BRAVE LITTLE SUNNY BOY
Miss Davis, feeding the goldfish in the largest glass bowl, overheard
what Oliver said to Helen.
"Why, Oliver!" she said in surprise. "How impolite you are! How can
you say such a thing to Helen? Besides, didn't you have girls at your
birthday party?"
"Oh, girls are all right at parties," explained Oliver. "They always
go to parties. But I don't think girls should want to be in a snowball
fight, Miss Davis."
"Miss May said the girls could have the back lot whenever they wanted
it," said Helen. "And if you don't let us play with you, Oliver
Dunlap, there won't be any snowball fight; you haven't any other place
to play."
This was true. Oliver knew it, and Helen knew it. Boys who live in a
city can not have a snowball fight in the street, lest they hit people
who may be walking past. No back yard is a safe place because of the
many windows that may be broken. A vacant lot, like the one behind
Miss May's school, is really the only place for this kind of fun. Miss
May early in the school year had made a rule that this lot should be
for the girls in her school whenever they wanted it. The boys might
use it, she said when the girls didn't care to play on it.
"Boys have more freedom than girls," kind Miss May had said. "They can
run and climb and tumble about coming to school and going home. But
little girls have to be more careful. So I think they should have the
lot to play in whenever they wish."
In the spring Miss May had swings and a sand pile and a few "flying
rings" put up for the children to amuse themselves with, but these, of
course, were taken down during the winter. When it snowed, the lot was
a large white square, and it certainly was an ideal spot for a snowball
fight.
"I don't see why you don't let the girls play," said Miss Davis to
Oliver. "You will probably be glad to have them in your army. Sunny
Boy, don't you think the girls ought to play?"
Sunny Boy looked uncomfortable. He wanted to be polite, but he had to
be truthful, too.
"Well, girls are a lot of trouble, Miss Davis," he explained earnestly.
"You see, as soon as they start to play their feet get cold. And then
they have to stop."
Miss Davis said yes, she could see how that would bother a general.
"But then," she said, "perhaps the girls won't get cold feet while they
are in the snowball fight. They will be running about and they will be
quite cozy and warm all the time, I am sure."
"Well, let 'em play, if they want to," said Oliver. "I shouldn't think
they would want to play when they know nobody wants 'em."
"Then I'll be on your side, Oliver," said. Helen Graham, who intended
to be in that snowball fight whether any one wanted her or not.
It was snowing steadily by this time and all the children in Miss
Davis' rooms were excited about the fight. Recess was over before they
had chosen generals and sides, but Miss Davis, who was such a dear
teacher it was no wonder her pupils loved her, said that she would
allow them an extra ten minutes to make their plans.
"Then you must work ever so hard to cover the lost time," she told
them, slipping out of the room to speak to Miss May, while the boys and
girls began to chatter again.
Sunny Boy was made a general for one side, and Oliver took the other.
Perry Phelps and Jimmie Butterworth were on Sunny Boy's side and Jessie
Smiley and Dorothy Peters. There were three other boys and two more
girls in his army, too. Helen Graham, of course, was on Oliver's side,
and Carleton Marsh and Leslie Bradin. Lottie Carr and her sister were
on his side, also, and four other boys. That gave each side ten, you
see.
"I've been speaking to Miss May," announced Miss Davis, coming back to
her room when the ten minutes was up. "She thinks, instead of having
you children go home at noon and come back for your snowball fight,
that it will be better if you have lunch here and then go out to play
in the snow. Miss May will telephone every child's mother and ask
permission to have you stay here, and she is going to promise that you
will all be home by four o'clock. And now I want you to have the best
reading lesson we have had since Christmas."
The children liked to have luncheon in Miss May's blue and silver
dining-room. She invited them, one at a time, to have lunch with her,
and it was always a pleasant experience. And to-day it would be great
fun not to have to go home and come back again, but to be able to go
right out and begin their snow battle as soon as luncheon was over.
The rest of the morning went smoothly, and Miss Davis said she was glad
she had given them the extra recess, for they recited very nicely.
When the noon bell rang, it seemed strange instead of going to the
cloak room for coats and hats and rubbers, to go upstairs and wash
their hands and faces and then come downstairs and go into the
dining-room with Miss May and Miss Davis and have Maria bring in their
lunch.
"I'd like to have a table like this every noon," said Miss May, smiling
at the circle of little faces that went all around her big mahogany
table. "We'd both like it, shouldn't we, Miss Davis?"
"I think it would be lovely!" nodded Miss Davis, squeezing Sunny Boy's
hand. He sat next to her. "Think of all the questions we could
answer, Miss May."
Miss May laughed and said she didn't mind answering questions at all.
As soon as lunch was over, Miss Davis helped them get into their coats
and wraps and watched them march out to the back lot for their fun.
