SUNNY BOY IS NAUGHTY
Curly proved to be a happy-natured little dog, and was soon a great
favorite with all the children who played on the beach.
“I wish I had one just like him,” said Ellen.
“I’d rather have a bigger dog,” said Ralph. “One, maybe, as big as
Queen.”
“Oh,” declared Sunny Boy, “no other dog could be as nice as Curly!
Though Queen is nice, too, and I like her awful much,” he added,
feeling that if Queen could know what he had just said her feelings
might be hurt.
At first Sunny Boy had an uneasy feeling that the dog might be claimed
any day, but as two weeks went by and no one came to look for a lost
bow-wow, this feeling gradually vanished entirely. “Curly” was, in
Sunny’s mind, his own dog.
“I wish I had something to do,” sighed Sunny Boy one warm morning.
“Find Ellen and Ralph and play with them,” suggested Mrs. Horton
promptly. She was sitting in the porch swing, mending. Aunt Bessie and
Miss Martinson had gone up to the city to shop.
“Their father took ’em sailing,” Sunny Boy explained disconsolately,
referring to Ellen and Ralph. “I wish Daddy stayed here all the time.
We could go fishing, too.”
“Well, you know what Daddy would say if he were here about little boys
who are always wishing for what they have not,” said Mrs. Horton,
rummaging in her stocking bag for tan cotton to darn a huge hole in one
of Sunny’s socks. “You’ve ever so many pleasant things to do, dear.
Don’t sit there and grumble.”
“I can’t do anything at all!” Sunny Boy was in a perverse mood. “I
can’t go swimming, ’less some one is there watching me. And I can’t
drive the car, ’cause nobody will teach me. An’ you sew all the time
and don’t ’muse me at all!”
Sunny Boy felt so sorry for himself that two big tears ran out of his
blue eyes and splashed down on Curly, asleep in his lap.
“Why Arthur Horton!” Mother’s voice was gentle. “That doesn’t sound
like my little Sunny Boy. Who ever heard of amusing a laddie with a dog
to romp with and the whole beautiful seashore for a playground? You and
Curly run down to the beach now, and see if you can’t find some more
of those shells Aunt Bessie is saving to make into souvenirs. And this
afternoon we’ll go to meet their train with the car.”
“I don’t want to hunt shells,” grumbled Sunny Boy, kicking his feet
against the step.
“You’ll have to go to your room and stay till lunch time if you can’t
find something pleasant to do,” said Mrs. Horton, firmly. She did not
look at Sunny Boy at all, but at her darning.
Sunny Boy felt as cross as two sticks. He didn’t know why, and perhaps
there wasn’t any reason. If you had asked him, he would have said that
every one was mean to him.
Mother continued to sew steadily. Suddenly a mischievous idea popped
into Sunny’s mind. He put down Curly and ran to his own room. When
he came out he went out of the house the back way, and slammed the
screen-door without speaking to Harriet, who was busy ironing. You
know, don’t you, how it does relieve your feelings to slam doors? Well,
Sunny Boy, who was really as bad as he could be that morning, felt
better directly. He even tried to whistle as he went down the street.
He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to town and ride
on the merry-go-round and have an ice-cream cone. They had been in
Nestle Cove over three weeks, and he had been to town only that once
with Harriet.
“All the other children go,” Sunny Boy said to himself, hailing the
rattling old jitney as it came past the corner. He had taken good care
to walk two blocks down the road so that no one from his house could
see him.
He had a pocketful of pennies that jingled merrily. Daddy on his last
visit had added to the store in the pasteboard box that stood on
Sunny’s bureau, and Mother and the aunties often dropped pennies in,
too. Sunny Boy was sure he had enough money to go to the city with, had
he wished to go.
“Goin’ far?” the jitney driver asked. There were only three other
passengers in his bus.
“To town,” Sunny assured him cheerfully. “Is the merry-go-round running
yet?”
“Well, ’tis, if it didn’t burn down last night,” said the jitney
driver. “I was over that way ’bout ten o’clock, and she sure was
crowded.”
The jitney bus went only as far as the post-office, and Sunny paid his
fare there, counting out the five pennies slowly, and jumped down. He
remembered where the merry-go-round was, and if he had not, the music
would have led him to it.
“What are you going on?” asked a boy slightly older than Sunny, as they
stood watching the whirling figures and waiting for the thing to stop.
“I’ve been on everything ’cept the tigers, an’ this time I’m going on
one of ’em.”
“I’d like a zebra,” announced Sunny Boy shyly. “Or maybe a horse—they
go up and down, don’t they?”
“Well, if you’ve money enough, buy two tickets and you can stay right
on for two rides,” advised his new friend. “Let’s see. Oh, yes, you can
buy two. More than two at a time is apt to make you dizzy. Look, she’s
going to stop!”
