Ramy Allison White

“ Sunny considered this gravely.
“I might be a farmer,” he admitted. “Only I think I would rather be a postman. Could I, Jimmie?”
“Of course,” encouraged Jimmie. “Nothing to stop you. And if, when you grow up, you find you would rather be something else, why, there’s no harm done. I’ve heard that your father wanted to drive a hansom cab for a life job when he was your age. And now, instead, he drives his own automobile.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ His mind was full of the coming visit.
“No,” admitted Harriet. “I never lived on a farm. But I’ve often visited people who did. You’ll like it. There’ll be brooks to wade in, and little calves and lambs to play with, and chickens and ducks. And you can play outdoors all day long.”
“When it rains?” asked Sunny Boy.
“When it rains there’ll be the barn and the haymow,” answered Harriet. “And now here’s Mr. Gray’s. You’d better wait out here for me and not try to clatter in with those skates.”
Sunny Boy saw a basket of apples in the window.
“Will you bring me an apple, Harriet?” he teased. ”

“ Araminta had reproved him the first time she heard him.
“But you say it,” argued Sunny Boy.
“Well, that’s no reason why you should,” retorted Araminta, who, like many grown-ups, did not always practice what she preached. “Anyway, I’m going to stop saying it when I’m fifteen.”
“Maybe I will, too,” promised Sunny Boy blithely. ”

“ Will my drum be like that?”
“No, precious,” answered Mother, snipping around the edges of the court-plaster with the fascinating sharp shears Sunny Boy was forbidden to touch. “A drum, you know, isn’t like a person’s skin. It can’t 18 grow. But I think that if you remember to be careful the drum will last a long time. There you are. My goodness! it makes as much noise as ever, doesn’t it?” and Mrs. Horton covered her ears and laughed as Sunny Boy beat merrily on his mended drum. ”

“ He resolved to ask Daddy. While he was wondering if there would be a piano in the parlor car—and he rather hoped there would and that he might be allowed to play on it—Sunny Boy fell asleep. Harriet, coming upstairs with a pile of clean clothes, woke him.
“Is it three o’clock?” he asked, afraid that he had missed the trunk man.
“Only half-past two,” answered Harriet. “Your mother will be back any minute now to lock the trunk. You can dress yourself, can’t you? I’ve another tablecloth to iron yet.” ”

“ Expecting to be gone a long time, he took an apple from the basket on the dining-room table and two bananas. Bruce, lying on the back door mat, decided to go with him, but Bruce was beginning to get the least little bit fat and old, and when he had followed Sunny as far as the brook pasture and saw that he had no intention of stopping to rest under the trees, that wise collie dog turned and went back to the house.
“Hey, there! Where are you going this hot day?” Jimmie, setting out tomato plants in a side field, shouted to him.
Sunny Boy waved his hand and plodded on. ”

“ If there was one thing Sunny Boy loved to do, it was to be allowed to watch his grandma bake pies. He could ask a hundred questions and always be sure of an answer, he could taste the contents of every one of the row of little brown spice boxes, and, best of all, there was a special little pie baked for him in a saucer that he could eat the minute it was baked and cool. No wonder Sunny Boy kissed Mother contentedly 160 and watched her drive away with Grandpa for a little shopping in town. He, Sunny Boy, was going to help Grandma bake apple pies. ”

“ If you have ever tried to argue with a duck you will know that it does no good to tell her where she should go—ducks are like some people, they like to have their own way. This mother duck had made up her mind that she was going to take her family down to the brook, and Sunny Boy had to race up and down the orchard and “shoo” her from behind trees and be patient a long time before he could get her started in the direction of the chicken yard. ”

“ Jimmie dropped his harness and ran up the little ladder that led to the haymow.
“Nonsense!” he declared sharply. “A boy can’t get lost with a roof over him. Likely enough he’s hiding for fun. Sunny! Sunny Boy, where are you?” 148
But no Sunny Boy answered. And though Jimmie and the Hatch children turned over the hay and looked in every corner of the haymow, they could not find him.
“Shall I go and tell Mr. Horton?” suggested David, who was the oldest of the Hatch boys. ”

“ They would be all night on the train. Sunny Boy was a bit disappointed that he must get off at Cloverways, the nearest station to Grandpa’s farm, for he had never stayed all night on a train in his life. He hurried back to Mother to tell her of the fortunate family who were to spend the night on the train.
“That poor woman!” Mother, to his astonishment, exclaimed. “She’ll be worn out before she gets all those children safely somewhere. Think of sitting up all night with that fretful baby! ”

“ Sunny Boy dabbled his feet in a little hole made by a stone he had pushed away.
“Sunny Boy!” called Mr. Horton once again.
Still Sunny Boy continued to play in the water. To tell the truth every one had been so anxious to make him happy at Brookside that he was the least little bit in the world spoiled. The more you have your own way, you know, the harder it is to do other people’s way, and if you can do as you please day after day, by and by you want to do as you please all the time. Sunny Boy felt like that now. 142
“Sunny!” said Daddy a third time, very quietly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Grandpa pushed back his chair.
“I think we’d better start,” he observed, “before a certain young man goes out of the window. If you’re as glad as all this to think that Daddy’s coming, what are you going to do when you really see him?”
But Sunny Boy was already out of the room and down at the gate where Jimmie 127 stood holding Peter and Paul already harnessed to the carryall.
“Let me feed ’em sugar,” teased Sunny Boy. “Hold me up, Jimmie, I’m not ’fraid of their teeth now.”
“You pile in,” said Jimmie good-naturedly. “If you’re going to meet that train, you want to start in a few minutes. ”

