Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "Put your arms around my neck and I'll carry you
ashore."]
SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
BY
RAMY ALLISON WHITE
Author of
"SUNNY BOY IN THE COUNTRY," "SUNNY BOY AT THE SEASHORE," "SUNNY BOY IN
SCHOOL AND OUT," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
HOWARD L. HASTINGS
PUBLISHERS
BARSE & CO.
NEW YORK, N. Y. -------- NEWARK, N. J.
Copyright, 1922
By
BARSE & CO.
SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I LEARNING TO SKATE
II GRANDPA HORTON IS FOUND
III WHO WAS THE BIG BOY?
IV ON COURT HILL
V THE SNOW MAN
VI THE PARKNEY FAMILY
VII THE OTHER GRANDPA
VIII WHEN TOYS GO TO SCHOOL
IX OUT IN THE BLIZZARD
X WHERE THE HORSE LIVED
XI MR. HARRIS BRINGS A LETTER
XII JERRY LOSES HIS TEMPER
XIII BRAVE LITTLE SUNNY BOY
XIV THE EXPLORERS SET OUT
XV ANOTHER RESCUE
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Put your arms around my neck and I'll
carry you ashore" . . . . _Frontispiece_
Sunny Boy calmly stuck pieces of coal down
the white front of the snow man
Sunny Boy held the blanket in place
They came rushing toward her, pellmell
SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
CHAPTER I
LEARNING TO SKATE
"Santa Claus brought them," said Sunny Boy.
He was lying flat on the floor, trying to reach under the bookcase
where his marble had rolled. The marble was a cannon ball and Sunny
Boy had been showing Nelson Baker, the boy who lived next door, how to
knock over lead soldiers.
Nelson Baker picked up the lead general and examined him carefully.
"They're nicer soldiers than I had last year," he said. "Say, Sunny
Boy, I could bring my soldiers over and we could have a real fight."
"I've got it!" shouted Sunny Boy suddenly, pulling his arm out from
under the bookcase with the marble in his hand. "I _knew_ it rolled
under the bookcase. You can roll it this time, Nelson."
"All right," said Nelson, taking the marble. "And I guess I won't go
for my lead soldiers. My mother might say I'd been over here an hour."
Nelson's mother, you see, had told him he might stay an hour at Sunny
Boy's house, and something told Nelson he had already played so long
with his little friend that if he went home now he would not get back.
"Get down like the Indians," urged Sunny Boy, as Nelson took the
marble. "Shut one eye, Nelson."
Nelson put his head down to the floor and closed one eye. He meant to
aim straight at the row of beautiful new lead soldiers, but, as he
afterward explained, the marble slipped before he was ready. It shot
across the floor and went crash into the glass door of the bookcase.
"What was that, Sunny Boy? Did you break anything?" asked Grandpa
Horton, coming in from the dining-room, where he had been reading the
newspaper. He carried the paper in his hand and his glasses were
pushed up on his forehead and he looked worried.
"My marble hit the bookcase door, but I don't believe I broke it," said
Nelson. "'Tisn't even cracked, is it, Mr. Horton?"
Grandpa Horton looked carefully at the glass door and said no, the
marble had not been able to crack the heavy plate glass.
"But I'd play another game if I were you, boys," he said kindly. "Have
you shown Nelson all your Christmas presents yet, Sunny Boy?"
"We got only as far as the lead soldiers," answered Sunny Boy. "Nelson
wanted to play with them. But come on up in the playroom, Nelson, and
I'll show you my things."
It was only two days after Christmas, and the presents Santa Claus had
brought Sunny Boy and the gifts his mother and daddy and grandparents
had given him, were all spread out on the window seat in his playroom.
The two presents that Sunny Boy liked most were a little pocket
searchlight and his ice-skates. The skates were double-runner ones,
for Sunny Boy did not yet know how to skate.
"I'm going to learn this winter," he told Nelson. "Grandpa is going to
take me to Wilkins Park this afternoon as soon as Daddy and Mother come
home from taking a walk."
"I can skate a little," said Nelson. "But my mother won't let me go to
the Park alone. Lots of the boys go, but she never lets me. I wish we
had a little private pond. Maybe we could make one in the yard, Sunny."
"Maybe," assented Sunny Boy, but he was thinking about going to the
Park with Grandpa Horton and trying his new skates, and not about
making a "private" skating pond in the back yard. "There! I heard the
front door shut. I hope Daddy's come."
Sunny Boy and Nelson ran downstairs to find Daddy and Mother Horton in
the hall, taking off their coats.
"Nelson, your mother wants you to come home," said Mr. Horton. "We saw
her in the window as we passed your house. She's waiting for you.
Your Aunt Caroline has come."
"Take a popcorn ball, Nelson," said Sunny Boy's mother, as Nelson began
to put on his coat and hat. "And here is one for Ruth." Ruth was
Nelson's little sister.
Nelson said good-bye to Sunny Boy and ran down the steps of the Horton
house and up his own. It was never any trouble for Nelson or Sunny Boy
to go calling on each other.
"Now we can go skating, can't we, Grandpa?" asked Sunny Boy eagerly.
"I thought Nelson stayed ever so long."
"Why, Sunny Boy, how impolite you are!" cried his mother. "That isn't
a nice thing to say. Suppose you should go to see Nelson and he should
spend the time wishing you would go home--how would you feel?"
Sunny Boy looked uncomfortable.
"Well, he can come back after I go skating," he suggested. "Grandpa
promised we could go this afternoon, Mother."
