Sunny had certain traits that contributed largely to what seemed almost
an unconscious conspiracy to rob Jerry Hammond of his peace of mind.
There was a resemblance in her nature to a kitten.
To maintain a proper decorum in his relations with his guest, Jerry was
wont, when alone, to form the firm resolution to hold her at arm's
length. This was far from being an easy matter. It was impossible for
him to be in the room with Sunny and not sooner or later find her in
touch with him. She had a habit of putting her hand into his. She
slipped under his most rigid guard, and acquired a bad trick of pressing
close to his side, and putting her arm through his. This was all very
well when they took their long walks through the park or up and down
Riverside Drive. She could not see the reason why if she could walk arm
in arm with Jerry when they climbed on the top of one of the busses that
rolled up the wonderful drive she should not continue linked with her
friend. In fact, Sunny found it far more attractive and comfortable to
drive arm in arm with Jerry than walk thus with him. For, when walking,
she loved to rove off from the paths, to make acquaintance with the
squirrels and the friendly dogs.
Her near proximity, however, had its most dangerous effect in the
charmed evenings these two spent together, too often, however, marred by
the persistent calls of their mutual friends. At these times, Sunny had
an uncanny trick of coming up at the back of Jerry, when that
unconscious young man by the fireplace was off in a day dream (in which,
by the way, in a vague way, herself was always a part), and resting her
cheek upon the brown comfortable head, there to stay till her warm
presence startled him into wakefulness, and he would explode one of his
usual expressions of these days:
"Don't do that, I say!"
"Keep your hands off me, will you?"
"Don't come so close."
"Keep off--keep off, I say."
"I don't like it."
"For heaven's sake, Sunny, will nothing teach you civilised ways?"
At these times Sunny always retired very meekly to a distant part of the
room, where she would remain very still and crushed looking, and,
shortly, Jerry, overcome with compunction, would coax her to a nearer
proximity mentally and physically.
Another disturbing trick which Jerry never had had the heart to ban was
that of kneeling directly in front of him, her two hands upon his own
knees. From this vantage point, with her friendly expressive and so
lovely face raised to his, she would naïvely pour out to him her
innocent confidences. After all, he savagely argued within himself, what
harm in the world was there in a little girl kneeling by your side, and
even laying her head, if it came down to that, at times upon a fellow's
knee? It took a rotten mind to discover anything wrong with that, in the
opinion of Jerry Hammond.
However, there is a limit to all things, and that limit was reached on a
certain evening in early spring, a dangerous season, as we all know. "If
you give some people an inch they'll take a mile," Jerry at that time
angrily muttered, the humour of the situation not at all appealing to
him.
He was going over a publication on Spanish Architecture, Catalonian work
of the 14th and 15th centuries. Sunny was enjoying herself very
innocently at the piano player, and Jerry should, as he afterwards
admitted to himself, have "left well enough alone." However it be,
nothing would do but he must summon Sunny to his side to share the
pleasure of looking at these splendid examples of the magnificent work
of the great Spanish architect Fabre.
Now Sunny possessed, to an uncanny degree, that gift of understanding
which is extremely rare with her sex. She possessed it, in fact, to such
a fine degree, that nearly everyone who met her found himself pouring
out the history of his life into her sympathetic and understanding
little ear. There was something about her way of looking at one, a sort
of hanging absorbedly upon one's narrative of their history, that
assured the narrator that he not only had the understanding but the
sympathy of his pretty listener.
Jerry, therefore, summoned her from her diversions at the piano-player,
which she hastened to leave, though the record was her favourite,
"Gluhwormchen." Her murmuring exclamations above his shoulder revealed
her instant enthusiasm and appreciation of just those details that Jerry
knew would escape the less artistic eye of an ordinary person. She held
pages open, to prolong the pleasure of looking at certain window
traceries; she picked out easily the Geometrical Gothic type, and wanted
Jerry's full explanation as to its difference to those of another
period. Her little pink forefinger ever found points of interest in the
sketches which made him chuckle with delight and pride. The value of
Sunny's criticism and opinion, moreover, was enhanced by the fact that
she conveyed to the young man her conviction, that while of course these
were incredibly marvellous examples of the skill of ancient Spanish
architects, they were not a patch on the work which J. Addison Hammond
was going to do in the not far distant future. Though he protested
against this with proper modesty, he was nevertheless beguiled and
bewitched by the shining dream she called up. He had failed to note that
she was perched on the arm of his chair, and that her head rested
perilously near to his own. Possibly he would never have discovered this
at all had not an accident occurred that sent Hatton, busy on some task
or other about the studio, scurrying in undignified flight from the
room, with his stony face covered with his hands. From the kitchen
regions thereafter came the sound of suppressed clucks, which by this
time could have been recognised as Hatton's laughter.
