Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration: Indeed there were all kinds of goodies in those boxes.
(See Page 207)]
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SUNNY BOY IN THE COUNTRY
By
RAMY ALLISON WHITE
Illustrated By
CHARLES L. WRENN
BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers
New York, N.Y.--Newark, N.J.
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Copyright, 1920
By
Barse & Hopkins
Sunny Boy in the Country
Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Mended Drum 9
II Spreading The News 22
III Packing The Trunk 35
IV Off For Brookside 49
V On The Train 61
VI Brookside 73
VII Adventures Begin 86
VIII A Letter From Daddy 98
IX Sunny Boy Forgets 110
X Going Fishing 124
XI The Hay Slide 136
XII Apple Pies 152
XIII More Mischief 169
XIV Another Hunt 185
XV Sunny's Good Luck 201
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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Indeed there were all kinds of goodies in those boxes. Frontispiece
And tucked the clock away down deep in one of the corner
holes Aunt Bessie had left in the trunk. 45
He lifted one of the baby rabbits and placed it in
Sunny's hands. 109
With a crash a frightened little boy fell into the
flour barrel. 163
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SUNNY BOY
IN THE COUNTRY
CHAPTER I
THE MENDED DRUM
"Rub-a-dub, dub! Bang! Rub-a-dub-dub--Bang! Bang!" Sunny Boy thumped his
drum vigorously.
Usually when he made such a racket some one would come out and ask him
what in the world was he making a noise like that for, but this morning
every one seemed to be very busy. For several minutes now Sunny Boy had
been trying to attract Harriet's attention. She was doing something to
the front door.
"I spect she needs me," said Sunny Boy to himself.
There were any number of interesting things going on around the front
door this morning, but he was chiefly interested in Harriet, because as a
rule he had to help her Saturday mornings by going with her to the
grocery store at the corner. He liked to stand in her clean, comfortable
kitchen and drum for her until she was ready to start.
This particular morning Harriet's mind seemed to be far away from music.
She was rubbing briskly as Sunny Boy watched her, polishing--that was it:
she was shining the brass numbers on the door--266. Sunny Boy knew them,
and how careful Harriet was to keep them always bright.
"Just think," she would say, as they might be coming up the steps;
"suppose the postman had a letter for 266 Glenn Avenue, and the numbers
were so dull and streaked he couldn't read them! Think how we'd feel if
that should happen to us!"
Sunny Boy was sure such a thing could never happen, not with Harriet
rubbing away at the numbers morning after morning.
From his post at the head of the stairs he could see a man on a
step-ladder, working and whistling. He was hammering in nails over the
door. Dimly Sunny Boy made out another pair of doors standing in the
hall.
"Goodness, Sunny Boy, I nearly fell over you!" Aunt Bessie kissed him on
the back of his neck before he could turn round. That was a trick Aunt
Bessie had, and Sunny Boy was used to it. "Are you watching them put up
the screens and awnings?"
"Are they?" asked Sunny interestedly. "Could I hold the awning? Maybe the
man would like my tool-chest--it's all there but the hammer. I lost that
in the park. Can I help, Auntie?"
Aunt Bessie was going downtown, and she was in a hurry. "If you don't get
in the way, I daresay they'll be glad to have you," she said kindly, and
brushed by him, on down the stairs. She stopped to speak to some one in
the parlor, and then Sunny Boy saw her go out and down the steps.
Sunny Boy sat down on the top stair and took his drum in his lap.
Presently he would go down and help the awning man, but it was very
pleasant where he was. The softest little May breeze came wandering
through the open door up to him, and the canary in the dining room was
singing his cheerful loudest. Sunny Boy leaned his curly head against the
bannister to listen.
His real name, of course, was not Sunny Boy--oh, no, he was named for his
grandpa, and when the postman brought him an invitation to a birthday
party you might see it written out--Arthur Bradford Horton.
But birthday parties happen only once in a while, and Daddy and Mother
called him Sunny Boy because he was nearly always cheerful. As Mother
explained, you can't depend on a party happening to cheer you up, so to
know a little boy who is sure to smile every day--well, that is worth
while. And often Sunny forgot that he had any other name.
Bump--bang--bumpty, bang! Down the stairs suddenly rolled the drum,
making a fearful racket on the steps as it bounded from side to side.
Down the stairs it rolled, across the narrow strip of hall, past Harriet,
now on her knees scrubbing the green and white tiles, under the ladder of
the awning man, down the steps, and right out into the street! After it
scrambled Sunny Boy, as fast as his tan sandals would take him. He was
just in time to see his drum roll to the middle of the street and stop in
the center of the heavy traffic. A big furniture van, drawn by three
horses, was headed right for it.
"It'll be smashed! Oh, oh!" Sunny Boy wailed, hopping up and down on the
curb, but remembering even in his excitement that he had promised not to
go off the pavement when alone. "They'll ride right over my drum!"
"I guess not!" cried a tall man, and darted out from behind Sunny. He
rushed to where the drum lay and snatched it up, almost from under the
horses' feet.
The colored man driving the furniture van grinned.
"Most busted dat drum for sure!" he shouted. "If this off horse, Billy,
ever put his foot through it, good-by drum!"
