ENDING A BUSY DAY
“I know my mother wouldn’t like it,” said Sunny Boy.
The laundry wagon horse was galloping now, urged on by the
freckle-faced boy who was singing loudly as the light wagon swayed from
side to side. Sunny Boy looked very little and frightened trailing on
in his wagon behind.
A big brown dog bounced out at him and barked madly.
“Go ’way!” cried Sunny, for the dog reminded him of the fairy-tale wolf
with very white teeth and such a red mouth. “Go ’way, old dog!”
Slish! the laundry wagon swerved to avoid another wagon, and Sunny
Boy nearly tumbled out. An old gentleman stood on the sidewalk and
brandished his cane at him.
“Hi, you!” he called, “don’t you know you’re likely to be killed? Why
don’t the policemen—”
Sunny Boy couldn’t hear the rest of what he said, but, looking back,
he saw the old gentleman still standing on the walk shaking his cane
angrily.
Sunny Boy was more than willing to let go, but he didn’t see how he
could. They were nearing the end of the street now, and the houses were
fewer with more ground between.
“Look behind!” an ice-man delivering ice called to the laundry boy, at
the same time pointing to the back of the wagon.
The laundry boy may have looked, but of course he couldn’t see Sunny’s
wagon from where he sat, and he apparently had no intention of
stopping his horse to see if any one was stealing a “hitch.” Instead
he brought the whip down smartly, and the horse leaped forward with a
sudden jerk that made Sunny’s neck snap.
“My land!” poor Sunny gasped.
It was an expression he had learned from the red-haired Araminta.
Goodness knows what might have happened if they had had to turn a
corner, or if the rope hadn’t broken. But break it did, and Sunny Boy
and the laundry wagon parted company just as they came opposite to a
vacant lot. Sunny’s wagon shot off to one side and, as there was no
pavement and no curbing, the wagon kept going until it brought up in a
clump of elderberry bushes.
“Hurt you, kid?” and a man who had seen him came running across the
street. “That’s a mighty dangerous way to play, and the littler you are
the worse it is. I suppose you’ve seen the big boys do it. Take my
advice and leave wagons alone after this.”
As he talked, he lifted Sunny and the express wagon out of the bushes,
brushed Sunny Boy off neatly. He now stood smiling down at him so
good-naturedly that it was impossible to keep from smiling back.
“I thought you was scolding,” said Sunny Boy, in whose experience
people never smiled when they scolded.
Sunny Boy suddenly remembered that Aunt Bessie always made big round
eyes and a round mouth and held up her hands whenever he said “you
was,” and that his mother always looked at him and shook her head just
the very least possible bit. But never mind; it was too late to go back
and say it differently now, and besides he must hurry on and explain to
this nice man who was smiling down at him.
“It didn’t hurt me, but one wheel’s bent,” he said.
“That’s where it skidded across the street,” explained the man, bending
down to examine the wagon. “Not worth mentioning, though. I’m thankful
it wasn’t your leg that was bent. Now don’t you think you’d better call
it a day and go home?”
Sunny was willing enough to go home, though he didn’t know what the man
meant by calling it a day.
“I mean that one such adventure’s enough for a morning,” smiled the new
friend, as he saw that Sunny Boy looked puzzled.
Sunny agreed to this, and they shook hands gravely and the man went on
down the street and Sunny and his express wagon headed for home.
He found his mother getting lunch, and she was very glad to see him
because, as she said, she was lonesome.
“We’ll have to hurry,” she greeted him when he had put the express
wagon in the back yard and found her in the kitchen. “Daddy is coming
home at half-past one to help get us ready to go. Have you washed your
hands, dear? Well, then you and I will have our bread and milk right
here on the kitchen table.”
Sunny Boy enjoyed this. Mrs. Horton spread a little white cloth at one
end of the table and they had bread and milk and cold boiled eggs and
four chocolate cookies—two apiece—just like a picnic. The kitchen was
the only room in the house that seemed natural to Sunny, anyway. The
house had been shut all the time they were staying at Grandpa Horton’s,
and as they were only going to be home two days before going to the
seashore Mrs. Horton said it was not worth while to unwrap or unpack
anything.
“Now we’ll wash the dishes,” declared Mother, when they had finished
their lunch. “Then I’ll go upstairs and darn socks while you watch at
the window for Daddy. Poor Daddy! No one mended his socks for him
while we were gone.”
Sunny Boy helped Mother carry the milk and the butter back to the
ice-box, and dried the dishes as she washed them. Then he ran down into
the yard and hung up the scalded tea towels for her.
“Daddy says little boys can help most as much as little girls,” said
Sunny seriously, watching Mother put the glass pitcher on the high
shelf that he hadn’t been able to reach. “When Harriet isn’t here, do I
help, Mother?”
“Precious,” Mother assured him, giving him a bear hug, “you help me
every minute of the day, whether Harriet is here or not. And when
you’re a man I won’t be any more proud of you than I am right now.”
They went upstairs, Mrs. Horton to darn the neglected socks, and Sunny
to watch for Daddy and the new car.
“Here he is! I’ll open the door! O-hoo, Daddy!” Sunny Boy saw the dark
blue car draw up before the house and stop, and he banged noisily on
the window screen to attract his father’s attention. Then he dashed
downstairs.
“Well, well, who’s this young cyclone?” inquired Mr. Horton, catching
Sunny Boy in his arms and lifting him to his shoulder. “Saw me drive
up, didn’t you? Where’s Mother?”
