Sunny Boy and His Playmates | Page 3

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.
"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