The house was full of smoke, and it made Sunny Boy choke and gasp, but he shut his eyes and felt his way to Miss Davis" room. The smoke was worse in here than in the hall, and his eyes smarted and burned as he crept slowly to the cloakroom. In there there was not so much smoke, and he had no trouble at all in pulling Jessie"s coat down from the hook where it hung, and he found her rubbers on the floor. He stuffed one in each pocket. Then he started back.
His eyes hurt so badly that, brave little boy as he was, he began to cry.
"I can"t breathe!" he sobbed. "I wish I had a drink of water."
"George!" suddenly shouted a big voice in his ear. "Say, George, here he is! I"ve found him!"
Somebody grabbed Sunny Boy up in strong, rough arms and he was carried swiftly through the halls and out to the porch again. The children shouted when they saw him.
"Don"t you know any better than to go into a house that is on fire?"
said a big, rough voice that seemed to belong to the big arms.
Sunny Boy opened his eyes. It was the tall policeman! And before he could speak, with a clang and a whistle and a toot and a great deal of noise and excitement, up came the fire engines to put the fire out.
The tall policeman dipped a clean white handkerchief in water and bathed Sunny Boy"s eyes while another policeman kept the children off the porch. The other policeman was the "George" to whom Sunny Boy"s policeman friend had shouted. They had heard Maria screaming and had run through the alley to see what the matter was. And then George had sent in the alarm of fire while the tall policeman had come to look for Sunny Boy.
"What possessed you to go in there, anyway?" asked the tall policeman, paying no attention to the firemen running past him into the house.
"What made you do it?"
"I had to get Jessie"s coat," explained Sunny Boy. "And her rubbers."
CHAPTER XIV
THE EXPLORERS SET OUT
And that was what Sunny Boy said to every one who asked him why he had gone into the burning school.
"I had to get Jessie"s coat and rubbers," he repeated, when the "George" policeman asked him.
And the big firemen, who soon crowded around him, and Miss May and Miss Davis, who came hurrying home, breathless, for they had seen the crowd around the school the moment they stepped off the trolley car at the corner, were given the same reason.
"Well, next time, you remember that no coat and no rubbers are worth going after when a place is on fire," said one of the firemen, fanning himself with his helmet, for fighting a fire is warm work, you know.
"There is just one thing to risk your life for at a fire," he went on to explain to Sunny Boy and to the other children who crowded around to hear. "Just one thing, and that"s another life. Think you youngsters can remember that?"
Sunny Boy was sure he could, and the firemen began to roll up their chemical hose. They had not even unwound the big hose for, you see, Miss May"s school had not been on fire.
"Not on fire!" cried Maria, when the tall policeman told her this.
"Why, I saw the smoke, and Sunny Boy was almost choked with it. Of course it was on fire!"
"No fire, Miss," said one of the firemen, grinning. "Snow"s been acc.u.mulating on the edge of the chimney for some time, I take it, and this afternoon a chunk fell in and choked the flue. Of course the smoke poured out into the house. And the little fellow thought he was going straight into a blaze. He"s a s.p.u.n.ky little chap, and it was a good chance to tell him, and the other kids, what not to do at a fire.
Next time it might be a serious matter."
The firemen went away, their engines and apparatus making as much noise as when they had been coming to the fire, and by and by the curious crowd that had gathered in the street went away, too. The tall policeman and his friend George helped Miss May and Miss Davis and Maria to put down the windows which had been left up by the firemen to let the smoke out, and then they went away.
"Sunny Boy, are you quite positive you feel all right?" asked Miss May anxiously. "Do your eyes hurt you now? Don"t you want me to walk home with you?"
Sunny Boy said no, thank you, he felt all right and he didn"t need her to walk home with him.
Daddy Horton was home when Sunny Boy came in, for he had left his office early. So he and Mother heard all about the fire before dinner, and though Mother hugged him tightly and declared that he smelled of smoke, she said she was glad her little boy had not been afraid.
"But the fireman was right," said Daddy Horton gravely. "Coats and rubbers are not important enough, Sunny Boy, even if they were trimmed with gold fur, to risk one"s life for. I hope there"ll be no more fires till you are grown up and able to judge for yourself. But if there should be, remember what the fireman said. That will keep you from dashing into a blaze after foolish trifles."
Sunny Boy knew he would not forget, and then he went out into the kitchen and told Harriet about the afternoon"s excitement.
"And we never had the s...o...b..ll fight at all," he said. "All the bullets were made, too. Perhaps we can have it to-morrow."
But the next morning was rainy, and though there was plenty of cold weather through February which followed, not once did it snow again.
There was not even much good skating, though Sunny Boy did enjoy one afternoon with Bob Parkney, who declared that he would soon be a champion skater with his new skates to help him. After that, though, it thawed and froze and thawed and froze and the Centronia Park Commission refused to allow any one on the ice. The children were disappointed in the weather, but Miss May said she was glad to see it rain. She had had enough snow, she said, till another year.
