"He doesn't have to eat his duck," comforted Grandma. "I'm going to make something he likes this afternoon. If you and Olive are going to drive over to town, Sunny and I will be busy in the kitchen."

"Saucer pies!" cried Sunny Boy. "I can help, can't I, Grandma?"

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 and watched her drive away with Grandpa for a little shopping in town. He, Sunny Boy, was going to help Grandma bake apple pies.

"Here's your chair, and here's a pound Sweeting for you," Araminta greeted him as he trotted into the kitchen.

Sunny Boy scrambled into his place opposite Grandma at the white table.

"Now this won't be a very good pie," said Grandma, as she began to mix the pie crust.

Dear Grandma always said that about her pies, even the one that won the prize at the big fair.

"These apples are too sweet. But your grandfather can never wait. He has to have an apple pie the minute the first apple ripens."

"So do I," announced Sunny Boy. "What's in this little can, Grandma?"

"Cinnamon, lambie," answered Grandma. "Don't sniff it like that--you'll sneeze."

Sunny Boy munched his apple and watched her as she rolled out the crust.

"How many, Grandma?" he asked.

Araminta, peeling apples over by the window, laughed.

"He's just like his grandfather," she said. "Mr. Horton always says, 'How many pies are you going to make, Mother?' doesn't he?"

"Why does Grandpa call you Mother?" inquired Sunny Boy of Grandma.

"You're not his mamma."

"No. But you see I suppose when your daddy was a little chap around the house, and calling me and calling me 'Mother' sixty times a day, as you do your mamma, Grandpa got in the habit of saying 'Mother,' too. And habits, you know, Sunny Boy, are the funny little things that stay with us."

"Yes, I know--we had 'em in Sunday school," agreed Sunny absently. "Is that my pie?"

"That's your pie, lambie," declared Grandma, smiling. "One, two, three large ones, and a saucer pie for my own laddie. How much sugar shall I put in for you, Sunny Boy?"

"A bushel," replied Sunny Boy confidently. "Let me shake the brown powder, Grandma."

So Sunny Boy sprinkled in the cinnamon, and Grandma added dots of b.u.t.ter and put on the crust. Then she cut little slits in it "so the apples can breathe" and then that pie was ready for the oven.

"Now I'm going up to change my dress while they're baking," said Grandma, taking off her ap.r.o.n. "If you want to stay here with Araminta, all right, Sunny. I'll be back in time to take the pies out."

Araminta bustled about, washing the table top and putting away the salt and sugar and spice box and all the things Grandma had used for her baking. Sunny Boy ate his apple quietly and waited for Grandma to come back.

"My land of Goshen!" Araminta stopped to peer out of the window over the sink. "Here's company driving in. If it isn't Mrs. Lawyer Allen, and she always stays till supper time! And your Grandma's pies not out of the oven!"

Grandma, too, had seen the gray horse and buggy, and she hurried down in her pretty black and white dress.

"Hook my collar, please, Araminta," she whispered. "And I am sure the pies are done. You can take them out very carefully and set them where they'll cool. You'll be good, won't you, lambie? There goes the door-bell."

Grandma rustled away to meet her company, and Araminta opened the oven door importantly. She was seldom trusted to take the pies from the oven alone, and she felt very grown-up indeed to have Sunny Boy see her do it.

She got the three pies out nicely, and the little saucer pie, too, and carried them into the pantry to cool. She set them on a shelf over the flour barrel.

"Grandma puts them on the table," suggested Sunny Boy.

"Well, I put them on the shelf," said Araminta shortly. "I don't believe in leaving pies around where any one can get 'em."

Now Araminta was in a hurry to go home, for it was three o'clock, and every afternoon from three to five she was allowed to spend as she pleased. So, though she made the kitchen nice and neat before she left, in her hurry she forgot to put the lid on the flour barrel, something Grandma always did.

"I'm going," said Araminta, putting on her hat with a jerk. "Mind you don't get into any mischief, and don't go bothering your grandma. Mrs.

Lawyer Allen is nervous, and she doesn't like children."

Araminta, you see, had so many brothers and sisters younger than herself that she gave advice to every child she met.

Sunny Boy was perfectly willing to be good, but he was equally determined to have his saucer pie. It was his own pie, made and intended for him, and Araminta had no business to put it on a shelf out of his reach. As soon as the kitchen door closed he got a chair and dragged it into the pantry.

"It's mine," he told himself, as he stood on the chair.

He pushed a white bowl out of the way, for he remembered the yellow custard he had knocked over on his first adventure in Grandma's pantry.

He put his hand on his pie and had it safe when Bruce began to bark suddenly outside the window. Sunny Boy leaned over to see out the window, the chair tipped, and with a crash a frightened little boy fell into the flour barrel which the careless Araminta had left uncovered directly under the shelf.

The noise of the falling chair brought Grandma and her visitor to the pantry.

"What in the world!" cried Mrs. Allen, as a small white-faced figure stared at her over the edge of the barrel. "What is it?"

"It's me," said Sunny Boy forlornly. "There's flour all in me, Grandma!"

Grandma had to laugh.

"All over you," she corrected. "My dear child, are you hurt? And what were you doing to get in the barrel?"

Grandma lifted Sunny Boy out and carried him to the back porch and told him to shake himself as Bruce did after swimming in the brook. Only, instead of water, clouds of flour came out of Sunny Boy's clothes as he tried to shake like a dog.

"I was getting my saucer pie, Grandma," he explained when she came back with a whisk-broom and began to brush him vigorously. "If I had some cinnamon I'd be a pie, wouldn't I?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: With a crash a frightened little boy fell into the flour barrel.]

CHAPTER XIII

MORE MISCHIEF

When Grandma finally had Sunny Boy all dusted free from flour, she asked him if he thought he could keep out of mischief till supper time.

He was sure he could, and ran off to find Jimmie while Grandma and Mrs.

Allen went back to finish their interrupted visit.