Sonny

“ I knew she was speaking about her boy—her son, who had gone to America.
"His name," she added, "was Michael Antony; but it was Sonny we called him."
I waited, for I had nothing to say. There are scores of these sonnies, whose names are really something else. The mother love that cleaves to the pet name is the same for all of them; so is the heartbreak for the mother.
"I don't rightly know," she went on, "how the notion of America came to him first. You'd think he was contented enough. It wasn't that his father was hard on him. The lad had no more to do than what he seemed willing for. ”

“ But ere he left the room, his night-watch being over, he paused to touch the foot-rail of the cot with both hands and so salaam, as those do who leave the presence.
Sonny was still sleeping when his father, entering his study with a lighter heart, found a stranger, as he thought, awaiting him there. It was a man, naked save for a waistcloth, lean, sinewy, lithe; the head was clean-shaven, save for the Brahminical tuft, and the face was disfigured by the weird caste marks of extreme fanaticism.
"Who--?" he began, shrinking involuntarily from one who might well be dangerous. ”

“ That’s why I have been so much a mystery in this country—why I have kept Sonny hidden in the cañon—why I have spent two years of my life riding the back places of the West. I knew she was somewhere—and I knew she was crooked. The men she has with her are not cattle men—they are criminals, every one. ”

“ Sonny wore denim overalls a shade less ragged and a little shirt with sleeves. His face shone like the rising sun from behind Fair’s shoulder as they sat decorously mounted on Diamond.
“The out-riders wait the Princess,” said Fair, “good morning, Miss Allison.”
“Did you bring cookies?” queried the boy eagerly, “we’ve got the fish!”
“Good morning,” answered Nance, “sure I did, Sonny. And other things, too. We’ll be good and hungry by noon time.” ”

“ An' then Sonny he 'lowed thet he didn't conterdic' to be aconterdictin', but he knowed't warn't so. He had walked the whole len'th o' the road 'twix' the farm an' the school-house, an' they warn't no bulge in it; an' besides, he hadn't never saw over the edges of it.
An' with that teacher he give him another check for speakin' out o' turn. An' then Sonny, says he, "Ef a man was tall enough he could see around the edges, couldn't he?" "No," says the teacher; "a man couldn't grow that tall," says he; "he'd be deformed." ”

“ But here Sonny could stand Brand’s badinage no longer and pulling away from Nance he ran to him, and clinging about his knees, begged forgiveness for the lie whose memory troubled his clear little soul.
The man touched the unkempt small head with a tender hand. “Sure, old-timer,” he said gently; “that’s all right. A gentleman must lie when a lady commands—he couldn’t do anything else.”
“You make me feel like a sinner!” said Nance, “I hope you’ll forgive me, too.”
The man took Sonny’s hand as she made ready to leave and turned down the cañon with her. ”

“ Is it not so, comrades? Are we not all maimed, halt, blind, yet entering into life?"
"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" cried the company, bursting into the refrain of a hymn, in which Sonny baba joined with an angelic voice. The voice, in fact, was largely responsible for the position in which he found himself. The old swash-buckler's eyes grew moist as he looked at him, thinking that he was the very image, for sure, of his dead father, who had been the pride of the regiment. Nevertheless the effervescence of song left the old man still deprecating and fumbling in his tunic. ”

“ But none of the Plummers were so much surprised that Sonny Boy had learned to be a Wild Man as they were that he had learned spelling and fractions and straightened out his stooping shoulders and his bow-legs!
Sonny Boy explained that he had done it to help a slower and a crookeder boy than himself. And when Otto came down to Poppleton to pay Sonny Boy a visit they understood a little better.
Lena came, too, and they brought the white mice, and those skillful performers took part in the barn show. ”

“ Sonny ain't got it in his power to displease us, don't keer what he was to take a notion to, less'n, of co'se, it was wrong, which it ain't in him to do—not knowin'ly.
You know, Sonny has about decided to take a trip north, doctor—to New York State. Sir? Oh, no; he ain't goin' to take the co'se o' lectures thet Miss Phoebe has urged him to take—'t least, that ain't his intention.
No; he sez thet he don't crave to fit his-self to teach. He sez he feels like ez ef it would smother him to teach school in a house all day. ”