Bob stopped in once a week after school at the Hortons, to get the egg container. He brought Mrs. Horton two dozen fresh eggs every Monday morning from his mother"s poultry yard, and Friday afternoon he came for the box. Mrs. Parkney was so busy and happy now that she had almost forgotten she had ever been discouraged. Judge Layton had put the farmhouse in good order for her family, and he had stocked the poultry yard with fine chickens. He said that if Mrs. Parkney would feed the chickens and look after them till he came out in the summer, she might have the eggs to do with as she pleased. The Parkney children had all the fresh eggs to eat they wanted and there were several dozen to sell every week, and Mrs. Parkney said she felt rich with the egg money for her own.
Mr. Parkney"s arm gradually grew stronger, and he was proving such a handy man on the little farm, so willing and so capable, that Judge Layton told Mrs. Horton that he was thinking of building a new house and asking Mr. Parkney to go on living in the farmhouse and to be his farm manager.
"He"s going to paint the house and the barns for me this spring and whitewash all the fences," said the judge. "There isn"t anything that man can"t do."
"Spring is on the way," announced Daddy Horton, one evening early in March. "I see they are having freshets out in Yardley county."
"What is a freshet?" asked Sunny Boy.
"A freshet, Son, is when a stream rises suddenly and overflows its natural course," explained his daddy. "In spring, freshets are often caused by the ice and snow melting too rapidly and draining down into the brooks and rivers. Then the stream rises, and if the banks are narrow, it overflowers [Transcriber"s note: overflows?] them and sometimes great damage is done. A big river may sweep away houses and cattle and send people scurrying about in boats and rafts. Centronia is not near a river, though, so it isn"t likely that you"ll see a freshet soon."
The news of the freshets was not the only sign of spring. At school, Miss Davis had a large blue jar filled with beautiful p.u.s.s.y willows on her desk, and the nature study lessons were all about the spring birds.
When Bob Parkney brought Mrs. Horton her fresh eggs, he also brought her some budded twigs which he said would blossom if she put them in water.
"My, it"s nice out in the country now," said Bob. "Why can"t Sunny Boy come out and see us, Mrs. Horton? Ma was saying yesterday she"d like to have him come any time. He"s never really seen the place, and Judge Layton is fixing it up fine. Can"t he come next Sat.u.r.day? I"d meet him at the trolley station."
"I"ll tell you, Bob, what Sunny Boy has been teasing to be allowed to do," replied Mrs. Horton. "He and half a dozen of the boys he plays with want to take their lunches and spend a day exploring. Mr. Horton and I have suggested that they wait till it is warmer, but I am afraid they can"t wait contentedly much longer, and your suggestion has really solved the problem for me."
"Oh, Mother!" cried Sunny Boy, who had been listening eagerly. "Next Sat.u.r.day, Mother? Please!"
Mrs. Horton laughed as she put her twigs in a vase of water.
"You see how it is, don"t you, Bob?" she said. "Well, Mr. Horton and I are not willing to have Sunny Boy go to a strange place. But if your mother is willing to let them come out where you are, they can play around and have a beautiful time. They"ll bring their own lunches, and she musn"t let them track mud on her clean kitchen floor. Indeed, they"ll be too busy with all outdoors, to think much about coming in the house, I suppose. But you and your father will be there, to keep an eye on them, and I shall feel so much easier. Some one will put them on the trolley car here in the morning, and if you will meet them at the corner of your lane and see that they are put on the half past four car in the afternoon, every mother will be much obliged to you."
Bob grinned and said he would "tell Ma," and the next morning he stopped on his way to school to say that the Parkneys would be expecting Sunny Boy and his friends the next Sat.u.r.day morning.
"And tell them to wear their rubber boots, Mrs. Horton," he said earnestly. "Such mud you never saw! Ma keeps a broom at the back door, and she won"t let us come in till we change our shoes. She hands us out clean ones. But of course it is always soft when the frost is coming out of the ground."
Sunny Boy could hardly wait till Sat.u.r.day. He and Oliver Dunlap were the ones who had teased to be allowed to go on an "exploring" trip in the country. At first they had planned to go together, without any one else, but as soon as the other boys heard of the scheme, they wanted to go, too. Nelson Baker heard about the plan, and he asked if he could go. Nelson did not see much of Sunny Boy on school days because, of course, he went to the public school and did not get home till three o"clock in the afternoon. But he and Sunny Boy were good friends, and Sunny was glad to have him go exploring with the rest.
"Bring me some p.u.s.s.y willows, if you find them," said Miss Davis, when she heard what they were planning to do. "Miss May wants some p.u.s.s.y willows to root in water and then she will plant them in the yard and perhaps they will grow." Sunny Boy promised to bring back p.u.s.s.y willows, if they found any.
Friday came at last, and that meant he could leave his rubber boots beside his bed where he could see them the first thing in the morning.
Somehow, Sunny Boy never felt that he was going on a long trip till he saw the big trunk standing in the hall, waiting to be packed, and he never felt that he was going on a little trip till he could put the things he was to wear in neat piles ready to hop into.