GOING SHOPPING
"Oh, look! There's a bus! Let's ride on top," cried Sunny Boy,
pointing out toward the street as one of the Fifth Avenue busses
lumbered into sight.
"But our taxi is here," reasoned Mr. Horton, helping in Sunny Boy's
mother as he spoke. "And I couldn't go up on top with these heavy
bags. Come, Son, and you shall have your ride to-morrow."
Sunny Boy climbed into the taxi cab, Mr. Horton followed, and they
were on the way to their hotel.
It was a brief ride, but in those few moments Sunny Boy was sure he
had seen more automobiles than he had ever seen in his life. He
probably had, for it was the time of day when the city traffic is
heaviest, and never-ending streams of motor-cars and trucks and wagons
were being driven on the cross streets, as well as on the avenues.
"I feel as if I wasn't here," said Sunny Boy slowly, watching the
crowds from the open window.
Mr. Horton glanced down at him and smiled.
"You do look rather small in all this," he admitted; "but I should say
you were very much here. And here's our hotel, and I think you are
ready for supper."
The taxi cab stopped before the McAlpin Hotel, and Sunny Boy, holding
fast to Daddy's hand, went into a beautiful high-ceilinged room ablaze
with light. He and his mother sat down in one of the big chairs while
Mr. Horton registered and arranged for their room. Then a severe-faced
boy took the suitcases and led them into an elevator.
"I wonder if he's cross," thought Sunny Boy to himself, studying the
face of the boy as he stood stiffly, his eyes fixed grimly on the wire
grating of the elevator.
He was staring at him so hard that when the boy turned and caught him
Sunny Boy blushed. The boy stuck out his tongue and immediately
resumed his stern expression.
"He wears such a lot of buttons," thought Sunny Boy, who in all his
life had never been in a hotel to stay over night. "I wonder did he
really stick out his tongue--"
The elevator stopped while Sunny Boy was trying to decide, and the
Hortons followed the boy along a silent corridor till he stopped
before a door and, unlocking it, ushered them into a large, pleasant
room.
"Well, dear, hungry?" asked Mrs. Horton.
"He did it again," said Sunny Boy.
"Who did what?" laughed Mrs. Horton. "Sunny, don't let New York addle
you like this. I asked if you were hungry."
"That boy did stick out his tongue," explained Sunny Boy. "I don't
guess he is cross at all. When he closed the door he winked at me. And
I am hungry, Mother."
Supper, as Sunny Boy insisted on calling it, or dinner, was rather a
vague affair to him, for he was not only hungry but very sleepy after
the long train ride. He liked riding down in the elevator and up
again, but he was glad enough to go to bed.
"It's just like the three bears," he said to Mother as she helped him
to undress. "Big Bear, Middle-sized Bear, and Little Bear," he added,
pointing to the three beds in the room. "Did they know I was coming
and put a little bed in for me?"
"Daddy asked them to," said Mother. "Now a little wash, precious, and
you'll be in Dreamland in two seconds."
There was a pretty white bathroom opening into the room, and Sunny Boy
enjoyed a splash, and then tumbled into bed.
In the morning he had a hard time to get dressed, because he found it
so interesting to stare out of the window down at the busy streets.
"Such lots of people and trolley cars and automobiles--and
everything!" he reported to his mother, who insisted that he really
must finish dressing. "Do you suppose they know I'm looking at 'em?"
"I doubt it," said Mother, brushing his hair smooth. "Now don't put
your nose on the screen again, Sunny. We're going downstairs in just a
minute. Daddy is almost through shaving."
"You look dressed up, Mother," announced Sunny Boy critically. "And
aren't we going to eat breakfast first?"
"First?" repeated Mrs. Horton, puzzled. "Oh, you mean I have my hat
and veil on. Well, dear, I believe you and I are going out right
after breakfast, and I won't have to come upstairs again. Ready,
Daddy?"
Soon they were in the dining room.
"Where are we going?" asked Sunny Boy, at the table and trying not to
feel queer when the waiter brought him his cantaloupe with the same
flourish with which he served Daddy sitting opposite.
"Why, I'm going to be very busy this morning," explained Mr. Horton,
"and I thought you and Mother might enjoy a little shopping trip. I'll
meet you here for lunch. Anything you specially want to buy, Sunny?"
"Some post cards," replied Sunny Boy promptly. "Ruth Nelson wants one
for her collection. And I could get Aunt Bessie a present."
"I'd wait till we're almost ready to go home for Aunt Bessie's
present," said Mr. Horton kindly. "You'll know better what you want
then. But get the post cards by all means this morning."
He gave Sunny Boy a bright new fifty-cent piece.
"I think we'll walk," decided Mrs. Horton, serving the golden brown
omelet carefully. "Put your money in your new purse, dear. Harry, have
you heard from Mr. Vernon yet?"
