SPREADING THE NEWS
"So you're going off to the country?" said Daddy, as he came whistling
down to the dining room, where Mother and Sunny Boy were waiting for him.
"Well, I see that I'll have to come up and teach you how to catch a brook
trout."
"Did Mother tell you?" asked Sunny Boy, as Daddy swung him into his chair
and Harriet brought in the soup to Mrs. Horton. "When did you find out,
Daddy? I was watching for you so's I could tell."
"I didn't see any little chap in the hall, so I went right upstairs and
found Mother. She said you were going to Brookside, and that the awnings
were up, and the screens in, and she hoped to go downtown to-morrow and
buy your best shoes," and Daddy looked at Mother and laughed.
"Daddy is teasing me," smiled Mrs. Horton. "We have to tell him our news
all in one breath because we see so little of him, don't we, Sunny Boy? I
do hope, Harry, that you'll be able to come up this summer and spend a
real vacation at your father's."
Mr. Horton was making a little well in the mashed potato on Sunny's
plate, and flooding it with the rich brown gravy. That was the way _his_
father had fixed his mashed potato for him when he was a little boy, and
Sunny Boy liked his that way, too.
"Oh, I'll come up," promised Mr. Horton, passing the potato to Sunny Boy.
"I'll have to come and show you both where I had my garden and teach
Sunny how to fool the wise fish."
Sunny Boy put down his fork. He had to wait a minute because his mouth
was full and Mother had her own opinion of a little boy who spoke without
chewing his food properly and swallowing it. Having swallowed his potato,
Sunny Boy was ready to speak.
"Oh, Daddy!" he began eagerly, "were you ever at Brookside? Where was
your garden? Could I drive horses?"
Then Daddy and Mother said the same thing together, both at once, just as
if they were thinking the same thing, as they probably were:
"Why, Sunny Boy!" said Daddy and Mother.
"You can't have forgotten," urged Mrs. Horton, then. "Brookside, you
know, dear, is where Daddy lived when he was a little boy. When he was
just as old as you are now he used to play there were Indians in the
woods. I've told you ever so many times, and now you are going to see the
place yourself where Daddy was a little lad like you."
"Oh!" said Sunny Boy again.
All during the rest of the dinner he was very busy, thinking. He had
forgotten that Daddy had lived at Brookside, or, to be more exact, he had
not understood that Grandpa's farm was the same farm on which Daddy had
been a little boy. Sunny Boy was only five years old, and he had already
moved three times. One lived a long time on a farm it seemed.
Soon after dinner came bed for Sunny Boy, and he dreamed that he had
fallen head-first into his drum and that it was very hot and dark inside.
He was kicking madly to get out, when Mother came in and found him all
wrapped up in the bed-clothes with his head buried in the pillows. When
she drew down the covers he woke up, and after she had tucked him in
smoothly again and brought him a drink of cool water, he went to sleep.
And the next thing that happened was the morning.
After breakfast, Sunny Boy went out into the back yard to play. It wasn't
a very large back yard, but it was pretty. There were ferns along one
side, and gay spring flowers on the other. At one end were Sunny Boy's
swing and sand-box, and the center was in thick, green grass. Mondays the
grass belonged to Harriet, who used it to walk on when she hung out the
clean clothes, but other days Sunny had the whole yard pretty much to
himself.
There was a little gate cut in the fence on one side of the yard. Daddy
Horton had made the gate for Sunny Boy and Nelson and Ruth. Nelson and
Ruth were a little boy and girl who lived next door, at least Ruth was a
little girl--she was only four years old--but Nelson was seven and went
to school. Their last name was Baker, and they and Sunny Boy had very
good times playing together.
As soon as Sunny Boy came out into his yard this morning, the little gate
opened, and in came Ruth, dragging Paulina, her largest doll, by one
arm.
"Don't be cross," begged Sunny Boy. "I want to tell you something."
"I'm not cross," said Ruth with dignity. "What made you think I was going
to be?"
"'Cause you're dragging Paulina and you always treat her like that when
you're cross," answered Sunny more frankly than tactfully. "Listen,
Ruth--we're going to the country to see Grandpa Horton, and I'm going to
drive horses and go fishing, an' help hay, and oh, everything!"
Ruth was interested.
"Can I go fishing?" she wanted to know.
Sunny Boy was troubled. Evidently Ruth thought she was going to the
country, too, and it surely wouldn't be very kind to tell her plainly
that Grandpa Horton hadn't invited her. To his relief Mrs. Baker called
Ruth just then and she went into her own yard, still dragging the
unfortunate Paulina by one arm.
"Sunny Boy," called his own mother from an upstairs window, "Harriet is
going to the store for me--wouldn't you like to go with her?"
