SONNY BOY GOES ON A JOURNEY AND MAKES FRIENDS
Sonny Boy set out, all alone, for the city in which Aunt Kate lived. Papa
Plummer thought that any kind of a boy of ten ought to be able to make a
little journey like that alone.
The whole Plummer family went with Sonny Boy to the Poppleton station and
gave him charges, while they waited for the train. "Write every day," said
Mamma Plummer, "and learn to spell, and don't touch Aunt Kate's scissors
to your curls."
"Say your prayers," whispered Grandma Plummer, "and change your wet
feet."
"Don't lose your money," said Papa Plummer.
"Eat your soup from the side of the spoon, and don't say 'ain't' nor 'is
that so,'" said Polly, in a severe tone.
"Don't scuff nor speak through your nose, and don't say 'No-sir-ee' to
Aunt Kate," said Dorothy.
"If you go to the circus that was here last summer, find out whether the
Wild Man is truly wild," said Tom, "and see what a big drum costs--big
enough for the Company."
"Go to a dog-man and find out what is good for Bevis' dyspepsia, and
whether he may eat cookies," said Trixie.
And then the train came whizzing along, and, with his cage of white mice
under his arm, and his turtle sticking its head out of his jacket pocket,
Sonny Boy went into the car.
As the train moved off Sonny Boy shut his teeth tight together. In his
heart he was afraid he should be homesick, like Trixie.
He took the paper off the cage to give his white mice the air, and a woman
in the seat behind jumped and screamed.
"Oh, take them away! Take them away! They'll get out!" she cried. "Anyway,
they'll frighten my baby into fits!"
Then immediately the conductor came along and angrily told Sonny Boy that
that wasn't a menagerie car, and he must either throw those things away or
carry them into the baggage-car. He said some people with a screeching
parrot were out in the baggage-car. They would not trust their parrot
there alone, and people in the cars wouldn't hear it screech.
Sonny Boy, with a very red face, followed the conductor to the
baggage-car.
On a trunk a little girl was sitting, with her nurse, a rather
cross-looking woman, beside her. Between them was a large cage. "If you
want to leave your live stock here, you can go back to the car. I guess
'twill be safe enough," said the conductor. But Sonny Boy shook his head
firmly.
"Oh, what lovely little dears!" cried the little girl. She was about as
old a little girl as Trixie, but she had a bright, grown-up manner that
made Sonny Boy feel bashful.
"Pussy? Pussy? Scat!" shrieked the parrot from the little girl's cage.
[Illustration: "SONNY BOY WENT INTO THE CAR."]
"Isn't Polly wonderful to know that they are mice?" cried the little girl
to Sonny Boy.
But the mice, not being used to pussies, did not mind hearing her call a
cat in the least.
Some were quietly nibbling at a lump of sugar which Trixie had put into
the cage for them, and some were trying to thrust their heads through the
wires to see the world.
"Polly is a gray African parrot," said the little girl. "She knows a lot,
and she's worth a hundred dollars. We are carrying her to Otto, at the
hospital, but we are a little afraid they won't let him keep her there,
for some don't like her voice."
"I like it," said Sonny Boy, politely and truthfully.
"So do I like your mice," said the little girl as politely.
And then they felt they had known each other for a long time.
They sat down on a large trunk, with the cage of mice between them, and
Sonny Boy told the little girl that the mice with black spots on them were
Spaniards, and showed her just which of the white ones were Dewey and
Sampson, and told her that the dashing little fellow that led all the
others in daring swings and leaps was Hobson.
"Oh, if Otto could only see them!" cried the little girl. "He loves
soldiers. He wants to be one, and only think! he isn't like other boys.
His back isn't straight and he is lame, and though he is eleven you
wouldn't think him more than eight."
To be lame was worse than to be bow-legged, and Sonny Boy felt a thrill of
pity for Otto. He hoped Otto wasn't cross-eyed, and he quite longed to ask
if fractions and spelling came hard to him.
When it was nearly dark the nurse said that the next stopping-place would
be their station, and she put a newspaper over the parrot's cage and made
ready to leave the car.
The train would reach the city soon after it left their station, she said,
so Sonny Boy covered his mouse-cage with a newspaper, too, and prepared to
say good-bye to his new friend.
There was great hurry and bustle when Lena and her nurse reached their
station, but Lena ran back after she had gone down the car steps to tell
Sonny Boy that he was one of the nicest boys she had ever seen, and had
been beautifully kind all the afternoon to her and to her nurse. Sonny Boy
wished that Polly could have heard her!
In the great city station Aunt Kate's big, pompous coachman came shouting
through the crowd for "Master Peter Plummer." And Sonny Boy had to stop to
think who it was he meant, for in Poppleton he was never called anything
but Sonny Boy.
"Take your things, sir?" said the pompous footman, just as if Sonny Boy
were grown up!
"I'll take this, please," said Sonny Boy, keeping hold of the cage. "It's
full of white mice."
"Dewey! Sampson! Hobson! Cock-a-doodle-doo! Pussy! Pussy! Scat! Polly
wants a cracker!" cried a shrill voice from the cage. And the pompous
coachman stared in amazement.
[Illustration: "HE TOLD HER WHICH WERE SPANIARDS."]
"It's Lena's parrot! We must have changed cages! Oh, and she's got my
white mice!" cried Sonny Boy.
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SONNY BOY GOES IN SEARCH OF HIS WHITE MICE
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