just what I want you to do," agreed Daddy. "We'll take plenty home to Mother and she can experiment with indoor gardens to her heart's content. See, Son, here's my knife. You must cut the moss very carefully in square pieces, and try not to break it. I'll be digging up some of these healthy little ground vines."

Sunny Boy was proud to be allowed to handle Daddy's big jack knife, and he was glad Daddy hadn't told him not to cut himself. Daddy, somehow, always trusted Sunny not to be heedless.

"Mother'll like it, won't she?" he called to Daddy, who was digging up a pretty, creeping green vine that grew in the grass near him. "Won't she be s'prised, Daddy?"

They worked busily, and soon Sunny had a neat little pile of green moss ready to take home to Mother. After that he waded about in the brook, splashing the water with his bare feet.

"There—you've been in long enough," called Mr. Horton presently. "The water is too cold to play in it long. Come, Son, and put on your shoes and stockings."

Sunny Boy dabbled his feet in a little hole made by a stone he had pushed away.

"Sunny Boy!" called Mr. Horton once again.

Still Sunny Boy continued to play in the water. To tell the truth every one had been so anxious to make him happy at Brookside that he was the least little bit in the world spoiled. The more you have your own way, you know, the harder it is to do other people's way, and if you can do as you please day after day, by and by you want to do as you please all the time. Sunny Boy felt like that now.

"Sunny!" said Daddy a third time, very quietly.

Sunny Boy looked at him—and came marching out of the water. He was not very pleasant while Daddy helped him dry his feet and get into the despised shoes and stockings, but, when they were ready to start for home and Daddy tilted up his chin to look at him squarely, Sunny Boy's own smile came out.

"All right!" announced Daddy cheerfully. "Let's go home a different way and perhaps we'll find wild strawberries."

They did, too, a patch of them down at one end of the apple orchard, and Mr. Horton showed Sunny Boy how he used to string them on grass stems to take home to his mother when he was a little boy.

He certainly was a dear Daddy, and when he went back to the city Mother and Sunny had to be nicer to each other than ever because they missed him so very much.

"It's raining!" Sunny Boy stood at the window after breakfast, the morning after Mr. Horton had gone back to the city. "Does it rain in the summer?"

Grandma laughed, and told him that indeed it did rain in the summer.

"We haven't had a drop of rain since you've been here, and you must have brought fair weather with you," she said. "Now that the hay is all in the barn, we're glad to see it rain, for the garden needs it badly. Think how thirsty the flowers and vegetables must be."

"Harriet said to play in the barn on rainy days," said Sunny Boy sadly, "but I think I'm lonesome."

"Well, you go out to the barn and you won't be lonesome," Araminta, who was clearing the breakfast table, laughed at his long face. "I'll bet all the children are there, even the baby. He can go, can't he, Mrs. Horton?"

Grandma said yes, of course he could, and Mother brought his rubbers and raincoat downstairs when she came, for he met her on the stairs and there she had them all ready.

"Run along and have a good time," she told him, kissing him. "I was going to suggest that you play in the barn this morning. Help Jimmie if he's working, won't you, and don't hinder him?"

Paddling out to the barn in the pouring rain was fun. But the barn was the most fun of all. Grandpa and Jimmie were on the first floor mending harness, and the doors were open so that they could see right out into the orchard and yet not get a bit wet. Just as Araminta had said, all the Hatch children were there, even the baby, who lay asleep on the hay in a nice, quiet corner.

"Hurrah!" cried Juddy Hatch. "We're going to play robbers, and you can be in my cave."

"Be in my cave," urged David, his brother. "Our side has the best slide."

"I'll come up there and settle you youngsters if you're going to quarrel," threatened Jimmie, switching a buggy whip and looking very fierce. "You'd better start playing and stop arguing."

The children knew Jimmie had small patience with little bickerings, though he had never been known to do anything more severe than scold. So they took him at his word and began to play.

"You be on Juddy's side, then," agreed David. "See, we each have a cave here in the hay—that's mine in this corner. The way we do is to all go into our caves and take turns creeping up. When you hear us on the roof of your cave, you have to get out and run over to ours, climb up to the top and slide down the other side. If you're caught you have to b'long to our robber tribe."

The hay was very smooth and slippery, and the children had many a tumble as the two robber tribes chased each other across the haymow. Such shrieks of laughter, such howls as the robbers in their excitement sometimes forgot and pulled a braid of Sarah's or Dorabelle's! The baby continued to sleep placidly through all the noise, and Jimmie told Grandpa that he thought perhaps "the poor little kid was deaf!" Jimmie was only fooling, of course, for the Hatch baby was not deaf at all.

It was Sunny Boy's turn to be chased, and as he heard David's robber tribe beginning to climb up on the roof of his cave he dashed out and ran for the other cave at the end of the haymow. Up the side he went, and down. Dorabelle was captured in that raid and had to go over to David's side.

"Now I've got four in my tribe," crowed the robber chief. "Get your men together, Jud, and we'll do it again."

"Where's Sunny Boy?" demanded Juddy, counting his tribe. "He was here—I saw him climb up the top of the cave. Sunny Boy! Sun-ny!"

No Sunny Boy answered.

"Jimmie, is Sunny Boy down there with you?" Juddy peered over the edge of the haymow where Jimmie sat mending the harness. Grandpa had gone to the house, declaring that there was a little too much noise in the barn for his rheumatism.

"Haven't seen him," answered Jimmie. "Isn't he up there with you?"

Juddy's lip began to quiver. He was only eight years old.

"Then he's lost," he said. "He isn't here at all, Jimmie."

Jimmie dropped his harness and ran up the little ladder that led to the haymow.

"Nonsense!" he declared sharply. "A boy can't get lost with a roof over him. Likely enough he's hiding for fun. Sunny! Sunny Boy, where are you?"

But no Sunny Boy answered. And though Jimmie and the Hatch children turned over the hay and looked in every corner of the haymow, they could not find him.

"Shall I go and tell Mr. Horton?" suggested David, who was the oldest of the Hatch boys.

"Not till we have something to tell," was Jimmie's answer. "Where was he when you saw him last?"

"Right over in that corner," said Juddy, pointing. "I saw him going over the top of the cave, an' then I ducked under, and when David got Dorabelle he just wasn't here."

"He must be here—somewhere," retorted Jimmie impatiently. "I'm going to look once more—and if he's just hiding, won't I shake him!"

Jimmie climbed over the top of the "robber's cave," as Sunny Boy had done, and down on the other side. The children heard him scuffling about, kicking the hay with his feet, and then suddenly he gave a shout.

"You stay where you are till I come back," he called. "You David, and Juddy, keep the others where they are. I'll bet I've found him."

The Hatch children were fairly dancing to follow Jimmie, but they knew he meant what he said. They sat down in the hay to wait.

One—two—three—four—five minutes passed. Then Jimmie stepped out on the barn floor and grinned cheerfully up at the anxious group perched on the edge of the haymow.