“ A good sportsman doesn’t growl even if he spends a whole day and doesn’t catch one fish. We’ll be good sports, shan’t we?”
“Yes,” agreed Sunny Boy. “But I would rather catch a fish.”
Daddy laughed and began to whistle.
“Do you know Jimmie?” said Sunny Boy, running to keep up with him. “Do you know Jimmie and Mr. Sites and Araminta and David and Raymond and Juddy and Fred and Sarah and Dorabelle? Do you, Daddy?”
“I went to school with a boy named Jaspar 132 Sites,” Daddy stopped whistling to answer. “Guess he’s the same. Araminta helps Grandma—I know her, and Jimmie I’ve met before. ”

“ Sunny Boy was thrilled at the thought of riding in that orange dragon of an automobile. Mother and Daddy had friends who often took them motoring pleasant afternoons, and sometimes Sunny Boy went with them. But every one knows that is different from having a gay colored car roll up to your front door and wait especially for you.
The young man who drove the car opened the door with a flourish and helped Mrs. Horton in. Then he turned to lift Sunny Boy, but that young person hung back. ”

“ When you grow up, try to be more careful than your grandfather.”
Sunny Boy slipped a warm little hand into Grandpa’s.
“I made a kite—with papers,” he confessed bravely. “Not Lib’ty Bonds, Grandpa, just papers on top of your desk. I was ’musing myself, and I had to have a kite.”
“I see,” said Grandpa slowly, and not a bit crossly. “What color paper, dear? White?”
“No, brown,” replied Sunny Boy eagerly, sure now that he had not taken the missing bonds. “Just brown, Grandpa, and two old letters.” ”

“ His real name, of course, was not Sunny Boy—oh, no, he was named for his grandpa, and when the postman brought him an invitation to a birthday party you might see it written out—Arthur Bradford Horton.
But birthday parties happen only once in a while, and Daddy and Mother called him Sunny Boy because he was nearly always cheerful. As Mother explained, you can’t depend on a party happening to cheer you 13 up, so to know a little boy who is sure to smile every day—well, that is worth while. ”

“ Sunny nodded. 139
“She’s sewing a bag for Aunt Bessie,” he confided, “and Grandma is getting ready, too. But I think Christmas is about a year off, Daddy.”
“Not a year—about five months,” corrected Daddy. “That seems like a long time to you. But Mother likes to start early and make many of her presents. And a very good way it is, too. Well, Sunny Boy, I once heard Mother say that she would like to try making an indoor garden for some of her friends who live in apartments and have no gardens of their own. Only, Mother said, she must experiment first and find out what would grow best.” ”

“ Grandma did not call it lunch—they had dinner and supper on the farm.
Sunny Boy had a queer little feeling all the while he was eating and he was so quiet that his mother thought perhaps he was still tired from his tumble into the brook. He went out with Araminta afterward to see the chicken yard, and he almost, but not quite, forgot the queer feeling in watching the 94 hundreds of white chickens and white ducks busily scratching in the yard and drinking water “upside down,” as he told Grandpa that night. A chicken, you know, doesn’t drink water as you do, but differently. ”

“ His shrill little voice was the first thing Mr. 128 Horton heard, for the train had beaten them to the station after all, and as the carriage turned the corner of the street a familiar figure stood on the platform waving to them. Grandpa had to keep one hand on his grandson to prevent him from falling out over the wheels.
“Well, well, Son, isn’t this fine!” Daddy had him in his arms almost before the horses stopped. “How brown you are! and yes, you’ve grown, too. I’ll put the suitcase in—don’t try to lift it.”
Daddy put Sunny Boy down and turned and kissed Grandpa. ”

“ Hope you and Jimmie and Peter and Paul will come to meet me. Mother, too, if she likes, and Grandpa and Grandma and Araminta and Bruce, if they’re going to be real glad to see me. You seem to have a lot of friends. Brookside always was a mighty fine place for small boys—like you and me.
“Can’t write more now because a man wants to talk to me—at least he is ringing my telephone bell and won’t stop. Love to you and Mother from—Daddy.”
Whenever Sunny Boy was pleased he made a little song to sing. He did so now, 104 skipping out to the garden where Grandpa was generally to be found. ”

“ Horton, laid a beautiful pointed nose in her lap.
“We shut him in the barn last night, because we thought you’d be too tired to stand his barking,” said Grandma. “His name is Bruce, and he is very gentle. Don’t be afraid of him, Sunny Boy.”
The collie went back to his rug while they were at breakfast, but when Jimmie and Sunny Boy started for the door he got up to follow them.
“Is he going, too?” asked Sunny Boy.
“He never goes off the farm,” answered Jimmie. “He’ll follow us to the end of the lane and then go back. Hop in lively, now, for we’re late as it is.” ”

“ Don’t let it spoil your Summer, Olive, I’ve only myself to blame. At my age carelessness is nothing short of a crime.”
“But at your age a thousand dollars is a great deal to lose,” protested Mrs. Horton. “And I know you meant to take a trip South this Winter, and Harry tells me you’ve given that up.”
Sunny Boy could hear tears in Mother’s 182 soft voice, and he was sure she had tears in her lovely brown eyes. He made up his mind what to do.
He trotted through the wide hall, into the sitting-room. There sat Grandpa figuring at his desk and close beside him was Mother with her knitting. ”

“ Jimmie had harnessed Peter to a wagon that had only one high seat. In back of this were two cans of milk which Jimmie explained, in answer to Sunny’s questions, would be made into butter at the creamery in Cloverways. 81
“Is Araminta your sister?” Sunny Boy asked him as they jogged along.
“No, she’s the tenant farmer’s daughter—the man who does the farming for your Grandpa, you know. I work Spring and Summer for him and in Winter I go to the agricultural school. That’s where they teach you to be a farmer.” ”