Sunny Boy couldn’t hear the rest of what he said, but, looking back, he saw the old gentleman still standing on the walk shaking his cane angrily.
Sunny Boy was more than willing to let go, but he didn’t see how he could. They were nearing the end of the street now, and the houses were fewer with more ground between.
“Look behind!” an ice-man delivering ice called to the laundry boy, at the same time pointing to the back of the wagon.
The laundry boy may have looked, but of course he couldn’t see Sunny’s wagon from where he sat, and he apparently had no intention of stopping his horse to see if any one was stealing a “hitch.” Instead he brought the whip down smartly, and the horse leaped forward with a sudden jerk that made Sunny’s neck snap.
“My land!” poor Sunny gasped.
It was an expression he had learned from the red-haired Araminta.
Goodness knows what might have happened if they had had to turn a corner, or if the rope hadn’t broken. But break it did, and Sunny Boy and the laundry wagon parted company just as they came opposite to a vacant lot. Sunny’s wagon shot off to one side and, as there was no pavement and no curbing, the wagon kept going until it brought up in a clump of elderberry bushes.
“Hurt you, kid?” and a man who had seen him came running across the street. “That’s a mighty dangerous way to play, and the littler you are the worse it is. I suppose you’ve seen the big boys do it. Take my advice and leave wagons alone after this.”
As he talked, he lifted Sunny and the express wagon out of the bushes, brushed Sunny Boy off neatly. He now stood smiling down at him so good-naturedly that it was impossible to keep from smiling back.
“I thought you was scolding,” said Sunny Boy, in whose experience people never smiled when they scolded.