ON COURT HILL
"Hello!" called Nelson Baker, as Sunny Boy came out on his front steps,
dragging his new sled with him. "Did you know it snowed in the night?
Can you go coasting?"
"Yes. And let's stop for Oliver," suggested Sunny Boy. "Oh, Nelson,
your mother is rapping on the window for you."
"Gee, I bet Ruth wants to go coasting," said Nelson crossly. "I never
wanted to do anything in my life, Ruth didn't want to, too. I think
girls are just horrid!"
"Nelson!" called Mrs. Baker, raising the window, "wait just a minute,
dear; Ruth wants to go coasting, too. She will be right out."
"I told you so!" groaned Nelson. "Now I can't have a hit of fun. Ruth
will cry because the sled goes too fast and she'll cry because her feet
are cold and she'll cry because she gets tired walking up the hill.
And then she will want to come home just when I am having a good time
and I'll have to bring her. I wish Mother would make her stay in the
house."
Before Sunny Boy could answer him, Ruth came out. She was a pretty
little girl, about four years old, and she wore a fur hat and a dark
red coat with a fur collar. Her muff was tied to a string which went
around her neck. She had her own sled, a little one.
"Hello, Sunny Boy," she said, smiling. "Santa Claus brought me a sled,
too."
"What do you want to go coasting for?" asked Nelson, not waiting for
Sunny Boy to answer. "Your feet will get cold."
"They won't, either!" cried Ruth. "Anyway, I'm going with you--Mother
said I could. So there!" and she stamped her foot in its shiny new
rubber.
"All right, come on then," said Nelson crossly. "What are you waiting
so long for? Sunny Boy and I could have a lot more fun if you stayed
at home."
Sunny Boy was so afraid Ruth was going to cry at this unkind speech
that he tried to think of something to say that would make her forget
it.
"You sit on your sled and Nelson and I will pull you," he told Ruth.
"You can hold my sled for me."
This pleased Ruth very much, and she sat down on her sled and tucked
her coat around her and stuck her fat, short little legs, in their gray
leggings, straight out in front of her.
"Take my sled, too," said Nelson, forgetting to be cross. "Don't fall
off, because we are going to go fast."
"Let's play we are fire horses, going to a fire," suggested gunny Boy.
They had some automobile fire apparatus in Centronia, but the engines
were still pulled by horses. "Can you pull two sleds, Ruth?"
"Oh, my, yes," replied dear little Ruth.
If the boys had asked her to pull six sleds she would have tried her
best to do it. It did seem too bad that when she wanted to go with
them and tried so hard to please them, that they so often wished her to
stay in the house and play by herself. That is, Nelson did.
"Hang on," said Nelson now, and away went the two fire horses, pulling
the fire engine.
Ruth nearly fell off when they started, for they jerked the sled, but
she managed to hold on. The two sleds bumped wildly behind her, but
she held the ropes tightly and never cried out even when the boys
pulled her over a curb-stone and her sled tipped far to one side.
"Toot! Toot!" cried Sunny Boy, trying to whistle, and not doing it
very well because it is difficult to run and pull a sled and whistle,
all at the same time.
"Nelson!" called Ruth, as they bumped her down another curbstone. "Oh,
Nelson! Say, Sunny Boy, wait a minute!"
"We can't stop! We have to get to the fire!" cried Nelson, panting.
"When we get to the fire we'll stop."
"But wait a minute!" begged Ruth, "I want to tell you something."
The two little boys pretended to kick up their heels and snort as they
had seen the fire horses do, and they would not stop. They galloped
and pranced and tried to run faster. At last they had to stop to get
their breath. Their cheeks were red and they were as warm as toast.
"Why--why--" stammered Sunny Boy, looking back at Ruth who sat on her
sled with her hands in her little fur muff. "Why, where are our sleds?"
"I dropped the ropes 'way back on Greene Street," replied Ruth calmly.
"I asked you to stop and you wouldn't."
"Well, you might have said you lost the sleds," said Nelson. "Then we
would have stopped. Gee, I hope nobody took 'em! We'll have to go
back."
Ruth got off her sled and walked back with the two boys. They found
the sleds on the sidewalk, exactly where a sudden jerk of the sled she
was on had made Ruth drop the ropes. Even Nelson could not scold his
sister when the sleds were so easily found, and as they went back
toward the hill he and Ruth and Sunny Boy took turns riding.
As Mrs. Horton had said, every boy and girl in Centronia was at Court
Hill, the one good spot for coasting in the city. At least it seemed
that every boy and girl had had a sled for a Christmas gift, or had one
left from the year before, or had borrowed one from some one who had
two, and all had trotted through the snow to enjoy the fun. Since
there was no school, there were high school and grammar and primary
grade children, as well as the little folks who went to kindergarten or
to Miss May's school, the small, private school where Sunny Boy went.
Nelson Baker went to public school where Sunny would go when he was a
little older, Daddy Horton said.
"There's Perry Phelps and Jimmie Butterworth," cried Sunny Boy, as he
caught sight of two of his schoolmates. "Look at the crowd! Oh,
Nelson, see this sled coming down!"
