Sunny Boy in the Big City Part 12

The Hortons did not get off the ferryboat, and it was not long before more people were crowding on the decks again.

"Are they the same ones?" asked Sunny, puzzled.

"My no," answered Daddy quickly. "There are large cities on this side of the river, and people go back and forth between New York and New Jersey all day long. But I thought we were taking this trip because you wanted to see the horses enjoying a boat ride. Don't you want to go downstairs and look around?"

Sunny Boy said he did, and they went down.

"He looks like one of Grandpa's horses," said Sunny Boy, indicating a bay horse attached to a light delivery wagon. "Do you suppose he likes to go on a boat, Mother?"

"Sure he does," replied the driver, who had overheard. "He likes to go anywhere he doesn't have to use his own feet. That's what makes him so fat."

Sunny Boy laughed, and a colored man driving a team of horses harnessed to a wagon-load of empty barrels, rolled his eyes in delight.

"You've said it," he cackled joyously. "Dat horse sure look like he wished he was a automobile."

As the ferryboat drew near the New York side, Sunny Boy saw the wonderful "sky line" which is famous all over the world--the outline made by the tall buildings against the sky. Even a little boy could appreciate the picture the tall skysc.r.a.pers made, some buildings white, some gray, with here and there a gleaming gold dome against the fleecy September clouds.

"What makes the boat go?" Sunny Boy thought to ask, as the gates were opened and they were moving off with the crowd.

"Engines and steam," answered Mr. Horton. "And turn around and you'll see who steered us."

Sunny Boy turned and saw a white-bearded, blue-capped man in a small round pilot house above the deck. There was a wheel beside him which he turned as he wanted the boat to go.

"We've been sailing on the what is its name, Daddy?" asked Sunny, noticing for the first time large gold lettering below the pilot house which he guessed to be the name of the boat.

"The 'Lansdowne'," answered Mr. Horton. "And a nice old ferryboat she is. I don't know how you feel, Sunny, but I've had enough traveling for a few hours. Can't we have lunch down town, Olive?"

"And not go up to the hotel?" said Mrs. Horton. "Why, I'm willing. I know where I want to take Sunny Boy this afternoon, if you are going up to Yonkers to meet that buyer from Chicago."

"Where?" demanded Sunny Boy eagerly. "Where are we going, Mother?"

Mrs. Horton smiled mysteriously.

"Let it be a surprise," she suggested. "You're having so many good times, Sunny, that I'm afraid you'll find it hard to settle down and go to school when we are home again."

"School!" That made Sunny Boy jump. But just then Daddy hailed a street car, which they got on, and Sunny forgot everything else.

They found a clean, comfortable restaurant after a short ride on the street car, and Sunny Boy was quiet and good while Daddy looked over some papers and Mother read a letter from Aunt Bessie she had been carrying in her purse since breakfast time that morning.

"Bessie says," Mrs. Horton announced, "that some boy threw a ball through the front window and she's had it fixed. And Ruth and Nelson Baker send their love to you, Sunny. This is a very short letter because Aunt Bessie wants us to try to match the sample of silk she encloses and she hurried the letter to catch the next mail."

"I wonder if Nelson got the postal I sent him?" speculated Sunny Boy.

"It was a picture of Central Park."

"He probably received it, and you'll see it in Ruth's alb.u.m when you get home," said Mrs. Horton. "And now, Daddy, how about going uptown?"

Sunny Boy was excited, and wouldn't you be, if you were going somewhere you didn't know about, to see something no one had told you you would see? He wondered if they could be going to another menagerie, or if they were going shopping again.

"Wait and see," was all Mrs. Horton would answer, when he teased her.

They took the surface car, and after a few blocks Mr. Horton left them to get a train for Yonkers, which is a suburb of New York. Sunny Boy and his mother continued some half dozen blocks further and then left the car. They walked over a busy street, and suddenly Mrs. Horton stopped in front of a building with many entrances, and people crowding into them all.

"I know!" shouted Sunny Boy, as he saw a red and yellow poster. "It's a theater!"

"Yes, it is," admitted Mrs. Horton smiling. "I read in the paper last night that there was a children's matinee to-day, and Daddy 'phoned downstairs after you were asleep and bought our tickets. Can you tell what the play is, dear, from the pictures? See, here is a case of photographs."

Sunny Boy plunged his hands deep into his pockets, spread his feet st.u.r.dily apart, and studied the pictures seriously.

"There's a girl," he murmured aloud. "An' an old lady--she's a witch, I guess. Do I know it, Mother?"

"I've read you the story," said Mrs. Horton. "Don't you remember Snow White and the dwarfs?"

Sunny Boy remembered the story, and he would have liked to look at the photographs again, but Mrs. Horton thought it was time to go in and find their seats. An usher, a pretty girl, took them easily and quickly to the right row, and Sunny Boy found himself seated next to an elderly lady, with two children, a boy and a girl, evidently her grandchildren, in two seats directly in front of her.

"Why don't they sit next to her?" Sunny Boy whispered, watching the lady standing up to smooth out the little girl's hair-ribbon.

"They probably couldn't get three seats together," explained Mrs.

Horton. "Better let me hold your hat, precious; you might drop it and some one would walk on it."

The orchestra was playing a gay bit of music, and Sunny's feet kept time to it merrily. He had been to the theater once or twice at home, generally at Christmas time, but this was decidedly different.

"I like New York," he confided to Mother.

The grandmotherly lady smiled.

"So you don't live here?" she asked pleasantly. "I have lived here so many years that no other place would seem like home. But Louise and David, my grandchildren, are, like you, visitors. They come from Georgia."

Mrs. Horton leaned forward.

"We're from Centronia," she volunteered, for Sunny Boy was too shy to do more than smile at the two children who had turned around when they heard their names spoken, and now grinned at him politely over the backs of their seats. "I don't believe Sunny Boy knows where Georgia is--do you, dear?"

"It's down South," said the little girl. "We slept on the train. And David was sick. I wasn't. Grandmother said he prob'ly ate too much ice-cream for his supper."

"s.h.!.+" cautioned their grandmother. "The curtain's going up in a minute."

The lights went out, the music stopped, and Sunny Boy snuggled close to Mother. Slowly, oh, very slowly, the big blue curtain began to roll up, and the play began.

"Such a mean old stepmother," scolded Sunny Boy, at the end of the first act. "Poor little Snow White! I hope they never find out where she went when she ran away."

The orchestra played again, and then stopped as the lights were turned off for the second act. Sunny Boy gave a nervous little squeak as the curtain rose and he saw the dwarfs in their house.

CHAPTER IX

WHEN MAKE-BELIEVE IS REAL