A DAY WITH DADDY
After supper that night, Sunny Boy had a dim idea that he would like to
go down and look at the ocean “in the dark” as he said. But Mr. Horton
announced that he was going to bed and get up early in the morning, so
Sunny decided that perhaps after all that was the wiser plan.
As usual, he went to sleep at once and woke up a minute later—or so
it seemed to him. The sunlight was very bright and there was a great
deal of it in the room. Daddy was nearly dressed, but Mother was still
asleep.
“Don’t make a noise,” whispered Mr. Horton. “I thought we’d have a
little swim, but I guess the bathing suits are in the trunks. They’re
in the hall and not unlocked yet. We’ll go down to the beach and have a
little walk before breakfast.”
Sunny Boy struggled into his brown linen sailor suit, Daddy helping
him with the most stubborn buttons, and together they stole out of the
house. Not even Harriet was awake.
“Is it dreadful early?” asked Sunny curiously, and whispering, because
he felt so strange.
Mr. Horton laughed.
“It’s six o’clock,” he answered. “The sun has been up a long time. Some
morning you and I must struggle up to see a sunrise, Sunny Boy. Ah,
there’s the sea. Doesn’t it sparkle this morning?”
The little waves were running up and down, just as Sunny Boy had seen
them yesterday. He wondered if they had done that all night, and then
he knew they had. The last thing he had heard the night before was the
dull roar of the waves as they broke on the sand, and he had heard it
that morning, too. The sea, he thought, never rested.
“There’s a little girl, Daddy.” Sunny’s quick eyes had spied a small
figure farther down the beach. “What’s she got in her box?”
“You ask her,” suggested Mr. Horton. “She probably lives in one of the
cottages, and you’ll want to be friends. Ask her what she is doing.”
They walked down toward the little girl, and when she heard their feet
in the sand she turned. She was a pretty child, with big brown eyes and
short, curly, brown hair. She smiled at Sunny Boy and her smile showed
that several front teeth were missing. This made her lisp when she
talked.
“’Lo!” she said pleasantly. “Are you hunting thells?”
“Is that what you’ve got in your box?” asked Sunny Boy. “Let me see?”
The little girl held up her box; it was half full of odd shells.
“Ellen! Ellen! Breakfast!” called some one clearly.
“I have to go,” announced Ellen hastily. “I’ll be out after breakfast.
’Bye.”
She ran up the beach as fast as her short legs could carry her, and
Sunny Boy and Daddy saw her scramble up the sand and disappear over the
road.
“Now she’s gone,” said Sunny Boy wistfully, “and I wanted to play with
her. She’s a nice little girl, and I liked her, and I wanted to see the
shells she had in that box.”
“You’ll see her again,” said Mr. Horton. “I hope you’ll soon know
plenty of children to play with. Now we’ll take a short walk down this
way, and then we must go back and have our own breakfast.”
When they went back to the bungalow, they found the others on the
porch looking for them.
“Harriet sounded the gong five minutes ago,” announced Mrs. Horton.
“Where were you? Aren’t you hungry? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“We’ve brought real seashore appetites to breakfast,” answered Mr.
Horton. “Sunny Boy and I just went on a scouting trip. We’ve found the
bathing beach, and made the acquaintance of Ellen. Sunny, have you said
good morning to Miss Martinson?”
“Do you know,” said that little lady, smiling warmly at Sunny Boy, “I
think it would be ever so nice if Sunny Boy would call me Aunt Betty.
I haven’t a single nephew in this wide world—just two nieces. ‘Miss
Martinson’ is such a long name to remember.”
So it was settled that Sunny Boy should have another auntie.
After breakfast Mrs. Horton went to unpack the trunks and find the
bathing suits. Aunt Bessie and Aunt Betty volunteered to make the beds.
Harriet and a big basket took the jitney for town to buy things to eat,
and Sunny Boy and Daddy were told to go and amuse themselves till lunch
time.
“We’ll surprise them,” declared Mr. Horton, leading the way to the
garage. “I have a package they don’t know about and you and I will take
it down to the beach and then we’ll see what Mother and the aunties
say.”
This mysterious bundle Mr. Horton had spoken of was long and thin and
rather heavy. They found it on the floor of the automobile where it had
not been noticed because of the many other bundles and luggage they had
carried with them.
“What is it, Daddy?” asked Sunny Boy as he took one end and Mr. Horton
the other, and they headed for the beach.
“It’s a secret,” was all Daddy would say.
Down on the beach, he laid it in the sand, and, taking out his strong
pocket knife, cut the heavy string.
“Why, it’s only umbrellas!” Sunny’s voice sounded disappointed.
Mr. Horton chuckled.
