"While you are down in the kitchen, I wish you'd ask Harriet if the oven is ready for me to make some biscuits for lunch," said Mrs. Horton. "And tell her I said you might have a gla.s.s of milk and one of the sponge cakes without any pink icing."

Harriet pressed the skirt while Sunny Boy sat at one end of the ironing board and watched her and ate his sponge cake--which was almost as good as the kind with pink icing which were only for dessert--and drank his milk. Then Harriet gave him the skirt to carry back to Aunt Bessie and he remembered to ask about the oven. Harriet said to tell Mother that it was just right for baking biscuits.

"That means I must go down right away," said Mrs. Horton, when Sunny Boy told her. "We've about finished anyway, haven't we, Bessie? The man is to come at three this afternoon for the trunk."

"I've left a few c.h.i.n.ks and corners, in case you want to tuck in some little trifles at the last minute," replied Aunt Bessie, "but otherwise it's ready to be strapped and locked."

"Let me lock it," said Sunny Boy eagerly. "I can stand on the top, too. I did for Cousin Lola when hers wouldn't shut."

Mrs. Horton was tying on a nice clean white ap.r.o.n.

"Thank you, dearest," she said. "Mother isn't quite ready to have the trunk locked. If we've packed it so full it won't close, why of course I'll call on you to stand on the top and make it shut."

Sunny Boy hoped the trunk wouldn't close, for he wanted to dance on the top. Then Mrs. Horton went down to Harriet's kitchen to make puffy white biscuits for lunch and Aunt Bessie went off to give a music lesson.

Sunny Boy, left to put away his toys, explained matters to the woolly dog as he carried him upstairs.

"There will be a real dog for me to play with at Grandpa's," he said.

"And little calves and lambs--Harriet said so. Maybe you might get broken in the trunk, anyway. But I won't like the real dog one bit more than I do you, and when we come back you can sleep with me every single night."

The woolly dog seemed to think this was all right, and he took it so cheerfully that Sunny Boy felt better immediately.

Mr. Horton came home to lunch, which was unusual, and after lunch he and Mrs. Horton had to go downtown to see about the tickets and the parlor car seats for the trip the next day. Sunny Boy was to take his nap and be wide awake again by three o'clock, when the man was coming to take their trunk to the station.

Sunny Boy did not see how they were to find the trunk again if they once let it go, for surely no trunk could go all alone to Brookside. 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."

Sunny Boy could dress himself, of course. Wandering into Mother's room to borrow her hairbrush, he saw the little nickel alarm clock on the table.

Mother must have meant to pack that, and in her hurry had forgotten.

Sunny Boy remembered that Daddy had told him all country folk "rose with the chickens," and upon inquiry he had learned that the chickens rose very early indeed--almost as soon as the sun. Sunny Boy thought it would be dreadful if he and Mother should oversleep their first morning at the farm and come downstairs to find the chickens up and the farmer people laughing at them. Yes, the alarm clock certainly must go.

He had not a very clear idea of how one went about it to set an alarm clock, but Daddy, he remembered, always wound the little pegs in the back. So Sunny Boy trustingly wound all the pegs he saw, as tight as they would turn, and tucked the clock away down deep in one of the corner holes Aunt Bessie had left in the trunk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: And tucked the clock away down deep in one of the corner holes Aunt Bessie had left in the trunk.]

He had hardly packed it in when Mother came running breathlessly up the stairs crying that the express wagon was at the door. Hurriedly she put down the trunk lid, locked it, and tied on the tag that Daddy had written for her.

"That tells the train folks what to do with it," explained the trunk man to Sunny, swinging the heavy trunk to his shoulder as though it weighed no more than the kiddie-car and trotting downstairs with it.

Sunny Boy watched him put it in the wagon and drive away.

"Now we're almost ready," said Mrs. Horton smilingly. "We have to pack our bag and go to bed early, and then, in the morning, we really will be on our way to Grandpa Horton's."

"But there's the canary," Sunny Boy reminded her hesitatingly. "Can I carry him?"

"The train would frighten him so he might never sing any more," said Mrs.

Horton. "No, Aunt Bessie is going to keep him for us till we come back."

"Well, let's go now," urged Sunny. "Why can't we go this minute? Let's, Mother."

"And have Daddy come home to dinner to-night and find us gone?" said Mother reproachfully. "Why, Sunny!"

"Well--then perhaps we'd better wait," admitted Sunny Boy. "But one whole night's an awful long time, isn't it?"

CHAPTER IV

OFF FOR BROOKSIDE

Perhaps the most fun of going on a journey is the fun of starting.

Sunny Boy began to get excited the moment he opened his eyes the next morning, and if he had had his way, they wouldn't have bothered with such an every-day affair as breakfast. One could eat breakfast any morning, but a trip on the train to one's grandfather's farm was much more important.

However, Daddy explained that all experienced travelers ate a good breakfast before they set out, and as Sunny Boy wanted above all things to do as real travelers did, he consented to sit down and be interested for a few moments in his blue oatmeal bowl and its contents.

"You look so nice, Mother," he told Mrs. Horton suddenly.

"So do you," she a.s.sured him, smiling. "I think it must be because we are both wearing our new blue serge suits."

"Remember, you're going to take care of my girl," warned Daddy. "Don't let her get too tired, and try to make her comfortable, and don't let any one or anything bother her."

Sunny Boy gravely promised to look after Mother. He felt very proud that Daddy trusted him to take care of her on their first long journey together, and he resolved to wait on her all he could and to save her every possible step.

Harriet, who was not going with them, but who was going to help Aunt Bessie keep house until they came back, was bustling about, pulling down shades and closing and locking doors. The canary had gone, and Sunny Boy had a funny feeling that their house was going on a journey, too. In his trotting around after Harriet, while Mother was telephoning a last good-by to some friend, he found a square white box on the parlor table, neatly tied with red string--one of that mysterious kind that makes your fingers fairly itch to untie the string and look inside. Sunny Boy went in search of Mother.

"Could I open it?" he asked coaxingly. "I'll tie it right up again, Mother. Maybe you have forgotten what is in it."

"'Deed I haven't!" laughed Mrs. Horton. "Give it to me, dear. It's a surprise for you--we'll open it on the train."

Sunny Boy obediently handed her the package, and in a few minutes he had forgotten all about it.

At last the house was ready to leave, and Harriet kissed him and said good-by. Sunny Boy watched her down the street until she turned the corner. He had a little ache in his throat, but he was too big a boy to cry.

"Precious," said Mother who knew perhaps how he was feeling, "I'm afraid I've left my little coin purse on my bureau. Would you mind going up and getting it for me?"

The house upstairs was very still and hot. Sunny Boy tiptoed softly as he hurried into Mother's room. There on the bureau lay the little silver purse and a clean handkerchief that smelled like a bunch of violets.

"You left your hanky, Mother," he cried, running downstairs. "And you said folks should never, never, begin to go anywhere without a clean hanky, you know."

Mr. Horton, standing on the front step, opened the screen door and put in his head.

"Taxi's coming!" he announced. "Ready, Olive? I have the bag right here.

Come, son."