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"The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White Project Gutenberg’s Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Sunny Boy and His Playmates Author: Ramy Allison White Illustrator: Howard L. Hastings Release Date: March 2, 2006 [EBook #17902] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES *** Produced by Al Haines -1- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White [Frontispiece: "Put your arms around my neck and I’ll carry you ashore."] SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES BY -2- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White RAMY ALLISON WHITE Author of "SUNNY BOY IN THE COUNTRY," "SUNNY BOY AT THE SEASHORE," "SUNNY BOY IN SCHOOL AND OUT," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY HOWARD L. HASTINGS PUBLISHERS BARSE & CO. NEW YORK, N. Y. ———— NEWARK, N. J. Copyright, 1922 By BARSE & CO. SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES CONTENTS CHAPTER I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV LEARNING TO SKATE GRANDPA HORTON IS FOUND WHO WAS THE BIG BOY? ON COURT HILL THE SNOW MAN THE PARKNEY FAMILY THE OTHER GRANDPA WHEN TOYS GO TO SCHOOL OUT IN THE BLIZZARD WHERE THE HORSE LIVED MR. HARRIS BRINGS A LETTER JERRY LOSES HIS TEMPER BRAVE LITTLE SUNNY BOY THE EXPLORERS SET OUT ANOTHER RESCUE -3- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White ILLUSTRATIONS "Put your arms around my neck and I’ll carry you ashore" . . . . Frontispiece Sunny Boy calmly stuck pieces of coal down the white front of the snow man Sunny Boy held the blanket in place They came rushing toward her, pellmell SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES 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 glass door of the bookcase. -4- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White "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 glasses 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 glass door and said no, the marble had not been able to crack the heavy plate glass. "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," assented 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 passed 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." -5- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White "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 muffler and Sunny Boy’s pink cheeks and dancing eyes set off by a muffler 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 grass and put on his skates at once. -6- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White "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. "Oh, it’s safe enough, sir," answered the policeman. "Sunny Boy is so anxious to learn to skate," explained Grandpa Horton, while Sunny Boy stood up, his new skates on his feet by this time, "that I promised him his first lesson today." "He’ll be all right if he stays near the edge and you keep an eye on him," said the policeman. "Sometimes the little fellows get knocked down, if they go out in the center alone. If you tumble, Sunny Boy, don’t bump your nose, will you? You might sneeze." Sunny Boy laughed, and, holding tight to Grandpa Horton’s hand, he slowly slid out on the ice. "I feel—" he gasped, "I feel like a rocking horse!" And indeed, if you have ever been on double runner skates yourself, you’ll remember that you do feel something as a rocking horse must feel. Grandpa Horton was very patient and he walked slowly and held fast to Sunny Boy so that he would not feel frightened. Boys and girls whizzed by them, laughing and shouting, and Sunny Boy hoped that he would be able to skate like that some day. Presently he let go of his grandfather’s hand and tried to skate by himself. -7- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White "I can do it, just as nice," he was boasting when one foot went out and the other doubled up and Sunny Boy went down flat! "Hurt?" asked Grandpa Horton, helping him up. "No one ever learned to skate without a fall or two, Sunny Boy." "It didn’t hurt me," said Sunny Boy bravely. "At least, not very much. But the ice is pretty slippery, isn’t it, Grandpa? And it is hard, too." He took hold of his grandfather’s hand again, though, after this tumble, and they were both having a fine time when they heard some one shout. "Why, it’s the policeman!" said Grandpa Horton, in surprise. "I didn’t realize how far out we were, Sunny Boy. He’s motioning. We must go in. Hurry, laddie!" The policeman stood on the shore, shouting and waving his arm. As the skaters heard him they began to move toward him, and in a minute there was a pushing, hurrying throng, some skating, some trying to run. "Everybody ashore!" shouted the policeman. "Everybody off!" A crowd of skaters rushed for the head of the pond. Sunny Boy felt his hand pulled from Grandpa Horton’s and he spun around like a little top. When he stopped spinning he landed on his hands and knees and several boys almost skated into him. Grandpa Horton was nowhere to be seen! CHAPTER II GRANDPA HORTON IS FOUND "Look out!" shouted a big boy. "Watch where you’re going! Can’t you see the little kid?" "The ice is cracking!" cried another boy. "Look! There’s water on the top now. Gee, let me get ashore!" "Well, go on and get ashore," said the big boy, pulling Sunny Boy to his feet. "Go on ashore! If you’re so afraid of drowning you have to walk on a kid of this size, you’d better go ashore." The other boy had pushed on toward the shore and he did not hear any of this talk. The crowd continued to move by, because all the skaters kept coming. Of course it would have been much wiser if they had gone ashore at different points of the lake instead of crowding together at the end where the ice was already cracking. But, somehow, people do not stop to think when anything happens, and as soon as the boys and girls—and men and women, too—who were skating on the pond saw that something was happening at one end of