Left to himself while his parents talked business matters, Sunny Boy
looked about the dining room. He saw several children, little girls
and boys here and there, and a little girl across the room nodded and
smiled at him. Sunny Boy wondered where the boy who had carried up
their suitcases was.
"I didn't bring my hat," he mourned when breakfast was over. "Can I go
and get it, Mother?"
"I brought it down, dear," was the answer. "We're going right away.
Daddy has some telephoning to do, and we'll go on."
In the hotel lobby Sunny Boy saw the suitcase boy, as he had named
him, again. He didn't seem quite so severe as he had at night, and
when Sunny smiled at him he actually returned it with a grin that
showed a set of very white teeth.
"What a funny carriage," said Sunny Boy, calling Mother's attention to
a queer looking vehicle on two wheels and drawn by a bob-tailed horse,
which was the first thing he saw when they got out on the street.
"Look where the coachman is."
The driver was perched up on a little seat behind and held the reins
over the roof of the coach.
"That's a hansom cab," explained Mrs. Horton. "They were very popular
and stylish before the automobile came."
Privately Sunny Boy thought it wasn't very handsome, and the poor old
horse was no longer stylish if he had ever been, but there was little
time to think about hansom cabs, for just then Mother remarked:
"Here's the big store where they have such a wonderful toy
department."
It was a big store, much larger than any Sunny Boy had ever seen in
Centronia, and it seemed filled with people to him.
"Oh, Mother!" he stopped so short that several people nearly fell over
him, "what's that?"
"That" was a long shining moving thing on which people were being
wafted gently upward. It reminded Sunny Boy of the fairy tale he had
seen in the motion picture where the Wishing Girl who wanted to fly
was suddenly granted her wish.
"Where do they go?" Sunny Boy asked so loudly that a floor-man heard
and answered him.
"That's an escalator," he announced, much as one might say: "That's a
strawberry."
"It's a moving stairway, precious," added his mother. "I suppose you
want to ride on it. Well, first I must get Daddy some handkerchiefs,
for we never packed him a one. And we'll find out on which floor the
toys are, too."
Sunny Boy waited patiently while the handkerchiefs were bought, and
then while Mother chose a new veil, a pretty white one with black
dots.
"Here are the post-cards, Sunny," she said, turning into another
aisle. "See which ones you want for Ruth and Nelson."
"What do they say, Mother?" asked Sunny Boy, wishing he could read.
"May I send all the boys some?"
Mrs. Horton said he could, and she helped him select a dozen views of
New York, promising that he should print his name on each one and
that she would write whatever messages he wanted sent.
"You can look them over this afternoon," she suggested, "and see what
places you want to see first. That will be nice, won't it?"
"Yes, Mother," agreed Sunny Boy. "And now can we ride on the
alligator?"
"The escalator?" corrected Mother, laughing heartily. "Why yes, I
think we are about ready to do that. The girl at the handkerchief
counter told me the toys were on the sixth floor. Do you think you
want to ride that far on such a queer thing?"
[Illustration: "He had not supposed that a moving stairs went further
than one story" (Page 63)]
Sunny Boy was enraptured. He had not supposed that a moving stairway
went further than one story, and the thought of riding to the sixth
floor was bliss. He felt decidedly odd when he put his foot on the
moving platform at first, but ahead of him and behind him people were
serenely moving up, so he knew everything must be all right. When
he reached the top he slid off with such an unexpected bump that he
gave a startled cry and the girl who was there to see that no one was
hurt laughed at him.
"You said we could go to the sixth floor!" exclaimed Sunny Boy,
turning aggrievedly to Mother who had followed him.
"And so we can, dear, but not without stopping," explained Mrs.
Horton. "See, we turn here and there is another escalator. At every
floor we get off one and then on another."
Sunny Boy thought this was absolutely the most delightful way of going
upstairs he had ever tried. He wondered why the stores at home didn't
have moving stairways, and he resolved to come down the whole six
flights the same way. He was astonished when the time came to go home
and he found that the escalators didn't carry people down, but only
up.
"I see a horse!" he shouted, when they were half way up the last
stairway.
They stepped off onto a floorful of toys that reminded Sunny Boy of
Christmas and birthdays and Santa Claus all rolled into one. A tank of
water in which boats were sailing caught his eye.
"I wish I'd brought my boat," he remarked, standing on tiptoe to see
over the edge. "See the motor-boat, Mother? It's just like Captain
Franklin's."
Captain Franklin was the man who had found Sunny Boy when he was
drifting out to sea in a rowboat that summer, as related in the book
called "Sunny Boy at the Seashore."
"If you want to see them race," said the young man in charge of the
boats, "I'll wind another up for you."