They were having such a good time playing the baseball game that neither one of them heard Grandpa Horton come into the room. He said it was time for him and Sunny Boy to go home, but Bob was so eager to finish an inning that Grandpa Horton said he would wait a few minutes. Bob won, and this seemed to please him very much.
"I've going to leave word at Doctor Stacy's as we go past his office," said Grandpa Horton, buttoning Sunny Boy into his coat. "He will drop in to-day to see your father and look you over, Bob. We won't try to pay you for what you did for Sunny Boy, but you must understand that you have made at least four good friends for life—Sunny Boy's father and mother and his grandma and grandpa—and we claim the right of friends to look after you. Your father has taken the sensible view, and we've arranged matters so that you will all be more comfortable till your father's arm heals. Then, when he has a job and you're rid of that cold, you must go back to school. Sunny Boy's father may have a place in his office this summer for a boy who goes to school regularly through the winter."
Bob positively grinned with delight as Grandpa Horton and Sunny Boy shook hands with him and said good-bye. He looked so happy that Sunny Boy asked his grandfather, when they were out in the street, if Bob wanted to go to school.
"I don't know about that," replied Grandpa Horton, "though I think he does. But Bob's mother told me he is wild to get in an office. He wants to learn to use the typewriter. The poor lad has been staying out of school trying to earn a little money since his father hurt his arm. That is why he is afraid of policemen, Sunny Boy. He is really playing hookey, though not for his own pleasure. Still, we must see that he stays in school and has a fair chance."
Though Sunny Boy was in a great hurry to get home and tell his mother and his grandma and Harriet about Bob, he was willing to wait while Grandpa Horton stopped at the doctor's office and left word with the nurse there to have the doctor stop at 674 White Street. That was the house in which the Parkney family lived.
What a lot Sunny Boy and Grandpa Horton had to tell when they reached home!
"I never heard anything so lucky in my life," declared Harriet, who always was counted one of the family. "Mrs. Horton, don't you think I ought to make some chicken soup for that boy? If he has a cold he is probably all run down and needs nourishing things to eat."
"I wonder if I would have time to knit him a sweater before we go home Friday," said Grandma Horton. "I could start it anyway, couldn't I, Olive? I would love to knit a pure wool sweater for Bob."
"I must see that he has good clothes to wear to school," said Mrs. Horton.
Grandpa Horton listened and laughed a little. He was sitting before the fire, and he held Sunny Boy on his knee.