JERRY LOSES HIS TEMPER
Sunny Boy stood very still to have the handkerchief tied over his eyes.
He was glad it was his turn, and he meant to pin that donkey's tail
almost in the right place, if not the exact spot.
"There you are, Sunny Boy," said Mrs. Dunlap gaily, turning him around
and around gently, three times. "Now you are ready to try your luck."
Sunny Boy tried to remember where the donkey was pinned. He walked
forward slowly, taking queer little short steps. When your eyes are
blindfolded, you know, you feel every moment as though you were going
to step down into a hole. Suddenly Sunny Boy lifted his pin with the
donkey's tail on it and made a quick jab. He was sure he had reached
the picture of the donkey.
"Ouch!" shrieked a boy's voice.
After that came a moment of perfect silence; and then, such a shout of
laughter! Girls and boys seemed to be shouting together and Sunny Boy
thought he heard Mrs. Dunlap laughing with them. He pulled off the
handkerchief, and then he saw what they were laughing at. He had
pinned the donkey's tail on Jerry Mullet!
"Oh, my! Oh, my!" laughed Perry Phelps, rolling over on the floor.
"Oh, Sunny Boy, I never saw anything so funny in my life! You lifted
that pin so high in the air and brought it down on Jerry's arm before
he knew what you were going to do. I never saw anything so funny!" and
Perry rolled over on the rug and began to laugh again.
All the children were laughing, and pretty Mrs. Dunlap had tears in her
eyes because she had laughed so much. Only Jerry Mullet looked cross.
"I hope I didn't hurt you," Sunny Boy said to him. "I didn't mean to
stick a pin into you."
Before Jerry could do more than scowl, Perry sat up on the floor wiping
his eyes.
"What I want to know--" he said, "is Jerry a donkey?" And then he
began to laugh again, and this time the children shouted with him.
They thought this was the funniest question, and they laughed and
laughed and kept saying to each other: "Is Jerry a donkey, because
Sunny Boy pinned the donkey's tail on him? Is Jerry a donkey?"
"I'll show you whether I'm a donkey or not," growled Jerry, frowning at
them all. "I'll show you! I won't stay at your old party!"
And he dashed upstairs and into Oliver's room where his hat and coat
were. Downstairs he came flying, and never stopped in the parlor to
tell Mrs. Dunlap he was going or to say that he had had a pleasant
time. No! Instead, Jerry opened the front door and banged it after
him with a crash that shook the house.
"He's gone!" said Sunny Boy, dismayed. "He's mad!"
"I'm afraid he is," admitted Mrs. Dunlap. "And I'm sorry. He didn't
have his ice-cream."
"He didn't like it 'cause I pinned the donkey's tail on him," said
Sunny Boy sorrowfully. "But I didn't mean to."
"No, of course you didn't," answered Mrs. Dunlap. "Don't feel bad over
that, Sunny Boy. I'm afraid we teased Jerry too much about it, though.
He is a stranger here in Centronia, and we should have tried to be
extra kind to him. You shouldn't have said that about Jerry being a
donkey, Perry," she added, turning to Perry Phelps. "You must have
hurt his feelings."
Miss May often said that Perry had the best manners of any boy in her
school. He did not laugh now, but he came up to Mrs. Dunlap and said
he was sorry he had asked his cousin if he were a donkey.
"I should think he could take a joke," he said. "He's ten years old.
But I'm sorry, Mrs. Dunlap, and Mother will be, too, that Jerry left
your party like this. And I hope you'll 'scuse him banging your front
door."
Perry Phelps' mother did not allow him to bang doors. If he forgot and
slammed one, he had to come back and open and close it softly five
times. This helped him to remember.
"Well, I'm sorry our party is spoiled for Jerry," sighed Mrs. Dunlap.
"But we'll go out into the dining-room and have supper now. Jennie
Rice wins the prize for pinning the donkey's tail nearer to the right
place than any other child, so she gets the first prize. Sunny Boy, of
course, gets the consolation prize. Give them the prizes, Oliver,
dear."
Oliver handed Jennie a tiny silver donkey on a pretty red ribbon, to
wear around her neck. She was delighted and put it right on. Sunny
Boy's prize was a gray donkey whose head came off and whose body was
filled with small gumdrops. He thought it was a very nice prize.
They had a beautiful time at the supper table, and poor Jerry was
hardly missed. They had chicken sandwiches and cocoa with whipped
cream. Then came vanilla and chocolate ice cream. And there was a
large slice of the white-frosted birthday cake, which Oliver himself
cut, for each child.
After supper they played a few more games, and then it was time to go
home. Mrs. Dunlap was almost smothered by the little girls who all
tried to kiss her at once and tell her they had had the nicest time at
Oliver's party. Nearly every one said-good-bye to Oliver and his
mother and started down the steps at the same time.
At the first corner every one but the Baker children and Sunny Boy went
a different way. They could walk home together, and that was why Mrs.
Horton had said that Harriet need not come for Sunny Boy.
As they were passing a house some one tapped on the window. Nelson and
Ruth's aunt lived there, and she had been waiting to see them pass.
"Your mother telephoned me you went to Oliver Dunlap's party and would
go by our house on your way home," said Aunt Edith, coming out on the
steps, with a coat thrown over her shoulders. "I asked her to let you
stay and visit us till eight o'clock this evening. Then I'll take you
home. The cat has a basketful of new kittens for you to play with,
Ruth."
"May Sunny Boy stay, too, please?" asked Ruth.
