PACKING THE TRUNK
Aunt Bessie sat on the floor of Mother's room, with pencil and paper in
her lap. She was Mrs. Horton's sister, and though she did not live with
them, Sunny Boy and Mother saw her nearly every day.
"I wonder if you will need that extra coat?" Aunt Bessie was saying, as
Sunny Boy came into the room.
For the two weeks were nearly gone and it was time to get ready to go to
see Grandpa Horton. Early that morning Daddy had brought down the big
trunk from the storeroom, and ever since breakfast Mother and Aunt Bessie
had been busy packing clothes into it. Aunt Bessie kept a list of the
things they put in so that Mother would be able to tell when the trunk
was full whether she had left out anything she needed.
"I'll go and get my things," announced Sunny Boy, and Aunt Bessie blew
him a kiss and went on with her work.
Upstairs Sunny Boy looked a long time at his toys before he could decide
what to do about them. He couldn't leave his kiddie-car, that was
certain. And there was the woolly black dog he took to bed with him at
night, and a Teddy Bear that he was almost too old to play with, but not
quite, and the wooden blocks. Then he would be sure to need his
fire-engine and the roller skates. He must take all those with him. He
made three trips down to Mother's door with the toys, and then, going
down for the third time, he remembered the wind-mill out in the sand-box
and ran out after that and brought it in.
"Bless the child, what is all this?" cried Aunt Bessie, as he came into
Mother's room, bringing as many of the treasures as he could carry at one
time.
"I'm helping," explained Sunny Boy. "There's more out in the hall."
He put down his load and ran out to bring in the rest.
"But, precious," said Mrs. Horton, looking from the kiddie-car to her
little son, "we can't take all these things with us. Why, Mother wouldn't
have a place to put your socks and blouses, to say nothing of the cunning
bathing-suit we bought yesterday."
"You won't need them, you know," urged Aunt Bessie. "You'll be so busy
playing with the new things you'll find up at Grandpa Horton's that
you'll probably never remember the toys at home. Then when you come back
they will seem like new ones."
Sunny Boy was disappointed. His kiddie-car was the hardest to give up.
The woolly dog, too, was very dear to him. Mrs. Horton understood, and
she sat down in her low rocking chair and took her little boy on her
lap.
"The kiddie-car wouldn't be any fun in the country," she said. "There are
no stone pavements, you see, dear, and it wouldn't run on the grass. As
for the woolly dog, why you will have a real dog to play with--a collie
dog that will run after sticks and bring them to you and take walks with
you. That will be fun, won't it?"
Sunny Boy slid to the floor and stood up. He was excited.
"I am simply crazy to have a real dog," he declared.
Mrs. Horton stared at him, but Aunt Bessie, bending over the trunk, sat
down on the edge and laughed.
"Where in the world did you hear that, Sunny Boy?" asked Mother. "Who
talks like that?"
Aunt Bessie swooped down upon her nephew.
"I do," she told her sister. "But I'll have to be more careful when
little pitchers with big ears are about. Why don't you copy the nice
things I say, Sunny?"
"Isn't that nice?" puzzled Sunny. "Shouldn't I say it? Why not, Mother?"
"It isn't wrong, dear," Mrs. Horton assured him. "Aunt Bessie only means
that speaking that way is rather a bad habit to get into. We call it
exaggeration. Let me see, how shall I make you understand? Well, if I say
'I'm starving to death,' when I mean that I am hungrier than usual for
dinner, that's exaggeration. I couldn't be starving, unless I had had
nothing to eat for several days."
"And though some people think I'm crazy, I'm really not," concluded Aunt
Bessie gayly. "You think I'm rather nice, don't you, Sunny? And now I
wonder if there's a young man about who would be kind enough to take this
skirt down to Harriet and ask her to please press the hem?"
"I will," offered Sunny Boy. "And then I'll come back and put my things
away."
"While you are down in the kitchen, I wish you'd ask Harriet if the oven
is ready for me to make some biscuits for lunch," said Mrs. Horton. "And
tell her I said you might have a glass of milk and one of the sponge
cakes without any pink icing."
Harriet pressed the skirt while Sunny Boy sat at one end of the ironing
board and watched her and ate his sponge cake--which was almost as good
as the kind with pink icing which were only for dessert--and drank his
milk. Then Harriet gave him the skirt to carry back to Aunt Bessie and he
remembered to ask about the oven. Harriet said to tell Mother that it was
just right for baking biscuits.