"It's all right," he said. "I've found him. He's out in the old dairy. Now don't all come down at once—Jud, let the girls come first. Easy there!"

The Hatch children came tumbling down, eager to see Sunny Boy. Sarah stopped to pick up the baby, who had slept through all the excitement and now merely opened two dark eyes, smiled, and went to sleep again. The Hatch baby was used to being taken about and had the steady habits of an old traveler.

They found Sunny absorbed in watching a mother duck and her ten little ducklings who were swimming daintily about in a trough in the dairy.

"Well, where were you?" Juddy pounced on Sunny Boy. "You gave us an awful scare."

"I've been right here all the time." Sunny was a bit aggrieved to find such a fuss made over him. First Jimmie and now Juddy. "I haven't been anywhere," he insisted.

"We thought you were lost!" David frowned at him severely.

"Well, I wasn't," retorted Sunny Boy briefly. "I was watching ducks. Jimmie, do they sleep in water?"

"What, ducks?" said Jimmie. "Oh, no, they sleep under their mother just like chickens at night, some place where it is warm and dry. Your grandmother will be glad you found this duck—she's missed her for two days. Guess she never thought of looking in the dairy."

This part of the barn had been used for the cows, you see, years before, when Sunny's father was a little boy and a big herd of fine cows were kept at Brookside. Now Mrs. Butterball and Butterette were the only cows, and they lived in a box stall near Peter and Paul.



CHAPTER XII

APPLE PIES

Sunny Boy continued to look at the ducks till David could stand it no longer.

"What happened to you?" he asked, jogging Sunny's elbow to make him look at him. "How'd you get down here?"

"Fell down," said Sunny calmly. "Could I have a duck to play with, Jimmie?"

"How'd you fall down?" persisted David, who usually got what he started after.

Sunny Boy was exceedingly bored by these numerous questions, and he wanted to be allowed to watch the ducks in peace. So he decided the easiest way to get rid of David and the others would be to tell them what they wanted to know.

"I'll show you," he said. "Come on."

He led them out of the dairy into a little cobwebby room, and pointed up to a square opening.

"I slid through that—see?" he demanded.

"Did it hurt?"

"Course not—I fell on the hay."

The floor was thickly covered with old, dusty hay.

"It's the room where we used to throw down hay to feed the cows," explained Jimmie. "They covered it over with loose boards when they put in the hay three or four years ago. But I suppose you youngsters when romping around kicked the boards to one side and the hay with it. Sunny, coasting down the side of the cave, just coasted right on through the hole and landed down here. Lucky there was hay enough on the floor to save him a bump."

"But why didn't you come and tell us?" asked David. "Here we've been looking all over for you. Why didn't you sing out?"

"I was going to," admitted Sunny Boy apologetically. "But when I was hunting for the way into the barn, I found the ducks. Let's go and tell Grandma we saw 'em."

It was noon by this time, so the Hatch children went home and Sunny Boy and Jimmie walked together to the house. It had stopped raining, and the sun felt warm and delightful.

"Of course you may have a duck," said Grandma, when Sunny Boy told her of his find. "That foolish old mother duck marched off with her children one morning and I couldn't for the life of me discover where she had gone. And Grandpa must board over that hole if you are going to play in the haymow. Another time you might hurt yourself, falling like that."

"Where's Mother?" asked Sunny Boy, eager to tell her about the morning's fun.

"I believe she is up in the attic," returned Grandma. "She's been up there for an hour or so. I wish, lambie, you'd run and find her and say dinner will be on the table in half an hour."

Sunny climbed the crooked, steep stairs that led to Grandma's attic, and found Mother bending over an old trunk dragged out to the middle of the floor.

"Mother," he began as soon as he saw her, "we've been sliding on the hay, and I found a duck mother, an' Grandma gave me a duck for my own. What are you doing, Mother?"

Mrs. Horton was sitting on the floor, her lap filled with a bundle of old letters.

"I've been having a delightful morning, too," she said. "Grandma started to go over these old trunks with me, and then some one called her on the telephone and she had to go down. See, precious, here is a picture of Daddy when he was a little boy."

Sunny looked over her shoulder and saw a photograph of a stiff little boy in stiff velvet skirt and jacket, standing by a table, one small hand resting solemnly on a book.

"He doesn't look comfy," objected Sunny. "Is it really Daddy? And did little boys wear petticoats then, Mother?"

"That isn't a petticoat, it is a kilt," explained Mother. "You know what kilts are, dear—you've seen the Scotch soldiers wear them. Well, when Daddy was a little boy they wore kilts, and trousers underneath. And Grandma was telling me this morning that as soon as Daddy was out of her sight he would take off his kilt and go about in his blouse and trousers. So probably he considered the kilt a petticoat just as you do."

Sunny wandered over to another trunk that stood open and poked an inquiring hand down into its depths.

"What's this, Mother?" he asked, holding up a queer, square little cap.

"Be careful, precious, that is Grandpa's Civil War trunk," warned Mother, coming over to him. "Grandmother meant to put the things out to air to-day and then it rained. See, dear, this is the cap he wore, and the old blue coat, and this is his knapsack. Some day you must ask Grandpa to come up here with you and tell you war stories."

"Where's his sword?" asked Sunny, fingering the cap with interest. "Where was Daddy then? Was Grandpa shot?"

"Grandpa didn't have a sword, because he wasn't an officer," explained Mother. "He was only a boy when he enlisted, and it was long before there was any Daddy, dear. And Grandpa was wounded—I'm sure I've told you that before—don't you remember? That's how he met Grandma. She was a little girl and met him in the hospital where her father, who was a physician, was attending Grandpa."

"Olive! Sunny! Dinner's ready!" It was Grandma standing at the foot of the stairs and calling them.

"I forgot to tell you," said Sunny hastily. "Dinner will be on the table in half an hour, Grandma said."

Mrs. Horton smiled.

"I think the half hour has gone by," she declared, closing the lid of Grandpa's trunk. "Come, dear, we must go right down and not keep them waiting."

"Are you going to eat your duck?" asked Grandpa, when they were seated at the dinner table.

"My, no!" answered Sunny Boy, shocked.

He never believed that the chickens and ducks they had for Sunday dinners were the same pretty feathered creatures he saw walking about the farm. Chickens and ducks one ate, thought Sunny Boy, were always the kind he remembered hanging up in the markets at home—without any feathers or heads. He was sure they grew that way, somewhere.

"He doesn't have to eat his duck," comforted Grandma. "I'm going to make something he likes this afternoon. If you and Olive are going to drive over to town, Sunny and I will be busy in the kitchen."

"Saucer pies!" cried Sunny Boy. "I can help, can't I, Grandma?"

If there was one thing Sunny Boy loved to do, it was to be allowed to watch his grandma bake pies. He could ask a hundred questions and always be sure of an answer, he could taste the contents of every one of the row of little brown spice boxes, and, best of all, there was a special little pie baked for him in a saucer that he could eat the minute it was baked and cool. No wonder Sunny Boy kissed Mother contentedly and watched her drive away with Grandpa for a little shopping in town. He, Sunny Boy, was going to help Grandma bake apple pies.