“ Of co'se, in this he referred to dumb brutes, an' even trees, so Sonny says. Oh, cert'n'y; Sonny writ him first. How would he've knew about Sonny? Miss Phoebe she encouraged him to write the letter, but it was Sonny's first idee. An' the answer, why, he's got it framed an' hung up above his bookshelves between our marriage c'tif'cate an' his diplomy.
He's done sent Sonny his picture, too. He's took a-settin' up in a' apple-tree. You can tell from a little thing like that thet a person ain't no dude, an' I like that. ”

“ But the man would rise to his feet angrily, and cry, “If that’s all ye’re good fer, git! Git out, I tell ye!” And Sonny, heartsore and bewildered, would shrink back hopelessly to his kennel. When this, or something much like it, had happened several times, even Ann, for all her finer perceptions, began to feel that Sonny might be a bit nicer to the 284 Kid, and, as a consequence, to stint her kindness. But to Sonny, sunk in his misery and pining only for that love which his master had so inexplicably withdrawn from him, it mattered little whether Ann was neglectful or not. ”

“ Cassidy, like most good women, had small respect for her daughters. Sonny, I imagine—had Sonny remained at home might have sat out the visit of a bishop. His mother would have considered his presence an honour to the highest ecclesiastic; but daughters, even though their fathers spoil them, never stand so high as sons in the opinion of a good mother. Norah Kate and Susy knew their place. They went out, driving the hens before them. Mrs. Cassidy took the loaf out of the pot oven and set it on the table to cool. ”

“ Wonderful; the work of individuals trying to express feeling in metal or wood. But get an idea like the wheel, or even a pair of tongs? Poo! How would you state the First Law of Motion, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in tickle-pinch-rub terms? Sonny could grasp an idea like that. Sonny's handicap, if you call it that, cuts him off from feel-thinking; he can think logically instead of sensually."
He sipped his cocktail and continued: "I can understand why the village is mounded up, too. I realized that while I was watching Dave's gang bury the pump house. ”

“ Sonny had slipped down the open chimbly right in amongst 'em—come out a-grinnin', with his face all sooted over, an', says he, "Say, fellers," says he, "I run up the lightnin'-rod, an' he's a-waitin' for me to come down." An' with that he went an' gethered up his books, deliberate, an'fetched his hat, an' picked up a nest o' little chimbly-swallows he had dislodged in comin' down (all this here it happened thess las' June) , an' he went out an' harnessed up his goat-wagon, an' got in. ”

“ The modest claim for seclusion to her supposed husband in Persian, the leaving of the door on the latch, the swift retreat into the inner roof during the interval decorously allowed for such escape. All this was easy without Sonny. The only chance now was to stop his prattle even by force, give the excuse that other women were within, and trust to a man's quickness outside. ”

“ Weisbaum yelled after him, "while you're there, bring back another radio and tell that idiot on the switchboard we got wire trouble." Mahoney nodded and went to his jeep.
Back at the cabin, Ma Cromwell wiped her face with her apron skirt. "Shore hot today," she thought. "You hot there, too, Sonny?"
"Kinda hot, Ma," Jed thought back. "Shore ain't like home. Not bad though."
"You gettin' enough to eat, child?" Ma asked. ”

“ It went off much better than either Paul Meillard or Luis Gofredo expected. After the first shock of being air-borne had worn off, Mom found that she liked contragravity-riding; Sonny was wildly delighted with it from the start. The natives showed neither of them any hostility. Mom's lavender bathrobe and Sonny's green coveralls and big ax seemed to be symbols of a new and exalted status; even the Lord Mayor was extremely polite to them.
The Lord Mayor and half a dozen others got a contragravity ride, too, to the meadows to pick out cattle. ”

“ This here's Sonny's diplomy thet you've heerd so much about—sheepskin they call it, though it ain't no mo' sheepskin 'n what I am. I've skinned too many not to know. Thess to think o' little Sonny bein' a grad'jate—an' all by his own efforts, too! It is a plain-lookin' picture, ez you say, to be framed up in sech a fine gilt frame; but it's worth it, an' I don't begrudge it to him. He picked out that red plush hisself. He's got mighty fine taste for a country-raised child, Sonny has. ”

