Master Sunshine | Page 3

Master Sunshine. No one but his father ever knew this--not even his mother, or Almira Jane, or Lucy. It was too sore a subject to speak of freely.
It was on the day when he first put on trousers that his troubles began. It seemed to him that people began then to make such odd remarks about him; and the strangest thing of all was that they would seem to quite forget that he heard every word they said, and that they never seemed to understand how they were hurting his feelings.
For a time he solved the difficulty in a clever way. He begged his mother to make him some loose sailor suits with long bagging legs.
They served their purpose well, and so long as they lasted no one ever spoke of the tender subject that he wished to avoid. But still he never felt comfortable about them in his mind.
It seemed such a cowardly thing to hide his legs like that, and he did so want to be manly in all his ways.
So, after a long talk one day with his father, as they sauntered hand in hand down a shady country road, with Gyp sporting and playing alongside, he decided to face the trouble bravely, and wear knickerbockers like other boys of his age. And, instead of sulking or fretting about what he could not help, he set himself to making allowances for other people.
"Father says that every one has his trials," he would say to himself sagely; "and I dare say that most folks have worse trials than mine. So when Almira Jane is 'nervous,' and Lucy is fretful, or mother has her bad headaches, I must just remember to be 'specially good to them. Maybe, after all, bow-leggedness isn't the worst thing to put up with."

CHAPTER II.
THE WANDERER AND HIS WIFE.
Master Sunshine was such a busy boy. Sometimes it seemed to him that the reason he did not get into as much mischief as other boys of his age was because he really had no time in which to be idle.
There was school each day, to begin with, and lessons to be prepared, and story-books to read, and the flower-garden to be cared for, and Gyp to teach new tricks to, and the pets to be tended and looked after,--in fact, there were more things than I can tell you of always waiting to be done.
It was nearly one boy's work, for instance, to take care of the Guinea fowls,--the handsome, mottled hens, that never knew when they were well off, but were always running away and getting lost. If it had not been for their shrill, silly cackle, their hiding- places would never have been found. Master Sunshine pursued them every time they strayed, and brought them home triumphantly. I think he loved his sturdy family of Cochin Chinas best; for the great rooster, with his well-feathered legs and scarlet comb, always seemed to recognize him as a friend, and the plump hens laid the most delicious eggs, the exact hue of their own buff plumage. It was never any trouble to feed and water them, or to let them out of the hen-yard for a short run.
Every one knew that the Wanderer and his Wife were Master Sunshine's property. The Wanderer was a great white gander, with a long neck and a still longer tongue, if one could measure it by the clatter it made in the world. His Wife was a patient gray goose, who waddled after him unceasingly, and was always ready to add her shrill voice to his.
It troubled their young owner not a little that the Wanderer had to wear a great yoke of light wood about his neck; but after the bird had twice run away and trampled the gardens of their neighbors, he could see that it was necessary.
Almira Jane put the matter very clearly before him. "I don't think he does like his collar much, and it ain't really ornamental," said she; "but it is kinder to the neighbors to have him wear a yoke so that he cannot squeeze between the pickets in the fences to destroy the gardens."
"But the goose may do the same mischief," interrupted Master Sunshine anxiously.
Almira Jane shook her head wisely.
"The poor silly thing will never think of it by herself," she answered. "All she does is to follow her mate; and if we keep him out of trouble, she will be all right, I promise you."
It always made Almira Jane laugh when she thought of the day when Master Sunshine brought the Wanderers home. Master Sunshine had gone to old Mrs. Sorefoot, who lived down the road, to get a setting of Leghorn eggs. The old lady, whose life was being made miserable by the clamor of the pair of geese which