“Now you’ve done it!” Araminta told him. “That’s the custard pudding for to-morrow’s dinner. What in the world are you trying to do, anyway?”
Araminta was not accustomed to finding small boys in pale pink pajamas standing on chairs in her pantry, so no wonder she was surprised. But she was kind, was Araminta, and she helped Sunny Boy down, and did not scold. She got a basin of clean water and a clean cloth and wiped up the pudding and washed Sunny’s hands for him.
“I came back an hour earlier than I had to,” she told him, “’cause I thought maybe you’d be up and might like to see the chicken yard. No wonder you’re hungry if you didn’t have any lunch. Your Grandma has some saved for you on a big plate. I guess they don’t know you’re up. You go and get dressed, and I’ll warm it up for you. And don’t say anything about knocking over the custard—let ’em think it was the cat.”
Sunny Boy was washed and dressed by the time Mother came up again to see if he was awake. She helped him a bit with his hair and straightened his collar and kissed him three or four times and then went down with him to see him eat. Grandma did not call it lunch—they had dinner and supper on the farm.
Sunny Boy had a queer little feeling all the while he was eating and he was so quiet that his mother thought perhaps he was still tired from his tumble into the brook. He went out with Araminta afterward to see the chicken yard, and he almost, but not quite, forgot the queer feeling in watching the hundreds of white chickens and white ducks busily scratching in the yard and drinking water “upside down,” as he told Grandpa that night. A chicken, you know, doesn’t drink water as you do, but differently. Araminta gave Sunny Boy a handful of cracked corn to throw to the biddies, and they came flocking about his feet, pushing and scrambling so that he was glad when Araminta shooed them away from him. She showed him the nests, too, and in many of them were pretty white eggs. He could gather them some morning, all himself, Araminta told him.
Coming out of the chicken yard they met Jimmie, whistling merrily. He was glad to find Sunny Boy all right after his wetting, and asked him if he did not want to come out to the stable to see Peter and Paul and “the prettiest little fellows you ever saw.” Sunny Boy went gladly, but the queer little feeling went, too.
Peter and Paul, it seemed, lived in a house that was called a barn, and were very comfortable. They had each a little room, “box stalls” Jimmie called them, and all the hay they could eat. For breakfast and dinner and supper they usually had corn and now and then some oats. The barn was a delightful place, and Jimmie pointed out the hay mow when Sunny Boy mentioned that Harriet had said that was the place to play on rainy days.
“Not much hay in it now,” announced Jimmie, leading the way into another little room. “We start cutting this year’s crop next week. Ever seen any one hay?”
Sunny Boy had not, but he forgot to say so, because he found himself looking down on a gentle-eyed collie dog mother with three of the dearest little blind baby puppies you could wish to see. Jimmie explained that Lassie was Mrs. Bruce, and that the puppies would have their eyes open in a day or two.
“And one of them’s to be yours—your Grandpa said so,” Jimmie went on.