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MASTER SUNSHINE
BY
MRS. C. F. FRASER
CONTENTS.
I. WHO HE WAS
II. THE WANDERER AND HIS WIFE
III. THE RAINY DAY
IV. A SUNDAY WITH FATHER
V. BEING A HERO
VI. KIND DEEDS
VII. A HAPPY ENDING
CHAPTER I.
WHO HE WAS.
Of course his real name was not Master Sunshine.
Who ever heard of a boy with a name like that?
But his mother said that long before he could speak he chose the
name for himself, for even as a baby he was full of a cheery good
humor that was always sparkling out in his winning smiles and his
rippling laugh. He was a good-natured, happy child from the time
that he could toddle about; and he was very young when he began to
give pleasure to his friends by serving them in all the little
ways within his power.
The very golden curls that topped his small head glistened as if
they had caught and imprisoned the glory of the morning sun; and
it really did seem as if a better name could not be found for the
merry, helpful little fellow than Master Sunshine.
His real name was a very different affair--Frederick Alexander
Norton--and his boy friends called him Freddy for short. His
little sister Lucy called him "buzzer" and Suns'ine; and Almira
Jane, the help, who made the brownest and crispest of molasses
cookies, and the most delicious twisted doughnuts, said he was a
"swate angel of light," except at such times as she called him a
"rascalpion."
Master Sunshine never stopped to argue with Almira Jane when she
called him a "rascalpion." He knew that this was a plain sign that
she was getting "nervous;" and when Almira Jane was nervous, it
was always best for small boys to be out of the way.
A little later, when the kitchen floor had been scrubbed, and the
stove polished like a shiny black mirror, and the bread-dough had
been kneaded and set to rise, he knew he would be a welcome
visitor again.
Perhaps that was one of the many reasons why people loved him so.
He was always considerate. He had the good sense not to keep on
asking questions and offering help when it was best to go quietly
away. Somehow he always felt sure that his turn would come
presently, and that Almira Jane would be sorry she had called him
such a hard name, and would be only too pleased to have him look
over the beans for the bean-pot, and fill the wood-box, and do all
the other little kitchen chores that he delighted in.
There were sure to be pleasant times after one of Almira Jane's
nervous attacks. When she was quite over her flurry and worry,
Daisy, the Maltese cat, would crawl out of her hiding-place under
the stove, and arch her tail, and purr contentedly as she rubbed
her long, graceful body against the table-legs; while Gyp, the pet
dog, would hurry in from the dog-house under the shade of the
orchard-trees, and jump on Almira Jane's shoulder, and she would
be as pleased as possible over his knowing ways. At such times
Master Sunshine was very fond of Almira Jane.
He loved Lucy with a steady affection, too, though she pulled his
curls sometimes until he fairly expected to lose the whole of his
golden locks. She needed a great deal of patient amusement, too,
and she was not very considerate of his belongings.
One day he was very angry, and his hand was lifted in anger
against her.
The trouble was that she had torn in two his favorite picture of
elephants in his animal book. The little girl was quite unaware of
the mischief her chubby fingers had wrought, but she knew very
well by the look of Master Sunshine's overcast face that in some
way she had displeased him.
So, pursing up her lips in a smile not unlike his own sunshiny
one, she lisped, in funny imitation of her mother,--
"Never mind, Suns'ine, little sister's sorry;" and, strange to
say, at her words the angry passion left him, and tears of shame
stood in his blue eyes.
"Of course," he said afterwards, in telling the story to his
mother, "I know that Lucy didn't know the sense of what she was
saying, but she did seem to know how to get at the "sensibliness"
of me. Just imagine, mother, how bad we would all have felt if I
had struck my own dear sister that God sent us to take care of!"
And that was so like Master Sunshine. He never willingly gave pain
to any living creature; and although he was sometimes careless and
forgetful, just like other boys, yet he was never known to be
wilfully unkind.
He loved his mother very dearly too, and perhaps it was from her
gentle ways that he had learned to be so thoughtful for others. He
told her all his joys, and all his secrets save one; and he dearly
loved the bedtime hour, when she read to him the stories that he
most admired,--stories of brave deeds were the kind he was always
asking for. But neither of them ever dreamed that the quiet
bedtime hours were teaching him to be a hero.
It did not seem possible that an eight-year-old boy could be a
hero such as one reads of in books.
Of course, he was going to do great things when he was a man. He
meant to make a great fortune, of which half was to be his mother's;
and if she chose to spend it on churches and missionaries and
schools, so much the better.
He was sure she would rather do this than buy herself handsome
dresses and diamond rings and ruby necklaces; and he was quite
certain that, when she wore her gray gown and her gray bonnet,
with the purple violets tucked under the brim, that she was the
most beautiful lady in the world.
His own share of the fortune he planned to spend in many ways. He
promised himself, among other things, that he would put up a
fountain in the village, where tired people and thirsty horses and
cows and dogs and birds would come for a drink. "I'd have a text
on it too," he would say, with his eyes shining with excitement.
"It should be, 'I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink.' And of
course 'I' would mean the Lord; for the Bible tells us how kind he
was to all helpless things, and I think he would be pleased to
have all the animals tended to as well as the thirsty people. I
wish I could be a man now, and they would not have to go thirsty
any longer."
He often told Almira Jane about the fountain too; and she always
said that it was a capital idea.
But it was to his father only that he told his secret.
It was a queer secret, and a very real trouble, too, I can tell
you.
Part of it was that Master Sunshine was just the least bit bow-legged.
Of course there could not be much of a secret about that. Lots of
people knew it quite well. In fact, if you looked carefully at the
well-shaped limbs in the trim blue stockings and neat knicker-bockers,
you could easily see that the legs curved slightly outwards.
But the real secret--the real heart and soul of the matter--was
that being bow-legged was a great, great grief to Master Sunshine.
No one but his father ever knew this--not even his mother, or
Almira Jane, or Lucy. It was too sore a subject to speak of
freely.
It was on the day when he first put on trousers that his troubles
began. It seemed to him that people began then to make such odd
remarks about him; and the strangest thing of all was that they
would seem to quite forget that he heard every word they said, and
that they never seemed to understand how they were hurting his
feelings.
For a time he solved the difficulty in a clever way. He begged his
mother to make him some loose sailor suits with long bagging legs.
They served their purpose well, and so long as they lasted no one
ever spoke of the tender subject that he wished to avoid. But
still he never felt comfortable about them in his mind.
It seemed such a cowardly thing to hide his legs like that, and he
did so want to be manly in all his ways.
So, after a long talk one day with his father, as they sauntered
hand in hand down a shady country road, with Gyp sporting and
playing alongside, he decided to face the trouble bravely, and
wear knickerbockers like other boys of his age. And, instead of
sulking or fretting about what he could not help, he set himself
to making allowances for other people.
"Father says that every one has his trials," he would say to
himself sagely; "and I dare say that most folks have worse trials
than mine. So when Almira Jane is 'nervous,' and Lucy is fretful,
or mother has her bad headaches, I must just remember to be
'specially good to them. Maybe, after all, bow-leggedness isn't
the worst thing to put up with."