What happened was this: At a moment when a turned leaf revealed a sketch
of ravishing splendour, Sunny's breathless admiration, and Jerry's own
motion of appreciation (one fist clapped into the palm of the other
hand), caused Sunny to slip from the arm of the chair onto Jerry's knee.
Jerry arose. To do him justice, he arose instantly, depositing both book
and Sunny upon the floor. He then proceeded to read her such a savage
lecture upon her pagan ways, that the evident effect was so instantly
apparent on her, that he stopped midway, glared, stared at the crushed
little figure, so tenderly closing the upset book, and then turned on
his heel and made an ignominious and undignified exit from the room.
"What's the use? What's the use?" demanded Jerry of the unresponsive
walls. "Hang it all, this sort of thing has got to stop. What in Sam
Hill is keeping that blamed Proff?"
He always liked to imagine at these times that his faith was pinned upon
the early coming of Professor Barrowes, when he was assured the hectic
state of affairs in his studio would be clarified and Sunny disposed of
once and forever. Sunny, however, had been nearly a month now in his
studio, and in spite of a hundred telegrams to Professor Barrowes,
demanding to know the exact time of his arrival, threatening moreover to
hold back that $2,000 required to bring the dashed Dinornis from Red
Deer, Alberta, Canada, to New York City, U. S. A., he got no
satisfactory response from his old-time teacher. That monomaniac merely
replied with letter-long telegrams--very expensive coming from the
extreme northwestern part of Canada to New York City, giving more
detailed information about the above mentioned Dinornis, or Dynosaurus,
or whatever he called it, and explaining why more and more funds were
required. It seems the Professor was tangled up in quite a serious
dispute with the Canadian authorities. Some indignant English residents
of Canada had aroused the alarm of Canadians, by pointing out that
Dynosaureses were worth as much as radium, and that a mere Yankee should
not be permitted to carry off those fossilized bones of the original
inhabitants of Canada, which ought, instead, to be donated to the noble
English nation across the sea.
As Jerry paced his floor he paused to reread the words of the motto
recently pinned upon his wall, and, of course, it was as follows: "Honi
soit qui mal y pense." That was enough for Jerry. There was no question
of the fact that he had been "a pig and a brute," terms often in these
days applied by himself to himself. Sunny was certainly not to be blamed
for the accident of slipping from the arm of his chair. True, he had
already told her that she was not to sit on that arm, but that was a
minor matter, and there was no occasion for his making a "mountain out
of a molehill."
Having arrived at the conclusion that, as usual, he, not Sunny, was the
one to blame, it was in the nature of Jerry that he should hurriedly
descend to admit his fault. Downstairs, therefore again, and into the
now empty studio. Sounds came from the direction of the kitchen that
were entirely too sweet to belong to the "pie-faced" Hatton, whose
disgusting recent mirth might mean the loss of his job, ominously
thought Jerry.
In the kitchen Sunny was discovered on her knees with her lips close to
a small hole in the floor in the corner of the room. She was half
whistling, half whispering, and she was scattering something into and
about that hole, which had been apparently cut out with a vegetable
knife, that looked very much like cheese and breadcrumbs. Presently the
amazed Jerry saw first one and then another tiny face appear at that
hole, and there then issued forth a full-fledged family of the mouse
species, young and old, large and small, male and female. The
explanation of the previously inexplicable appearance in the studio of
countless mice was now perfectly clear, and the guiltlessness of that
accused janitor made visible. Jerry's ward had been feeding and
cultivating mice! At his exclamation, she arose reproachfully, the mice
scampering back into their hole.
