CURLY IS FOUND
The white-haired lady was out of the car the instant it stopped and up
the walk, her silk skirts flying in the wind.
“Bon-Bon! Bon-Bon!” she called. Then she said something that Sunny Boy
could not understand. Afterward she told him that it was French for
“Littlest one.”
Curly leaped upon her, barking madly.
The lady took him in her arms and sat down on the step, and, to Sunny
Boy’s amazement, began to cry.
The noise of the dog’s barking brought Mrs. Horton to the door.
“Why, Sunny Boy, where in the world have you been?” she said quickly.
“It’s almost one o’clock. Harriet was just going down to the beach to
look for you.”
Then she saw the strange car at the curb and the strange lady on her
doorstep. The lady stood up and held out her hand.
“I am Mrs. Raymond,” she said. “Colonel Francis Raymond’s wife. I
believe my husband has met Mr. Horton. And now I find your little boy
has found my pet dog.”
Mrs. Horton was very much surprised and greatly pleased to learn that
at last Curly’s own people had been found. She asked Mrs. Raymond
to come in and stay to lunch with them, but Mrs. Raymond had an
appointment at two o’clock several miles away with the colonel, and
lunch would be ready there for the white-haired lady. She and Mrs.
Horton talked very fast, and Sunny Boy could not understand all they
said.
“We advertised and put up a bulletin notice,” he heard Mother say, “and
we couldn’t understand why no one claimed the dog. It was so evidently
a pet, that we knew it couldn’t have been abandoned, and though
exhausted by the storm, it seemed so well-fed we were sure it had not
been lost very long.”
“I lost him the same day you found him,” explained Mrs. Raymond.
“Carlton, the chauffeur, was taking the car up to Draper Inlet to get
my husband. That’s twenty miles up the coast from our cottage, and
Bon-Bon loves so to ride that he never misses a chance to go in the
car. He rode in the back and the hood was down and I suppose he was
on top of that, as he often was. Carlton was trying to make the inlet
before the storm, and I imagine he drove at a pretty hard pace. Bon-Bon
was evidently jolted out going through Nestle Cove, and neither my
husband nor Carlton thought of the dog again till they reached home and
I asked for him.”
“And of course you didn’t know where he was lost,” said Mrs. Horton
sympathetically.
“No, though my husband and Carlton hunted and hunted. But now
everything is all right again. Sunny Boy has made me very happy!”
Mrs. Horton walked with her guest toward the door.
“But what I don’t understand yet,” she said, puzzled, “is how you met
Sunny Boy and he mentioned the dog. Were you out searching?”
Sunny’s face got very red.
“No, I’d simply stopped in town to get a cool soda before going on to
meet Colonel Raymond,” said Mrs. Raymond. “I think Sunny Boy had better
tell you all about it. Kiss me good-by, dear. I’m going to send you the
very nicest thing I can buy in the city for being so good to my dog.
You won’t feel too bad if I take him away now, will you, Sunny Boy?”
“No, I—I guess not,” quavered Sunny Boy uncertainly.
He kissed Mrs. Raymond, and gave Bon-Bon, for we might as well call the
dog by its right name now that we know it, a big hug. Then he sat down
on the top step while Mrs. Horton walked with Bon-Bon’s owner to the
car. They stood there several minutes, talking, and then Mrs. Raymond
got in and drove away.
Mrs. Horton came up the path, but Sunny Boy did not look at her. He was
studying a crack in the step with great interest.
“Lunch is on the table, Mrs. Horton,” announced Harriet. “Most
everything’s spoiled, it’s so late.”
“I’m ever so sorry, Harriet, but it couldn’t be helped this time,”
answered Sunny’s mother pleasantly. “Sunny Boy, I want you to go to
your room. Harriet will bring you a bowl of bread and milk, and when
you have eaten that I’m coming in to talk to you.”
Sunny Boy went slowly to his room. When Harriet brought the bread and
milk, he ate it. In perhaps half an hour his mother came into the room,
closing the door quietly.
She drew a low rocking chair near the window where Sunny Boy stood
looking out, and, sitting down, put her arm about him.
“Now tell Mother all about it,” she said, gently turning Sunny Boy
around so that he faced her.
“I wanted to go on the merry-go-round,” explained Sunny Boy, tracing
with his forefinger the outline of one of the pink roses that grew on
Mother’s pretty white dress.
