THE HAY SLIDE
"Daddy," said Sunny Boy, as he munched a sandwich, lying on his stomach
and looking down into the brook from the safe height of the bank, "how
much is five hundred dollars?"
"A large sum of money," answered Mr. Horton, surprised. "Why, Son? What
do you know about such things? Little boys shouldn't be bothering about
money for years and years to come."
So Sunny told him about Grandpa's bonds and how he had lost them by
pasting them on his kite. Mr. Horton was very sorry, but he said little.
"Only remember this, Sunny Boy," he insisted gravely. "I would rather you
told me yourself than to have heard it from any one else--even from
Mother. When you've done anything good or bad that you think I should
know, you tell me yourself, always. And now how about going wading?"
That was great fun. Sunny Boy rolled his trousers up as far as they would
go and took off his shoes and stockings. The water was not deep, but, my!
wasn't it cold? Little baby fish darted in and out, and ever so many
times Sunny thought he had a handful of them. But when he unclosed his
hands there was never anything in them but water, and not much of that.
"If I did catch a fish, could I keep him, Daddy?" Sunny asked. "I could
carry home some brook for him to live in."
Sunny meant some of the brook water. Daddy explained that the baby fish,
minnows they are called, would not be happy living in a bowl as the
goldfish Sunny once had were.
"And you wouldn't want a fish to be unhappy, would you?" questioned
Daddy. "Of course you wouldn't. But I'll tell you something better to do
than trying to catch fish that only want to be left alone."
"Something to do with my shoes and stockings off?" stipulated Sunny
anxiously. "I haven't been wading hardly a minute yet, Daddy."
Daddy laughed a little. He was lying flat on his stomach as Sunny had
done, peering over the bank down at the water. He seemed to be having a
very good time, did Daddy.
"This is something you can do without your shoes and stockings," he
assured the small figure standing in the middle of the brook. "Indeed, I
thought of it because you are all fixed for doing it. You know Mother was
talking about her Christmas presents last night?"
Sunny nodded.
"She's sewing a bag for Aunt Bessie," he confided, "and Grandma is
getting ready, too. But I think Christmas is about a year off, Daddy."
"Not a year--about five months," corrected Daddy. "That seems like a long
time to you. But Mother likes to start early and make many of her
presents. And a very good way it is, too. Well, Sunny Boy, I once heard
Mother say that she would like to try making an indoor garden for some of
her friends who live in apartments and have no gardens of their own.
Only, Mother said, she must experiment first and find out what would grow
best."
"What's an indoor garden?"
"Oh, there are different kinds," answered Daddy. "But I think the kind
Mother is anxious to try is very simple. Just damp moss and a vine or two
put into a glass bowl. They will grow and keep green all Winter and be
pretty to look at."
"I could get her some moss," said Sunny quickly. "See, those stones are
all covered, Daddy."
"That's just what I want you to do," agreed Daddy. "We'll take plenty
home to Mother and she can experiment with indoor gardens to her heart's
content. See, Son, here's my knife. You must cut the moss very carefully
in square pieces, and try not to break it. I'll be digging up some of
these healthy little ground vines."
Sunny Boy was proud to be allowed to handle Daddy's big jack knife, and
he was glad Daddy hadn't told him not to cut himself. Daddy, somehow,
always trusted Sunny not to be heedless.
"Mother'll like it, won't she?" he called to Daddy, who was digging up a
pretty, creeping green vine that grew in the grass near him. "Won't she
be s'prised, Daddy?"
They worked busily, and soon Sunny had a neat little pile of green moss
ready to take home to Mother. After that he waded about in the brook,
splashing the water with his bare feet.
"There--you've been in long enough," called Mr. Horton presently. "The
water is too cold to play in it long. Come, Son, and put on your shoes
and stockings."
Sunny Boy dabbled his feet in a little hole made by a stone he had pushed
away.
"Sunny Boy!" called Mr. Horton once again.
Still Sunny Boy continued to play in the water. To tell the truth every
one had been so anxious to make him happy at Brookside that he was the
least little bit in the world spoiled. The more you have your own way,
you know, the harder it is to do other people's way, and if you can do as
you please day after day, by and by you want to do as you please all the
time. Sunny Boy felt like that now.
"Sunny!" said Daddy a third time, very quietly.
Sunny Boy looked at him--and came marching out of the water. He was not
very pleasant while Daddy helped him dry his feet and get into the
despised shoes and stockings, but, when they were ready to start for home
and Daddy tilted up his chin to look at him squarely, Sunny Boy's own
smile came out.
"All right!" announced Daddy cheerfully. "Let's go home a different way
and perhaps we'll find wild strawberries."
They did, too, a patch of them down at one end of the apple orchard, and
Mr. Horton showed Sunny Boy how he used to string them on grass stems to
take home to his mother when he was a little boy.
He certainly was a dear Daddy, and when he went back to the city Mother
and Sunny had to be nicer to each other than ever because they missed him
so very much.
"It's raining!" Sunny Boy stood at the window after breakfast, the
morning after Mr. Horton had gone back to the city. "Does it rain in the
summer?"
Grandma laughed, and told him that indeed it did rain in the summer.
"We haven't had a drop of rain since you've been here, and you must have
brought fair weather with you," she said. "Now that the hay is all in the
barn, we're glad to see it rain, for the garden needs it badly. Think how
thirsty the flowers and vegetables must be."
"Harriet said to play in the barn on rainy days," said Sunny Boy sadly,
"but I think I'm lonesome."
"Well, you go out to the barn and you won't be lonesome," Araminta, who
was clearing the breakfast table, laughed at his long face. "I'll bet all
the children are there, even the baby. He can go, can't he, Mrs.
Horton?"