"Oh!" said Sunny, regret, not guilt, visible on her face, "you are
fright away my honourable mice, and thas hees time eat on hees dinner."
She put the rest of her crumbs into the hole, and called down coaxingly
to her pets that breakfast would be ready next day.
"You mustn't feed mice, you little fool!" burst from Jerry. "They'll be
all over the house. They are now. Everybody in the building's kicking
about it."
"Honourable mice very good animals," said Sunny with conviction. "Mebbe
some you and my ancestor are mice now. You kinnod tell 'bout those. Mice
got very honourable history ad Japan. I am lig' them very much."
"That'll do. Don't say another word. I'll fix 'em. Hi! you, Hatton!
Doggone you, you must have known about this."
"Very sorry, sir, but orders from you, sir, was to allow Miss Sunny to
have her way in the kitchen, sir. 'Hi tries to obey you, sir, and 'hi
'adn't the 'eart to deprive Miss Sunny of her honly pets, sir. She's
honly yuman, sir, and being alone 'hall day, so young, sir, 'as
'ankerings for hinnocent things to play with."
"That'll do, Hatton. Nail up that hole. Get busy."
Nevertheless, Hatton's words sunk into the soul of Jerry. To think that
even the poor working man was kinder to little Sunny than was he! He
ignored the fact that as Hatton nailed tin over the guilty hole his
shoulders were observed to be shaking, and those spasmodic clucks
emanated at intervals also from him. In fact, Hatton, in these days, had
lost all his previously polished composure. That is to say, at
inconvenient moments, he would burst into this uncontrollable clucking,
as for instance, when waiting on table, observing a guest devouring some
special edible concocted by Sunny, he retired precipitately from service
at the table to the kitchen, to be discovered there by the irate Jerry,
who had followed him, sitting on a chair with tears running down his
cheeks. To the threatened kicking if he didn't get up and behave
himself, Hatton returned:
"Oh, sir, hi ham honly yuman, and the gentleman was ravim' so about them
'spinnuges,' sir, has 'ees hafter calling them."
"Well, what are they then?" demanded Jerry.
"Them's weeds, sir," whispered Hatton wiping his eyes. "Miss Sunny, I
seen her diggin' them up in the lot across the way, and she come up the
fire escape with them in 'er petticoat, sir, and she 'ad four cats in
the petticoat also, sir. She's feedin' arf the population of cats in
this neighbourhood, sir."
Jerry had been only irritated at that time. He knew that Sunny's "weeds"
were perfectly edible and far more toothsome in fact than mere spinach.
Trust her Japanese knowledge to know what was what in the vegetable
kingdom. However, mice were a more serious matter. There was an iron
clad rule in the building that no live stock of any kind, neither dogs,
cats, parrots, or birds or reptiles of any description, (babies included
in the ban) were to be lodged on these de luxe premises. Still, as Jerry
watched Sunny's brimming eyes, the eyes of one who sees her dear friends
imprisoned and doomed to execution, while Hatton nailed the tin over the
holes, he felt extremely mean and cruel.
"I'm awfully sorry, Sunny, old scout," he said, "but you know we can't
possibly have _mice_ on the place. Now if it were something like--like,
well a dog, for instance----"
"I _are_ got a nize dog," said Sunny, beginning to smile through her
tears.
Apprehension instantly replaced the compunction on Jerry's
face--apprehension that turned to genuine horror, however, when Sunny
opened the window onto the fire escape, and showed him a large grocer's
box, upholstered and padded with a red article that looked suspiciously
like a Japanese petticoat. Digging under this padded silk, Sunny brought
forth the yellowest, orneriest, scurviest and meanest-looking specimen
of the dog family that it had ever been Jerry's misfortune to see. She
caught this disreputable object to her breast, and nestled her darling
little chin against the wriggling head, that persisted in ducking up to
release a long red tongue that licked her face with whines of delight
and appreciation.
"Sunny! For the love of Mike! Where in the name of all the pagan gods
and goddesses of Japan did you get that god-forsaken mutt from? If you
wanted a dog, why in Sam Hill didn't you tell me, and I'd have gotten
you a regular dog--if they'd let me in the house."
