Ramy Allison White

“ Nelson looked up from straightening out the tangle of string.
“Did you sleep on the train going to your grandpa’s?” he asked. “We have to stay two nights, an’ eat and sleep an’ everything on the train before we get to my grandma’s.”
Sunny Boy, stretched full length in his express wagon, kicked his heels excitedly.
“We ate on the train,” he said eagerly. “But—what you think?—we’re going to Nestle Cove in Daddy’s new automobile!” ”

“ The dog lay and panted, her red tongue hanging out, too warm and uncomfortable to do more than feebly wag her tail when one of the children patted her.
The ocean was crowded with bathers, trying to get cool, and Aunt Bessie, Miss Martinson, and Sunny’s mother came up to them presently, their bathing suits dripping. ”

“ Horton slowed down the car in surprise.
“That” was a merry-go-round on a vacant lot next to a brown frame building marked “Post-office.” The organ was playing merrily and the children on the prancing animals waved gayly to Sunny Boy as they spun round. A crowd of youngsters, tickets in hand, stood awaiting their turn.
“Let’s go on it,” suggested Sunny.
“Not this afternoon,” replied his father. “You see, I think we really should get to where we are going first, don’t you? I understand the ice is likely to melt and drown the whole house if we don’t hurry.” ”

“ Horton stopped the car, and beckoned to the Baker children.
“Hop in,” he said pleasantly. “I have to go over to Aunt Bessie’s apartment and you might as well have the little ride. I’ll tell your mother where we’re going. Wait for me.”
He went on into the house, and Ruth and Nelson scrambled into the back of the automobile.
“Isn’t it hot?” said Nelson. “I’ll bet there’s a thunderstorm this afternoon. Don’t scratch the paint, Ruth.”
“I’m not!” retorted Ruth indignantly. “Let me ride up in front, Sunny?”
“Don’t you let her,” urged Nelson. “You always want to do whatever you see any one else do. ”

“ Horton and Aunt Bessie decided to stay under the umbrellas and knit, and Ellen and Ralph had an errand to do in the town for their mother. So Sunny Boy and Daddy raced each other up to the bungalow and found their bathing suits neatly spread out for them in the built-in bathing houses next to the side porch.
“Can you swim, Daddy?” Sunny Boy asked, struggling with his jersey.
“Yes, indeed,” was the cheerful answer. “You’ll learn this summer, too. I want to teach Mother to drive the car, so I can leave it down here sometimes; and I want to teach you to swim.” ”

“ Daddy bent down and kissed Sunny Boy. “If you wake up first, come in and call me.”
When Sunny Boy opened his eyes it was to find the sun streaming in the windows and to hear the locusts singing away for dear life. He got softly out of bed, tucked the woolly dog under his arm, and paddled into Daddy and Mother’s room. It was empty.
“Well, well, here he is!” There stood Daddy in the doorway behind him. “Breakfast’s almost ready, and we need a certain young man to help us with the sliced peaches and cream, to say nothing of the brown toast Mother’s made for us. ”

“ Usually they put these away in lockers under the pier, but Stephen’s quick eyes had seen a rake left out to-day and thrust carelessly under the piling. The two life-savers were far out beyond the breakers now, in a rowboat, watching the bathers.
“I got it!” Ellen came racing back with the rake. “Let me rake Sunny out, Stephen.”
“You’re too little. Let go,” said Stephen. He began to claw at the sand fort vigorously.
“Here come Mother and Mrs. Horton,” announced Ellen, just as Stephen and Ralph together succeeded in uncovering Sunny Boy. ”

“ Horton. “Where were you? Aren’t you hungry? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“We’ve brought real seashore appetites to breakfast,” answered Mr. Horton. “Sunny Boy and I just went on a scouting trip. We’ve found the bathing beach, and made the acquaintance of Ellen. Sunny, have you said good morning to Miss Martinson?”
“Do you know,” said that little lady, smiling warmly at Sunny Boy, “I think it would be ever so nice if Sunny Boy would call me Aunt Betty. I haven’t a single nephew in this wide world—just two nieces. ‘Miss Martinson’ is such a long name to remember.” ”

“ But towing your boat on a warm summer’s day when you have your bathing suit on and are not afraid of getting wet, is great fun.
“If there was any wind, I guess your boat could beat mine,” conceded Ralph generously. “But if we can’t sail ’em, let’s play taking fishing parties out.”
“How?” asked Sunny Boy practically.
“Well, we have to have some people—make-believe, of course,” answered Ralph. “An’ then we ought to have something to eat.”
“Ellen’s paper dolls would do for people,” said Sunny Boy. “We’ll ask her if she’ll go an’ get ’em. And I’ll go and ask Harriet for something to eat.” ”