“ His other lady teacher, Miss Alviry Sawyer, she was a single-handed maiden lady long'bout wife's age, an' she didn't have a feature on earth thet a friend would seem to have a right to mention, she not bein' to blame; but she had a way o' clairin' her th'oat, sort o' polite, befo' she'd open her mouth to speak. Sonny, he seemed to think it was mighty graceful the way she done it, an' he's often imitated it in his little sleep—nights when he'd eat hot waffles for his supper.
An' wife she'd always jump up an' git the mutton taller. ”

“ Of co'se, we can't be shore thet they was rejoicin' expressed in the underbrush an' the forests, ez he says, but I do say, ez I said before, thet Sonny an' the little girl has had the purtiest an' joyfulest weddin' I ever see in this county, an' a good time was had by everybody present. An' it has made me mighty happy—it an' its results.
They say a son is a son till he gets him a wife, but 't ain't so in this case, shore. I've gained thess ez sweet a daughter ez I could 'a' picked out ef I'd 'a' had the whole world to select from. ”

“ His mother has always teached him keerful. It's good practice for 'em both. Of co'se Mary Elizabeth she's a year older 'n what Sonny is, an' she's thess gittin' a little experience out o' him—though she ain't no ways conscious of it,—an' he 'll gain a good deal o' courage th'oo keepin' company with a ladylike girl like Mary Elizabeth. That's the way it goes, an' I think th' ain't nothin' mo' innercent or sweet. ”

“ The way I look at it, they never was a diplomy earned quite so upright ez this on earth—never. Ef it wasn't, why, I wouldn't allow him to have it, no matter how much pride I would 'a' took, an' do take, in it. But for a boy o' Sonny's age to've had the courage to face all them people, an' ask to be examined then an' there, an' to come out ahead, the way he done, why, it does me proud, that it does. ”

“ The only person present thet seemed to take things anyway ca'm was Miss Phoebe Kellog, Sonny's teacher. She has been teachin' him reg'lar for over two years now, an' ef she had 'a' had a right to give diplomies, why, Sonny would 'a' thess took out one from her; but she ain't got no license to gradj'ate nobody. But she knowed what Sonny knowed, an' she knowed thet ef he had a fair show, he'd come thoo creditable to all hands. She loves Sonny thess about ez much ez we do, I believe, take it all round. ”

“ A crowd of people came rushing into the car, and among them was a man who looked like a sailor, who insisted upon taking the covering from Polly’s cage and holding her up to the light.
“Belong to you?” he said. “Don’t want to sell her, do you?”
Sonny Boy’s heart gave a great leap. He was himself so very tired of Polly’s voice, and he had so dreaded to take her back to Aunt Kate, that it did not seem to him possible that any one could want her.
“She’s a handsome bird,” continued the man, “and hasn’t she got a voice! She isn’t exactly the bird for a home pet, but at a show she’d draw. ”

“ Milly herself was so blasé in regard to the peerage that such an attitude of mind seemed almost provincial. Yet she would have been the first to own that it was the only thing about her enigmatic friend which suggested anything of the kind.
“Sonny says he raves about you.”
“It’s his funeral.” The laugh was honestly gay. “He’ll be very disappointed, poor lad.”
“Don’t fish.”
“I never fish in shallow waters, Miss Wren.”
“You are the most shameless angler I know. But you do it so beautifully that people don’t realize what you are at.” ”

“ Sonny's the only child I ever see in my life thet could take young chimbly-swallers after their fall an' make em' live. But he does it reg'lar. They ain't a week passes sca'cely but he fetches in some hurted critter an' works with it. Dicey says thet half the time she's afeerd to step around her cook-stove less'n she'll step on some critter thet's crawled back to life where he's put it under the stove to hatch or thaw out, which she bein' bare-feeted, I don't wonder at. ”

“ And he is still telling the hospital children, over and over again, all the wonders of that procession in which he rode to the end of the route on the buffalo, and then back to the tent in the Fat Lady’s chariot! For Sonny Boy found the Wild Man both a kind and influential friend.
He has learned to be a Wild Man himself; there was a show in the Plummers’ barn, at Poppleton, in the fall, that many people thought equal to a grown-up circus, and the Wild Man was the chief attraction. ”