The merry-go-round did stop with a dismal groan, and Sunny Boy
scrambled on with a crowd of eager children. Most of them had mothers
or older brothers and sisters with them, and when the attendant came to
Sunny Boy and lifted him up, he seemed inclined to stay there and hold
him on.
“I won’t fall off,” urged Sunny with dignity.
“Then you’ll have to be strapped on,” said the man, smiling. “Can’t
have you flying into space when your frisky steed gets to going, you
know. There! now you’re safe, and no one will notice that belt.”
[Illustration: Sunny Boy’s horse went up and down—in time to the music
_Page 161_]
After the first ride the man came and unbuckled the belt, and, when
Sunny Boy showed his second ticket, lifted him down and up again on a
cream-colored horse. He fastened the belt snugly about him, and the
merry-go-round started gayly. Sunny Boy’s horse went up and down—in
time to the music it seemed to him—and he was very happy.
When the music stopped and the platform was still, the attendant came
and lifted him down. The floor wobbled under Sunny Boy’s feet and he
felt a bit shaky, but as he walked away he was all right again.
Across the street from the merry-go-round was a large open booth where
soda water was sold. There were people sitting at all four sides of the
fountain and a handsome motor car was drawn up at the curb before it.
“I’ll get chocolate, with ice-cream,” Sunny Boy decided, jingling his
remaining pennies.
He climbed up, with some difficulty, on one of the high stools, and
gave his order. The white-jacketed boy back of the counter brought it
to him, and with it a pale green check.
“Good, isn’t it?” smiled the white-haired lady who sat next to Sunny
Boy, as he took the first spoonful.
Sunny nodded and smiled, not knowing just what to say.
He had half finished when the boy in the white jacket came back to him.
“Fifteen cents, please,” he said politely.
Sunny Boy put his hand in his pocket and brought out a little heap of
pennies. He pushed them toward the green check.
“Only eleven cents here,” said the boy impatiently. “Four cents more,
please.”
Sunny Boy looked at him silently, clutching his soda glass tightly with
both hands.
“What is it, dear?” asked the white-haired lady, who was pulling on her
gloves, having finished her soda water. “Haven’t you enough money?”
Sunny’s lower lip trembled. He shook his head. There was a big lump in
his throat, and he couldn’t have spoken had he tried.
“How much is it? I’ll pay for it,” said the lady, fumbling in her
purse. “Give the child his pennies, and take the check out of this.”
She pushed a bill toward the boy.
“Now drink your soda, dear,” she went on kindly. “Do you live here in
the town?”
“He lives over in the summer colony,” volunteered the boy, bringing
back the change. “My father’s postmaster and he knows every one. I
don’t believe his folks know he’s over here alone. Do they, Buddy?”
Sunny Boy put down his spoon and got off the stool. He didn’t like to
be called buddy, and he had just remembered that his mother didn’t
know where he was. She would worry if he was not home at lunch time.
“Take your money, kid,” said the boy, who really meant to be kind. “How
are you going to pay jitney fare without a cent in your pocket? Here,
take it.”
Sunny Boy thrust the pennies back in his pocket.
“Thank you very much,” he said to the white-haired lady. “I think
perhaps my mother wants me now.”
The soda fountain boy laughed, but the lady did not. She was very sweet
and serious.
“I wish you’d let me take you home in my car,” she suggested, quite as
one friend to another. “You may have to wait for a jitney fifteen or
twenty minutes, and my chauffeur can have you home in less time than
that. What do you say?”
Sunny Boy nodded, and they got into the beautiful pale gray car, the
tall young chauffeur holding open the door for them. He wore a gray
uniform and the light linen robe he spread over them was gray, too.
“Curly has hair just like yours,” said Sunny Boy suddenly. He had been
studying the white-haired lady, and he paid her the biggest compliment
he could. He thought Curly’s silky white hair very lovely.
The lady smiled.
“Who is Curly?” she asked.
Sunny Boy told her about the little dog he had found in the storm, how
pretty it was, and how many tricks it could do. The white-haired lady
sat up straighter and straighter, and the prettiest pink came into her
cheeks under her gray veil.
“Carlton, do you hear?” she cried to the chauffeur. “I believe this
child has found Bon-Bon!”
“Bon-Bon?” echoed Sunny Boy, bewildered.
“Yes, Bon-Bon, my dear little dog. My son brought him to me from
France. Is he very tiny, with a sharp little black nose and slim feet?
I thought so! Why you don’t know how glad I am! And to think you’ve
been taking such wonderful care of him all this time!” The white-haired
lady threw her arms around Sunny Boy and hugged him tightly.
“There he is now,” said the chauffeur, stopping the car before the
Horton bungalow.
Curly, or Bon-Bon as the lady called him, sat on the top step of the
porch, watching them.