"Here's your chair, and here's a pound Sweeting for you," Araminta greeted him as he trotted into the kitchen.

Sunny Boy scrambled into his place opposite Grandma at the white table.

"Now this won't be a very good pie," said Grandma, as she began to mix the pie crust.

Dear Grandma always said that about her pies, even the one that won the prize at the big fair.

"These apples are too sweet. But your grandfather can never wait. He has to have an apple pie the minute the first apple ripens."

"So do I," announced Sunny Boy. "What's in this little can, Grandma?"

"Cinnamon, lambie," answered Grandma. "Don't sniff it like that—you'll sneeze."

Sunny Boy munched his apple and watched her as she rolled out the crust.

"How many, Grandma?" he asked.

Araminta, peeling apples over by the window, laughed.

"He's just like his grandfather," she said. "Mr. Horton always says, 'How many pies are you going to make, Mother?' doesn't he?"

"Why does Grandpa call you Mother?" inquired Sunny Boy of Grandma. "You're not his mamma."

"No. But you see I suppose when your daddy was a little chap around the house, and calling me and calling me 'Mother' sixty times a day, as you do your mamma, Grandpa got in the habit of saying 'Mother,' too. And habits, you know, Sunny Boy, are the funny little things that stay with us."

"Yes, I know—we had 'em in Sunday school," agreed Sunny absently. "Is that my pie?"

"That's your pie, lambie," declared Grandma, smiling. "One, two, three large ones, and a saucer pie for my own laddie. How much sugar shall I put in for you, Sunny Boy?"

"A bushel," replied Sunny Boy confidently. "Let me shake the brown powder, Grandma."

So Sunny Boy sprinkled in the cinnamon, and Grandma added dots of butter and put on the crust. Then she cut little slits in it "so the apples can breathe" and then that pie was ready for the oven.

"Now I'm going up to change my dress while they're baking," said Grandma, taking off her apron. "If you want to stay here with Araminta, all right, Sunny. I'll be back in time to take the pies out."

Araminta bustled about, washing the table top and putting away the salt and sugar and spice box and all the things Grandma had used for her baking. Sunny Boy ate his apple quietly and waited for Grandma to come back.

"My land of Goshen!" Araminta stopped to peer out of the window over the sink. "Here's company driving in. If it isn't Mrs. Lawyer Allen, and she always stays till supper time! And your Grandma's pies not out of the oven!"

Grandma, too, had seen the gray horse and buggy, and she hurried down in her pretty black and white dress.

"Hook my collar, please, Araminta," she whispered. "And I am sure the pies are done. You can take them out very carefully and set them where they'll cool. You'll be good, won't you, lambie? There goes the door-bell."

Grandma rustled away to meet her company, and Araminta opened the oven door importantly. She was seldom trusted to take the pies from the oven alone, and she felt very grown-up indeed to have Sunny Boy see her do it. She got the three pies out nicely, and the little saucer pie, too, and carried them into the pantry to cool. She set them on a shelf over the flour barrel.

"Grandma puts them on the table," suggested Sunny Boy.

"Well, I put them on the shelf," said Araminta shortly. "I don't believe in leaving pies around where any one can get 'em."

Now Araminta was in a hurry to go home, for it was three o'clock, and every afternoon from three to five she was allowed to spend as she pleased. So, though she made the kitchen nice and neat before she left, in her hurry she forgot to put the lid on the flour barrel, something Grandma always did.

"I'm going," said Araminta, putting on her hat with a jerk. "Mind you don't get into any mischief, and don't go bothering your grandma. Mrs. Lawyer Allen is nervous, and she doesn't like children."

Araminta, you see, had so many brothers and sisters younger than herself that she gave advice to every child she met.

Sunny Boy was perfectly willing to be good, but he was equally determined to have his saucer pie. It was his own pie, made and intended for him, and Araminta had no business to put it on a shelf out of his reach. As soon as the kitchen door closed he got a chair and dragged it into the pantry.

"It's mine," he told himself, as he stood on the chair.

He pushed a white bowl out of the way, for he remembered the yellow custard he had knocked over on his first adventure in Grandma's pantry. He put his hand on his pie and had it safe when Bruce began to bark suddenly outside the window. Sunny Boy leaned over to see out the window, the chair tipped, and with a crash a frightened little boy fell into the flour barrel which the careless Araminta had left uncovered directly under the shelf.

The noise of the falling chair brought Grandma and her visitor to the pantry.

"What in the world!" cried Mrs. Allen, as a small white-faced figure stared at her over the edge of the barrel. "What is it?"

"It's me," said Sunny Boy forlornly. "There's flour all in me, Grandma!"

Grandma had to laugh.

"All over you," she corrected. "My dear child, are you hurt? And what were you doing to get in the barrel?"

Grandma lifted Sunny Boy out and carried him to the back porch and told him to shake himself as Bruce did after swimming in the brook. Only, instead of water, clouds of flour came out of Sunny Boy's clothes as he tried to shake like a dog.

"I was getting my saucer pie, Grandma," he explained when she came back with a whisk-broom and began to brush him vigorously. "If I had some cinnamon I'd be a pie, wouldn't I?"



CHAPTER XIII

MORE MISCHIEF

When Grandma finally had Sunny Boy all dusted free from flour, she asked him if he thought he could keep out of mischief till supper time.

He was sure he could, and ran off to find Jimmie while Grandma and Mrs. Allen went back to finish their interrupted visit.

"Hello, Sunny," Jimmie greeted him. Jimmie was mending a piece of the orchard fence. "What are you eating—pie?"

For Grandma had seen to it that Sunny had his saucer pie—grandmas are like that, you know.

"Want a bite?" asked Sunny.

But Jimmie, it seemed, had been eating apples all the afternoon and he did not care for apple pie.

"Let me help," urged Sunny. "I can hold the fence up, Jimmie."

"You can stay around and talk, if you want to," conceded Jimmie. "It's kind of lonesome working all alone. But, Sunny, honestly I can't mend this fence if you are going to sit on it and wiggle."

Sunny slid down hastily.

"I didn't know I was wiggling," he apologized. "Do you learn to mend fence at agri—agri—"

"Agricultural college?" supplied Jimmie. "No, I guess that comes natural. Will you hand me one of those long nails, please?"

Sunny handed the nail absently. He was thinking of other things.

"Are you a farmer like Grandpa, Jimmie?" he asked.

Jimmie finished pounding in his nail before he answered.

"Seems like I tinker up this section of fence every other week," he confided. "Am I a farmer like your grandpa? Well, no, not yet, but I aim to be. You thinking of farming, too?"

Sunny considered this gravely.

"I might be a farmer," he admitted. "Only I think I would rather be a postman. Could I, Jimmie?"

"Of course," encouraged Jimmie. "Nothing to stop you. And if, when you grow up, you find you would rather be something else, why, there's no harm done. I've heard that your father wanted to drive a hansom cab for a life job when he was your age. And now, instead, he drives his own automobile."