Jessie Smiley wore a new scarlet sweater that came down to the edge of
her dress and was so warm and snug that she said she did not need to
wear her coat with it. Miss Davis said she thought she would be warm
enough, too, without the coat, and she knew she could run more easily.
"Not that a good soldier runs," she explained, laughing a little as she
buttoned the sweater under Jessie's chin. "But a snowball army soldier
has to run, I know."
Jessie left her rubbers in the cloakroom, too, for she had her rubber
boots. She had worn her rubbers to school that morning. The boots had
been left in the cloakroom since the last snowstorm. Jessie wanted to
wear one rubber and one boot, but Miss Davis said she thought that two
boots would be better, so Jessie had taken her advice.
"Whee, there's a lot of snow!" cried Sunny Boy, wading out into the
middle of the lot, followed by his army. "We ought to get a lot of
bullets made. And a fort. We must build a fort."
Oliver took his army over at one end of the lot and set them to work
making snowballs. The boys made more balls than the girls did. But
then the girls were so anxious to make theirs smooth and round that
they did not work very quickly. Sunny Boy soon noticed that Dorothy
Peters scraped and packed and patted one snowball while he was making
four.
Finally General Dunlap shouted to General Sunny Boy and the battle was
about to start when something happened that put all thoughts of a
snowball fight out of the heads of soldiers and generals alike.
The battlefield, that is the back lot, you know, was directly back of
Miss May's school. A large porch ran across the rear of the building
and the back yard joined the vacant lot. Just as Sunny Boy waved his
hand to signal Oliver that he was ready, Maria came out on the porch of
the school.
"Fire!" she shouted. "Fire! The school is on fire!"
If Miss May or Miss Davis had been in the building, it never would have
happened. Miss May would have telephoned the fire department quietly
at the first sign of smoke and Miss Davis would have picked up the
brass fire extinguisher that stood in the hall and at least have tried
to put the fire out. But Miss May and Miss Davis had gone down town,
believing that the children were safe and happy, playing in the snow,
and Maria was alone in the house. When she saw smoke creeping out
around the door of Miss Davis' schoolroom, Maria lost her head entirely.
"Fire!" she screamed, rushing out on the porch and beckoning to the
children. "The school's on fire!"
But when they came rushing toward her, pellmell, she seemed to remember
what she ought to do.
[Illustration: They came rushing toward her, pellmell.]
"You can't come in," she told them, as they gathered at the bottom of
the porch steps. "You can't come in, because you'll get burned! The
school is on fire."
She opened the door behind her and, sure enough, out poured smoke.
"My coat!" wailed Jessie Smiley. "My lovely new coat. Santa Claus
brought it to me for Christmas and it has real beaver fur on the
collar! Oh, oh, I don't want my coat burned up! And my rubbers are
brand new, too."
"I'll get them for you," promised Sunny Boy. "Don't cry, Jessie. I
know where they are in the cloakroom."
"Will you get my rubbers, too?" asked Jessie, smiling through her tears.
"Yes, I'll get everything," said Sunny Boy.
"You can't go in there, it's on fire!" screamed Maria, when he ran up
the steps. "Sunny Boy, I tell you the school is burning up! Come back
here!"
But Sunny Boy opened the door and ran in past her. He knew that Jessie
Smiley was very proud of her new winter coat with its pretty beaver
collar.
The house was full of smoke, and it made Sunny Boy choke and gasp, but
he shut his eyes and felt his way to Miss Davis' room. The smoke was
worse in here than in the hall, and his eyes smarted and burned as he
crept slowly to the cloakroom. In there there was not so much smoke,
and he had no trouble at all in pulling Jessie's coat down from the
hook where it hung, and he found her rubbers on the floor. He stuffed
one in each pocket. Then he started back.
His eyes hurt so badly that, brave little boy as he was, he began to
cry.
"I can't breathe!" he sobbed. "I wish I had a drink of water."
"George!" suddenly shouted a big voice in his ear. "Say, George, here
he is! I've found him!"
Somebody grabbed Sunny Boy up in strong, rough arms and he was carried
swiftly through the halls and out to the porch again. The children
shouted when they saw him.
"Don't you know any better than to go into a house that is on fire?"
said a big, rough voice that seemed to belong to the big arms.
Sunny Boy opened his eyes. It was the tall policeman! And before he
could speak, with a clang and a whistle and a toot and a great deal of
noise and excitement, up came the fire engines to put the fire out.
The tall policeman dipped a clean white handkerchief in water and
bathed Sunny Boy's eyes while another policeman kept the children off
the porch. The other policeman was the "George" to whom Sunny Boy's
policeman friend had shouted. They had heard Maria screaming and had
run through the alley to see what the matter was. And then George had
sent in the alarm of fire while the tall policeman had come to look for
Sunny Boy.
"What possessed you to go in there, anyway?" asked the tall policeman,
paying no attention to the firemen running past him into the house.
"What made you do it?"
"I had to get Jessie's coat," explained Sunny Boy. "And her rubbers."