"So I did; and we'll start this minute," declared Grandpa Horton,
coming out into the hall and smiling at his small grandson. "Who ever
heard of a little boy with a brand-new pair of skates and ice on the
pond, not going skating, Olive? Sunny Boy is just as polite as he ever
was, Olive, but we have to go skating, whether we have company or not."
"Oh, Father, how you do spoil Sunny Boy!" cried Mrs. Horton,
half-laughing. But she kissed them both and waved to them as they went
off, the new skates dangling over Sunny Boy's arm and buckled together
with a leather strap just as the big boys tie their skates.
"Can you skate, Grandpa?" the little boy asked, as they trudged along,
Grandpa's rosy face and white mustache showing above a gray and white
muffler and Sunny Boy's pink cheeks and dancing eyes set off by a
muffler of scarlet wool. "Will you go skating with me?"
"Why, I haven't been skating for thirty years!" exclaimed Grandpa
Horton. "I don't know whether I have forgotten or not, Sunny Boy. But
I have no skates, you see, and I shall not get any because I don't
expect to go skating often this winter. I'll get you started, and then
this winter, when we go home, Grandma and I will be able to think of
you having fine times on the ice."
Wilkins Park was several blocks from the Horton's house, but Sunny Boy
and his grandfather liked to walk, and though it was a cold day they
tucked their hands in their coat pockets and walked fast and were very
comfortable. The best skating pond in Centronia--indeed about the only
good pond--was in the center of the Park, and long before Sunny Boy and
his grandfather came in sight of the Park they saw boys and girls with
skates over their arms, hurrying to the pond.
"Hurry, Grandpa!" urged Sunny Boy. "Hurry! Maybe there won't be room
for me!"
Grandpa Horton laughed and said he thought there would be room for one
small boy on the pond even if half the town did want to go skating that
afternoon.
"I suppose it is because there is no school," he said, as they turned
in at the Park gates. "I declare, Sunny Boy, if I had thought of it, I
don't know that I would have brought you today!"
For the ice-pond--and by this time they were in sight of it--was
crowded with skaters. Skating in holiday week was too delightful to be
neglected, and it seemed as though all the school children in the city
were skating or learning to skate. There were big boys and little boys
and tall girls and short girls and good skaters and poor ones. Now and
then a long line of skaters, hands joined, swept down the pond,
shouting.
Sunny Boy beamed. He was very glad that he had come and he wanted to
sit down on the grass and put on his skates at once.
"I think we'll walk around to the other end of the pond, dear," said
Grandpa Horton. "There are not so many people there, and I'll be able
to walk out on the ice a little way with you till you learn to keep
your balance. Don't put on your skates till we get to that white post."
Sunny Boy took his grandfather's hand and they tramped around the pond
till they reached a place where there were fewer skaters. A tall
policeman was telling a pretty girl that she could not leave her
sweater on the bank.
"It wouldn't be there when you got back, Miss," he said. "The only
wise thing to do is to carry all extras with you--that is if you want
'em."
The pretty girl skated off, carrying her sweater, and the policeman
turned and saw Sunny Boy struggling to put on his skates.
"Well, I guess I know you!" said the policeman, smiling. "You go to
Miss May's school, don't you?"
It was the same policeman Sunny Boy had met when all the children at
Miss May's school had lost their coats before Thanksgiving (and that
was exciting, you may be sure), and they were really very good friends.
"This is my Grandpa Horton," said Sunny Boy. "He and Grandma are
visiting us. They came before Christmas."
Grandpa Horton and the policeman shook hands and Grandpa asked him if
he thought the ice was safe.
"Oh, it's safe enough, sir," answered the policeman.
"Sunny Boy is so anxious to learn to skate," explained Grandpa Horton,
while Sunny Boy stood up, his new skates on his feet by this time,
"that I promised him his first lesson today."
"He'll be all right if he stays near the edge and you keep an eye on
him," said the policeman. "Sometimes the little fellows get knocked
down, if they go out in the center alone. If you tumble, Sunny Boy,
don't bump your nose, will you? You might sneeze."
Sunny Boy laughed, and, holding tight to Grandpa Horton's hand, he
slowly slid out on the ice.
"I feel--" he gasped, "I feel like a rocking horse!"
And indeed, if you have ever been on double runner skates yourself,
you'll remember that you do feel something as a rocking horse must feel.
Grandpa Horton was very patient and he walked slowly and held fast to
Sunny Boy so that he would not feel frightened. Boys and girls whizzed
by them, laughing and shouting, and Sunny Boy hoped that he would be
able to skate like that some day. Presently he let go of his
grandfather's hand and tried to skate by himself.
"I can do it, just as nice," he was boasting when one foot went out and
the other doubled up and Sunny Boy went down flat!
"Hurt?" asked Grandpa Horton, helping him up. "No one ever learned to
skate without a fall or two, Sunny Boy."
"It didn't hurt me," said Sunny Boy bravely. "At least, not very much.
But the ice is pretty slippery, isn't it, Grandpa? And it is hard,
too."
He took hold of his grandfather's hand again, though, after this
tumble, and they were both having a fine time when they heard some one
shout.
"Why, it's the policeman!" said Grandpa Horton, in surprise. "I didn't
realize how far out we were, Sunny Boy. He's motioning. We must go
in. Hurry, laddie!"
The policeman stood on the shore, shouting and waving his arm. As the
skaters heard him they began to move toward him, and in a minute there
was a pushing, hurrying throng, some skating, some trying to run.
"Everybody ashore!" shouted the policeman. "Everybody off!"
A crowd of skaters rushed for the head of the pond. Sunny Boy felt his
hand pulled from Grandpa Horton's and he spun around like a little top.
When he stopped spinning he landed on his hands and knees and several
boys almost skated into him. Grandpa Horton was nowhere to be seen!