A large sled shot by the children, filled with a crowd of high school
boys and girls.
"I don't believe I want to coast," said Ruth. "I'm not exactly afraid,
but I don't like it. Let's stay down here and watch them, Nelson."
"You can stay," Nelson answered. "But I want to coast. Sit down on
your sled by this stone and you can watch me coast."
But this didn't please Ruth. She didn't want to be left alone with
only her sled for company. She wanted the boys to stay with her.
"You'll like it when you are used to it," urged Sunny Boy. "Come on,
Ruth, there are ever so many girls coasting. You can steer as well as
that girl in the green coat."
He pointed to a little freckle-faced girl who came down the hill on a
shabby old sled and steered it neatly out of the way of every sled she
met.
"No, I couldn't do that," said Ruth. "But I'll coast with you, Sunny.
I can hang on to you."
Sunny Boy had meant to coast down the hill a few times by himself, for
he had not had a sled last year and he was not sure he knew how to
steer. But, of course, if Ruth had made up her mind to coast with him
on his sled, Sunny Boy felt that there was nothing to do but take her.
"I'll go first! Watch me!" cried Nelson, scrambling up the hill ahead
of them. He plumped himself on his sled, pushed with one foot, and
away he flew down the hill.
"That looks just as easy," said Sunny Boy to himself.
He had to wait a minute to find a place for his sled in the row of
coasters lined up at the top of the hill. Then he sat down and took
the rope and Ruth sat down behind him and grasped the belt of his coat.
"Here, I'll start you," offered a boy, who came up behind them.
"Wait a--" began Sunny Boy. He meant to say, "Wait a minute," but the
boy gave him a tremendous push and the sled slid over the hill and
began to go down.
"Ow!" shrieked Ruth, closing her eyes and opening her mouth very wide.
"Ow! Stop Sunny Boy! Ow! Ow!"
Sunny Boy couldn't stop. But he was steering nicely and they would
probably have had a fine coast if Ruth had not grown more frightened
and thrown her arms around his neck. Her elbow knocked Sunny Boy's cap
over his eye and he felt himself being pulled over backward. The sled
went zigzagging down the hill for a moment, then a big sled tore past
it and knocked it to one side. Ruth fell off and dragged Sunny Boy
with her and the sled went on down the hill alone.
Nelson had seen the spill at the bottom of the hill and he came running
up to them.
"Are you hurt, Ruth?" he asked his sister. "Did another sled hit you?
There's Jimmie Butterworth with your sled, Sunny Boy."
Ruth was not hurt, and neither was Sunny Boy. And tumbling off a sled
when you are coasting is rather fun if you do not get frightened.
Unfortunately, Ruth was frightened and she began to cry and say she
wanted to go home.
"I knew you'd want to go home," scolded Nelson. "You can't go. I
haven't had but one coast. Come on, and ride down on my sled."
"I don't want to ride on your sled," sobbed Ruth. "I want to go home;
my feet are cold."
"Well, you'll have to wait till I have some fun," said Nelson. "What
did you do with your sled?"
"I don't know," wailed Ruth. "My feet are cold."
"Step on them and they won't be," said Sunny Boy kindly. He meant that
Ruth should walk or run a little and then her feet would be warmer.
"I don't want to step on them!" Ruth cried. She was very unhappy
indeed. "I want my sled. I want to go home. My feet are cold."
"I'll find your sled," Sunny Boy promised, and he went up to the top of
the hill. After a little tramping around in the snow he found Ruth's
sled where she had left it. No one had touched it.
Sunny Boy came running back to Nelson and Ruth, dragging the sled, and
just as he came up to them he heard Ruth say: "I'll go home by myself,
then."
"You can't!" scolded Nelson. "Mother said you musn't cross streets
without me. And I'm not going home as soon as I get here. I want to
coast. You'll have to wait till I've had some fun."
Ruth was crying now and her little nose was red from the cold. She
looked so forlorn and uncomfortable that Sunny Boy's kind heart felt
sorry for her. He was anxious to coast and he hated to go home before
he had had any good times with his new sled, but he did not want Ruth
to cry.
"I'll go home with you," he said. "You sit on the sled and I'll pull
you."'
"Gee, will you take her home?" asked Nelson, in surprise. "That's
great! And then you can come back and we'll have packs of fun."
"All right," said Sunny Boy, though he was quite sure he couldn't come
back. It would be half-past eleven, he knew, before he could get home
and leave Ruth and come back to Court Hill; and Mother had said he must
stop coasting at half-past eleven. So, you see, he was really very
kind and good to take Ruth home and give up his own coasting fun to
make her happier.
Ruth sat down on her sled and held fast to Sunny Boy's sled, and he
pulled her all the way home, though she was a fat little girl and
pretty heavy for one boy to pull. And as soon as they were home again
and Ruth and her sled had gone into her house, Sunny Boy trotted around
to the kitchen door of his house to ask Harriet what time it was.
"Half-past eleven, just," answered Harriet. "Did you have a good time?"