"Mother, look! There's a runaway engine! Whee, a wreck!"
Sure enough, an engine with no cars attached was coming rapidly down grade toward a passenger train stopped at one of the stations. Sunny Boy's voice had drawn a number of the shoppers, and a small crowd gathered to see what would happen. The clerk had left the counter and gone out to an aisle table to have a floor-man sign his book, and there was no one about to prevent the wreck.
Smash! with a truly thrilling noise the engine crashed into the train and the passengers must have, as the newspapers say, "received a severe shaking up."
"Oh, gee!" breathed Sunny Boy, and his sigh was echoed by the grown-ups.
People looked at one another and smiled.
"Nobody hurt!" announced the clerk, who had hurried back when he heard the noise of the collision. "I said that switch needed overhauling yesterday. Guess I'll shut off the current and get a repair man to come up."
As there would be no more moving trains for the present, Sunny Boy was willing to go to see the rocking-horses. He had a fine time, too, for the clerk lifted him up on the largest one, and very high from the ground Sunny felt.
But it was the tin automobile that captured his heart.
"Oh, Mother!" he said when he found it, "it's just like our car, two lamps and all."
"It is pretty nice," admitted Mrs. Horton. "We'll have to see what Daddy says about one when we go home. You are getting too old for the kiddie car, aren't you? How does this one run, dear?"