The horse stopped, but no one answered. It seemed, tired, poor animal, and stood with its head down and winking its eyes to keep the snow out of them.
"Let us ride with you?" said Jimmie b.u.t.terworth politely. "I think some of us are lost."
Sunny Boy moved closer to the wagon. He peered in where the driver should sit. He could not see any one, and he noticed that the reins were tied around the whip handle.
"I don"t believe any one is driving this horse," he said suddenly.
CHAPTER X
WHERE THE HORSE LIVED
Sunny Boy was right. The children stared at each other in surprise and the little girls forgot that their feet were cold. Who ever heard of a horse and wagon without a driver?
"Is he running away?" asked Jessie Smiley.
"Silly, of course he isn"t," retorted Jimmie b.u.t.terworth. "A horse can"t run away in a snowstorm. I tell you what let"s do--let"s get in and drive him home!"
"How do you know where he lives?" said Helen Graham.
"Oh, I guess I can find out," replied Jimmie, though he was wondering how to find the answer to that question.
"Do you know how to drive a horse?" asked Sunny Boy.
"Well I never did, but I think I could," said Jimmie, who was a good-natured boy and quite ready to try any kind of new experiment.
"You know how, don"t you, Sunny Boy?" said Perry Phelps. "You went to see your grandfather in the country, didn"t you? And he has horses and things. You drive us home."
"No," said Sunny Boy, "I don"t know how to drive a horse like this.
Wait a minute, and I"ll think."
The other children waited for him to think. Though he was the youngest in his cla.s.s, they had found out that Sunny Boy was often wiser than they were and that he could be trusted to find a way to do things.
Miss Davis said that Sunny Boy was her "right-hand man."
"My daddy says," announced Sunny Boy, after he had thought a minute, "that horses can go home all by themselves, so I guess this one can.
But if we all got into the wagon, the girls would cry and be afraid he would run away."
"We wouldn"t, either!" said Jessie Smiley crossly.
"Yes you would," Sunny Boy told her. "I think the girls ought to get in the wagon and ride and we"ll stay and walk with the horse. Then he"ll go home and we"ll find out where he lives."
They argued a few minutes about this plan, but as no one could think of a better one, the girls, Helen and Jessie and Dorothy, climbed into the wagon and the four boys trudged along beside the horse who started to walk slowly the minute Sunny Boy called "gid-ap" to him.
He wasn"t a fast horse, and it did seem as though his home must be at the very end of Centronia, for he continued to walk long after the boys were lame and tired from slipping around in the snow. The three little girls were more comfortable, for while the wagon was not warm, the cover kept the snow off them.
"I never saw much a slow horse," grumbled Jessie, putting her head out to see where they were, though it was impossible to tell because the whirling snow hid everything.
"My feet are cold!" cried Dorothy Peters.
"I don"t think this horse lives anywhere," shouted Helen, so that the boys could bear her. "He"s probably going out into the country and we"ll all freeze and Miss May will wonder where we went, and is she does come looking for us, she"ll never find us!"
Sunny Boy patted the horse gently.
"I guess you"re cold, too," he said gently. "I wish I had a blanket for you Mr. Horse. Maybe there is one in the wagon."
He said "whoa" and the horse stopped. Then Sunny Boy climbed into the wagon and felt under the seat. Sure enough there was a blanket.
"What are you going to do with that, Sunny Boy?" asked Helen Graham.
"Put it on the horse," replied Sunny Boy. "I think he must be awfully cold. He"s a pretty tall horse, but I guess Jimmie will help me."
Jimmie helped him and so did Perry and Carleton, and it took them all to get the blanket spread over the horse. They got it on wrong and there was no way to fasten it, so they took turns holding it around the horse"s neck as he walked. Sunny Boy held the blanket in place till his hands were cold, then Jimmie held it while Sunny warmed his hands.
When Jimmie"s hands were cold, Perry held the blanket, and then Carleton. The horse looked surprised at such kindness, but he did not walk any faster. He couldn"t.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sunny Boy held the blanket in place.]
"I guess we"ve walked a hundred miles," said Sunny Boy wearily, when they had trudged through the wind and snow for a long, long time.
Then, as though he had heard, the horse stopped suddenly. He pointed his ears straight ahead and then turned the wagon around so quickly that the girls inside cried out in fright. They thought they were going to be tipped out in the snow. But the horse was walking slowly up a driveway, and now he stopped again and Sunny Boy saw that he stood in front of a barn.
The barn doors were closed and the children heard a horse inside give a loud neigh. Their own horse answered.
"I"ll bet he lives here," said Jimmie b.u.t.terworth.
Sunny Boy waited a minute, and then, as no one opened the barn doors, he looked around for a house. Yes, there was a house; at least there was a chimney showing through the driving snow.
"I"ll go tell the folks the horse is here," he said. "You wait for me." They all wanted to come, but Sunny Boy pointed out that the horse might go off again. So Perry Phelps and Carleton agreed to hold him and keep the blanket on him, while Sunny Boy and Jimmie b.u.t.terworth went to tell the people in the house that their horse had come home.
The two little boys walked out of the drive way and started to go across the field to the house. Sunny Boy was ahead, and suddenly he went into a snowdrift up to his neck!
"Do you suppose it is as deep as that all the way there?" he gasped, when Jimmie helped him out. There was snow inside his rubber boots and down under his coat collar. But Sunny Boy seldom fussed even when he was not quite comfortable.
Luckily, it was not as deep all the way to the house, and after they had walked and stumbled and even run a little, they reached the front door of the farmhouse. Sunny Boy rapped on it, and a woman came in answer to his knock. She held a small child in her arms.
"Why, Sunny Boy!" she cried. "How did you ever get here in weather like this? Where is your mother? Come in quickly, out of the storm."
It was Mrs. Parkney, and Sunny Boy was so surprised that before he could say a word he found himself in the warm kitchen with the seven Parkney children and Mr. and Mrs. Parkney all standing around him and Jimmie.
"Does a horse live here?" was Sunny Boy"s first question. "He"s waiting outside your barn. And the other children are there, too."
Mr. Parkney, who by the way looked strong and well again, soon had everything all straight. He and Bob went out to the barn and put the horse in his stall and brought back the five children. Mrs. Parkney spread a red cloth on the kitchen table, for the kitchen was cozy and warm and no amount of snow from rubber boots and little shoes could harm the linoleum floor, and began to get them something to eat.
"They must be starved, poor lambs," she said, "It is almost three o"clock."
You see, the children had been walking ever since half-past eleven o"clock that morning and had had nothing to eat since their breakfasts.
No wonder they were tired and hungry.