“Well?”
“So I went to town—” Sunny Boy began on another rose.
“And you didn’t ask me? Did you run away, Sunny Boy?”
Sunny Boy was very uncomfortable. His throat didn’t feel right. And he
couldn’t look at his own dear mother, though usually he loved to watch
her face. He wasn’t a _Sunny_ Boy just now.
“Did you run away, Arthur?” she asked again.
Sunny Boy nodded miserably, still fingering the pink roses.
Mrs. Horton did not say anything for a moment. She seemed to be
thinking. Then she gathered both of Sunny Boy’s small hands in her
smooth, soft right hand, keeping her left arm around him.
“Listen to Mother carefully, dear,” she said firmly. “This all happened
because you were cross. Any other morning you would have found
something pleasant to do. But when a little boy makes up his mind to be
cross and not to be pleased with anything he usually winds up by doing
something naughty.”
Two big tears fell out of Sunny Boy’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
He was very unhappy.
“What do you suppose Daddy would say,” continued his mother, “if he
knew you had gone over to town without saying a word to me? I think he
would say that he was surprised and grieved to learn that his only son
couldn’t be trusted. Because that is what it really means—that Daddy
and Mother can not trust a little boy who, just because the day doesn’t
go to suit him, runs away and lets his mother worry about him.”
Sunny Boy put his yellow head down in Mother’s lap and cried as though
his heart would break.
“Don’t you really trust me, Mother?” he managed to sob out.
Mother’s soft arms drew him into her lap.
“Well, yes, I do,” she admitted, smoothing his hair. “Because, you see,
dear, I think you are sorry and will not do it again. Being sorry
makes all the difference in the world.”
Sunny Boy sat up, and this time he found he could look right into
Mother’s deep brown eyes.
“I’m sorry—honest,” he told the little boy he saw there.
“All right, I believe you,” Mother assured him promptly. “I think
you will have to stay here in your room till supper time to help you
remember not to be cross again, and after that we’ll forget about it.
Now tell Mother what you did over in town.”
Sunny Boy told her all about his trip, from the jitney and
merry-go-round rides to his experience at the soda fountain where kind
Mrs. Raymond had paid for his soda-water.
“An’ wasn’t it funny Curly was her dog?” he wound up.
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Mother. “I’m glad the dog found his mistress.
There, I hear the clock striking three. I must go to the station to
meet Aunt Bessie and Miss Martinson.”
“I s’pect they’ll wonder where I am,” said Sunny Boy sadly.
“They probably will,” sighed Mother. “Never mind, Son, just remember
you are never going to run away again.”
And Sunny Boy did remember.
“Why did Mrs. Raymond cry when she found Curly?” he asked, as Mrs.
Horton turned to leave the room. “Did her little boy die in the war?”
“No, dear,” answered Mrs. Horton. “He came home from France and brought
his mother the dog you call Curly and she calls Bon-Bon. But her son—he
was a Captain—lived only a few months after he landed in this country;
he was invalided home. So, you see, poor little Bon-Bon means a great
deal to Mrs. Raymond because her boy thought to bring him all the way
from France to his mother.”
After Mother had gone—Sunny Boy heard the noise of the car as it
started for the station, though his room was on the wrong side of the
house to see the garage—he thought a great deal about the little lost
dog and the brave soldier who had brought it home to his mother. The
more he thought, the gladder Sunny Boy was to know that Mrs. Raymond
had her dog again.
Two or three days later he was sitting on the front porch waiting for
Aunt Bessie to go swimming with him (Sunny Boy could really swim very
nicely now) when the parcel-post wagon drew up before the house. The
driver grinned as Sunny Boy came flying down the path.
“Package for Arthur Bradford Horton,” he announced cheerfully. “Is that
the little boy who lives next door?”
“Course not!” Sunny Boy was startled at the idea that his package might
go to the boy next door. “That’s my name. Is there something for me?”
“Looks like it,” admitted the man. “Here you, don’t get under the
horse’s feet, I’m handing it to you as fast as I can. There you are.
Like Christmas, isn’t it?”
Sunny Boy took his package and said “thank you.” It was a large
package, and he wondered what could be in it and who had sent it to him.
“Maybe it’s from Grandpa,” he told his mother, as she and Aunt Bessie
came out on the porch.