“ Horton coming around the corner.
Sunny Boy ran to meet him.
“Did you walk?” he asked disappointedly. “Where’s the automobile? Did you scold the laundry-wagon boy?”
“I put the automobile to bed,” answered Daddy, waving to Mother. “This fall, perhaps, we can build a garage out back of the house. I’ll see. But just now a man named Mr. Taggart has to keep the car at night for us. Did you help Mother?”
“Indeed he did!” Mrs. Horton held open the screen door for them to go in. “I haven’t missed Harriet at all.” ”

“ Nelson gathered up his string obediently and trotted through the gate. Ruth slipped her hand into her mother’s and followed him. Left alone, Sunny Boy wiggled to a more comfortable position in his wagon and gave himself up to pleasant thoughts of the coming trip.
“Look here, Sunny Boy, your brains will be absolutely baked!” Aunt Bessie descended on him from the back porch. “My dear child, this yard is the warmest place in the city in the morning. Your mother asked me to see what you were doing. Why don’t you go out in front and play where it is shady?” ”

“ We’re almost at Nestle Cove. Sit up, and smell the salt in the air,” said Mrs. Horton.
Sunny Boy rubbed his eyes. He had been asleep.
“Harry,” Mrs. Horton leaned forward, and touched her husband’s arm. “There’s a little inn; couldn’t we stop there a minute? We’d like to look half-way presentable when we go through the town. Every one will be out on the porches, you know.”
“And my hair’s a sight,” declared Aunt Bessie positively.
“I would like to wash my face,” announced Miss Martinson. ”

“ David Spellman had said doubtfully, when Sunny Boy first organized his army.
“Well, I’m going to play mine,” Sunny Boy had retorted firmly. “Daddy says when you’re short of help a man has to do two people’s work. I can play my drum and be general, too.” ”

“ Mother assured him, giving him a bear hug, “you help me every minute of the day, whether Harriet is here or not. And when you’re a man I won’t be any more proud of you than I am right now.”
They went upstairs, Mrs. Horton to darn the neglected socks, and Sunny to watch for Daddy and the new car. ”

“ MAKING NEW FRIENDS “See how wet I am, Mother?” Sunny Boy danced up and down before the big umbrella.
“You certainly are!” Mrs. Horton agreed with him. “And it seems to me you’d better run along and get dressed. There comes Aunt Betty—she’s looking for us. Wave your hand, Sunny Boy. And now we’ll all go up to the house; it must be getting near lunch-time.”
Sunny and Daddy were both dressed and “starving to death” they told each other, fifteen minutes before Harriet rang the gong.
“Wasn’t the water fine this morning?” asked Miss Martinson, at the lunch table. ”

“ My son brought him to me from France. Is he very tiny, with a sharp little black nose and slim feet? I thought so! Why you don’t know how glad I am! And to think you’ve been taking such wonderful care of him all this time!” The white-haired lady threw her arms around Sunny Boy and hugged him tightly.
“There he is now,” said the chauffeur, stopping the car before the Horton bungalow.
Curly, or Bon-Bon as the lady called him, sat on the top step of the porch, watching them. ”

“ And then those grown-ups had to laugh.
“That settles it,” announced Mr. Horton. “We’ll keep as close to the beach as we can; and we’ll take the field glasses, and perhaps we can sight a coast steamer.”
As soon as they were through lunch Mr. Horton brought the car around, and Mrs. Horton, Aunt Bessie and Aunt Betty and Sunny Boy got in, only this time Sunny rode in the back. Mrs. Horton wanted to learn to drive herself, and she meant to watch her husband and see what he did. ”

“ And I can’t drive the car, ’cause nobody will teach me. An’ you sew all the time and don’t ’muse me at all!”
Sunny Boy felt so sorry for himself that two big tears ran out of his blue eyes and splashed down on Curly, asleep in his lap.
“Why Arthur Horton!” Mother’s voice was gentle. “That doesn’t sound like my little Sunny Boy. Who ever heard of amusing a laddie with a dog to romp with and the whole beautiful seashore for a playground? You and Curly run down to the beach now, and see if you can’t find some more of those shells Aunt Bessie is saving to make into souvenirs. ”