the pond they skated there as fast as they possibly could. "You’d get along faster without your skates," said the big boy, "but I won’t try to take ’em off for you. We’d both be walked on while I was doing it. Come on, we’ll see if these folks are in too big a hurry to let us get ashore with them." -8- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White Sunny Boy was not exactly frightened, but he felt rather queer. Grandpa Horton was gone, a strange boy had him by the hand, and many people kept shouting and making a loud noise. And now, instead of clear, smooth ice under his skates, he seemed to be walking through slushy water. "Don’t you get scared," said the big boy kindly. "We wouldn’t drown if we went right through the ice. It isn’t very deep right here. Look out—here we go!" Sunny Boy cried out in surprise and a girl ahead of him screamed. The ice seemed to part and let them down gently into the coldest water Sunny Boy had ever felt. He had not known that water could be so cold! "You’re all right," the big boy assured him, "Put your arms around my neck and I’ll carry you ashore. The girls make a lot of noise, don’t they? Well, in one way it’s a good sign—as long as they can scream we know they are not drowned." The boy had a round, freckled face, and he grinned so cheerfully that Sunny Boy had to smile back. The boy looked blue from the cold and his coat was thin and shabby, if Sunny Boy had only noticed it, but he talked every minute and didn’t complain once. He showed Sunny Boy how he wanted him to put his arms, and then he lifted him up and carried him toward the bank. "Good for you, Bob!" called some one, as the big boy reached the shore. "There you are," the boy said to Sunny, as he set him carefully down. "Now you take my advice and trot along home and get on dry shoes and stockings. You’ll be sneezing your head off to-morrow, if you don’t look out." "But I want my grandpa!" said Sunny Boy, beginning to cry. "I lost my grandpa! Maybe he is all drowned!" No wonder Sunny Boy cried at this sad thought. He loved his Grandpa Horton very dearly and he was named for him, "Arthur Bradford Horton." To be sure, no one ever called the little lad by that long name, for "Sunny Boy" seemed to suit him so exactly. But, of course, when he grew up and was a farmer or a traffic policeman or the captain of a sailboat—he didn’t know yet which he would rather be—he would need his real name. Perhaps you know all about Sunny Boy. If so, we do not have to introduce you. But if you have not read the other books about him you will want to know that he lived with his daddy and his mother and Harriet, who had helped his mother since Sunny Boy was a tiny baby, in the city of Centronia and that Grandpa and Grandma Horton lived on a beautiful farm, "Brookside," where Sunny Boy and his mother had spent a month the summer before. The first Sunny Boy book, called "Sunny Boy in the Country," tells all about this visit and the friends Sunny Boy made there and about the kite he made which got him into trouble. But that ended happily and Sunny Boy was so happy at Brookside that he might have decided to be a farmer if he and his daddy and mother had not gone to the seashore to visit his Aunt Bessie. "Sunny Boy at the Seashore" tells about the fun a small boy can find in the sand and of Sunny Boy’s experiences in sailing boats, and especially about the time he drifted out to sea in a rowboat all by himself. His mother and daddy, in another boat, found him, though, and Sunny Boy thought he would like to be a sea captain like the kind Captain Franklin who ran the motor-boat which caught up with him just as he was beginning to be very much afraid he was lost. -9- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sunny Boy and His Playmates, by Ramy Allison White Sunny Boy knew that he could not be a sea captain before he was grown up, and long before that, the very next month, in fact, Daddy and Mother Horton took him to New York City, and, dear me, didn’t he find adventures there! He was lost twice and he took his mother shopping and he visited Central Park and the Statue of Liberty and he saw so many things that he kept remembering them long after he was home again. "Sunny Boy in the Big City" is the title of this third book, and the traffic policemen interested him so much that he thought he would put off being a sea captain till he had tried to be a policeman. In fact the traffic policemen interested Sunny Boy so much that he taught the children on his street to play a game called "City" when he came home from New York, and in this game Sunny Boy was always a policeman. You may have read of how he played "City" in the fourth book about him called "Sunny Boy In School and Out." It was in this book, too, that Sunny Boy made the acquaintance of the big policeman whom he had seen at the skating pond. Sunny Boy thought of this big policeman as soon as he was safely on shore and as soon as he said perhaps his grandpa was drowned and the big boy had told him no one was drowned—"some of ’em may have been walked on a little, but no one is drowned, I tell you," he said earnestly. Sunny Boy wished he could find this kind man in the blue uniform who might be able to help him find his grandfather. "Where’s the policeman?" he asked, pulling at the big boy’s ragged sleeve. "What you want the police for?" asked the boy, looking at Sunny Boy queerly. "Do you want them to chase you?" "This policeman won’t chase me," said Sunny Boy sturdily. "He is a friend of mine and I like him. Come on and let’s hunt for him." He started to walk higher up the bank and almost fell down. "Why, I have my skates on!" he cried, in surprise, for he had forgotten them. "I guess I’d better take them off." He turned to ask the big boy to help him, and he wasn’t there! He wasn’t anywhere, for Sunny Boy looked all around. The other boy had disappeared as though he had tumbled into..."

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