"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Tyler, who was Ruth's Aunt Edith. "Of
course, he may. I will telephone to his mother so that she will not
worry about him."
"No, thank you. I have to go home," Sunny Boy said shyly. "I said I
would come right home. And I want to tell Mother about the party."
"All right, dear, just as you please," said Mrs. Tyler kindly. "You
are sure, Sunny Boy, you don't mind going the rest of the way alone?"
Sunny Boy replied that he did not mind, and Nelson and Ruth went into
the house, while he trudged off down the street by himself. Presently
he chuckled.
"Didn't Jerry look funny?" snickered Sunny Boy. "I wonder what made me
pin the donkey's tail on him."
"Where do you think you're going so fast?" cried Jerry, stepping out
from behind a barrel where he had been hiding.
"Hello!" said Sunny Boy, surprised to see him. "I'm going home. The
party is all done. You missed it--we had two kinds of ice cream."
"I hope you're happy, spoiling my afternoon and making everybody laugh
at me," scolded Jerry Mullet. "You're a nice kind of boy. Do you know
what I'm going to do to you?"
"No, I don't," said Sunny Boy, trying to walk past him. "Let me be. I
told my mother I'd come home and not stop to play on the way."
"This isn't playing," growled Jerry disagreeably. "You can't go till I
say you can. Are you sorry you made everybody laugh at me?"
"I told you I was sorry I pinned the tail on you," answered Sunny Boy.
"I can't help it if they did laugh. And you did look funny."
"Well, you think so now, but you won't long," Jerry said. "I'm going
to wash your face in that snow and then you'll look funny yourself."
He pointed to some dirty snow that was banked in the gutter.
"You let me alone," cried Sunny Boy, trying to run past Jerry. "I
won't let you wash my face. Go away, Jerry Mullet!"
Jerry reached out his hand to snatch Sunny Boy's coat, but, before he
could touch him, down came a shower of snow that struck Jerry on the
back of his neck and made him shut his eyes.
"Hey, you!" called a deep, hoarse voice. "Why don't you pick on boys
your own size! That kid isn't half as big as you are!"
Jerry and Sunny Boy looked up. The voice came from the roof of a
piazza that overhung the sidewalk. A big man in blue overalls and a
red flannel undershirt, and wearing no overcoat, was shoveling the snow
off the roof. He had heard Jerry scolding Sunny Boy and had seen him
trying to grab him.
"The likes of you, thinking to pick a fight with a little feller like
that!" said the man, scooping up another shovelful of snow as he
talked. "Why, if you were my boy, bread and water for a week would be
too good for you. Take that, you little bully!" And down came another
shower of snow on the surprised Jerry.
"Run, kid, run!" shouted the man to Sunny Boy. "Let's see how well you
can run. I'll look after this tormenting one."
Sunny Boy took one look at Jerry sputtering in the snow, and then
turned and ran. He ran as fast as he could, and he never stopped till
he landed on his own doorstep and rang the bell. When Harriet came to
the door he was so out of breath that, for several minutes, he couldn't
tell her what had happened. And then, of course, before he could make
her understand about Jerry, he had to tell all about the party.
Daddy and Mother Horton had to hear about the party, too. And they
said that they would rather have a little boy for their son who behaved
as Sunny Boy had than a boy who acted the way Jerry Mullet did.
"But no one likes to be laughed at, and we won't be too hard on Jerry,"
said Mother Horton, as she helped Sunny Boy get ready for bed. "Shall
I put your donkey prize up here on the mantel shelf for you, Sunny Boy?"
Sunny Boy remembered her putting his donkey on the shelf for him, but
he did not remember seeing the donkey climb down again. Yet the next
time he looked at the shelf the donkey wasn't there. Then he saw it
sitting on the foot of his bed, laughing. The donkey laughed so hard
and opened his mouth so very wide that Sunny Boy could see the gumdrops
down inside him.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed the donkey. "Didn't Jerry look funny? Ha! Ha!"
"Mother says we mustn't laugh at him any more," Sunny Boy told the
donkey. "You'll hurt his feelings."
But the donkey only laughed harder, and Sunny Boy began to laugh, too,
and he woke up laughing to find that it was morning and that he had
been dreaming about the donkey.
Sunny Boy saw Perry Phelps in Sunday school that afternoon, but Jerry
had not come with him.
"Jerry is so cross!" declared Perry. "He hardly speaks to me, and I'm
glad he is going home to-morrow."
And Monday, when Perry came to school, he announced that his cousin had
gone home. He lived in a city fifty miles from Centronia and did not
visit Perry very often.
"My father said it might snow to-day," said Oliver Dunlap, who seemed
to feel very happy and gay after his party. "And if it does, let's
have a snowball fight, shall we?"
Oliver had brought Miss Davis "some of the party" in a pretty paper
napkin, and she said he was a very thoughtful boy and she was sure
every one had had a good time Saturday afternoon.
All the boys were willing to have a snowball fight, and when a few
flakes of snow began to fall at recess time, Oliver shouted that now
there would be enough snow for the "bullets and things."
"Let me be on your side, Oliver?" asked Helen Graham coaxingly.
"On my side?" repeated Oliver. "There aren't going to be any girls in
this snowball fight. This is just us boys."
"I think you're mean!" cried Helen. "And I will, too, be on your side.
If you don't let us girls in the snowball fight, I'll go to Miss May
and tell her we want the back lot to play in after school. So there!"
And now it was Oliver's turn to be provoked.
"I think girls are perfectly horrid," he said crossly.