"I think," announced Sunny thoughtfully, "it's a good plan to think about what you want to be when you grow up and then you won't be s'prised when you find out what you are."

Jimmie's mouth was too full of nails for him to answer, but he nodded.

"You'll swallow a nail," worried Sunny. "Our dressmaker did, once. Only it was a pin. What is this for, Jimmie?"

"Wire clippers," explained Jimmie briefly. "Cut wires with 'em, you know. Leave them right there, Sunny."

Jimmie was wrestling with a bit of wire that was hard to stretch into place. Sunny picked up the wire clippers and studied them carefully.

"I wonder how they work?" he said to himself. "Like Mother's scissors? If I only had a piece of wire I could see."

Now the only wires, as Sunny very well knew, were those stretched between the posts. He did so wonder if the wire clippers really could cut that thick wire! Jimmie's back was toward him. Sunny rested the clippers on the top wire. He wouldn't really press them, just pretend to.

Snip! the heavy strand of wire parted as though it had been a string.

"Give me those clippers!" Jimmie bore down upon him crossly. "I told you to leave 'em alone. Now see what you've done! Look here, Sunny, can't you keep out of trouble long enough for me to finish this fence?"

Sunny yielded the clippers reluctantly. He had not known they were so sharp. Jimmie need not have been so cross, he thought.

"I want to do something different," Sunny complained.

Jimmie wisely decided to give him something to do.

"Couldn't you drive that mother duck and her ducklings up to the chicken yard?" he asked, pointing to the same ducks Sunny had discovered in the dairy. "I know your grandmother wants to shut them up to-night and that mother duck is just working her way down to the brook. I want to finish this fence before I call it a day, so if you want to be useful, here's your chance."

Of course Sunny Boy wanted to be useful, and he started after Mother Duck and her family. If you have ever tried to argue with a duck you will know that it does no good to tell her where she should go—ducks are like some people, they like to have their own way. This mother duck had made up her mind that she was going to take her family down to the brook, and Sunny Boy had to race up and down the orchard and "shoo" her from behind trees and be patient a long time before he could get her started in the direction of the chicken yard. Then, once out of the orchard, she caught a glimpse of Araminta, who had come back—for it was five o'clock—and was scattering cracked corn for the chickens. The duck mother was hungry, and she started to run toward the chicken yard. Sunny Boy could scarcely keep up with her, and the poor little baby ducks were left away behind.

"Let 'em be—they'll follow her!" cried Araminta, and she scattered a little corn in an empty coop.

The duck mother waddled right inside, and Araminta put up a bar that fastened her in.

"I think she has too many duck babies," said Sunny Boy, watching as the ducklings came up to the coop and began to hunt for corn.

"Yes, she has," agreed Araminta. "But she can keep them all warm, I guess."

"I know what I can do," suggested Sunny Boy, but Araminta was hurrying to the house after bread and milk to feed the duck babies and she did not ask him what he could do.

Mrs. Allen stayed to supper, and very soon after Mrs. Horton said that Sunny Boy looked sleepy and must go to bed. He seldom took a nap any more, and as he woke up early in the mornings, his mother said it was certain that he must go to bed earlier to make up for it.

All the time Mother was helping him undress, Sunny Boy was very quiet, and after she had kissed him and tucked him in bed he did not ask her for a story as he usually did.

"You've been playing too hard, I think," said Mrs. Horton. "Good night and pleasant dreams, dearest."

Sunny Boy waited till she had closed the door. Then he hopped out of bed and pattered over to another door that led into Grandma's room. When he came back he had two baby ducks in his hands.

"There now, you can sleep in my bed," he told them, putting them down under the sheet.

But the baby ducks did not like the soft, clean bed. They made funny little peeping noises, and as soon as Sunny Boy climbed into bed, one of them fell out and ran across the floor. Sunny Boy chased it under the bureau, and then he heard Mother calling.

"Sunny!"

He opened the door a crack.

"Yes, Mother?"

"I hear you running around up there. You don't want Mother to have to come up and punish you, do you? Go back to bed and go to sleep like a good boy."

"Yes'm," said Sunny.

He might have explained that he was good, but the ducks were certainly as bad as they could be. It was still light enough in the room for him to see the furniture, but try as he might he could not get that foolish, obstinate frightened little duck to come out from behind the bureau. Finally he gave it up and went to bed to take care of the other one, and that fell or jumped out on the other side of the bed and poor Sunny had to get up again and try to find it. The foolish thing let him chase it under the bed, and he was half way under and half way out when Grandpa opened the bedroom door.

"Look here, Sunny, what are you up to now?" began Grandpa. "Your mother is tired and she sent me up to settle you. My soul, boy! what are you doing under the bed?"

Sunny Boy wriggled out and turned a flushed face to Grandpa.

"Nothing," he said, beginning to climb into bed.

Grandpa was helping him smooth the tangled covers when one of the ducks began to peep.

"What's that?" said he sharply. "Sunny, what have you got in here? What's that noise?"

"It's a duck," confessed Sunny Boy reluctantly.

Grandpa sat down on the bed.

"A duck? Up here?" he gasped. "Why, how on earth did a duck get in the house?"

"I did it," admitted Sunny. "The duck mother had too many children, and I was going to take care of some of 'em for her. But they wouldn't stay in bed. I could sail 'em in the bath-tub in the mornings."

Grandpa began to laugh, and then he could not stop. He laughed till the tears came, and Mrs. Horton heard him and came up to scold them both. Grandma followed, and there they all sat on the bed, Grandpa and Mother and Grandma, all laughing as hard as they could.

Sunny Boy did not think it was funny a bit, and when he found that Grandpa was going to take his ducks back to their own mother that night he began to cry.

"By and by they would like it here," he sobbed. "I haven't my woolly dog, and I need a duck. Can't I have one, Grandpa?"

Sunny Boy was far from being a cry-baby, but he was sleepy and that made him feel unhappy, though he thought it was the ducks. That's a trick of the sandman's—making you cry easily when you're sleepy. However this time Grandpa was firm, and he managed to get the duck under the bed and the one back of the bureau and carry them down to their mother. And very glad they were to get there, we may believe. Sunny Boy went to sleep in five minutes, and long before morning had forgotten he ever wanted baby ducks to spend the night with him.

One morning, a week or more later, he was playing on the shady side porch when he heard Grandpa saying something to Mother about bonds. Ever since Sunny Boy had lost his kite and Grandpa's bonds with it, he always noticed when any one used that word. No one ever spoke to him about the lost money, and he often forgot about it, with so many wonderful things to do every day. And then, a word or two would make him remember again.

"I lie awake at night worrying over those bonds, Father," Mrs. Horton was saying. "Harry may be able to make it up to you some day, but he's having a hard time this summer. I've been out and looked and looked—some one must have picked them up."

"Yes, I suppose they have," said Grandpa. "I advertised, and the Bonds were numbered. Still, as you say, some one must have found them. Don't let it spoil your Summer, Olive, I've only myself to blame. At my age carelessness is nothing short of a crime."