“Upstairs. Daddy, let’s go out in the automobile! Where you going to
keep it? Can I drive?” Sunny bounced about excitedly as he put his
questions one after another.
“Easy, easy,” protested Mr. Horton. “The automobile will be an old
story fast enough. Let me have a word with Mother and then perhaps you
and I will have an errand to do down town.”
Mrs. Horton smiled when she saw Sunny’s flushed face.
“Some one is excited,” she teased. “Well, Daddy dear, what did Bessie
say about the suitcase?”
“I called her up, but she wasn’t in,” answered Mr. Horton. “Miss
Martinson seemed to think, though, that they’d better have it. I’ll go
up and drag it out now and Sunny and I can run it over to her in the
car.”
“Oh, yes, let’s,” coaxed Sunny Boy, without a very clear idea of what
the talk was about, but sure that a ride in the automobile was in some
way connected with it.
“Think you can come up to the store-room with me and give me a hand?”
asked his father. “I have to get a suitcase for Aunt Bessie, and I
suppose it is under three trunks with the empty goldfish globe on top.”
“Why, Daddy Horton, what a way to talk!” Mrs. Horton pretended to be
very indignant. “The suitcase is the first thing you’ll see when you
open the door. I thought we might need it before the summer was over,
so I left it where it would be easy to get.”
Sure enough, Sunny and Daddy found the suitcase without any trouble,
and they brought it downstairs and Mother dusted it off, and then they
carried it down to the automobile and put it in the back.
Sunny Boy climbed into the car and sat very still with his eyes
straight ahead. He hoped Nelson and Ruth Baker were watching him. Mr.
Horton walked around the car to the other side, got in, and closed the
door. He waved to Mother in the window, put both hands on the wheel,
and away they went.
“Can I help drive, going to Nestle Cove, Daddy?” Sunny asked, watching
carefully, so that he might remember all the things he saw Daddy do. “I
drove Peter and Paul for Grandpa.”
Peter and Paul were the farm horses.
“Well, you see, Sunny Boy,” Daddy explained, skillfully steering the
car around a heavy coal truck, “automobiles are different from horses.
You can’t talk to them and tell them what to do. You have to be older,
and stronger, and taller, to manage a machine. See how constantly I
have to use my feet? You are not tall enough to reach the brakes. And,
anyway, the law says little boys can’t drive cars, even to help their
daddies. They must be at least eighteen years old.”
“Yes, I ’member, you told me,” said Sunny sorrowfully.
Daddy never turned aside his questions with an “Oh, you wouldn’t
understand, wait till you’re older” kind of answer, and Sunny really
was used to reasoning things out.
“I’ll carry the suitcase,” he offered, when they came to Aunt Bessie’s
house. “Let me ring, Daddy.”
Aunt Bessie lived in an apartment house and the colored boy who
answered the bell knew Sunny very well indeed.
“Miss Andrew ain’t home,” he said. “But Miss Martinson am. I’ll take
you-all up.”
Aunt Bessie was Miss Andrew, and of course the colored boy couldn’t
have known much English grammar to say “ain’t.” Or, perhaps, he forgot
what his mother told him about always saying “is not.” We’ll hope you
never do. Anyway, this boy had the most delightful, rich, soft voice,
and no matter what he said it always sounded pleasant.
“How lovely of you!” Miss Martinson, Aunt Bessie’s friend who lived
with her and helped keep house in the apartment, flung open the door
almost as soon as they lifted the heavy old-fashioned knocker. “Come
right in. We have a bundle of things that simply won’t go in the trunk
and Bessie has every suitcase packed so full now we’re in despair.”
Miss Martinson was little and dark and pretty. She taught girls in a
large public school how to baste and hem and tuck and, after a while,
make dresses. She was a sewing teacher.
Sunny and Mr. Horton couldn’t stay very long because they knew that
Mother at home would be needing them. But before they went, Sunny ran
out to the kitchen to find his dear Harriet.
“Here’s my own boy, bless his dear heart!” and Harriet, whose eyes were
as blue as Sunny Boy’s, and who wore a blue dress that just matched
them and her usual big, white apron—Harriet’s aprons were always
whiter than other people’s—swooped down upon Sunny Boy and gave him a
tremendous hug. “Did you have a lovely time on the farm, darlin’? And
did you miss Harriet? Never mind, we’re going to have a fine time down
at the sea. Think of it—you’ll be sailing boats and going swimming and
all!”
“Sunny, coming?” called Mr. Horton.
“Here, give this to your mother,” and Harriet hastily put a square box
into his hands. “’Tis a cake I baked for the lunch on the way down. I
made two of ’em, one for her and one for Miss Bessie.”
“Daddy,” Sunny Boy spoke for the first time on the way home, holding
the cake box carefully on his lap, “how long does it take to get to
Nestle Cove?”
“Oh, about six or eight hours with fair traveling,” answered Mr.
Horton. “Why, Son?”
“I was just thinking,” said Sunny. “Harriet made a cake for us to eat
on the way.”
“And I suspect Mother will be busy all day to-morrow putting up a
picnic lunch for us,” responded his father. “You see, we’ll find a
nice shady spot about noon when the sun is too hot to make driving
comfortable, and we’ll sit down and rest on the grass and eat all
those good things up.”
“That will be fun,” agreed Sunny enthusiastically. “There’s Mother
waving to us now. Does she want something, Daddy?”
“Don’t get out,” called Mrs. Horton, hurrying to them. “The laundryman
telephoned Mrs. Baker that their wagon has been in an accident and the
clothes are hopelessly scattered. They want you to go down and see if
any of yours are missing.”