"And there you are!" The tall man gave Sunny Boy back his drum with a
flourish. "Just as good as new, except for a little hole that I'm willing
to bet a cookie your mother can mend for you. Isn't she waving for you to
come in? I thought so. You run along now, and see if she doesn't mend
it."
Mother was on the front steps watching for him. Sunny thanked the tall
man, who said that it was nothing, nothing at all: he'd never rescued a
drum before, but he was glad to have the experience, and that things
always turned out well for small boys who stayed on the sidewalks and
didn't dash out into the streets to get run over. Then Sunny climbed up
the steps and held out his drum for Mother to see.
"The man said you could mend it," he said wistfully. "Can you, Mother?
'Cause when things break, I miss 'em."
Mrs. Horton managed to hug her son, drum and all, though there really
wasn't much space where they stood. She was under the awning man's
ladder, and he was shaking and moving the large awning about. Inside the
door stood Harriet and her brush and bucket.
"So, 'twas the drum!" smiled Harriet. "I couldn't see what it was went
rolling by me like lightning, and Sunny Boy tearing after it. All I heard
was a noise like thunder."
"We'll go up to my room and mend the drum," declared Mrs. Horton. "Tell
Mr. Bray I'll telephone him about the slip-covers, please, Harriet. I
left him in the parlor when I ran out to see what was happening to Sunny
Boy."
"What," demanded Sunny Boy, carrying his drum upstairs--and you may be
sure that he gripped it tightly this time--"What are slip-covers,
Mother?"
Mrs. Horton laughed.
"Why, slip-covers are--" She thought a minute. "They are covers for the
chairs and sofas to wear in summer," she explained. "Nice, cool, linen
covers, you know, for the furniture, just as you have summer suits."
Sunny Boy understood. He usually did when Mother answered his questions.
And he was very sure that she could mend his drum.
"Do you know," said Mrs. Horton, when she had looked at the hole, "I
think, Sunny Boy, we can mend this nicely with court-plaster?"
"Court-plaster?" echoed Sunny Boy.
"I have some in the medicine closet in the bathroom," went on Mrs.
Horton, drawing the edges of the hole together as she talked. "I'll get
it, dear."
"It's like mending fingers, isn't it, Mother?" Sunny Boy was so anxious
to watch how Mother mended the drum that he nearly put his own pink nose
in the hole. "When Daddy cut his finger he put court-plaster on it. He
said the skin would grow together, and it did--when he took it off, there
wasn't any cut there. Just nothing. Will my drum be like that?"
"No, precious," answered Mother, snipping around the edges of the
court-plaster with the fascinating sharp shears Sunny Boy was forbidden
to touch. "A drum, you know, isn't like a person's skin. It can't grow.
But I think that if you remember to be careful the drum will last a long
time. There you are. My goodness! it makes as much noise as ever, doesn't
it?" and Mrs. Horton covered her ears and laughed as Sunny Boy beat
merrily on his mended drum.
"Letters!" he cried a minute later as a shrill whistle sounded. "I'll get
'em for you, Mother," and downstairs again he tumbled. Only he left the
drum safely on Mother's bed.
"Two--three--ever so many," he announced proudly when he came back. "Are
there any for me, Mother?"
Like some other little folk, Sunny Boy was always expecting letters,
though he almost never wrote any. But he meant to write a great many as
soon as he learned to write with ink, and he was even now learning to
print nicely.
"None for you," answered Mrs. Horton, glancing at the envelopes.
"However, here is one with something in it for you, I suspect. Grandpa
Horton has written to us."
As Mother opened this letter, a little note fell out. That was from
Grandpa Horton to Sunny Boy. He liked to put a little letter inside his
large one, just for his grandson. Sunny waited quietly while Mother read
her letter. When she had read it through, she folded it and put it back
in the envelope.
"Sunny Boy," she said, and her voice made him think of the "laughing
piece" she sometimes played for him on the piano. He looked at her and
her eyes were dancing. "Sunny Boy," she said again, "what do you think?
We're going to visit Grandpa Horton on his farm--going to make him a nice
long visit and see the real country."
"Oh, goody!" cried Sunny Boy. "Is Daddy going?"
"He'll come to see us," promised Mother. "Let me read you what Grandpa
has written you, dear."
Grandpa Horton's note to Sunny told him he was depending on him to help
him with the early haying.
"Wasn't it lucky Harriet rubbed the numbers on the front door this
morning?" chuckled Sunny Boy. "S'posing we didn't get this letter?
Where's Brookside, Mother?"
Brookside was the name of Grandpa's farm. Mrs. Horton explained that it
was many miles away from the city, and that it would take them nearly a
day on the train to get there.
"And if Daddy cannot go with us, you'll have to take care of me," she
said seriously.
"All right, I will," promised Sunny Boy. "I'll have to go and tell
Harriet an' show her my letter. I'll tell the awning man, too. I was
going to help him, but I don't feel helping, somehow. I feel wiggled up,
you know, Mother."
"You're excited," said Mrs. Horton. "Well, we don't go for two weeks,
dear, so you'll have plenty of time to talk about it. I must write to
Grandpa as soon as Daddy comes home."
Dashing out of the room went Sunny Boy, crying the good news at the top
of his lungs--"We're going to the country! We're going to my Grandpa's
farm! Hurrah!"