"But at your age a thousand dollars is a great deal to lose," protested Mrs. Horton. "And I know you meant to take a trip South this Winter, and Harry tells me you've given that up."

Sunny Boy could hear tears in Mother's soft voice, and he was sure she had tears in her lovely brown eyes. He made up his mind what to do.

He trotted through the wide hall, into the sitting-room. There sat Grandpa figuring at his desk and close beside him was Mother with her knitting. There were bright drops on the dark blue wool. She had been crying, though she smiled at Sunny as he stood in the doorway.

"Grandpa, listen!" Sunny Boy cried. "You can have all the money in my bank at home. I've been saving it for, oh, ever so long. There's a thousand dollars, I guess. An' you can have it all—every bit. Daddy will send it to you if I ask him. An' then you won't care 'bout the Lib'ty Bonds!"

Sunny Boy was surprised at the way his offer was received. He had thought Grandpa would be pleased and his mother, too. And here sat Grandpa blowing his nose, and as for his mother—Sunny Boy looked at her and her eyes were quite brimming over.

"Don't you like me to?" he cried. "I was going to buy another drum, but Grandpa can have the money. It's a pink pig, Grandpa, and you shake it an' the pennies drop out. Harriet gave it to me." Sunny Boy's lip began to quiver.

"My dear little son!" Mother held out her arms and Sunny Boy ran to her. "My generous little man!" she whispered. "Your pennies wouldn't be enough, precious. But I'm proud to have you offer them to Grandpa to try to make up his loss. That's like your father."

Sunny Boy sat up and stopped crying. To be like his father was the highest praise his mother could give him.

"Thank you very much, Sunny," said Grandpa gravely. "I couldn't take your bank. For one reason, we're not sure yet the bonds are really lost. But I tell you what I will do—if I ever get out of cash, entirely out, mind you, and have to borrow from my friends, I'll come to you. There are very few I'd bring myself to borrow from, but perhaps it's different with a grandson. You save your pennies, and maybe some day I'll ask you to lend me some. Shall we shake hands on it?"

And Sunny Boy and Grandpa shook hands solemnly, like two business men.



CHAPTER XIV

ANOTHER HUNT

"And now," declared Grandpa, putting on his wide-brimmed hat and reaching for his cane, "it's high time I was out looking after Mr. Hatch. Where are you going, Sunny Boy?"

Sunny Boy was darting off as though a new idea had seized him.

"Out," he answered vaguely. His mind was intent on his plan.

"Well, Grandma and I have the picnic to plan," cried Mrs. Horton gayly. "If we are going to have that long-promised picnic before we go home, I for one think it is high time we set a day."

Sunny Boy, lingering in the doorway, heard Grandpa grumble a little as he always did if anything was said about their going home.

"No reason why you shouldn't stay here all Summer," he scolded. "Or if you want to be nearer Harry, Olive, leave the boy with us. You know we'd take good care of him."

"I know you would; but I couldn't leave my baby," Mrs. Horton said quickly. "Bessie, my sister, you know, has a plan—"

But Araminta called Sunny just then and he ran off without hearing about Aunt Bessie's plan.

Sunny Boy had a plan of his own, and he was determined to carry it through. This was nothing less than to go and hunt for Grandpa's lost Liberty Bonds.

"For I know that kite fell down right by the old walnut tree," said Sunny Boy to himself for the twentieth time. "I saw it go down—swish! I'll bet Grandpa didn't look under the right tree."

Without much trouble he coaxed a big piece of gingerbread from Araminta—who was very curious to learn where he was going—which he crowded into his pocket. Expecting to be gone a long time, he took an apple from the basket on the dining-room table and two bananas. Bruce, lying on the back door mat, decided to go with him, but Bruce was beginning to get the least little bit fat and old, and when he had followed Sunny as far as the brook pasture and saw that he had no intention of stopping to rest under the trees, that wise collie dog turned and went back to the house.

"Hey, there! Where are you going this hot day?" Jimmie, setting out tomato plants in a side field, shouted to him.

Sunny Boy waved his hand and plodded on. He was a silent child when he had his mind fixed on a certain thing, and he was intent on finding those bonds this morning.

The sun was hot, and when he reached the pretty brook the water looked so clear and cool that Sunny was tempted to go wading. Only he had promised his mother not to go in the water unless some one was with him, and then, too, wading would delay the hunt for the bonds. He walked along the bank until he came to the uneven line of stones piled together to make a crossing.

"I spect it wabbles," said Sunny Boy aloud, putting one foot on a stone, which certainly did "teeter."

He started to cross slowly, and in the middle of the stream his right foot slipped—splash!—into the icy cold water.

"My land sakes!" gasped poor Sunny Boy, who was certainly acquiring a number of new words, much to his mother's worry. "I guess that water's as cold as—as our icebox at home."

With one wet foot and one dry foot he finished his journey and landed safely on the other side of the brook. He was hungry by then, and so sat down to eat the gingerbread under a large tree whose roots had grown far out over the water.

"Tick-tack! Tick-tack! Tick—t-a-c-k!" scolded some one directly over his head.

"Don't be cross, Mr. Squirrel!" said Sunny Boy politely. "Grandpa says when you make a noise like that you're either frightened or want folks to go away and not bother you. I'm going in a minute."

Throwing the crumbs of the gingerbread into the brook for the little fish to enjoy, Sunny Boy marched straight for the woods. He had never been there alone, and somehow they seemed darker and deeper than he remembered them when Grandpa or Daddy had been with him.

"I'll begin to look now," said Sunny, talking to himself for company. And how small his voice sounded, and thin, under those tall, silent trees!

"Maybe I'll see a Brownie," Sunny continued. "I think Bruce might have come all the way. What was that?"

A twig snapped under his foot with a sharp noise. Noises are always creepy when one is alone in a strange place. Sunny sat down to rest a minute, on a half-buried tree-stump.

A black beetle came out, ran along a weed-stalk, climbed up to the top and sat there, regarding Sunny steadily.

"Do you like living here?" asked Sunny politely. "I wish you could talk, Mr. Beetle. Maybe you've seen the Lib'ty Bonds somewhere an' you'd tell me just where to look."

The beetle winked his beady eyes rapidly, but of course he didn't say a word.

Presently a striped chipmunk appeared on a stump opposite the one where Sunny sat, and he, too, stared at Sunny intently.

"I'm going! I'm going right away!" Sunny assured the chipmunk hastily. "Daddy says you wood folks like to be alone. I wouldn't hurt you, but I s'pose you don't know that."

He trotted along, eating the bananas as he went. There were so many things to look at and think about that sometimes he almost forgot the Liberty Bonds. Almost, but not quite.

"'Cause I just have to find 'em," he told a blue jay that sat up in a tree and listened sympathetically. "I'm mose sure Grandpa didn't look in the right place. An' won't he like it when I come home with them in my pocket!"

