“Now I can make you a sweater,” explained Mrs. Horton. “The pink is for a scarf I am finishing for Aunt Bessie. By the way, I had a letter from her, dear, and she sends her love, and so does Harriet.”
“All right,” agreed Sunny Boy briefly. “Could you read this now, Mother?”
“Why, it’s from Daddy!” cried Mother, taking the crumpled envelope Sunny Boy drew from his pocket. “Did you wait till you gave every one else his mail, precious? Well, listen—”
“Dear Sunny Boy,” said Daddy’s letter. “So you fell into the brook! Don’t tell Jimmie, but I did the same when I was just about as tall as you are. Grandma fished me out—only she wasn’t Grandma then.
“Don’t go fishing till I come up, for you might catch them all and leave none for me. One week from the day you’re reading this I’ll be at Brookside. Hope you and Jimmie and Peter and Paul will come to meet me. Mother, too, if she likes, and Grandpa and Grandma and Araminta and Bruce, if they’re going to be real glad to see me. You seem to have a lot of friends. Brookside always was a mighty fine place for small boys—like you and me.
“Can’t write more now because a man wants to talk to me—at least he is ringing my telephone bell and won’t stop. Love to you and Mother from—Daddy.”
Whenever Sunny Boy was pleased he made a little song to sing. He did so now, skipping out to the garden where Grandpa was generally to be found.
“Daddy’s coming! Daddy’s coming! Next week! Pretty soon,” sang Sunny Boy to a tune of his own. “Jimmie, where’s Grandpa? Daddy’s coming next week, pretty soon!”
“Well don’t walk all over the cabbage plants if he is,” said Jimmie, who was busy and did not like to be interrupted. “I think your grandfather is down with Mr. Sites looking at the mowing machine. They’re down in the south meadow.”
Sunny Boy knew his way about the farm as well as Jimmie by this time. He knew the pretty brown cow, Mrs. Butterball and her long legged calf, Butterette; and he was fast friends with Peter and Paul and the dogs. Sunny had named his puppy Brownie. He knew most of the chickens and ducks by names of his own, and he had held a little squirmy lamb in his arms for a minute, with Jimmie helping. He was going fishing, when Daddy came; and he was going up into the woods the first time some one had a moment to take him. Then he would have been all over the farm.