“ Every summer she’s down on the beach all day, playing.”
“But dogs get hungry,” protested Sunny. “An’ where can she sleep?”
“She sleeps most anywhere,” said Ellen, who was spending her third summer in Nestle Cove and really knew Queen very well indeed. “Sometimes she sleeps on our front [Pg 117] porch. And my mother always feeds her if she acts hungry. All the people in the cottages know Queen.”
“Here’s a shell for you, Sunny,” announced Ralph, who had been running up the beach looking for one. “Let’s start the fort right here in this corner. ”

“ Horton, who caught up to them as they were examining the ship. “You’re lucky, Sunny Boy; Mother can make you a new set of sails and your boat will be all right and as good as ever. Ever so many ships are hopelessly wrecked by being driven on the beach.” ”

“ Sunny Boy introduced his new friends politely, though they had to tell him their last names.
“Ellen and Ralph Gray,” repeated Mrs. Horton. “Then I think you must be the little folk who live in the white house on the street next but one to ours. I met your mother in the embroidery store this morning when I was matching some wool. It is nice you live so near Sunny Boy.”
“Is the water cold? Aren’t you lazy people going in?” asked Aunt Betty, dancing [Pg 101] before them in her pretty black and white bathing suit. ”

“ I’ll sit right here and keep a look-out for Mother so she won’t miss us.”
“Yes, that would be fun,” agreed Ellen. “Come on, Sunny.”
“All right,” responded Sunny Boy briefly. “Are you going to play, Ralph?”
“Course. I like to build in the sand.”
The three children set to work to build a fort, and as Sunny Boy could go down and scoop up water in Ellen’s pail, they had plenty of damp sand to make the walls shape well. They made an elaborate fort with five gates and a high wall, and they were molding soldiers for it when Mrs. Horton and Aunt Bessie came and found them. ”

“ Mr. Horton said, when his family [Pg 109] were sitting down properly in their places again. You know how every one stands up and tilts his head backward to watch an airplane.
That was the end of adventures for that afternoon, though they drove several miles further along the road that followed the line of the beach closely. They got back to the bungalow just in time to freshen up a little before Harriet announced that dinner was ready.
“What are we going to do to-night?” Sunny Boy asked pleasantly, playing that a piece of bread was a fish and his spoon a net.
Daddy laughed. ”

“ It was an expression he had learned from the red-haired Araminta.
Goodness knows what might have happened if they had had to turn a corner, or if the rope hadn’t broken. But break it did, and Sunny Boy and the laundry wagon parted company just as they came opposite to a vacant lot. Sunny’s wagon shot off to one side and, as there was no pavement and no curbing, the wagon kept going until it brought up in a clump of elderberry bushes.
“Hurt you, kid?” and a man who had seen him came running across the street. “That’s a mighty dangerous way to play, and the littler you are the worse it is. ”

“ To know the six little Bunkers is to take them at once to your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun. Each story has a little plot of its own—one that can be easily followed—and all are written in Miss Hope’s most entertaining manner. ”

“ Sunny Boy ran down again to the beach and had time to help Ellen and Ralph build a schoolhouse in the sand before Mrs. Horton and the two aunts—for Aunt Betty had not stayed in the water many minutes after Sunny Boy came out—gathered up their magazines and sewing and started back to the bungalow for lunch.
“Sunny Boy,” said Mother at the table—and, by the way, Sunny Boy sat in Daddy’s place when he wasn’t there and tried his best to behave as the man of the house should—“if you take a nap this afternoon, you may [Pg 128] sit up to-night for a couple of hours and go with us down on the beach.” ”

“ The house had been shut all the time they were staying at Grandpa Horton’s, and as they were only going to be home two days before going to the seashore Mrs. Horton said it was not worth while to unwrap or unpack anything.
“Now we’ll wash the dishes,” declared Mother, when they had finished their lunch. “Then I’ll go upstairs and darn socks while you watch at the window for Daddy. Poor [Pg 29] Daddy! No one mended his socks for him while we were gone.”
Sunny Boy helped Mother carry the milk and the butter back to the ice-box, and dried the dishes as she washed them. ”

“ HELPING HERE AND THERE Daddy and Sunny Boy found Aunt Bessie and Miss Martinson very glad to see them. Aunt Bessie was packing, Miss Martinson washing some cut glass to be put away, and Harriet in the kitchen, as usual, was making something good to eat.
“Don’t you want to stay with me, lambie?” Aunt Bessie asked Sunny. “You may play the piano-player all day, if you like. And sleep to-night on the funny couch that opens when you press a button, and Daddy and Mother and the car will come and get us in the morning. Will you?” ”