Sunny was so pleased with this idea that he gave a little shout and threw his cap up into the air, which so alarmed the blue jay that it quickly flew away.

Sunny Boy was marching steadily, hands in his pockets, when he saw something near a stone that made him stop to look. It was a turtle.

"Why didn't you run?" Sunny demanded, picking up the turtle carefully, as he had seen Jimmie do. "Maybe you're the one Grandpa carved his initials and the date on when he came here to live. Are you?"

The turtle kept his head obstinately in. Very likely he objected to being picked up and looked at so closely. Sunny brushed him off neatly with his clean handkerchief, and, sure enough, on the shell he found a date carved.

"I can't read it," mourned Sunny aloud. "But I guess you're not Grandpa's turtle, 'cause you haven't any initials on you. I wish you'd put your head out, just once."

But, though he put the turtle gently on the ground again and kept very still for at least five minutes, the queer, narrow little head stayed safely in its shell house. The turtle did not run away.

"Guess he thinks I'll catch him if he runs," thought Sunny. "I'd like to keep him if he was little. Jimmie says little turtles are nice to keep in the garden. Maybe I can find one on the way back, and build him a little house under Grandma's rose bushes."

Sunny went on, and soon he was sure that he was coming to the place where he had seen his kite fall. To be sure, the inside of the woods looked very different from the outside, and Sunny began to understand why he and Grandfather had not found the bonds as easily as they had hoped to. Still, he felt he was "getting warm" as they say in the games of seeking, and he began to look about him closely.

"It was right here—" His apple fell out of his blouse and he stooped to pick it up. He sprang up with a shriek and ran screaming toward an opening in the woods.

"It was a snake—a great, big, nasty, bitey snake!" he sobbed. "I put my hand right on it—all slippy and cold!"

He looked back—was it a snake after all? What was that curved black thing that lay there so quietly at the foot of a tree?

Then Sunny Boy did a very brave thing indeed. He was all alone, remember, and there was no one to laugh at him had he gone on home believing that he had touched a snake. But he liked to be very sure in his own mind, and he went back, cautiously and ready to run if a twig snapped, but back, nevertheless, to the place where he thought he had seen the snake. Any one, you know, may be frightened, but to face the fear and see if it is an afraid thought, or something really scary—that takes a truly brave person. And always afterward Sunny Boy was to be glad that he had had the courage to go back and see.

For his snake was only an old twisted tree root, after all!

"But I guess it's dinner time, an' I can come again an' look for the bonds," he told a chipmunk. "Maybe Jimmie will come to-morrow and help hunt."

This time Sunny Boy crossed the stone crossing without getting either foot wet and he was half way up to the house when he saw Peter and Paul standing hitched to the fence. They had been hauling the tomato plants for Jimmie and Grandpa, who was always kind to the farm animals, had ordered them to be unharnessed and tied in the shade while the plants were being set out.

"No horse likes to be anchored to a wagon when 'tisn't necessary," said kind Grandpa.

"Jimmie's always saying he will let me ride Peter," grumbled Sunny Boy, looking very little as he stood by the fence, fumbling with the strap that tied Peter fast. "Pretty soon we'll be going home, Mother says, and I won't ever learn to ride."

Sunny's busy, mischievous fingers had untied the strap as he talked, and now Peter could have walked away to the barn and his dinner, had he only known it. He didn't though, and so he was very much surprised to feel little feet digging into him as Sunny Boy scrambled desperately to get on his back. Peter and Paul were fat and slow or they never would have stood the antics of Sunny as that small person, clinging to Peter's mane, and using Paul as a kind of step-ladder, pushed and pulled and climbed till he found himself where he wished to be—on Peter's broad back.

"Gee, you're a tall horse!" he observed, gathering the halter strap in one hand as he had seen Jimmie take the reins. "Oh, there's what you ought to have on—I didn't see it."

The bridles and reins lay on the ground where Jimmie had dropped them when he had unharnessed the horses from the wagon. But Sunny Boy was not minded to get down after such a trifle—he had had too much trouble to secure his present seat.

"Gid-ap!" he said loudly, and jerked the halter strap.

Over in the field, Jimmie straightened an aching young back and gazed in amazement.

"Say—hey, Sunny—Sunny Horton! Get off that horse—do you hear me?" he shouted.

Sunny Boy heard. He turned and grinned impishly. He delighted to plague Jimmie, and he was having fun guiding Peter.

Then Jimmie rather lost his head. Had he kept still, Peter would probably have ambled gently about the meadow, perhaps turned into the road that led to the house and barn, and Sunny's adventure might have been a very mild one. But Jimmie was frightened, and in his fear he did the one thing that could have brought about what he feared. He leaped the fence and came running toward the horse.

"Gid-ap, Peter! Go 'long! Hurry!" Sunny slapped the strap smartly across old Peter's neck.

That easy-going horse was not used to such treatment, and he broke into a trot. Jimmie began to shout and wave his arms. Then Peter broke into a gallop, taking great, long easy strides that seemed to cover miles of ground to Sunny's excited eyes.

"You kind of bump!" he gasped, as the horse galloped on. "I wonder—will—I—fall off!"

Peter snorted. He had forgotten how it felt to be running free, and perhaps he was pretending he was a young colt again. He paid no more attention to the small boy on his back than if Sunny Boy had been a fly.

Around and around the field they tore. Jimmie's shouts had brought Grandpa, and together the two watched in terrible anxiety.

"I'd get on Paul and chase 'em, but Peter can outrun him any day!" Jimmie almost sobbed. "Say! I know what will do it. You wait, sir."

He ran up to the barn and came back with a peck measure of corn. Paul saw the long yellow ears and whinnied with pleasure.

"You don't get any," Jimmie informed him. "Lucky they hadn't had their dinner," he said to Grandpa. He stood out from the fence and rattled the measure invitingly, and whistled.

Now Peter was not a colt, however much he might enjoy pretending, and he was getting tired of his gallop. Also he was hungry, and he had heard Paul whinny. So when Jimmie whistled, the old, familiar whistle he always gave when he came in the barn at feeding time, Peter turned and stared. Yes, there he stood, down at the other end of the field, and yes, he had corn with him.

Peter slowed down to a gentle run, then to a half trot, and finally came walking at his usual gentle gait straight up to Jimmie and Grandpa.

"Sunny, Sunny, what will you do next?" groaned Grandpa, lifting him down. "I hope your mother didn't see this—she would be frightened to death."

"It didn't hurt me," urged Sunny Boy, beginning to wonder if he had done wrong. "I is bumped a little, but I wasn't afraid, Grandpa. Was Jimmie?"

"You young imp!" Jimmie swooped down upon him and hugged him so hard Sunny squirmed uneasily. "You bet I was scared! I thought every minute you'd tumble off. And now do you want to ride up to the barn with me, or have you had enough?"

"I'll ride with you," said Sunny firmly.



CHAPTER XV

SUNNY'S GOOD LUCK

"There!" Grandma, a pretty picture in her white dress that matched her white hair, closed the side door. "Now we're really started."

