He is a stranger here in Centronia, and we should have tried to be extra kind to him. You shouldn"t have said that about Jerry being a donkey, Perry," she added, turning to Perry Phelps. "You must have hurt his feelings."
Miss May often said that Perry had the best manners of any boy in her school. He did not laugh now, but he came up to Mrs. Dunlap and said he was sorry he had asked his cousin if he were a donkey.
"I should think he could take a joke," he said. "He"s ten years old.
But I"m sorry, Mrs. Dunlap, and Mother will be, too, that Jerry left your party like this. And I hope you"ll "scuse him banging your front door."
Perry Phelps" mother did not allow him to bang doors. If he forgot and slammed one, he had to come back and open and close it softly five times. This helped him to remember.
"Well, I"m sorry our party is spoiled for Jerry," sighed Mrs. Dunlap.
"But we"ll go out into the dining-room and have supper now. Jennie Rice wins the prize for pinning the donkey"s tail nearer to the right place than any other child, so she gets the first prize. Sunny Boy, of course, gets the consolation prize. Give them the prizes, Oliver, dear."
Oliver handed Jennie a tiny silver donkey on a pretty red ribbon, to wear around her neck. She was delighted and put it right on. Sunny Boy"s prize was a gray donkey whose head came off and whose body was filled with small gumdrops. He thought it was a very nice prize.
They had a beautiful time at the supper table, and poor Jerry was hardly missed. They had chicken sandwiches and cocoa with whipped cream. Then came vanilla and chocolate ice cream. And there was a large slice of the white-frosted birthday cake, which Oliver himself cut, for each child.
After supper they played a few more games, and then it was time to go home. Mrs. Dunlap was almost smothered by the little girls who all tried to kiss her at once and tell her they had had the nicest time at Oliver"s party. Nearly every one said-good-bye to Oliver and his mother and started down the steps at the same time.
At the first corner every one but the Baker children and Sunny Boy went a different way. They could walk home together, and that was why Mrs.
Horton had said that Harriet need not come for Sunny Boy.
As they were pa.s.sing a house some one tapped on the window. Nelson and Ruth"s aunt lived there, and she had been waiting to see them pa.s.s.
"Your mother telephoned me you went to Oliver Dunlap"s party and would go by our house on your way home," said Aunt Edith, coming out on the steps, with a coat thrown over her shoulders. "I asked her to let you stay and visit us till eight o"clock this evening. Then I"ll take you home. The cat has a basketful of new kittens for you to play with, Ruth."
"May Sunny Boy stay, too, please?" asked Ruth.
"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Tyler, who was Ruth"s Aunt Edith. "Of course, he may. I will telephone to his mother so that she will not worry about him."
"No, thank you. I have to go home," Sunny Boy said shyly. "I said I would come right home. And I want to tell Mother about the party."
"All right, dear, just as you please," said Mrs. Tyler kindly. "You are sure, Sunny Boy, you don"t mind going the rest of the way alone?"
Sunny Boy replied that he did not mind, and Nelson and Ruth went into the house, while he trudged off down the street by himself. Presently he chuckled.
"Didn"t Jerry look funny?" snickered Sunny Boy. "I wonder what made me pin the donkey"s tail on him."
"Where do you think you"re going so fast?" cried Jerry, stepping out from behind a barrel where he had been hiding.
"h.e.l.lo!" said Sunny Boy, surprised to see him. "I"m going home. The party is all done. You missed it--we had two kinds of ice cream."
"I hope you"re happy, spoiling my afternoon and making everybody laugh at me," scolded Jerry Mullet. "You"re a nice kind of boy. Do you know what I"m going to do to you?"
"No, I don"t," said Sunny Boy, trying to walk past him. "Let me be. I told my mother I"d come home and not stop to play on the way."
"This isn"t playing," growled Jerry disagreeably. "You can"t go till I say you can. Are you sorry you made everybody laugh at me?"
"I told you I was sorry I pinned the tail on you," answered Sunny Boy.
"I can"t help it if they did laugh. And you did look funny."
