“No, brown,” replied Sunny Boy eagerly, sure now that he had not taken the missing bonds. “Just brown, Grandpa, and two old letters.”
“Yes, I’ve copies of those—they don’t matter,” said Grandpa. “But we’d better get that kite, Namesake, because you’ve pasted my bonds on it, and a thousand dollars is a bit too expensive a kite even for my one and only grandson.”
“But it flew off!” Sunny Boy began to cry. “The string broke, an’ it went over the brook into the woods.”
Mrs. Horton, coming into the sitting room to remind Sunny Boy to wash his face and hands before dinner, found her little boy crying as though his heart would break in Grandpa’s arms.
“What in the world—” she began.
“There—there—it’s all right,” soothed Grandpa. “We’re in a peck of trouble, Olive, because we took some papers from Grandpa’s desk to make a kite with and now they turn out to be two Liberty Bonds. And the kite—like the pesky contrivance it is—got away and is hiding somewhere in the woods. But we’re going out right after dinner and hunt for it, aren’t we, Sunny Boy?”
Sunny Boy felt Mother’s kind hand smoothing his hair.
“Oh, my dear little boy!” said Mother’s voice. “My dear little son! How could you? Didn’t you know how wrong it was to touch a single thing on Grandpa’s desk?”
“I forgot,” said Sunny Boy in a very little voice.
“Why I wouldn’t have believed that my Sunny Boy could forget,” grieved Mother. “And now Grandpa’s money is lost! And Daddy coming next week! What will he say?”