She and Grandpa and Mother and Sunny Boy were going for their long-talked-of picnic in the woods. Araminta had the day for a holiday and had gone merrily off to town to buy herself a new frock. Sunny had wanted Jimmie to come to the picnic, but Jimmie, too, was away. He had gone down to the city to sell hay for Grandpa. So it happened that just the four were to spend the day in the woods.

"What we'll do without you, Sunny," said Grandpa, as they walked ahead, "I'm sure I don't know."

"But I'll send you some of the sand," urged Sunny cheerfully. "And a seashell, Grandpa."

For this was Aunt Bessie's plan. She had written Mrs. Horton that she and a friend, a teacher, had taken a cottage at the seashore for the month of August, and they wanted Sunny Boy and his mother to come and spend that month with them. The cottage was near enough to the city for Mr. Horton to go down every night and stay with them.

"And two weeks from to-day," Mrs. Horton had told Sunny Boy as he brushed his hair that morning, "you will be going down to the beach with a tin pail and shovel, I expect, to play in the sand."

Grandpa, carrying two boxes of lunch and a little camp chair that folded up—because Grandma had aches in her joints if she tried to sit on the ground—smiled down at his grandson.

"Oh, well, we shall just have to have as much fun as we can while you're here," he said firmly. "Let's have a perfectly fine picnic with all the sandwiches we can eat to-day."

"Yes," agreed Sunny enthusiastically. "Let's."

"Sunny, what have you found there?" asked Grandpa after a while.

"It's a bird," said Sunny pitifully. "A poor, little dead bird, Grandpa. See?"

He brought back the little feathered body he had found at the foot of a tall oak tree, and showed them.

"It's a baby robin," said Grandma, touching the little thing gently. "It must have fallen out of the nest. Don't grieve, lambie, nothing can hurt the little bird now."

"I want to bury it," insisted Sunny, tears running down his face. "I don't want to leave it on the ground, Grandma."

"All right, you shall bury it," said Grandpa soothingly. "I'll help you. Mother, you and Olive walk along slowly and we'll catch up to you."

So Grandma and Sunny's mother walked ahead, and Grandpa began to help Sunny bury the baby robin.

First, they found a wide, smooth green leaf that grew in the woods and wrapped this about the dead bird and fastened it with the sharp little thorns that grew on another plant and which were every bit as good as pins.

"Now you gather the prettiest fern leaves you can find," directed Grandpa. "And I'll dig him a little grave."

When Sunny Boy came back with his hands full of soft fern leaves, Grandpa had a little square hollowed out in the earth, under a Jack in the Pulpit plant.

"We'll line it with ferns, so," he said, arranging the leaves Sunny Boy brought him, "and then we'll put the bird in so, and cover him up carefully. There! Now we'll leave him in his nice, green bed, dear, and not be sorry for him any more.

"I see Bruce just ahead. Grandma and Mother must be near."

They came up to them in a minute, and Sunny Boy suddenly discovered that he was hungry.

"But it isn't time for lunch yet, precious. Take this apple and try to wait a little longer, do," said his mother.

"Feels like a thunderstorm," declared Grandma, sitting down on her camp-stool to get her breath after the walk. "Well, Bruce will tell us in time, won't you, old fellow?"

"How?" asked Sunny curiously.

"He's afraid of thunder," explained Grandma. "Years ago when he was a young dog he was out hunting rabbits or squirrels one summer night and a big thunderstorm came up. We always think he must have seen a tree struck, or been stunned by a flash, for he came home dripping and shivering. And ever since—though that was a long time ago—he begins to shake and wants to hide whenever he hears thunder."

The woods did not seem dark and still, now that Sunny had company with him, and he took Grandpa over to the place where he and Daddy had gone fishing. They decided not to try to catch any fish that day, but Sunny took off his shoes and stockings and went wading.

When he came out, and had his shoes and stockings on again, Mrs. Horton spread a white cloth on a flat rock and she and Grandma began to get the lunch ready.

"Sunny, which would you rather have," Grandpa asked him, "white cake or black cake?"

"White, I guess," said Sunny. "Or no—chocolate, I think."

"Well, well, if that isn't lucky!" cried Grandpa, pretending to be much relieved. "Grandma has put in both kinds!"

Indeed there were all kinds of goodies in those boxes—chicken and ham sandwiches, eggs, potato salad, white cake and black, a vacuum bottle of cold milk for Sunny and one of hot coffee for the others.

"There's a spider!" shouted Sunny Boy as they sat down to eat. "Look, Grandpa, he going right into the cake."

"Oh, spiders and ants and little creatures like that like to come to a picnic," answered Grandpa, scooping up the spider on a bit of cardboard and putting him down carefully on a bush near by. "Mr. Spider'll go home to-night and tell the folks all about the little boy he saw in the woods to-day with his mother and his grandmother and his grandfather having a picnic. And little Sallie Spider will say, 'What were they eating, Daddy? Did you bring me any?'"

"I'll sprinkle crumbs for him to get afterward," planned Sunny. "The fishes had them last time, and now it is Mr. Spider's turn."

Presently, when no one could eat another bite, Mother and Grandmother folded up the cloth and put the sandwiches left over in one box. All the odds and ends were put down on a paper plate for Bruce to eat, and then Grandpa dug a hole in the ground and he and Sunny Boy buried the papers out of sight.

"For I won't let any one build a fire in my woods in July when we're needing rain so badly and every stick is like tinder," said Grandpa sturdily. "And we won't leave a messy picnic ground, even if it is our own, shall we?"

Mrs. Horton had her knitting, and she and Grandma sat and worked and talked quietly while Grandpa and Sunny Boy went off together to try to find a sassafras bush. Just as they had found one and Grandpa had taken out his knife to cut a twig for Sunny to taste, Bruce ran into him and nearly knocked him down.

"Grandpa! Grandpa! Something's the matter with Bruce! Is he sick?" Sunny Boy was a little frightened at the strange way the dog acted. "Look at him! He's trying to walk on me."

"He hears thunder," said Grandpa quietly. "He's trying to get you to hide him. Funny, I haven't heard a rumble. But you can trust Bruce. He never fails to tell us. We must hurry and get Mother and Grandma back to the house before it rains."

They walked back as fast as they could to where they had left the others, and found Mrs. Horton folding up her knitting.

"We thought we heard thunder," she said, as they came up to her. "I think it is clouding up, too. Why how funny Bruce acts! Is he sick?"

"He's trying to tell us a storm is coming," replied Grandpa. "There, there, Bruce, don't be so silly. We're going home, and you can hide under the barn floor and never even see the lightning."

The sun, which had been shining down through the trees, had gone under a cloud, and the branches about them began to rustle as the wind swayed them.

"I'm afraid we'll have a heavy storm," said Grandma anxiously. "We have had such a long dry spell and it's been so hot. I'd hate to be caught among these trees in a heavy wind."

"Don't worry, Mother," replied Grandpa. "We'll be home before the first drops come. Shall I carry you, Sunny?"

