"Yes, "millions and dozens,"" she echoed, laughing, and closed the grocery store door.
The grocer"s boy was coming down the steps, and he laughed, too.
"Millions and dozens of what?" he demanded, stopping before Sunny Boy.
"Apples, at my grandpa"s farm."
The grocer boy had a basket on his arm and he wore a white coat. He looked very clean and cheerful. Sunny Boy had a sudden idea.
"If you"re going up to our house, could I hang on back of your wheel?" he said. "I can skate pretty well if I have some one to steer with."
"I don"t think Harriet would like it," was the grocer boy"s reply. He knew Sunny Boy and Harriet because he often came to their house to bring good things to eat. "I"ll tell you, Sunny Boy--you wait till you come back from this visit, and then I"ll take you. Or perhaps after you"ve eaten the millions and dozens of apples you won"t have to hang on to any one--you"ll be big and strong and able to skate by yourself."
Sunny Boy watched him ride merrily off on his bicycle. Still Harriet didn"t come. Sunny suspected there must be a good many people waiting in the store. He might skate down to the corner and back before she had bought all the things on Mother"s list.
It was all very well for the first few yards, because there was a convenient iron railing to cling to, and Sunny Boy found himself skating very easily. But the iron railing ended in a stone stoop, and after that there seemed to be nothing but miles and miles of pavement without even a friendly tree to cling to. Sunny Boy"s feet began to behave queerly. One went much faster than the other and in an entirely different direction, and he had an idea he"d have to wear those skates the rest of his life because he didn"t see how he was ever going to stop to take them off.
Suddenly he found himself headed for an area-way and a flight of stone steps. He clutched desperately at the cellar window, shot past, and down the steps--bing! into a huge basket of clothes a fat colored woman was bringing up. She was as wide as the basket and the basket took up about all the area-way.
"Land sakes, chile!" she said, as Sunny Boy landed on top of her basket.
"Where you goin"?"
"Skating," said Sunny Boy concisely, glad to find that he wasn"t hurt.
The colored woman laughed, a deep, rich, happy laugh.
"You doan seem to be jest sure," she told him. "Stay where you is an"
I"ll carry you on up."
She did, too, and started him on his uncertain way down the street. In a few minutes his feet began to act strangely again, this time sending him in the general direction of the gutter.
"I spect I"d better go back," said Sunny Boy to himself. But he couldn"t turn around.
Then up the street came a familiar gray-uniformed figure. It was the postman, the same merry, kind postman who brought letters to Sunny Boy"s house and for whom Harriet was careful to have the number on the front door bright and shining.
"Stop me!" cried Sunny Boy, wobbling more wildly.
"Right--O!" agreed the postman, and proceeded to stop him by letting Sunny Boy skate right into him and his mail bag.
"And that"s all right," said the cheerful postman, blowing his whistle and slipping some letters into a mail-box in a doorway as if nothing had happened. "Don"t you want to skate back with me?"
Sunny Boy, seated on a handy doorstep, was unbuckling the skate straps.
He looked up and smiled.
"Thank you very much, but Harriet"s waiting for me," he answered politely. "An" I have to carry my skates, "cause she won"t let me hold the eggs "less I walk."
CHAPTER III
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 gra.s.s. 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 a.s.sured 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."