Grandma said yes, of course he could, and Mother brought his rubbers and
raincoat downstairs when she came, for he met her on the stairs and there
she had them all ready.
"Run along and have a good time," she told him, kissing him. "I was going
to suggest that you play in the barn this morning. Help Jimmie if he's
working, won't you, and don't hinder him?"
Paddling out to the barn in the pouring rain was fun. But the barn was
the most fun of all. Grandpa and Jimmie were on the first floor mending
harness, and the doors were open so that they could see right out into
the orchard and yet not get a bit wet. Just as Araminta had said, all the
Hatch children were there, even the baby, who lay asleep on the hay in a
nice, quiet corner.
"Hurrah!" cried Juddy Hatch. "We're going to play robbers, and you can be
in my cave."
"Be in my cave," urged David, his brother. "Our side has the best
slide."
"I'll come up there and settle you youngsters if you're going to
quarrel," threatened Jimmie, switching a buggy whip and looking very
fierce. "You'd better start playing and stop arguing."
The children knew Jimmie had small patience with little bickerings,
though he had never been known to do anything more severe than scold. So
they took him at his word and began to play.
"You be on Juddy's side, then," agreed David. "See, we each have a cave
here in the hay--that's mine in this corner. The way we do is to all go
into our caves and take turns creeping up. When you hear us on the roof
of your cave, you have to get out and run over to ours, climb up to the
top and slide down the other side. If you're caught you have to b'long to
our robber tribe."
The hay was very smooth and slippery, and the children had many a tumble
as the two robber tribes chased each other across the haymow. Such
shrieks of laughter, such howls as the robbers in their excitement
sometimes forgot and pulled a braid of Sarah's or Dorabelle's! The baby
continued to sleep placidly through all the noise, and Jimmie told
Grandpa that he thought perhaps "the poor little kid was deaf!" Jimmie
was only fooling, of course, for the Hatch baby was not deaf at all.
It was Sunny Boy's turn to be chased, and as he heard David's robber
tribe beginning to climb up on the roof of his cave he dashed out and ran
for the other cave at the end of the haymow. Up the side he went, and
down. Dorabelle was captured in that raid and had to go over to David's
side.
"Now I've got four in my tribe," crowed the robber chief. "Get your men
together, Jud, and we'll do it again."
"Where's Sunny Boy?" demanded Juddy, counting his tribe. "He was here--I
saw him climb up the top of the cave. Sunny Boy! Sun-ny!"
No Sunny Boy answered.
"Jimmie, is Sunny Boy down there with you?" Juddy peered over the edge of
the haymow where Jimmie sat mending the harness. Grandpa had gone to the
house, declaring that there was a little too much noise in the barn for
his rheumatism.
"Haven't seen him," answered Jimmie. "Isn't he up there with you?"
Juddy's lip began to quiver. He was only eight years old.
"Then he's lost," he said. "He isn't here at all, Jimmie."
Jimmie dropped his harness and ran up the little ladder that led to the
haymow.
"Nonsense!" he declared sharply. "A boy can't get lost with a roof over
him. Likely enough he's hiding for fun. Sunny! Sunny Boy, where are
you?"
But no Sunny Boy answered. And though Jimmie and the Hatch children
turned over the hay and looked in every corner of the haymow, they could
not find him.
"Shall I go and tell Mr. Horton?" suggested David, who was the oldest of
the Hatch boys.
"Not till we have something to tell," was Jimmie's answer. "Where was he
when you saw him last?"
"Right over in that corner," said Juddy, pointing. "I saw him going over
the top of the cave, an' then I ducked under, and when David got
Dorabelle he just wasn't here."
"He must be here--somewhere," retorted Jimmie impatiently. "I'm going to
look once more--and if he's just hiding, won't I shake him!"
Jimmie climbed over the top of the "robber's cave," as Sunny Boy had
done, and down on the other side. The children heard him scuffling about,
kicking the hay with his feet, and then suddenly he gave a shout.
"You stay where you are till I come back," he called. "You David, and
Juddy, keep the others where they are. I'll bet I've found him."
The Hatch children were fairly dancing to follow Jimmie, but they knew he
meant what he said. They sat down in the hay to wait.
One--two--three--four--five minutes passed. Then Jimmie stepped out on
the barn floor and grinned cheerfully up at the anxious group perched on
the edge of the haymow.
"It's all right," he said. "I've found him. He's out in the old dairy.
Now don't all come down at once--Jud, let the girls come first. Easy
there!"
The Hatch children came tumbling down, eager to see Sunny Boy. Sarah
stopped to pick up the baby, who had slept through all the excitement and
now merely opened two dark eyes, smiled, and went to sleep again. The
Hatch baby was used to being taken about and had the steady habits of an
old traveler.
They found Sunny absorbed in watching a mother duck and her ten little
ducklings who were swimming daintily about in a trough in the dairy.
"Well, where were you?" Juddy pounced on Sunny Boy. "You gave us an awful
scare."
"I've been right here all the time." Sunny was a bit aggrieved to find
such a fuss made over him. First Jimmie and now Juddy. "I haven't been
anywhere," he insisted.
"We thought you were lost!" David frowned at him severely.
"Well, I wasn't," retorted Sunny Boy briefly. "I was watching ducks.
Jimmie, do they sleep in water?"
"What, ducks?" said Jimmie. "Oh, no, they sleep under their mother just
like chickens at night, some place where it is warm and dry. Your
grandmother will be glad you found this duck--she's missed her for two
days. Guess she never thought of looking in the dairy."
This part of the barn had been used for the cows, you see, years before,
when Sunny's father was a little boy and a big herd of fine cows were
kept at Brookside. Now Mrs. Butterball and Butterette were the only cows,
and they lived in a box stall near Peter and Paul.