“I’ll bath me,” he decided. “You sit on the hamper and watch, Daddy.”
Daddy did sit on the hamper and watch. He also helped with the drying. Then he pulled up the awnings all across the front of the house so that the rooms would be cool during the night. Then he found the woolly dog, that hadn’t gone to the farm but that was Sunny’s bedfellow when he was at home, and put him in bed with Sunny Boy.
“Good night, laddie,” Daddy bent down and kissed Sunny Boy. “If you wake up first, come in and call me.”
When Sunny Boy opened his eyes it was to find the sun streaming in the windows and to hear the locusts singing away for dear life. He got softly out of bed, tucked the woolly dog under his arm, and paddled into Daddy and Mother’s room. It was empty.
“Well, well, here he is!” There stood Daddy in the doorway behind him. “Breakfast’s almost ready, and we need a certain young man to help us with the sliced peaches and cream, to say nothing of the brown toast Mother’s made for us. Come on, and see if you can find the blue sailor suit on the little rocking chair under the window nearest the closet door.”
The lonesome feeling Sunny had had for a moment when he found his father and mother had gone downstairs ahead of him, went away, and he hurried to help Daddy find the sailor suit. They knocked over so many things in their search, and laughed so much and made such a great deal of noise that Mother came up and pretended to scold, though really she came to find the suit, tie the tie for Sunny, and brush his yellow hair.
“Now if you don’t come down to breakfast this minute,” she told them when Sunny Boy was as neat as neat could be—“well, you can’t have any toast, that’s all!”
So they all three hurried down and found plenty of toast; and very good it was, too.
“Each one must carry his plate out to the kitchen,” ordered Mr. Horton, when they had finished. “And then Sunny Boy and I will go round and get the car. Whatever you can pack to-day, Olive, will save us time in the morning. I’d like to make an early start, because I’m afraid we’re in for a hot spell, and the earlier we get off, the more comfortable we’ll be.”
“The trunks are going this morning,” said Mrs. Horton. “Bessie promised to get theirs off, too. All I have to do—My dear child, what are you going to do with that?” she broke off.