Sunny Boy in the Country | Page 9

his wife. "You sit down over there by the door where I can find you, and I'll be back in five minutes. We have plenty of time."
Sunny Boy and Mother sat down by the door and watched the people. Opposite them sat a short, fat woman with a baby in her arms and five little children, two girls and three boys, in the seats nearest her. They were each sucking a lolly-pop and took turns giving the baby a taste. Although they were very sticky and not exactly tidy, they seemed to love one another very much and to be having a very good time.
"Where do you suppose they're goings" Sunny Boy asked.
Mrs. Horton did not know. Perhaps, if they watched them, they might see them take the train.
Then Sunny Boy wanted to know where they kept the trains. He could hear them, and nearly every minute a man with a big trumpet-which Mother said was a megaphone-would call out something, and from all over the station people would come rushing to get on the train. But though Sunny Boy watched carefully, he could not see a single smokestack.
"The trains are downstairs-you'll see when we go out," said Mrs. Horton. "I wonder what can be keeping your father?" He has been gone almost fifteen minutes."
"Will there be a piano in the parlor car?" Sunny Boy wanted to know next. Mrs. Horton laughed merrily. "A parlor car is like the rest of the cars in a train, except that the seats are more comfortable," she explained. "Anyway, we have to go in an ordinary coach, because Daddy and I couldn't get a single parlor car seat yesterday. They had all been taken. I don't see what can have happened to Daddy!"
Just then Mr. Horton came up to them. There was a baggage man with him and they both looked rather excited.
"I guess you'll have to come over to the baggage room, Olive," said Mr. Horton in a low voice, "and see what you can do about straightening out this mess. They want to know what you've packed in the trunk."
Sunny Boy clung tightly to Mother's hand while they walked over to a low, broad window on one side of the station wall. This opened into the baggage room, and a perfect ocean of trunks was being tossed about in there. The pink came into Mother's cheeks as she saw the crowd gathered about the window.
"You see, Ma'am," said the big, tall man at the window in a gruff voice that was some- how kind and friendly, too, "it's like this- we figure out something blew up in that trunk of yours about ten o'clock last night, and naturally we want to know something about it. In fact, we can't check the trunk for you until we do. A dozen men heard it, and-"
"But I don't understand," protested Mrs. Horton. "I packed nothing that could possibly blow up, as you say. My sister and I put everything in with our own hands. I even have a list. I can show you that-" she fumbled in her velvet handbag with fingers that trembled.
"Probably an infernal machine," declared a shrill voice in the crowd that was now growing too large for comfort. "With the country in the unsettled state it is now, you can look for anything."
"What's a 'fernal 'chine?" asked Sunny Boy boldly.
"Like a bomb-it goes off with a whang," answered a freckle-faced boy standing near. He reminded Sunny of his friend, the grocery boy.
The words, "Goes off with a whang," reminded Sunny Boy of something, though. He looked up into the friendly blue eyes of the baggage-window man.
"Maybe-" began Sunny Boy, "Maybe, I guess it was the alarm clock I packed I" he finished bravely.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" said the baggage-window man. His blue eyes crinkled.
The crowd had heard, and a ripple of laughter ran through them. As suddenly as they had gathered, they melted away.
"Let me have your tickets," said the baggage-window man. "I guess you can still make the ten-forty-five."

CHAPTER V
ON THE TRAIN
WELL, though, as Mr. Horton expressed it, they "had to hustle," they did make the ten-forty-five. They went down in an elevator to board the train and the ticket man at the gate would not let Mr. Horton through.
Daddy hugged his little boy tight before he let him go, and Mother had diamonds in her pretty brown eyes as she turned from saying good-by to him. But when they looked back to wave to him, there was Daddy smiling gayly at them and waving his hat.
"Have a fine time," he called. "Take care of Mother, Sunny Boy. And look for me exactly three weeks from to-day."
Sunny Boy and Mother found a seat after they had walked through a number of cars that were filled, and, though it was