Sunny Boy liked to go with Harriet, and he hurried indoors to get his hat
and roller skates. Now Sunny Boy was just learning to skate, and if he
didn't have Harriet to hold on to he never could be quite sure what was
going to happen to him. He could go much faster on his own two feet, but,
as he explained to Harriet, it was most important that he should learn
how to skate because when he could skate well he would be able to go to
the store much more quickly than he could walk. And Harriet said yes, she
understood, and that everybody had to learn how to skate before they
could become really expert.
"Did you ever live on a farm, Harriet?" asked Sunny Boy, as they started
for the store. His mind was full of the coming visit.
"No," admitted Harriet. "I never lived on a farm. But I've often visited
people who did. You'll like it. There'll be brooks to wade in, and little
calves and lambs to play with, and chickens and ducks. And you can play
outdoors all day long."
"When it rains?" asked Sunny Boy.
"When it rains there'll be the barn and the haymow," answered Harriet.
"And now here's Mr. Gray's. You'd better wait out here for me and not try
to clatter in with those skates."
Sunny Boy saw a basket of apples in the window.
"Will you bring me an apple, Harriet?" he teased. "Mother won't mind.
Apples don't hurt you."
Harriet was half way through the door, but she turned.
"It's too early for good apples yet," she said. "You wait till you get to
Brookside, Sunny. You'll have more apples then than you can possibly
eat."
"Millions and dozens?" called Sunny Boy after Harriet.
"Yes, 'millions and dozens,'" she echoed, laughing, and closed the
grocery store door.
The grocer's boy was coming down the steps, and he laughed, too.
"Millions and dozens of what?" he demanded, stopping before Sunny Boy.
"Apples, at my grandpa's farm."
The grocer boy had a basket on his arm and he wore a white coat. He
looked very clean and cheerful. Sunny Boy had a sudden idea.
"If you're going up to our house, could I hang on back of your wheel?" he
said. "I can skate pretty well if I have some one to steer with."
"I don't think Harriet would like it," was the grocer boy's reply. He
knew Sunny Boy and Harriet because he often came to their house to bring
good things to eat. "I'll tell you, Sunny Boy--you wait till you come
back from this visit, and then I'll take you. Or perhaps after you've
eaten the millions and dozens of apples you won't have to hang on to any
one--you'll be big and strong and able to skate by yourself."
Sunny Boy watched him ride merrily off on his bicycle. Still Harriet
didn't come. Sunny suspected there must be a good many people waiting in
the store. He might skate down to the corner and back before she had
bought all the things on Mother's list.
It was all very well for the first few yards, because there was a
convenient iron railing to cling to, and Sunny Boy found himself skating
very easily. But the iron railing ended in a stone stoop, and after that
there seemed to be nothing but miles and miles of pavement without even a
friendly tree to cling to. Sunny Boy's feet began to behave queerly. One
went much faster than the other and in an entirely different direction,
and he had an idea he'd have to wear those skates the rest of his life
because he didn't see how he was ever going to stop to take them off.
Suddenly he found himself headed for an area-way and a flight of stone
steps. He clutched desperately at the cellar window, shot past, and down
the steps--bing! into a huge basket of clothes a fat colored woman was
bringing up. She was as wide as the basket and the basket took up about
all the area-way.
"Land sakes, chile!" she said, as Sunny Boy landed on top of her basket.
"Where you goin'?"
"Skating," said Sunny Boy concisely, glad to find that he wasn't hurt.
The colored woman laughed, a deep, rich, happy laugh.
"You doan seem to be jest sure," she told him. "Stay where you is an'
I'll carry you on up."
She did, too, and started him on his uncertain way down the street. In a
few minutes his feet began to act strangely again, this time sending him
in the general direction of the gutter.
"I spect I'd better go back," said Sunny Boy to himself. But he couldn't
turn around.
Then up the street came a familiar gray-uniformed figure. It was the
postman, the same merry, kind postman who brought letters to Sunny Boy's
house and for whom Harriet was careful to have the number on the front
door bright and shining.
"Stop me!" cried Sunny Boy, wobbling more wildly.
"Right--O!" agreed the postman, and proceeded to stop him by letting
Sunny Boy skate right into him and his mail bag.
"And that's all right," said the cheerful postman, blowing his whistle
and slipping some letters into a mail-box in a doorway as if nothing had
happened. "Don't you want to skate back with me?"
Sunny Boy, seated on a handy doorstep, was unbuckling the skate straps.
He looked up and smiled.
"Thank you very much, but Harriet's waiting for me," he answered
politely. "An' I have to carry my skates, 'cause she won't let me hold
the eggs 'less I walk."