"That means I must go down right away," said Mrs. Horton, when Sunny Boy
told her. "We've about finished anyway, haven't we, Bessie? The man is to
come at three this afternoon for the trunk."
"I've left a few chinks and corners, in case you want to tuck in some
little trifles at the last minute," replied Aunt Bessie, "but otherwise
it's ready to be strapped and locked."
"Let me lock it," said Sunny Boy eagerly. "I can stand on the top, too. I
did for Cousin Lola when hers wouldn't shut."
Mrs. Horton was tying on a nice clean white apron.
"Thank you, dearest," she said. "Mother isn't quite ready to have the
trunk locked. If we've packed it so full it won't close, why of course
I'll call on you to stand on the top and make it shut."
Sunny Boy hoped the trunk wouldn't close, for he wanted to dance on the
top. Then Mrs. Horton went down to Harriet's kitchen to make puffy white
biscuits for lunch and Aunt Bessie went off to give a music lesson.
Sunny Boy, left to put away his toys, explained matters to the woolly dog
as he carried him upstairs.
"There will be a real dog for me to play with at Grandpa's," he said.
"And little calves and lambs--Harriet said so. Maybe you might get broken
in the trunk, anyway. But I won't like the real dog one bit more than I
do you, and when we come back you can sleep with me every single night."
The woolly dog seemed to think this was all right, and he took it so
cheerfully that Sunny Boy felt better immediately.
Mr. Horton came home to lunch, which was unusual, and after lunch he and
Mrs. Horton had to go downtown to see about the tickets and the parlor
car seats for the trip the next day. Sunny Boy was to take his nap and be
wide awake again by three o'clock, when the man was coming to take their
trunk to the station.
Sunny Boy did not see how they were to find the trunk again if they once
let it go, for surely no trunk could go all alone to Brookside. He
resolved to ask Daddy. While he was wondering if there would be a piano
in the parlor car--and he rather hoped there would and that he might be
allowed to play on it--Sunny Boy fell asleep. Harriet, coming upstairs
with a pile of clean clothes, woke him.
"Is it three o'clock?" he asked, afraid that he had missed the trunk
man.
"Only half-past two," answered Harriet. "Your mother will be back any
minute now to lock the trunk. You can dress yourself, can't you? I've
another tablecloth to iron yet."
Sunny Boy could dress himself, of course. Wandering into Mother's room to
borrow her hairbrush, he saw the little nickel alarm clock on the table.
Mother must have meant to pack that, and in her hurry had forgotten.
Sunny Boy remembered that Daddy had told him all country folk "rose with
the chickens," and upon inquiry he had learned that the chickens rose
very early indeed--almost as soon as the sun. Sunny Boy thought it would
be dreadful if he and Mother should oversleep their first morning at the
farm and come downstairs to find the chickens up and the farmer people
laughing at them. Yes, the alarm clock certainly must go.
He had not a very clear idea of how one went about it to set an alarm
clock, but Daddy, he remembered, always wound the little pegs in the
back. So Sunny Boy trustingly wound all the pegs he saw, as tight as they
would turn, and tucked the clock away down deep in one of the corner
holes Aunt Bessie had left in the trunk.
[Illustration: And tucked the clock away down deep in one of the corner
holes Aunt Bessie had left in the trunk.]
He had hardly packed it in when Mother came running breathlessly up the
stairs crying that the express wagon was at the door. Hurriedly she put
down the trunk lid, locked it, and tied on the tag that Daddy had written
for her.
"That tells the train folks what to do with it," explained the trunk man
to Sunny, swinging the heavy trunk to his shoulder as though it weighed
no more than the kiddie-car and trotting downstairs with it.
Sunny Boy watched him put it in the wagon and drive away.
"Now we're almost ready," said Mrs. Horton smilingly. "We have to pack
our bag and go to bed early, and then, in the morning, we really will be
on our way to Grandpa Horton's."
"But there's the canary," Sunny Boy reminded her hesitatingly. "Can I
carry him?"
"The train would frighten him so he might never sing any more," said Mrs.
Horton. "No, Aunt Bessie is going to keep him for us till we come back."
"Well, let's go now," urged Sunny. "Why can't we go this minute? Let's,
Mother."
"And have Daddy come home to dinner to-night and find us gone?" said
Mother reproachfully. "Why, Sunny!"
"Well--then perhaps we'd better wait," admitted Sunny Boy. "But one whole
night's an awful long time, isn't it?"