Sunny Boy and His Playmates.

by Ramy Allison White.

CHAPTER I

LEARNING TO SKATE

"Santa Claus brought them," said Sunny Boy.

He was lying flat on the floor, trying to reach under the bookcase where his marble had rolled. The marble was a cannon ball and Sunny Boy had been showing Nelson Baker, the boy who lived next door, how to knock over lead soldiers.

Nelson Baker picked up the lead general and examined him carefully.

"They're nicer soldiers than I had last year," he said. "Say, Sunny Boy, I could bring my soldiers over and we could have a real fight."

"I've got it!" shouted Sunny Boy suddenly, pulling his arm out from under the bookcase with the marble in his hand. "I _knew_ it rolled under the bookcase. You can roll it this time, Nelson."

"All right," said Nelson, taking the marble. "And I guess I won't go for my lead soldiers. My mother might say I'd been over here an hour."

Nelson's mother, you see, had told him he might stay an hour at Sunny Boy's house, and something told Nelson he had already played so long with his little friend that if he went home now he would not get back.

"Get down like the Indians," urged Sunny Boy, as Nelson took the marble. "Shut one eye, Nelson."

Nelson put his head down to the floor and closed one eye. He meant to aim straight at the row of beautiful new lead soldiers, but, as he afterward explained, the marble slipped before he was ready. It shot across the floor and went crash into the gla.s.s door of the bookcase.

"What was that, Sunny Boy? Did you break anything?" asked Grandpa Horton, coming in from the dining-room, where he had been reading the newspaper. He carried the paper in his hand and his gla.s.ses were pushed up on his forehead and he looked worried.

"My marble hit the bookcase door, but I don't believe I broke it," said Nelson. "'Tisn't even cracked, is it, Mr. Horton?"

Grandpa Horton looked carefully at the gla.s.s door and said no, the marble had not been able to crack the heavy plate gla.s.s.

"But I'd play another game if I were you, boys," he said kindly. "Have you shown Nelson all your Christmas presents yet, Sunny Boy?"

"We got only as far as the lead soldiers," answered Sunny Boy. "Nelson wanted to play with them. But come on up in the playroom, Nelson, and I'll show you my things."

It was only two days after Christmas, and the presents Santa Claus had brought Sunny Boy and the gifts his mother and daddy and grandparents had given him, were all spread out on the window seat in his playroom.

The two presents that Sunny Boy liked most were a little pocket searchlight and his ice-skates. The skates were double-runner ones, for Sunny Boy did not yet know how to skate.

"I'm going to learn this winter," he told Nelson. "Grandpa is going to take me to Wilkins Park this afternoon as soon as Daddy and Mother come home from taking a walk."

"I can skate a little," said Nelson. "But my mother won't let me go to the Park alone. Lots of the boys go, but she never lets me. I wish we had a little private pond. Maybe we could make one in the yard, Sunny."

"Maybe," a.s.sented Sunny Boy, but he was thinking about going to the Park with Grandpa Horton and trying his new skates, and not about making a "private" skating pond in the back yard. "There! I heard the front door shut. I hope Daddy's come."

Sunny Boy and Nelson ran downstairs to find Daddy and Mother Horton in the hall, taking off their coats.

"Nelson, your mother wants you to come home," said Mr. Horton. "We saw her in the window as we pa.s.sed your house. She's waiting for you.

Your Aunt Caroline has come."

"Take a popcorn ball, Nelson," said Sunny Boy's mother, as Nelson began to put on his coat and hat. "And here is one for Ruth." Ruth was Nelson's little sister.

Nelson said good-bye to Sunny Boy and ran down the steps of the Horton house and up his own. It was never any trouble for Nelson or Sunny Boy to go calling on each other.

"Now we can go skating, can't we, Grandpa?" asked Sunny Boy eagerly.

"I thought Nelson stayed ever so long."

"Why, Sunny Boy, how impolite you are!" cried his mother. "That isn't a nice thing to say. Suppose you should go to see Nelson and he should spend the time wishing you would go home--how would you feel?"

Sunny Boy looked uncomfortable.

"Well, he can come back after I go skating," he suggested. "Grandpa promised we could go this afternoon, Mother."

"So I did; and we'll start this minute," declared Grandpa Horton, coming out into the hall and smiling at his small grandson. "Who ever heard of a little boy with a brand-new pair of skates and ice on the pond, not going skating, Olive? Sunny Boy is just as polite as he ever was, Olive, but we have to go skating, whether we have company or not."

"Oh, Father, how you do spoil Sunny Boy!" cried Mrs. Horton, half-laughing. But she kissed them both and waved to them as they went off, the new skates dangling over Sunny Boy's arm and buckled together with a leather strap just as the big boys tie their skates.

"Can you skate, Grandpa?" the little boy asked, as they trudged along, Grandpa's rosy face and white mustache showing above a gray and white m.u.f.fler and Sunny Boy's pink cheeks and dancing eyes set off by a m.u.f.fler of scarlet wool. "Will you go skating with me?"

"Why, I haven't been skating for thirty years!" exclaimed Grandpa Horton. "I don't know whether I have forgotten or not, Sunny Boy. But I have no skates, you see, and I shall not get any because I don't expect to go skating often this winter. I'll get you started, and then this winter, when we go home, Grandma and I will be able to think of you having fine times on the ice."

Wilkins Park was several blocks from the Horton's house, but Sunny Boy and his grandfather liked to walk, and though it was a cold day they tucked their hands in their coat pockets and walked fast and were very comfortable. The best skating pond in Centronia--indeed about the only good pond--was in the center of the Park, and long before Sunny Boy and his grandfather came in sight of the Park they saw boys and girls with skates over their arms, hurrying to the pond.

"Hurry, Grandpa!" urged Sunny Boy. "Hurry! Maybe there won't be room for me!"

Grandpa Horton laughed and said he thought there would be room for one small boy on the pond even if half the town did want to go skating that afternoon.

"I suppose it is because there is no school," he said, as they turned in at the Park gates. "I declare, Sunny Boy, if I had thought of it, I don't know that I would have brought you today!"

For the ice-pond--and by this time they were in sight of it--was crowded with skaters. Skating in holiday week was too delightful to be neglected, and it seemed as though all the school children in the city were skating or learning to skate. There were big boys and little boys and tall girls and short girls and good skaters and poor ones. Now and then a long line of skaters, hands joined, swept down the pond, shouting.

Sunny Boy beamed. He was very glad that he had come and he wanted to sit down on the gra.s.s and put on his skates at once.

"I think we'll walk around to the other end of the pond, dear," said Grandpa Horton. "There are not so many people there, and I'll be able to walk out on the ice a little way with you till you learn to keep your balance. Don't put on your skates till we get to that white post."

Sunny Boy took his grandfather's hand and they tramped around the pond till they reached a place where there were fewer skaters. A tall policeman was telling a pretty girl that she could not leave her sweater on the bank.

"It wouldn't be there when you got back, Miss," he said. "The only wise thing to do is to carry all extras with you--that is if you want 'em."

The pretty girl skated off, carrying her sweater, and the policeman turned and saw Sunny Boy struggling to put on his skates.

"Well, I guess I know you!" said the policeman, smiling. "You go to Miss May's school, don't you?"

It was the same policeman Sunny Boy had met when all the children at Miss May's school had lost their coats before Thanksgiving (and that was exciting, you may be sure), and they were really very good friends.

"This is my Grandpa Horton," said Sunny Boy. "He and Grandma are visiting us. They came before Christmas."

Grandpa Horton and the policeman shook hands and Grandpa asked him if he thought the ice was safe.