"Well, you think so now, but you won"t long," Jerry said. "I"m going to wash your face in that snow and then you"ll look funny yourself."
He pointed to some dirty snow that was banked in the gutter.
"You let me alone," cried Sunny Boy, trying to run past Jerry. "I won"t let you wash my face. Go away, Jerry Mullet!"
Jerry reached out his hand to s.n.a.t.c.h Sunny Boy"s coat, but, before he could touch him, down came a shower of snow that struck Jerry on the back of his neck and made him shut his eyes.
"Hey, you!" called a deep, hoa.r.s.e voice. "Why don"t you pick on boys your own size! That kid isn"t half as big as you are!"
Jerry and Sunny Boy looked up. The voice came from the roof of a piazza that overhung the sidewalk. A big man in blue overalls and a red flannel undershirt, and wearing no overcoat, was shoveling the snow off the roof. He had heard Jerry scolding Sunny Boy and had seen him trying to grab him.
"The likes of you, thinking to pick a fight with a little feller like that!" said the man, scooping up another shovelful of snow as he talked. "Why, if you were my boy, bread and water for a week would be too good for you. Take that, you little bully!" And down came another shower of snow on the surprised Jerry.
"Run, kid, run!" shouted the man to Sunny Boy. "Let"s see how well you can run. I"ll look after this tormenting one."
Sunny Boy took one look at Jerry sputtering in the snow, and then turned and ran. He ran as fast as he could, and he never stopped till he landed on his own doorstep and rang the bell. When Harriet came to the door he was so out of breath that, for several minutes, he couldn"t tell her what had happened. And then, of course, before he could make her understand about Jerry, he had to tell all about the party.
Daddy and Mother Horton had to hear about the party, too. And they said that they would rather have a little boy for their son who behaved as Sunny Boy had than a boy who acted the way Jerry Mullet did.
"But no one likes to be laughed at, and we won"t be too hard on Jerry,"
said Mother Horton, as she helped Sunny Boy get ready for bed. "Shall I put your donkey prize up here on the mantel shelf for you, Sunny Boy?"
Sunny Boy remembered her putting his donkey on the shelf for him, but he did not remember seeing the donkey climb down again. Yet the next time he looked at the shelf the donkey wasn"t there. Then he saw it sitting on the foot of his bed, laughing. The donkey laughed so hard and opened his mouth so very wide that Sunny Boy could see the gumdrops down inside him.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed the donkey. "Didn"t Jerry look funny? Ha! Ha!"
"Mother says we mustn"t laugh at him any more," Sunny Boy told the donkey. "You"ll hurt his feelings."
But the donkey only laughed harder, and Sunny Boy began to laugh, too, and he woke up laughing to find that it was morning and that he had been dreaming about the donkey.
Sunny Boy saw Perry Phelps in Sunday school that afternoon, but Jerry had not come with him.
"Jerry is so cross!" declared Perry. "He hardly speaks to me, and I"m glad he is going home to-morrow."
And Monday, when Perry came to school, he announced that his cousin had gone home. He lived in a city fifty miles from Centronia and did not visit Perry very often.
"My father said it might snow to-day," said Oliver Dunlap, who seemed to feel very happy and gay after his party. "And if it does, let"s have a s...o...b..ll fight, shall we?"
Oliver had brought Miss Davis "some of the party" in a pretty paper napkin, and she said he was a very thoughtful boy and she was sure every one had had a good time Sat.u.r.day afternoon.
All the boys were willing to have a s...o...b..ll fight, and when a few flakes of snow began to fall at recess time, Oliver shouted that now there would be enough snow for the "bullets and things."
"Let me be on your side, Oliver?" asked Helen Graham coaxingly.
"On my side?" repeated Oliver. "There aren"t going to be any girls in this s...o...b..ll fight. This is just us boys."
"I think you"re mean!" cried Helen. "And I will, too, be on your side.
If you don"t let us girls in the s...o...b..ll fight, I"ll go to Miss May and tell her we want the back lot to play in after school. So there!"