“Yes, but you wait,” he advised. “I open the umbrella so, and I stand
it up this way; then I open the other, and I stand it up so, in the
sand. And now when Mother and Aunt Bessie and Aunt Betty come down with
their fancy-work, they have a fine, shady place to sit and sew.”
“Oh,” said Sunny Boy.
Secretly, he didn’t think those large white canvas umbrellas were very
much fun, but when, a little later, his mother and aunts came down to
the beach, they were delighted. And before the summer was over Sunny
himself had spent many a hot afternoon under their comfortable shade
while his mother or Harriet read aloud to him.
After the umbrellas were in position, he and Daddy strolled up the
beach. Sunny Boy soon took off his shoes and stockings and then he
could walk along the edge of the water and let the waves come up over
his feet.
“There’s Ellen,” he cried presently. “I know, ’cause she has on a
yellow dress. And there’s a little boy with her. Look, Daddy.”
Ellen saw them, and waved her hand.
“’Lo!” she called, running up to them. “This is my brother, Ralph. Are
you going bathing?”
“When Mother finds the bathing suits,” Sunny assured her. “Come on
wading. That’s heaps of fun.”
Ellen shook her head.
“Can’t to-day,” she responded briefly. “Yesterday Ralph an’ I took our
shoes and stockings off after Mother said we shouldn’t, and we went in
too far and got our best clothes wet. We can’t go wading again for two
days.”
“Then why not build a sand fort?” suggested Mr. Horton sympathetically.
“Three of you can build a fine one. I’ll sit right here and keep a
look-out for Mother so she won’t miss us.”
“Yes, that would be fun,” agreed Ellen. “Come on, Sunny.”
“All right,” responded Sunny Boy briefly. “Are you going to play,
Ralph?”
“Course. I like to build in the sand.”
The three children set to work to build a fort, and as Sunny Boy could
go down and scoop up water in Ellen’s pail, they had plenty of damp
sand to make the walls shape well. They made an elaborate fort with
five gates and a high wall, and they were molding soldiers for it when
Mrs. Horton and Aunt Bessie came and found them.
“Betty’s getting into her bathing suit,” Aunt Bessie announced. “Hello,
chicks, you seem to be having a fine time. And Sunny Boy has seven
freckles on his nose already.”
Aunt Bessie’s small nephew tried to look down at his nose to see the
seven freckles, of which he was prepared to be rather proud, but, as
the nose was very little and, as all noses are, very close to his eyes,
he could scarcely see the nose, much less the freckles that might be on
it.
Sunny Boy introduced his new friends politely, though they had to tell
him their last names.
“Ellen and Ralph Gray,” repeated Mrs. Horton. “Then I think you must be
the little folk who live in the white house on the street next but one
to ours. I met your mother in the embroidery store this morning when I
was matching some wool. It is nice you live so near Sunny Boy.”
“Is the water cold? Aren’t you lazy people going in?” asked Aunt Betty,
dancing before them in her pretty black and white bathing suit. She
held her rubber cap in her hand.
“Sunny and I are going,” declared Mr. Horton scrambling to his feet.
“Come on, Son, we must get dressed. ’Scuse us, friends.”
Mrs. Horton and Aunt Bessie decided to stay under the umbrellas and
knit, and Ellen and Ralph had an errand to do in the town for their
mother. So Sunny Boy and Daddy raced each other up to the bungalow and
found their bathing suits neatly spread out for them in the built-in
bathing houses next to the side porch.
“Can you swim, Daddy?” Sunny Boy asked, struggling with his jersey.
“Yes, indeed,” was the cheerful answer. “You’ll learn this summer, too.
I want to teach Mother to drive the car, so I can leave it down here
sometimes; and I want to teach you to swim.”
Sunny Boy looked ready for a good time when he finally stood up in his
trim little suit. It was dark blue with a red stripe at the neck and
wrists. Daddy’s was just like it. They took hold of hands and raced
down the beach.
“In we go,” said Mr. Horton, lifting Sunny Boy high.
Sunny Boy held on tightly and tried not to be afraid. The waves looked
very big and fierce when he got out among them, but all about him were
people laughing and ducking and having the merriest time.
“You’re all right, Son,” Daddy’s kind voice assured him. “I won’t duck
you, but I want you to get wet all over, as then the water won’t feel
cold. Stand up, now, and hold my hand.”
He put Sunny Boy down and a great wave broke over them both.
“O-oh!” gasped Sunny Boy, and laughed.
He began to splash and paddle around, though he was careful to keep
tight hold of Daddy.
“And now we come out,” declared Mr. Horton after ten or fifteen minutes.
“Not yet,” teased Sunny. “I like it. And I can’t swim, Daddy.”
“We’re going out now,” repeated Mr. Horton firmly. “Mustn’t stay in too
long the first time. You couldn’t learn to swim in one morning, anyway.
Run over and speak to Mother a moment if you want to, and then we’ll
get dressed.”