Sunny, who was running to keep up with them, shook his head. He did not want to be carried like a baby. Soon it grew darker and darker and the wind began to blow in earnest. He pressed closer to Grandpa.

"Don't be afraid," said Grandpa kindly. "We'll be out of the woods in another minute and then we'll scoot across the brook and be home."

He put out a hand to help Grandmother, when with a tremendous blast a gust of wind made them all stop to catch their breath. They saw it bend a tree at the edge of the clearing and heard the tree snap loudly as it broke and fell across the path. Bruce howled—he was nervous, poor animal.

"Mercy!" gasped Grandma. "I said we'd have a bad storm. There! I felt a raindrop. My father always said the worst was over when the rain began."

They hurried on, anxious not to get wet, and Sunny Boy was the first to reach the fallen tree.

"We have to go over it," he shouted back, and began to scramble up, holding on to the branches.

"Grandpa," they heard him scream a moment later. "Hurry! Come quick! Here's my kite! The Lib'ty Bonds kite!"

Sure enough, there it was, just as it had caught in the tree—the missing kite. And still pasted to the strips of wood were Grandpa's two five-hundred-dollar Liberty Bonds!

"No wonder we couldn't find 'em!" cried Sunny Boy, dancing with excitement. "I knew I saw it fall in a tree! Won't Daddy be glad!"

"We're all glad," declared Mother, kissing him warmly. "Isn't it just wonderful to think that the same little boy who lost the bonds should also find them?"

"It's been a lucky picnic, surely," said Grandpa. "After a hard rain those bonds wouldn't have been worth much to any one."

"Well, they won't be worth much now if we all stand here and get soaked," announced Grandma practically.

At that they all took hold of hands and ran across the meadow, over the bridge of stones, and up to the porch. And the moment they were safely under shelter, how the rain did pour down! Just as if, Sunny said, it had been waiting for them to get home before it showed what it really could do.

"Mother," asked Sunny Boy that night, as he sat on the foot-board of the bed in his blue pajamas and watched her brush her hair. They were all tired after the excitement of the picnic and the finding of the bonds, and every one was going to bed at Sunny's bed time, even Grandpa. "Mother, will I take my sand-box to the seashore?"

"Oh, no, precious," she assured him. "Why, you'll have a whole beach of sand to play in. And the bathing suit I bought for you to wear here and which you haven't had on because the brook water is so cold! Perhaps Daddy will teach you to swim."

"Yes," agreed Sunny Boy absently. And he tumbled back on the pillows, thinking about the seashore and the ocean which he had never seen.

It was not very long after the picnic that Mother and Sunny Boy left Brookside and went to visit Aunt Bessie in her white cottage that faced the ocean. And if you want to hear about the good times Sunny Boy had there and what he thought the waves were saying to him when he got up in the night to listen, you'll have to read "Sunny Boy at the Seashore."

THE END

———————————————————————————————————

THE SUNNY BOY SERIES By Ramy Allison White

Children, meet Sunny Boy, a little fellow with big eyes and an inquiring disposition, who finds the world a large and wonderful thing indeed. And somehow there is lots going on, when Sunny Boy is around. Perhaps he helps push! In the first book of this new series he has the finest time ever, with his Grandpa out in the country. He learns a lot and he helps a lot, in his small way. Then he has a glorious visit to the seashore, but this is in the next story. And there are still more adventures in the other books. You will like Sunny Boy.

1. SUNNY BOY IN THE COUNTRY 2. SUNNY BOY AT THE SEASHORE 3. SUNNY BOY IN THE BIG CITY 4. SUNNY BOY IN SCHOOL AND OUT 5. SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES 6. SUNNY BOY AND HIS GAMES 7. SUNNY BOY IN THE FAR WEST 8. SUNNY BOY ON THE OCEAN 9. SUNNY BOY WITH THE CIRCUS 10. SUNNY BOY AND HIS BIG DOG

BARSE & HOPKINS Publishers New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.

———————————————————————————————————

THE BOY SCOUT LIFE SERIES Published with the approval of The Boy Scouts of America

In the boys' world of story books, none better than those about boy scouts arrest and grip attention. In a most alluring way, the stories in the BOY SCOUT LIFE SERIES tell of the glorious good times and wonderful adventures of boy scouts.

All the books were written by authors possessed of an intimate knowledge of this greatest of all movements organized for the welfare of boys, and are published with the approval of the National Headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America.

The Chief Scout Librarian, Mr. F. K. Mathiews, writes concerning them: "It is a bully bunch of books. I hope you will sell 100,000 copies of each one, for these stories are the sort that will help instead of hurt our movement."

THE BOY SCOUT FIRE FIGHTERS—CRUMP THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE LIGHTHOUSE TROOP—McCLANE THE BOY SCOUT TRAIL BLAZERS—CHELEY THE BOY SCOUT TREASURE HUNTERS—LERRIGO BOY SCOUTS AFLOAT—WALDEN BOY SCOUTS COURAGEOUS—MATHIEWS BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE—LERRIGO BOY SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL—GARTH THE BOY SCOUTS IN AFRICA—CORCORAN

BARSE & HOPKINS Publishers New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.

———————————————————————————————————

THE CAMP FIRE BOYS SERIES By OLIVER LEE CLIFTON For Boys from 8 to 14

A group of resourceful boys living in a small town form a camping and hiking club, which brings them all sorts of outdoor adventures. In the first story, "At Log Cabin Bend," they solve a series of mysteries but not until after some lively thrills which will cause other boys to sit on the edge of their chairs. The next story telling of their search for a lost army aviator in "Muskrat Swamp" is just as lively. The boys are all likable and manly—just the sort of fellows that every other wide-awake boy would be glad to go hiking with.

THE CAMP FIRE BOYS AT LOG CABIN BEND THE CAMP FIRE BOYS IN MUSKRAT SWAMP THE CAMP FIRE BOYS AT SILVER FOX FARM THE CAMP FIRE BOYS' CANOE CRUISE THE CAMP FIRE BOYS' TRACKING SQUAD

BARSE & HOPKINS Publishers New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.

———————————————————————————————————

THE TWO LITTLE FELLOWS SERIES By JOSEPHINE LAWRENCE For Boys and Girls from 5 to 9 Cloth Large 12 Mo. Illustrated

The neighbors say "the two little Fellows" when they speak of Martin and Jean. That is because this small brother and sister are always together. You just have to think of them as a pair.

The Fellows family live in Garnet, a busy city, but the two little Fellows have a yard all their own in which to play, and a wonderful dog, who is very wise indeed, for a playmate. Pleasantly exciting things happen to Martin and Jean: sometimes little troubles ruffle them, but in the main, this growing up day by day is very interesting and busy work. The two little Fellows think so and as you read about them in these books, you'll find you have made two new friends.

1. THE TWO LITTLE FELLOWS. 2. THE TWO LITTLE FELLOWS START SCHOOL. 3. THE TWO LITTLE FELLOWS GO VISITING.

BARSE & HOPKINS Publishers New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.

THE END