Sunny Boy watched him ride merrily off on his bicycle. Still Harriet didn’t come. Sunny suspected there must be a good many people waiting in the store. He might skate down to the corner and back before she had bought all the things on Mother’s list.
It was all very well for the first few yards, because there was a convenient iron railing to cling to, and Sunny Boy found himself skating very easily. But the iron railing ended in a stone stoop, and after that there seemed to be nothing but miles and miles of pavement without even a friendly tree to cling to. Sunny Boy’s feet began to behave queerly. One went much faster than the other and in an entirely different direction, and he had an idea he’d have to wear those skates the rest of his life because he didn’t see how he was ever going to stop to take them off.
Suddenly he found himself headed for an area-way and a flight of stone steps. He clutched desperately at the cellar window, shot past, and down the steps—bing! into a huge basket of clothes a fat colored woman was bringing up. She was as wide as the basket and the basket took up about all the area-way.
“Land sakes, chile!” she said, as Sunny Boy landed on top of her basket. “Where you goin’?”
“Skating,” said Sunny Boy concisely, glad to find that he wasn’t hurt.
The colored woman laughed, a deep, rich, happy laugh.
“You doan seem to be jest sure,” she told him. “Stay where you is an’ I’ll carry you on up.”
She did, too, and started him on his uncertain way down the street. In a few minutes his feet began to act strangely again, this time sending him in the general direction of the gutter.
“I spect I’d better go back,” said Sunny Boy to himself. But he couldn’t turn around.
Then up the street came a familiar gray-uniformed figure. It was the postman, the same merry, kind postman who brought letters to Sunny Boy’s house and for whom Harriet was careful to have the number on the front door bright and shining.