"Jerry, he are a regular dog also. I buyed him from the butcher
gentleman, who was mos' kind, and he charge me no moaney for those dog,
bi-cause he are say he are poor mans, and those dog came off those
street and eat him up those sausage. So that butcher gentleman he are
sell him to me, and he are my own dog, and I are love my Itchy mos' bes'
of all dogs."
And she hugged her little cur protectingly to her breast, her bright
eyes with the defiant look of a little mother at bay.
"Itchy!"
"Thad are my dog's name. The butcher gentleman, he say he are scratch on
his itch all those time, so I are name him Itchy. Also I are cure on
those itch spot, for I are wash him every day, and now he are so clean
he got only two flea left on his body."
"By what process of mathematics, will you tell me, did you arrive at the
figure of two?" demanded the stunned young man, thrusting his two fists
deep into his pocket and surveying Sunny and the aforesaid dog as one
might curious specimens in the Bronx zoo.
"Two? Two flea?" Sunny passed her hand lovingly and sympathetically over
her dog's yellow body, and replied so simply that even an extremely
dense person would have been able to answer that arithmetic problem.
"He are scratch him in two place only."
Jerry threw back his head and burst into immoderate laughter. He laughed
so hard that he was obliged to sit down on a chair, while Hatton on the
floor sat down solidly also, and desisted with his hammering. Jerry's
mirth having had full sway, hands in pocket he surveyed Sunny, as,
lovingly, she returned her protesting cur to its silken retreat.
"Sunny! Sunny!" said Jerry, shaking his head. "You'll be the death of me
yet."
Sunny regarded him earnestly at that.
"No, Jerry, do not say those. I are not want to make you death. Thas
very sad--for die."
"What are we going to do about it? They'll never let you keep a dog
here. Against the rules."
"No, no, it are no longer 'gainst those rule. I are speag wiz the
janitor gentleman, and he are say: 'Thas all ride, seein' it's you!'"
"He did, did he? Got around him too, did you? You'll have the whole
place demoralised if you keep on."
"I are also speag ad those landlord," confessed Sunny innocently,
"bi-cause he are swear on those janitor gentleman, account someone ad
these house are spik to him thad I are got dog. And thad landlord
gentleman he come up here ad these studio, and I show him those dog, and
he say he are nize dog, and thad those fire escape he is not _inside_.
So I nod break those rule, and he go downstairs spik ad those lady mek
those complain, and he say he doan keer if she dam clear out this house.
He doan lig' her which even."
Jerry threw up his hands.
"You win, Sunny! Do as you like. Fill the place full if you want to.
There's horses and cows to be had if they strike your fancy, and the zoo
is full of other kind of live stock. Take your choice."
Sunny, indeed, did proceed to take her choice. It is true she did not
bring horses and cows and wild animals into Jerry's apartment; but she
passed the word to her doting friends, and in due time the inmates of
that duplex apartment made quite a considerable family, with promise of
early increase. There was besides Itchy, Count and Countess Taguchi,
overfed canaries, who taught Sunny a new kind of whistle; Mr. and Mrs.
Satsuma, goldfish who occupied an ornate glass and silver dish, fern and
rock lined donated by Jinx, and Miss Spring Morning, a large Persian
cat, whom Sunny named after her old friend of the teahouse of a Thousand
Joys, but whose name should have been Mr. Spring Morning.
It was a very happy family indeed, and in time the master of the house
became quite accustomed to the pets (pests he called them at first), and
had that proud feeling moreover of the contented man of family. He often
fed the Satsumas and Taguchis himself, and actually was observed to
scratch the head of Itchy, who in these days penetrated into the various
rooms of the apartment (Sunny having had especial permission from the
janitor gentleman) so long as his presence was noiseless. He wore on his
scrawny neck a fine leather and gilt collar that Monty sent all the way
to Philadelphia to get for Sunny, thereby earning the bitter resentment
of his kid brother, who considered that collar his by rightful
inheritance from Monty's own recent kid days. Monty's remorse upon
"swiping" said collar was shortlived, however, for Sunny's smile and
excitement and the fun they had putting it on Itchy more than
compensated for any bitter threats of an unreasonable kid brother.
Besides Monty brought peace in that disturbed direction by sending the
younger Potter a brand new collar, not, it is true, of the history of
the one taken, but much more shiny and semi-adjustable.